Finding Billy

The kids and I weren't the only ones outside enjoying the fine 74 degree weather yesterday. I lugged the tortoises outside to their pen so they could get some beneficial UV rays and some exercise. After getting home from collecting the kids from school I wandered out to their pen to see how they were doing. I quickly found the two large leopard tortoises but could not, for the life of me, find Billy Bob the smaller sulcata tortoise. He was gone.

I walked four laps in the pen and was starting to sweat, thinking some large hawk took off with him.

Then I finally found him. He is truly a master of camouflage and this color of dead grass works well for him.

Have you found him yet?

He even got the leaves to cover him just perfectly.  Good thing I didn't step on him.

There you are Billy Bob! You got me worried there......what with a cold snap and snow coming. You would not have made it outside had I not found you.

Everybody is back inside under there heating lamp today and winter has returned. Boo! The nice weather will be severely missed.

Record Highs

Nothing puts me in a better mood than record breaking high temperatures in January. Seeing 70 degrees in the dead of winter is truly lovely. We've been outside enjoying it every chance we can get. I gotta say the trampoline was one of the best investments we've ever made. All four of us get exercise on that thing....and it's fun exercise! If you are ever thinking of getting one, just do it. If ours broke tomorrow we'd immediately order another.

We made a family outing to the local park. Even with the 60 degree weather the big pond was still in the process of thawing. Half was thawed, half was frozen. The Canadian geese were all standing on the ice. Silly birds.

 

I follow a running blog called Runs for Cookies and every year for her birthday she has a virtual 5K. What is a virtual 5K you ask? Well, you sign up on her site and then on a certain day you run or walk 3.1 miles either indoors on a treadmill or outside. Then you do a finshers report where you enter your time it took to run or walk the 5K. So Sunday I drove into town and ran my 3.1 miles. It was horrible! I, apparently, picked the day with 35-45 mph winds to go running. We were actually in a wind advisory and it was North winds so they were bitterly cold. I'm running into this wind and can't understand why my face is covered in snot. It's literally everywhere. I wasn't congested or anything, but the freezing wind just caused it to explode out of my face. I'm sure this is more information than you need, I'm just painting a picture here. A very gross picture.  I just about turned around and went home, but I didn't. I ran those three horrible miles with an equally horrid time of 32:40. So glad that's done. I think I'll wait until spring to put on my running shoes again. 

One thing I was excited to try out on this run was the key pad on the Ford Edge. I took it into the dealership and had them reset the code so that I could actually use it to get into the car. I was debating on whether I'd ever use it. If I had the key why use the key pad? When I drive into town to go running and don't want to run with keys, I can lock them inside the car with my purse and then key in my code to get into the car after the run. Very cool!

It's Alive!

The 3D printer is up and moving! Sean is calibrating the motors and it's still got a ways to go but it's moving. The audio on this video is pretty cute as the kids were really excited to see it move, if you can't tell.

Pesky Possum

We've lived out in the country for ten years now. In those ten years we have seen a wide variety of wildlife from turkeys and deer to coyotes and snakes. What I haven't seen is a possum.....or opossum or however you want to spell it. I see them dead on the side of the road but that's about it. So I was kind of excited when I opened up the drapes to see this:

A real, live possum not two feet outside the sliding glass door! It was cool. Interestingly enough the cats weren't even phased by it standing there eating their cat food. They might have been thinking "if we don't move it won't see us." Because they weren't moving, not even a little bit.

So once it found the cat food it decided we weren't half bad and decided to hang around for a couple of days. For those two days things weren't too great in our house. Having three territorial dogs living in the house with a marauding possum just outside the glass door made for a very loud situation. So much barking. I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped in my car and went to the local farm and ranch store to pick up a catch and release trap. $24.99 later I got home, baited it with a can of cat food and waited. I locked up our cats in the shop so I wouldn't accidentally catch them. 

The next morning I eagerly peeked outside the window and laughed when I found this:

The neighbors cat. Doh. He wasn't too thrilled as you can see. I kept it baited but failed to catch the pesky possum. In fact, I haven't seen him since. He must have wandered on his way, in search of more tasty cat food somewhere else.

