Entry 383: Opening Day

Today was the opening day for the Kansas City Royals. They played the Los Angeles Angels and unfortunately lost 4-2. We really enjoyed ourselves and Lance was impressed that it only took Julie 6 minutes before she yelled at a Royals player that he sucked. Julie is already in mid-season form. If you would like to see the pictures we took from the game, make sure to go to our season tickets blog located on the right.

Entry 382: Rurally Screwed

One day when Lance was reading Newsweek he read an article about a woman who had lived in New York City, but then married a man who moved her out to the country. They live on a farm with chickens, a wood furnace, and a less than year old baby. The ladies husband is being deployed tomorrow for a year and she has been blogging about it. Lance is addicted to her blog and you can check out Rurally Screwed here.

Entry 381: The Wheels On The Bus Don't Go Round And Round

Julie loves riding the bus to and from work. It gives her a chance to clear her mind everyday and she enjoys the people who ride with her. As you can see from the picture above today was not one of those days because her bus broke down. It broke down on the interstate and after 15-20 minutes they finally fixed the problem. All in all just another day in the life of Julie.

Entry 380: Snacks

Tomorrow is the beginning of MAP testing. MAP testing, for those that don't know, is the standardized test that the state of Missouri gives all students. Lance's department this year will be testing 35 students with everyone taking seven tests and we try to supply snacks for them during the tests. That means he needs about 250 bottles of water and snacks. Lance has always been embarrassed because he has always had to go through Wal-Mart and just load up on around $150 worth of snacks. Julie always laughed at Lance because people would just stare at him. This year, however, Lance got wise and sent someone else out to do it. Let the good times start tomorrow.

Entry 379: Ready For Opening Day

Julie enjoys shopping and Lance doesn't, but the one thing we both enjoy doing is shopping for Kansas City Royals gear. With opening day 4 days away we decided that we should both buy one new Royals thing for the upcoming season. After hitting four stores we both finally decided on what we wanted. Julie bought a vintage Royals shirt and Lance ended up with a new Royals sweatshirt. We are ready for opening day.

Entry 378: Touchdown

Yes we both realize that football season is long over, but in our house touchdown has a double meaning. When we first got Bobby from the pound they told us that he was potty trained. Boy did they lie to us on that one. Within the first week Bobby had peed on the carpet numerous times and left us many little "presents" during the day. Lance got pretty frustrated and took it upon himself to potty train the little guy. At first it was a struggle, but eventually Lance got him trained to do his business outside.

Now when Bobby has to use the bathroom, he has a little routine that he goes through. He will first jump at the door and then run to find Lance (he will never go and look for Julie for some reason). Once he finds Lance he will whine until Lance lets him out. Bobby will then run around the yard until he finds the perfect spot and squats (yes we are both aware of the fact that we know way to much about Bobby's bathroom habits). Now for the reason we titled this post touchdown, when Bobby finally does his business we yell touchdown and give him a treat when he runs in all excited. Anyone that says animals are not like your kids have never met our dogs.

Entry 377: The "D" Word

Lance went to pick up Julie from work today and on the drive home he asked her if she wanted to see the school he would be teaching at next year and Julie agreed. As we were driving by the school there was a girl walking out and Julie commented that she looked like a dork. Lance had her explain why she thought that and she told him that it was because the girl was carrying an instrument (Julie says they called the kids that carried instruments home dorks when she was younger). After the explanation Julie turned to Lance and said, "You're still the biggest dork in the world." You can just feel the love.

Entry 376: A Butt Chewing Avoided

Back in October of 2010 we decided that we wanted to continue with being Kansas City Royals season ticket holders, but we wanted to upgrade from 20 games to 40 games. We both really enjoyed going to the games last season and decided that we wanted to go even more this year. Yes we both realize that the Royals are terrible and won't be good at all this year, but it doesn't matter to us. Lance enjoys watching the games and Julie enjoys watching also (people and game).

