Don't Shave Me BLONDE!

Last night, Heathen #3 decided that he was going to trim his hair - by himself, without telling anyone. He got the Asst. Zookeeper's beard trimmer out of the vanity in the bathroom, and took three swipes over his head. One above each ear, and one right in the middle over the top.

The entertaining part of the whole thing is that the trimmer only held enough charge for him to make those three swipes and then died.

He came down the steps to find me and informed me of what he had done, ending with the comment, "Doesn't it look nice, Momma?"

Since the trimmer was already dead, I plugged it in to charge so that I could do something with his new style. I made the comment that I might just have to shave him bald - which the other two Heathens picked up on right away.

So, this morning, I sat him down in the bathroom so that I could fix his hair. There was no saving it. The damage was done. I told him I would have to shave his head very short and he would just have to wear a hat outside for a few weeks. He burst into tears and cried, "Don't shave me BLONDE!!!!"

It's hard to shave a child's head and laugh all at the same time. But we managed. He was a little upset with the new 'do until I put him into the tub and explained how much easier it would be to wash. Shorter hair meant less "rinses" with the cup. Then we were good to go!

2 Adventures = Last Week

With things gearing up for school and fall already, I'm alittle behind on my entries.

Last week, the Heathens and I went on two separate adventures. And we took a grandmother on both (silly women agreed to go!).

Adventure #1 - Penn's Cave & Wildlife Park

Last Wednesday, my mom was off work. So, we took her to Penn's Cave and Wildlife Park with us. It's just on the other side of State College. It was really cool and the Heathens really enjoyed it. You ride in a boat to visit the cave. Our tour guide was really funny and the boys really liked him.

And at that point in the day, my camera died. R.I.P. - you were a faithful camera. Although I do believe it would have been more curteous if it had waited until the end of the trip.

The cave tour was awesome, but the Heathens REALLY liked the Wildlife Park tour. You ride in a bus that has all the windows removed. We saw deer, pybald deer (which were completely white), elk, bears, cougars, bobcats, etc. We were able to get so close because the bus drove right into the enclosures. Heathen #3 really wants to go back - and I think I'd like to go back as well.

Adventure #2 - Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium

The night before we headed for the zoo with the Asst. Zookeeper's mother, I headed out to WalMart to purchase a new digital camera. I just picked a cheap one - I'm going to ask Santa for a better one in a few months. :)

Heathen #3 packed his stuffed elephant for the trip. He got it at our zoo trip last year and named it Zuri, after one of the two baby elephants born at the zoo this summer.

The zoo was packed this year, much busier than any other time I have visited. And for most of the trip, I couldn't figure out what was different from the other times I had visited. And then it dawned on me. We were there on a Saturday - we usually visited during the week. Never again! Way too many crowds.

But the Heathens still had a good time. And they insisted that I take a picture of the gold fish in front of the zebra enclosure like they do every year. I drive them all the way to Pittsburgh to go to the zoo and they get excited over the silly goldfish!

ABC Gum

25 years ago, I remember standing at a bus stop with the other kids in my neighborhood. There were only two other kids, both boys a year older than me. I was in first grade, making them the much wiser second graders. Brett Statler and Greg something-or-other.

They were always playing tricks or jokes on me. I was easy to torment being younger and of the opposite sex. The morning that sticks in my mind, Brett asked me if I wanted a piece of ABC gum. I replied, "Yes." At which point he and Greg burst out laughing hysterically that I was really gross if I wanted a piece of Already Been Chewed gum.

Fast forward to today at around 1:30 pm. I had taken my Heathens to the Scout Store in Ebensburg to pick up some merit badges for the troop. While I was working with the lady behind the counter to sort out the badges that I needed, Heathen #3 proudly came over to me and announced that he had gum in his mouth.

Assuming that he had gotten in from one of the people in the office or had located it in a drawer on his own, I asked where he had gotten it. He smiled, pointed vaguely in a direction, and said, "Over there."

"Over there" was simply a corner of the store. No one had given it to him, he FOUND it. ABC Gum - and my Heathen #3 was chewing it with great joy. Ugh - boys. Better yet: Ugh - Heathens!

Kinzua Photos and Videos

This is Dan's Corona commercial.

The younger two Heathens actually handled a canoe together much better than we thought!

