I'll be gone, and no one will even miss me!

I've been blogging so infrequently lately, that while I am gone for the next few days, no one is even gonna miss me. In fact, no one would even know I was gone if I didn't come right out and say so. This evening, my family is gonna be driving to Rexburg, Idaho. We did this back in November, and we thought THAT was a quick trip. Well, this one is gonna be even quicker. My husband's little brother is going to be baptized tomorrow morning, and we don't want to miss it. Also, his grandparents are not doing to well healthwise, so we figured we'd better go see them while they are still alive (instead of making two different trips for funerals, which obviously can't be planned too far in advance). Monday morning, we will be heading back, and we plan on taking two days for the return trip. We won't be able to see any of my side of the family while we are there, but that's okay. In just a few weeks, they will be heading in this direction for our big ol' family reunion on the coast. So, we'll be able to see them at that time.

This week has been one hectic week. Constantly running late, swimming lessons every morning, very little sleep, smashing my thumb in the stroller (my fingernail is cracked clear to the middle... ouch!), banking problems (finally got those straightened out this morning), and so on and so forth. I think I finally have everything packed for the trip, and now I just have to run it all down to the car. We will be leaving here in about two hours, and the place is a MESS. GRR! I feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off. I thought I should take just a second to slip a post in, and now my time is up. AAAAAAAH! I gotta go..... tons to do. I won't be posting anything (blogs OR comments) for the next four days or so. G'bye, and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO EVERYBODY!

Oh, Happy Day!

Although I didn't get my nap in, I'd still have to say that today was an all-around good day. For starters, my husband passed his FIFTH and FINAL Microsoft certification exam. This is the second test he's taken in two weeks. He is now fully MCSD certified! Sure, he'll have to do some more tests in the future to stay current with advancing technologny, but for now, he's done! Another awesome thing... air conditioning ROCKS! We've had the thing running for the past 24 hours, and our electric bill will surely be high next month, but it consistently stayed like 10-15 degrees cooler inside than it was outside today! (I think it got up to like 92 degrees outside.) That's like, totally awesome since the inside temperature is usually equal to or GREATER than the outside temperature. I am a happy camper! I realize that my eyes may bulge out of my head when I find out how much it's costing us to run the A/C, but sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do. I was so miserable in the icky heat, and being pregnant just makes it all worse. In some cases, like this one, money really can buy happiness. Aparently, it's made Jasmine happy, too. For the past several days, she has not wanted to be in the apartment, claiming we have an "icky house" because it was so hot. Well, this morning, she ran out to the COOL front room and excitedly exclaimed, "Our house isn't icky!" I thought that was pretty cute.

Man, I'm tireder than tired. Not getting a nap today has really been hard. Also, the fact that I forgot to take my prenatal vitamins last night (which contain iron) has contributed to my fatigue. I think I'm gonna call it a night now. G'night!

That's it... We're getting A/C!

The past few days have been just horrible. When I say "horrible," I'm talking about the heat. It's been so hot and icky here that I haven't been able to do hardly anything. All sorts of heat records were broken yesterday, and it's about to get worse today. Yesterday was the first June day in recorded history that it reached 100 degrees in Oregon. It actually got up to 101 here in Portland yesterday. Our home teachers, one of whom has his own heating/cooling business, came over yesterday. As soon as they stepped into our apartment, the one who owns the business exclaimed, "We ought to all go back over to my cool, air conditioned house." He invited us over after we heard the message for the month, but we had to decline. My husband's parents called while the hometeachers were there (I had to have them call back later), and Sundays are usually the only days that we can talk to them. We had called earlier to share some neat news with them, but they weren't home.

