It's just not at exciting as it seems around here!

Caitlin told me the last time I updated this blog that I always make our life sound way more exciting than it is. Really? I thought that I was just telling it like it is. Of course, then Rik had to say that he thought that our life seemed uninteresting through reading the blog. Hmmm...

In uninteresting - or depending on who you are, interesting news, I've been doing a few "pioneer woman" type things around here. (Don't ask why - Christmas is on it's way and I have a huge list, but am messing with this other kind of stuff). I finally had the mequite beans from our yard milled. The ones that I made the kids go out and pick up every morning last summer. I have made pancakes and chocolate chip cookies out of the flour. I'm planning on making muffins in the morning. The kids groan everytime I mention that they are enjoying what they helped harvest! :p I have about 11 lbs of flour right now. Very exciting! Esp when I paid about $1/lb to have it milled and it's about $14 /lb to buy it. I would show you a picture of the hammermill, but I took it with my phone and can't seem to get the pictures off of it. I think I need to ask the people at Verizon how. I've had the phone since the end of July - you'd think I'd have figured it out by now!

In other "pioneer" type activities - I subscribe to a daily cooking newsletter. The other day they sent a newsletter out on making your own household cleaners. They promised a better cleaning job, less impact on the enviroment, safer for your family, and saving money. What more could a girl ask for?! I was curious as to if the homemade laundry soap worked - the ingredients were pretty cheap - so - I tried. I didn't take a picture of this either - goopy light yellow stuff didn't make the most appealing photograph. But - the good news is that it was easy and I have now done one load of laundry with it and the clothes appear to be clean! I'll keep you posted as to how it goes on the rest of this huge bucket of stuff I have made! Of course, depending on if you are Rik or Caitlin will probably show if you will read the update to this! :p

Goodbye Little Ugly...

We'll miss you!

He left yesterday. Hopefully he likes his new home. Both kids were really sad. Philip didn't realize that we had sold him at first and was shocked that we actually would. Caitlin wanted to buy him, but her $100 wasn't enough. I can see why - we've never known life in the Brenton household without him. After all, he took Rik and I on our dates, to get married, and even brought Philip home from the hospital. Yup - there's lots of history in that truck! Hopefully the new truck will be as reliable as Little Ugly - how many things from 1989 are still running, much less running that well?!? I can't believe all the things we didn't have to do to him - he's still running with his original clutch in fact!

On the bright side - I wish we had about 20 more just like him to sell - I had no idea that it would be so easy to sell him. The calls kept coming! He was sold within an hour of putting him out on the road!

Rik got a new truck?!?

Unbelieveable you may say - I was caught off guard too. After all, he called me at 1:15 to tell me he'd seen a truck, and then called again at 2:30 to tell me he'd bought a truck! It is actually pretty nice - it's the *exact same thing he had* - just 12 years newer! It's still white - still a Nissan. I drove the kids around the block in it and asked what they liked best about it - they didn't mention that this had paint or that there was a CD player - they said that they liked the doors being able to lock best. The door locks on his other truck have been broken for quite sometime. You can lock them from the inside, but, don't expect to be able to shut the door and be able to use a key to get it open! :p

And - the more unbelieveable story for this... I left work 2 hours early on Friday so that we could go to MVD and register it - I was prepared for the worst - I still remember a certain Christmas time a few years ago that we sat there with 2 young kids for what seemed like hours waiting to register something and how I was quite sure I needed to be a much nicer person because that is certainly what hell must be like. Anyway - surprise - we were in and out in less than 15 minutes! We had time to go to lunch, the bank, and check out what Linens N Things has in their going out of business sale (not much good in the way of good sale yet - wait a while before going!!!).

We can't decide what to call him though - his other truck is called "Little Ugly" for obvious reasons like the lack of consistant paint. If you have a good nomination - let me know. Philip has suggested "Little Not So Ugly" and Caitlin has a bunch as well (Bobert was vetoed immediately!!).

Our "unique" costumes...

That I have *no* idea where we got them from.

This was Halloween morning - before school. I think they both had a fun time doing it. Philip carried that box with him the entire day at school. They both had boxes to carry for the evening to get candy in.

We had hardly any trick or treaters. Is this a dying art? Do kids mostly go to "safe Halloweens" anymore? I was sure we would have a lot since it was a Friday - I even bought extra candy! Too bad we had to spend a week sacrificing to eat it all! We also had bought a blue lightbulb for our porchlight (note to self, remove it now) and got some dry ice (note to self, don't buy 2 blocks next year - the 2nd we didn't use and "evaporated" in the freezer by Monday!) to make around our pumpkins look hazy. The effect was nice, but there wasn't a lot of kids to help us enjoy it.

It's November!

And you know what that means don't you???

Dark Chocolate Peppermint ice cream is back at Cold Stone! Only for November and December. It's because of the dark chocolate shortage that the world is having. Seriously - that's what the kid at the counter told me last year when I told him I'd been waiting all year for the flavor to come back. He told me this in all seriousness as well! :)

Don't worry - I've now had the 1st of many tastings of it for these two months! :)

It's over!

I woke up nervous just because of all the campaigning I have done for AZ's Prop 102. I have walked door to door putting flyers out, put out signs on the street, and been part of a phone bank. I am going to say that campaigning is not my favorite thing ever, but I did it. Caitlin walked a lot with me for the door to door stuff and really liked it. Maybe she has a future in politics? Anyway, I stayed up waaaaayyyy too late on Tues watching the returns (yes, we plugged in the TV just for that!!!) and as a result it's been a really long week.

As for the other elections, both kids had an opportunity to vote at school. I loved the way that the Caitlin learned about the candidates - just candidate one and candidate two and the issues. Then they were really listening to what each believed and not what their parents, etc were voting for. Caitlin was really disappointed to realize that she will only be 17 for the next presidential election and still not be able to vote in it!

You may or may not know my political beliefs, but I am going to take Obama at his word when he said in his acceptance speech the other night that for those of us who did not vote for him, he wants to earn our trust. Well, Obama, I am going to give you that opportunity. I may not agree with every stance he has, but I am willing to give him a chance and respect the position that he has earned. America had it's say and this is what was said. Isn't it great to live in such a wonderful place that we are able to voice our opinion and vote???!!!

Kitt Peak...

A couple of weeks ago we had our "fall break" - we'd never had this before - and decided to go to Kitt Peak for one of the days. Rik had been before, but the kids and I never had. It was really kind of cool - lots of telescopes to look at - cooler than in town - and the guy didn't charge us for the full tours. My favorite was the solar telescope - mostly because we could see it in action! There was even an astronomer there to explain a couple of things. I just find it so amazing that we can see distant galaxies on these things! I also find it amazing that the telescopes that are there that are not owned by a university can be used by application a few times a year. If your application is approved, and it's a cloudy/rainy night, oh well, try again next year. It didn't sound like many applications got approved since there were so many people applying to use these things! Tip - if you ever go - take only one guided tour - you basically hear it all there - and self guide yourself to the other 2 telescopes that are open to the public. Here we are with the solar telescope behind us!