Aaalvin!!!!!

I can't believe they are making a movie about Alvin and the Chipmunks. Ezekiel and Michelangelo are thrilled, but I'm rather worried. It was such a fun show, I can't believe they'd risk ruining it with a live-action movie. That's just wrong.
Speaking of which, who's "they" anyway. In my everyday life, I refer to "they" fairly frequently, but I never stop to think who "they" are. I think in this case, "they" are the movie's producers. But I could mean The Man. Or Alvin. Or Theodore. Or the other one who's name slips my mind. I dunno.
Bob's staring over my shoulder as I write this. It's creepy. Go away, please.

Driving to Bryce National Park

As I mentioned before, we drove up to Bryce National Park earlier today. About a couple hours into the drive, the kids started noticing white stuff on the mountains off in the distance. By the time we stopped for gas, they had realized it was snow, and it was covering the ground around us.
My babies reacted the way any kids would. They immediately called for a snowball fight. Sally Ann and Bob III were the only ones smart enough to stay out of it. The other seven and a half all started going crazy, making slush balls and throwing them with varying levels of accuracy. By the time we'd filled up our tank with overpriced gas, there was no unused snow left in the gas station parking lot. Michelangelo and Ezekiel were sopping wet, and Elizabeth, Dud, and Joey were not much better off. I had to lay towels down on the seats of the Builder Mobile to prevent them from getting the seats wet. Bob Jr, Bob IV, and Dyda Jr. were all victorious, without a single flake of snow on them.
After we left the gas station, the view got better and better. We went through this place called Dixie National Forest, and with the snow it was absolutely beautiful. For the first time in a long time, the kids got to see trees taller than houses, and with a dusting of snow, it was amazing. The picture above is of Dixie National Forest with snow, so you can see how nice it was.
We were all disappointed when we found that there was no snow at Ruby's Inn, which is where we are staying.

Joey Makes a Fool of Himself

My kids keep giving me grief because I only ever mention Dud and Bob Jr. in this blog. There are nine and a half of you, guys, so give me a break.
Anyway, I do have a story to tell about a different one of my kids. When we were leaving for our vacation this morning, Joey, my fifth child, made a bit of a fool of himself. He'd been zoning out in front of some cartoon channel when I called him to get in the car. Joey grabbed all of his stuff and raced outside. When he got to the car, my oldest two, Sally Ann and Bob Jr., pointed out that he still had the television's remote control in his hand. It was a very impressive feat, because Joey never even noticed he had it in his hand. Sally Ann ran the remote control back to the family room, but it was still rather hilarious.
Poor Joey will never hear the end of that one.

Dud loves turkeys

For the life of me, I can't understand Dud's obsession with turkeys. It's just weird. I mean, come on. The things may have awesome colors and be absolutely absurd looking, but that's no reason for the kid to want a pet turkey for Christmas. Is it?
Bob is doing much to get Dud to give up that dream, either. He's hinting about Santa Claus needing to know what turkeys eat and other such things. Dud may only be five, but he's still tech savy enough to know how to do a Google search for what turkeys eat. This is what he found:

Wild Turkeys eat a great variety of foods, including: insects, spiders, snails, slugs, salamanders, small lizards, small frogs, millipedes, grasshoppers, very small snakes, worms, grasses, vines, flowers, acorns, buds, seeds, fruits, clovers, dogwood, blueberries, cherries, hickory nuts, beechnuts, and other vegetation.

I don't think I want a pet that likes eating frogs, snakes, snails, and my vegetable and flower gardens. How am I going to explain this to Dud?

Turkey Day

You know, if Ben Franklin had his way back in the eighteenth century, the turkey would be America's national bird, not that dorky "bald eagle" thing we have today. I mean, come on. The bald eagle gives America the image of being a balding old man whose only remaining hair is as white as snow. That is certainly not how I want my country to be portrayed.
Anyway, my point is that I feel sorry for the poor turkeys, destined to die before winter sets in. It's kinda sad, in a way. Besides, turkeys aren't the key stone of a good Thanksgiving meal. Having good stuffing is infinetly more important. Stuffing makes the world go round, after all. That and the stuff that makes the sky blue. And the awesome majesty of the Divine Purple Elephant Queen. But that goes without stuffing.
I call for a strike on eating turkey!!! Instead, consume more stuffing for your Thanksgiving feast!

