A Little Thanksgiving Afloat

We decided to head out on a little sailing adventure with the kids and some friends for the Thanksgiving Break...We put a little blog together for it which you can check out by clicking here...

Nothing Says "I Love You" Like a Hubcap

Ever love someone so much that you'd do anything for them?
Like even search the world over for the perfect hubcap for them?
Well, that's how much I love my friend Whitney.

Poor Whitney lost her hubcap.  And, well, to be perfectly honest, it made her car look like a total beater.  And that just wouldn't do. 

I first met Whitney at the baseball fields this past spring.  At the time she was a college student and local basketball phenom to boot.  Whitney is the kind of gal that makes friends everywhere she goes, which is why I like her.  She started showing up and watching almost every baseball game Connor's team played because she knew some of the kids he played with.  From her gregarious grandstand antics, I could tell right away we were gonna hit it off.

Whitney's so likeable that in my cell phone's directory she's listed as "Whitney Awesomeness". 

So when I spotted her car with a black eyesore where her hubcap should have been, I sprung into action.  How hard can it be to find a stray hubcap??  These little auto accoutrements seem to lose themselves all over the place and there's some unwritten car creed that if you find one by the road side you dangle it like a piece of jewelry from something high to attract the owners attention should they come looking for it.  And I was now looking for it.

I can't think of anything that says "I love ya" like a hubcap. (Except maybe dark chocolate.)  And so began my serious cap quest.

Shockingly, once I began looking for stray caps I never saw any.  Some sort of freakish hubcap shortage has overtaken the Northwest.  A solid week past and not a single cap in sight.

On the second week I finally spotted my first lost hubcap.  It had been propped up in the middle of a median strip.  And not just any median strip.  It happened to be the mother of all median strips if there ever was one.  This little concrete oasis harboring the hubcap was ominously dividing  SIX lanes of traffic.  Smack dab in the middle of mayhem.

This would require planning and expert stealthyness...and perhaps a trip to the ER should it go wrong.  But I was undeterred.  Undeterred because by a stroke of luck I happened to have a passenger with me in the car!  Poor Nick didn't know what hit him.  I made several U-Turns and circled the cap like it was some sort of prey and began to discuss a little "strateg-ery" with my unwilling companion.  Then all of a sudden  the traffic eased for just a brief moment--it was now or never!  In a moment of impulse, I swerved to the little island, jammed on the brakes, and shouted "Go! Go! Go!" at Nick.  Panic struck, poor Nick hopped out of the car in a state of shock and awe and ran for the safety of the median.

I circled several more times before finding the right time to come back and pick the poor guy up.  He was a little freaked out by the time he made it back to the safety of the car and once inside he gave me "the look" for pressuring him into such a crazy stunt.  But I could tell, underneath his anxiety, it was the most amusing thing he'd dared to do in a long time.

When he handed over the hubcap and I immediately knew...but I just didn't have the heart to tell him at that very moment...that upon closer inspection the darn thing was obviously way way too big to fit on Whitney's car.  I'd find a time to tell him later after he'd calmed down, that he'd risked his life for nothing. [sheepish grin.]

While he caught his breath and his elevated adrenaline levels subsided back to normal, I drove to Whitney's place, stuffed the giant hubcap in her little porch mailbox and left her a note that said, "I love you this much".  She'd know it was from me.  Who else loves people with hubcaps?

Another week went by before I found the second one.  Again I had to circle around.  By this time I should have had a bumper sticker on the back of my car that says, "I brake for hubcaps" cause that's about all I did when driving.  My eyes were surveying the roadsides for her illusive cap.   This time the second one I found was just a block away from the coffee shop where Whitney works.

Look at that beauty!  I swerved off the road and grabbed it and delivered it to her ASAP.  Her break wouldn't come for a while so we'd just have to wait for the moment of truth and see if it actually fit. 

Two hubcaps.  That's an unmistakable friend right there don't you think?

Turns out, the second time's the charm.  It fit!
(okay, okay, I do realize that they don't quite exactly match, but it stinkin fits and looks waaaay better than the hub-less eyesore of yesteryear.)

 And now, her car looks just as legit as her friendship is.   
A happy ending indeed.

Let's just hope she never loses her muffler.  I draw the friendship line there.

