CRAZY MARLINS: Counting Down

Monday October 1- A brand new month, a brand new week and the count down begins. We are either leaving on the 17th or the 20th depending on weather. Before we can think of that we have a birthday's to celebrate. First we have Hailey's birthday party. So I need to make a cake and cupcakes.We are also going to celebrate Maddyn's birthday early so we can give her, her gift. We started the day with going in to get groceries. I can't remember when our frig was so empty. Well I needed to get thread and Jeff went to look at tablets. He got him a new one. It was lunch time so we had lunch at Olive Garden. Then we came home. After we got home it just poured. It didn't want to quit. After it quit we sat down to watch our tv shows. Then Justin called to see if we could watch Maddyn tomorrow. They stayed home with her today because she wasn't feeling well. I told him I would.

Tuesday October 2- Up early to get my tasks done before leaving for Justin's. I told him I would be on the road by 7. When I arrived she was very snuggly. She must not feel good because now she likes to be on the move. I sat and held her and after a while she must have felt a bit better she wanted down to play. So we played.

The day went by pretty fast. When her daddy came home she was excited to see him. He wanted to show me how much she likes music. First she was dancing then she decided to try and help him. I picked up my prescriptions before coming on home. After supper sat down to watch our shows and the power went off. Weird we thought because the weather was fine. Called and they came and fixed it but we did miss some of our shows.

Wednesday October 3- OK I will continue with the weather thing. Today it is really warm and it just got warmer as the day went on. It got up to 90. Is that crazy or what? Along with the warm temperatures it was crazy windy. We decided to take a load of stuff in to Seth's house. We keep stuff in there shed while we are away. Stuff that we only use here. I also needed to get the cake board I use every year for there cakes. We are getting things done on our list before leaving.

Thursday October 4- Wow what a surprise this morning. When we opened the door to take the dogs out we were greeted by 40 degree weather. From 90 to 40, now that is a change. I went in to church to help out with the kids again. When I got home I made cupcakes and a cake for Hailey's birthday. I cut the cakes out so I need to freeze them before frosting them. This year Hailey wanted a unicorn cake and cupcakes. Hopefully it will turn out ok.

Friday October 5- Another gray and gloomy day. We have been waiting for this day. We are going to the movie..." A Star Is Born". Both of us were excited to see it. We both liked it. We came home and waited for the rain to start. It is suppose to be a very wet and chilly weekend...

Saturday October 6- Happy Birthday Hailey...she is 8 years old today. I got up and wanted to get started frosting her cake right away. I always get a bit nervous about this task. I got the crumb coat of frosting on. I had to be extra careful this year because of Ruby. She likes to jump up on the table and help herself to whatever is up there. I moved all the chairs except the one I was sitting at. After the crumb coat I get up to mix up the next color of frosting I will need. I look over and Ruby is licking the frosting off the edge of the cake. Good grief. So I had to fix that. Then my niece called from California. She is taking care of my sister so I visited with her. Then I got back to my cake thing. This year it went pretty well. I think Hailey will like the cake and cupcake's....we'll see.

Her party was to start at 4:30. We went over early because the Iowa Hawkeyes were playing. She seemed to like the cake but was busy with a couple friends. We had sandwiches, opened presents and had cake and ice cream. I would say the party was a success. She also got lots of stuff to put up in her room. I will have to do that at a later date.

Well Jeff and I headed home but the party continued. Katie was taking the girls to the trampoline park then home for a slumber party.....have fun with that.

Sunday October 7- After church didn't do much of anything...but eat. I made brunch. Then I spent the afternoon quilting. For supper chicken pot pies. It was a very lazy Sunday...I like.

Monday October 8- We were up early to get our work tasks done before getting the dogs to the vet. We have to get there shots before we hit the road. We had to change vets this year because our vet in Center Point retired. It takes a while to get there and it very confusing to talk to them. We got the shots we needed and came on home. We had so much rain last night and this morning it's warm. The shower houses are so wet. The humidity is ridiculous. The floors are wet the walls are sweating and the mirrors are fogged up. Makes it impossible to clean. Seth our son went to California for work so we are taking Ashton to hockey practice tonight. We ate and went in to get him around 6. His ice rink is in the mall so we looked around a bit before his practice started. They really work them hard.

Tuesday October 9- It's very humid again. Today was cleaning day. I went through drawers, closets and cabinets to get rid of stuff. I even took the time to clean out what I have left in my scrapbook stuff. Then Jeff went to a a movie, I stayed back and quilted. Then later in the afternoon we had bad weather all around us. Eventually it showed up and the sirens went off. I took Ruby and went to the shower house. Jeff stayed and watched the radar. I don't like to wait to run up in the pouring rain. We got lucky it missed us but boy was it scary looking.

