Circle R Ranch

The two weeks Jasmine free is finally over and once she got home I still don't get to see her. She is already at a friend's house. Circle R Ranch is totally for the horse lovers and more. The end of the week ceramony was to show off the skills the kids have learned/developed and give the parents a chance to look around. The farmers aka Jerry and Pat drove over from Osakis and Jasmine was excited to see extra people watching her.

The final day show started off with announcements and introductions of the staff and then we got a show from the drill team. Jasmine's good friend Sami was on the drill team and they did formations and led us through the National Anthem. The girls were good and Sami was the youngest by a few years at least. Once the drill team was over, the rest of the camp broke down into their groups and their shows started.

Counselor Sasha started off Jasmine's group by handing out the horsemanship award which recognizes good horse care with their tacks, saddles, and mounting. Jasmine won a blue ribbon for that task (1). The first "game" was Egg and Spoon. Now walking and holding a egg on a spoon is hard enough, but try riding a horse carrying the egg and spoon. First they had to walk and then trot. One by one the eggs dropped until there was one...Jasmine got another blue ribbon (2). The second "game" was H2O. I think you are getting the idea how these games go, but this time there was a measuring cup with water. They started with 8oz of water and who had the most at the end got the blue ribbon. There were a few girls with no water left and a lap full of water. Once again, they had to walk and then trot until there was one person with 6.5 oz of water left...Jasmine got another blue ribbon (3). Are you seeing a pattern? The final game was musical tires. It was fun to see the girls try and control their horses and get themselves in to the tire, horse next to them with reins in hand. After all the girls were eliminated another blue ribbon was handed out...Jasmine got her fourth for the day.

It was a successful day for Jasmine and when she asked if she was going back next year she said yeah but maybe for only one week. I think she missed home just a little, but she got to take care of her horse 24/7 all by herself.

Not Going To Do It

I guess you could say I am too fired up to go to sleep tonight. If you want the better version, you will have to talk to Chris, but once again we had a run in with the wonderful Ron next door. Except this time I was able to get into the action right along with Chris. Ron of course had to poke his nose around looking at our property and Chris went down the driveway asking him what he was looking for/at and one thing lead to another.

I was only going to watch from a distance to make sure nothing got out of hand or in case I needed to be a witness, but Chris seemed to be handling it okay "talking" things out about our driveway again and how we weren't going to be moving it anytime soon. The big discussion had to be about the property line and how our driveway was too close to the line but for some reason he wasn't able to or want to show us where the stakes were that they survey. They claim that a stake in the middle of the road is the property one, but Chris had the stakes found when we built his garage so we know where they are.

Anyway on to the exciting part, Chris followed Ron to his house and words were exchanged. The topic of court came up and Chris was telling Ron that the city had already told us that it was a civil matter and they would have to take us to court. Well, Ron disappeared into this garage and came out with a golf club telling Chris that he had to get of his property. Nice right? Ron forgot all the times he has been on our lot yelling at Chris. With the golf club out, Ron's wife had to get her two sense in boy can she get CRABBY.

This is when things got really good. Ron's wife got into the action and she is bigger than Ron and Chris. She is pushy too. She was yelling at Chris and I was watching with Emma at our mail box, which so happens to be 10 feet away. I am yelling to Chris that we need to leave it up to the courts and he needs to get out of there. Ron's wife turns and yells at me that if I want to be a part of this to get over to their little huddle. I felt like it was a middle school fight and people were ganging up of someone. It was totally bully mentality and Chris wasn't backing down.

Everyone disperses to their corners and Chris, fuming, decided to "move" the property line and drilled a new stake in the middle of the road in front of Ron's development property's driveway. Classic I liked that, but Ron AND his wife came back out. This time Ron was going to "show" us the line by measuring out the lot with his tape measure. Chris said he was off by at least a two feet and his wife had brought the survey out to "show" us.

Remember this is taking place outside in the road with not so nice words and no regards to who could hear us. A few cars had to slow down and stare too. Chris is "talking" to Ron about the measurement and why won't he just show us where the stake is he had the shovel in his had, and I am "talking" to Ron's wife about the survey which I watched them do, in the rain, so I know exactly where the East corner stake is and it wasn't where they were claiming it was. She kind of acts like an overgrown teenager with her hands and head bobs.

Finally, THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE, Ron lets it slip that if our driveway doesn't move, he can't build his second house on the lot. He would have to cut down his row of pine trees and it would cost him thousands of dollars to do that. He is screw, because he is up to his eyes in debt and the only way he has a chance of getting out of it is if he can get that second house on that lot and SELL.