Suggested Reading

I forced poor Nick into going on a little jaunt over to Barnes and Noble with me.  He's not really a reader, which is to say he can read but prefers not to...that is unless you give him a picture book with football or wresting photos in it.

As you can imagine, he wasn't really excited about my invitation for a little adventure at the bookstore, but Nick being the lovable guy he is, he came anyway.  As if that wasn't enough strain on his good nature, I proceeded to heckle him the entire drive about his ill disposition towards the written word--which I think may have irritated him a wee bit, as you will see shortly... 

Once we got to the store I challenged him to go and find some books he could recommend I read:

The little smarty pants came back with this book for me:

And this one for Mark:

Lesson learned: Never heckle a non-reader and then sent them free in a bookstore.  They will find a way to get back at you for insulting their intelligence with a little impish war of wits.

Well done Nick, well done.

A Toe-Nail Fairy?

We live by a very serious creed around here at the Skillman house:

If you lose a body part, stick it under your pillow and see if you can get some money for it.

This dogma originated from deep contemplation when I was about 6-years old .  An enlightened thinker aren't I?  Yes indeed.

When I was a kid I wondered why some fairy would pay money for a junky old tooth that fell out of your head.  Doesn't really make sense does it?  But the tooth market went gangbusters and seemed to be a big cash cow for a kid like me and I began to wonder why teeth were the only body part that had a fairy on duty doling out the cash. 

I decided to test my little theory that teeth can't be worth more than any other body part lost, so when I was set to have my tonsils taken out, my young mind was abuzz with a plan.  I simply asked the doc to put said tonsils in a jar and I took those suckers home and tried my luck by putting them under my pillow. 

All I got was a sore neck from a large lumpy pillow--Apparently there ain't a tonsil fairy after all. 

Then about a dozen years ago Mitchell was bit by a dog in the forehead.  I'm not really sure what happened because a great mystery-ridden cover-up shrouded both the affair and the abrasion. The bite was concealed with an extra large bandage by someone with a history of unorthodox behavior.  Several days later, after the bandage was removed, it was discovered that indeed the wound was more serious than the "bandage brandish-er" had thought and that something incredibly huge was lodged into the poor kid's forehead. 

Fast forward a creepy month later and out from Mitchell's very own forehead I literally wiggled loose (with a pair of giant tweezers)
a very large dog's tooth!  Which explains his ultra cool Harry Potter-like forehead scar. 

This event was sure to both literally and psychologically scar the kid for life...until I suddenly thought of a great plan...

"Why don't you put it under your pillow and see if the Tooth Fairy will take it?"  I suggested.  Then I built a brilliant case for the payment of any tooth lost from anywhere on one's body; kid or canine.  A tooth's a tooth right??

And so Mitchell tried his luck and put it under his pillow.  The next morning he discovered he had received a windfall of cash for one of the most epic tooth losses of all time.

Ever since then, we've been putting all kinds of lost body parts under our pillows: gum ridden clumps of hair mostly.  Thank goodness no one around here has had an appendix removed because I'd try extorting a few bucks for that too.  A loss is a loss, right?

So when our cousin Madi spent the night over the weekend and she lost her entire big toenail I knew exactly what must be done.  The poor girl, just weeks earlier, had cut her big toe so badly that half the thing was stitched back on so it would stay put.  And while Madi's toe was miraculously saved...her toenail was not.  It barely hung on after "the storm grate incident" and her nail finally gave up the ghost and fell off at our house. 

Chloe, who's very familiar with, and has been well trained in   
"the art of extracting money for lost body parts" quickly sprung into action and ran and got an envelope for ravaged nail and plunked it inside, insisting that Madi write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining her little mishap.

It was placed under her pillow that night.

In the morning, low and behold, we were elated to discover that there is a Toe Fairy!  and she's/he's ready to pay out!  (and we noticed this fairy is not as forgetful as the Tooth Fairy has been of late.)

So a word to the penny-wise:  If you lose it, and it came from your body, find an envelope it'll fit in and try your luck.  You'll be amazed at what you'll get paid for these days.

Sadly though, tonsils need not apply.

Eleven Reasons...

