Man vs. Dirt Bike

My dad got here yesterday afternoon, and after hanging out (and grandpa getting lots and lots of hugs and kisses☺) we were going to go out to dinner.

Art’s friend Dan called, and Art told me that he wanted to go over to Dan’s house because he was having problems w/ his dirt-bike, and he wanted to give his buddy and helping hand (what a terrific friend), then they might go out if they got it fixed and see if/how it was working.

This did not please me.

1. I was thinking this was awfully rude, seeing how my Dad had just gotten here (riding his Harley through rain/sleet for 2 days…which is another story, but he didn’t have any real problems…just cold hands and feet), and we were just about to walk out the door prior to the phone call.
2. I hate Art’s dirt-bike, and the time that gets put into it; either riding it, fixing it, cleaning it, looking for parts for it, daydreaming about tinkering with it, daydreaming about riding it…. The list goes on.
3. Dirt-bikes are my nemesis… Art’s relentless infatuation with bikes over the last decade has made me jaded… every time the word dirt-bike (in any context) gets mentioned by him, the Darth Vader / Storm Trooper theme starts playing in my head.

Anyhoo, he… being the smart guy that he is (and being married to me for 12+ years)… just looks at my Dad and says “Hey Terry, Summer thinks it would be rude for me to bail out on dinner to go and help my friend work on his dirt-bike”. Of course my Dad (being the laid-back, cool guy that he is) says “No problem… I don’t care” (which is totally true… as long as he’s got Serayah and Cam with him neither mine nor Art’s presence is really required). So off we go, and I leave Art with his “manly” pursuits of helping his friend work on his bike… Uh huh.

About 10 minutes after leaving (not really enough time to start digging into solving a mechanical problem, keep in mind) my cell phone rings with an unfamiliar Utah number….

Me: “Hello?”
Art: (Sounding giddy) “Hey… Where are you?”
Me: (Confused by the call) “Where are you?”
Art: (Really Happy) “Where are you?”
Me: (Really confused.. and still driving the car) “Why… Where are you???”
Art: (Gibberish)
Me: (Kinda more annoyed than when we left) “We’re on our way to dinner” (Duh)
Art: (Still Giddy) “Where are you?”
Me: (Rather ticked) “WE’RE DRIVING ON OUR WAY TO DINNER…. WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW???”
Art: (More weird background noise)
Me: “Have you been drinking?” (and those of you who know him, know that he doesn’t drink)
Art: (Giggle) “No” (Shuffling Noise)
Dan: (Sounding like a guy from Minnesota) “Hey”
Me: (Seriously Confused) “Why is Art calling me wanting to know where I’m at?”
Dan: “He doesn’t usually call you wanting to know where you’re at?”
Me: (Thinking his friend is an idiot) “No.”
Dan: “Oh. We’ll talk to him and make sure he does that more in the future”
Me: (What???) “Is everything OK?”
Dan: “Yeah.. Everything’s fine… I guess we’ll talk to you later… Bye”
Me: “Uh… Bye”.

I relay the conversation to my Dad… who’s been looking at me strangely hearing my side of the conversation. My Dad asks if he hit his head. I say no… of course not. (I’m thinking that maybe he knew that I was ticked and was trying to feel me out for true anger or not… not really his usual approach, but he’s surrounded by testosterone, so who knows?)

Then, my phone rings again… same number.

Me: (Joking) “Did you hit your head or something?”
Chris: (The other… and most together… guy with them) “Uh… well he’s not really hurt, but Art’s having some problems remembering some stuff… He doesn’t know how he got here and he’s acting kind of funny”
Me: (Heart falling to the bottom of my stomach, and trying to figure out if I can do a U-turn during rush hour) “Umm… What Happened?????”Chris: (with Art in the background yelling “I’m fine… go to dinner!!) “We’re not sure… he was behind us”
Me: (Finding a spot to turn around) “Can you please get him home so I can take him to the Dr.?” Art: (in the background) “This is stupid… I’m fine… Go to Dinner!!!” (Right.)

To make a longer story short, there had been an incident involving him, and excessive rate of speed, a cattle guard, a fence-post and a barbed-wire fence (which miraculously didn’t cause any real damage.)… I’d give you more details, but Art still doesn’t really remember what exactly happened.

