Kiss a Frog, maybe. A toad? NOPE!

I always knew that I was a Lord of the Rings nerd. Though, not until recently have I discover how deep that nerdieness went. Sitting here in the tent Andrew and I have all sorts of time to catch up on movies that we haven’t seen in a while. So we started with the X-men movies. After that we moved on to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have the extended edition at home so I’m not use to the normal DVDs. I was surprised by the amount that was taken out of the originals. Andrew would ask me question about the story line and I could revert back to my Jr. High days of knowing everything forward and backward about the world Tolkien had created in his books The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Simrillion and give Andrew an in depth answer. Yup! Still a nerd!
So Andrew does this funny thing when he talks to people down here.  The people will start jabbering in what I can only assume is English. I have to sit there and separate the slur of words that was just thrown at me into individual words, put them in the correct order, then I can respond in normal English. Andrew on the other hand can jabber right back to them, turn no me and talk normal then go off jabbering again! It is ridiculous. I first experienced it while driving through Alabama. We stopped at a gas station to get some food. It was raining bolder sized rain drops so we sprinted inside, forgetting to turn off our car lights. We came out after the storm had passed and to our dismay Toothless was completely dead. Andrew pointed at a car that was about to pull out and asked me if I would go ask them for a jump. I ran up to the car, it was an elderly back man and who I guessed to be his grandchildren. I asked him if he would be willing to jump our car. ……………………… I honestly, for the life of me could not understand the verbiage that came out of this man’s mouth. All I gathered from what he said was “No.” And that was only verified because he promptly drove away! I walked back to Andrew, who had a very smug grin on his face and asked, “Well, did you understand anything that he said?” That stinker had known what was going to happen the entire time! Grr…. Just then a car with two teenage boys pulled in. Andrew waved at them to come over. To my utter amazement Andrew started conversing with them in their slurred, jibbed language and seemed to understand what they said back! Then he turned to me and talked to me in English! Without a blink of an eye he switched to jibber jabber and back. People in Florida aren’t near as bad at talking but sometimes they add a slur into what they are saying. I just have to roll my eyes when Andrew switches over to talk native to them. He swears up and down that he doesn’t but honestly, he does.
I saw a toad yesterday! Not really all that exciting, but it was funny looking! It was so ugly it was cute… in a twisted way… Andrew’s parents had brought us over dinner and were eating it with us when his mom looked over saw the toad and pointed him out. I like frogs; I catch them by the bucket loads at my river then bring them up to my ditch. But this was not a frog! It was a mammoth of an amphibian and had sharp, hard features.  The last thing I expected to see in the middle of a parking lot was a toad, so naturally it took me by surprise and I jumped. I then poked it and played with it till I was satisfied and let it go into the tall grass. Ah the things you find amusing after being trapped in a tent for a week!

Put them in a tent, then that tent in a tent, then smash it with a hammer!

