Therapy

I know its wrong wrong wrong to try to fill the void in one's life with things.  I know!  But still it feel good.

Honestly I try not to leave the house much, because if I venture out for one thing, I often end up with a cart full of stuff.  But today I knew I was going to let myself hit up the Borders Clearance Sale.

I scored big!

I got a tote, and several books, and other things for less than a hundred bucks!  If you have ever shopped at a borders or barnes and noble you know three books will often break the bank.  Thats why Amazon is so successful. 

 I picked up this five pound Martha Stewart book for half off!  Its normally $45.00 people!!

These were all 66% off!

And my poor self was this close(imagine my thumb and index finger nearly touching) to buying a Shaun the Sheep DVD at Target for our big Minnesota roadtrip.  But there they were 50% off!  It was fate.

The loot does make me a little less lonely.  I probably should just see a shrink instead.

Nate got a Woody digital watch, he is happy too!  

Fishing

This week was lucky again when we opened up surprises yesterday.  Grandma S. sent Nathan a new game. And later in the day our power went out, so we spent LOTS of time fishing.  Just like the napkins when we were out, this weeks gift was very useful and arrived just in the nick of time.  

Whew!

Rodeo

Sandbox Salutations Wk 6

Ball of Sweat all day long!!

The worst part is not the Heat, but the Humidity.  Just look at the "Feels Like" on the top, 120.  Woof, And then the Humidity on the bottom is what kills ya.  I pretty much leave my dorm room, and then spend the next 14 hours in a pool of sweat.  I'ts so bad, that when I step outside from an A/c building, my glasses fog up for a good 2 minutes.  Now mind you that my job entails me to drive around the flightline almost all day.  It's not smart to put someone who can't see behind the wheel to navigate around multi million dollar aircraft that are taxing by and getting towed around.  Lets just say that I do laundry almost every day for the sake of my roommate, and thankfully he is thoughtful too.

Lucy Update:

Still not back from the shop.  Apparently thay put some parts on order and are waiting for them to get in before they release her back to me.  The good news is that I got another replacement truck.  This one is Diesel, with nice A/C up front, but no A/C in the back-I think I'll call her Berta, it sounds like a good name for a diesel.  It's an improvement, but until I get a truck with all a/C working , I wont be happy.

Thank you all for the letters, It's nice to see my name on the "You've got Mail" list and be able to open something.

Bye, for now.

Badlands National Park

The Badlands were bad-ass!!

Calmer

Today was a little more slow. We are charged up and ready to take on the Badlands tomorrow!

I got a few photos off my phone this evening so I will share.

This is from Monday night at the CCR concert at the Central States Fair.  It was a good show!!  One of my favorite bands ever!!

This is from Tuesday night at the Josh Turner concert at the fair.  Nate has been a real trooper staying up late and sightseeing like crazy during the day!!

 Today was a little less exciting.  It included Jim taking out the calcium deposit under the filter of my dishwasher.  Isn't that disgusting?!

 Th

e dishwasher still isn't draining all of the water.  So I guess I need to call the maintenance line and have them come look at it again!

 This morning we hit up Cabela's.  

And this afternoon we wandered around the Air and Space Museum.  

 But Nate did have fun golfing with Grandpa this evening after dinner.

It was a fun day, even if it did involve dishwasher yuckiness!

First Tries

Nate tried wearing his hair out spiky today.  It looked good most of the morning.  He looks a year older with his hair styled this way.

 We walked around Downtown Rapid for a little while today.  It was 99 degrees out, so we were pooped.  

 We stopped at the farmers market today and bought some tomatoes and cukes.  I have been wanting to can tomatoes for years, but this was my first try.  And I had no equipment for the job..so it was a little messy, but oh well!

 Nineteen pints of canned tomatoes.

If we don't get botulism, I think it will end up as a great new skill!  Pickles tomorrow!!

Head to the Hills

Can't go to the Hills without visiting Mt. Rushmore!  

 It was hot and Nate was super happy Grandpa gave him a ride.  He was a super trooper throughout our big adventurous day!  

 We almost killed mom on the drive through Needles Highway.  But Jim and I were super geeked when we saw this buffalo!  Just sitting on the side of the road!  Man these things are HUGE!!

 We saw a bunch of these things too!  We aren't sure what they were, maybe we will head to Cabelas tomorrow and see one stuffed and labeled

Maybe they are antelope?  We saw a turkey and a few white tail deer too!  Then right near the house today we saw a mule deer!  Its was a wild day!  

Tomorrow should be a little more mellow, and hopefully mom wont nearly die of vertigo...

Slide

The Alpine Slide in Keystone was AWESOME!  We really liked it, and everyone agreed, next time go we would go FASTER! 

 We took a chairlift up the hill...

 Nate was stunned by this adventure, but cheesed it up nice for this pic eh?

 Up at the top we had lunch at a little cafe.  It was yummy!

 And from the table where we ate lunch we had a very nice view of Mt. Rushmore!  

 Grandma and Nate reenacted the cosmos while we waited for our burgers.  They also watch the  chipmunks, it was great fun.

 I took this pic of Jim after he passed us.  Although, its kinda hard to see him.  You can just see his head there... he was in the fast lane, and Nate and I rode in the slow lane.

I think Mom was yelling,"WEEEEEEEEE!" the whole way down!  I like to think that this fun made up for the torture that was the Cosmos Mystery Area.