my right now: 09/01/2010

remember that horny toad that one of my kids found outside? well the kid that found him went home that weekend, researched the critter and bought everything he needed to keep it as a pet! and guess what else he did...brought it back to school to have as our CLASS pet! i'm such a sucker for critters. they fascinate me, so of course i let it stay.

this is spike. his favorite thing to do is straddle this soccer ball eraser one of the kids put in his cage! so funny!

he scared me one afternoon. the kids always gripe about how cold my classroom, and i've even heard them ask if the cold would kill spike. nahhhh.... but spencer took him out of his cage one afternoon after school and put him on my desk. this is all he did!

doesn't he look dead to you???? (don't worry. he's not dead, just weird!)

so my objective for last weekend was, all play and no work!

mission accomplished!

two of my very best friends, nellie and gina, came up from tulsa friday night! they spent the night, and saturday we spent the entire day exploring, laughing and playing.

i took them to see the bowling ball yard art in nowata because it's just something you gotta see when you're up this way! of course i couldn't pass up the opportunity to take pictures again!

this is the top of the bowling ball house!

this little piggy is a new addition!

after we photographed the bowling balls, we walked around back and found all kinds of cool old stuff!

there were As everywhere!

i know this is a picture of a pipe, but the colors of the brown and turquoise together were so amazing!

nellie had to check out the inside of this building! she's been watching too much american pickers!

i detest spiders, but we found this one on a gate, and i couldn't resist taking a picture of it! the thing was huge! if i was brave, or stupid enough, to put my hand near it, it would have easily spanned the palm of my hand. {i just gave myself the chills thinking about it!}

after the bowling ball place, we headed north to kansas! we found so many flea markets and antique stores! score!!!! i managed not to buy a single thing at any of the stores, but i did find some weird items...

i think i had one of these when i was a kid. it seemed really familiar.

this christmas tree was made out of old costume jewelry! so cool! if i had old jewelry, i'd make this.

we were driving around coffeyville trying to find one last junk store when we stumbled across this lot full of wooden carved objects. i've tried to find out information about this place, but so far i don't know what they are! all i know is that they were big and so cool!!!!

most of them were HUGE like this cowboy. i was standing next to him!

but this guy was little. i thought he was cute, and geeg thought he was creepy!

my friends looking at me like i'm weird! :)

sunday i played some more {after my nap, of course!}

colby has been pestering me to take him to the park, so since the weather was gorgeous i gave in and took him to sooner park first. we were there about 20 minutes when he said that sooner park was boring. so we found another park where there were lots of kids and they all played tag forever!

this little girl was going around in circles on her roller blades while her dog pulled her! that's my kind of skating!

sooner park had beautiful willow trees. i don't know why, but i think willow trees are so pretty.

since i accomplished my goal of playing all weekend, i had to stay up past midnight grading papers and writing lesson plans. ugh. not gonna do that again!

i know why i don't blog as much anymore....it takes forever! i take too many pictures, and i want to post them all, and uploading them all takes hours it seems. so i'm going to try to blog more often so i don't have as much to catch up on.

so the last time i blogged i was completely motivated to set up studio A. well my intentions were good, but my motivation didn't last long enough! i unloaded every box and put all of the stuff out all over the place. that was stupid! i was completely overwhelmed! i just sat there and stared at the stuff. so it's still not finished, but it's not as bad as it was 2 or 3 weeks ago!

i wasn't just doing nothing during that time, though. i found plenty of things to do instead!

the varmints and i took a road trip to skiatook for some chicken and bacon cheese fries at ron's hamburgers. then we drove around skiatook lake checking out the campsites.

colby somehow managed to get our waitress to put a dollar in the jukebox for him! he's not even sure how he did it, but he was pretty impressed that she spent HER dollar!

mmmm....bacon cheese fries! so worth the drive!

after driving around the lake, we ended up in hominy, oklahoma (i think). we were hot, so we stopped at the local sonic for some ice cream. it was here that i encountered the dumbest idea i've ever seen. to keep the napkin, spoon and straw all bundled together, they wrapped them all up together and sealed it with a sticker!!!! tell me how i was supposed to get the sticker off without tearing the napkin!

spencer read a scripture in front of the entire congregation! lots of our young men have been serving in worship, and it warms my heart. i especially love to see the boys standing beside their dads serving communion.

daryl tried to rescue a little hummingbird from being trapped in the garage. the poor little thing just kept going back to the window. we were leaving for the weekend, and we knew if he stayed in there he wouldn't survive. rest in peace little fella.