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The Glory of a Yard Sale

The garage has been cleaned out, so today we're having a yard sale at Mommy's house. It's great fun. The best part is that my mom can't be anywhere near the driveway when a sale is taking place- its just to painful for her to see precious possessions sold for 1/10 of what they are worth. Or worse, for free.
Dad, who'd been a salesman for 49 years, did most of the bargaining. He refuses to tell Mom what he sold the stuff for.
Mom, do not read the rest of this post.
My old bike and Dud's bike sold for a total of $35. The ugly divider (It has an orange sea scene on it) sold for $15. I gave away several of my old dolls and stuffed animals for free to some neighborhood kids. One little girl I gave some clothes to go along with the doll, including my first swim suit, which Mom still has for some unknown reason. Don't ask me why.
The fake guitar still hasn't gone, neither has my brother Tom's old golf set. No one's sure where he got the golf set from in the first place, though, so I guess it's okay. An unused tire from Dad's old red Jeep is still sitting in the middle of the driveway. The broken white lamp that my darling old Mother says is worth $100 is still sitting next to the perfectly fine black lamp which my ancient father is willing to give away for a buck.

Correction

My bad. My brother Ben was the one who pointed out the Ellen Degeneres similarity. Dad just said that Hilary Clinton looks like a lesbian Mrs. Partridge.

This one's for Dad

Pops and I are watching the political debate that's going on at the University of Nevada Las Vegas right now. All the Democratic presidential candidates are talking about the issues (though it sounds like they're arguing about who's cooler), and my Dad made an interesting point.
If you close your eyes while Hilary Clinton is speaking, she sounds a whole lot like Ellen Degeneres. Yeah, Ellen's ten years younger than her, but still. And then there's the fact that they look and sound alike. Check it out:
There is a definite similarity between the two. They're both women with short, blond hair. They're both stretching the limits of being "middle aged." They both have a slight southern twang when they speak.
I don't know about anyone else, but if I was trapped in a room with the two of them, and they both wore masks and identical outfits (Hilary dresses like she's ninety and Ellen like she's still in her twenties or thirties), I would not be able to tell the two apart without a great deal of effort. But I could just be being weird. That happens sometimes. A lot of the times.

No Patriots Tonight

It's very sad. They have the night off. No Patriots. I think I might cry.
...
Okay, I'm over it. They're just taking a tiny break in hopes of achieving true perfection in the coming games. They will, of course. But still, it's very sad. No good football games tonight. I should cry. Maybe I will.
...
Now I'm really over it. I think. Maybe. Perhaps. If I concentrate really hard, it doesn't bother me. Hey look! Ind is play Sd. Sd is winning. Ind may meet an embarrassing end tonight. Where do they get these names from anyway? team names make no sense. Who wants to root for a team named "Sd?" How do you even pronounce Sd, for that matter. "Essde?" "Sud?" "Ssduh?" At least Ind has a name I can say. It rhymes with end. Very convenient.

Poor Doggys

My family's going on vacation for Thanksgiving weekend. Bob and I invited my parents along and are considering taking our dogs. If we don't take the dogs, we'll have to leave them at their vets' office, and they hate that. Buddy, our shepherd-rottweiler mix, and Sparky, our cocker spaniel, go absolutely crazy there.
When we returned from our last vacation, we picked the dogs up from the vet. Buddy was so excited, he peed allover Bob Jr.'s leg. Bob Jr. didn't mind too too much, but it still didn't exactly make his day.
So we're in the middle of deciding whether or not we want to bring the dogs along with us. If we do, then they'll be thrilled. However, Buddy is a bit of an attack dog. He doesn't like strangers much, and if he bites anyone else, we'll have to put him to sleep. Therefore, there is some risk in bringing him along.
Mom is completely against the idea, not that she has much say in the matter. After all, she'll be our guest. However, if we bring them and her and she doesn't agree, it'll be one grumpy car ride in the Builder family van. Unlike my dear old mother, the rest of the family, from little Dud to my aged father, all support the idea of bringing the dogs along. What's the worst that could happen?

