Air "Soft"???

School is out for the day and Austen called a bunch of friends to head up the canyon and have a little air soft capture the flag game. They started to arrive and the house was a buzz with boys in camo and protective gear.

(Naomi and I stood snickering outside the door at the way they were all trying to get each others attention and everyone talking at the same time:))

They left here marching down the street and heading to the trail head that leads up the wash by our house. They were energetic and spirited and excited to have some fun.

Three hours later they show up at the house thirsty, thirsty, thirsty, tired and talking about the "war wounds".

The more I heard I started wondering.... just how soft is air soft?

They didn't care... the more welts, bruises, burns, etc. the better.

The bonus was... I told them to aim at tummys and bums when they left and when they returned they were talking about getting shot in the bum too many times!!!!!!

(I didn't want to see those war wounds!! :)

They are already planning the next get together. They just need time for the wounds to heal and round up some more ammo.

Boys!!!!!!

If it isn't broken...

I pride myself on being a very independent girl (get it from my mom)! I am not afraid to delve into fixing things by myself. I have been overwelmed as of lately, with broken things and all of them are way over my head in the repair category! I should probably knock on wood as I post this... so as to ward off any future breakages!

To start the year off right, my sink got majorly plugged and my handy dandy repair man (a.k.a. "Honey") finally ended up on the roof with the hose. Happily the sink was unplugged fairly quickly! Unhappily the nozzle thing on the end of the hose "broke" off in the outlet pipe and we now have to pay someone to come and take care of it.

Right before Christmas I get a call from the Sports trainer at the highschool. I immediately thought... "great! Presten has pulled his muscle again or sprained his ankle". I was surprised when he told me that Presten had broken off one of his front teeth at basketball practice. It was cracked right across the middle and looked terrible. Happily... we have a "magical, miracle worker" dentist who did an amazing job putting the tooth back on and you can't even tell where it was broken. (Also happily... the trainer had this little jar called "save a tooth" and it sure did!!!)

The first week back to school, Presten agreed to drive Naomi up to the Middle School to save me one more morning trip across town. He called me from 2 blocks away saying that his car would no longer go forward. (That would be a problem!) So I ended up making that extra morning trip, then and now every morning. Happily... we were able to get the car home so it can sit in the driveway and annoy me!

It's a new year and I am ready to get in and get Christmas put away and do some heavy duty cleaning out and organizing. The vacuum chose to give out. Normally this is something I am not afraid to jump into and figure out, but a broken latch and lack of electronically things has hindered me. I had to send that to a repair shop 3 hours away. Sadly... the cleaning bug has been replaced by other things. Happily... I still have my good ol reliable Rainbow vacuum to get by with.

Then yesterday I decide to really get after some laundry. I went to change it around, and the dryer is still running at it's same time on the timer and the clothes are wet! AAGGHH! My poor handy dandy repair man (a.k.a. "Honey") doesn't even know about this one yet. Happily... I can take the clothes over to Mom's to dry and he won't have to know for a while! :)

Gotta hurry and post this before something else breaks!

Happily... Life is still good!

Stepping into the New Year!

We had a spontaneous get together for New Years! The McCoy family joined some of the Beatty family for chili, cornbread and games! It was a fun and silly time. The kids enjoyed themselves and the adults got in a game or two of their own.

(We didn't do too well with "Totally 80's Trivial Pursuit")

Papa McCoy was especially happy with the idea of celebrating a New York New Year at 10 p.m.

Turns out we like each other so much that most of us stayed up until midnight anyway!

My favorite part was getting this photo of all the shoes piled at my back door. I am so blessed to have such awesome family all around me.

For those of you who were not here... let's work toward getting together in this coming year and celebrating the gift of family and friends!