I took him to urgent care, and because he was wearing his helmet, he doesn’t have a concussion (apparently short-term memory loss isn’t uncommon with a bonk on the head), his hipbone bruised a big muscle internally (he’s still limping), his shoulder (what apparently took the brunt of the fall) is really sore, and he got some “bumps and bruises”. The doctor’s main comment: “I’m giving you a prescription for the pain… which will be worse tomorrow… It’ll say take 1 or 2… Go home and take 2.”

All in all he was really lucky. (See the post below for the picture of his thigh, which he tells me, “doesn’t bug me at all… my hip is kinda sore, but its my shoulder that hurts the most”.
Fantastic… that bruise doesn’t hurt in comparison… but he’s just “fine”!!!

After all this, he was ticked that I put the kibash on his plans to go riding in the morning.
You might think that he really did get a concussion with that brilliant course of thinking, but sadly, this is just typical Art… and is par for the course.

I guess the moral of the story is that bailing on dinner plans last minute to go play with your friends will not end well… and to always wear a helmet.

The Aftermath

Fun at the Park

.....................................................................

Hey all...

This will just be a quickie, but I took the kiddos to the park today for a fun "picnic". We went with our neighbors, and the kids had a ton of fun. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pics of all the kiddos together so you could see the beautiful Ricks children (they couldn't stay very long), but here are some of Serayah and Cam. I swear, Serayah's going to be a rock-climber or something! If she sees some other kiddo do something, she's bound and determined to give it a go too. Oh, and if I didn't mention it an earlier blog, Cam said his first sentence. "Want my Daddy!". Figures, huh?

☺

Interesting information

I was tagged by my friend here in Utah, MaryAnne (wife, mother, marathoner, hairstylist extraordinaire) Here's some stuff you may (or may not) know about me!


10 years ago

Ten years ago I was working in a dental lab in Oakland, Oregon. I'd been married for a couple of years, and we were living in Winston and had 2 dogs, Jordan and Chloe.


5 years ago

I was still working at Novellus. I was commuting from Portland to Phoenix ever other week. Art and I were thinking that maybe it was finally time to start thinking about starting a family.


5 months ago

That would be December.. Lets see... Art and I had celebrated our 12 year anniversary, and my Dad was here for the holidays. :)


5 things on my to do list (today)

Take the kiddos (w/ some other bunchkins and mommies) down to the park for a snack-picnic
Laundry
Sweep/Mop floor
Marinate some chicken to throw on the BBQ
Get to bed before midnight


5 things on my to do list (my life)

Have my children grow up to be relatively normal, productive, moral adults
Visit Ireland
See New Zealand
Renew our wedding vows on a fabulous beach
Go skydiving


5 snacks I enjoy

Wheat Thins
Yogurt
Grapes
Popcorn
Crunchy Cheetos (yummm!)


5 things to do if I were a billionaire

Get a 1956 Ford Thunderbird
Have a beautiful home back in Oregon (and one on the Oregon Beach, too!)
Teach my children about different cultures, then take them to the corresponding countries.
Buy Art a helicopter (after he'd become a licensed pilot... (it's one of his dreams)).
Have a maid come in twice a week (Yeah... I know I'm a terrible housekeeper!)


5 bad habits

in love with shoes
no willpower
I don't keep my house picked up
I'm a huge procrastinator
I don't always have the most tact or diplomacy (I do try though!)


5 jobs I have had

Waitress at the Rose Cafe' (yeah... that was a winner) Roseburg
Chief Cheezers Pizza assistant manager (The title was only so I could look better on future applications... Thanks Herm and Sherry!) Roseburg
Commercial Voice Girl for KTBR Roseburg
Crown Works Dental Lab Oakland, OR
New Product Development tech for Novellus Systems, Tualatin OR



5 things people don't know about me

I have a tattoo
I wrote a song that was copyrighted in high school
I dream of doing voice-over work for Disney
I love early 90's rap
I hate hate hate licorice

5 people I tag, (but I'd love an email from any of you about this!)

