Aqua Park Outing

Jayke and I have been really busy...hence the lack of posts. Tonight I finally took some time to sit down and do some editing and uploading. I have many more pictures to put on here but for tonight I'm just going to post our pics from our Aqua Park walk.

There is a park in Anderson, on the way to my Dad's house that I have driven by for years and years but never stopped. Today we stopped. I can't believe I've never explored this park before now! It has the best walking trail around the lake through wooded areas and some open area too. There are several bridges you cross as you are walking along the lake with the river to the other side. On the pond there were lots of geese and ducks and one big beautiful swan. We weren't supposed to feed them but we snuck a package of crackers in for them. The swan came right up to us to eat.

On one side of the park there was a huge sculpture and a playground area. We stopped briefly for Jayke to play on the slides and to climb on the sculpture a bit.

After we left the park, Jayke kept telling me how much he liked taking that walk and how shocked he was that I did that. He forgets how I used to do these things with him every day in South Carolina and even when we first came back. It has been a while since we have gone exploring though. I guess because I have always lived here it doesn't seem like there is anything to discover but we did today. I promised to take him to Mounds State Park one day soon. Hopefully the weather will stay nice and we can have another day of exploration soon!

He Must Have Thought we Were in The Outback

Jayke and I took a couple of walks today. On the first walk we went back behind my grandmother's house in the tall tall grass that is along the long pond. We started out to check out the buckeye tree, a favorite activity of Jayke's. We had the dogs with us so we were soon off into the tall grass to retrieve the mutts who had wondered off. Jayke thought it was great tramping around in that grass. He kept telling me he was hunting with Simon and Laynie, the dogs. I think The Boy and the dogs need to get out more often. All of a sudden I hear Jayke yelling, "A KANGAROO! A KANGAROO!" I turn just in time to see a rabbit running off through the field. Apparently he almost stepped on it in it's hiding spot down in the tall tall grass. So, not only does my child think a rabbit is a kangaroo, but my big hunting dogs (one is an actual beagle) didn't even have a clue there was a rabbit in the vicinity. Not even after it took off across the field.

We ventured over to the woods after that and found an abundance of milk weed to blow the seeds around. I was never allowed to do that as a kid. My grandpa would yell at me and tell me the farmer doesn't like them in the fields. Come on! How can a kid resist a milk weed pod just bursting with white fluffiness? Anyway, Grammy doesn't care so we blew all the seeds out of every pod we could find. We also discovered a tree stand on my dad's property with a salt lick just a few feet away. Talk about unfair advantage, not to mention illegal. Poor deer wouldn't even have a chance. I called Jim and he came and took the tree stand down and took the salt lick over to the field with the tall tall grass and the kangarabbit for the deer to be able to enjoy it safely. Jayke and I felt good after our hike and playing conservation officers. Grammy decided to take us out to dinner. Jayke got to pick...Red Lobster, his favorite. Today was a pretty good day.

Not In My House!

I don't really know what I would title this post anyway. Yesterday I read an email from my next door neighbor about finding a snake in her flower bed while pulling weeds. Normally this would not bother me but after finding the scorpion in the bathroom and then reading how this snake was actually striking at her, I am now afraid to go outside. I'm dreaming about spiders, snakes, and scorpions. I think last year we didn't have any of these problems because our house was brand new and the yard and landscaping was brand new so nothing had moved in yet. I'm going to be calling exterminators this afternoon. I want the house treated for bugs INCLUDING scorpions (apparently that is something different). I don't know what I can do about snakes, but if there is something I will find out and do it. I even saw a bunch of bats flying around off my deck the other night. I feel like I've moved to the Amazon!

It doesn't help ease my mind any that when I email Mike at work to tell him about the scorpion in the bathroom, his response back was did I take a picture and how big was it? Who cares how big it was it was a friggin scorpion! IN MY BATHROOM! Then he asked me if I ate it. WTH? This is not the response I want from him. I want him to tell me he is going to take care of it. That I shouldn't spend another second worrying about bugs and scorpions. I should just go back to my blogging, my XBox games, and my soaps, but noooooooo! He doesn't think having scorpions in the bathroom are any big deal apparently. I'm going to go buy a rubber one and put it on his pillow and see if he thinks it is a big deal then. What good is it to have a husband if he isn't going to take care of "bug issues"? Geesh!

I am now going to try to move on from the scorpion in my bathroom and talk about something else. I can't promise I won't mention the little bugger again though.

My mom and Jim are coming to visit in a few weeks. Jayke can't wait. He calls her everyday to ask her when she is coming. I'm excited because they are actually going to stay a whole week and we are goign to rent a boat. We are also going to go up to the mountains and mess around up there for a day. We are goign to take Jayke to Monkey Joe's and I want to take them to Greenville to show them the park and the falls I talk about all the time. We are going to go to Abbeville to look aroound and tour the plantation home there. All of these are things I've been wanting to do so I'm excited! I need something to look forward to and keep me going. Now that I have my FREE Greenville phonebook I can look up some new places to go eat too.

I will be busy cleaning out closets and redoing some of my decorating before they come. I feel like I need to do it everytime anyone comes. It is my own form of OCD. The scorpion got me on a closet cleaning kick so I'm just gonna roll with it.
I may even paint another room.

I'm here AJ! I have just had a busy weekend. Okay, really only Saturday was busy, but I was busy sleeping all day yesterday. Saturday we went to a party with all the management level guys from Mike's work. This was a first for me. I actually only know two people from Mike's work and he never talks about it so it was interesting. Very informative party. Found out, by accident, that Mike got a speeding ticket while driving to Indiana with his boss and another co-worker about a month ago. I guess he felt that since I tried to hide mine from him, he could hide his from me. Turns out neither one of us are very good at hiding things 'cause we both got caught.

Everyone seems nice but it was a little uncomfortable for me because all those people knew each other and were talking about things they had all done together. I also noticed that no one really went out of their way to talk to me. I tried talking to a couple of the wives but they would just answer me and go back to their own conversations. Jaykeb had fun though. The guy who brought Mike to SC has a son a year younger than Jayke and he had a ball playing with him and the bigger kids who were there. It was stinking hot, humid, and sprinkling though and it was at a house on the lake so I was sticky and miserable for a while.

After the party we went out to eat. They only had Korean food at the party and none of us really ate so we were starved. Maybe now we could start doing more with some of the guys Mike works with. There were a couple of the wives who I felt like I could become friends with.

Sunday, like I said, I slept all day. Slept and watched movies with my boys. Mike cooked ribs and they were VERY good. Whatever he did this time he needs to remember it for next time. Then when I was getting ready to go to bed last night I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the bathroom. A SCORPION was on the wall above the toilet! At first I didn't even know what to do. I was afraid to wake Mike so I just grabbed a huge handful of toilet paper, grabbed the scorpion, and through it in the toilet. I'm surprised Mike didn't wake up because I was shuddering and yelling and slamming things around. I dreamed about scorpions all night then. I'm heading to Lowe's to get bug spray this afternoon. Can't be having scorpions hanging out in the john. I have to go google them now and read up on them so I can give myself further nightmares.