I swear Florida is trying to kill me. This heat is unreal. I’ve drunk at least six bottles of both Gatorade and water but only peed twice. It’s all been sweated out! The first day here we stayed in Andrew’s house for most of the day. I tested out the pool and played with Andrew’s dog, Tucker.  Andrew’s sister brought me over some of her old cloths so that I would at least have more than one tee shirt and some shorts. She, Andrew, and I then went to the mall and got the rest of what I needed. The next day Andrew and I started working at the Firework stand. His parents took us to Sam’s club and helped us pick out snacks that would get us through the week of constantly being in the Fireworks tent. Once product (Fireworks) was put out on the shelves of the tent one person had to remain in the tent at all times. This was so that no one stole or damaged the fireworks. After we picked out all the snacks we thought that we would need we all headed over to the tent to begin set up. It was pretty late at night when we got there. Andrew didn’t want to set up in the noon hours because it would have been unbearably hot to work in. Although even in the evening the weather felt like sauna. The tent was a little different than I thought it would be. It was a giant tent with something a little more than chicken wire wrapped around the poles holding it up. This fencing went almost all the way from the ground to the top of the supports except for a foot gap at the top. Tarps were strapped to perimeter bar at the top of the supports going all the way around the tent. These tarps could be rolled up to show that the tent was open to sell (and to get some air in this oven they call a tent) or could be rolled down to show that we were closed (and to stop torrential down pour of rain, that randomly dumps on us, from getting the fireworks wet). Inside there were shelves around one half of the tent. These were obviously meant for the fireworks and the other half was meant for us. This is where we would be sleeping for the next week and a half. It was so late by the time we got our little tent, air mattress, and living area set up that Andrew thought it best that we get the product of the shelves in the morning before we were inspected. I guess every firework tent had to be inspected by a fireman just to make sure that we weren’t going to get blown up or anything. It’s kinda a comforting thought… kinda. Florida seemed to know I am from Idaho and wanted to watch me melt. The next morning was hotter than the evening before. Regardless we had to haul big boxes from the storage pod into the tent, unpack them and organize the product on the shelves. An hour into this sweat was cascading off of my face. Poor Andrew was just as unprepared for hellish heat as I was but it hit him harder than it did me. As I organized one of the shelves I looked over to ask him if I’d done it right and saw that he was sitting by our two fans holding his head. His head had hurt the night before but I guess the restless sleep we had in the sweltering heat of our tent didn’t help much. When I was twelve my family had come to Florida; it was hot but the heat only affected my dad. His head hurt so bad that he missed many of the rides at Disney World. All I could remember my mother doing was giving him lots and lots of Gatorade. So that’s was I did. I stated pumping Andrew full of Gatorade and water, bottle after bottle. It worked to an existent. His body was just having a hard time adjusting to the sudden tempter change. I kept going on the boxes and got most everything set up. Andrew was starting to feel better and made modifications to the tent so that it would be cooler. The inspector came and passed us off. We were now officially open to sell!
The next day was even hotter. I washed my face so many times but I swear it never made a difference.  The amount of sweat was just the same each time. Life is very uneventful in the tent. We basically sit here all day waiting for people to show up and buy stuff from us. Of course we reorganized the original unpacking job that I had done the day before, priced all the fireworks and made awesome signs saying “buy 1 get 1,” “FREE!,” “500 Grams!,” Roman Candles,” And “No Smoking.” I think I will forever be finding glitter on me from making these signs.
Andrew and I worked out a system in which we could go home and shower every other day. His house is about twenty minutes away. So on the every other day he leaves early in the morning (whenever we wake up and get the tent opened) then I go once he gets back. I normally take longer than he does because I take our dirty clothing and wash it, as well as shower. This system helps to make the days go faster but I hate driving down here. It is nothing like driving in Idaho and I get lost so easily. Thank goodness for GPS!  
Andrew says it will get more eventful as we get closer to the 4th of July. I certainly hope so! I’m pretty board right now. Sometimes we can get the WiFi from McD’s across the street but it’s been stubborn lately.  What crazy adventures I go on with my husband. Trying to slow cook myself in a tent is differently at the top of the crazy list.

Road Trip!