Sheila
Michelle
Faith
Christy
Shalynne

Earrings

Well, the other day we were walking through the mall, and I decided to go ahead and let Serayah get her ears pierced. She's been saying she wants earrings, & I told her she'd have to wait until she got older, but I just decided that she could go ahead and get them done now.

Being the mean (smart?) mommy that I am, I never actually let her know that it would hurt, so she was pretty caught off guard when the actual piercing happened. All in all, it went well (there were 2 ladies piercing her, so it would be done all at once). She cried for a few seconds, but then she spotted the mirror.... All tears dried up instantly. From that moment on, there was never a mirror passed without Serayah stopping to twist and turn and proclaim herself beautiful. You can't really tell from the picture, but the earrings are little pink star-shaped crystals.

Also, I'm posting a picture that Art took of the 2 of us the other day.

Onery

For any of you who never believe me when I talk about how obnoxious Cam can be, or how much trouble he loves to get into, I offer this photo as proof of his true identity.

I'm Back!

I'm sure that you've probably thought I'd given up on the whole "blog" thing, right? Actually, the last couple of weeks have been really, really busy (and a whole lot of fun), and I haven't had any time to post anything. I'm probably going to post several in a row so I can include different pictures, but here's a general rundown.

Our wonderful friends: Erik, Shiela, Moriah, Jase and Kale came over to visit us from Oregon. We had a terrific time with them, and were really sad to see them go. Over the course of their visit we went to the bounce house, the zoo, Arches national park, the dinosaur museum, and had tons of fun! They are really great friends and their kids are almost 6(Moriah), 4(Jase), and 9 months(Kale). Serayah had a blast having other kids to play with all the time and keeps asking when we can see them again. I'm including a few pictures from the dinosaur museum in this post. I'm a complete dork, and forgot to take my camera to Arches (it's absoutely spectacular), but Shiela is a fantastic photographer, and I'm going to make her give me all of her pictures that she took, so I'll make a post later to show off what we did there (I'll also take credit for the breathtaking photos, so you'll all be amazed at my artistic talent!).

The dinosaur museum was pretty cool... It's really close to our house, and has the most complete collection of complete dinosaur skeletons in North America... who knew? Serayah wasn't too impressed by all of the large skeletons or weird dinosaur noises coming from the speakers, and got pretty freaked out. (This coming from the girl who can't wait to go fast in a car or on a ride, and who wanted to try and climb down the 30 foot canyon wall in Arches). After we were getting ready to leave though, she begged to go again, and hasn't quit asking about our next trip, so I'm sure we'll be going back soon.

The pictures are of Serayah, Moriah and Jase playing in the sand/water table and all 4 of them (minus baby Kale, of coure) "digging" for fossils. Also a couple of solo shots of the kiddos. I'm not too sure what Cam was looking at in the one picture, but it cracks me up!

Well, I guess that's all for now, but I'll be posting more ASAP.

Miss all of you...

~Summer

Spring Is Here!!

Well, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but honestly, not much has been happening.

Serayah and Cam (and their Mommy and Daddy too) were all sick last week, so I'm happy to report that we're all feeling better. Cam's still trying to pop that last incisor through though, so our nights haven't been so great.

We've been really happy to see some warmer weather (finally), so we've been reveling in our shorts and t-shirts. Cam gets really excited when he wears shorts... you can just see him look down and get this "yeah... I'm the man... check out these puppies..." look. Then he'll run up to you and grin and yank 'em up higher to show you some extra leg, then giggle and run off. Not really sure what that's all about, but whatever. I'll try and snap a picture of him tomorrow after I get him dressed, and hopefully get "the look" captured to post.

Serayah's and Cam both have been really happy to be able to run around outside more. Cam's main objective is to see if he can put anything down Art's motorcycle's exhaust pipe without anyone noticing... be ready for a future post detailing that one. Serayah just loves playing with whomever is running around outside, blowing bubbles, or drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. I've been trying to get some weeds pulled out in the front, but keeping them both out of trouble kind of makes the weed-pulling slow going. Oh well.

I'm putting up a picture I took of Serayah the other day (before it warmed up). Sorry I don't have a recent one of Cam. Sorry this isn't very exciting, but that's life (better than too much excitement!)

Love to all...

~S.