rocky is just like the other 2 varmints....put him in a car and he goes right to sleep! it's a good thing he'd just had a bath because he was snoozing on my pillow!

we spent labor day weekend in edmond. we had daryl's mini family reunion at aunt carla's.

even though the sun was shining, the pool was freezing! i think the kids were the only ones brave enough to get in the water!

in order to protect my "rep" of being a cool aunt, i volunteered to ride with my nephew stephen as he drove us to POPS (our usual hangout when we go to aunt carla's!) i must admit i expected him to be a crazy driver, but he was actually very cautious. he didn't scare me at all!

even with a car full of people and pets, stephen was a great driver! not distracted at all!

we tried to go up in the round barn, but someone had it rented. seriously? i don't think you should be able to rent a historic attraction out, especially on a holiday weekend!

so we just went to pops, and got a drink. i decided i was going to branch out and try something besides big red. i chose cheerwine because i liked the name. it was just a cherry cola.

sunday, we worshipped with my family at memorial road church of christ. mom and dad were there, too! then we all had lunch at earl's BBQ. i love this picture of my dad and me!

the next weekend (instead of working on studio A) the varmints and i went to the washington county fair in dewey, oklahoma. i'd never been to a county fair, so i said, "who wants to go to the fair with me?" it was a gorgeous day!

this was the most amazing thing i saw at the fair. it is a handmade quilt paying tribute to route 66. the thing was HUGE! i think it could have easily covered my king size bed! this picture doesn't do it justice at all! each block is a different attraction or landmark on route 66. of course this won the grand prize ribbon!

what's a fair without a sock monkey?

or adorable little cowboys with their calf?

my favorite part, though, was the animals!!!! colby walked through the animals barns with his shirt over his nose the whole time. city kid!

this is chester, the donkey. he was so sweet.

these fluffy chickens were hilarious! i think dad needs to get a chicken like this!

colby liked this white guinea pig the best. i thought it looked kinda creepy.

this goat has the most awesome ears ever! i wanted to play with them so bad!

this cow was so pretty with the sunlight coming in the barn window.

unfortunately, there were some really UGLY critters there, too. this chicken was just gross.

ah, but then....we came to the pet adoption table. and i fell in love. with this dog.

she wanted to come home with me so bad, but we can't have another dog because we don't own this house.

spencer sat down on the ground and she immediately crawled in his lap and laid down. it was even harder for spencer to let her go.

that afternoon i took spencer to a birthday party. the directions mentioned that they lived out towards the pumpkin patch. pumpkin patch??!! i didn't know bartlesville had a pumpkin patch! so after i dropped him off, i tried to find it. i drove for miles down the road and never saw it! but i passed this gate a couple of times.

it intrigued me. the sign on the wall said 'casa manana'. it made me wonder, what was the story of this place? why was 'keep out' built into the gate? what was it like when it was an actual functioning home? what else was around here?

i was in the middle of nowhere i'd ever been and i kept seeing neat old places and beautiful scenery. i had planned to go home while spencer was at the party for 2 hours. instead, i filled the tank with gas and drove around with the windows down, country music playing and loving every minute! i stopped and took lots of pictures:

i found this turtle,

and put him in my car!

old barn...love the red!

very cool abandoned mailbox

this playhouse was on a piece of land that didn't have a house. there was a shed and a barn, but no house.

who lived here before? what happened to their home? who played with this little army man?

this old barn was so rustic. i couldn't help myself...i went in! (daryl says i was trespassing. oops.)

i crossed lots of railroad tracks. i even stopped my car on the tracks, got out and stood on them for some pictures! such a rebel!

reminds me of the song "big green tractor."

i also crossed lots of rickety old one lane bridges.

wildflowers make me smile.

i ended up on top of a hill overlooking bartlesville. it was such a beautiful view. this was looking out the passenger window.

and this was out the driver's window.

this is a zoomed in shot of the flowers in the lower left corner of the picture above.

this was at the very top of the hill...lots of working oil pumps. this is what i think of when i think of oklahoma.

on the top of another hill off in the distance was a white cross.

the turtle rode all the way home, and has been living in our courtyard/atrium for a week now. i named him ronnie.

yesterday at school, one of my kids found a horny toad!!! i hadn't seen one of these in years! my kids were so fascinated with it that i let them bring it in the classroom as our pet for the day. mistake! total distraction! ( i can't blame them, though. it is very cool!)

he's just so adorable!

last night i attended the ladies retreat with my sisters at the adams blvd. church of christ. i didn't get to go last year, so i was really excited to be there. we had our retreat at an old girl scout camp called camp wa-sha-she.