Question- Will four by-ing (sp?) in the back of a truck with four kids, and riding on the back of a little 50 motorcycle with your son spur on labor?

Tried it.....

Answer- No. Just hurts your body.

Torn

Memorial Weekend.

What the heck??!!

So basically every day I am checking Weather.com to see if by any chance its going to rain. But since we live in Redding chances are sunny. And not just sunny, but hot. But I still check. Still hold on to the hope that rain is somewhere in the forecast. I get shot down, on a daily basis. So for the past 3 weeks or so I have been counting....literally counting on my calender, days till Memorial weekend. Why? because we planned on going camping. Why do I love camping? outside of being up in the Pines. Tents. Bikeriding. Fires. Camping food...mainly Seans camping food--amazing. Relaxing. Being with poeple I love. But on the top of that list is cooler weather. Getting out of the heat. I was ecstatic. So we had planned to go to Lassen. What do I do? Check Weather.com. Rain. Not just rain, Thunderstorms. Okay, okay, thats way up there in the mountains....we'll go more local. Shasta Lake. Weather.com, again. Rain. And Thunderstorms. NOOOO!!!! I feel like a trader. I love you rain, but why, Why, WHY on MY CAMPING WEEKEND??!!! So we go, we brave the elements, I am actually praying AGAINST the rain!!

However, we get up there with my parents, my brother and his kids and the Edwardsons and have the best day Friday. Cloudy. No rain. I am loving it. I am still praying. Friday night, little sprinkly...no problem. Friday night, through the night....full out deluge...I am still pretty optimistic at this point...still no problem. Saturday morning, still raining...still optimiistic, we are powering through this. Everyone starts packing up to leave...I am still holding out to sun. Now i appear to be stupid, as my son is sliding through mud. Kids are screaming. Everything is completely soaked. I curse the rain. We start packing up.

Worst part. I cursed the rain.

Rain, I am sorry.

Pancake Breakfast

Crowds energize me. Anything that makes me feel part of a community. I love parades. I LOVE 4th of July. I love Cool April Nights. and I LOVE the annual Redding Rodeo Pancake Breakfast!! Every year since the time I can remember my mom dressed me all up in my cowgirl gear and we carpooled with all my friends early in the morning before school, to the Pancake Breakfast, and I have always loved it.

So this morning Sean comes home from his 6 am coffee with Matt Hartley and is advising me that this is (was) Rodeo Week and that tomorrow morning is the Pancake Breakfast. My mind goes into somewhat of a freakout mode..."Sean, what day is it today?" "Friday, Rebecca", he replies, "Pancake Breakfast IS THIS MORNING!!! We gotta go!!". Sean is amazing and knows me and how important these events are. So we, at 7:45 this morning kick it into high gear, even though the kids and I already had full bellies......who can't always eat pancakes, come on! So we load up and set out.

I was a very happy woman this morning!! But I am so much of a crowd person that I was inside really bummed we weren't there earlier for the rush rush. Next year. I will not let it slip by me that easily again. I will be more prepared.

Heat

Seriously?!! We are in the hundreds already??? Kill me now. I absolutely despise the heat, it makes me cranky, and not just because I'm pregnant, because it is miserable. Uggghh. Not looking forward to today.

Wasco

Wasco, CA. 30 miles somewhere outside of Bakersfield. 30 miles of field after field after field out in the middle of nowhere. The smallest town made up of 99% Mexicans. The air is brown, due to all the surrounding farm work going on. Dust. Lots of dust. You have a layer of it coated to your body as soon as you walk out the front door. This is Wasco. My husbands roots. His place of origin. And this is where his entire family still resides after 60 someodd years....why Wasco??? i don't have a clue. But people are born here and it seems as if they get stuck. They don't know of life elsewhere. Life of mountains, and streams, and rivers, and FRESH air. It really really baffles me why people chose this. Its a mystery.

This is where I am this week. I packed me and the kids up, hitched a ride with my mom, 86 year old grandpa and 84 year old grandma (who conveniantly were driving down to LA), and came to visit the Gafner clan (the 1% of wasco thats not mexican).
Despite the encredible surrounding conditions, we are having a good time. The kids get lost in hours upon hours of playing and running and swimming with all their cousins. I have to remind them I still exist, and that I am still their mother who feeds them, and bathes them.

However, I am ready to come home. Its only been a few days, but I am tired and ready to be home. So tomorrow, my mom, grandma and grandpa are coming back up from LA, picking us up and we start the 7-8 hour drive in a Lincoln Continental with two very elderly's who can't hear a thing, two kids, and one 9 mo. pregnant lady. My poor mom. Should be interesting. Pleast pray.

Hot Sauce

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!" I yell as i round the corner into our kitchen.

So last week, I am not sure if you would call it "nesting" or just the innate need to clean a desperately dirty house. But nonetheless, i went on a cleaning frenzy. I scoured the entire kitchen from top to bottom. I feel good. My house is very clean. Kids wake up. I am now upstairs gathering laundry and picking up messes, made in the last 5 minutes, while listening to the joys of laughter floating upstairs from two little munchkins playing downstairs. With arms full of dirty clothes, i come downstairs, to NOT a clean kitchen.......and much to my surprise, the laughter is due to the ridding of EVERY hot sauce bottle from the refregerater onto my perfectly clean scoured kitchen floor. Not a happy mom at this point. You did not want to be a part of my household within the next 30 minutes. Needless to say, it is a miracle my children are still alive. It was not pretty.

Discovered

I have been discovered. I was trying to keep this a secret.....just to see if I would actually do it...but to my surprise, my "secret" has been found. Here I am. I am now blogging. Officially. Erica, I am sorry you found out this way. I love you.