How I get my man to notice me...

Some women might put on a pretty dress, or fix their hair up nicely, spritz themselves with perfume, maybe even make a manly meal, but all I had to do was slap on one of these to get my husband's attention:



My mom came out and watched our kids while Matt and I enjoyed a little getaway. I plan on doing a post of some of the things we did later. But part of it included a day of fishing on the Arkansas River - Matt's dream date. Below are some pictures of a kind of funny thing that happened. Matt was wandering up and down the river while I stayed close to the car. That way when he wasn't looking I could sneak in and read my book. It was cold and windy, I didn't have a choice. At one point I thought I would just play around and see how far I could cast my line. Well I accidentally caught a fish doing it. What's wrong with that? Remember that Matt was quite a way down the river from me. Also remember that I don't touch fish. I wasn't totally out of luck, there were 2 other fishermen fairly close to me. I managed to flag down a very nice man who kindly removed the hook and released the fish back into the river for me. He offered to take a picture of me holding the fish, apparently something fishermen like to do, but I politely declined. Gross. So I help up the net while he took a disturbing picture of me. Then he held it so I could take one of my lucky catch.




After that I quit fishing until Matt was closer. I didn't want to catch another one by accident. I'm pretty sure that man thinks I'm a freakshow. Matt was sad he missed the whole thing.

Skipping rocks

Matt thinks it's the duty of every father to teach his children how to skip rocks across the water. He still remembers going through this childhood rite of passage at Lake Ontario where his dad taught him. For our kids, they learned this lesson at Chatfield State Park over the weekend. Donovan kind of got the hang of it and Howie might have gotten lucky once. Nina and Cameron skipped the skipping and stuck to chucking. It was my duty to take some pictures and make sure the food got eaten. We all have to do our part.

So how does that saying go?

You know the one about bad things coming in 3's. Was it bad things? Was it hard things? Was it broken things? And is 3 the limit? And for how long? I just can't remember. I'm wondering because here are some pictures of our 3:

The new bathroom floor to replace the rotted one


The new washer and dryer to replace the broken ones


The new car to replace the sporadically functioning one



Our 3 have left us pretty broke.

Thank yous

A few thank yous are in order.

Thank you to:

Donovan for using your pocketknife to cut several holes in the screen
Nina for having some sort of accident everyday for 8 straight days
Cameron for unloading the dishwasher and breaking a plate in the process
Donovan for giving your teddy bear a haircut
Cameron for coloring on your door with a blue crayon
Nina for breaking a wicker ball into tiny pieces
Howie for leaving no evidence of anything naughty you may have done





We give up. You win. But we secretly think you are pretty fun kids.