So we took off to Florida last Saturday afternoon, after getting the entire house packed into our Honda Civic, Toothless. Everything was going great until in Ogden we noticed the Odometer wasn’t working. Andrew was very worried. “What?! Why isn’t this working?! Is anything else not working? No… just the Odometer… that’s weird… Something else to be wrong. Who ever heard of just to Odometer not working?!” He spent the rest of the way to Utah trying to work the car’s malfunction out in his head. We were aiming to stop at my sister Heidi’s house for the night. But alas… her house was playing hid and seek with us and we were losing. After at least four major directional corrections we called Heidi. Somehow we made our way  to her house and found out we had soccer tickets waiting for us. Andrew and I both love soccer so this was exciting, the only downside we had to go back out in to stupid Utah roads and stupid Utah drivers. We both felt it worth the risk and we departed 30 minutes late for the game. I had had a headache all day, but it seemed to explode right then, all the sounds and noises and movement caused me great pain. I felt like a stinker since I was running a great soccer game for Andrew. Despite this, I think he had a good time. He especially enjoyed the little girl behind him waving a team towel in circles hitting him every other turn, or at least I enjoyed it. There was a large Hispanic fan club with humungous drums, a tambourine, and a trumpet, which played vigilantly the entire game and sang songs that would rival any cheerleaders. I picked out my favorite player right away, a smaller man who looked like he could have been a dancer and done ballet but he did better than anyone out there. After the game we somehow found our way back to my sister’s. When we got inside, Andrew accidentally squirted my sister with a squirt gun lying on the table. He had thought it was empty and was just playing but little did he know than there is never an empty squirt gun in my sister’s house. She in turn deducted 10 points from Andrew in some tally that she had in running  her head. It reminded me of the teachers in Harry Potter when they punish the trouble making students.  To reverses his shocking loss of points he sprayed me, Heidi enjoyed this and restored him to his original score, whatever that was… The next morning was Father’s day and Heidi’s kids made their dad breakfast in bed. They were so thoughtful that they even brought us breakfast in bed!  It was fun to see them again. We stay till just before noon then started the painfully long drive to New Mexico.  After four or five hours of sitting in the car, both Andrew’s and my legs were going numb and our backsides hurt with vengeance.  I knew there was a random sand dune just before Moab that we could play on. We stopped there and tried to sprint up this dune which was 80 degrees vertical.  Our flip flops were kicking sand everywhere… mostly up our backs and either into our hair, or up the backs of our shirts (which would inevitably trickle down into our pants.) The shock of scorching hot sand all over our bodies lead us to the brilliant decision to abandon our sandals as we charged up the hill. Somehow it did occur to us that if the sand was hot as it flipped up onto us then if might be somewhat warm to walk on… The bottoms of our feet were now at the temperature of a hot frying pan!! There were some rocks a little more than midway up the dune that created shade enough to offer our feet some kind of relief as well as excellent things to jump off of. After resting in the shade a bit we climbed up the rock then with a running start of about two steps we threw ourselves off the rock and half way down the dune back into the hot sand. We repeated this until the doom of getting back in the car could wait no longer.  Retrieving our sandals, we headed toward Toothless.  It was my turn to drive and I was glad that Andrew could get some sleep.
 Unfortunately, after diving for another six hours we realized that for an hour or so we had been going in the wrong direction. I had missed my turn and made wonderful time back up north. AH! My other sister Rebecca lives in New Mexico.  She was going to put us up for the night and we expected to arrive there at about 11 at night. With the “little” detour I took we wouldn’t be there till much later. Andrew’s turn to dive!! I quit.
    We were had just entered New Mexico that night around 12 when we saw a single head light shining in the middle of the  highway that cut through the mountains that divided New Mexico from Colorado. I assumed it was a motorcycle and went back to what I was doing.  Andrew, on the other hand, heard the car horn coming from the single head light and he pulled to the side of the road and slowed down. Something big and black caught his eye in the barrow pit, he braked to a stop just as an adolescent bear came ambling out and ran into the right side of our car. It fell down, got back up and tried to continue forward but crashed into our car again.  The appearance of a bear cub bounding into our car caused me great surprise. As I looked at it I could see that its back leg was ripped open and it fur was drenched in blood. I looked around and saw what I had thought to be a motorcycle to really be a car with an enormous dent in the middle of the hood and the right head light was completely shattered. The car horn and been jammed on and I could see a bit of the engine due to the scrunched up hood of the car. I looked back at the bear and saw that as it ran to the middle of the road that not only was this bear disoriented and shock but that its’ back leg with the gash was dragging limp. It was been broken very effectively by the now wrecked car in front of us. It finally seemed to regain some of its wits and ran off up the mountain. I called 911 as Andrew got out seeing if the girls that had been driving the car were alright. We turned our hazard lights on and moved Toothless in front of the wrecked car so that other drivers would know that this single headlight wasn’t just a motorcycle.  We, and two other cars that stopped to help tried to get the girls to let us move the car off the road or at least turn it off but they were just gabbing away on their cell phones and left it up to us to direct traffic around them. Finally their dad showed up and the second he got there guess what he did? Oh that’s right, moved the stupid car out of the middle of the road!  Kind’a like what we tried to do a half an hour ago. I hope that Animal Control was able to find the bear. It left a good amount of blood on our car from when it hit us. It either needed to be put out of its pain or fixed up. We left before the police showed up so I don’t know the outcome for the cub.
At long last we made it to Rebecca’s house and crashed on her air mattress. The next morning Kris went to the dentist, we slept, the girls went to tennis, we slept, Kris came home and made an amazing breakfast, we kept sleeping, the girls came home and got sick of us sleeping so they woke us up.  We enjoyed our stay with Rebecca. I wish I could have spent more time with my sisters. I don’t get to see them much and I miss them. Oh well, oh our way back we will have more time to visit with them. We left Rebecca’s house at one and drove through the night toward Florida, finally making it there after countless bathroom stops (Andrew says I have a ridiculously small bladder) and our debit card accounts getting frozen (the banks thought someone had stolen them and was fleeing South) we pulled into Andrew’s house. As his mother was giving me the grand tour of the place I pushed Andrew into their pool. Ah, it’s good to be in Florida!

