The Green Home

Our house really needed painting and the HOA told us that we had to paint it, so we had it painted this summer. Here's the whole house before.............


The very faded garage door.....


Looking better........


And now the whole house.........
The paint job has been done for about 3 months and I STILL have debates with myself over the color of the darker green trim. It just didn't turn out like I expected. If I look at it when the sun is shining directly on it, I'm like, "No way. That has got to be changed." Then, in the evening, I'm like, "Well, it really looks fine." It's strange and I think I should probably just forget about it, but that's hard for me. My neighbor across the street is very wise and suggested that I simply not look at my house during the day when the sun is shining on it.

P.S. to last blog post

After I mentioned Sen. Mike Crapo in the last post, I was trying to remember another very strange and unfortunate name that I read in our paper just a few days after chuckling about poor Sen. Mike's last name. Well, it came to me and I've looked in the newspaper's online archive to double check myself. It was a story about a man in a neighboring town who was growing a pineapple (musta been a slow news day!). His name is...........get ready for this............Purdy Outhouse! I am not making this up! What were the parents of this man thinking? As if Outhouse wasn't challenging enough, they gave him a first name that can be heard as the sloppy form of "pretty!" Oh, my, my. Maybe one day Mr. Crapo and Mr. Outhouse will meet and appreciate the odd connectivity of their surnames. This makes me grateful to have the simple last name of "Green."

Mr. WHO?

This might be one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it made me laugh, several times, so I thought I'd share it. Kaela was reading a book called "A Fish Out of Water" to me. It's about a boy who feeds his pet fish, Otto, too much food and the fish grows bigger and bigger and bigger. The boy buys the fish from a man named Mr. Carp. Well, Kaela is reading along...."This little fish, I said to Mr. CRAP, I want him. I like him. And he likes me. I will call him Otto. Very well, said Mr. CRAP...." She just keeps right on reading, not realizing that Mr. CRAP is a strange name for a person. She only stops because I'm laughing SO hard. I correct her, without any explanation, but now I will always, in my head, hear "Mr. CRAP" when that story is read.

Sadly, there is someone with the last name of Crapo. Mike Crapo. He's a senator from Idaho. Poor guy.

July 4th, 2010

I'm jumping around in time, posting old stuff and new. Bear with me.

Our 4th of July celebration was different and really fun this year. Rho bought some tickets for a professional lacrosse game from a co-worker. So, we went down to the Pepsi Center and got there early to eat our dinner in the van. For whatever reason, we didn't open the windows or anything and when we finished eating and stepped outside, it had gotten chilly! We were all dressed in shorts and flip flops--totally inappropriate for the change in weather. We knew there was no way we could enjoy this game if we were freezing, so we made the decision to drive all the way back home (about 40 minutes) to get warmer clothes. On our drive back home, it also started to sprinkle, so we grabbed ponchos as well. Well, even though we went as fast as we could, we had missed half of the game by the time we got back. The weather had not cleared up, and we were in our seats for probably 2 minutes before the rain came pretty hard and we all threw ponchos on. Many people were using umbrellas, which we chose not to take, figuring they weren't allowed. Umbrellas would have helped A LOT! Kaela had to go to the bathroom after a little bit, so I took her, and when we were heading back to our seats, we saw that it was absolutely pouring! We stood around under cover for a bit before heading back to our seats and word was spreading that the after game fireworks were going to be cancelled! NO! That was the main reason the girls even cared about being there. We sat, trying our best to keep dry, for the rest of the game, which was really fun to watch, and near the very end an announcement was made that the fireworks would indeed happen! YAY! We've been to a couple of stadium fireworks displays before and they are really neat. They do loud, patriotic music and slides on the big screens, along with in-your-face fireworks. It was awesome! I turned to look at the kids at one point and saw that Karis was crying! huh? I could tell she wasn't upset, however, so I left her alone. Afterwards, I asked her why she was crying and she said, "It was just so beautiful." Awwwww! What a sweetie. It really was an awesome show, despite our soggy bottoms and the chill we got. We were happy to get back to the van afterwards and crank the heat on! There are no pictures to post of the game, since it was raining, but here are a few taken earlier in the day.



I gave the girls patriotic manicures and pedicures.

Corban's 11th Birthday

Kaela and Karis's birthdays are upon us and I realize that I never blogged about Corban's birthday. (Quite a realization, huh, seeing as I hardly ever post about anything! Ha! But I'm getting better!)

Corban had one wish for his birthday this year. A longboard! I don't know where he first heard of these things, but he'd been to the skateboard store a few times to look and was sure these were lots more fun than a regular deathboard. I mean skateboard. He was very happy to get one. And to make it more fun for Corban.......

Rho thought he should get one too. It's more fun to ride with someone!


Corban tries out the board.

And now he helps Karis try it out. What a nice brother!

And then Kaela gets a ride. Fortunately, the girls did not get the "bug" for longboards. I would not want for this to become a family activity! Corban hasn't had any major crashes on his board, thank God, but Rho had a good, but soft, fall one evening and says that passers-by were actually laughing at him! Hahahahahahahaha! Wish I could have seen it! I mean, I'm really glad Rho is ok.

Locks of Love

Near the end of July, Karis's hair was long enough for a donation to Locks of Love. There had been MANY times we were ready to get rid of the length, due to the frustration of tangles, but she was determined to grow it and give it away.

Here she is at Great Clips ready to get her new "do."

She first had to endure this Princess Leia-like goofy look.

Then came the big cut! Bye-bye hair! Good riddance tangles!

She's all smiles afterwards, loving her shorter hair!

The back is shorter than the front/sides. I thought she might be upset after having so much cut off, but she loved this cut immediately! Way to go Karis!

The Climbing Handyman

Here's Rho doing another tricky maneuver when I needed this crazy stairwell window and light fixture dusted. He started at the top of the stairs and shimmied his way over until he could reach the window with an extender pole. This was taken several months ago and now there's a lightbulb burned out, so he'll need to do it again before long. It's handy to have a rock climber around the house!

How many tools does it take......

.....to change a lightbulb?

1. 4 chairs
2. 1 ladder
3. 1 2x4 (or something like that)
4. 1 pair of kitchen tongs

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Kaela's history curriculum started with a lesson about the continents and oceans. Because it was a beautiful day, I asked Kaela to go outside and do a chalk drawing of the globe. This is what she drew. What I want to point out are the 2 oval-ish shapes on the outside that kinda make it look like the earth has ears. I asked her what those were and she explained to me that they were "God's hands, holding the earth that he made." What a beautiful addition she thought of! I love it!

First Day of School PHOTOS

It would have been nice to post the photos with the blog. But, better late than never!


Kaela is ready for first grade! A homeschool kid needs a backpack too! Well, not really, but she filled it with homeschool supplies, which was really cute. I had her stand outside the school room door and wait for the "bell" to ring. When it did, I opened the door with a cheery, "Welcome first grader!" We wanted it to feel official.


Wow, I can't believe Corban is in middle school. This photo was actually taken on the second day of school, which was the first "real" day. The first day was just an orientation day. He has considerable less "poof" to his hairstyle since having LOTS of hair thinned away. Thank goodness.

Ever since she got her hair cut, Karis looks almost too old to be a second grader. She could hardly wait to get out the door the first morning. I wish that were still true now, 3 weeks later! She's hangin' in there though.