I'm falling farther and farther behind! I hate this!!! ~sigh~ It's been a full week since the Hays family left and I know I've already forgotten a whole lot of things that would have been GREAT to write about if only I would've gotten to it right away. ~sigh~ I'll just have to do my best. Where was I?

Tuesday. That's the day that Brother Dustin called in sick. He wasn't feeling well at all and kept trying to blame it on the waffles I made that morning. Everybody else ate waffles, too, but he and Joe were the only ones who got sick. Coincidentally, he and Joe were also the only two in a competition to see who could out-eat who. Hhmmm... very interesting. Anyway, even though he wasn't feeling quite up to par, Brother Dustin managed to accomplish the first of the grand and glorious things that took place while they were here: a LIGHT over the chuckwagon table! Wa-Hoo!!! That entire corner of the room had NO light whatsoever and it was sooooo dark over there. But no more! Of course, he needed the assistance of my long skinny arms (the only part of me that has ever been truly skinny, I'm afraid) to stretch up a small hole in the wall and do half of the wiring for him. (Speaking of a stretching things... HA!) He did a few other odds and ends that day, too, but everything runs together now and I can't remember what took place when.

I made cinnamon rolls that afternoon and got dinner prepared, although--at Brother Dustin's suggestion--we decided to wait until after church to eat it. (We have to leave at about 5:00--who wants to scarf something down before then so you can be ready to go?!) The cinnamon rolls came out of the oven just as I was finishing up on a cherry cheesecake and had the enchilada casserole and nacho dip all ready to heat up when we got back home. A day slightly more productive than the day before--for me, anyway!

We had prayer meeting at church that night and, while it was good, the most enjoyable thing by far happened after service. Actually, it started before service. Brother Dustin came to me with a somewhat evil gleam in his eye and confided that Sister Grimes had found James' keys in the door to the church when she arrived and she, for some reason, had given them to Dustin. He said he was just going to keep them until James noticed they were missing. It's a rare thing for me to ever be found on Dustin's side about anything, but this was just too good!

Somehow, James made it all the way through church without ever missing his keys. Weird!!! I was afraid he'd realize they were gone and start panicking about it while the ladies were still there... and Sister Grimes would no doubt tell him that she gave the keys to Brother Dustin. (She's too no-nonsense to be caught in any devious plot such as this, I'm sure! Ha!) Just as the ladies were pulling out James went to digging in his pockets so he could lock everything up. HA! The next 15 or 20 minutes were almost unbearably funny, as Brother Dustin and Sister Jamey and I watched James--and "helped" him--look all over the church building several times, growing more anxious by the moment. He looked in the door a few times, but of course, the keys were in Brother Dustin's pocket at the time. :-) Finally, when we had secretly laughed ourselves silly (it's very difficult to have so much fun while keeping it all under wraps so the victim isn't AWARE that you're having fun, thus ending the game), Dustin put James' keys back in the doorknob where Sister Grimes had first found them. We spent the next 5 minutes or so waiting for James (and subtily encouraging him to) re-trace his steps AGAIN, beginning with the front door. When he finally looked in the door--oh, you should have seen his face! Ha! I don't know about Dustin & Jamey, but I was really expecting him to swing around and start making accusations. "Alright! Who had my keys all this time?!" But he didn't! We had already started laughing, but James just kept on looking totally and completely confused. "How in the world...?" he kept saying. HA! It never crossed his mind that there was anything sinister going on. He really thought that he had left his keys in the door, they'd been there the whole time, and he had somehow overlooked them when he had checked the door, oh, 4 or 5 times before. !!! Can you imagine?! Ha! That made it even more funny, so I had to play off it of a while longer. I said, "James, are you okay???" He paused for a moment, looked even more befuddled, and finally said, "I guess I'm not..." Ha! Ha! I took the keys and informed him that I was driving home. After all, how could I trust a guy behind the wheel who was experiencing such strange mental activity?! ;-) We waited until just before bedtime that night before finally confessing what we had done. Just as suspected, we'd already gotten all of the fun out of it that there was to be had. James seemed only slightly relieved that he wasn't losing his mind, but he never did enjoy the deep and splendid humor of it all that the rest of us had basked in. ~sigh~ What a great night. We were so tired that night that we didn't even play a game. Unless you count Hide the Keys, of course. :-)

Wednesday. Ah, yes, Wednesday...

That was the day that Dustin Hays dropped a boulder on my son!

