Samuel this weekend did some stuff that scared us.  I don't wish to go into details for his sake.  But his world ended Sunday night, and we went back to treating him like a three year old.  He lost the privledge of his bedroom and has been sleeping in the living room on the couch.  Every time EVERY time he broke certain rules there were consequences.  But mostly he couldn't leave Rob's or I's side.  and I mean he had to be five feet a way.  The first four hours of it sucked for all of us.  And I do mean sucked.  He absolutely couldn't grasp the look out for other people don't knock them over, or hurt them rule--even when he was not allowed five feet away from us. 

All of Monday was rather hellish quite frankly.  But we persisted.  Each time Rob did a chore Samuel had to join him in it.  Each time Rob left the room Samuel had to go.  Tuesday same way--except we told him he could have ten feet from us.  This was a suggestion given to me at Breastfeeding.com  YEARS ago, and I've never had the courage to try it as its exhausting. 

But we'd tried everything else to get through to Samuel certain things that he's just never truely grasped.  The two biggest are if its not yours don't touch it.  If its not you don't touch them.

So we're on day three.  And ya know suddenly its clicking with him.  We have gone almost six hours without a single incident.  He's maintained his behavior ten feet away from me.  And was even allowed to go outside *gasp* all by himself for fifteen minutes and came back inside without a single kid crying cause he hurt them.

I'm not gonna say all the problems of the world are cured.  But I do believe tomato staking is working.  Its not for the faint of heart, but that's okay, as long as the end result is a son I can take in public and leave with a babysitter, and trust that's fine. 

Tomorrow *if* things continue to go well he's gonna be allowed in another room out of my sight.  But if a single breaking of the rule happens he'll be back to five or ten feet depending on his breaking.  As I told him, if you want to act like a three year old I will treat you like one until you can prove to me again that your nine, and you can be trusted. 

Breathes, there may be hope.

I'm looking for music ideas for duets.

Kaylin and a friend will be doing a baton duet, and Rainee and a friend will.

Skies the limit.  Needs to have a good clear obvious beat.  Can be kids music, or not.  Obviously needs extremely clean lyrics.  Last time my friend Polera made a awesome suggestion of Transformers for the boys.  It can be a movie theme or just popular music.

Zeria & Sam are doing a duet to Corbin Bleu's Push It.

Jamari is doing a solo from his favorite movie Spirit.

There are kids doing a duet to Pink Panther, Inspector Gadget.  One girl does a routine to Man I feel like a woman.  *giggles* 

Squads do routines to Lolipop, and Anchors Away.  So pretty much anything goes in other words.

We drove out to Neah Bay today--Rob had a extra day off--long story.  And as we were headed to the ocean beach I spotted this through the trees--and trust me we had to squint.  I made Rob back up ON the road, and stop in the MIDDLE of the road.  And then I got out of the car and crawled through the trees, and snagged a whole bunch.  This is the one I'm proudest of.

What are they?  Trumpeter Swans.  They were extremely endangered.  In 1900 they were believed extinct.  They've made a comeback, but they still have a ways to go as far as I know.  And they are so incredibly beautiful.

The weather today was wacky.  Sunny, Rain, and we got hailed on outside TWICE.  I think I'm still cold.  LOL  We hit two beaches.  A close up one, and then the one thats true ocean out in Neah Bay.

The waves were magnificent even in the strait.  That rock is about 30 feet tall.  Don't ya love the rainbow in the background.  I stood there for five mimnutes trying to get everything timed right.  I'm quite proud of it thank you very much. 

The waves the last few days have been amazing.  Just beautiful.  And I have so many pictures of just breaking, just broken, and a few just perfect ones.     I'll spare you showing all 57.  *snickers*  And just share my favorites.

We spent fifteen minutes finding Jeremiah shoes, and forgot to get him a coat.  So he ended up in Zeria's and Zeria ended up with just a sweatshirt, and well you can giggle at my kids.

The ocean beach was amazing.  And FREEZING.  Just nasty cold.  We enjoyed it, and found about 30 sand dollars, and then bailed back into the car and cranked the heat up.  Nasty cold!

Course you can see the color of the sky isn't exactly beautiful. 

And in case you were wondering where the pot of gold was?  Its at Seal Rock, I'm sure it is.   The Rainbow says so.

My dean at college once told me in a counselling session with her that life is a bit like a circular staircase.  Your going around in a circle slowing climbing upwards.  Every once and awhile you come back to the same view that you just saw, and you think "didn't I just deal with this?"  And yeah you did, but this time your a bit higher above it,and you see it from a slightly different view, you handle it differently cause you have matured, you just can't quite realize it yet.

I like that analogy.

Its been a long week.  The maple tree is gone to the maple buyer.  We will find out how much its worth when the check comes in the mail.  I guess we can be suprised.  We have several plans for it, and aren't allowing ourselves to dream or plan much until we see wether its worth anything at all. 

