Happy V Day to Me...

Yeah, I'm singing Happy V-Day to myself right now. What?





Aren't they pretty??



They were sent from my cute boyfriend:






Okay, okay, not Gus....this guy:






(At the World Cup Dual Mogle event in PC)

How was your V Day?

Hungry is to Food as This Post is to Intelligence

Ok, remember when I told you about my flower beds and how the hubster totally ruined them by planting the tall flowers in the front and the short flowers in the back?

Well, you all told me not to worry, that once all the flowers started filling in that nobody would even notice my awkward flower beds.

Well thanks guys but you were wrong.

My flower beds still suck. Not only are the tall flowers awkwardly towering over the short flowers in the back, but they are growing sideways!



Sideways!


Seriously, I had a fabulous plan for these flowers to be planted in the back, all bunched together to avoid the lonely one plant awkwardness as shown below.




When turning into my driveway every day and seeing these hideous inept creatures I can't help but think how fitting it is for Al & I to have these flower beds in our yard.



Just like these flowers look out of place among the other flowers, Al & I are totally out of place in our neighborhood. Most of our neighbors just avoid us, they try not to look at us as we are driving through the neighborhood. Of course there are a few nice ones like our neighbors to the left of us, but for the most part nobody talks to us.


Our very next door neighbor especially goes out of his way to avoid us. When we were in-active members of the prominent religion in the neighborhood this neighbor was assigned to visit us every month. Instead of actually coming inside, he would just leave brownies on our doorstep (which were always disgusting), but that was fine by us. I think the day that he found out he no longer had to visit us was a huge relief for him, now he has no obligation to like us.


Then there's the dog hater neighbor who calls the cops on every single dog in the neighborhood. When we first moved in we thought it was just our dog that he was targeting but no, we found out that he is well known as the dog-hater dude.


He's retired and stays at home all day with nothing else to do but leave notes on our door and spy on our dogs. When Bain was alive he would call me and tell me exactly what dog was misbehaving and what their individual bark sounded like. I swear he would sit in his yard with binoculars and watch our dogs all day long.


Get a hobby dude.


Oh, and yelling at your wife is not a hobby. I swear they've got to be the two most miserable people. I have to fight the urge to take Dozer over to poop on his lawn.


And I'm not even going to get into the neighbor that came to visit us one day to tell us we were basically throwing our lives away and going to Hell. After Al had his say to this guy, he has never come back.


Thank God.


Living in our neighborhood reminds me of those stupid analogy questions on the SATs.


TALL AWKWARD EVIL FLOWERS are to THE FLOWER BED as POOBA & ALBERT are to THE NEIGHBORHOOD


But we've lived here seven years now and are pretty happy people so it must work for us.


Maybe those tall flowers aren't too bad after all.

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

As many of you know I'm an accountant for a Gold Mining Company.


I love my job.


My boss is extremely laid back and lets me do my work without standing over my shoulder watching everything I do (which is what my old boss did). I even got two promotions from Staff Accountant to Consolidation Analyst to Senior Accountant. Usually an accountant either has to have a master's degree to become a Senior Accountant or has to be with the company for 5 years.


I only have a bachelors degree and I have only been with the company 4 years, but I was still promoted to a Senior Accountant. Now I'm not trying to brag here, I just need to lay out the background for you before I tell you that I had nothing to do with these promotions.


How did I get promoted? The only explanation I can think of is my husband. Every big wig at my work absolutely loves my husband. He goes golfing with them all the time and they enjoy their male bonding time drinking beer on the golf course.


I don't blame them, my husband is a charmer and seems to get along with just about anybody. Or at least he can fake it pretty well.



Now I suck at golf. I'm lucky if I can hit the ball in one swing so I definitely can't go golfing with the guys every Friday. Of course the fact that I don't have a penis is a big factor too. So I'm not the one out there networking and "getting in good" with the big wigs, it's my husband.


The one with the penis.


So it's fine with me that everyone likes him, but hey, I'M the one that does all the work, but he's the one who gets all the benefits. What's up with that?


