Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Flat Friends are Fun!

Tonight we headed out to the airport to pick up our good friends Keith & Kathy, along with their son Pete, who have been gone for the past six weeks enjoying the sun, sea, and open sewers of beautiful Panama. But before we could pick them up we had one little thing to take care of…our assignment.

The assignment was part of a Christmas gift they gave us just before leaving town. Our history with these friends has proven that gifts never come without a few complications that are sure to add a little adventure and embarrassment to everyone involved. I'm not sure how these antics got started but apparently we can't seem to get along without them anymore. And even though our gift came in an ordinary box we knew something more was lurking inside. The box contained a gift certificate to our favorite Irish Pub (Yes, Pubs serve food too) and the twist was the instructions we were given on how we must use the gift. This was our assignment:

1. The gift Certificate must be used before they got home.
2. We must pretend that they are with us.
3. We must use a camera to prove that we accomplished the task.

So tonight, before attempting to pick them up, we finally completed our mission! (You can tell from the fog which obscures the outdoor photos, that their plane never made it into Medford! But boy were the fish n'chips good!)

"Flat Keith" getting ready to pick up the tab at Four Daughters Pub!

"Flat Keith" pointing at the pub. The pointing, authenticates it's him.

Stacy and "Flat Kathy" (even flat she looks better!)

Mark and "Flat Keith"(Hey Keith, which one of you is better looking?)

"Flat Keith" showing off his girly arms and pretty bracelets.


Let's just say we've taken a liking to "Flat Friends", you can talk them into doing things they wouldn't normally do and they don't ask to share your fish n' chips. On the other hand, they don't turn red when you try and embarrass them publicly either.

If you’re wondering what they received from us, among other things, we gave them a "Handy Spanish Phrases" guide, which we instructed them to use during their adventure. This was no ordinary phrase list either. It was custom made and contained at least a dozen weird and bizarre sentences which we challenged them to use during their stay. Sentences like, "Your daughter is really cute, would she be willing to date our son?" and "My husband is not handicapped, he just likes to point at everything" were among the handy phrases. Let's hope they got their assignment done too!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

We've Got Ourselves a Cougar!

Ever since the acceptance letter from BYU-Provo showed up in our mailbox for Cheyenne, Mark has been radiating the kind of joy that comes to a mad scientist when his latest diabolical scheme hatches into splendid certainty. This comparison is no mistake, it is absolutely true that Mark has been systematically brainwashing his firstborn child since, well, her days in the womb when he actually spent evenings singing BYU’s fightsong to my belly! To make my point, here is "Exhibit A”:

An incriminating example of how you can use an average American holiday to do a little indoctrination on your innocent little children and their friends...
Cheyenne with her friend Tanner Mitchell.

After almost two decades enduring BYU sweatshirts, hats, blankets, and pajamas, countless co-ed stories, tales of the Testing Center, and epic Denio Junction chronicles, Cheyenne has at last fulfilled her father’s dream and one that has become truly her own; She’s officially a BYU co-ed!

On New Year’s Day, Mark and Cheyenne flew to Provo, Utah to begin the greatest scholastic adventure of her life! (and quite possibly the most traumatic financial exploit of ours!) There, the father-daughter duo met up Aunt Stephanie who played an award-winning role of mother/wife for the weekend! And lucky for you, Steph chronicled every moment of their frenzied freshman adventures with her camera!

Their first stop was to immortalized BYU sign for to take the classic photo all freshmen endure! “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve!”


Next a stop: Cheyenne's first apartment!


Poor Cousin Camden gets to play the part of “bag boy” and from his grin, it doesn't look like anyones told him she lives UPSTAIRS!


A student body card makes it official.


Mark runs into his old Japanese Professor on Campus! Only one has aged!


Next a trip to the store to furnish Chey’s apartment. Thank goodness Steph was there when Mark started feeling light headed and knew exactly what to do!


Now some clothes shopping. Chey, Steph, and Cailey were in their element, while from the looks of this photo, Mark and Camden were obviously not.


Something happens to a man when you take him and his credit card to the store. Here I think is a definite sign Mark is losing it.


Chey with her new roommate Aubrey (from Texas). She and Chey have a lot in common. Among one of the quirkier commonalities; both girls paid for most of their school through sandwich artistry, which is to say, they both worked at Subway.


And now a trip to buy school books ($650!)


Mark scores 11 tickets to the basketball game and brings everyone.


Chey, Cassandra, and the gang cheering on their team!


Steph gets a little FANatic with Camden and Cailey


The crowd gets a little crazy for Carmen!


Mark came home saying he had the time of his life, which from the looks of the photos, I believe. Chey called to report that her dad acted like a teenager the whole weekend and that they had the best father-daughter time of their lives. We’re so excited for Chey and this new adventure! It's been a whirlwind these last few years but SHE DID IT!

Friday, January 2, 2009

12 Lessons Learned in 2008

1. As far as navigation systems go, the shortest route is not always the best option.
This is a very important lesson…If your car’s navigation system asks you if you want to AVOID unpaved roads, quickly push the YES button! The term, “as the crow flies” is really best left for the crows to fly and rarely ever a good option for humans, with or without four-wheel drive. You know that expression “leave it to the birds”? Take that one seriously.

