Huge sigh of relief.....

Dear Scotland,

Thank you for staying, we promise we'll be nicer to you from now on.

Love England

Please don't go.....

Today Scotland votes on whether they will leave Great Britain and become independent....

I get why...I do...and this clip, well not really a clip as it's 15 minutes long (but 100% worth watching) is a great insight as to why they want to go....(warning...might not want to watch in front of the kids...bad language...though my 15yr old was almost wetting his pants laughing at some points!)

BUT....Scotland....c'mon....please stay....

I feel like I'm reliving the early days of my separation...lol

"Please stay...don't go"

"I can't stay for you, I have to do what's best for me"

As an Englishwoman who no longer lives in England (insert huge sulky pouty face emoticon here) I have to say in all honesty I haven't followed all the political why's and why nots of this vote, and it's not going to affect my life...BUT....

MY FLAG!!!!!

What will happen to my flag ????

The Union Jack is made up of the flags of St.George (England), St. Andrew (Scotland) & St. Patrick (Ireland) so if Scotland becomes independent, then the flag will change...all that blue of the red, white & blue will be no more :(

What will happen ? Will Wales finally get to join in on the flag ? Will the blue become black to represent the flag of St.David (Wales), will it change completely.? Will Wales want to add a dragon ? or sheep ? or a leek ?

How confused will the rest of the World be ? Answer is VERY!!! 

I mean seriously it's hard enough for the rest of the world to understand the differences between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and United Kingdom and the multitude of flags that represent these countries and why sometimes we compete as individual countries and sometimes we go as one big team of Great Britain, but rarely as the United Kingdom...honestly it's confusing for the citizens of these countries ( myself included) sometimes...

Scotland is an amazingly beautiful country, I know it's not going anywhere but it's family...it's the drunk Uncle at every party who everyone loves and even though they can be crazy & weird, it's just not the same when they're not there...

How will we tell jokes....will we now have to say "An Englishman, Irishman & Welshman went into a pub...." I can't, it's not right, it sounds all wrong :(

So Scotland....can we make a deal ? 

We'll play nicer, we'll eat more haggis and shortbread, we'll drink more whiskey & buy more crystal, we'll stop asking what's under your kilt & making jokes about sheep shaggin'...

Please stay...

Pretty please!

Internet bad ass.....

I've never really been described as a bad ass....maybe a couple of times during heated arguments with a soon to be ex husband when I actually found my voice & stood up for myself but in general...not so much!

In the past month or so  I've had occasion to feel a little bad assay/assy/assie ?????

First there was the FB "friend", really an acquaintance, one of those "if we weren't in these circumstances there's no way we'd be friends" friends....we all have them, they send you a friend request, you feel obliged to accept, you instantly regret it but you're already in too deep & to unfriend would cause drama...

This "friend", lets call them Betty & I seriously have nothing in common except our country of birth, Betty seemed ok at first, a little odd but generally I embrace that in a friend, makes me seem less of an absolute wacko! But then Betty got comfortable.....too comfortable....when I supported Gay Pride month, Betty went all fire & damnation preaching on my post, I fought back...called in backup from friends who fought too but Betty wasn't going down without a fight....bible verses were thrown, a fair amount of foul language was used, but I love a good "discussion" as much as the next person, so as much as what Betty wrote made me want to spit fire in their face I moved on...you're entitled to your opinion, albeit a sexist/racist/stupid one.

Betty then threw down with a post about guns....it said "Over 50 times more students die on campus from binge drinking and drugs than from shootings....still think guns are the problem" I politely, yes really....replied with "If my child dies from a drug overdose or binge drinking that was my childs doing, they chose to take those drugs or drink. If my child is murdered at school in a shooting that was not their choice, that was another persons choice to kill my child....so yes I do think guns and the people that use them are still the problem"

And that was my bad ass moment....the moment I posted that on Bettys wall....the moment several of Bettys friends liked my post....the moment Betty had no answer....BOOYA! And then Betty blocked me :) Not an unfriend, we know too many mutual people....but a block, a "I can't handle this chick and her comments" block....because maybe, just maybe Betty....you know I'm right...mwahahahahaha!

I don't have any pics of me looking bad ass....this is a pic of my baby bad asses last week...they were being gangsta....(yup, told you, just not real badassy people...lol)

My second bad ass moment came this week....when my comment on a local mom board was removed!

Seriously....I'm telling' ya....watch out....just call me Katniss, I'm a girl on fire!

