I'M going to Mexico...

...But I dont know about Elizabeth.
If she gets her Passport anywhere near as fast as I got mine, she will be fine.

So why can't I join my people?

*Note: This entry may sound bitter, angry or racist. It is not intended to convey such feelings. I love everyone.

Apparently, I am illegal. It's true. Daniel and I went to finally get our passports yesterday. We had to wait to get my new drivers license, had to wait until we had money to pay for them, then Daniel spent hours getting our stupid pictures to the correct specifications, per the passport page on the official government travel website. Well, we tried.

First off, the lady at the office said our pictures weren't on the right paper. Online, it just said it had to be on photo paper (which it was) but lovely hope-crusher lady said it had to be on PASSPORT photo paper. Thanks, government website. So we had to get new ones taken at the office, which is what Daniel wasted hours of his life doing our own pictures for, to avoid paying to have the same ones taken. Then, we go back up to the counter where my new best friend noticed my birth certificate and says it won't work.

Why, you might ask? ITS NOT LEGAL. It's apparently an abstract of birth, which is not a real birth certificate. It was thought up by some guy named Juan who needed to help his cousins. A few counties in California and Texas started handing these bad boys out to people coming over the border, but also gave them to legal babies being born in those counties. I was a lucky one. Maddeningly enough, it's legal enough to give me a social security number, a drivers license, a marriage certificate, a new social security card, a new drivers license and allow me to pay an absurd amount of my hard-earned money to taxes, but not freaking legal enough to grant me a passport.

So now what do I do? I have to get a Certificate of Identity notarized here, then send it to California (with a $17 fee of course), where within 15-20 business days they will send me a birth certificate (HOPEFULLY the right one). Then, I have to go apply for the passport, send that out (with a $100 fee of course), and hope it gets back in time for me to sit in the airplane seat I purchased months ago and fly my legal ass to Mexico. I don't know how much hope to give this, but I will hold on to what I've got. The lovely frizzy-haired lady who denied my passport application said that it has only been taking 2 weeks average for people to get their passports recently. Well, as I wait my 15-20 business days, I will wait and see if Daniel gets his in a reasonable time. We have 11 weeks from today.. let's see how this goes.

Until then, you can call me Rosario.

Patio Time

Having a yard is nice...Having a yard with a Patio is nicer....having a yard with Patio furniture...well...thats a beautiful thing (at least that's what my wife tells me). And since she feels this way, she requested, and we purchased, a patio set for her birthday even though it was a couple weeks early.
I'm pretty sure she just wants a place to sit when I work on the yard and that's OK because every day I look at my garden...there are 50 new weeds trying to come up so I need to spend every day keeping up with them or I wont know what is supposed to be there and what is a weed.

Lil Johnny Sack

Since the same people who read this blog also read The Gold Element, I will spare you the story of the 4'11" Johnny Sack, but I will share some of my pictures from the trip to Big Springs since those are the only pictures I took this weekend on our excursion to the Gold family cabin.

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I took a bunch of Pictures of Buck & Vic that are more traditional, but this one was my favorite.


Don't look too close or you might see Little Johnny Crack. The boys were looking at the Ginormous Trout under the bridge.


I'm pretty sure those fish would put up a fight.


Me and my Boys enjoying the great outdoors together. They also got a dose of Yellowstone with Grandma Nay and Grandpa Randall Clause on this trip when they got to see..as John said "That squirty uppy thing...Old Yeller?"

The many faces of Big Springs

Look! Its a Beaver! Oh actually its a duck. We saw Osprey, Pelicans, Muskrats, Trout and a couple Ducks that were somehow mistaken for Beavers. Thanks again to Buck & Vic for having us up for the weekend. We all had a great time playing Ping Pong(losing to Vic), Went on a 2 mile hike where John and Weed set personal bests, learned a new game called Killer Bunnies and Buck got well practiced (addicted to) Guitar Hero.