2. ALL new household appliances are built to last about 7 years.
Yes, and you guessed it…our house is now about 7 years old. It’s a tragedy of gigantic proportions. If you’d like to see our bank statement you will see why. This household is sporting some lovely new major appliances, of course we can’t pay for food and heat now, but we can wash our clothes and enjoy cold milk again on our cereal!

3. If you want to see bears, don’t look for them in Yellowstone.
Buffalos? Check. Biting squirrels? Check. Long wearisome traffic jams? Double check. Bears-zilch! Yogi bear and Boo Boo must be stealing picnic baskets somewhere else.

4. Diabetes sucks to the 3rd power.
So Cheyenne, Mitchell, and Chloe have all joined the club. Connor’s the last man standing…so far. We thought keeping track of one kid’s blood sugar was crazy but this year we took it to a whole new level. We affectionately call the kid’s our Three Bears cause usually, as far as blood sugars go, one’s too high, one’s too low, and one’s usually just right!

5. Mr. Clean’s magic erasers are really magic!
Seriously, they are. It took the crayon off the wall, the blue streaked door ding off my car, shined one of the kids sneakers to a new white luster, took the scuff marks off the baseboards and bedroom doors…forget Houdini, this is real magic!

6. Children really do grow up and move away.
They take your money with them but they do actually go. We just hope they write every once in a while…er…text and facebook us. We miss our Chey Chey!

7. It can be embarrassing when you’re almost 40-year old to get caught practicing drums on rock band in the middle of the afternoon.
The house is always full of teenagers but when an unsuspecting friend of the kids stopped by and caught me practicing my sweet skills with Pearl Jam in the middle of the afternoon with no one else at home (and the laundry and dishes piling up), lets just say I lost a little authority that day. Hey, whatever keeps us young right?

8. Nit picking is an art form.
Okay, quite frankly, it is rather embarrassing to admit this life lesson, but these are lessons the Skillmans learned, warts and all, not some family off the cover of The Saturday Evening Post! My whole life I thought this term meant you were apt to point out someone’s flaws but now I sadly know the real truth. This calamity of gigantic proportions started when our daughter “jane” (names have been changed to protect the innocent) came home from a friend’s house with, well, a few friends in her hair. Soon after, I quickly got schooled in the art of “nit picking”. Yes, I’m talking about the “L” word, the mother of all icky words, and ridding a child’s head of these demons is a task that can have even the most prudish parent cussing like a truck driver. I am happy to report this was a onetime issue and we have been free of these vermins for months and our house is cleaner than it’s ever been. You sort of get the heebie-jeebies from an ordeal like this and start on a cleaning frenzy that could rival any séance! May you NEVER have to nit pick…but if you do, call me, I’ve got some handy tips!

9. A pack of gum can break your nose.
Seriously, it can…and it really hurts. But not as bad as fixing the broken nose does! Imagine the conversation I had with my health insurance:
“I’m sorry ma’m, did you say a flying pack of gum?”
“uh, yes I did.”
Silence…”uh, and you’re saying it broke your nose?”
“uh, yes I did.”
“well, that’s a new one I’ve never heard before.”
“glad I could give you something to laugh about in the break room.”
“oh, we’d never do that.”
“sure, right lady. Go ahead, everyone else is laughing. But hey, if it means anything, it was a pack of “EXTRA” gum and if I were you, I’d never take for granted the extra part.”


10. Before leaving shore, always make sure you’ve got all your stuff.
While sailing the San Juans this fall, this lesson was learned the hard way and by departing this information it just might save you a lot of ridicule and embarrassment. You see, two sailors went to shore one day for some hiking and mischief, we’ll keep their names private so we don’t embarrass them, let’s just call them dummy #1 and dummy #2. So after dummies #1 and #2 frolic and explore a quaint little island they shove off and head for the boat anchored in deeper waters. Dummy #2 doesn’t realize he’s left his neon yellow jacket (that doesn’t resemble any of the mute colors on or about the island) on a log. So the intelligent ladies on the boat wave at dummy’s 1 & 2 and but they proudly misinterpret that we’re fondly waving at them and so they wave back. We wave again and but this time add pointing fingers, their response? They wave again and point back. So we patiently wait for them to get within earshot and yell, “Hey dummies, you forgot your jacket!”. Dummies #1 and #2 head back to shore much to the amusement of all the boats anchored in the bay. Who needs TV when you’ve got these guys along?

We can't even explain the lesson we learned about avoiding the need for a tow! We're just glad dummy #2 has his jacket!


11. Your friends really get offended if you ignore them by doing sudoku.
Plain and simple lesson here, the best thing to do in this situation is to tear out a page, hand them a pencil, and see if you can get them addicted too.

12. Never play speed scrabble with Mitchell.
The kid’s a speller, what more can we say? Don’t even get us started on his Q-words. As parents we’re befuddled at whether to feel embarrassed that were getting out-spelled by our 15-year old son or the pride that comes from knowing that one of our offspring can actually spell! A gene pool surprise!
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