Happy 11-11-11, 

It's Veterans Day and the kids are all home from school today.  This sort of epic numerical date just begs to be celebrated.  I think we'll take some cookies to a couple of my favorite Veterans that live nearby and then commence with a little 11 weirdness.  
I made some giant loaf sandwiches, 
bought some licorice and Kit Kat bars.  Perhaps we'll play some Uno (twice), and watch Ocean's 11. 

meanwhile, here's
Eleven Reasons your the One...

Mark-

1. You're always up for an adventure.
2. Anything you put your mind to, you do really well.
3. You can run a marathon faster than a lot of guys half your age.
4. The way you designed our house so that the heater vent would blow warm air on my toes when I'm at the kitchen sink and my bathroom counter.
5. You're always willing to paint Chloe's toenails for her.
6. You always see the glass half full, even if the glasses are all dirty and loaded upside-down in the dishwasher.
7. You never ever stink.  And you don't mind that I'm always sniffing your neck like you're some sort of scratch & sniff book.
8. You celebrate every milestone, big or small, with a speech.
9. Your the kind of dad every kid dreams of having and every mother is afraid to leave unsupervised with the kids.  [Case in point:  "rooftop football".]
10. You always warm up the car and turn the seat heaters on for me when it's a cold day.
11. You've still got all your hair.  hehehe.

Cheyenne-

1. You are very very thoughtful.
2. You make me look really shy and quiet.
3. You always ready to tackle a crazy grandiose project with impassioned and reckless abandon.
4. You're impetuous, which means adventure awaits.
5. You love games, but hate to lose.
6. You'll throw a party to celebrate anything.
7. You're the first to volunteer to do anything.
8. After your car crash, you still drive like a delicate little old blue-haired granny (which amuses me unless I happen to be driving behind you). 
9. You never seem to get bummed out by your diabetes, even when I do.
10. You include everybody.
11. You mother your brothers--even better than I do.

Justice-

1. You're a prolific non-fiction reader.  I love that.
2. You love my Chey Chey
3. You know a lot about everything but never flaunt it.
4. You're not a fan of the Twilight Series.
5. You're willing to put up with your wife that is a fan of Twilight.
6. You trust me enough to try my bizarre bowling tips.                 a.k.a "The Suitcase"
7. Unlike Mitchell, you don't make fun of Mac-users.
8. You act like you and Mitchell have been brothers forever.
9. You love a good card game.
10. You moved my daughter back up to Oregon.
11. You're good to your mother-in-law even though I'm a freak.

Baby Kendra-

1. You're so stinkin' cute.
2. When you get stinky or fussy I can hand you to your mother (even though I usually don't)
3. I can stick my tongue out at you and you don't get offended.
4. I don't have to comb my hair when I Skype with you.
5. You don't tell on me when I accidentally cuss.
6. You're squishy and giggly.
7. You'll clap for me no matter what I do.
8. You let me pinch your bum.
9. You've got scrumptious toes.
10. You've got hair long enough to try out freaky hair-dos.
11. You're never embarrassed about being stinky.

Mitchell-

1. You can crack a joke without cracking a smile.
2. You can eat a horse, which is admirable for such a skinny guy.
3. You make the best delicious chocolate awesomeness.
4. You're never too old for costumes.
5. You're a great writer.
6. Your insatiably curious and like to discuss things that are waaaay too hard for me to ever begin to understand.
7. When you have a need for something you don't have, you'll rig it up like MacGyver.
8. You're a hard worker.
9. You're not afraid of heights and like to scare people who are.
10. You're ALWAYS kind to people.
11. and, of course, because you fix all my electronic issues.

Connor-

1. First and foremost, the eyebrows.
2. You're a stud on first base. (baseball people, baseball!)
3. You're not a quitter.
4. You love the ocean.
5. You've got mad wakeboarding skills.
6. You're a horrible liar, and you know it.
7. You always open every door for your mother.
8. You idolize your dad.
9. You can quote the perfect movie line for the perfect situation.
10. All on your own, you voluntarily hug your mom in public without ever caring what your friends think.
11. You're the only one in the house that openly admits to being afraid of the stupid cat beside me (and you know there are others, they're just too embarrassed to say it).

