Changes....

There are a lot of things changing around here and as you can see, the blogs backgrounds are one of them. I am still trying to get my computer back to "normal" after that nasty virus shut me down. I'm finally starting to get my blog site back to where it was. After I broke down in tears, my Bobby came to my rescue and helped me get my toolbar back. It remains to be seen if my blog starts updating my posts or not. I am beginning to accept the fact that there are some things I just can't fix. The more I try, the more upset and frustrated I become.

Speaking of changes, the weather has just been crazy here. Just a week or so ago we were in the 70's, almost 80's. Now we are down into the 30's, even during the day. It's snowed twice already here in the Grand Valley. Crazy. Tomorrow we are trick-or-treating somewhere INDOORS. I am going to spend as little time outside as possible. J on the other hand, He's excited as can be. Snow means fun with Grandpa. Sledding with cousins and lot's of hot chocolate. This is the one change that J has been waiting for and I'm happy it's finally here for him.

School Lockdown

That is what happened at J's school today just as school was about to get out. My parents were supposed to come by the house after picking J up from school and since we only live about two minutes away I expected them by 4pm, 4:05 at the latest. So by 4:20 I thought well they forgot to come by so I called my parents house. They didn't answer. So I called my dad's cell. At first, I thought my dad was pulling a joke on me and I thought NO FUNNY! Then I realized, it was no joke. J's school was in lockdown, there was a suspect in the area with a gun and he had been spotted near or possibly on school grounds. NO parents in, NO students out! Right then Bobby walked in the door, Thank God because I was in tears at that point. Bobby called the district office and found out what was going on and headed to the school. I stayed put and very anxiously waited by the phone. For over an hour, almost two it seemed like, we all waited until GJPD escorted all the children class by class to the gym. Then they loaded all the bus children so they could be on their way home. Then finally they let parents start picking up their kids. It took almost a hour from the time the kids were taken to the gym and when Bob finally got J. I must say, the school staff and Police Officers did a great job keeping the kids calm and SAFE today during this whole ordeal. I can't say enough about how well they all did to protect our children. As for J, he was not happy at all when he got home at 6:15 or so. This "bad guy" had ruined his day! They had to sit in a closet, not a small one, a rather large one but still a closet, and be quiet. Mind you, these are two things that are NOT on J's list of things to do. He had plans after all, and now those plans were no more. He was going to go out and play in some snow with his grandpa. I still took him over to my parents and he got to spend some time with grandpa and that helped. He's worried that the "bad guy" will come back tomorrow and ruin their Halloween Parade and Party. I told him that won't happen but the suspect is still at as of this time, at least that I know of. Hopefully he is caught but if not, he leaves the area.

Cowboy Sheriff Gone Wild.............

That's what has happened in our house. I do not know where J has gone, but he has been replaced by a Cowboy Sheriff who, and I quote, "Runs the Law around here" or so he thinks. He wears a red cowboy hat and has a holster for his two pistols, a pocket for his handcuffs and a lariat rope just in case he should need one. He even has a pair of cowboy boots complete with spars, or so I hear. If I should see him I will certainly try to get his picture and ask him what he has done with my son and when might I get him back.

What A Week

Oh what a week we have had here at the Dauk house and it's not over yet. In fact a new week has just begun. Can you say Yikes!!! Last week at this time, J-boy and I were just getting over having Strep Throat and now here I am sick with this horrible flu bug, the H1N1. It really stinks too. I have to wear a mask if I leave the confinements of my little space, I can't even hug J-boy at all, haven't slept in my own bed for almost two weeks now. It's just crazy.

On some lighter news, J-boy went over to my mom and dad's house and carved his pumpkin with his Grandpa tonight. He had a lot of fun. I sent my camera over in the hopes that it would come back with some good pictures on it but I haven't seen it yet. I would be including some pictures with this post but all my pictures got wiped off my computer. I was on the computer last week when suddenly I got a flashing notice telling my that my computer had just been infected with a virus. I called the 1 800 number for the computer people who we got the computer from and bought three years of Internet security with the computer and they said I had one of two options. Have a geek squad agent look at my computer either at the store or my house and fix it for a few hundred dollars OR I could run a recovery on my computer myself, which would wipe everything off and reset the computer to where it was when I took it out of the box. Well, obviously, we had to do the recovery. Now everything is all messed up. Nothing is like it was before, NOTHING! it's so frustrating. Nothing like being sick and trying to fix your computer at the same time. I guess It could be worse. I really shouldn't be complaining. I just really liked my computer the way it was. Bummer, as my son would say.

