Land o'Lessa

…as my mom would say – We live in Alaska – we make our own fun!

As I was driving my son to work today, we saw a helicopter land in the Stanley Ford lot, pick up some people and take off again. They are apparently giving rides, so we drove over, watched, then I took him to work. That’s not the funny part though…

The funny part is this: Picketing in front of the dealership was a man with a sign. I didn’t manage to get a picture of him, because I just laughed it off. What it said though, was this:

“Do not shop here! They are disrespectful to employees!”

I snorted, and said something like “Welcome to having a job, jackass. Oh, wait, ya probably DON’T anymore..” And went on with my life, figuring they’d shoo him off sooner or later.

Well. They did. Or he left. Or something. Because here we are at the Funkey Monkey for coffee and writing, still giggling at the signs we saw – and got pictures of! – on our way through town. Seems Stanley had his own signage ideas….

(click to embiggen)

They say, front to back:

And I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.
God, I love my town.

So, by all accounts the Band is having a SPLENDID time in Florida. Of course, I’ve only the OH SO GIDDY hundreds of text messages to go by, but I’m pretty sure it’s a safe bet that if Peppermist could somehow live in Miami and Alaska at the same time? She totally would.

Observe:

Peppermist: OH! HEY! I’m in FLORIDA! ooooooooh lookit the pretty lights… SHINY.

Peppermist: HAPPY ME! We walked in a THUNDERSTORM. Real rain, mama! Lightening and thunder! Next to a highway! Kept getting splashed! Three miles! I’m DRENCHED! I LOVE THE RAIN!

Peppermist: Two Words. COLLEGE BOYS.
Me: One word. DEAD.

Peppermist: College student walked by on phone – all we heard was “It’s fuckin’ DIAGONAL!” HAHAHHHAHAHA!
Me: O_o.

Peppermist: My hips hurt!
Me: Why?
Peppermist: IDK. I have the insides of an 80 year old man.
Me: Well give them back! I’m sure he NEEDS his insides!
Peppermist: HAHAHAHAHA! I love you.

Peppermist: I’m watching the OLYMPIX! FROM THE FUTURE!
Me: What’s it like in the future?!
Peppermist: Full of stupid teachers and homework. Just like always. WHERE’S MY FLYING CAR?
Me: Hey! THAT’S MY LINE!
Peppermist: I stole it. FUTURISTICLY.

Peppermist: You need sleep?
Me: ….usually. Why?
Peppermist: Cuz I’m SO COVERED IN SAND that I could be the SANDMAN!
Me: Happy Beach Day!

Peppermist: I TOUCHED AN ALLIGATOR!
Me: WASH YER HANDS!

Peppermist: Uh. Sunburn. Also? Hives from sunscreen.
Me: Benedryl.
Peppermist: ow.ow.ow.ow.ow.ow.ow.

Peppermist: LOTS of pictures of Gators! And? I CAPTURED ONE! I’m bringing him HOME! He’s FEISTY!
Me: O_o….he’s living in your room.
Peppermist: Nah, the dog will eat him. He can live in the crawl space!
Me: SCORE. Home security!
Peppermist: That’s what I thought! Cant get him through airport security though. Have to ship him home UPS.
Me: Feed him first. Don’t want him to eat the UPS guy.
Peppermist: Of course. We won’t need the chaperons anymore by then, right?
Me: O_o.

That’s mah girl. I can’t wait till she comes home. My life is EVER so boring without her.

It was a BIG WEEKEND here at Casa de Lessa, folks, dominated by the PreTeen and her cousins and the Big Swim Meet in Soldotna. Oh yes, there was kids to wake up early, early, the buglet to be dropped off here with Peppermist, the others to get to the pool, dressed in swim gear and on deck by 9am for warm-ups for the meet to start at 10:15.

That’s stupid early for a Saturday, ya’ll.

But there we were, our collective four kids on deck, on time, with our spot in the bleachers staked out, programs and highlighters and cameras and sharpies in hand – the later gets a real workout, see the picture to the left, ready for five hours of cheering on The Pup, Ladybug, Bug, Dman and all their teammates. (Why yes, I am the crazy cheering mom. Why do you ask?)