Well, every year my company has a golf tournament at The Homestead Resort. Everyone in the office looks forward to this event and for months afterward, the tournament is still the topic of conversation.



It's a big deal with tons of swag given to us before we play, and dinner afterwards with a raffle that has really great prizes. And of course prizes for the winners of the tournament.


Now I don't golf but I do at this tournament, it's pretty much the one time a year I golf. The tournament is a scramble so luckily I don't have to be good because we take the best ball each time and with my husband on the team, I'm pretty safe.


When we arrived everyone was like "Hey Alex! How are you? Who is this person you brought with you?" Um, hello, it's me the one who actually works for you! Of course they are just kidding but still, you get the picture. HE'S the one they want to see.



This year we were paired up with a fellow accountant and his brother who are both great golfers!



We didn't win, but we did tie for second place coming in 7 under! And of course I had nothing to do with that score.



At one point the golf course got backed up. When I say backed up, I mean worse then when Dooce has constipation which is all the time. So not only were we waiting for the people in front of us to finish but the group behind us was waiting too.

Of course the carts behind us had to include the President of the company, who also loves Alex more then me, and of course he had to be watching when I got up to the tee and missed the ball about 10 times before I finally was able to hit the ball about 10 feet in front of me. Of course Alex helped by saying,


"You know Bob is watching you don't you? You better not mess up!" (not his real name by the way)


So embarrassing! I was surprised Bob (not his real name) didn't fire me right there on the spot. But then again, Alex was there so I was safe.



So you see, I love my job and I love the people I work with, but not as much as they love Alex.


Alex, Alex, Alex!


That's all I ever hear!

Pake Lowell

The Silkman fam got together again for the annual Lake Powell trip where we spend a week roughing it out in the middle of nowhere, with no contact with civilization.




We spend the week peeing in the weeds and bathing in the lake. We each had to catch our own dinner and cook it over the fire that was started by rubbing two sticks together over a pile of weeds.




Our only shelter was a fort we made out of logs and at night we took turns staying awake to protect our little camp from snakes, mountain lions, bears, and to make sure little Ava didn't eat all of our food supply during the night.






We became one with nature. Er somethin like that.


The morning we left for the lake I actually went into internet withdrawals. I just didn't know how to do anything without the internet. It was like that commercial to quit smoking where the guy tries to drink a cup of coffee without a cigarette in his hand and spills it all over himself.




My fingers just stopped working; they'd been so used to typing that they didn't know what to do with themselves. Ya know, like Ricky Bobby.

"I don't know what to do with my hands."




I won't say it was easy, the sweats and hallucinations of internet withdrawal are intense but I got through it.


Barely.


When I saw this, it helped.




The first four days we got to spend with the my niece Ava and nephews Colin and Jaxon. The boys make me laugh all the time and Ava is such a Diva. She struts around in her swimming suit and her sunglasses on like she is the hottest thing since sliced bread! (Which she is of course)




Even though she'd put her sunglasses on upside down.










So my mom in law, Cris, bought the kids some blow up animals to play with in the water. Colin chose the killer whale blow up toy which turned out to be a people hater. Every time Colin tried to sit on it, the whale would buck him off. So my dad in law, Terry, decided that he had to master the killer whale.








And master it he did.




He was pretty proud of himself.

This year we had a new addition, this massive tube-like structure that is supposed to be impossible to tip over.






That thing is ridiculous, look how huge the sucker is! Albert had a hard time getting up on it.




He finally aloud the others to help him up, it was quite a site. I got a lot of pictures of his cute butt while he was being pulled up but since I value my life, I won't post any of those pics.




Now Colin got to try out the new kid's ski this year.




After skiing, he proudly declared to Cris:

"Grandma, I'm pretty talented on that." He is just so funny! I'm sure he'll be showing off his talent more this summer.




And what is Lake Powell without a water fight? Colin, Jaxon, and even Ava got in on the action. Nobody was safe with these kids and their water guns!






