Spider ninja of doom!

This thing cracks me up. It's a Japanese spider crab. I think it kind of looks like a spider ninja of doom! Kee-yah!!!

Haha... Oh hey, we cracked off an icicle out by the laundry room today that was about five feet long! I think that's about the longest one I've seen all winter, mainly because we usually break them off when they start to get too long. Something about them getting too big, falling, and hurting someone.

So I guess it's been a few days since I updated, huh? Okay, well, first of all, remind me to never have kids. I like them a lot, really I do, but eesh, there's no way I could keep up with them 24 hours a day. Well, "keep up with them" isn't the right phrase. I can keep up with them fine. It's just I don't like having to devote every second of my time to watching someone and making sure they don't run off, hurt themselves, break something, cause trouble, throw things, use bad language, hurt someone else, et cetera. On Saturday, I babysat Noah and Kamryn for the morning. Took them down to the Sea Life Center and used their mom's year pass to get in. I thought it was awesome, all the cool stuff to learn about there! Unfortunately, any time I started to read a plaque or talk to a guide or anything, one of the kids would start crying or running off or climbing on something or throwing their toys or touching things they shouldn't or having to go potty or... well, you get the idea.

I have a lot of respect for people who have kids. I don't think I could do it. At least not at this point in my life. When you have kids, your life has to pretty much revolve around them, and you can't do very much else.

Anyway, we did have fun at the Sea Life Center. Now I'm thinking about getting a pass for myself, even though it's somewhat expensive, because there's a lot to learn about there, and I'd kind of like to go explore it by myself sometime. The kids and I never got past the touch tank, which is one of the first exhibits there.

Afterwards, I took them out for pizza because I'm a softy and Kamryn begged. Turns out Noah "wasn't hungry," so he didn't eat any, and Kamryn pulled off the cheese, ate the part with sauce, and left the crust too. Oh well, at least she enjoyed it. Noah took off his shoes and ran around the restaurant with some other kid he found who he apparently goes to preschool with. Then a man named Tom Morris came over and gave them about thirty chocolate eggs. Just what kids need: sugar!

In the gift shop of the Sea Life Center, Kamryn kept asking if she could get something. I told her that her mom had given me four dollars to spend. Of course, everything in a gift shop is overpriced. Kamryn spent about 45 minutes picking things up, bringing them to me, and asking "Is this four dollars?" "How about this?" "How much is this one?" She finally got some sticky starfish toys. You throw them at the wall and they stick for a second, then start to fall, but still stick so it looks like they're walking down the wall. Oh great. Sticky toys. Facepalm. They threw them at everything in the Sea Life Center (lost one somewhere) and wouldn't stop throwing them in the restaurant either. I left the poor waitress a nice tip for putting up with them so well. In retrospect, I should have tried to leave a tip for the custodians too.

Oh well, it was fun. I wouldn't want to do that every day, though.

Yesterday, I had dinner at the Drawdy's place. Madison, the six-year-old, took me four-wheeling. I can't believe I let a six-year-old take me four-wheeling. I'd never been four-wheeling before. We both rode on the same machine, me sitting behind her, and she drove most of the way. She was an okay driver except for her habit of turning to say, "Look, my friend lives there," and nearly running off the road. Or into a snow bank. Or pothole. Or whatever else happened to be around.

The dog, Abbey, ran along beside us everywhere we went. At first, I was worried we would hit her, but after a while, I realized she was being very careful about making sure she knew where the four-wheeler was all the time, so I stopped worrying. But I was still ready to grab the handlebars in case Madison got too close.

At one point, we were driving around the other side of the neighborhood, and this huge dog stepped out into the road. Big, beautiful animal, I would guess part malamute and part Australian shepherd. Looked just like the dog I wish I could have. We drove past, Abbey hot on our wheels, and a second later, I heard a horrible yelping/whining. I grabbed the handlebrakes, horrified that we had hit one of the dogs, but when I turned around, it turned out the dogs were fighting. The big dog had attacked Abbey, and Abbey was losing badly. I leaped off the machine and ran back to chase the dog off. Abbey practically crawled up to me on her stomach, whining. I looked her over, and she seemed okay, more or less. She led the way back to the four-wheeler, limping, then jumped onto it, climbed on the seat, and looked at me with this big happy "my turn to ride!" expression. Of course, with both Madison and the dog on the seat, I had to stand on the side, so I took over driving, and we drove home at about ten miles per hour. Abbey kept trying to shove her head under my arm so I had my arm around her, but it wasn't working very well, since I needed my right arm on the handlebars to give the machine gas.

After we put up the four-wheeler and Madison went to bed, I stuck around a bit longer talking to Chip (her dad). He used to be a hunting dog trainer, and I loved hearing about how he trained dogs. He has two labradors, Abbey and Goldie, and they're super-smart. Abbey does cool tricks, too. We had a tennis ball that we would balance on her nose and when we took our hands away, she would throw it in the air and catch it in her mouth. She's the one that would do flips off snowpiles to catch snowballs you throw towards her. Chip says that on average, dogs can retain thirteen tricks, so you have to be choosy about which ones you teach them. He never wasted time teaching them "play dead" and "roll over." He taught things like "sit," "stay," "place" (lay down), "quiet," "kennel," "drop," and commands like that. The dogs are supposed to automatically sit if something is in the air, and Goldie responds to whistle commands too. For example, one long whistle means "turn around, sit down, and look at me." It was pretty interesting.

Anyway, that's all for now. Toodles!