The next thing about this weather is when the farmers start harvesting we get a bunch of those beetles. They find there way in somehow. I bet we vacuumed 100 of then things today. Ruby likes to play with them and eat them. I think I saw a picture somewhere about dogs getting them stuck in the roof of there mouth. Well Ruby was acting funny tonight. I think she has a belly ache. I looked in Ruby's mouth and saw 3 stuck up on the roof of her mouth. She wouldn't let us look very good but we gave her a treat and I looked later and they were gone. We just have to watch her careful because those bugs to not agree with her diet.

Wednesday October 10- Well the rain stopped. I went outside and took down some of our buoys, and our sign. I also took apart my swing chair. The wind picked up and the temperatures dropped. I went inside and quilted this afternoon. I texted Katie to see if I was still taking Hailey to gymnastics. She told me Hailey was home because she had a sore looked at the doctor today. She is doing fine just had some medicine she needs to take.

Thursday October 11- Belle woke up really early this morning and went to the bathroom and got sick. She hasn't done that for a while. One time after getting sick she had a seizure so we both get concerned everytime this happens. She seemed fine. It is a cold one this morning. Today we took back some of the extra cleaning supplies back. They are going to close the bath houses on Monday. With winter coming they don't want frozen cleaning supplies. I also found a picture of a baby shark to use for Maddyn's birthday cake. I made my version and so at least I know what I'm doing now. Hailey is fine so I went in to get her to gymnastics. I watched her get started then I went to run some errands. I went by Justin's to see Maddyn and made it back to watch the last hour of gymnastics. Boy that place was hopping. So busy. I couldn't get many pictures of Hailey, she was working in the back. Miss Maddyn showed grammy part of her Halloween costume. Looks like she will be a little stinker.

On a more somber note, the pictures we are seeing on TV of what hurricane Michael has done to the panhandle is unbelievable. Oh my it looks like a bomb went off. We are going to probably have to make a couple changes in our traveling plans.

Friday October 12- Feels like winter out there. Today is another movie day. We have waited for this one as well. First Man. Went in the morning and I liked it, Jeff said it was a bit dry. It was more focused on the personal life of Neil Armstrong. I liked. After the movie Jeff took his computer to Best Buy. He did an update and lost the volume. He tried everything but couldn't get it fixed. Well they didn't do anything either. Told him to leave it over the weekend. He decided to wait and see if he could figure it out. We also got parts for our fireplace, the light went out. When we got home we tackled that. Boy what a task to change light bulbs. It took a while but we got the job done. I think all 3 bulbs were burnt out. We didn't even notice until all 3 were out. Boy does it glow now. We went back to town to get Maddyn's birthday gift together. Now this was an adventure as well. This little princess carriage was quite the project, that took quite a while to finish...but finally success.....We had to wait until Maddyn went to bed to get started..

Saturday October 13- Today we stayed around here. I still have some things to do before we leave. I cleaned out the frig...getting rid of stuff and washing drawers etc. Then I had to get Belle's big bag of dog food from the basement and fill up bags. I keep it fresher that way. Well Ruby is very curious so I left a few morsels of food in the bag and stood back to watch....She didn't disappoint. Yep she managed to get every one.

In the afternoon we watched the Iowa Hawkeyes win and win big. Then I got started frosting Maddyn's mini birthday cake. We went with baby shark. I think she will like it.

To finish off the day we went in to watch the home opened of the Cedar Rapids Roughriders. Well they started out on fire but that didn't last. I think they let there emotions take over there playing. Oh well it was a good game with plenty of action. They were ahead 2-0 after the first period. The second period the other team came to play and after the second period was over it was 2-3, the other teams ahead. In the third period we got one more but the final score was 6-3...not a win for us.

Well not the outcome we had hoped for but it was fun to watch. This will be the only game we get to watch this year.

Sunday October 14- Brrrr another cold one. This is our last Sunday at church. Jeff went to turn the water off before leaving and he comes to tell me we have a problem. It seems we have a problem with the water pump. It has dripped water into the under carriage of the unit. Now it is full of water and really drouping. Well I went on to church because we had commitments. He stayed back to assess the situation. He thinks he has a plan to fix it. So when we headed back to town to give Maddyn her gift and cake. We went a little early so he could go to Menards for supplies to fix our problem. Now we put that behind us to go celebrate a little early Maddyn's first birthday. We will be in Florida when it officially takes place. We gave her the carriage and gave her a ride. She seemed to like that. Then we gave her a birthday cake to dig in to. She wasn't sure at first and she flailed some cake around. She managed to get some in her mouth. I don't think she was to sure about the texture but she kept trying.