The news we were so excited to share with them is concerning a new calling that my husband got in the ward yesterday. Before church, my hubby got a call from a member of the stake high council, asking us to meet with him at 10:30. Um, this sure got the curiosity wheels in my head running. First of all, it was a member of the STAKE high council..... asking BOTH of us to show up. We knew it would be for something big. Still, I was rather shocked when he was asked to accept the calling of ward clerk. Wow. That there has got a lot of responsibilities with it. He will need to attend meetings with the bishopric every Sunday morning at 8:00 to take notes and such. This calling will carry a large degree of confidentiality with it. I asked a whole bunch of questions. One of my main concerns was, would my husband be able to sit with me and the kids in Sacrament Meeting. Luckily, he will be able to. He may still have to get up and count the number of people in the congregation, but then he could sit right back down with us. He'll usually only have meetings on Sundays, and they will all be done before church. And next year, when our ward starts at 9:00, he'll have to be at the church at 6:00 am! Whew! ANYway, I won't have him home to help me get the kids ready for church in the mornings, but that's okay. They will allow him to slip out of his meetings a little early to come back and get me and the kids for church. Occasionally, he'll need to accompany the bishop on a Thursday evening meeting, but that won't happen too often. After my husband was set apart, the member of the high council told us that this calling would bless us more than we could ever know. I truly believe that, and I know it will be a wonderful experience for our whole family.

Well, after the hometeachers and the phone call, we were pretty much wiped out from the heat. It had to be like 100 degrees in our apartment. Tyler was just in a diaper, and the rest of us were all sticky and icky. We took a quick jaunt up to the swimming pool. Man, there's nothing like jumping into a cold swimming pool on a hot hot day. The initial shock of the cold water was replaced with relief. Tyler even laughed when we put him in it. Things weren't AS bad for the next few hours after coming home from the pool, but we still had a very hard time getting the kids to bed. Ty just slept in his diaper, and didn't get to bed till almost 10:00. Jasmine went to sleep even later. My husband and I couldn't get to bed till like 1:30 or 2:00 because of the heat. This morning, it has pretty much been decided that we're gonna pick up an air conditioner this evening. If we have to pay $250 bucks for one, then so be it. This heat is a killer, and the fact that I'm pregnant is making it even worse. I can hardly wait!

Well, I need to get Jazz ready for her swimming lessons this morning. She absolutely loves them, and she's got one more week. Part of me will be happy when they're over, cuz it's kinda tough to get up every morning and take her. It's been really good for her, though, and I'm happy that she's having so much fun. We gotta leave here in like 25 minutes or so, and no one's dressed yet. I'd better get to it.

I'm a Hustler, Homey!

Today was a fun day. I got a babysitter (a girl from my ward), and I rode the MAX into Portland to spend some time with my hubby. His company was showing everybody a tour of their new building (which they'll move into in a few months), plus paying for a company-sponsored happy hour. Their new office space is tons nicer than their current one, and much bigger... like three times the size. I think it's in a better location than their current one, too. Right now, he works on the fourth floor of a building that's right near the sleazy part of Portland, an area called Old Town Chinatown. Recently, it has been made known to them that the people on the bottom floor have a PORN studio. At first, my hubby only suspected it, after seeing the photographer umbrellas through the open windows, and sleezily dressed women walk out the door. However, a few of his co-workers left work late one evening only to see a bunch of trashy, topless women through the open windows (usually, the windows are sealed up tight)... so now it's basically been confirmed! Talk about YUCK-O! Everybody's glad that they're moving. Having a porn studio so close by cannot be good for their business. Heck, you have to walk by their windows to get to the current office. We're all happy to know that all of the businesses on the ground floor of their new building are established restaurants. Whew.

If you're wondering about the title of this blog, I'll get to it in a second....

Anyway, after we took a tour of the big, new, empty office space, we went to an Asian food restaurant for drinks and appetizers. Almost everybody there got alcoholic drinks, but my hubby and I got cranberry juice. Man, that was good. I had two glasses, plus two glasses of water. We sat at a booth with two men my husband works with, and we all ordered a ton of appetizers. We were told we could order as much as we wanted.... to serve as a dinner without actually being called "dinner". The dinner menu items were pretty expensive. We had some icky dumpling stuff, and some carmelized chicken that was AWESOME! Miraculously, I left there with a full stomach.