The kids and I had a day of reckoning yesterday and are going to continue on this week, and a couple of the attitude problems we were dealing with are going to mellow out thank you very much. 

I have had a stressful week.  I've been desperately sorting through a lot of crap, and just as I was starting to recover from that crap a whole nother passle was dumped on me yesterday from my so-called "best-friend" from high school.  I hung up on her.  

She wanted me to believe something that I kept telling her "I'm sorry I refuse to get in the middle of this, I can't recognize the truth any more, and I think the whole argument is petty to begin with.  I can't choose." 

She kept saying louder and louer.  "You have to believe me."

And I kept trying to convince her, that our friendship wasn't based on this one little incident.  I finally asked her why she was  yelling at me about it, when the incident didn't involve me in any way.  And she just got louder.  "I said I'm sorry, I can't handle this."  And hung up.

She hasn't called back.

I don't know.  Its just par for the course, and after a night of wondering what to do about it I still have no solutions.  I do know that I have to set boundarys, cause I can't handle much more.  I have to have a focus.  My focus has to be my immediate family, and a good Christmas for all of us.  I can't be settling petty disputes about something that happened four months ago, that I thought was stupid back then, and told the offending party so. 

Can I go move to a deserted island?  Please?

Anyhow I have these words. 

James 4: 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.

I was willing to yield that the conversation didn't matter to me.  I was willing to change the subject.  I asked her about her boys, her life, she never asked me about mine.  She was on a mission to change my mind about something I didn't care about.  ROFL   I have no idea what my responsibility in this is now.  Rob says absolutely nothing.  I'm determined to be a peacemaker, but not sure how I can do that when I don't care about the issue, and she does.  

Can I move to a deserted island?  Of course I'd have to take my not-so-perfect angels with me, and then we'd have our own set of problems.  So I guess I'll keep trudging up my circular stair case, desperately hoping I'm making progress. 

Update;  I screwed up my courage and called my friend.  She had mellowed overnight...and things are resolved.   I feel ready now to go to church and have communion, and celebrate my faith in the only Father who can never fail me. 

My parents have built two houses in their marriage.

One I've written stories about, and dreamed about re-living in.  It was a beautiful log house.  Each log was cut and pealed by my dad, and placed with my mom and dad's back-breaking labor.

It was a unique one of a kind house with a 6 inch slab of wood as a main door, and four foot round log as stairs to the upstairs.  The shakes on the roof were hand-hewed by my dad.

The other was a summer cabin on the lake.

Last winter the summer cabin slid into the lake.

Last night the log house burned down.

Its rather symbolic isn't it? 

I loved that house, I still dream about it.  And man its just all gone. 

I uploaded these just before my power went out, my house flooded etc.  So I never really looked at them until last night.  I had several good chuckles at all of them, but this morning when I saw the photo blog challenge I had to enter this.

Not quite a angel. 

Good morning.

One last Baton performance this year, and then we get a bit of a break.

Coach was steaming yesterday and just barely keeping it in.  A whole bunch of kids showed up at Dress rehearsal without their dress.   They said their moms told them to tell her they paid good money to do this, and their kids shouldn't have to change where it was cold.

Okay we paid $25 for a YEAR.  This involves FREE $80 uniforms.

Tell me exactly what they paid for??

And if your going to pay for something don't you think you should do it the way the person you so called paid wanted?

Oh my word.

And then their were the rest of us who were doing what we were supposed to.  And yeah the gym we currently uses gets cold, but it was much warmer t his week then last week.  Trust me on this!  

People are IDJIOTS.

I've seen the roster and lay out for baton for January.  The kids are going to be moved around to different squads, and it looks like it will be a lot of fun, and they will be more paired with similar style of twirlers. 