Now on to how the Kansas City Royals avoided a major butt chewing. When we bought our season tickets, we also decided to buy parking passes. It seemed like a great idea, but when we got our season tickets in the mail the parking passes weren't there. Lance called the ticket office and they said that for some reason a few people didn't get their parking passes. She got our name and season ticket holder number and she told Lance that she was going to send them out immediately. Well 10 days passed and there were still no parking passes, so Lance called again and they said that they were sending them all out that Friday. Well another week passed and still no parking passes, so Julie said that if we didn't get them today she was going to call them nd give them a piece of her mind. As most people know Lance is a pretty laid back guy, but Julie will give you a piece of her mind when she is upset and holds nothing back. Luckily for the Royals the parking passes were at the door when Lance got home today, so the butt chewing was avoided. It wouldn't have been pretty, trust me.

Entry 375: Sticks

The weather has been gorgeous lately, so we have been starting a fire and sitting by it almost every night. We have quite a few logs, but not as many sticks as we would like. Julie has taken it upon herself to notice that the yards around us have quite a few sticks in them and she wants to go over and grab them. Lance has been explaining to her that we need to ask first, so Julie has been patient enough to wait for Lance to ask. It looks like Lance is going to get to know his neighbors pretty well.

Entry 374: Guess Who Likes The Weather

Yes you guessed it, Bobby loves this weather. When Lance leaves to pick up Julie, Bobby runs out the door and jumps into the car. Once we get to the bus stop Lance will roll down all the windows and Bobby is in heaven sticking his head out the window. This picture is Bobby waiting to pick up Julie.

Entry 373: Door To Door

A little over a year ago we were introduced to Door To Door organics by our friend Susan. Door To Door is awesome because every 2 weeks (we could have gotten it every week, but decided on every other week) you get fresh vegetables and fruit delivered straight to your door. It is like Christmas when you get home and see that box of vegetables and fruit waiting for you on the doorstep. Here is an example of what we got this week:

- 2 Yams
- 3 Fuji Apples
- 2 Braeburn Apples
- 2 Cara Cara Navel Oranges
- 1 Champagne Mango
- 6 Red Potatoes
- 2 Bananas
- 1 Cherry Tomato
- 7 Kiwi's

If you haven't tried Door To Door, you absolutely should.

Entry 372: Barbecue-a-thon

The weather was absolutely gorgeous today, so as we were sitting outside Julie turned to Lance and said she wanted to grill something. Lance asked her what and she didn't really know, so we decided to have a barbecue-a-thon. As you can see below we ended up grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken legs. We love the spring weather and hope it stays that way.

Entry 371: A "Crappy" Day

Today we went to Pennys to do a little shopping for Cooper. We got to the newborn section when Julie tapped Lance on the shoulder and asked him if he farted. Lance said no and anyone that knows Lance will tell you that he is always brutally honest when someone asks him if he farted. Throughout our entire time in the newborn section we continued to smell something foul. When we finally made all of our purchases and walked to checkout we found what was causing the odor; a big pile of poop. That's right there was a big pile of poop in the center of the aisle and poop footprints all over the carpet. Once we vomited in our mouths, Lance went and told someone who called to have it cleaned up because the people who did this didn't tell anyone.

This leads us to the following question: if your child poops in the store and it gets on the carpet don't you tell someone? You would think it would be common courtesy to inform the store or maybe they just thought it was funny. We are here to tell those people that there is nothing funny about poop (especially in a store).

Entry 370: A New Addition

Today Julie's sister Carol had her baby. It was 21 inches long and weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces. Welcome to the family Cooper Joseph.

Entry 369: "New" Neighbors

When Lance bought our house it was in a well established neighborhood which is also part of the reason Lance fell in love with it. Unfortunately it was also an older neighborhood which meant as time went on many of the people on the street either passed on or went to a retirement facility. The problem is that most of the houses were then bought at a pretty good price and have been rented out. We have had good luck with most of the renters around us, but the house across the street is always filled with some interesting people. We had some new renters move in across the street a little over a month ago and as you can see from the picture below you could call them interesting. The trailer you see below has been there since they moved in and everything in it has been snowed and rained on (my favorite are the mattresses with the brown stains on them).