Chloe-

1. You are my second brain.
2. You're also my third brain, since mine repeatedly fails me.
3. You appreciate a fabulous pair of shoes just as much as I do.
4. You're willing to pop your dad's toes even though it grosses you out (even I don't love him that much).
5. You're not afraid of the stupid cat, when everyone else is.
6. You are very determined and there's no stopping you.
7. The freckles on your cheeks make me smile.
8. The way you can organize things in no time flat.
9. That you're so ready to be in braces that you'll recklessly wiggle and extract your 5 remaining teeth so that you can speed up the process.
10. When Mitchell's not around, you're great at trouble shooting my computer problems. (embarrassing but true.)
11. You write the best love notes, sometimes bizarre, but always the best.

Nick (my pseudo-son)-

1. You've got the best laugh I've ever heard.
2. You can reach the highest shelves in the house, the ones I can't even reach when I'm on my tippy toes.
3. You're great at mowing lawns.
4. You're an awesome "Big Brother"
5. Your passion for Pro Wrestling fascinates and bewilders me, and amuses and slightly scares Connor.
6. You don't like me shuffling playing cards because you recognize my amazing Karma when it comes to touching a deck of cards.  I love superstitious people!
7. You're not embarrassed if I dance in the car...or if you are, you don't ever say so.
8. You're very thoughtful, even if you don't like to admit it.
9. You give Connor serious football workouts.
10. You're lethal with a nerf gun.
11. Even though you always smash my chip bags, I'm impressed that you can carry a dozen grocery bags in the house in ONE trip.

Tooth Fairy Layoffs?

It's happened again.  The Tooth Fairy has made yet another bicuspid blunder.

It's the same ol' problems I've blogged before. But this time we're getting quite worried.  It's one thing for the Tooth Fairy to be forgetful once, or make the exchange in the wrong location twice, but it's starting to get a bit ridiculous. 

Once again Chloe left a tooth under one pillow and in the morning when she checked under it, the tooth was still there.  THEN after filing her complaint with a parent and getting a little "search" help, we discovered there was indeed $2 left under two other pillows.  Hmmmmmm.  Sounds like a problem with redundancy now.

Chloe and I have discussed it and decided something must have happened to the poor little fairy.  Our theory is that perhaps under these hard economic times there's been a little downsizing going on at the 'Council of Legendary Figures' department (that's what Wiki calls it cause we looked it up hoping to see what the deal was with all the missing loot), AND, in order to keep things in the black we think the Tooth Fairy may have recently suffered a lay off and now the Easter Bunny is doing double duty.

The reason for our suspicions is that most of the time Chloe has to hunt for her money.  It's not always directly under her pillow.  The Easter Bunny would certainly fit that bill.  Perhaps forgetting these are not eggs to be hid, just money to be placed--and under the right pillow to be very specific.  All issues that point suspiciously toward fairy downsizing and Easter Bunny behavior.

Whomever is doing the Tooth Fairy's job, it certainly is not the T.F. herself.  Far too many mix-ups or just plain omissions if you ask us.  Which may be why she got downsized.  We're just not sure what is going on.

Meanwhile Chloe just recently lost 4 teeth in a row.  She's got one left before braces.  And recently she's expressed a sigh of relief saying "It's a good thing I won't be needing the Tooth Fairy for much longer, cause she's losing it."

And I agree.  I've been saying all along that I think all our little overwhelmed fairy needs is a nice vacation or a massage or something.  That should help her get her mojo back.

Picky! Picky!

Chloe.

She's our little fastidious child.  She may come in a small little body but she's surely the most persistent of our progeny.

She decided her dad had a few premature grey eyebrow hairs and that just wouldn't do.  And so, like any emboldened and meticulous child would do, she took matters into her own hands and rid her father of them.

This is the frightening little scene that I walked downstairs and saw:

Thank goodness for my iphone camera! I keep it on silent just for this purpose.  Silent Mode = Stealth picture snapping.

She enlisted the help of her cousin Madi to hold the light on her
dad's face so that she could get down to the very important and ultra serious business of "feral-free facescaping".

As for Mark, he's either one brave dad, one desperate grey ridden man, or simply a whipped father.  Most likely a combination of all three.

And poor poor Chloe.  Should I tell her that her dad's about to turn the big 5-0 this December and that it's only gonna get worse?  Very soon this old man is gonna start needing more than just tweezers.