Grass Is Always Greener At Grandpa's

J's grandpa is the ultimate lawn connoisseur. And his yard definitely shows for it. Yesterday, I just went and laid down like a little kid and ran my fingers and toes through it's velvety goodness. I miss good grass, Missouri has horrible grass. He is in his late 80's and there seemed to be a lot of talk this week about what will ever happen to this immaculate yard when he's gone.

J was walking with him this morning and I thought I'd relay the conversation, I thought it was so cute. J had the nerve to suggest putting in an automatic sprinkler system. Grandpa looked at him and said 'You know, they just put in an automatic sprinkler system up at the park. You should go look at it'. J said 'All right, let's go.' 'Oh, I'm not going. Green and brown patches. It makes me want to puke.' Quite the lawn snob. I love it.

This led to an hour walk around the property, Grandpa showing J how 'easy' it is to keep his lawn. He has created quite the irrigation system. You turn one valve and three huge sprinklers start covering a whole section of the lawn. 'Is that automatic enough for ya? All you have to do is turn it on. Oh wait, one other thing you have to do...turn it off.' Then he described the placement and angles of his beloved, personified sprinklers. 'He doesn't move. This is his spot, right here.' And it's set perfect so it goes all the way to one side of the barn then turns 270 degrees so it comes up right to the front of the barn. He mows it twice a week; by the time he goes through his watering routine, it's time to mow again.

He also takes care of the 1/2 mile stretch along the freeway exit by his home. With a weed eater! For free! I guess he just loves to look at good grass. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for the lovely afternoon Grandpa.

What's So Scrappy?

The point of this site, 'Everything Scrappy', was to post pictures of my scrapbooking ideas. Have you noticed I have yet to do so? Just today I found a scanner in town large enough to do 12x12. It was at J's school, who knew? Guess I should have started my search there. I was almost going to go to the City Engineering Building! I just couldn't muster the courage to say why I needed a 12x12 scanner. Now, I have to restrain myself, though, because I really should be working on packing. Ugh, packing. But here's the cover page for Abbey's Baby Book. Rest assure, scrappy stuff is on the way.

MISSterious

I found this cool shirt that I thought would look great on J. He looked at it and said 'Size 14? Ash, men's clothes don't have sizes like that'. Oh stop, just put it on. 'Ash, the buttons are on the wrong side' At this point, I'm starting to see. 'Ok, it has little slits on the side. I'm taking it off'. I was rolling at this point. I accidentally crossdressed my husband today! In all fairness, when I was in Macy's last week, the men's styles are seriously feminine right now.

I immediatly thought of this Office clip. I couldn't figure out how to edit the videos off youtube to get the crossdressing part by itself; it starts about two minutes in. But who wouldn't love 5 minutes of The Office highlights? PS, if anyone does know how to edit videos pulled off the web or get TV shows into imovie, let me know.

Saving the Day...Twice

Time for some confessions of a neglectful mother. I swear, Abbey is unusually curious and adventurous. She fears nothing. This mobile baby phase hit me FAST. Luckily, Katherine (the hero of the story) has been near and watching. Yesterday we went to the wading pools with Bobby and The Hero. Abbey is pretty finicky about her pool play. Today was a sit-on-the-side-and-throw-stuff-in day. She decided to crawl in, head first, after something and luckily Katherine was there to quickly snatch her up. Whew. I didn't even see it happen! Never mind the fact that The Hero has TWO kids to watch besides my own.

So next scene, up at the lake for a barbeque. I hate the beach shelter there. It's perched precariously over a steep hill down to the water. Actually, I think you would hit some rocky dirt before hitting the water. I'm sitting on a blanket with The Hero and Sophie when Abbey beelines it for the hill. The Hero sprang into action and slid down the hill after her. Abbey only took a roll or two before she got there, but it got my heart pumping. I like to justify that I was holding Sophie at the time, but in actuality, The Hero was halfway up before it hit me what was happening. Thank you, The Hero! You now have my resolve to keep my eyes peeled on my precocious toddler!

4th of July

What is there not to love about the 4th of July? It is, by far, my favorite holiday of the year. I usually celebrate in Lewiston, Utah doing the small town, family fun. This year we headed down to St Louis with the Aanderuds for some big city fun. First thing was the parade. We had a great spot in the shade, but by the time the parade actually made it to us, it was sunny, muggy, and HOT. We made the boys go shopping so I could take advantage of Melody's incredible eye for home decor. The boys wandered over to a sushi bar and challenged me to my first taste of the stuff. I loved it, until they gave me a little taste of wasabi. I'm such a pansy.




We were driving around to look for a good firework-viewing spot and decided impulsively to go to a Cardinal's game. I'm so glad we did--what's more American than baseball?!?



You can buy cheap general admission tickets that get you pretty close to the action. Justin and I bought some seat tickets from a scalper and since many, many people buy seats then just sit at the bars to watch the game, we had an entire row of seats to ourselves. Great game, they won, Go Cardinals! Sure, I'll be a Cardinals fan now, why not.






The arch is a short walk away from the stadium, so we went there to watch fireworks. We were all exhausted by the end of the day, but it was great.

Baby love at the fireworks.

Enjoying some fireworks at the end of a HOT day.

Mine Was Cuter

Last week I took Abbey to see the 'elephants' putting up the circus tent. And by 'elephants', I mean tractors and workers. Ok, in all fairness, there was A elephant helping. I think mostly for the cameras. But we had fun walking around looking at all the crazy animals they had there. And what should they have at a circus? A hippo! I don't know what a hippo does at a circus, but Mel and I were excited to see one live.

We wanted to take a funny picture in front of it acting astonished, but you can't see the hippo very well anyway. It was so ugly! I'm glad we didn't see it a few weeks ago; it would have ruined my cake dream. But I love this picture anyway because in the meantime, we didn't even notice a goat was eating Eirik!

I like to think it was the same goat that was so interested in him earlier.