Rude Reminders

I hate these rude reminders that we are now grown-ups... expected to pay our own bills, clean our own homes, be Santa Clause, etc, etc. And apparently as adults Robert and I are also expected to speak in Sacrament Meeting and take up the entire time - not even a youth speaker to take up a minute or two. Heck, I still expect to be the youth speaker! I think Sacrament meeting only got over about 2 minutes early. Not bad for two very short-winded people!

Kenzie Coloring

Sitting outside at the picnic table with crayons and a coloring book is one of Mackenzie's favorite activities--mostly so she can push the book out of the way, scribble all over the table, and eat the crayons.

Harry Potter 7

I am several chapters into the final Harry Potter book and so far it has my approval. Mackenzie on the other hand is not a fan. When we are playing and I think she won't notice if I try to slip in a few paragraphs she slams the book shut or just sits right down on it and says "NNNO" (one of her few words).

Miracle on 93rd Street

Mackenzie routinely wakes up at 6am sharp. On Wednesday she did just that, but then she came into bed with me and slept until 9:30am. It was truly a miracle. I had to make a permanent record of the event.

Canton, SD

Sorry, this is a long one. Here's the short version if you'd rather: Do to my own stupidity, I had a bad experience registering our cars in South Dakota.

Today I had my first, and hopefully last, experience with Canton, South Dakota. It is a very small town about 20 miles south of Sioux Falls. The Lincoln County Treasurers office is there so I had to make the trip out to get our cars registered with SD plates. Everything seemed to be going rather smoothly until they could only take credit cards over the phone and with a 4% fee. Of course I wasn't smart enough to make sure I had my check book. My cell phone had no service so the lady told me I'd have to go down to the gas station and use the pay phone to call her with the credit card number. I can't even remember how to use a pay phone and I really didn't want to drag Mackenzie down there. This nice lady let me use her fancy flip phone and Mackenzie threw a fit when we had to give it back (those are sooo fun). But at least we were done. I thought.

As I'm trying to unlock the car and put the tantrumming child in the car and hold the license plates and paperwork, I carelessly put the last things on top of the car. Never a good move. We were almost home when I realized my fatal error. I pull over- obviously it's not where I left it. I back track (remember this is 20 miles away and I have an 17 month old). No luck. No one had turned it in yet. So I go back home hoping that somebody will call us. When I got home we had a message from Napa Auto Parts (which came up as Bubbas Garage on the caller ID) saying somebody found our stuff outside their place and brought it in to them. Yippee. I made yet another trip out to Canton and recovered all my things that I never should have lost in the first place. Thanks to the good folks of Canton who let me use their phones and return my lost items, but I hope I never have to visit your town again.

Back porch view

Here is the view from our back porch looking out (not from our front porch looking in). Now you all know what South Dakota looks like, or at least one field of it.

Here kitty kitty