Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

I never saw that movie ... but it just seemed fitting.

So last week I actually took three days off of work ... in a row ... it's the longest I've been off since I started my new job over a year ago. Man, was I ready for a vacation! Our mini-vacation took us to the Dells. We stayed at the Kalahari Resort and it was fabulous ... we got a great deal on a suite and we thoroughly enjoyed the water park and amusement park.

But that's not really what I want to discuss ... nope. After we left the Dells we took a detour and headed for Marshall, WI. Anyone ever heard of it? Anyone know where it is? Yeah ... I didn't either. So we had these certificates for free admission to this amusement park called Little Amerricka. Check out their website here. I know what you're thinking ... so cute! Little amusement park with plenty of rides for the kids ... what great family fun!

So here we are when we first arrived at Little Amerricka ...

Just a few things to note ... my dad is actually smiling in this picture. I took several pictures of him over the course of our trip and noticed that he doesn't really smile for photos ... not that he wasn't having a good time because I know he enjoyed himself ... just something I guess I never noticed before. So there is clue number one that something was amiss ... dad was smiling. Clue number two ... what ... what is Brian doing there? Do you see it? Here ... take another look ...


What ... is he plugging his nose??? Oh yes ... yes he is. Are you wondering why he would be plugging his nose? Probably because of this ...



Little Amerricka is located next to a 1,000 cow farm. There were seriously so many cows on this farm that you couldn't even see the dirt ... or manure ... they were stepping on. So the smell ... ummm ... how can I put this ... was less than appealing. I spent most of my time at Little Amerricka looking something like this ...


Seriously ... it was that bad. I don't think I can accurately put into words how horrible the smell really was. Imagine having your whole shoe covered in manure and having that smell follow you around for hours. Now multiply that by ten ...

Everywhere we looked there was something weird. Like these little boats ...



You can see the kids enjoying their boat ride ... out next to the park was a family fun ... cemetery ... it was just creepy. Add who can forget the creepy carnies that you get at every carnival type place. Except these carnies where well past their prime. I think it was a retirement retreat for carnies ... you had to have greasy gray hair and a pot-belly to work there.

The best part by far was the train ride. I think the train was the only ride assembled before the 70's and with the exception of taking us into a giant field and making a sudden stop ... almost as if those old carnies were going to rob the silly tourists blind ... it was a fairly enjoyable ride.

One definite positive about Little Amerricka is you seriously get your money's worth on the rides. They let you ride for a l o n g time. I think Brian and Kadin were on the bumper cars for 20 minutes ... and little Bella must've went around this roller coaster 10 times.



So ... if you're ever in the Madison area and want to veer off the beaten path ... grab a gas mask and head on over to Marshall. At least we didn't bring home a gold fish ...

The Princess And The Pea

Although Bella is not a princess and there really isn't a pea involved at all ... it just sounded catchier than the kid with a Pixo ...

I have spent the last several days with this killer sore throat ... like it hurts so bad I can't sleep sore throat. I almost didn't make it through work yesterday and my thought process was to just make it to lunch time so I could go home and maybe take an hour cat nap.

So I was met at the door by two incredibly enthusiastic children - that's a nice way of saying hyper as hell - that were beckoning me to go in the living room and to play with them. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and snooze for 45 minutes. I could tell from the expression on Brian's face that his whole day had been like this ... two incredibly "enthusiastic" children begging to be played with. Sigh ...

So I was scouring the kitchen for something to eat since my cat nap seemed completely out-of-the-question ... when Kadin requests my presence in the living room ...

"Mom ... come in here and look at this big mess Bella and I made."

"Oh buddy ... I really don't feel like looking at a big mess right now. I'm trying to find something to eat."

"Mom ... please. You've got to see this big mess."

So I shuffle myself over to the living room to see a good portion of my carpet covered in Pixos. Don't remember what Pixos are? They are these insanely small plastic beads that you make into little creations ... spray them with water and they stick together for life ... although they don't really stick together all that well unless they are sticking to mucous covered skin as we will soon find out ...

"That's great Kadin. Now why don't you work on picking those up?"

Grumble, grumble ... that was the extent of what I caught of Kadin's answer to my suggestion.

A few minutes later the microwave was humming with my leftover lunch quickly warming inside it. Over the hum I heard Kadin yell for me.

"MOM!! Bella just put a Pixo up her nose!!"

Aaah ... yes ... my darling little girl and her utter fixation with shoving things up her nose. Remember the plastic flower? How about the metal barrette? Piece of corn anyone??

By the utter grace of God himself I was secretly praying that Kadin was totally making this up to get a rise out of his sick and miserable mother. Alas ... as I rounded the corner I found Bella with the look only a puppy could give after they chewed the crotch out of your underpants ... she was Totally. Guilty.

"Bella ... did you put a Pixo up your nose???" Which I said in the closest thing to a yell I could muster through the pain.

A meek nod was all I got. She was busted ... and she knew it.

You see ... the unfortunate thing about Pixos are that when they become wet ... they get sticky. Since the inside of your nose is covered with snot ... it was a great place to adhere itself to. Great for the Pixo ... not so great for us. She had literally shoved that little thing so far up her nose that you could barely see the blue reflection in the light of the flashlight.

