"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -randy pausch

Friday, July 11, 2014

my special unicorn powers

at 10pm on a summer night,
you can almost always know that the gibson kids will be drinking chocolate milk
at the kitchen table,
and NOT be asleep snug in their beds.
for about ten minutes i love it,
and think THIS is the life.
all fairies and Popsicles,
and let's go ride unicorns under the moonlight!
then all of a sudden
the long day hits me,
usually after someone has blown milk bubbles out onto the table for the 10th time in 30 seconds,
and i will be like,
"self, there are no such things as unicorns and fairies,
and what in the heeeeeeckkkkkk are your kids still doing awake??!!"
and then i give them about 2 minutes to power their drinks down,
and see how fast i can get the two big kids into bed while sean gets the baby in his crib.
sometimes i can do it in 5 minutes flat.
it's a special unicorn power of mine.
also, i have magic fairy dust in my pockets to get them to fall asleep quick.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

happy happy!

happy birthday to my mom!
chase will never look at a candle in a cake the same way ever again.
OH BOY! OH BOY! OH BOY!
hahahaha!!!
{note: thumb's up}

Monday, July 7, 2014

when we realized sean left his car keys at the lake house {among other keys}

above: THE island oasssssssiiiiisssssss {really though, it's what it felt like. SPOT ON.}.
and it only took my dad two hours to blow it up with the air compressor.
home run.
HOME.
RUN:)
...
the last day of vacation.
when you don't want to pack,
but you wanna be home.
and if you're me,
you put off packing until about, oh let's say 11pm.
then you round everything up,
and are feeling awesome about your procrastination effectiveness,
until the next day,
when you're driving through the sierra's
and you get a text from your dad that says,
did you forget something?,
you know like, 
your husband left his car keys.
and you're all sucking in air with your mouth wide open,
and you're eyes all crazy because you realize those keys also had the keys to the clinic,
which your husband has to be to work at by 7am the next morning.
you know, the ones that are on the hook on the lake house door.
but your dad is all,
"no problem, we will overnight them."
and so you text the aide at the clinic who lives nearby,
and she says she will leave her set under your doormat,
and you're all, phew, we think we're good, but WHHHHHYYYYY must we ALWAYS forget something when we leave the lake house???
and then after you drive 11 and a half hours home,
and all of your kids have hit some kind of "are we there yet" world wide Guinness record of all time,
and you have your little cesaer's pizza and crazy bread {extra cheese, extra butter} on your lap,
and you go to walk in your house to eat off of paper plates and such,
and you try to get into your house,
and that's when it hits you.
the
HOUSE
KEYS
ARE
ALLLLSSSSOOOOO
ON
YOUR
HUSBAND'S
KEYS
HANGING
ON
THE
HOOKS
BY
THE
DOOR
AT
THE
LAKE
HOUSE.
yep.
it was awesome:)
good thing linsey had a spare.
too bad she was not at home.
also, i had to pee.
BAD{ly}.
like my kidneys still aren't the same.
but it all worked out,
i made it to the loo,
the little Caesar's held on like a champ,
and it was good to be home with a yard full of grass.
but the next morning my kids did tell me,
that when they're all grown up,
they plan on moving to the lake house with grandma and grandpa.
because, i mean really,
it's not too shabby of a plan when you're 6 and 4.
{we ladies left the boys for 3 hours to go to the nail salon, where soap operas were on the tee-vee and the nail ladies had lots of fun stuff to chat with us about. like who likes their nails buffed and clipped, and how many years their babies are apart. also about vaccinations. stuff like that. 
oh thank heavens for little girls.}
{the end.}