After Colin annihilated Terry via water gun, Clay decided to surprise Terry from behind. And not with just lake water mind you, but with ice water from the cooler, it was only fair.

Love Terry's face in this pic:




And if that competition wasn't enough, we had to continue throughout the night with a game of beer pong between Alex and Clay. Alex dominated even though Clay cheated. (Yes Clay, we all know you cheated!)




Look at that proud Mama!

The next night the competition was Monopoly, a favorite I have noticed with the Silkman clan. No, I didn't win but that's because I lost on purpose so I could go to bed. Otherwise I would have won hands down.

Common, you all know it's true!




This is how we rough it:
























Told you we were roughing it.

Saturday night everyone had to go back to the real world leaving me, Al and Ma & Pa Silkman behind. So sad to see them go but as Terry drove the boat back to the dock, he taught the young'uns a valuable lesson.




Before the boat reached the dock, some guy cut their boat off not once but twice! Understandably sweet Grandpa Terry got a little irritated with the guy and attempted to let the guy know it. Terry yelled:

"F@%! Head!"

Lesson: Don't ~F~ with Grandpa Silkman!
(Luckily baby Ava was asleep so she did not learn the new word, at least not then)

After everyone was gone, it was just the four of us adults. Don't be fooled though, we adults know how to party!

*ahem*

Cris and Al fished...

...and fished, and fished and fished.






I witnessed my first fish poop of my life. Alex was holding up his catch of the day when it decided to take the last dump of its life right there on the deck. Sorry I didn't get a pic of the fish in action. I gagged, grabbed my mouth, puked, swallowed it, and then ran inside. Or something like that.




Fish Poop sucks ass.



After everyone left, we had plenty of time to get in a lot of wake boarding. Al is now a pro wake boarder as am I.





Funny how every time the guys would go wake boarding, as soon as they got up, they had to adjust their shorts.




Heaven forbid one leg's short is higher than the other, you've gotta look good while you're wake boarding ya know. Now ladies, this is what happens when you flash your boobs at your husband while he's wake boarding.






Love him!


So when it was my turn, I totally rocked it of course. Okay, more like hung on for dear life. But I have to say I was pretty proud of myself because I only got WUTB. once! (Water up the butt hole)








Wake boarding is hard work. See these hands? They have blisters; I sacrificed my soft girly hands for the wake board. You feel sorry for me now don't you?




I told you we were roughing it.

We had some romantic moments on the lake as well. Al and I shared some smores over the little fire Alex started in the sand. And of course he took the opportunity to try and get in my pants.






Al: "My love for you burns like this fire."

Me: "Uh huh" Laughing.

Al: "What? I'm not joking. Here I am trying to be romantic and you laugh in my face.

Me: "Right." Rolling my eyes, "Okay, try it again."

Al: "My love for you burns like this fire."

Me: "Oh Al, you're so sweet! How romantic!" Trying to hold back my laughter.

That's about as romantic as it gets around these parts! So romantic in fact that we saw fireworks.




No for real, there were fireworks. The boat next to us, or as Cris lovingly refers to them as the Stupid Idiots, were lighting fire works over the brush. And of course a fire started.


Stupid Idiots.


So Cris comes runnin up to the top of the boat to turn on the spot light, while yelling to let them know that they are stupid idiots and if they are going to do fireworks, they should do them over the lake.

Stupid idiots.

Al and Terry were our big brave firemen and grabbed a couple tubs of water and ran to help put out the fire. Luckily for the Stupid Idiots, our firemen got there in time and were able to save the day and we all survived.

Including the Stupid Idiots.

We can't go to Lake Powell without some sort of catastrophe happening! But the rest of the trip was pretty calm.

Funniest thing about the trip? Cris ordered enough food to feed a family of Hippos for about 2 years. This is the food we had left over AFTER THE TRIP WAS OVER.






36 bags of chips, 34 pounds of lunchmeat, 20 bags of beef jerky, and candy galore! We can always count on Mama Silkman to make sure nobody starves to death

Refrigerator Number 1






Refrigerator Number 2





Told ya we were roughing it.