When my hubby and I got on the MAX to head home, we saw something interesting. There was a dude with headphones on, saying the words to a rap he was listening to. He was LOUD. And, the louder he got, the quiter everybody else got, trying not to laugh. I don't know what in the heck he was listening to, but some of the words included "Yeah, I'm a hustler... I'm a hustler, homey!" He obviously didn't know all the words, because there were various moments where he would just mumble while he was dancing around, clapping and snapping his fingers. I was having a hard time not looking at him, it was so funny. My husband leaned over and stated, "It's sad that he doesn't know all the words." Well, this guy was on the train with us for about 10 minutes, and he went through several different songs. The last one was something about "I'm crazy for your love, baby." He knew even fewer words to that song than he did the rap. That was definitely something to smile about. I don't think he was drunk, cuz he didn't stink. He obviously didn't care what other people thought of him, though.

The babysitter really enjoyed watching the kids, and they behaved for her. She has two sisters who also babysit, so chances are, I'll be able to get a babysitter pretty easily from that family in the future. Plus, they babysit for free when the kids' parents are going to the temple. That is totally awesome. I think we'll be going to the temple very soon now. Can't wait!

Well, this is turning out to be a pretty long blog. So, I'd better cut it off for now. If I have anything else to ramble on about, I'll just stick it in my next blog! Ta-ta for now!

Death Threats to Blogger!

I HATE Blogger! Maybe I'll start sending them death threats. This is the SECOND time I've had to REWRITE this entry.... three times in all. GRR. Now, for a super quick summary of the summary that I had from the original post...

1. Jasmine had her first swimming lesson today. Coincidentally, a girl from her Primary class is also in that class. In all, there are four girls. Fun, fun, blah blah blah. Jasmine liked it.
2. I got a babysitter for Thursday night. My husband's company is gonna be moving into a new building soon, and they're gonna give us a tour of it. This is our second date this year!
3. Our deck was torn down and put back up so quickly because: everybody else's decks were REALLY bad. They had to tear into the lower apartment units to rip out the rotten wood. Luckily, ours wasn't that bad.
4. We're gonna have leftovers for dinner tonight.
5. I feel like a blob.

Well, that's it. This had better post now, or else I'm gonna pick up the phone and start threatening some people......

I Am *YAWN* Tired!

I know I have been a big ol' slacker in the past few days when it comes to posting blogs. I have just been so tired lately. I think I'm finally getting over my swimmer's ear, which means that I can start sleeping better at night. ANYway, here are a few things that happened in the past week that I have not blogged about.

1. I rented "Hoodwinked" for Jasmine last Monday. She probably watched it 20 times during the week. I didn't mind, though, cuz I was so tired anyway. I finally got my husband to watch it with Jazz and me last night. He actually liked it. We rented it at Blockbuster, where we always rent our movies. Since they have the "no more late fees" thingy, we always keep our rentals for like a week. Jasmine likes that.
2. We went shopping yesterday. Tyler threw one heck of a tantrum in Wal-Mart. Wow... that kid can scream! He was grumpy almost all day, since he couldn't just run wild wherever he wanted to. He hates being confined to his car seat or the shopping cart.
3. My husband was supposed to take his fourth Microsoft certification exam yesterday morning. When he got to the testing center, he was informed that their testing software was down, and that if they couldn't get it up within 30 minutes after his scheduled start-time, he'd be able to reschedule it for free. Well, he ended up having to reschedule.
4. He takes a different test, what would have been his 5th, on Tuesday. He can't reschedule his other one until tomorrow.
5. Jasmine starts her swimming lessons tomorrow! We're pretty excited about that. They will run for 10 days, 1/2 hour each day.
6. It has basically been established that, if Jasmine lies down on the floor, Tyler will straddle and sit on her, bouncing up and down. Man, that kid is starting to play rough! Ty and Jazz are now growling and laughing at each other under the dining table.
7. Today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all the daddy's out there!