Sunday, July 6, 2014

original chrome, white wall tires, and toll bridges

once when i was in college i was driving home from chico state and didn't have a single dime to my name in my car. i pulled up to the toll window and was all, "um hi, is there anyway i can work off the $3 toll and be on my merry way?" and the toll guy was all, "yeah, we don't do that...name and address here, sign your first born child away to the state of california, and send us a check for $3 plus a processing fee after you get the stub in the mail." and then the little arm went up, and i drove home to half moon bay. and that when i was all, "that was easy." and about three months later i got a stub in the mail.
...
one day we took a break from the sun and boards and drove home to the bay,
squeaking by the toll across the san mateo bridge with a dollar to spare,
to eat pizza and salad with my grandparents and aunt.
this of course was after we spent three and a half hours in traffic,
where upon sean and i decided that even though northern california will always be home,
and the fog in the ocean air is still just as delicious as ever,
that we could not live here again after all.
pity. 
because oh how good that foggy air smelled when we were sitting in traffic exiting on el camino real.
with our windows rolled down.
flowers and fog.
i can almost smell it now.
enough to make a person want to move back home.
{above: right here, this is where it started smelling like flowers and fog. heaven.}
...
while the women talked about children and weather inside,
the men went over tools and cars in the garage.
by the end of our luncheon
grandpa brought us all outside to show off the Schwinn he is restoring for my sister Kelsey.
my OH my it was SUCH a pretty bike.
the sparkly green handles had us all entranced.
at least chase and me:)
also, there's a bell.
i know.
magic.
above: i love this picture of their hands so much. 
so so so much.
precious.
grandpa told us stories of how he bought the bike in tahoe,
and all about how it was dated somewhere between 1960-1965
with its ORIGINAL chrome.
i knooooooow.
to die for.
then he showed us the fanciest little trick it does.
how you push some pin when you're riding the bike,
and the generator uses the friction of the tire to light up with front and back lights.
you know, for safe riding in the dark and such.
and we all talked about how great this was going to be for my sister in the foggy mists of el granada on her way to the harbor, and work, and such.
at which point i just HAD to take her for a spin,
which is exactly what i didn't get to do because
a. grandpa said i really shouldn't without a helmet.
and
b. my little legs just weren't long enough.
which was exactly the first thing my sister said to me 
when i sent her the pics and my rave reviews of this emerald beauty.
above: grandpa dick shows us how the generator works 
to turn on the front and rear lights.
why don't they make bikes like this anymore???
then grandpa and i stood in the garage while sean rounded up the kids and the toys,
and he told me about how he can't find white wall tires for his mustang anymore,
because they don't make that size in those whites,
and what a predicament it is.
really, i totally agree.
then we loaded everyone up in the car, at which point they all told us they were hungry {you know, after we just spent the last two hours feeding them}, honked three times and drove away.
a movie later, 2 of the kids fell asleep at 5:30pm {45 minutes before we got home},
after we stuffed them full of chocolate milkshakes and fries from in and out.
i still can't figure out why they didn't want dinner when we got home that night...wait...
they ran up and down the dock for about 45 minutes straight when we got out of the car,
and i just basically yelled at people when they were about to fall into the water through the rails,
and stared at that fine piece of meat at the end of the dock.
mmmm mmmm mmmm.
what a lovely day.

yeah BAY-BEEEE.

grandpa: "boats are not toys. we have to treat them with care. when you take care of your boat, it lasts a long time, and you get to enjoy it longer."
brennan: "do we get to have orange soda for lunch?"
...
papa teaches the kids about how boats are not toys.
brennan just keeps asking if he can have orange soda for lunch.
sean and i wake board.
he looks soooo good with a life jacket and a bald head.
i find out that i've still got it behind the wake.
yeah BAY-BEEEE.
and max and i get three hours alone on the dock while chase takes a nap.
and i went to bed knowing that i wasn't going to be able to walk in the morning.
except i could.
and i wasn't even that sore.
and it made me feel super awesome:)

if only i had some bacon.

in the mornings,
the lake has this really beautiful clean smell.
pure and fresh.
like the way the air smells right after it snows,
and everything is quiet.
except it's hot out,
and there's shimmering blue water instead of snow.
the water is so calm and flat,
and when you're out on a paddle board,
the only thing you can hear is the water lapping up against the side of your board.
also, sometimes you can smell people cooking bacon in their homes.
mmmm, baaaaacon. 
babies on paddle boards.
nothing more snuggly than that.
if only i had some bacon.
wait, what?

the slalom

sean and my dad discuss wind velocity 
and sunglasses they should or should not be leaving on the dock.
or maybe that was me.
whichever.
at 67 my dad still rocks the slalom like when he was in his twenties on lake Okeechobee.
of course he tells us he's not up to par because it's his first run of the summer,
but we all know that none of us in our thirties could even get up on that thing,
let alone 
get up,
be pulled up and down the canal five times,
and then go for a second round.
amaaaaaazzzzzzing.
yep, that's MY dad:)
so proud.