Garden Time

I had forgotten how much work goes into a garden. About 2 months ago I bought a tray of peat moss pellets to start my seedlings. I figured that would only take a few minutes to put together...I mean...how hard can it be to put a few little seeds into some dirt? Well, that little project took like 3 hours cause I wanted it to be just perfect. After about a week or two I started seeing little miracles of life springing up from the peat moss pellets and I knew that my garden had a head start even though it was still snowing outside. I had the seed packets in the container that the seeds were from so that I would know what row had what growing in it. (dont do this...they grew in the packets). I watched and watched as some grew quickly while others took their own sweet time...but almost every pellet had some life in it. Now all I needed was to wait for the weather to be just right so I could plant the little fellas and let mother nature do the rest. Well...As you all know...It has been a frosty cold spring so no early planting this year. Ben and I tilled the garden area a few weeks ago and got any weeds or rocks from the area. We made the kids come help by hauling the weeds or rocks away from the area for us (cheap labor). Last weekend would have been perfect, only Mothers day didn't leave any extra time over the weekend to get that done. I did however get the tomatoes planted last week.
So...the time finally came for the seedlings to hit the soil. Here's where the not as easy as it looks part comes into play. I needed to re-till the area again since it had been so long since we first did it and that is quite the workout. It was hot...I am out of shape and luckily had Jasmines help transporting seedlings to me so I didn't have to make too many trips. I almost blacked out once when I stood up too fast. Jazz asked me why I was falling asleep standing. Its because I was about to collapse is all. We made it out alive and now its back to waiting and watching to see if the labors are rewarded with some salsa fixins (pretty much all I planted). I need to get some more seeds cause I have room for more and have thought of some other things I would like to grow. So far I have Jalapenos, Habanieros, Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, Cilantro, Cucumbers and Lettuce. Kinda bleak. Oh well...All I wanted was some good Salsa from my garden and hopefully...that is what we will have.

Poor Little Kitty

So, some of you know that the life of Dookie has gotten bleak. We noticed that he had gotten pretty skinny, and I kept telling Daniel that, but he kept saying it was just him losing his winter coat. Well, I was saying the other day that he has gotten way too skinny because you can see his hip bones. Daniel then noticed, and also noticed he hadn't seen Dookie eat in awhile. We took him to the vet on Monday, where they kept him overnight giving him fluids and waiting for blood test results. Tuesday morning they told Daniel that it all pointed to kidney failure and that there was nothing we could do at that point. So, all day Tuesday, Daniel and I mentally (and emotionally) prepared to have him put to sleep. Then, Tuesday evening, the vet said he had eaten, which was a big change, so we should take him home and see if he keeps eating. So now we are pretty much just watching and waiting, hoping for a miraculous comeback. We sure love the little guy, so everyone say some kitty prayers for him!

Here he is tonight, battle scarred from the night at the vet (shaved/pierced neck and bandaged little paw):

Some of my favorite memories

For my favorite memories, I’m going with the time the restaurant manager in Mexico brought us each a beer and Paul said” we have to drink it or he will be offended” and I said “I can’t drink this…beer is disgusting…you will have to drink both” So every time the manager would get called away for a minute I would pour mine into his glass and he would chug it and I would pour more…When the manager got back my glass was always lower and Paul’s was still full. Later, Mom said “I saw you 2 drinking beer you bad boys”. I never convinced her that Paul drank them both, but that’s ok...at least the CANADIAN restaurant manager in Mexico wasn’t offended. On a more family friendly memory…Paul and I had the great idea to sleep out on the beach in lawn chairs while in Mexico…BAD IDEA! Not only was it about 200 degrees at night out there with the humidity…but the bugs feasted on us all night. When we woke up we were miserable, sticky, tired and oh yeah…covered with bug bites. I’m glad I had the time I did with Paul. I’m also glad I got to spend some time with him a week and a half before he died. I wish there was a way to know when something like this is going to happen so you can cherish your time with someone knowing you don’t have as long as you think you do…but it makes you realize that life is precious and can change in a heartbeat. We should treat everyone like it is the last time we are going to see them…because it just might be.