Um, I can't think of much else to write at the moment. I am so freakin' tired right now. I just wanted to make sure to get at least one little post in, since it's been a while since I last posted. I think I'll take a little snooze right now.

I saw this comic strip, and I thought it was cute. Seriously, I do appreciate my very few regular readers out there. Thankyou for leaving comments after you read my blog entries!

My 77th Post...

Well, this ain't quite my 100th post. Heck, it's not even close! I've been a slacker lately, so to make up for it, I'll do my second post for the day!

I got this idea from my fellow Rubba Undies Luva, Dawnyel. I'm gonna post a list of stuff about me. But, since this here is only my 77th post, I'm only gonna post 77 things.

1. I am the youngest of four kids.
2. I have two sisters
3. and a brother.
4. Up until going to Ricks College, I lived in the same house my whole life.
5. I looked like a boy for most of my pre-teen life.
6. People would often ask me if I was a boy or a girl.
7. I got my ears pierced when I was in the fourth grade, but I still looked like a boy.
   
8. I still have those same, original piercings after all these years.
9. I was in the same class as Dawnyel in the fourth AND fifth grades
   (she failed to mention fifth grade)
10. The first eight names on the role call in fourth grade were..."Carrie, Jeremy, Matthew, Matt, Josh, Jenny, Tiffany, Brett" (Don't ask me WHY or HOW I remember that!)
11. In the fifth grade, I got to take the classroom hamster home at the end of the year.
12. It was a golden hamster named Samantha.
13. I now have a niece named Samantha.
14. In the 6th grade, a friend and I had matching Spumoni shirts.
    
15. We agreed to wear them on the same day.
16. She forgot, and said she'd wear it the next day.
17. This happened for several days in a row, so I ended up wearing the same shirt for a whole week.
18. We never did wear them on the same day.
19. By the way, I started wearing glasses right before entering 3rd grade.
20. I thought that was cool, and was excited to show them to Dawnyel, who ALSO wore glasses.
21. The glasses made me look like a dorky boy... in girls' clothing.
22. For almost 7 years, I had a guinea pig named Teddy.
23. A friend accompanied me to the vet when it was time to put him to sleep.
24. I cried... a lot.
25. In middle school, I was asked to join concert choir to play the piano. I couldn't play that well, so someone else had to play most of the time (very humiliating for me).
26. I was a loser through all of middle school and most of high school.
27. I have always had a fairly low self esteem.
28. I had a wonderful group of friends during that awkward time... most of them whom I am still in touch with.
29. I was one of 17 valedictorians in my graduating class.
30. In my opinon, 17 was way too many.
31. I loved math in high school.
32. I took the AP Calculus exam, and barely passed with a score of "3".
    
33. (I still ended up taking Calculus at Ricks College.)
34. I was co-president of the Honors Society during my senior year of High School.
35. At one Honors Society Christmas party, I got an inflatable cow.
36. That cow became the famous Whooper Cow in many of our crazy videos that my group of friends made.
37. To this day, I don't remember what happened to that cow.
38. I ended up graduating from Ricks AFTER my friends, since I had too few Social Science credits.
39. I took an Anthropology class (and a trailriding class) for one summer term to make up for that.
40. It was during that summer term that I met my hubby.
41. We were in the same ward.
42. He was the Sunday School president.
43. We got engaged @ two weeks after we met.
44. We got married 3 months later.
45. We have been married now or almost 7 years.
46. During that time, we have lived in, lemme see, um, 7 different places.
47. In four different cities, in two different states.
48. I REALLY hate moving.
49. The last time we moved, we squished all of our stuff into a 26 foot truck.
    
