Not Allowed

I came home one night to this sign on the door to the girl's room.

I decided to make a sign for my own door:

Since then my sign has taken a lot of graffiti and abuse.  It turns out that a paper sign can not stop children from running into the parents room and start jumping on the bed.

All while the dad is trying to sleep.

Low Fuel

Getting gas is not one of my favorite things to do.  I don't mind pumping, it is just the time that it takes to stop and do it.  I don't normally plan for it.  I usually just wait until the low fuel light comes on and then see if I can make it the gas station in time.

This is what I was doing last week driving home from work.  I actually ran the car much farther on the low fuel light than normal and I wasn't sure that I would make it or if I'd be walking.   Check out the video to see how it ended.

Using a Toothbrush

I've posted a poll on the blog for this post.  Please take a minute and take the poll posted on the blog.

Have you ever used someone else's toothbrush?  Has anyone ever used yours?

Here's a hypothetical situation for you to consider this morning.

Let's say you are getting ready for work and it's five in the morning.  You get out of the shower and you head over to the sink to brush your teeth.  There you find several tooth brushes, none of which are your color.  A quick glance around the counter reveals that your tooth brush is missing.

I'm not sure what you would do from here, but if I ever found myself in this situation, I think I would choose a new tooth brush.  One of the others sitting on the counter.  I'd probably grab the red one, brush my teeth, rinse off the tooth brush, and put it back where I found it before quickly rushing off to work.

Chances are that the tooth brush I would have chosen would have been my wife's.  At this point, I'd say we share all the same germs.  I'm sure she would understand if this ever happened.

At the end of this hypothetical situation, you come home from work and your spouse asks how you brushed your teeth that morning since your brush was still packed away from last weekends overnight trip.  If I ever found myself in that situation, I'd tell the truth. . .

. . . and then I'd probably blog about it.  My spouse would probably say, "eeewwww".  She probably wouldn't accept my reasoning about the germs and then I'd probably put up a poll on the blog.

So what do you think?  Is it okay to use someone else's toothbrush?

Slip N Slide!

One roll of plastic, a garden hose, a small kiddie pool, a hill, and a hot day is all I needed to make my home made slip-n-slide.  Thankfully I had all those things left over from last year so it didn't even cost me anything.

Randy, Meredith, and myself were all sliding when Cari came home with Brenna.  The baby instantly wanted to try it out.  She ran over and started stripping her clothes off.  No need to bother with a bathing suit, she had a diaper on.

Then she didn't. . .

Oh well.  With or without clothes, it was awesome fun.  Here's a few more photos as proof of our fun.

Highlands

Cari and I took an overnight trip to Highlands, NC for our anniversary.  That means we left the kids (and dog) behind for the night.

On our way to Highlands, we stopped over in Dillard, Ga to eat lunch at the Dillard House.  If you live anywhere near North Georgia, this is a great place to eat.  I was first introduced to it by Justin and Chip while we were camping and it took this long to have a chance to take Cari there.

I think she loved it.

We found a great little hotel in Highlands and we spent the evening walking around town.  Since we were still full from lunch we opted to buy our dinner at Kilwins, the chocolate store.  Two caramel apples for dinner!

The hotel doors even used keys.  How old fashioned!

After dinner we took a trip to see Dry Falls.  On the other side of the falls we found a cool rock to set up the tripod and take some shots together.

It was a great get away for the two of us and of course, it went by entirely too quickly.  Two days later, as the kids were running crazy in the house, Cari looked at me and asked if we should book our next trip to Highlands.

Dry Falls

We tried to visit Dry Falls near Highlands, NC last year, but access was closed as they fixed the observation deck and created a better parking area.

This year, Cari and I returned during our anniversary trip to Highlands.   The name of the falls is because as the water comes flying off of a cliff, it has created a cave like area behind the falls.  This allows you to walk on a path behind the falls without getting wet.  Dry Falls.   There was a good amount of water flowing the day we were there and it really is a spectacular waterfall.  It was a bit creepy walking under the falls knowing how much power and weight was above my head.

Here's a few photos and a short video.

Storm Damage

After an extremely hot day, the clouds started to build.   Very quickly the wind picked up, the lightening flashed, and the thunder boomed.  Then the rain started to come down.  It was pouring and the high winds continued.

It had all the elements of a good storm except one.  Hail.
And then the hail started to pelt the earth.  Really!

So now we have this perfect storm and we are all upstairs watching from the window.  Cari noticed one of our tree branches breaking off the tree and she made the wise call for us all to move downstairs.

