A Week At Home

I left Leadville at 6:30AM last Friday (December 12th). By some miracle, I managed to avoid rush hour traffic alond I-70 and through Denver. It was then smooth sailing until I got to the Colorado/Nebraska border. Not that it was rough sailing once I got there, but I did have to stop because cars only run for so long on a tank of gasoline. While there, I stopped and got Subway. I then continued along on my way to Omaha, Nebraska. I think I hit rush hour in Omaha. I didn't notice it on I-680, but when I got off to find a gas station, traffic was not moving at all quickly. After filling up in Omaha, I got on I-29 and went home.

Saturday I woke up at 6:30AM with the realization that I was allergic to my parent's house. My mom claims that she vaccummed "once or twice"... if you ask me, she probably thought of vaccumming once or twice, and then decided to take a nap instead. (Disclaimer: My mom is aware of the last couple sentences, and takes no offense). Then we went to Walmart and then to home. After that, we went to the little tiny airport that she works at and did she some paperwork so that her employees could be paid. After that, we went to a film at the University of Sioux Falls that someone did as their senior project. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think my mom did too, but she fell asleep for the ending.

Sunday we stayed at home all day. My mom and I cleaned my brother's room in an effort to avoid it becoming a toxic waste dump. My mom and I really aren't that nice to just clean his room for him, but we needed the power cord for the DVD player. We never did find the DVD player power cord, but we did find underwear from when he was probably about 6 years old (he is now 16). I also choked on enough dust under his bed to almost die of asphyxiation. That day, my parents were also introduced to the wonders of Wii bowling, golf, and boxing. My mom beat me in bowling, I beat her in golf, and my dad beat the computer twice in boxing.

Monday, I went to the dentist. I had no cavities :) and my two teeth that I thought I had broken weren't actually broken. AND the dentist gave me samples of gum and I LOVE gum, so it was a good day. Then I drove to my brother's school and picked him up after play practice and fed him Get N Go pizza before taking him home.

Tuesday afternoon I went skiing on a little anthill named Great Bear. That evening, my brother played in Pep Band at the basketball game and my mom and I sold concessions with FCCLA.

Wednesday I had the great priviledge of torturing my brother for several hours while I put blonde "highlights" in his hair. Originally, they were supposed to be white tips. By the time that I had taken the wonderful little hook that came in the kit and pulled 200-300 tufts of hair through the tiny little holes in the cap, I did not have the patience to make only the tips of his hair white. So, I convinced him to let me attack all of the hair that I had pulled through the cap with the dye. After 30 minutes of him wandering around with the worst smelling hair possible (I have dyed my own hair... I have dyed my mom's hair... I have been around while Erin and Randi dyed their hair... I have NEVER EVER EVER smelled dye that was anywhere near as bad as his), he was tired of having dye in his hair, so I instructed him on how to was it out. The next day, he went to school and was apparently embarrassed by his hair, but the people at school liked it and his teacher liked it (he did it for the school play), so I guess that's all that counts. However, I apparently did it wrong because I didn't do enough hair in the back. If you heard how much he was screaming, you wouldn't have done enough hair in the back either, lol.

Thursday my brother got out of school early because of semester tests. Then our neighbor came up to our house and found a mink living in our barn. He, along with two guys in their early 20s who also live nearby, then had the thrill of chasing the mink around the barn in an effort to capture it so that it would no longer kill the chicken and ducks living in our barn. After that episode of excitement, my mom and brother went to school so that he could again play in the Pep band at the basketball game while my mom helped sell concessions, this time for the preschool in town.

Today, Friday, I was planning on driving to Minneapolis to go tubing at Afton Alps with a group of kids I traveled with this summer and then to go to a weekend church thing. However, due to the road conditions my parents told me not to go, so now I am at home for the weekend. Today's journeys involved taking a cat to the vet, eating at HyVee (a grocery store that has a small dining area), my mom going to work for about an hour, and going back to HyVee to get gas (if you buy an item in the store, they give you a discount on gas). Now we are at home, trying to remove a "Trojan Vundo" virus from my brother's computer.

Plans for the weekend probably involve sitting at home, watching it snow. Assuming we get our act together, we are going to cut our Christmas tree down in our backyard. According to my mom, it is crowding other trees. Due to the fact that I have not been out to look at it, I can't tell you if it's crowding trees or not.

You'll have to wait until I get back to Leadville for pictures because I think if I tired to upload 3 or 4 pictures with the dial-up internet that we have at home, I would be waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more.

In case I don't post again until after Christmas, have a Merry Christmas. We'll worry about the Happy New Year later- I think I can manage to post again before then.