50. I doubt we will be able to do that in our next move.
51. We have a ton of junk.
52. We have a 5 1/2 year old daughter named Jasmine, who will be in Kindergarten next year.
53. We have a 17 month old son named Tyler.... nicknamed Bubba, Ty-Bo, Ty-Ty, or just Ty.
54. I had five miscarriages between Jasmine and Tyler.
55. I am 13 weeks pregnant with our third child... due December 20th.
56. I haven't puked from morning sickness for several weeks now... YAY. I still feel queazy, though.
57. I don't have to work outside the home.
58. I am the Primary pianist in my ward.
59. This is the second time, since I've been married, that I have had this calling.
60. Um, brain fart.
61. The only pets we have right now are a few fish.
62. We used to have two chinchillas.
63. And a few rats.
64. And 6 guinea pigs (mommy, daddy, 4 babies)
65. And a hamster.
66. And two lovebirds.
67. And a pug.
68. Not all at the same time.
69. Whew.
70. I got a goldfish at Dawnyel's wedding reception. That thing lived for over 3 years before we finally had to flush it (it was sick with some icky kind of fungus).
71. I love animals. Duh.
    
72. I love my family.
73. I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
74. My church building is over 4 miles away from where I live.
75. The Portland temple is only 9 miles away.
76. Although it's getting better, my ear still REALLY hurts.
77. I thoroughly cleaned the kitchen today for the first time since before I found out I was pregnant.

Well, there's 77 things about me. I was running out of fuel there near the end, so it's a good thing I didn't have to list 100. That's all for now. I'm tired.

Our trip to the mall...

Yesterday, I was gonna go to the park with the kids. But, the weather looked kinda questionable outside (cloudy, windy, etc...), so I decided against it. We all wanted/needed to get out of the apartment though, so I decided to take them to the play toys in the mall. While the kids were playing, I snapped a few pictures. Then, I needed to change Tyler's diaper, so we went for a hunt to find a restroom. (All along, there was a restroom right by the play things, but I didn't realize that.) We found some family restrooms, and I just about died when I walked in. There was a normal big potty, and right next to it, there was a teeny potty. Jasmine loved that.... so I took a picture of her standing next to it.

Yay! Our deck is back up!

It is now 1:30 in the afternoon, and our deck is back up. After pounding and hammering and sawing and drilling all morning, they're finished. Our deck is in between the other two that they tore down, yet it was the first one back up. They're now tearing down another one on the next building over. I don't know why they chose to put ours back up first (maybe because we have little kids?), but I sure do appreciate it. Luckily, lastnight wasn't too bad heat wise. We pulled out our window fans (since they're the only ones we have) and propped them up like regular fans. This morning, it started getting muggy though. It is dang nice to be able to open the doors again for fresh air. Although, I'm leaving them shut for the moment because the loud noise from them working on the other decks. I think I'm gonna go to the park with the kids here in a bit, and when I do, I'll open the doors.

There's one more thing I'm happy about today. My hubby is a Super Mr. Fix-It guy! Lastnight, we were going through our Hi8 video cassettes that go with our camcorder to see what was on them. One of the darn things got stuck in the tape deck of the camcorder, and we couldn't get it out. My hubby took several screws and a pannel out, to try to remove it, but with no luck. We were thinking about taking it to a repair shop to have professionals remove it. But after he found out that only SONY would be able ot do it, and that it would cost $211 to take care of, he acquired some new-found motivation. He finally forced the thing open, and voila! He got it out, and the camcorder's not busted. AND we saved 211 smackeroos!

Well, I'd better go get cleaned up so we can get out of here. I'm all grimy and icky. EWW.

It HURTS!

Saturday morning I woke up to an earache. It hurt a little, but I decide not to let it get to me. After all, we went on a fun family outing to Mt. St. Helens. That mountain is only about 100 miles from where we live. Even though it was a cloudy day, the drive was still beautiful. We got some great pictures of some "down in the valley" type scenes since we couldn't actually see the mountain through the clouds. I will post some of those pictures when I can pull them off of my hubby's computer. The kids behaved amazingly well for such a long, windy drive.