We had that girl blow her nose at least 20 times ... nothing. That thing would not budge. I was certain we were going to be taking our third trip to urgent care. I called the doctor ... the helpful nurse suggested that we try blowing her nose ... "Gee ... I hadn't thought of that!!!!" What in the hell did she think we'd been doing for the last half hour??? Did she think perhaps we tried picking it out with our GIANT fingers???

I was completely frustrated. They couldn't get us in for another two hours ... and that's when I noticed it ... the wheels in Brian's head were spinning so fast I could almost make out faint wisps of smoke emerging from his ears.

He started to disassemble a pen ... he got out the vacuum cleaner and continued to attached the empty pen casing to the smallest attachment we had with duct tape. Holy hell ... he was going to try and suck that Pixo from her nose with the vacuum cleaner!!

Poor Bella didn't know what to do ... she didn't know whether to be scared, interested, confused or shocked. Kadin just stood by with his mouth hanging open as Brian diligently turned on the vacuum and stuck the pen into Bella's tiny nostril.

As a mother (a paranoid one at that) it was almost too much for me to watch. I had to turn away ... yet some sick part of me had to look too. I watched him struggle to get the pen past her nostril because it kept sucking onto the sides of her nose ... it was quite the sight to behold.

Unfortunately the vacuum didn't suck out anything other than some boogers ... gross I know. That damned Pixo was still lodged up there. I was beginning to think our efforts were hopeless.
Brian told Bella to give it one last big blow ... and there it was ... one single blue Pixo neatly placed on the kleenex.

SUCCESS!!! The vacuum must have loosened the Pixos' sticky grip just enough for Bella to blow it out on her own. I called the doctor back to cancel our appointment ... the lady asked if we had decided to take her to urgent care instead.

"No ... we were able to get it out ourselves."

"WE USED THE VACUUM!!!" Kadin so graciously yelled behind me.

Social services is coming on Thursday ... HA!

Master Decorator - I Am Not

I signed up for this cake decorating class at Michael's. There is this lady I work with that makes these amazing cakes. When she told me that she was taking classes I thought she meant at a culinary school, but when she told me they were offered through Michael's I was so excited! I have always loved to bake and thought it would be so much fun to decorate too!

My first class was Monday. Let me begin by stating that typically this course is a four week course - one class per week. Well, I guess the lady is going on vacation the last part of August so our course is crammed into just two weeks - two classes per week. So Monday - our first class - we basically just sat and watched her ice a cake. Now, nothing against the teacher because she's a sweet lady, but she demonstrated out to ice her cake with this fancy tip and bag ... now I'm guessing that most people in the room ... like myself ... don't have much more than a spatula at home to ice with. So I wished she would have showed us what we would've looked like at home spreading our icing with a tiny spatula.

I digress ...

So Monday was our first class ... Wednesday was our second class. For our Wednesday class we needed to come to class with an iced cake. So ... that meant on Tuesday night I needed to bake and ice my cake for my Wednesday class. You can do the math ... I barely get home before 5:30 ... I need to bake a cake ... let it cool enough so I can ice it ... make my icing (did I fail to mention that part?) ... and smooth out the icing all before going to bed. Ummm .... yeah ...

So let me tell you a little bit about my Tuesday night ...

I got home and immediately started to work on my cake. I had gone to the store on my lunch hour to get all the ingredients I was going to need to make my cake and icing. So I got the batter together for the cake (yes it was boxed) and popped it in the oven. Next it was on to the icing. Now in class our teacher told us that the icing would be very stiff ... and when she made it in class to show us ... she used a stand mixer. So I mixed my ingredients together and started blending them with my little hand held mixer ... yeah ... I had chunks flying all over the counter ... in my hair ... all the while my little mixer was on the highest speed, but barely moving.

My icing was totally lumpy and crumbly. It was horrible. By then I realized I needed to check on my cake. I clicked on the oven light ... "hmmm ... that cake doesn't look like it's rising at all." Nope ... it was about as flat as a hockey puck and as if that wasn't bad enough ... it was crooked. WHAT???? I has successfully failed at baking a boxed cake. Let's just say what little confidence I had about this class was completely gone. How can I decorate a freaking cake when I can't even bake one?!?

At first I thought I could still use it ... so it was a little flat and lop-sided, but maybe it was salvageable. UNTIL ... I tried to get it out of the pan and it broke in half. Splendid ...

Now I was mixing cake mix #2 ... and praying I'd have enough energy left to still ice the thing when it came out of the oven.

To make an incredibly long story short ... the second cake turned out fine and even made it out of the pan in one piece. My gracious father-in-law allowed me to borrow his stand mixer (it's totally awesome BTW!!) so I was able to successfully make non-crumbly icing and it only took me until 9:45 to finish icing my first cake. Can you say t i r e d ??

Apparently I should've stopped at the icing part and skipped the decorating because on our second class we decorated our iced cakes. Yeah ... mine turned out like this ...



I really think it looks like a small child did it. If Bella weren't only three I'd tell people she made it. I'm beginning to think that cake decorating is not for me.

At least it tasted good!