Extreme Sports.

The title of today's blog might imply I have some witty stories about my boys making up their own extreme sports in the yard.  Something like setting up some bike ramps a good 5 feet apart and attempting to jump the gap with no thought as to what would brace the ramps in place, or even "attaching" (using that term loosely here) a laundry basket to a skate board to make "laundry cart racers".  But no, this blog actually pertains to the other side of all of that extremeness.

Sometime in the last couple of months I have received the following card multiple times.  I think people are trying to tell me something. ;)

By the way...my boys have actually done exactly what those three crazies in that picture are doing. ;)  When I first looked at it, I did a double take to make sure someone hadn't snapped a photo in the front yard. ;)

While the before mentioned extreme sports and the one in the picture have actually taken place here, my tale of extreme boy parenting has a different spin on it today. I've been wrestling with the question lately, how do you parent these extreme boys without freaking out?"  I'm not just talking about being worried about physical harm, although that is a constant threat here, but how do you handle all of their issues.  How to teach them to become responsible young men who respect their families, friends and all the blessings in their lives.  How do you dictate without being a dictator?  The older the boys get the more we are moving from extreme boys to extreme parenting.  Well, except for the slide that was fashioned out of blankets from the top bunk down yesterday, that is still extreme boy. ;)  Of course there is no answer to all these questions, all we can do is feel our way thru and do the best we can.  They don't come with an owners manual...which is really too bad. ;)

The wine for the day is a large coke from the local convenience store.  Tonight I am taking the big one to freshmen orientation and I don't think it's appropriate for me to show up there with a glass of red wine. ;) Maybe a glass of an old favorite, Cupcake chardonnay, will be in order afterwards.  I'm quite sure my brain will be informationed and teenagered out by the time I am home for the evening. ;)

Happy Tuesday!

Not burned out...just burned up!

Well, hello!  It's been awhile since I have been on the blogspot...a long while.  I have no excuse for this except that it is summer and has been over 100 degrees for 50+ days.  To explain just a bit, summer is not my favorite season.  I'm a fall girl, I love crisp air and being outside without dripping sweat.  I love football and Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I love all the boys in my family having birthdays and celebrating an anniversary with my love.  I love....oh jeez, I sound like a kleenex commercial right about now.  HA!  That's so not me.  I really do love fall, but this is summer which also has fun to offer.  It's just busy and doesn't leave much time for anything extra....like writing on my blog, which I miss terribly.  It doesn't help that this particular summer is the hottest one we have had in something like 150 years.  Some people say it's hotter than hell; I say we must live somewhere a ways south of there. ;)

In an effort to escape this inferno I loaded up the boys and we headed to the mountains of Colorado!  We made the trip in one day...11 hours and 53 minutes to be exact which is a loooong time to be in the car with or without three boys.  Well, the middle would like for me to clarify, that time actually did include a stop at the liquor store.  After 11 hours and 22 minutes in the car, stopping for tequila was a major priority for me. ;)  Some day when they travel with their families, they will look back on this and understand why that was my first stop. ;)  The week was a blast and included lots of hiking, biking, a trip to Vail for dinner with friends, a trip to Denver for time with family and Broncos training camp and mom beating all three boys down the mountain on the alpine slides.  Never underestimate the power of the mom boys...never. ;)  We ended the week with a visit to the local hat store.  Here is how that went....you might actually be able to hear me laughing thru these pictures.  :))

We ended up coming home with a cute version of the birthday hat (which I will torture them all with over the next two months;)  And these two beauties....

 Yes, that is in fact, a mullet on the middle.  No one, and I mean no one, can pull off the mullet wig like this kid.  He wore that around town the entire last day entertaining the masses.  :))  The big kid and I enjoyed walking about 10 feet behind the two of them and watching people's reaction to the mullet and the afro.  Well I enjoyed it, the teenager was waffling between thinking it was hilarious to being mortified.  I had to keep reminding him that we would likely never see any of those people again.  That argument worked real well until we stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere Kansas on the way home the next day and some girl said, "Hey, aren't you the guy walking around with the kid in the mullet?"  HA!

On the way home, I decided to try and set a record.  I don't know why I do this to myself...the only thing I can come up with is that I like to think I am in control. ;)  We headed out early and I informed the boys that they should only sip water because we would not be stopping.  We only stopped twice the entire day.  We were on target to make it home in a record time of just under 11 hours when we got about 11 miles from home and the highway closed.  Seems there was a massive grass fire up ahead, which is the way things go inside the "ring of fire".  It took exactly 3 hours to travel the last 11 miles to home.  I did indeed set a record...in the 8 years we have been going to Breckenridge, that was the longest it has ever taken to get home.  And, there wasn't even a liquor store stop involved. ;)  So I can't control the temperature or the traffic, but I can control the tequila. ;)

The wine of the day is Twisted River Riesling.  A nice light white is a good choice when it's 110 degrees outside.  I'll sign off today with this to ponder....when John Denver is singing, "It's Colorado rocky mountain high.  I've seen it rainin fire in the sky."  Is he speaking of how high the mountains are or a different, slightly less legal kind of high?  I was all excited to play some John Denver for the boys on the way up the mountain until this question was raised.  Awesome...when did they get so smart? ;)

Happy Monday!