Did you get that? I couldn't not write it big and bold like that. But more about that later... :-)

Wednesday was actually a very productive day... up until the boulder incident. :-) Like I said, I don't know what electrical projects were done when, but I know that lots of great new things were taking place around here by that time. I'm pretty sure that was the day that Brother Dustin installed the light above my cabinet in the bathroom. Wa-Hoo!!! That is one of the very, very most wonderful things that he did while he was here. (Far better than the boulder thing...) I LOVE IT!!! I have somehow failed to take a picture of it (or post pictures of the bathroom at all since we got it finished! Weird. I'll try to get to that soon...), but it is sooooooo great! Oh, I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. ~sigh~ Makes me so very happy. :-)

As for me, that was the one and only day of the week that I was productive at all, aside from cooking dinner each night. I got out of bed and immediately threw the dog in the tub and scrubbed him down. He'd been needing that for a week or two already! I got all of the laundry done and the whole house vacuumed (I think?), the kitchen floor mopped, and the guest bathroom cleaned up again. I think we had meatloaf for dinner that night.

And here's the part you've all been waiting for. I know Brother Dustin has. :-) He informed me while they were here that he doesn't read my blog all the time. I wouldn't have expected him to, but I replied, "You will after this week!" Ha! Or maybe he never will again. Either way, here's the story...

James had been working on the pond all week long. He had the hole dug ahead of time, but had been working on the liner and the pump and filters and building up rocks around the edges and things like that. On this particular day (I think it was this particular day) he actually filled it up and ~voila~ we had a running stream going under the bridge and into a cute, little pond! Wow! It is sooooo neat!

Anyway, everybody else was still outside when I came in to take a bath and get all cleaned up for the night. The kids had been helping collect rocks from all over the property to "edge" the pond with. That's all I knew. I had just gotten my pjs on when I heard Sam come running through the front door screaming and wailing, "My brother! O-o-o-o-o-oh!!! My brother!!!" No kidding--he was sobbing. Sam does NOT get upset like that, so all I could imagine is that something truly terrible had happened to Joe--perhaps even life threatening. I threw my robe on and rushed to find Sam in the living room and tried to figure out what was going on. All I could get out of Sam was something about a big rock falling on Joe. My first thought is that Sam must've thrown a rock and hit Joe--and that would explain why he would be so upset, just imagining the trouble he would be in. Moments later the rest of my family and the Hays family came through the door as well, all looking a little shaken. James was leading Joe, but Joe was walking on his own and I didn't see any blood, so that was a relief. He was, however, crying pretty hard and holding his back. I lifted his shirt and saw scratches all over his body, but nothing more. I went and got him cleaned up and bandaged (there was one spot down low that was more than just a scratch and ended up turning rather nasty, but it's healing nicely now) before I heard the story of what had happened.

Apparently, James found a rather large rock (we refer to it as a "boulder" because it makes the story so much more colorful) that he thought would look neat up next to the pond. Brother Dustin managed to lift it up on end and Joe and Sam both crawled under it to collect beetles and such. Nobody is quite sure what happened next, but suddenly Brother Dustin realized that the rock was coming down--and there was no way he could stop it! So he starting yelling at the boys to GET OUT from under it. Sam made it. Mosey Joe, well... In the end, Joe was buried under the boulder from the shoulderblades down, nothing but his head and shoulders visible. Brother Dustin's leg was buried as well. Somehow I think Dustin managed to lift the rock enough for Joe to crawl out, but his own leg was still wedged underneath and he couldn't get the leverage to free himself. James was almost up to the house with Joe before he turned around and realized that Dustin was still sitting there with the rock. "Are you stuck?!" Ha! Yup. I'm not sure what followed. Did James go back to help him, or did he manage to wriggle out by himself???

Anyway, in case you are one of those people who doesn't take the time to read great big, long posts, I want to be sure you get the point of the whole story...

Dustin Hays dropped a boulder on my son!!!

Can you believe that?! I must admit... when I knew that Joe was okay and finally heard what had happened, I was elated. I mean, what could be better?! As if I didn't have enough ammo to use against dear old Dustin already, now I have THIS!

The guy dropped a boulder on my son!!!

Ha! Gotta love it. It's only wonderful, of course, because nobody was seriously injured. Joe's bruises are about gone and all of the scabs except the big one are as well. Haven't heard how Brother Dustin is doing. Later on that night he said something like, "I realize this probably sounds rather whiny and trivial since I dropped the rock on him... but my leg is killing me!" Ha!

So there you have it. The biggest event of the whole week... that will no doubt last a lifetime. I'll be sure of it. Ha!