Sunday morning, when I woke up, my ear hurt even more. It was starting to feel like maybe an ear infection. I went to the pharmacy after church, but the pharmacist couldn't recommend any particular type of medication since I'm pregnant. He told me that I should speak with a doctor or nurce practicioner to be sure. So, I called up the OB on call at my doctor's clinic, and she told me that I needed to have it checked by someone. Well, being the stubborn person I am, I decided not to. I thought I'd just wait one more day to see if the pain went away on its own. Bad mistake!

I ended up getting very little sleep last night since my ear hurt so bad. At 4:15 this morning, I got up and sat out on the couch with a heating pad pressed against my ear. I went back to bed at 5:30 or so, and got a few snippits of sleep until shortly after 7:00. My hubby was kind enough to miss a morning of work to stay home with the kids while I went over to an Urgent Care facility to get my darn ear looked at. I got there right after it opened, and there were STILL 5 people in front of me. I didn't get seen by the ONE doctor they have there until like 9:45. I'm glad I went, though, cuz it turns out that I have swimmers ear (ie, an outer ear infection caused by water trapped in the ear). The medication I almost picked up at the store yesterday wouldn't have helped worth squat! I got some wonderful medicine drops that get rid of the pain AND will help dry out the ear to get rid of the goop. I also picked up a bunch of Tylenol, since that's the only OTC pain-killer type medicine I can take while pregnant. About an hour ago, my ear REALLY started hurting again, but I have to wait a while longer before I can take the drops, or the Tylenol, again.

I guess it doesn't help that our deck was torn down today. Man, that was LOUD. My ear is especially sensitive to loud noises right now. If you're wondering why in the heck our deck was torn down, it's like the exterminator on Arachnophobia says..."Tear out bad wood, put in good wood." Most of the wood in the deck is weak or rotten, needing to be replaced. They're replacing the all three decks in the upper units of my building this week. A sucky thing about that is, while we have no deck, they are locking the sliding doors from the outside (with a beam of wood) so no one will fall out and go splat on the groud below. This means that we can't open either pair of our sliding doors to get fresh air, and it's HOT in here. The only two windows that are operational right now are in the kids' beroom and the kitchen. They are both on the same side of the apartment, so there's not much chance of getting a good cross draft. So, we get to live in a really hot, stuffy apartment for the next few days until the deck is up and we can open our doors. My hubby is gonna be one grumpy dude tonight, cuz he ALWAYS has to sleep with our bedroom sliding door open.

In the following weeks, our front porch is gonna be replaced as well, for the same reason. Since we're upstairs, that means we have to leave the apartment for however long it takes to get fixed. The apartment manager told me that, if it takes more than one day, we will be comped for a hotel, and maybe for the time that we can't be in our apartment. Now, THAT'S gonna be a pain in the butt. It will be nice when this is all done, though, cuz it's a problem that we noticed right when we moved in. They tore apart some of the front porch last year and redid it to temporarily fix it... and although now stable, it looks really bad.

Well, I can't think of much more to gripe about right now, so I'd better go before something else DOES come to mind. UGH!

More pictures.... just becaue I feel like it.

So, here are a bunch of pictures.... thrown on in no particular order. The first one is of the ultrasound I had today. Sorry that the pic isn't too spiffy. The doc keeps having a hard time finding a heartbeat with the doppler thingy, so he rolls in the portable ultrasound machine to make sure everything is okay. At first glance, we got a really good view of the baby.... arms, legs and head. But when it came time for him to snap a pictue, the little lima bean decided not to cooperate. The bottom pic is the best. You can see a leg and an arm.

Let's see.... the two shots with snow were taken back in March. That was our big snow storm of the year. We had an ice storm back in December (scarier than crap to drive in!), but I think this is the most snow we had at any one time.

The last two pics are just snapshots of the kids that I thought were pretty cute. Tyler loves to get a "little" too close to the TV when he watches it. In case you can't tell, he's watching Robots at this particular time. The picture of Jasmine and Tyler was taken right around the time when Tyler was learning to walk. He was so happy that he climbed on that chair all by himself. Of course, Jazz was very cooperative in jumping into her chair for a cute photo-op. She loves having her picture taken.