The post was about how a school, I believe in Australia had banned children from doing cartwheels on the playground or in PE because of the dangers...the question was "What do you think about this?"

Are.you.kidding.me.

When I was in elementary school we used to do cartwheels and handstands up against a wall wearing dresses to show the boys our knickers....these days I'd probably be labelled a whore as well as a rebellious bad ass for doing that, you know those days of the week undies in the 70's were so sexy!

So....I wrote,

"Seriously ? Why don't we put each of our kids in a bubble before we send them off to school for the day, this is just ridiculous"

The post stayed there for a while, I checked a couple hrs later to see if anyone else had commented...and then suddenly...BAM! my post gone and all the bubble parents responses of, oh yes cartwheels are so dangerous remained!!!! 

I'm so glad I'm not a bubble parent, my kids are so glad I'm not a bubble parent & they secretly like that I'm a bit of a bad ass every now and then....go ahead kids, do cartwheels, climb rocks, jump off stuff, drink beer in college (in moderation of course)...be gay, be straight, support your friends, be who you want to be, be kind, don't hurt people.....

But most of all, be a little bad ass every once in a while :)

For sale...

Going cheap.....

One overtired snarky 5 yr old who insists that all he'll eat for the past 2 days is cheese and crackers...

He's angry at the United States Air Force because the Thunderbirds did not fly directly over our house today and therefore he couldn't see them properly....

He is not speaking to his brother because he dared to do homework when instead he should have been watching him play flappy poo fish or some other such insanity on the ipad....

He's mad at me because I won't let him sit in the car in the driveway with the ac on to watch movies...

Also he's pissed that the game ninja fruit poo flappy carrot jump (or whatever it's called....)  isn't playing the way he thinks it should, my suggestion he take it up with the game developer was not taken well.....

Oh and I suggested he may perhaps be tired "NO,  I'M NOT TIRED!!!!!"......

Excellent, he ate nutella off a spoon....so very healthy & filling & omg I'm going to go hide......

Into the wild...

Friday afternoon while we talked about our weekend plans to go into the mountains and hike due to this shocking weather occurrence called "SUN & WARMTH" we had the crazy notion that "Hey, why don't we camp!" Why ? Well because Cal had soccer till 2pm on Sat and Finn had a party at 2pm on Sunday and that would just be nuts...and so we loaded up the car and embraced being nuts!

Destination : Meuller State Park

We scoped out a campsite, arranged firewood delivery from a very nice Ranger & hit the trail...

First order of business, how to alert others to wildlife sightings! Obviously shouting "HEY LOOK AT THAT ELK OVER THERE" may unnerve the elk so we have a system in place that involves flapping your arms up and down to attract attention as demonstrated below by Maisie...

Next as we hiked we covered safety, the Ranger had told us the Bears were all waking up and were a little crabby and a lot hungry....

Me: Ok, so what do we have with us that the bears want ?

Finn : ????????

Maisie : Our flesh ?

Me: SNACKS people, we have snacks in the backpack.....so we throw that towards the bear...

Cal: What if that angers the bear ?

Me: Ok throw it near the bear....

Mai: Your phone is in there....the bear will eat your phone!!!!

Finn: I want to go home...

My very shy children demonstrate hiking Ministry of silly walks style...(they just discovered Monty Python)

Ooooh look someone was nice enough to build my dream house right over there....

Flappy arms, flappy arms....I spot wildlife!

Behold the Last of the Mohican's pose... 

Christmas Card 2014 contender ?

Back at camp we put up the tent and started on dinner....now something you may not know about altitude is that water takes longer to boil, not usually a big deal unless you're at 9600ft above sea level and trying to boil water on a camp stove...After 45 min's our chef for the evening decided she'd waited long enough and threw in the pasta....45 min's later and starving to the point of chewing off our own hand we ate the chewy yet mushy gag worthy pasta covered in masses of sauce and meatballs to try and disguise it...next time we're bringing hot dogs! 

(Please note the chef is eating a granola bar as she cooks...starving I tell you!)

Perks of the wilderness...no wifi no matter how hard she tried which means your teens may actually hold conversations with you!

An after dinner hike in pajamas on the Wapiti Nature trail, they were all out of guides so Cal took charge..."look at those beautiful rocks"..."On our left you'll see trees..." very informative!

1 mile & a mediocre by Colorado standards sunset later we were back at camp, fire blazing & trying out this Pinterest find...roasting starburst!