This leads us to today's story. We have only seen them once since they have moved in and they are an older couple with three other people (not including the baby) living there. This morning at 6:30 when we were getting in the car to go to the bus stop, we heard a lot of yelling. Lance turned around to see what was going on and in the front yard the older lady was yelling at a girl. They were both in their pajamas just screaming their heads off while the younger girl was holding a cat. Lance pointed this out to Julie who just shook her head while Lance laughed. Julie has officially told Lance that he cannot go over and try to make friends with them.

Entry 368: Ball Time

Bobby's favorite thing to do is to play ball and he would do it all day long if he could. We are lucky enough to live a block from a park and since this is Lance's spring break he took Bobby over to play ball. When they got there some people were in the play area, so Lance went over and asked if they minded if he let Bobby off the leash to play ball. They said yes and the nice thing was that eventually the two boys came over and threw the ball (nice for Lance because he didn't have to throw his arm out). The picture you see is after an hour of playing ball. Julie says that you can just see the joy in his eyes when he is playing ball.

Entry 367: A Change

We have been keeping this quiet until it was final, but Lance is transferring to a different building next year. He will still be teaching in Liberty, but will be teaching at Liberty Middle School. Right now Lance has to be at work by 7:00 and just has enough time to drop Julie off at the bus stop. Next year Lance's school does not start until 8:10, so there will no longer be a rush to get ready in the morning. Lance has been working with 8th graders for 10 years and is really looking forward to moving down to the 7th grade level.

Entry 366: The Goodwill Of Others

As you may or may not know, Lance's mother has been going through some health issues lately. We won't go into any details, but it has been causing both of us some sleepless nights. We both worry about Lance's mom and dad and feel bad about not being able to spend more time with them.

Let's fast forward to last night when Lance talked to his mom and dad. Lance asked them what they did today and dad said the church choir came to their house and sang for them. This was such a thoughtful thing for them to do because Kay was in the choir an that is one of the things she misses the most. It is nice to know that there are still people out there who go out of there ways to make others feel better.

Entry 365: Bobby's Socks

Bobby has a little game that he likes to play every morning with Julie's socks. Julie will put her socks on the bed, but Bobby then jumps up on the bed and takes the socks. He puts the socks in his mouth and will shake them around. The entire time Julie will be trying to get the socks out of his mouth while Bobby is growling at her. Usually Julie will get the socks, but at times Bobby will win and runs around the house shaking the socks in his mouth. When Julie gets her socks back though, Bobby will always lay on the bed and just watches Julie. Like Lance always says, "Bobby likes to be the center of attention."

Entry 364: Our Guarantee

We have decided to take our blog in a new direction. Previously we have been updating the blog when we have pictures, a really funny story, or some big news. The problem with this is sometimes it happens and we are just too tired to put it on the blog and eventually forget about it, or we will do something and forget to take pictures and then think no one would want to read it without pictures. Well we have decided that no matter what we are going to update the blog everyday with some story or picture from our day.

Will it be something exciting everyday??? If you answered yes to this then you really don't know us real well because we lead some pretty ordinary boring lives. We can guarantee you though that there will be some form of new content everyday, so keep checking back.

Entry 363: Season Tickets

Our Kansas City Royals season tickets arrived on Monday and we were both quite excited. If you want to read more about this or see what we have been doing Royals-wise click on the link below or on the link on the right hand side.

Royals Season Tickets Blog

Entry 362: Finally

After what seems like months and months of cold weather and snow, we finally seemed to have turned a corner and the weather is nice. We celebrated today by picking up the sticks in the yard and starting our first fire of the year. Julie wanted to make smores with the fire and Lance was happy to oblige.