Half Way

We are half way through our summer tour.
It is our busiest week, and I have not had access to a computer for some time.
I'll try to sum up our life in a few points.

• We are working like crazy, and we have been blessed to have staff most of the time.
• The kids have been with Grandma & Grandpa and we are missing them terribly.
• We will meet up with the kids and G&G at the end of the long weekend.
• We have managed to have a little fun with out them: Viewed Body Works exhibit at space & science center, went swimming with our neices and their parents, ate at sit down restaurants with out pulling out toys and crackers for entertainment before the meal.
• We have the go ahead to put in a septic system on our property, so we will get that started as soon as we get home again.
• We delt with a bee hive that made itself at home in our insulation underneith our mobile.
• We are currently dealing with the mice that want to make themselves at home in every nook and cranny of our mobile. Poison & traps should do the trick.
• Lost our camera! Arg.
• We've lost a bit of weight and gotten nice and tanned, looks like we went to a resort...sigh someday maybe.
• Did I mention we're missing the kids like crazy.

That's pretty much it right now. Sometime I might get a chance to write something a bit more introspective but right now I've got to run.

Things Customers Say

• Would you like that in a waffle cone or regular cone? "yes a cone"
• "Wow! There are too many flavors! You should just have 3! It's too hard to choose"
• On a hot day "boy you must be raking it in!"
• On a cold day, walking by shaking their heads "not such a good day for ice cream is it?"
• "SIX DOLLARS FOR AN ICE CREAM!!!! That's CRAZY!"
• After buying the above ice cream anyway "Woah, this scoop is way too big"
• "80 flavors huh, I'll have a single vanilla"
• "I'll have a double, but can you make the scoops small? I'm on a diet"
• Most children under 5, "I want pink!"
• "Do those 2 generators really run all 6 freezers?'' ( 2 Honda 2000i, yes they do)
• "Do you have any with nuts?" ( we have 13 with nuts)
• "Could you wash the scoop for me? I'm allergic to nuts" (this one terrifies me btw since all our ice cream could have come in contact with nuts anywhere from the factory to the scoops touching nuts in a previous ice cream scoop, I have no desire for anyone to get sick from my ice cream, so I really dislike washing a scoop to make it safe to eat ice cream because I don't think it is safe. I usually decline unless they really insist that they know their allergies and will be fine).
• "Do you have any lactose free?" (yes)
• "Do you have any yogurts?" (yes)
• "Do you have any for diabetics?" (yes)
• "Do you have any dog ice cream?" (no! I'm not kidding people ask me these things. Apparently there is a kind of ice cream made just for pets that has no sugar in it. Maybe we'll have to start selling to a whole new clientèle)
  

I've got a peacful, easy feeling...

I'm standing here in my concession with the wind blowing me, the napkins, the signs. All around me there are loud noises; the kids roller coaster zooms and clatters by, the bass from the near by rock band pounds against my skull, the wail of the Native dancers performing next to our booth flies around me on the wind. My eyes are shouted at by the bright flags flapping above the neon lights of the fair games and vendor booths. The smell of deep fried everything crawls into my nose and down into my stomach making it growl at the intrusion. So much is assaulting my senses at once, yet there is a sense of peace in the midst of it all. Weird huh. Right now, this moment, I am not worried or fearful. If I took the time to think about it I could probably come up with something to worry about, but right now I'm just enjoying this calmness. I imagine that this is what it feels like to stand in the eye of a hurricane. I'm kind of awestruck and unsure, but also thankful for the moment to regroup and to think about what is coming up and make a plan for getting through it safely. So let the wind blow, let the music blare, let the lights twinkle and the flags fly, I know my peace comes from within, from the Prince of Peace who lives in my heart and gives me his comfort and joy.

Sorry, I fell off the planet for a while...

Hi there all you dedicated blog readers! (Mom K, D, & Mom Mc)
We have not been near an internet connection in over a week!!!!!! Talk about withdraw symptoms!!!
We are scooping in the boarder city this week, then we will be taking a week off to go work on our new property. It hasn't been a particularly busy spot for us, so I am very glad that we finally have an internet connection and it is in the concession, so I have something to do when it is dead dead dead.
Too bad my thoughts are so scattered and I can't think of anything interesting to write.
I was reading my SIL's blog today and was turning to green with envy while reading all the awesome things her DH had done for her recently (she was bragging, she said so herself, so I'm bound to get jealous, that's the point of bragging you know!). And it got me thinking about some of the neato things my DH does for me. Thanks D for helping me to remember to appreciate my husband.
One thing that I am very pleased about and that I just have to brag about is that Mike has allowed me to suspend my laundry duties while on the road. He has taken our huge laundry bag to the drop off service at the laundry mat not once, but twice, and he and I both think it is money& time well spent! I do get a niggling guilty feeling, some insane idea that I should be doing that work, but I brush it off with a happy flip of my pony tail and joyfully put away my fresh clean nicely folded laundry I am so grateful to be able to set aside that responsibility if only for a time. Thanks Mike, if you ever read this. There are many other things I'm grateful for but that one is in my top 10 right now.
Now, since I can't seem to get my thought into a nice cohesive theme centered post, I'm going to list the things we've seen or done while being on the road recently. In no particular order...

• Gone swimming with the kids twice in two days. Once at a normal pool and once at a wave pool with a very fast slide (or at least it seemed fast while I was trying to hold our 2 year old's head above water while he was squirming to get away insisting he could do it himself!)
• BBQ'd with our good buddies N&G&E&T, and played a rousing game of Trump which ended in big yawns all around. We're not the party people we used to be, and Trump just doesn't compare with Settlers of Catan.
• Watched Mike put shingles on half of our shed before a rainstorm ended that endeavor.
• Drove around our new neighbor hood and scouted out two properties that have large play structures on them within 2 km each way (gonna make some new friends! Hope hope)
• Enjoyed a steak dinner with my parents.
• Watched my children pet a snake at the reptile exhibit at the trade show at this spot.
• Watched 3 movies with Mike: Quiet Man (would not recommend), Charlie Wilson's War (interesting political story but would not recommend due to language and graphic scenes), Jumper (Meh, was PG, so nothing racey but slightly predictable and not my type of movie so I probably would not recommend).

Hopefully I'll have a connection tomorrow and I can come up with something a bit more organized and interesting.