O.M.G.

You impale the starburst on your skewer, let it bubble, pull it out, let it cool & the outside becomes this crunchy caramelized deliciousness with an ooey gooey center...better than s'mores any day!!!

Of course we made s'mores too....we're classy and use Cadbury dairy milk not Hershey that makes us Europeans with our refined chocolate palates gag. Cadbury doesn't melt as easy so the key was to place 2 squares of it on a cracker, hold it near the fire to soften, add the marshmallow and another cracker then catch melty drippy heavenly chocolate with your tongue....OR as Finn demonstrates, just shove it all in your mouth!

Finn got brave & wanted to roast his own marshmallows, he's had a fire phobia before which I suppose is natural, you tell your kids to not play with matches, be safe around open flames & suddenly you go camping and say "hey skewer whatever food you want, set fire to it & eat it!" We had to work on the show & tell portion of roasting as he liked to turn his whole body, skewer & flaming marshmallow included to show us which sent Maisie & I diving for safety a couple of times!

Saturday night I can confirm was the worst nights sleep I've ever had...someone who shall remain nameless but whose name might rhyme with Daisy forgot an air mattress so we put two together and Finn, Mai & Myself slept on it...Mai wanted the middle, so poor Finn was basically catapulted into the air as I laid down on the opposite side! Shortly after the screaming of "He put his foot in my butt crack" "Get your hand of my boob" "OMG who is dry humping me?" "MOMMY I'm stuck in my sweatshirt" died down, one of the air mattresses slowly started to deflate...and deflate...and deflate...

Around 2am Finn screamed "MOMMEEEEEEEEEE A BEAR" I wasn't asleep but that phrase will scare the crap out of you no matter what, especially as all the food was in the car but we were most definitely covered in sticky sweet melted starbursts, chocolate and marshmallows!!! Turns out it was just a dream but required position changes so he could sleep...With me now in the middle and both kids breathing heavily on me, Mai groaning in her sleep & Finn randomly kicking my smooth parts it was inevitable I was not sleeping....

At 5.30 I shimmied out and started at fire...at 6am Finn shouted "HEY, can you keep it down out there" I resisted the urge to feed him to the bears!

At 7.30 hungry people started emerging from the tent only to discover we forgot syrup, I was in need of caffeine so we headed into town to eat....

God forbid she open the door to reach something...much more fun to do this & then yell "MOMMA....I'm stuck...." of course I took pics before helping her :)

Undeterred by lack of sleep we headed out to hike the Pike View Pond trail, the kids found snow & of course had to have a snowball fight until Finn realized he was shin deep in snow in shorts and that gets cold fast....

Cal was in charge of the map and I'm not entirely sure we were on the trail after a while but it didn't matter because all focus was lost when Mai yelled "I SEE A SKELETON", flappy arms evidently does not apply to animals that have crossed over (Oh boy...watching way too much Long Island Medium)

Further inspection showed it was not human, THANK GOD! nor could we find the head...yes, we looked! Mai was very excited by her find and donned gloves from the first aid kit so she could take it to the visitors center.

I'm quite sure we did not look shady AT ALL, emerging from the forest, bedraggled, sleep deprived, not on a trail, carrying half a skeleton!

The volunteers at the visitors center were amazing, they logged our find and called to see if there was a ranger around, there was and he came and talked to us for about 20 minutes. He was 95% certain it was a coyote and fed into our gnarly gruesome minds with the tale that it looked like it had been attacked by either a bear or a mountain lion because of some of the missing bones....

Mai thankfully declined the offer that she could bring it home, the skull I'm sure would have been a different matter entirely!

We ended our weekend with a walk around the Dragonfly Nature Trail, Finn took a dive in the parking lot and assured us he would never walk again...5 min's later he was chasing Cal and Mai precariously close to a pond! We had an awesome time despite some drama filled moments, I hope to be caught up on sleep by some time later this month but I'm not counting on it....

Our next camping adventure....3 weeks from now in Rocky Mountain National Park....

Bring on the hot dogs and starbursts!!!

A day in the life.....

So a friend of a friend of a friend...ie: somebody I know nothing about, does this blogging "day in the life" thing, she picks a random day each month ahead of time and snaps pics throughout the day...of course I decided this sounded like something we should do on Tuesday, giving us only 1 day left in April, which coincided with being one of our crazy Wednesdays....so without further ado I give you...

