Sept 28th, 2008

Talked with Brynn tonight, I told her I would quickly write down what's been going on. Sorry no pictures.

So, aprox four weeks ago I went to Wal-Mart could hardly find a parking place. I thought, "What is going on?" I then remembered "School's back." For those of you who don't know, this means that the Laramie population doubles in size in about one week or less. You have to experience it to fully understand it.

My new stress - don't run over a biker! They're every where and bumper stickers to go with them. Numerous people have these bumper stickers that say, "Share the street, Give a bike 5 feet" Ahhhh!!! They make me crazy. All these years living here I am still surprized that I haven't hit one yet. It scares me. Also, along with the students has come the football population. For some reason I forget about that too. With school comes football. Haven't been to a game this year, and from the looks of it, unless Kelsey beggs me, I don't think we'll go this season.

Went to Denver a couple weekends ago with the youth. That was fun. I asked my buddy Emily to walk to Deseret Book with me while we were waiting to be seated at a restaurant. She's all excited to go. We get to the street, which is a very busy one, and she decides that she will just run across it. Ok, Shannon, Brynn, this isn't an exaggeration, this was a really truely busy street. I'm like, "Oh no I can't leave her" so I dart into traffic and away we go. I still can't believe that neither one of us got hit. Needless to say on the way back I said, "I think we should use the light this time."

Another weekend sometime this month was spent in Cheyenne at one of my intensive weekend classes. I like this class, a bit more managable than the others that I have taken. I think I can handle this one.

Yesterday, Kelsey and I did a lot of nothing. Poor kid. I told her I would take her ice skating. Got to the ice rink and it was closed to the public. So, I tell her we will go roller skating. Got to the roller rink and it's reserved for a birthday party. So, I ended up taking her to Sweet Pickles (the cool toy store in town that you all love), we ended up spending a good two hours there. That really is a cute store.

This week I had my last physical therapy apt. My leg is still kindof messed up but it appears that there is nothing else they can do. I have no problems walking or running on it, but if it gets bumped it doesn't feel that great. I don't have time to deal with it any more - I'm over it.

Kelsey has been collecting bugs for her class. This has been a very hard thing for me. They are all currently in a bag in my freezer. I'm feeling my gag reflex getting stimulated as I'm thinking about it. It really bothers me, more than you can imagine. So Kelsey got this assignment to collect bugs the first week that school began. I figured that if I ignored it it would go away. Kelsey started getting sad because all the kids in her class had tons of bugs and she only had a couple that she had collected during recess. So as we are walking to check the mail one day we heard a lady freaking out about some kind of weird bug stuck to the grill of her car. I instantly knew what Kelsey was thinking. So as we go back past, the lady is gone and Kelsey has the chance to check out the bug. So I think, "Ok, the bug is already dead, all we have to do is get it off the grill, put it in a baggie and be on our way." So as we approach the car I see this gigantic flying thing stuck to the grill. Kelsey was pumped by her discovery. I did't have the heart to tell her no. So we went back to the house, got the equipment needed to take the bug off (baggie, laytex gloves) and headed back to the car. I refused to help her take the thing off. I gave her the gloves and with the help of her little friend they were able to pull all of it but the head off. Kelsey didn't seem to mind that the head was still stuck to the grill, she was just excited to finally have a bug (and a big one at that) to take to school. As she ran home jumping with excitement she told me I was the best mom in the world. I couldn't believe it.

Since that day I have helped her collect two others. One was a strage flying thing that was by our door. I sprayed it with bug spray, killed it, and put it in the freezer with the other. The final bug was collected last weekend. Kelsey and I went and planted trees out by the airport (every year the church helps with a community service day where everyone goes and plants trees. Kelsey and I planted three, it was fun). While we were shoveling dirt, I see this gigantic weird looking beetle. We happened to have a emptly water bottle so I scooped it up and off it went with us. Although I was still a bit bothered, this one didn't seem too bad. I made Kelsey put it in the sleeve of her jacket so that I would't have to look at it. When we got home it went into the freezer. A couple days later Kelsey pulls the water bottle out of the freezer and starts shaking the bug around. I about lost it. I told her to stop before the legs fell off. "They already did" she responds. Back in the freezer it went. We get to send them off to school in two days. I am looking forward to it. I would have to say that although Kelsey does not have a lot of bugs, I guarantee that the ones she does have will be the biggest.