I guess that's all the update for now. I'll try to keep from getting anymore viruses so I can keep posting. Now if blogger would just update that I've posted so that people know, that would be great.

And then there were 3.....

Remember not to long ago I posted some pictures of our 4 new family members? Remember how J was so excited to have his Hermit Crabs? And remember how J was just so in love with the little one named Sally? Well, Sally is no longer with us. I'm not real sure what happened. I noticed that she wasn't doing very well, but I didn't think she was molting. (crabs do this at least once a year) I kept and eye on her and did all I knew to do from the reading I had done on line. But sadly, she died anyway. I took her out of the crabitat and then cleaned out the area around where she was. Then I decided that I didn't like having half sand and half coconut shell in there so I took all the coconut shell out and replaced it with the play sand. It looks much better now and I think the other three crabs like it more. They are much more active than they were before. When I got the crabitat set up again and all cleaned out, I put Mickey, Mater and McQueen back in with some new shells. Mickey changed out of his shell into a new one. I guess she didn't quite like that one and changed again. He went back and forth into these two shells a number if times before deciding on the perfect one. I was both exciting and interesting to watch him. I had never see the entire body of a crab before. I will take some more pictures soon and share them with you.

UGH!

J and I both went to the Dr. yesterday after a night of coughing and sore throats. We both have Strep Throat. Perfect timing too. Bobby's sister and more importantly, J's Aunt Marg, is coming for a visit and will be here tomorrow. We shouldn't be contagious anymore by then, but the house, OOOHHH the house. It's hard enough to take care of my 5 yr. old and myself right now. Poor Marg. She's going to see us at our "best". Thank goodness she's family and she's coming to see us, not our house.

Fishing Trip

Here are some pictures of our recent fishing trip on the Mesa. We went up on Color Sunday. I didn't really get any pictures of the trees but I tried to get a few of Mount. Garfield from the look out on the top of the Mesa. It was pretty foggy that day down in the Valley. This was the best shot I got. I'll have to go back up on a clear day.

J and his Grandpa, getting ready to catch a fish. J was the only one to catch a fish that day. He caught it in the first five minutes. It made for a very long few hours of fishing.

J's starting to get bummed that the fish are jumping all around his bobber but Not biting his hook.

The Catch of the Day!

Our New Family Members

We have four new family members and J could not be happier.

We have been talking for quite some time about getting

Hermit Crabs.

We finally got them about a week ago and J Loves his new pets.

As you can see too, I finally have pictures back up on my Blog.

I know, I can't believe it either. I'm very excited.

Now I feel like I have a real blog again.

I was going to keep looking for new backgrounds but

J saw the pretty waterfall and he Loves the picture.

He said to me, Mama Don't change that picture.

So I stopped messing around with the background and

so now, I will introduce you to our four new crabbies.

This is Sally. She is J's favorite. I think because she's the smallest and the most colorful.
Another picture of Sally.

As you can see, J is not afraid to hold her, as long as she is not touching him with her claws. He will pick them all up, but won't let the claws touch him AT ALL!!!

He's quite happy to have his beloved Hermit Crabs at last.

He had to earn them by doing things that big boys do,

Like, pooping in the toilet, ALL THE TIME!

Yea J! We are so proud of him!!!

So here's all four of them. Sally is in the left hand corner,

Lightening McQueen is hiding under the tree. It may be a little hard to see him in this picture. His light colored shell is sticking out.

Then up above, the bigger, darker colored one is Mickey Mouse.

(Mama named that one)

And the other one at the top on the left side is Mater.

So we have McQueen and his girlfriend Sally,

McQueen's best friend Mater and

Of course, Mickey Mouse.

Now that I have pictures again, I will be sharing as many as I can from this Spring and Summer,

But for now, I think that all.

Hope you enjoyed seeing pictures again and

Please feel free to leave a comment when you visit my Blog.