Hollie cow, Chris is mad at me because I smoothed things over with Ron for now. He thinks we are agreeing to his terms. Oh and he has offered to help with the costs to move the driveway. He even said that we would have to get the city involved to re cut the curb...Duh...the city is the one who determines where the curb for your DRIVEWAY goes anyway. I just told Ron that we are abiding with the city in order to get out construction finished and when it comes time to the final and our grading we will do what the city tells us is appropriate. Ron doesn't understand that the city has already told us that we don't have to move the driveway. He thinks that when that time comes we are going to have to move the driveway, WRONG.

Ron doesn't understand that we have time, he doesn't. We won't be finalizing this project for at least two more years and I don't think he has the time to wait that long. He is going to get to the point that he either has to take us to court or settle with the one house. So Chris is mad that I "talked" things over with Ron, but I told Chris that we should just let him burying himself. We already have the city sick of him and now that cops are too because of his false representation of situations down here. Just another day living with the Carvellis.

Nickelodeon Universe

Just thought you might get a kick out of Jayna's idea of fun rides. She is still too much of a peanut to go on the actual rides so we had to improvise. She didn't mind it and got her picture taken with Dora the Explorer too. She is excited to show off her tattoo of Dora.

Tony's 1

At 2:46, Anthony Vincent Carvelli entered this world. There was an informal celebration at his cousins' house, thank you Timi for hosting. It was fun to see all the little ones again and Tony had fun eating his birthday cupcake. He got some great birthday books and we already love reading them at home.

What a difference a year makes and it is amazing how kids are attracted to stairs. Even without stairs at our house, Tony still got the hang of climbing them and nothing could keep him away. What makes kids think that going up is just as much fun as coming down and that is just what Tony thought was the appropriate way back down. Of course I was there to catch him before he fell.

If turning one wasn't enough for Tony, we decided it was time for him to get his hair cut again. With the temperatures getting hotter, a cooler hair cut was needed and boy was Tony a trooper. He didn't even whimper when Chris got started and now we get to see his cute face. I call him my Buddha boy. Now he truly looks Asian.

So now my guys are clean shavin' and ready to celebrate the fourth coming up without having to worry about a bad hair day. I have to admit their melons are pretty cute.

Jasmine the pack rat

There is nothing better to do on a hot day is to clean. I took advantage of the cool inside today to tackle Jasmine's room. Bonus was that Jasmine wasn't here to argue every little thing. I figure if I tackled a room a week I should be set for the big move whenever that might be. Plus I had arranged for Lupus to do a donation pick up another motivation to get some of the junk out of here. I was really on a rampage this cleaning and I think it showed with seven bags of trash, four donation bags and another five bags of clothes to bring over to my mom's. Plus loose toys to put out for Lupus too. It took me about six hours to clean and I lucked out that Tony slept through most of it and the dog was tuckered out too. It was unimaginable what Jasmine has collected over the last six years here. That girl would put anyone to shame...she now has enough scratch paper to sink a battle ship and markers/crayons that she won't have to buy anymore for school. I even found a gift card in an old birthday card.

I bought the hefty flex large black bags for this project and shoved as much as I could in each bag. These bags were so full even Chris was straining under the weight of them. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it but I was a one woman wrecking crew today. Tomorrows task is to tackle the basement. I am going to have the trash full for the rest of the summer. I am totally in the get rid of as much stuff as possible so if anyone has a request of what they need or want I will take inventory of what we got as I clean.

Oh yeah, I even pulled out the bunk beds and cleaned behind them and under them. Now that is impressive if I don't say so myself. I think my plan is to take the kids to the beach tomorrow and tucker them out good and then tackle the basement. I will let you know how that goes.

Boys Will Be Boys????

Hi everyone,

It's 2:22 am and I thought this would be the perfect time to post. Well actually I was woken up by one of the few thousand things that wake me up through out the night, and this one is kind of bizarre. Besides the usual Tony squawking, I got the wonderful surprise of Nick peeing on my living room carpet. I thought it was a dream and then I thought it was the dog, but nope Emma was in the kennel for the night and my eyes were wide open. There was Nick peeing on the floor. Sleep peeing...I remember vaguely someone telling me that Chris use to sleep walk, but sleep pee? Well that has to be new or just darn crazy. Just another crazy day or night at the Carvellis. Sleep well everyone.

Forgot

Oh I forgot... Jasmine is now at Circle R Ranch for her two week Horse Camp and I haven't heard from her. I don't know if that is good or bad but I think she is having a blast riding horses every day for two weeks straight. It is weird to have only three kids and I miss having my helper but without one kid the arguing is less. So I hope she is having a good time.