Mom's Garage

It's a nightmare.
A complete and total nightmare.
My dear old mother, who's been getting loopier and loopier with each passing year, decided that today would be a good day to clean her garage. She called me up and guilted me into coming over to help. Bob and our useless kids all found convenient excuses that prevented them from coming. So next thing I knew, I was at my parent's house, with my parents and brothers, standing in front of their garage. Dad soon drove off to go "shopping for supplies." Like we all didn't know he was making a clean run for it.
For a garage that is maybe six feet deep, twenty feet long, and seven feet high, it held a catastrophic amount of stuff. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she had found a way to fit some kind of black hole into it to keep all her stuff inside the garage.
Anyway, it took the four of us about five hours to go through the thing. It's a lot emptier now, but only because most of the stuff is either waiting for the garbageman to come on Tuesday or sitting in our backyard, waiting for next week's yard sale.

Bob is starting to annoy me

He's obsessed with building a giant rocking chair. He leaves the house every morning at 4:30 to work on it and doesn't come back home until 10 at night. As soon as he gets home, he collapses into bed and sleeps until it's time to leave again. I never see him. I never talk to him. It's horrible.
From what I understand, the rocking chair is the key to his taking over the world, something I can not allow. World domination is the sole responsibility of the Divine Purple Elephant Queen, and he has no right to attempt interference.
Speaking of which, the Divine Purple Elephant Queen's plan to taking over El Salvador are going even better than planned. By 2010, we hope to control all of Central and South America.
Beat that, Bob.

My Dad is an old man

And boy, do I mean old. He was walking around with a cane yesterday. A CANE! The man acts like he's 150 years old when he's only a third of that age.
Okay, so he does have a medical excuse. His knee was bothering him. But still, it's kinda sad.

What's even sadder is what he did to the cane. It was practically antique. It's genuinely broken now. Before breaking it, he added red duck tape to the bottom of it so that it wouldn't slip and slide while walking. The duct tape did nothing to stop the handle from snapping off when he actually put to much weight on the thing. Because the cane was beautifully carved and fairly oldish, Mom was fairly upset. She called me to complain, and I drove over to their place just in time to stop her from throwing the cane out completely. Some good wood glue and it will be in one piece, though it may never work properly again. I don't think wood glue can support 200 pounds of force. I might be wrong though.

The Dishes. Of Doom.

I did a total count. There were 18 people eating at my table for dinner. Well, 18.5, actually. I forgot to include Dud. Poor kid.
So naturally, there are numerous dishes that now need to be washed. For each person there is a plate, a fork, a knife, a spoon, a cup, a desert plate, and a napkin. Not that I was the paper napkins. That's really not my cup of tea.
If I finish these dishes before midnight, it'll be a miracle.

P.S. These aren't the actual dinner dishes. This is a picture I grabbed off of the internet. My cutting board is not nearly as worn.

The neighbors visit

Our neighbors, the Lockes, are visiting th Builder house for dinner tonight. No sooner did I get home from a hard day of escorting kids to their Saturday activities than the first of the Lockes appeared.
They're really nice people. There are two little girls and one little boy. Dud likes to play with the boy, and the two girls adore all my daughters.
Dinner was delicious, of course, because my parents are also visiting. The house is stuffed. We had our nine and a half kids, Bob and myself, my parents, and all five members of the Lockes family. The table was stuffed. No elbow room allowed. None. Luckily, I knew what I was doing and managed to set the table just right to give everyone enough room to eat without getting in each other's way.
Ugh. Now I have to go do all of the dishes. Joy.