Meet Evil.

An Ornate Box Turtle.

Tyler spotted him on the side of the road on our way back from Sterling 4th of July weekend.
We figured it was too dangerous to leave him there, so I asked Tyler if he wanted to just take him home and we'd clean him up and take him over to Palmer lake the next day. He agreed that was a good idea.

The turtle looked pretty happy about it too... Notice his smile.

Of course, that was right before he tried to bite off Ty's finger. We took him home anyway.

Meet Alex. He's a friend of ours, we took him up to Sterling with us. He has a brother up there that he hadn't seen in a while, so we thought since we were headed up anyway- we'd just take him along. He added lots of laughs to the 3+ hour car ride.

This is when we told Alex we were actually going to take the turtle home with us. He kinda thinks we're nuts. But hey, he's the one who bought a plant at the Sterling Walmart to bring back with him.. I'm just sayin'...

It worked out well though.

Now, this is when he got his name. He kept trying to do flips in my hands to get away from me. He was being CRAZY! So- I named him Evil... as in Evil Knievel. Little did I know it would be so fitting.

Now that it's about a week later, Josh and Ty are both in love with him. Especially because he's an omnivore, and it's SO much fun to watch him eat super worms. It looks like Evil is now officially part of the Adams Family.

I figure it'll work out ok, I've been asking Ty when I could get a dog- since we'll have a backyard starting Wednesday. Ty laughs every time I bring it up- so this is a close second, I guess. Evil will be an outside turtle. He'll be free to roam around the backyard, eating all the bugs he wants. I'm sure my garden will probably be a big part of his diet as well, I'll just have to get over that.

As his name implies, he's not the friendliest turtle I've ever met.. but Josh is VERY good with him- It actually surprised me. He's definitely his father's son.

Here's Evil, nice and clean after a dip in the sink.

And this is a picture I took of Tyler trying to show me a June Bug. I had never seen one before, but it flew away just as I snapped the picture. bummer.

In other news:

We got the house! Also, the appraisal was done this week and came back perfectly!
Looks like there's nothing in our way to close on the 15th (ONLY 6 DAYS AWAY) and MOVE IN!!!!
Needless to say, I'm SO excited!!!

***Only one small thing... the dishwasher in the house is broken... (I guess in the last year that it's been vacant, someone turned it on when there was no water hooked up to it...) so that'll suck having to wash all the dishes by hand for the first little while... No one has one just layin' around they'd like to give us, do they?? ;)

Anyway- I'll be taking pictures and posting them of our new home shortly!!!! So stay tuned!!!!

4th of July FUN

Tyler and Brian setting off a bunch of fire crackers.. the kids loved watching them.

Me, mom and dad

Jimmy's neighbors had a bunch of little *kittens that were running all over the place. Josh LOVED it!

Josh, Anakin, Chloe and Owen watching fireworks. Josh sure loves his cousins.

And back at the hotel, Nana found a FROG! Josh and Ty couldn't have been happier!

Josh said, "It squeaks when I squish it!" lol poor *frog....

*No frogs or kittens were harmed in the taking of these pictures.

Baby Reagan!

I'm lucky enough to be able to watch my niece, Reagan, a few times a week. She is getting to be so much fun! She just started eating solid foods, grabbing and pulling things (like my hair..), and giggling a ton!

I was able to snap a short video today of her cute little giggles- She's so squeaky and wonderful- I just had to share!

((Sorry about my redundant noises- it always amazes me what babies can get you to do!! LOL Oh well, sounding silly is totally worth her reaction!!))

Rampart Range and Garden of the Gods

We ran up to Rampart Range today to shoot our pistols for the first time.

On the way there, we drove through Garden of the Gods. It's so beautiful up there- Josh loved it!

Joshy being so tough- showing off his muscles.

Ty's Taurus 17hmr

my 9mm
So pretty up there! What a great day!

Fruits of my labor

For Mother's Day, Josh and Tyler got me some flowers, strawberry plants and patty pan squash seeds.

Finally, my strawberries are getting ripe and my patty pan squash is getting pretty impressive.. if I do say so myself. Even though I don't have any flowers yet on the squash, I love that these plants started from seeds!

Those are Safeway "Thank You" stickers on Joshy's shirt...

While I love my little garden of pots, I'm so excited to have a yard where I can have a REAL garden!!!

Josh is such a FLIRT!!! ...and a show-off!

Yesterday, while walking around Gymboree (spending all my money in my head..) I overheard an exchange between Josh and an adorable little girl...

Josh: "Hi, I'm Josh..."(leaning in to make sure she understood it..) "J-O-S-H..?"

Little girl: "Hi"

Josh: Pointing to his head, "See my staples? I totally hit the wall."

Little girl: (with a disgusted look) "Ohhh... wow."

I DIED laughing! What the crap? That's all I heard from the conversation because I was too preoccupied with my own amusement...

All I can think of now is, "Oh man... I'm so screwed."

Waiting on the bank...

Well, some of you know that Tyler and I have decided to look into buying a home... This one came up, as a short sale and we made an offer last night. We were the 4th offer yesterday on this property and we got the call this morning that OUR offer was selected to be forwarded to the bank!
Being a short sale, the bank will probably take a while getting back to us about if they accept the offer or not- but I'm optimistic!
It's a great house, 3 beds 2 1/2 bathrooms with a great backyard for Josh. Keep your fingers crossed for us, and include us in your prayers please- this would be perfect for us!

Oh what a day! Joshy's first REAL head injury...

Well- we had another fun adventure to the Fort Carson ER this morning... Josh was running to the bathroom from his bedroom and tripped.. Luckily for us, the corner of the wall was there to break his fall.
He was pretty upset for a minute or two- but figured if whatever happened was cool enough to get this kind of band aid, it couldn't be that bad.

Notice his expression...



The time we spent at the hospital was the worst. He was fine up until they started scrubbing it- then he decided he needed his mommy for the rest. He was such a tough kid through the whole thing! They said usually they have to do "conscious sedation" for kids like Josh- but since he was handling it so well, they'd just stick him with some lidocaine. (he didn't like that part very much..)
So here we are, home with a very tired boy and three staples in his little noggin'. I think it's a good day for some more McDonald's soft serve later on...

...our wall... Tyler's next fix-it project...

A frog, by Josh.