Parents.  *shrugs*  My opinion is the coach volunteers about 35 hours a week to do this.  She gets NOTHING out of it except the kids smiles.  I will bend over backwards to make her happy thank you very much!

~~~~~~~~~~~

On that note.  Christmas is beginning to look a bit more like Christmas.  I have both of my Awana trees I bought set up.  They look beautiful.  I have a few lights up as well.  I haven't put a single nativity scene up.  This is the latest I've ever been.  *blushes*  I almost contemplated not doing it, but I must.  Just because it doesn't feel like Christmas means I need to concentrate on the reason for Christmas even more.  So tonight I will dig them out, maybe even this morning.

Due to having no power, and etc I've been sitting on my funny for almost a week.

Anyway on the way to town Friday Kaylin announces.  "Mom Sam said the S word."

I blinked and took in several deep breathes.

I was fairly sure my kids had never heard the S word.  My husband and I do not swear nor do either of my familys--except for my sister K who has picked up a couple slightly naughty words points finger at her and shakes it--but she reserves them for when the kids are out of the house, so I was still sure they didn't know what the "S" word was.

My sister  R likes to say a couple words now that she's dealing with the after math of my dad...but she much prefers the F word, in fact I don't think I've ever heard the "S" word.

So that being said I sat quiet for a minute trying to figure out what to say next.

Finally I said.  "Oh?  What's the s word?"

Kaylin whispers.

Sexxy.

Don't mind me I laughed for fifteen minutes.

The old Lady in all of her glory, and from all of her wonderful angles. 

Do you see that big branch to the right?  Its about 2.5 feet around.

Look at all the lovely knobs and twists.  And the moss.  As we were stacking its firewood today some of the moss was four inches or more thick!

And now the death of the Old Lady;

She didn't die gracefully.  She just shattered all over the place!  And yeah that's how wide she was points at the little Kaylin next the the big log.

And her root-wad.  WE now have a eight foot deep 6 foot across hole in the ground.  I'm sorry the picture's blurry.  I have to go out tomorrow and get a better one I guess it was a bit too dark when I was taking it. 

My dad says when they seperate the butt from the root the root wad "should" fall back in the hole.  I hope so, cause that's my lawn.  LOL  If it does...the maple will regrow.  It won't be big and wide, but it will be pretty and green and busy right where it always was.  Maples are impossible to die out here.  They just keep coming back up from what's left of them. 

The top of the eagle tree.  It wasn't necessarily a beautiful tree.  In fact it was already dead.  But it was a monster, and because it was dead the eagles thought it made a great vista to watch for salmon.

The HUMONGOUS butt of the tree--which as Rob reminded me a moment ago is still there.  It didn't uproot, it just cracked.  I'll show you in a bit. 

And now for the spectacular death of the old man.

If you notice in that picture there's a young tree trying to grow out of its root system as well.  I'm' not sure if it will make it as evergreens are much more picky.  And it lost its top...but one could hope.  Its kinda fun to see the way nature compensates.

This tree for all of its being so big wasn't that old.  Spruce grows phenomenally fast in this country.  But it was still the biggest evergreen we had on the property.  So we lost both of the granddaddys in one fell swoop.

See why?  It was absolutely and totally rotten.  Just DEAD! 

Firewood any one?????

So those were the deaths in my family.  There are lots of other trees around.  And if it had been any other two I wouldn't have been that upset.  But both of the granddaddy trees in one windstorm.  A bit much if you ask me. 

Peaks in from the land of no power--100 mile hour gusts of wind, and 9 inches of snow melting due to 9 inches of rain in less then 12 hours.

My 200 year old maple is smashed onto the ground.  My big eagle tree that was dead, but quite the place for eagles--had 7 of them on it at once is smashed down.

My white van didn't get home until Wednesday.

My dad in his infinite stupidity came out to see if we were okay during the middle of the wind storm, and got stranded in my house for 32 hours.

Taken from my back step--the river was about 8 feet from it. 

When I woke up Monday morning it was to no power--it didn't come back for 27 hours.  And the river...3x bigger then it was last year.  It made it under my sun room.

But we knew what to expect from last time, and my dad was there to help us if we had to get kids out, so we rode it out..fortunately not literally.  And at 1 pm the tide went out and so did the river.

Taken from my bedroom window aboutt 10 feet away from my house.  Turn the other direction in the same window and we had this;

Taken from my sun room window

Yeah that was the side that scared me, and to the right of the picture it began going under the sun room, and I would assume under the house.

And as the day progressed it grew.

Rob called in and took two hours of vacation so he could help me load up pictures and computer tower (again)  and then we just decided we'd hang in the house until the last minute.

I figured I'd grab an hour of sleep before he went to work knowing I wouldn't be able to with my dad whom I dont' trust in the house.   And when I woke up.

All the water was gone.

GONE.

Dad took Rob to work, and headed home.

Only he couldn't get home.  And ended up at my house.  It was a long 27 hours.  I actually have to admit in the end because of some things I told him and because Rob was pulling a double because ALL roads leading to Clallam Bay were closed, and their were only two nurses to cover all shifts for the forseeable future dad ended up sleeping in his car.

It wasn't something I wanted to do...but he offered and I didn't argue.  The fact that he did so willingly upped his trustability IMHO.

He came back when it was day light and began sawing much of the wood that came down.  He was paying penance for some crap that went down on the weekend.  He was also restless and it was a good way to burn off steam.  He also since he's been a logger for all of his life can do it in a fraction of the time that Rob can.

Anyhow so that was two of my days this week. 

The power came on about 8 am Tuesday.

The roads cleared about 2 pm Tuesday

My white van made it home about 2 pm Wednesday.

And the DSL was finally repaired about an hour ago.

Its been...intresting.

We're mourning our big maple.  It was such a delicious tree.  I have pictures somewhere, but don't have the time to find them--of it up I mean.  There's a good chance however its worth quite a bit of money as it has figure in it, or birds eye, or fiddle-back-maple.  Whichever turn helps you out.  So if it is the sting of losing it will help a bit.