Kinzua Trip - Day 4

It didn't rain at all that night. Probably only because we had purchased and put up a new tent. Whatever the reason, it was lovely.

The Asst. Zookeeper had packed his dutch oven for the trip. The night before, he had made fresh biscuits to go with dinner. For breakfast, he made cinnamon rolls. It was awesome!

We packed up camp around lunch time and headed back to the truck. It took us several hours to paddle back because on the oncoming wind, but it was still a great day.

As we were driving home, we were laughing about our poor sense of direction on the way to Kinzua in the first place. We found where we should have caught 119 in Indiana. As we were laughing about this, the Asst. Zookeeper turned the WRONG WAY and took us in towards Indiana instead of towards Johnstown. He didn't realize he had done it until I read one of the "Home of Jimmy Stewart" signs. What a trip!

Kinzua Trip - Day 3

Considering that we were up a goof bit of the night, we slept in fairly late. After we had fed the boys, we swamped one of the canoes and heated lake water so that they could take a bath on shore. The Heathens thought it was great. The Hillbilly Hotel people just looked at us as though we were strange.

Then Dan and I decided that we wanted to wash as well. Both of us are a little big to bath in the little bit of water in the swamped canoe, so we waded out into the lake together. Throwing the soap back and forth between us, we washed in the lake. We even washed our hair. I know we looked like a couple of hippies. And the Hillbilly Hotel people quite attempting to hide their stares.

Once we were all clean, we put the boys into one canoe and paddled back to the boat launch to head into town for ice cream and a new tent. It was such an overcast day that I was afraid to try it with the raining tent one more night.

Once we were back at the boat launch, we tied the canoe to the top of the truck and headed into town. We still had very little gas and were planning to stop at the first gas station. About 5 miles from the boat launch, the canoe escaped from its ropes. It flipped off the top of the truck, and, landing on it's bottom, slid down the road beside us. No harm done, the Asst. Zookeeper jumped out of the truck to reattach the canoe. About 5 minutes into this process, he gets a panicked look on his face and yells, "Turn off the truck!" We had left it on while we were putting the canoe back on!

We made it into town without any further trouble. We went to KMart and purchased a new tent. Then we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream. We also checked on the boy who'd been hit by a car the day before (his older brother worked at DQ). Scrapped and bruised with a minor concussion but otherwise, good. And then we stopped for gas.

Back out to Roper's Hollow we went and we paddled the 5 miles back out to Hooksbrook. When we arrived back at camp, all that was left of the Hillbilly Hotel was one couple. They made small talk as we paddled past. The Asst. Zookeeper and the Heathens paddled past a bit later to gather firewood again, at which point they asked what we had been burning the night before.

Dan explained about the stump. The lady commented that she had wondered if it was incense. The Asst. Zookeeper responded that incense was only burned for cleansing and that there was no reason to burn it at the lake. :) He also stated that since they had made no effort to abide by quiet time hours, he hadn't worried about the smoke after we realized that it smelled. It was a very pleasant conversation!

Later that night, I took one of the Heathens to the bathroom. As we walked over the hill, I could hear a very loud group further down the shore. Where we were camped, we couldn't hear them. But the couple left from the Hillbilly Hotel could - paybacks are sweet!

Kinzua Trip - Day 2 (After Bed)

As we were getting into our tent for the night, we heard some thunder over the hills. We threw the rain fly onto our tent, and crawled into the sleeping bags. Never gave it another thought.

Part way into the night, around 1:30 am, I woke up because I had rain dripping on me. I slid my cot over a little bit so that I was out from under the drip, and went back to sleep. About half an hour later, another drip woke me up. I moved Heathen #3 over so that I could move my cot further out of the way.

At that point, the Asst. Zookeeper woke up and asked me if I was getting wet. And it was REALLY storming outside. We discovered that our rain fly was leaking at the very peak and was allowing the rain to come in threw the mesh at the top of the tent - effectively raining inside the tent.

We decided to set the dining fly up over top of the tent for the night. The only flashlight we could find was Heathen #3's little Tiki bird. When you squeeze his tail, he sings and opens his beak for the light. But he is not very bright. Using only this little bird, we put up the fly. But the Tiki bird is hard to hold onto, so we kept having to re=squeeze the button and listen to him sing again.

During the entire process, Heathen #3 was sitting in the tent crying that he wanted his bird back. But atleast we were able to go back to sleep without it raining inside our tent!