It was an especially nervewracking day for the pup, as she had decided to swim a brand new event: The 100yd Individual medly. She knows all the strokes, of course, but there’s the ORDER to remember, and TWO HAND WALL TOUCHES, and DON’T DQ and OMG MOM I’M SO NERVOUS! Peppermist, loving big sister that she is, told the pup an “easy” way to remember the stroke order: just remember that you can BUTTER the BACK of your BREASTs, FREEly. This, naturally, spread through the team like wildfire, and MUCH laughter resulted – including laughter DURING THE BACKSTROKE LEG by the pup AS SHE SWAM.

INORITE?

All our kids had a VERY successful meet, though. Not only did the Pup swim that IM, but it got her her very first DUCKY! The winner of each heat gets a little rubber ducky as a prize, and the pup has been sure she’d NEVER win one – and then she did! VERY happy Pup – in fact, they handed it to her, she looked up to find us in the stands and held that ducky high in the air as we all cheered VERY LOUDLY for her. She could have fallen off the blocks in every race thereafter and not cared. She had a Ducky. A PRINCESS ducky, even, with a PURPLE crown.

She didn’t fall off the blocks though – in fact, she pulled out a 3rd place heat finish and a 2nd place heat finish as well, and improved on all of her times. The Ladybug swam her first 50yd Freestyle (She’s a wee bit of a thing, and usually swims 25s) AND she also won a ducky for herself! All Bug’s hard work paid off and he got to swim the Freestyle relay with the BIG BOYS – including his teammate who recently got the chance to swim with Michael Phelps. There is no SMALL amount of hero worship going on THERE, I’ll tell ya!

And then, Dman, my 13 year old nephew, he tells me “I’m never gonna win a ducky, you know.” I, of course, reminded him that the Pup felt the very same way and today was her day. His day was coming. NOT TEN MINUTES LATER – GUESS WHAT HE DID? That’s right, Dman came away from the pool with his very first Ducky too!

And in between it all, there was Dman and his Girlfriend, who also happens to be the Coach’s daughter. There’s nothing quite as fun as teasing two thirteen year olds as they follow each other around the pool. There were a lot of “Remember! 6inchs of light between you!” and nudges and winks, and chuckling. And then? We spotted them waaaaaaaaaaay across the pool, sitting in folding chairs under the yellow sign, waiting for Dman’s next event. I looked at Mama, and Nana, because I saw them first.

Me: That’s NOT 6 inches…
Mama: oooooooh HELL NAW.
Nana: BUSTED!

So we yelled the girls name across the pool, to get her attention – we knew Dman would just ignore us, and she’d answer – and followed it by “THAT’S NOT 6 INCHES!” complete with gestures demonstrating the proper distance between them, and were rewarded by them jumping apart, BRIGHT RED BLUSHING, and looks that could kill.

God, I love teenagers!

Needless to say, we spent the weekend pretty well pumped. The Boy even showered the Pup with affection and attention, and took her out to breakfast Sunday morning to celebrate. If you’d like to see the Pup – here’s her video of all her events. Note that she beat that girl for her ducky by a FULL POOL LENGTH. Yeaaaaaaaaaah, baby! Way to do it in STYLE, baby girl!

So how was YOUR weekend?

I hope everyone is sufficiently recovered from their New Years Eve festivities in time for this, the first Monday of a brand new year to rear it’s ugly head! Before we move forward this year, I thought I’d finish off the fun we had here at Christmas time and beyond – because I know you’ve been asking yourself “What else has Lessa been up too?!” Right? Right!

So, I mentioned the awesome gift Peppermist got me – she knows I’m obsessed with pacman, original arcade style, yo! – and she got me a blue ghostie! That walks! Which is about 15 shades of AWESOME, ya know? So I was playing with it (…shush you…) while listening to my Glee Soundtrack (..if you ain’t listening and lovin’ Glee, I’m not sure we can be friends!) on my shiny new iPod Touch that the boy is still in trouble for and the Thong Song came on. And since my Ghostie was already holding my headphones…

And well. Who am I to resist the siren call of such an opportunity?! Observe…

INORITE?! So. Very. Awesome.

