Oh where to start… No, I’m not referring to duck hunters or anything of the sorts… I’m talking about hunting a bird. Let’s back up….
So the other day we happened to be at the local dive shop we hang out at…
On the side of the shop toward the back there is a big garage door. it leads into the back side of the shop which we had a door open and a bird flew in the door. I was standing in the middle of the shop and screeched that a bird flew in. So we opened all the doors in the shop trying to chase it out. Didn’t work.
So eventually it perched, we tried to catch it, didn’t work. So we went on the hunt again to find the bird. Jared went upstairs, Karen checked the classroom area, someone went in the kitchen, I wandered around the main part of the shop… NOTHING. We thought maybe it flew out the door.
About 5 minutes later hubby found it on the upstairs ledge. So he grabbed some grabbers and tried to get the bird. He actually grabbed the bird and accidentally dropped it. shucks. So we went after the bird again. This time we found it at the front of the store so Hubby went after it with the grabbers again trying to get ahold and got the bird.
We were afraid the bird wouldn’t be able to fly after that, but it so did. It flew away like a bat out of hell. I don’t blame it 🙂
Over the weekend we took a day trip to Tulsa. After church a bunch of us loaded up and headed to Tulsa, the rest of our group was already down there. Our destination was the Oklahoma Aquarium. At dive club we’d been talking about taking a trip somewhere and finally we decided on the Oklahoma Aquarium. I guess technically we were in Jenks.
Our group that loaded up didn’t get breakfast so while we were supposed to meet the group already down there at noon, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the Waterfront Grill and then headed to the aquarium, which put us there around 1ish. Sorry! Anyway the aquarium was a lot of fun.
Sadly because of our jump forward in time and going to church, Abug was up earlier than normal (equivalent to 5am for her). We then couldn’t get her to nap on the ride down so she was a bit sleepy going through the aquarium (as were the rest of us) but she handled it great!
Our trip down was fairly uneventful but we actually saw that precip that falls out of the sky. It was a crazy! I had to document it. (We’ve been on burn bans for the last 2 months)
Last night was our monthly dive club meeting. At the February meeting we talked about having St. Patrick style food at our March meeting. Wednesday we decided (because we couldn’t remember what was decided at the Feb meeting…. woops!) we’d do Corned Beef and Cabbage. YUM! And let me say that Abug loved it too!
Anyway I was trying to figure out what to make that would also work as St. Paddy’s day food (or is it Patty’s? I think Paddy…. anyway)… Hubby really likes Reuben’s so why not Reuben rolls?
New Year’s Day the last couple years has been spent diving. I have yet to dive on New Years but that’s besides the point! I seriously debated it this year, but in the end, I didn’t. I’m a chicken I guess or maybe I’m smart… you decide.
I’m not the best passenger in a vehicle. I sat near the middle of the bus and decided sleeping was best for me. Deb has been sick and Rachele I guess was tired? I didn’t ask :).
Pete decided he wasn’t staying home. They tried to get him off the bus, but he wasn’t having it. This was really the maiden voyage of the bus since it’s been in our possession (except the trip to the gas station…) and Pete wasn’t about to miss out on the opportunity to ride on the bus and go to the lake.
When we stopped for breakfast, he curled up in the drivers seat. He was just keeping it warm for Jared.
After the December flooding, this is what the lake looked like. Hubs said it had about 2-3 foot visibility if that.
Wow, today got away from me. I spent most of my day learning about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Quite an interesting story, not gonna lie! What’s even more interesting is people don’t want it taught in schools because of some of the language. It is considered racist… written by a guy who was pretty much anti-slavery. Interesting in deed!
Anyway last weekend was the annual Underwater Pumpkin Carving. Since getting certified in 2013, hubby has participated and Tbug has participated but I never had. Writing a scuba blog I figured it was about time that I try too, right? Only fair!
I was a bit nervous about the water temperature since the morning started out in the upper 40’s… but I thought, what the heck. I still think I want to do a New Year’s Day dive just once too. I couldn’t the first year we were certified because they don’t let you dive while pregnant and the second year I chickened out. Maybe this is the year, but enough on that… we’re talking about carving pumpkins underwater!