April 30th 2014

6.15am ~ O' dark early.....let my day begin, I can hear people scraping ice
 off windshields from my cozy bed...dammit!....hustling teenagers out the door....

7.27am ~ Teenagers off to school, a quick weather check, Finns still sleeping so.......

7.28am ~ ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

 8.15am ~ How most morning start around here...1tsp sugar, 1tsp milk...STRONG tea...

9.15am ~ Busted! 

10.15am ~ Commissary time for Finn & I.  I shop every 2 weeks, always at the commissary except for those things I can't get there...this week it was a 2lb pork tenderloin and bisto gravy granules that eluded us...Finn snuck extras in (spot the cheeto puffs) and I'm still under budget...yay me!

11.15am ~ Post commissary lunch break for Finn, he chose Wendys...We're all about health and nutrition today apparently!

12.25pm ~ Preschool time for Finn! He'd like to point out that his shirt and patched jeans match and that he also had one red and one blue sock on...very Supermany!

1.00pm ~ Lunch with some Brit and Aussie friends....great company, terrible service, ok food....

3.30pm ~ Watching Spiderman 2

4.15pm ~ Alone time!!!!!! Trolling the aisles of Joanns for supplies for a project I'm making for a friend.

5.30pm ~ Soccer time for Cal and Finley....

7.00pm ~ Volleyball practice for Maisie...that's my airborne girl spiking the ball!

8.30pm ~ Finn in bed, dinner of leftovers eaten, pj's on, Survivor on the DVR and my trusty e-stem machine on high!

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

How to dress for "Spring" soccer....

While most of the country is enjoying Spring for reals, we're experiencing our first Colorado Spring...it's like a giant game of chicken with Mother Nature vs Mothers wanting to wash and put away snow pants, scarves, mittens, boots, thermals....On Saturday there was a high of 73*, shorts, sunblock, walks around the pond....today was a high of 44* with a windchill of 36* which quite honestly was a freakin' lie...it was DAMN COLD!

I was reminded today of the classic Miss Congeniality quote...

Stan Fields: Miss Rhode Island, please describe your idea of a perfect date. 

Cheryl "Rhode Island": That's a tough one. I'd have to say April 25th. Because it's not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket.

If April 25th was the perfect date then April 28th was the perfect "HAHA SUCKERS....you thought it was Spring" date!!! I give you...my poor boy at his soccer game!

Soccer version of the stay puft marshmallow man!

Overall it's been a pretty consistent breezy season with a few exceptions....

The sunny day where only a thermal undershirt was needed!

The blizzard day...that's Cal in goal back there!

So today we decided to give you a step by step guide on how to dress for Spring Soccer in Colorado!

Step 1....Thermal undies...you can skip this step if skies are blue, sun is shining, wind isn't blowing & game is starting immediately...if there is any length of time between getting dressed & game time, I do NOT recommend skipping this step..

Step 2....Sweatpants, shin guards,socks & cleats, sweatpants could be optional if your child has experienced Winter in CO and is somewhat acclimatized...check weather reports before deciding though, add or minus 20* to weather report & go from there.... 

Step 3...Shorts & fleece sweatshirt, if you have chosen to skip sweats OR thermal pants OR thermal shirt OR any combination of those...DO NOT skip this step under any circumstances!

Step 4....Extreme measure...usually enforced when it's already freakin' cold before you even leave the house. At this point your child will inevitably need to use the bathroom...even if they just went or you just asked them.

Step 5...Cram child into soccer jersey!

Step 6....Accessories! DO NOT FORGET GLOVES If you forget gloves then your child is GUARANTEED to ask to use yours, and you'll be faced with the dilemma of "oh my sweet boy is cold, I should give my gloves but if I do then perhaps my hands will freeze off!" 

ALWAYS BRING GLOVES!

Tips

~Sticky hand & feet warmers are your friend...BUY IN BULK!

~Choose a soccer team that practices near a drive thru that serves hot beverages!

~If the weather looks gorgeous, don't fall for it...pack all this stuff in your car.

~Camera.....herds of 5 yr olds swarming the ball in ridiculous amounts of clothing is funny!

Thank you to my sweet boy, who has only had to borrow gloves twice, never complains about the silly amount of clothes he's wearing even when his siblings laugh at how ridiculous he looks and most of all has only had to use the ice cave public bathrooms at the field once all season although the quote of the season is.....

"At Cals game tonite (the blizzard game) I had to pee but it was cold so I just went in my pants a little bit"

Good call sweet boy, good call.