Well, I don't have much else to write about. It kinda hurts to type anyway, cuz I got a doozy of a slice on the tip of my middle finger while loading the dishwasher today. That thing bled like nothin' else, dude! And man, does it hurt! I suppose I could just peck at the keys, but then that would take too long. When I went to my doctor apointment today, the nurse there was kind enough to re-wrap it for me with a decent bandage, plus she gave me a bunch to take home. I only have little dinky plastic bandaids here at home. Well, I'm off for now!

Jasmine and the Duckies...

Today, we went back up to the swimming pool. This time, I remembered to bring the camera. Sure enough, the ducks were back. Before shooing them away, I decided to take a few pics.

Pool Doody

Today we had a little experience that reminded me of a scene from Caddy Shack. If anyone out there is unfortunate enough to have seen this movie, you'll know which part I'm talking about by looking at the title of this blog. If not, the scene I'm talking about takes place in a swimming pool, and some kid dumps a Baby Ruth candy bar into the water. Everybody thinks it's a doody, and chaos ensues as everyone exits the pool, screaming "Doody, Doody!" (I had a great pic for this, but the website wouldn't let me remote link to it.)

Well, here's what happened today. We decided to go up to the pool at around 4:30 for a quick swim before dinner. My hubby was still at work, so it was just me and the kids. As usual, I hauled Tyler up the stairs in a stroller. It's an easy confinement option when I'm the only one with the kids. ANYway, as we got the pool gate, I noticed a new sign. It said "Pool closed until June 6." I was a little upset (mainly because that meant I had hauled Ty in the stroller for seemingly nothing), but Jasmine was crushed. She started bawling as I tried to explain to her that we couldn't go swimming because the pool was closed. As we were making our way back over to the stairs to return home, her crying got louder. Doug, the property manager who was inside the leasing office (which is right by the pool) heard the commotion and came out. He told me that, gasp, somebody had dumped a poo-poo into the pool and so they had to drain most of the contamintated water out this morning. They treated it with some shock solution and then filled the pool back up. It had only been full for a few hours, so it wasn't fully treated yet... that's why the "Closed" sign was still up. To top it off, two ducks-- a boy and a girl-- have officially made this pool their second home. They're up there practically all the time when no people are in there. And, whaddaya know! They were up there today as well. Doug said that, other than some inevitable "duck stuff" in the water, that it was probably safe enough to swim in by now.

I decided to go ahead and let Jasmine swim for a little while. After all, I figured it couldn't be any worse than swimming in a lake. I cautioned her, again and again, not to put any water in her mouth. She likes to fill up her mouth and spit the water out. Heck, even when the pool water is clean, I still have to get after her for doing that. She was a good girl this time around, though. For a few miutes, the duckies stayed in the pool with her. That was kinda cute, seeing her swim with the ducks. It would have been nice to have the camera up there with me, but I had forgotten it (bummer). She finally shooed away the ducks, and I let her swim for another 15 minutes or so. I decided not to let Ty go swimming since he likes to scoop the water into his mouth. I ended up not going in either, cuz I had to stay out and keep him happy.

Some jerk probably thought they were being pretty funny when they dumped that doody into the swimming pool. I can't even comprehend the details of the whole act (Was it human poo or dog poo? Was the pool used as a toilet, or was the poo dumped in "after-the-fact"? Yadda-yadda, blah blah blah, etc...) Heck, I don't think I wanna know the answers! I just hope it doesn't happen again. It's a cruel prank, and it affects lots of people. And I'm sure it has to be a little pricey and time-consuming to empty and refill the pool, as well as treat it. If something like this happens too often, they might just shut the pool down for good. There would be lots of upset little kids if that happened. Jasmine is one of 'em!

We're gonna try swimming again tomorrow. I hope everything goes better. We don't have AC, and in warm weather, our apartment gets rather hot (it's upstairs, between two other units). The swimming pool is a nice retreat from the heat. Plus, it's free entertainment for the kids!

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