And as proof that I have THE BEST Teens on the planet, including the ones I kinda adopted – The Twins decided to spoil me/us too, and got me an old fashioned popcorn maker! It’s a little mini version of the BIG ones at the Theater, ya know? And it makes DELISH fluffy popcorn, which we can salt and butter to our liking, and we’ve gone through a metric ton of the stuff after stealing Nana and Papa’s popcorn kernals – cuz we didn’t have any of our own. Heh. (Yes, Nana! The Popcorn Fairy will arrive with more soon, all fresh popped and delish!) It’s a BIG hit, and we’ve eaten the Pup’s Weight in the stuff since it was delivered. Thanks girls!

What else – OH YES. For Christmas, Peppermist, who wants to be the Alaskan Ace Of Cakes, received an awesome basket of cake decorating goodies and cake mixes from Nana to practice with! Thus, a couple nights ago, Peppermist armed herself with Auntie’s icing recipe, and took over the kitchen for her very first cake decorating experience.

There were mutterings, there were ponderings, there was the decision to simply use pink because she likes it so THERE mama. She was determined to learn to make an icing rose – and when she bounded around the corner happily to show off a perfect rose, I couldn’t help but applaud. I asked her if it was on the first try – and she said yes…around a mouthful of pink icing. Hahahah!

The cake turned out pretty damn well, especially for her first time. I look forward to sampling many other creations over the years to come. Nana’s already put in her order for her upcoming birthday, even.

Watch out, Duff! The Alaskan Ace Of Cakes is on her way!

Oh what a long weekend! While the little stabby dudes of doom are still stabbitying my lower back, it didn’t stop me from doing the Proud Mama thing all weekend long. Because that’s simply how I roll… (…I’m such a gangsta, yo!)

Saturday was the first swim meet of the season for the Pup, The Candy Cane Splash, which meant hopping into Nana’s car at the bright and early and happy hour of 5am – after having slept about 2 hours myself – and heading north to Seward. Papa offered us some cash if we “needed it” and we decided we “needed breakfast and coffee” so that worked out well too.

We got to the pool right at 8am, where the kids all hopped into the pool for warmups to get ready for the day. And what a successful day it was! All of our kids did well – the Pup, and my niece and two of my nephews (the third stayed at home to play with Peppermist and the puppies), and The Pup is EXTREMELY proud that along with destroying some of her times from last year, she also never once came in last in any of her heats! For a girl who struggled last year to get the strokes down, not DQ, and simply finish a little better than she had the time before, this was a HUGE moral boost for our waterbaby! Even the coach commented that she was a LOT stronger this year, and all her work during the off season paid off for her big time.

So for those who’d like to share a little bit of the day – here’s my Pup in all her swimming glory, in 5 events. I have videos of all our kids, of course, and you can click through to see how AMAZING they are too if you like!

Just ignore the crazy lady shouting encouragements in the background. I have NO idea who she is – someone really aughta gag her…

We arrived back into town in the early evening, and all the kids collapsed for some sleep. And by “all the kids” I totally mean me, as I pretended to watch a movie with the Pup and instead got yelled at for snoring. WHATEVER.

The fun wasn’t over yet though, as yesterday was the Annual December Band Concert for the high school and junior high bands. Peppermist has been in band since the 5th grade, so we’re getting quite used to all of these concerts, and measuring just how much improvement the kids have from concert to concert, year to year.

Yesterday’s concert was amazing – with only a few bobbles here and there, and some really good solos as well – which made it an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

One of the best parts about it though is the Charlie Brown Tree in front. APPARENTLY Charlie Brown is “cool” again, and I simply didn’t know it.

Peppermist: Charlie Brown is AWESOME. Charlie Brown is ALWAYS cool.
Me: … you kids gotta TELL me these things!
Peppermist: pfft. Some things you just know. Gawd, Mom.

So that was my weekend – How was YOURS?!