Twenty minutes later the air was calm and the rain had slowed to a drizzle.

The kids and I jumped in the car and quickly found almost every road in the neighborhood blocked by fallen trees.

There were a lot more trees down than this, I just photographed a sample for you.  This was the most damage from a short storm that we have seen in a long time.  We went to bed without power that night, but it was back on by 3am.  That evening, as we drove around looking at the damages, one last thing caught my attention.  A rainbow.

L is for Loser

I don't think she was in the mood for being filmed.

Paint the World!

I turned my back on the two year old for just a moment.  Seriously, it was like five minutes.  She was watching television and the room was quiet.

Too quiet.

A quiet that tells an experienced dad that he better check it out.

I looked to find the two year old sitting on the floor painting her toe nails.  With real nail polish.  Her legs and arms had also been painted.  I walked over to her to assess the damage.

The floor was painted with the nail polish in a radius that the two year old arms could reach.

I looked up to turn the tv off as I dealt with the mess and that's when I saw it.

Stripes of burgundy polish on my LCD tv.  The polish was already dry.

Seriously?  I'm telling you in five minutes the girl went from sitting on the couch watching television to finding a bottle of nail polish, painting herself, the tv, and the floor.

My Google search of how to remove the polish resulted in the most common answer of "good luck".
I put the baby to bed where she could do the least amount of damage and started to carefully remove the polish.

I was able to remove it with a three step process.
1. 60 / 40 mix of water / polish remover wiped onto the polish with a paper towel.
2. light rubbing with a Mr. Clean magic eraser (didn't leave any scratches or marks on the tv).
3. final cleaning with Windex and a soft towel.

This took a long time because I attacked each streak of polish one at a time.

I was mostly relieved to have it all cleaned, but if I hadn't gotten it off was this my chance to get a 50"?

Lights

We attended the fifth grade awards the other day.  I brought my camera to capture the moment and I noticed across the auditorium a friend of mine had his new camera with him.

I took a few photos, but it was pretty dark in there.  I was too far back for the flash to do much good.  I figured my friend, Wallace, was having similiar issues and I texted him that I wish someone would turn those stage lights on.

He texted back that he was also having light issues.  A few minutes later the lights clicked on.  I smiled at Wallace and he looked my way.  

"You Rock!", I texted.  He had talked to a teacher or someone with the power and helped our light situation tremendously.

It's good to have friends to help at the right time.

Texting

We have an extra cell phone that we let the kids share.  They can take it with them when the go to a friend's house or something like that.  They also started using it to text now that some of their friends have phones.  Do I think it is kinda crazy that an army of eight year olds have cell phones of their own?  Yes.  But that rant is for a different blog.

Meredith is much more excited about texting than her brother is.  Everyday after school she asks to get the phone.

Recently, we headed out to Liberty Idol to watch the local singing competition.  Meredith took the phone with her and she was sitting in front of me.  I thought I would text her a bit to help keep her from getting bored.

At first, I was texting her that Justin Beiber was on his way to the stage.  We finally agreed that he wouldn't likely be there and this was how our conversation ended:

Me: Are you having fun?
Her: a little stop txting me

Wow.  This coming from the girl that loves to text.  "Stop texting me".
I wasn't expecting that from her.  I also didn't text her the rest of the night.

Love Forever

Happy Anniversary to my best friend.

Playing Catch

You might have noticed that I've been carrying around my new camcorder a lot lately.  Some of the video I have taken are things I simply could not have staged.  Things just happen.  Today's video is an example of that.

I had been trying to teach Nisha to play catch and decided to record her progress.  This was my first take.

Dear Tooth fairy

Normally, the Tooth Fairy leaves a dollar per tooth.  This time, Meredith not only raised the price of her tooth, she also wanted to keep it.

The story ends two days later when she lost another tooth.  The Tooth Fairy didn't leave any money for her note pictured here.  I don't think the fairy goes around handing out money.  This is a trade agreement.  Buying and selling teeth.  She needs the teeth for whatever freak reason she needs them.  No tooth, no money.

So two days later there were two teeth under the pillow.  What a deal!  Meredith even washed the teeth before bed to ensure the best possible price.  She woke up to an unexpected $5 bill.

watermelon

It's June!  It's SUMMER! It's time for some watermelon!

Yes, I know.  Summer doesn't actually start until the end of the month, but I'd say after Memorial Day we are out of Spring.

No matter the season, my kids love watermelon.  Especially when you hand them a big chunk and tell them to eat it the best way they see fit.

Enjoy the video: