A day at the fair...

Have u ever seen a rabbit like that???

This is Paul on a GOOD day!!!

July 2010 pictures

A little more freedom...

    Well the time has come to send Justina to school.  She has never been to school, I have alway homeschooled.  This is a bitter sweet time for me, the bitter being that I have screwed up and should of sent her earlier and the sweet that I will have a little more freedom with a little less stress, which may be beneficial for my blood pressure:)  Now Im not saying she will never be homeschooled again, as somewhere down the road circumstances may force me to.  But Im not going to think about that now and just enjoy only homeschooling one child.  I would send Mercy as well and enjoy total days of freedom but I would need to come up with another 350 a month (long sigh).  Our Alaska PFD money is flippn the bill for Justina:)  She will be attending a private christian school near our house where there is only 10 students for 4-8 grade combined!!!  Thats hopefuly a lot of one on one attention which Justina could benefit from. 
    My biggest fears in sending Justina to school... 1)  That she will tell the teacher that I always yelled at her and 2)  That it will be to hard for her as she is not used to a lot of what they will be doing.
    My hope is that being around other children will push her to do well and start caring for her schoolwork.  You see that is our biggest problem, she hates school and doesnt even try to do well.  This year we are hoping for a change:) 
    Mercy is doing most of her school online and she is very excited.  The only thing I need to do is math and she does that very well.  Should be easy, shes only in 1st grade:)

Alaska Summer...

This is Mercy and Justina getting ready to run through our sprinkler!! Notice anything strange??

A little late...

I took this pic at midnight somewhere around the longest day of the year.

Photos and videos of our trip...

Click to view all photos of San Diego...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=851840481212%3A1406945817&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee


Mercy had to pee... (because I cant figure out how to actually play the video on here you have to click on everything to be re directed)

From

From 6-7-2010

From 6-7-2010

Wow its been awhile...

I cant believe I have posted nothing since May 12th!!! Well its not like I have a whole lot of great things to write about u know. The biggest thing of course was our almost 2 week trip that took us to San Diego. Im just gonna come out and say it, "I dont like San Diego!", ok there I said it and I said it as nice as I could. Im not a California girl, but I tried I really did. Actually let me re phrase that, Im not a desert girl. Is that how you spell desert as in dry and brown? I always get that word mixed up with dessert, u know the kind of thing we all like to over indulge in. Nancy, I really wanted to like it because you love it and I thought hmmm maybe we could be like kindred spirits who like the same things and so on and so on... But unlike you Im Uncreative (if thats a word), Unmotivated, and I hate San Diego. So basically after hanging out with me for more than a few days you would probably hate me! Hopefully not:)  Well Im not totally un motivated just when it comes to birthday parties, decorating for holidays, making anything that requires time and stuff like that:) Im just kidding about all the kindred spirit stuff, I forget that not everybody understands my humor and may just think Im weird. Im starting to ramble so I better get on with our trip...

So the plane comes in to San Diego and my immediate thoughts were " wow this place is brown and ugly", and then, "Oh my gosh a terrorist has high jacked the plane and we are going straight towards the downtown buildings". The plane I swear was inches away from those tall skyscraper things! So now I have officially landed and am off to figure out how Im going to get to my rental car, the signs were horrible once I got outside and I had no clue what I was doing. I finally saw a Dollar rent a car shuttle bus that I could take. For the record I hate 99% of all shuttle drivers!! I also hate how those shuttle buses dont have seat belts. The guy was CRAZY, the worst one I have ever EVER EVER had to deal with. It was only the girls and I on the bus and he pulls up to a Thrifty bus and starts asking the guy if hes got any good tips and tells him he hopes the tips start picking up. Talk about awkward and annoying! I hate tipping nice people let alone complete jerks. I cant even express to you enough how horrible this guy was driving. I was in tears, I told him he was scaring me, I thought this is it we are going to die. He told me he could do nothing different, this is the same guy who was hoping tips would start picking up. I have never had to say anything to a shuttle driver, I always grin and bear it. So this was bad. I complained to the guygirl who was checking me in. I say guygirl because I am not certain what it was. Of course nothing came of it as I found out later when I returned the car and the really nice shuttle manager who was driving me heard nothing of it. He was the 1% of shuttle drivers I like:) He actually took all my info and assured me that the guy who drove me previously would not get away with what he did as he has had past reported problems. Anyways Im jumping ahead, after I had got into my car and the girls were settled in the back I began to cry for 30 min. I did not even want to drive as i was not sure if all San Diego drivers were this way. I actually wanted to go ahead and fly back home at that point, but Paul calmed me down enough to attempt to find my hotel. After getting on the road and going to my hotel I was relieved to find that nobody else drove that way.

The nice part about San Diego was seeing my old pastor and his wife who use to be like parents to me. They were waiting to see me at the hotel. We visited quite a bit including the next day where the girls spent the day swimming in their pool. I put sunscreen on Mercy right before she entered the pool and didn't realize until that night that it was NOT waterproof. As for Justina she came later to the pool and I completely spaced off sunscreen, after all I was sitting in the shade. Man did I feel really bad for both of them later!! We haven't had sunburns since we moved to Alaska. Justina had a couple of blisters on her arm it was so bad and Mercys back looked extremely painful as did her face and Justinas shoulders. Bad mom moment!!! I spent 2 hours putting ice cold towels on them trying to pull some of the heat out. Lets just say the next day was horrible. But we moved on and they peeled and blistered it out for the rest of the trip.

Lets see the next thing we did was Disneyland. Let me just say now that I will try not to say another negative thing AFTER Im done talking about DL. I Loathe DL, is that worse than hate?? If so then I have correctly described my feeling towards this place. It may have been different if I had went at a less busy time. I went before school was out for that county in the middle of the week but the fantasmic show was showing that night and the park was open later so I guess everybody in the state of California along with the rest of the world decided to go that day as well. Im not a crowd person, so why did I go to California you ask, I dont know, I plead insanity. On a positive note the girls did AWESOME, never once did they complain about lines. I was very impressed! We waited about an hour and 15min to go on splash mountain, but it was well worth the picture of Mercy. I need to scan that picture for you guys, it was like pure terror on her face. I did feel bad when she was screaming and crying her heart out after the first little plunge in the dark and we started to climb to the top of the drop. Her little heartbeat actually made me nervous, I thought she was gonna pass out. After that I told her we needed to go on Space Mountain, after all we had our fast pass tickets for it and I remembered it being a fun ride. In almost complete honesty I knew it was a little scary but i thought it was not as bad as a 50 foot drop going 37mph. The almost part meant I just really didnt remember. But I told her she would be fine. Lets just say that was the last roller coaster we went on that day!!! Wow even I was scared and I thought at the end of the ride that Mercy was dead. She screamed and cried the whole ride of course but at the end she was slouched over completely still and quite, so much so that I actually panicked and started to shake her. She was alive but barely, I did not carry her out as I did not want to chance walking around in clothes that had been vomited on. Thankfully she never did throw up but i did permanently damage the poor thing. Justina on the other hand who I thought would never go on any of those rides wanted to go on it again. She proved to be quite the daredevil. She rode everything and looked as happy as could be. I was very proud of her. We specifically went that day to see fantasmic but we left an hour before it was scheduled to begin due to complete exhaustion, we had bee there 12 hours already and I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me.

Wow this is getting to be a long post, maybe the longest ever.  Ok so after this we went to Sea World.  We really enjoyed Sea World, so much so that we went 4 or 5 times.  Our favorites were Shamu and the Sea Lions.  Its amazing what these animals are trained to do.  I liked that there were no lines for anything and it was way more laid back.  The highlight was our last day, Justina was picked to participate at the end of the Shamu Believe show.  I will attach a video at the end of this post of it.  We went to almost all the shamu shows during our visits to SW and we kept sitting where they seemed to be picking the lucky young girl or boy (mostly all girls) to be a part of the show.  The last day we figured out that one of the trainers stands out at one of the entrances and randomly picks one person about 30 min before the show starts. Ah hah now I understood why there was reserved seating right where we were trying to sit to get picked!  Soooo being the cool mom that I am, we went about 35 min early and couldn't quite figure out where the trainer would be standing so I stoped and asked a security guard there at the Shamu area how to get picked and where the trainer would exactly be.  Good thing I talked to her, she revealed not only where the trainer would be but let us know that they will NOT choose anyone who asks to be picked.  My original plan was to go up to the trainer and ask to be picked, hmmm that was now not going to work.  Plan B, casually walk by the the trainer (not giving direct eye contact of course) smiling, looking interested and stoked to be seeing Shamu and VOILA!!  It worked!!!  She came up to us and asked Justina her name and it was in the bag.  I was soooo giddy inside knowing that I took some control of our fate that fine day at the Shamu stadium.  They took her picture and then escorted us tooooo yes thats right the RESERVED seating:)  I think I was more excited than Justina and I can defiantly say I was more excited than Mercy who poor thing was sad and jealous that they didnt pick her.  Oh well, its good for the big sister to get the attention once in awhile:) 

Im not gonna talk much about Lego land and the San Diego Zoo.  We defiantly liked Lego Land better than DL.  Glad we went there.  As for the Zoo, we liked it but I would never go back.  We got there when it opened and stayed until closing, very long day.  We missed our shuttle at 3:30 by 5 minutes!!!  So we had to stay there the last 2 hours until it closed.  There were many cabs with drivers ready to take you anywhere your heart desired but they looked like they would drive me into the twin towers if you know what I mean!  As for the hotel shuttle, that was the first and last time we took that anywhere.  The guy was going 60 in a 35, come on thats a heart attack waiting to happen.  I asked him to slow down and told him I have really high blood pressure and that he was going to kill me.  Yeah, it worked.  He slowed down and drove quite well from that point on. 

I was actually relived to fly into Portland and see green again!  I was a nice retreat from a busy brown city and I enjoyed my 3 days there.  I think the girls actually preferred being there as well:) 

Then it was back to the great state of Alaska!  I missed Paul after all it had been 2 weeks since I had seen him.  I was worried about coming home and seeing all the work he had done.  In fact I practiced my happy face and rehearsed all my great lines telling him how wonderful everything was.  When I got home I was glad to see i worried for nothing as did a great job and I was very proud of him.  But we still have A LOT to do in order to ever be finsihed!  Maybe I need to take a couple weeks in Hawaii to let him finish??



CLICK TO WATCH JUSTINA AND SHAMU

From 6-7-2010

And were off again...

Sunny San Diego here we come!  After my nightmare flight on the way home from Seattle back in Feburary I thought I would never fly again, but Im given it another try.  We are visiting my old pastor and his wife whom I have not seen for quite awhile.  When I say we, I mean the girls and I.  Paul is staying home with Heifer and hopefully (fingers crossed) getting some much needed chores done.  Our plan is to make this a 2 sided trip.  A visit and some MUCH needed fun!  Sea World, Zoo, Disneyland, Beach and maybe Legoland are on my itenerary.  I will be there 9 days, so plenty of time to take everything in I hope and spend some quality time with friends:)     I will probably avoid shopping as much as possible as that always makes me stressed with the girls, so not worth it.  However the mall is soooooo close to where were staying, hmmmmm.  I currently have no shorts, no capris and no bathing suit so I have a lot to do to prepare:)  The girls are beyond excited and I have let them know that they will be forced to ride on everything!!!  Mercy meets a lot of height requirements now, yeah!  Im prepared to bribe them or possibly drag them on splash mountain, space mountain, thunder mountain, mattahorn and that river ride over at sea world.  Paul says I can pay them if necessary:)  Mercy acts scared but usually she overcomes it and Justina well she may need to be dragged.

Ughhhhhhhhh!!!!!!......

Ok so at the moment, and I mean right now, Justina is throwing a kicking screaming fit!!  Why you ask...Im not really sure but I think its because I told her she had to go to bed at 9.  She then responded "why do I have to go to bed the same time as Mercy, thats not fair blah blah blah"  Being the wonderful pateint mother that I am I calmly responded " Im not going to have to deal with 2 different bed times".  Justina being the 11 year with a huge attitude says "why (in a snoty voice mind you) because Mercy might cry and have to get her way".   She proceeded whaling down the hall yelling that she hates her life. 
After several minutes of screaming about how horrible evrything is she then went on to say screaming and crying, "ahhh I hate myself, one minute Im happy and the next minute Im sad and then I get mad ahhhh (cry cry cry)". 

Hmmm I wonder what that means??? 

Whats the moral of the story... If you have the money, girls around 11 should be sent away to boarding school!

Mercy's first competition...

We spent a good 12+ hours this weekend at our Ice Rink competing with about 120 girls (and a few boys).  Mercy was in 5 events, she recieved 2 gold metals, 2 silver metals and a bronze metal:)  She is one very happy girl!



If you click the below pic it will redirect you to a video of Mercy's first event...

From

Happy 11th Birthday Justina!!!

For a look and "listen" of what its like having a karaoke machine
http://picasaweb.google.com/carmellbarlow/4182010#5461658324701201394

A girl after my own heart...

Justina:  "Mom you can turn after the white truck... Uhhhh I cant wait to drive someday"

Mercy:  "I cant wait to have a Caramel Macchiato someday!"

2010 Spring show Pics...

Spring Show...

From

So today was the big day. Walmart Superstore officially opened in our wonderful little city:) I had to go to the opening ceremony to see the frenzy of it all. After picking up my latte and Mcdonalds breakfast I headed over to the grand opening of Walmart Supercenter. Doesnt that sound so American...Coffee, McDonalds and Walmart. When I arrived and walked towards the fuss I was startled by gunshots, apparently part of the ordeal. I made my way inside pushing and shoving my way into what I hoped would be a descent spot for picture taking, but no such luck. I could here what was going on but I couldnt really see. Our highschool choir sang the national anthem, quite fitting considering we are standing in a store stuffed with "made in China" merchandise:) Then came the prayer, I so wish I would of recorded it so I could remeber all the funny things this guy was praying about and for. I do remember he started out saying, "Lord we know that all good and perfect gifts come from you, and we thank you for this gift of Walmart..." Wow so Walmart is a gift from God!!!! He went on to pray for the employees that would come here day after day, that they would be blessed and find Walmart to be a wonderful and fulfilling place of employment. I wish I could remember the rest.
Once we were released to begin a new shopping journey, I was off. I was the second person to make it to electronics, only to find that they did not have a karaoke machine for Justinas B-Day:( Oh well, I walked around and looked at prices, bought a couple cheap movies and visited with a couple people I bumped into. My first purchase at this grand event: 2 Rockstars and 2 $5 movies. Because they have like 30+ checkout stands in this 210,000 square foot mega store, I didnt have to stand in line. The prices were not a whole lot lower than our trusty fredmeyer store but they did have more of a selection, wider isles, bigger deli and bakery by far, and a Subway. If I could pick one more thing they should of put in their store I would have to say Starbucks. That would of really sealed the deal for me. Well, maybe not, they really did not have much of a selection of Organics. That is the most important thing for me and the reason why they will not own me entirely:)

This is I guess is the "walmart store brand", Great Value. I thought the store brand boxes and cans ruined the displays. Look how ugly the labels are. I would never buy somthing with such a ugly label. When I looked at them it reminded of some discount store in the ghetto that sells expired goods. There like gleeming white and stick out like a sore thumb.

2010 Iditarod

We finally made it to the Iditarod! Paul has been wanting to go since we have been here in Alaska. Its so Alaskan u know:)
Its an 1,100 mile race to Nome, AK. We went to the ceremonial Anchorage start. You may not be able to tell from my pics but there were thousands of people there!! We were excited as we adopted our dog from a guy who has ran in the past 3 Iditarods and this one being his 4th. His name is Bruce Linton and this year he is number 65. He was one of like 6 people who were being filmed in the Discovery chanel documentry "Toughest race on earth". We wanted to go wish him luck and cheer him on. The downtown portion of the city was very crowded and hard to get some good pics but we moved a few miles out and got some good pics of the dogs and mushers. They probably have the Discovery documentry at your local Blockbuster if your interested:)  http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/iditarod/iditarod.html

Click the slideshow to be redirected to my Iditarod web album

Just a little humor...

Maxine should run for president. She was right on with this one!


Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately: illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, alligators attacking people in Florida ....

Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation.

+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border.

+ Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies.

+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.

Any other problems you would like for me to solve today ? Yes ?

Think about these:

1. Cows

2. The Constitution

3. The Ten Commandments

C O W S

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq .... Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.

7 years

Just a few things I love about Paul...

1  The wrinkles in the corner of his eyes
2  He always goes out of his way to avoid things that would cause him or I to stumble in our walk with the Lord.
3  He desires to follow the Lord, and when he may fall down he always gets back up
4  I can share anything with him, I love to lay in bed and talk, he always listens, until he starts snoring:)
5  He stopped wearing tapered leg pants for me (probably has nothing to do with the fact that I sold them all in my yard sales early on)
6  He has a very good work ethic, hes always willing to give more than he takes
7  He puts up with me, I gotta love that
8  Hes very smart, but always wrong, but thats because Im always right, cant be helped:)
9  He laughs with me, we can be goofy together
10  I love that he hasnt put the bowflex together now for over 2 months, I know its because he does not want me to strain myself, very thoughtful:)

Happy 7th anniversary Babe:)  Love ya