MIA for a bit...

But lots going on!

I thought I'd go light on the words today and heavy on the pics... (that is, until I got on the topic of ice cream).

We'll start with this morning's excitement. We walked out the door to head to school this morning and found this fantastic fellow hanging out in the driveway. He was huge!

Ty heard the commotion and came flying out of the house in his tighty-whities. Then proceeded to hover about an inch over the bug while exclaiming "He doesn't even mind when I'm THIS close to him!!"


Earlier in the week, we finally got a chance to try my friend Sarah's cute pet rock in habitat idea.
I took Ty and his best bud Hudson out hiking for some cool rocks. Then we took them home and gave them a nice, soapy bath in the sink. The boys scrubbed away, until their new "pets" were nice and clean, then they towel dried them. The last step was to paint them, so they would look like whatever pet they deemed them. Hudson, who is on a major dinosaur kick as of lately, instantly christened them dinosaur eggs and dinosaurs. Ty was a bit more pensive. He finally decided his largest rock would make a wonderful blue meteor. Then he decided one would be a "rascal". He looked at me, completely earnest, and said "Mommy, what color is a rascal?". I was tempted to tell him they look like small boys who never wear pants, and have wild hair, but instead told him I thought that most of the rascal population were orange. Finally, after the rascal, and meteor were complete, he settled on his last "pet", a raccoon egg.


painting with great panache...




the pets are resting in their habitats...


A Tale of Two Cities (and some ice cream)...
Specifically, Phoenix Arizona, and Holland Michigan. This tale began when I was a tiny little girl of about 2 years, growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan, and living in the small town of Grand Haven. This is where it all began. Where I first tasted the mysterious, delicious, scoop of blue heaven that many a Midwesterner know as... Blue Moon Ice Cream. If you are lucky enough to have lived in the Midwest, and have tasted it, then you know what I speak of, if you have not, I can only tell you, it must be tried before your days walking this Earth are over. It is a flavor that cannot be described, nor can it be recreated. Sadly, however, this little bit of wonder is only available in the Midwest (I have heard that a place is located in Redondo Beach, CA, that occasionally has it, and I fully intend to investigate this claim). The brand that we love, the brand our family has grown up with, is made by Hudsonville Ice Cream, in West Michigan. In some evil ruse to hide this marvelous flavor from the rest of the world, Hudsonville kindly informed me by email that they do not ship their ice cream, and I would have to "enjoy it the next time I visit Michigan". Oh no, this does not work for me, not at all. I need to have it HERE!!! In Arizona!! Well, as luck would have it, my husband had to fly back to Michigan for 3 days this month. Not much time, but enough to work out a plan. A plan, to bring 3 half gallons of ice cream back to the scorching desert. Crazy? Yes. Possible? We only hoped. Lamont dutifully went to the grocery store in Michigan, made his purchases, and stuffed them in his checked luggage in a styrofoam cooler, packed with dry ice. Then, he hopped on a plane for 3 and a half hours. Praying. I waited for him in the Mesa airport, also praying, and as I saw him step out of the gate, my heart leaped for joy. He was back, and that meant that my beloved Blue Moon was somewhere near, very near. I could almost smell the Fruity-pebbles-esque sent wafting through the air. We grabbed his checked bag, and ran to the van, our hearts racing with excitement and anticipation. We opened the cooler, and there it was... fully intact... err, I think... oh my God!!! What is that liquid running from the side?!?!?! Oh my heck! We need a store, stat! It was still holding on, but was slowly losing it's "cool". We drove like bats out of hell to the nearest Walmart, and I ran in full tilt. The sweet little old lady at the door greeted my panicked expression with a friendly yet curious "may I help you?" Yes!!! I told her I needed dry ice, as fast as possible. She looked at me baffled. "I don't think we have anything like that in our store..." Clearly the poor soul had never even heard of such a thing, and just guided me to the regular ice bins... it will have to suffice, I have no time to search the store. I grabbed some, and flew out to the car. We stood on the blistering blacktop, pavement burning our shoe soles and dry ice burning our hands, reorganizing the ice cream, and redistributing all of the old and new ice, and sealed it off. This poor ice cream was nearing critical condition. There's no way it could handle an hour drive home on a blistering 108 degree day. We decided an air-conditioned restaurant was our only hope, to give it a respite from the heat, and a chance to re-freeze before the drive. Then came our saving grace. An angel in TGI Friday's uniform. I cannot recall her name, but I will never forget her kindness... she saved our blessed ice cream. She stared at us oddly lugging in a huge foam cooler, and asking to be seated. I assured her we did not have any vital organs in our cooler, but we did have a quickly deteriorating situation. It was then that she offered us... space in the Friday's walk in freezer. Angel from above!! You have saved our frozen smurf colored friend! We dined for over an hour, while our ice cream froze to rock hard status, thanked her profusely, and made the drive home. Our Blue Moon arrived fully intact, and has been carefully rationed out since, with only one and a half containers remaining.

The star of the story...