We beat Deb and Grady there. When we left the house I asked hubs why so early. He told me that this is one of those moments you say yes hunny and just go with it. I said whatever and went to sleep in the front seat of the car. :).
When Deb and Grady got there we started helping them unload the truck/trailer. That’s when they realized they forgot some things. I asked what they needed, got the list and Memaw, Abug and I headed back to Seligman to the new Walmart store. So nice that it is so close, but I’d have gone farther if needed.
When we got back, Grady and Dan were gearing up with their dive students to go out and certify some new divers.
Deb stayed on land to get food ready and get paperwork done for the underwater pumpkin carving. On the menu, Chili, Spaghetti Red, Hot dogs. Karen and I took care of stirring the chili, making the noodles, etc, anything that involved the food so that Deb was free for paperwork. We had 2 gals that were from out of state, Alaska and California. They’d never heard of Spaghetti Red and said it must be a Midwest thing. By the way if you haven’t heard of that… it’s chili on spaghetti noodles.
The water has gone down some since all the rains this summer (not complaining) but it is still rather on the high side. We didn’t get to go to the normal dive side, we went off by where the camping area is. Grady also told me that there wasn’t a thermocline in the top 30 feet which is a good thing. I know my dive computer said 68 degrees when we started diving. It really wasn’t that bad. I know, right?!?!
Once Grady and Dan were done certifying students, they came up and got dressed in regular street clothes. Don’t you just love their dive socks?
All morning I walked around and people asked if I was going to carve a pumpkin. I kept responding with Hubby says I am. LOL. Dan and Tiffany went and camped elsewhere (our normal site is closed for the year). They had their camper on behind the truck so I went and changed in their camper. I forgot to take my dive boots up with me so I was walking around in my regular boots. I got a lot of funny looks, laughs, and head turns :). Whatever, I’m a country girl, it’s all good.
Now I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to get a pumpkin underwater, it’s not easy. They are extremely buoyant. Boomer thought he’d put his in a mesh bag with they said about 40lb of rocks. Didn’t work. His pumpkin came out of the bag and I hear it was a riot to watch from land.
I lucked out because they over weighted me so I could get my pumpkin down but it kept floating me to the surface so hubby had to take it down for me. I put it against my chest so that my over weight would take it down. No such luck. Hubby got it down for me though. Then he held it while I cut it open. Once the top came off we weighted it down with water and rocks. While I was carving I broke 2 knives. luckily we took 4 down with us. (You’ll know me underwater by my yellow sleeves although in the green murky water they don’t quite look yellow)
The joke back up on surface was that now that we’ve carved pumpkins we have to go get all the insides and get them out of the water. Yeah right, good luck with that!
Abug played soooooo hard up on surface. Memaw followed her around checking everything out and picking up acorns. She soooooooo wanted to get in the water and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to. Memaw couldn’t get her to sleep so finally Karen took her and walked away from the crowd and she went to sleep fairly quickly.
While Karen was putting her to sleep, I went and used their truck and a blanket to change back into my street clothes. Then we had to vote for whose pumpkin should win. This time I left my boots down with everyone else so I got to walk across the campsite area barefoot. Man I never had the right shoes at the right place.
So Mike won for Ugliest Pumpkin
Annie won for Best Effort
Tiffany was 3rd. And the blogger was fired for this out of focus picture.
Justin was 2nd.
And Dan was 1st.
Mine is pumpkin #2 (third on the top row)
and our 3rd, 2nd and 1st place winners. Dan and Tiffany are married so Justin wound up in a family sandwich :). haha.
Let me tell you, this wasn’t bad. Water was great, visibility was great. And it was a lot of fun! Back on land, my pumpkin lasted one day. There’s something about that lake water that ruins them. oh well… such is life I guess.