Puddles and Pee

Wow, it has been a while since I’ve bogged! Andrew’s Birthday went great! Not exactly how I planned but what does go how I planned anymore!?  I woke up early to make him chocolate chip waffles; sausage, eggs, biscuits, and I still had to wrap his presents. Andrew is the most difficult person that I have ever had to shop for. Good thing I’m the world’s best shopper! I managed to find the most perfect gifts. If you recall the biking adventure you will remember that his bike petals were retarded. Therefore I got him titanium alloy petals from R.E.I. While we were still dating I swiped his Jordan basketball shorts and just recently he took them back as he was going through the clean clothes. I wanted them back so it only made sense to get him new ones! Then maybe he would forget about his old ones. Next I found a pull up bar that goes in the doorway. He is always talking about lifting weights or working his arms. Since I couldn’t afford a $1000 in-home gym I figured this was the next best thing. And last, he has been very worried about our upcoming road trip to Florida because he is so pale due to the lack of sun that Idaho has. So I bought a tanning pass for him! All the activities I had planned were outdoor kind of things but it was rainy and cold all day. So we read Harry Potter (he hasn’t read the first three but he has read the others and seen all the movies, so I am trying to help him catch up) and just enjoyed each others company.  Best birthday ever? Well yes, I think so!
That weekend it was still raining. The lawn hadn’t been mowed for two weeks because of it always being wet. I talked Andrew into going to Green Canyon with me. Green Canyon is a bacteria filled urine smelling  “hot springs” that looks like an over crowed public pool.  Almost every birthday till I was nine I would drag my family to that puddle and splash around for an entire day. I remembered it as being the most fun place on earth! A little rough around the edges, but still pure fun! When Andrew and I actually found it (finding it took three turn arounds, and two phone calls) I pulled him in excitedly. As soon as we walked in the door I could feel him stop in shock.  I could tell by the look on his face that he was disappointed and or disgusted.  It really would have been fun if we had of taken more people and it had of been less crowded. As it was there was hardly an inch of water not being splashed in by a 5 year old in floaties.  The smell was worse than I remember…. Or maybe the kid beside us had just wet their swim suit… either way, we turned right back around and headed back to Rexburg.  PLAN B! Another childhood favorite of mine was the outdoor theater.  I knew that would be a hit, especially if we went “in style.” We got home and I had him deck out in a black long sleeved shirt, dark wash jeans and a black bandana. I dressed to match including the bandana. Our next step was to get the food and snacks we wanted during the movies (it was a double feature). We thought we only had a half an hour till it started and we knew we had to be there early to get a good parking spot. We were a sight to see, sprinting all over Rexburg in our bandit getup, trying desperately to cut minutes or seconds of our trips to Wal-Mart, Big 5, and Dominos. We got to the drive in just in the nick of time!  Then found out that they weren’t starting the movie for another hour…. BLA! So we sped back home and grabbed our Harry Potter book. When we returned the spot we had picked out for ourselves was taken so we parked next to the SUV beside it. A half an hour into reading I saw a puppy’s head pop up over in the other car.  I grabbed Andrew and jumped out of the car. We ran over to the other car and played with the puppy till the movie started. I WANT A DOG! Grrr. But the movie was so much fun and I crashed during the second movie. Andrew drove us home and woke me up so we could go inside. Ha we didn’t even make it to our bed, and passed out right there on the couch. It was such a fun night!