While I'm at it, I'd might as well go ahead and tell you that that's not the ONLY damage Brother Dustin inflicted here. I can't tell you the number of holes--several misplaced--that he put all over my house. Granted, he was able to cover most of them nicely, but not before hearing several remarks from me about living in swiss cheese throughout the week. Actually, I can't remember all of the good gripe material he provided me while they were here. Of all the things he's bad at, he's extremely proficient at that. :-)

~sigh~ I wish I had it in me to just stop right there. But I can't. I must confess that it was a true joy having the Hays with us all week long. (MOSTLY because of Jamey and the kids, mind you! Ha!) We had sooooooo much fun with them and in spite of the few little mishaps (the BOULDER incident, for one), Brother Dustin did enough marvellous things here to make me want to dance with joy. (Don't worry--I refrained.) I'm sure this isn't everything, but he installed an additional circuit box next to the first one (misplaced hole #1... in his defense, I must confess that he only did what he was told--that was JAMES' mistake! Ha!); he got electricity up and going out in the shed for us, ran wiring over to the garage so it'll be there when we're ready to transform it into more living space, he re-installed the smoke detector I'd wallpapered over, I already mentioned the light in my bathroom (he also got us some new switches--and even installed the switch for my new light and an outlet for me at "dwarf height" right where I wanted it. Not without having to listen to a lot of gripes from him and James about the crazy positioning, but it makes me happy right where it is!) and the light over the chuckwagon table, he also installed what he calls puck lights over all of my counter tops and sink in the kitchen (WA-HOO!) and new lights all over the porch for us, some flood lights, and an outside outlet for James to run all of the pumps and everything for the pond. Is that it??? Who knows. Brother Dustin also did a few non-electrician jobs for us such as cutting and installing bed slats, capping a gas line (took him 5 minutes--now I don't have to pay a plumber $160 to do it! Ha!) and installing a dog door. Yet another misplaced hole, but I'm not one to mention such things. ;-)

Sister Jamey did her fair share of work, as well. It seems like she did a great many of the dishes throughout the week and helped stay on top of the kids' mess as much as possible. It's really NOT possible with 5 kids and a 2 bedroom house. Mostly, she just made herself at home and did whatever needed done! I sooooo enjoyed being able to spend some time with her and get to know her better. It's hard to really get to know people when you only see them at church functions... where you're visiting with everybody else, too! So it was great to have some time with just Jamey. I espcially love to hear her speak those tender words to her husband, "I'm gonna punch you in the nose!!!" HA! I haven't tried it out on my husband yet. Maybe one of these days. :-)

The kids all got along great for the most part. Isaac and Aleah crack me up--they are some crazy kids! And my kids LOVE them. And Aleah loves James. Ha! It's so great! Ever since that time about 6 months ago that he gave her a tiny little swat on the leg. She worked herself into a crying frenzy you wouldn't believe--like she was absolutely going to die. And after that, she's crazy about him! Calls him "Dede," which is what she calls her Uncle Derek, I believe. Too funny. Sometimes she even calls him "My Dede"! Ha!

Ah yes, one day we drug three boxes of old Katie clothes out of the shed (the three you just brought to me, Em!) and Jamey was able to find some things that will work for Aleah. This nightgown and cap are some of them. :-)

Let's see... I seem to have left my time-line. I think I was on Wednesday. Ah yes,

The day Dustin Hays dropped a boulder on my son!!!

Once we had bandaged the victims and got everybody put to bed, we whipped out the games again. Pictionary one more time. This time James chose to be on Jamey's team, which left me with Dustin. You're welcome, Dustin, for the win. ;-) We then moved on to Balderdash. It was fun, but not thrilling.

Thursday was a great day. James actually got the pond fully funcional that day.

The day after the boulder incident we decided to give it another go. James just knew that rock would look great by the pond! After experimenting with various approaches (and totally destroying one wheelbarrow along the way) we finally managed to wrestle the thing into place. Mostly Brother Dustin, but of course we can't give him ALL the credit for doing anything. Except dropping the thing on my son. ;-)

This is what the pond is looking like NOW. James even has a couple of goldfish who seem to be living there quite happily so far. Time will tell. We don't have the greatest track record with keeping fish alive, but we're hoping!

Jamey and I made a batch of strawberry jam for her to take home on Thursday. (Have you tried it, Jamey???) Then we put the kids down for naps and locked ourselves in the other room so we could watch a girl movie. :-) How great is that?! It was fun. Brother Dustin finished up on all of his electrical work that night, so that was great, too. We had poppyseed chicken casserole for dinner that night and it seemed to be a hit. We played I Buy and Balderdash again before bed.

Friday was our fun day. All of the work was over and we had a day to just play! We sat around for a little while in the morning wondering what to do (!), then headed to Albuquerque so we could go to Casa de Fiesta for lunch. Guess who showed up?! That little Spanish guy that was serenading my mother last time!!! This time Brother Dustin interpreted for him: "Oh, where is your mother? Would you give her my phone number?" Ha! It was terrific.