It’s been a few years since I’ve been involved in a surprise party. If you recall, the last one started Tbug pushing/tripping hubby through a door (okay I might have been involved in that part too….) into a room full of people who were waiting to surprise him.
This time around though, hubby was involved in the planning or at least the execution of the party. Let me paint you a picture.
Hubby got off work and headed to Jared & Karen’s house. They were waiting for Grady to leave the shop so that we could start decorating for the party. Grady thought he was teaching a class at 6:30pm, but really we were having a surprise birthday party for his 60th birthday (which is today).
Finally Jared called and said that his truck broke down again and needed to be towed. Grady left the shop in a hurry. Hubby and Karen were in Hubby’s truck headed the long way to the shop. Deb, Chuck, SW, DW & I started prepping with decorations. When hubby got there he started putting Grady’s present together quickly while Karen jumped in and helped us decorate.
Jared sent Karen a text saying that Grady never drives that fast and he was having to ride his brakes to slow him down. Then they got the guy at the shop they were “towing” Jared’s truck to in on helping to stall Grady.
Let’s get through Mermet Springs (Day 1, Day 2), what do you say? So what I’m telling you is… we’re going to have pictures GALORE! Just know, you’ve been warned!
Friday morning as we were headed out to Mermet Springs from Metropolis we passed by Hardee’s. Jared mentioned it so Saturday morning we decided to grab breakfast there before heading to dive. Have you had their Pork Chop Breakfast Sandwich? Oh goodness, you’re in for a treat with this one… no joke!
One thing I’ve learned about the group at Mermet Springs is they’re out to help make sure you have an enjoyable dive as well as an enjoyable trip. I even got an interview with the owner for the Scuba Blog I write. I got the back story on how they got the Boeing 727 from the movie bought as well as how they got it into the quarry for people to dive in. Pretty sweet story, really! Now the little ol’ man who has sat on the dock the last 3 years now is adorable.
Now the hotel has a continental breakfast but we decided not to eat there. Instead we decided to go back across the river to Paducah and eat at Cracker Barrel.
They gave Abug a kids menu. She ate the Crayons and Karen and I tried to color on it some. Do you see a theme here. ha!
After we ate we wandered through the store. I saw this sign and totally started laughing. This is definitely a sign for me. ha! I also found a Mr. & Mrs. Santa Clause Salt and Pepper shaker for $.99 a piece. I bought them. I’ll have to tell you that story some time.
When I got to Jared and Karen’s house, I mentioned that and the rest of the weekend, EVERYONE was singing it. We met up with a bunch of friends at Mermet Springs (Metropolis, IL) and they got involved singing it. Craziness!
Half of the larger group left different times on Thursday, the rest left on Friday. We left around 11:30 so we didn’t have to haul tail to get there.
Once we got to Springfield, everyone in our truck (there were 6 of us… Hubby, Jared, Karen, Memaw, Abug, and me) was hungry. I started listing different restaurants we could eat at. Eventually we chose Red Robin, YUMMMMMM! 🙂
Now our trip was 6ish hours and I drank at least 2 glasses of Sweet Tea. Not my smartest move :).
Now unless people are just meeting me for the first time, they’ve learned that I take pictures of everything. But I tried not to get on people’s nerves this trip so I mainly just stuck to pictures of my food and/or hubby’s food. I just try not to annoy people too much. Just because I like blogging and pictures doesn’t mean others do… (more…)
Let’s just state for the record… if you don’t like pictures, today’s post is definitely not for you… we’re looking at 33. It’s just a days worth of photos and truthfully, there were more, I weeded it down to 33. FYI over. Now let the post commence.
Whoever heard of or thought of getting up before 7am on a Saturday is out of their mind. This is probably why I didn’t marry a farmer… lol :). This last weekend a huge group of our friends went down to the lake. Hubby and I decided we’d meet up with them Saturday for a day at the lake. (the rest were camping!!) Abug woke up her cheery normal self and was eating animal crackers to start her day. This kids momma didn’t raise a fool. lol :). Then on the drive down she took in a little snooze. Again, her momma didn’t raise a fool!
