If you give a boy a fish (or metal siding)...

I haven't posted in awhile--life seems to get a different kind of busy when my husband gets home. (For those who might not know--my hubby works in the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska as an Electrical Inspector. He works 2 weeks up there and then is home for 2 weeks--most of the time) Its the kind of busy that results from him having a plan and forgetting to verbalize it to me. My man is a great man, he is funny, loving, world's best father, a hard worker and my best friend. He is NOT a communicator. As a matter of fact, when we got engaged my girlfriend said, "You can't marry him, he doesn't speak!" It took me a long time to realize that when I asked him what he was thinking and he said--nothing-it was true!! Talk about a conversation stopper. But I know that every word out of his mouth is honest and that he would never let anything bad happen to me or our children, and that-- my friends--makes him a Keeper.

So--we are in charge of his family's family reunion on August 8th and 9th. It has been more than a little stressful for me. Probably due to the fact that before I got married I had been to only 2 family reunions in my whole life. His family is great though--so all wil be well I am sure. I went with a tribal theme. Each family has a color assignment to do what they want with. Friday evening will be hanging out and visiting and maybe some kind of pow wow thing around the campfire. Saturday we are going to have a tribal olympics. Anyone have any great ideas that they have done for a family olympics? I am thinking games involving water since it will be so hot and we can't go in the lake. We are staying at the Heber Valley Camp. Then a service project and home! Shouldn't be too bad, right?! So this past week has been full of prep work for that. AND the week before that we are staying in a condo for our timeshare thing in Midway, UT. I never even knew there was such a place. It looks all swissy in the brochure. Hopefully it will be fun. We needed to go somewhere local like this year. AND the week before that we will head down to Utah so I can hook up with one of my all time best friends--Deb--because she will be visiting in UT for a week. She lives in Fairbanks, AK. So--WOW! Prep, pack, laundry etc!! And of course theres that thing that my Mother always told me (besides always wear clean underwear when you travel, you might get in an accident and die. I'm not sure why--if I was in an accident I think I might just soil those new panties anyways-but I digress) to leave your house clean because you might die and then what would everyone think? First of all I think they would think my Mother had an unhealthy obsession about vacationing and death! Enough on the vacation thing.

Since I have no pictures of my husband and I not communicating or me running around all frazzled I thought I would include some pics of what my children do when I turn off the T.V. Just remember that we do live in the middle of nowhere and that we are not dirt poor--we just act and look like it.

Construction:

Milan setting up

The finished product

I know--there are no words. Isn't it great??!! I will never look at metal siding the same way again.