We stopped by the church so Brother Dustin could work his electrical magic on the outlet for the stove in the kitchen. It hasn't worked in years, but he had it up and going in a matter of minutes.

We drove back up into the mountains and to the Tinkertown Museum. It's... hhmmm. It's hard to describe! It's mostly little miniature "model" type scenes of all sorts of things. I didn't have my camera, so I can't even post any pictures that would help. It was kind of neat, but there were some really weird things there, too.

After that we headed back to the house and kind of crashed for a little while. We were sooooo tired. James took a nap and after a while Jamey did, too. We had this problem every night. Brother Dustin and I are the Sanguines of the group (there's one of those big words again! Ha!), and we never want to miss out on any fun. We went through the same routine every night: James would go to bed first. Before too long Jamey would call it quits. That meant that Dustin and I HAD to go to bed. I kept saying, "Man! Dustin, it would be so much better if you were a girl--then we could stay up!" Not sure he agreed with the logic, but no matter. :-) Anyway, we finally pulled ourselves together and started showing signs of life again.

The big excitement of the evening is when I heard frantic screaming in the other room. It was Katie. "No! Don't, Dad! OW! Noooooo!" James was saying, "Hold still, Katie--it'll just take a second! I've almost got it!" By the time I made it into the room Katie's first tooth was in my husband's hand and Katie was smiling through her tears and blood. This crazy tooth first started feeling loose back in November. Can you believe that?! It took 5 or 6 months to finally come out!!! I was beginning to think that the child was never going to lose her first tooth. It had been sticking out and up a little more each day it seemed (I kept telling her it was going to be poking her in the nose any day now!), but just wouldn't turn loose. Brother Dustin had told her that that tooth was going to be gone before he left to go back to Colorado and that he had the tools to do it if he needed to. :-) Sister Jamey kept telling her to push on the tooth real hard with her tongue when she went to bed at night--and Kate did. She was working hard at it! Anyway, here are some before and after pictures...

We witnessed a very interesting visit from the "Tooth Fairy" that night and even have the video to prove it. Just ask the Hays. ;-)


James grilled burgers, hot dogs and chicken strips that night--and he made the homemade ice cream, too! What a guy!!! (What was I doing during all that time?!) Everything was sooooo good. Of course, how can you go wrong with a meal like that?! Especially when you throw the ice cream in at the end?!

We knew this was our last night to party, so we whipped out the other batch of punch and decided to play as many games as we could before James dropped off on us. ;-) We started with Pictionary again, I think. Back to Hays vs. Hornes again. We won, meaning that I have yet to lose that game! Which is amazing, because I'm really not very good at it! Next was I Buy. Can't remember who won that one. James was just about to sneak off into the bedroom when we managed to rope him into one last game of Balderdash. I'm sooooo glad! We'd played it a few times during the week, but it had never been truly hilarious up to that point like the last time we'd all played together. But from the very first round on Friday it was terrific! We laughed sooooo hard! Wish I could tell you what was so funny, but I can't. I know that at some point I was laughing so hard I choked on my coke and went running into the other room. When I regained my composure and returned to the table Jamey was gone--she'd apparently gone running the other direction! It's gotta be funny when half of the room clears out, holding their mouths and running for all they're worth! Ha!

The next morning was rather uneventful. We all watched sadly as the Hays loaded up and left. Ha! It really was sad to see them go. I HATE that part about having company! They always have to leave at some point. Of course, the house had been driving me batty, too, so I must admit I was anxious to get things back to normal. It was so gross! Not because of the Hays, mind you, just because of the two bedroom issue. And the fact that I have a very strong aversion to housework when we have company. Who wants to clean house?! There are people to be with, visiting to be done, games to be played, mockery to be unleashed... :-)

A few parting shots before I call it quits...

Here's Brother Dustin cutting one last hole in my house... in the wrong place, of course. :-)

And this! HA! Sam borrowed Isaac's cowboy hat and managed to poke a hole in it. I tried to discipline him, but it wasn't easy when Isaac's parents were cracking up over the arrow through the hat! Ha! I must admit, it was pretty great!

~sigh~ I'd better go. That's way more than enough for one night anyway. I just knew I needed to write it down NOW or it would be lost forever. I'll try to stay on top of things better next time. Ha! Yeah, right! Anyway, have a great weekend and fantastic Sunday services!!!

~Becki~

P.S. -- Did you hear that Dustin Hays dropped a boulder on my son?! :-)

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