SUMMER, SWIMMING, SINKS AND SLIP-UPS

Well, summer is finally here. It's a busy time of year for me at work. Everyone around us is leaving for vacation, and I'm working overtime. Fortunately I love my job and I'm having a blast with a lot of the projects I'm working on.

It's starting to heat up outside, and with it is the constant barrage from the kids of "Can we go swimming? Can we go swimming?" In fact, Macy is hanging on may arm right now begging to go RIGHT NOW. Fortunately for the kids, we have a pool right in the back yard of our condo. Now, I look fantastic in a swim suit (besides the pasty white skin and 2% muscle mass) so that's not my problem in taking them out for a dip. That's not the reason I'm putting it off. It's more of the fact that we have plenty of surrounding neighbors who's kids apparently ask the "Can we go swimming?" question as well, because it's usually packed. Thus everyone basically gets a 2'x2' space to paddle around in the pool, which just doesn't excite me for some reason.

Being that the pool is right behind our place, I can't even successfully divert the kids attention to something else, like UNO or, you know, doing the dishes and scrubbing the bathtub. That's because the other kids IN the pool are making enough noise to constantly be reminding my children that "HEY, THERE IS A POOL OUT HERE AND IT'S SO FUN THAT WE'RE SCREAMING REALLY LOUD TO LET EVERYONE KNOW HOW AMAZINGLY FUN IT IS. YOU'RE MISSING OUT BY NOT BEING OUT HERE." Macy doesn't take no for an answer. If you tell her, "Not right now," or "In a little while," she starts asking Drake or Alicia, "Hey, are you hot? Would you like to cool off in the pool?" As if to create a 3 against one army to get me out there. I'm already down 2-1 as she's pulled Drake to the dark side.

But, Alicia, being the thinker of the two of us, bought a 'slip and slide' to occasionally stick out in the front yard, so the kids can play on their own without someone doing the canon ball on their heads. This allows me to either shoot hoops or relax on our porch swing - without sharing the space with 80 other people, as I would in the pool. But today she's not having it - it's the pool or bust.

As I continue to put off going out there, I might as well share an update on Alicia. She is under 4 weeks away from the scheduled c-section - and frankly, she's ready for it to be tomorrow. She's having a really hard time finding any comfortable position to sleep in - which I don't understand, I seem to be sleeping fine. Hmm. Anyway, it hasn't stopped her from doing the everyday things she loves doing (which by the way is ALWAYS project oriented). A good illustration of this is when I came from work last week to find an empty living room, but some noise coming from the bathroom. I figured Alicia was giving the kids a bath, until I walked in their bathroom to find a plumber under our sink. Now I say plumber because the scene had all the signs of a plumber. A wrench, silicone, pipes, towels, a plumber's gut. Then I realized, that's not a gut, it's a pregnant belly. That's my wife doing our plumbing? Sure enough - and she'd done a killer job. Time to check in my man card, I guess. She let me finish the last two parts of the job just to make me feel somewhat useful. Thanks.

In response, I've been doing as many Handy-man things around the house as I can find. Okay, so I really haven't. I've actually been been writing blog entries and watching my Utah Jazz draft 7-foot, white, European guys that usually don't pan out. Sweet. However, one thing I did try to do with my tools was put up a basic, simple shelf in my closet. Drake wanted to help, but I think he was really just mocking me the whole time. And he should - the kid is better with tools than most people I know. He was handing me the necessary screws and tools to get me started. Yep, it only took me about an hour and a half to get that baby installed. I'm REALLY getting the hang of this home improvement thing.

I got a call from my dad the other day telling me he had just gotten back from the doctor. Apparently, he rolled his ATV on top of him and was feeling some pain for a couple days. As the pain got worse, he decided to go get things checked out - hoping that he was not internally bleeding to death. X-rays showed he had a broken rib. Nice one, Dave. Here's a guy who's body is 65 years old - and even though he doesn't act his age (a trait which I picked up from him), he really loses all sense of age on the 4-wheeler. He becomes a 16 year old version of Evil Knievel. Well, without the outfit.

THE FIRST BLOG OF SANDERS

EXCERPTS FROM THE DEAD TUALATIN RIVER SCROLLS:

For behold, it came to pass that two-thousand and eight years had passed away since the time of Christ, wherefore, Alicia gave me, Landon, a commandment to write a history of our people...yeah, all five of us. Yeah, I write somewhat concerning us, that perhaps some day it may profit someone, or possibly cause someone exceeding embarrassment (which it may have already).
2. Wherefore I labored diligently to write those things which were pleasing to those who will read of these things. But, yeah, because of the cheesiness of these writings, it grieveth me...and likely all who read these things will be wroth. And now, if there are faults, they are mistakes of computers and a malfunctioning spell check.
3. Therefore, we lived near the waters of Tualatin, which was a fountain of filthy water, and who knows what else. But behold, we lived in the land of Oswego, yeah and the people prospered in the land. And there were many wise and wonderful people in the land round about , yeah and many who worshiped on the Mount of Overlook.
4. And it came to pass that we had three children. And we taught them the language of our fathers, which was reformed Idahoan. Wherefore, it became expedient to do away with the traditions of our fathers and teach them English. And we taught our children that all things are done in wisdom and order, but yeah, their rooms are still a mess and they still tend to not listen.
5. And we, ourselves, have been blessed because of our children and yeah I am puffed up in pride because I'm married to Alicia. And she, in her infinite goodness, doth put up with our crap.
6. And now I make and end of my writings.