Mid Week Fun

The tooth fairy is showing some delinquent behavior lately. I mean, really, she has one job. Take baby teeth and put cash under the pillow. Right around Christmas Wesley lost one of his middle lower teeth. We did the normal routine and the next morning he comes down the stairs rather deflated. I asked him what's wrong and he's informed me that the tooth fairy didn't come and his tooth was still under his pillow. I hope the "oh crap" look didn't appear on my face as I quickly told him that the tooth fairy is really busy this time of the year and she'll visit the next night. Saying the tooth fairy was busy during the Holiday's was an understatement.

Yesterday Wesley told me he was ready for me to pull out one of his two front teeth. He'd been working on it and it was ready. So we did the normal dental floss routine which is making a small lasso that we loop around the base of the tooth, then with a swift pull it generally pops out. This time was no different.

The tooth fairy even made a timely visit during the night! Go tooth fairy! His cute smile is sure getting a little sparse.

Yesterday Greta and I got to go out to lunch with my parents. The nice thing about retired parents is that they are able to go out to lunch in the middle of the week. They took us to an all you can eat BBQ buffet downtown. It was really good! Next stop was a big bulk candy and nut store that's also downtown. I'd never been so it was a real treat to see all the candy! The place was huge and Greta was in hog heaven. I'm amazed I made it out of there with only $10 worth of candy. Fun times!

 

Roller Coasters, Cookies and Lipstick

The kids are at a pretty fun age. Five and seven years old is fun when it comes to Christmas presents. I always try and buy something that we can do or build on Christmas day or the following week. This year I found a fun thing called K'nex. It's a building toy, a very complex one! I settled on a roller coaster kit and I started building it a few days after Christmas. I bought it with the intention that Wesley would build it but it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. So about four hours and three days later (it hurts your fingers!) I completed this giant roller coaster. It's pretty cool! The up side is that there is a giant roller coaster on my dining room table that the kids play with pretty often. The down side is I have a giant roller coaster on my dining room table that I have no idea what to do with.

As a last hurrah before school started I took the kids to see Big Hero 6 at the movie theater. It was a very cute and very sad movie. I bawled......well maybe not "bawled" but there was some crying. Kids liked it.

Greta started up preschool again yesterday and Wesley didn't have school so I had the rare occasion to spend the afternoon with my son instead of my daughter. He insisted on Panera Bread with their tasty cookies and cupcakes. A giant frosted sugar cookie caught his eye, then he inhaled it. I drooled but stuck to my hot tea (must get back on track after the Holidays!).

Then we headed to Target to spend some money he had saved. Since we were there I headed over to the cosmetics to pick up a new color of lipstick. I have never been a big lipstick gal, the thought of all those chemicals ingested just kept me away. But then I found Burt's Bee's Lip Crayons. No nasty chemicals and they stay on! Yay! So I let Wesley pick out a new color. He, of course, picked the darkest shade of red they had. I thought "what the heck!" We get in the car and he informs me he picked it out because it was "creepy". Haha! Nice. It's not so bad, I kind of even like it. It's out of my comfort zone which isn't a bad thing now and again. I had a very nice time with my oldest child, I hope to do it again soon.

The Newest Project

I'm thoroughly enjoying the last day of the break. It's been a relaxing two weeks. I've spent the majority of it in flannel pajama pants. There's been a lot of WiiU and board games being played. Since the family left last week there hasn't been a stitch of house cleaning done. It's been lovely. But it's back to school and work tomorrow.

I honestly haven't seen much of my husband the last two weeks even though he's been home. You see, he started a new project. Something he's been wanting to do for ages. He finally decided it's time and started ordering parts a few weeks ago. They are all spread out on one of the desks down in his basement man cave. Can you figure out what he's making?

No? Can't figure it out? Well he's making a 3D Printer. Here is a video similar to the one he's making (although it will be larger). LINK It looks pretty cool and I know he's pretty excited to start making stuff. He's been out working with aluminum on the milling machine to make the carriages. They look really nice.

It's sure coming together.  Good job Sean!