Springish

The calendar has been saying spring for a few days now.

The juncos are back. But the grass is barely thinking about being green.

The robins are also back and are hanging out at the local watering hole.

I searched the yard far and wide to find something trying to be green and found these flowers. But there are no leaves popping out. And there are no spring flowers showing around town yet.

If I knew how to put audio on here though, there would be a symphony of birds singing. From early in the morning to sunset the birds are singing their hearts out.

What a wonderful thing after the silent winter.

And as for knitting:

I've almost finished the potholders. A bit more knitting and then a good hard felting and they'll be good to go. Yay!

Las Vegas 2012

DH & I decided we needed a bit of a break before another farming season starts and the seed plant goes nuts yet again and so we made a quick weekend trip to Las Vegas.

I've always wanted to take a picture of mountains from an airplane but there were always clouds in the way. This time there were less clouds and so I put my phone on airplane mode and shot away.

These weren't the highest mountains but when you are from ND anything over the size of a small hill looks like a mountain!

I don't know if any of you read the Yarn Harlot but she created the term "kinnear". And so on St. Patrick's Day I couldn't resist kinnearing this gal who was all dressed up for the day.

But! She caught me at it. Oops. Turns out she wasn't upset...just amused. Her & her friend, that was dressed almost identically, were happy to take a picture with me.

No. I'm NOT putting that on here...what do you think I am? Crazy? These girls are skinny and I look like 2 of them put together.

Whenever "Pawn Stars" is on we usually watch. And since it is just a ways north of the strip we just had to go see the place for ourselves.

It was a hoot to see. None of the stars of the show were around but the guys behind the counter are occasionally seen in the background of the show.

It was your typical pawn shop. Older building. Slightly dusty appearance on everything.

They let only a certain amount of people in at a time and as you can see in the picture everyone basically lines up and walks around the perimeter of the store.

They sell a lot of touristy things. T shirts, shot glasses, mouse pads, magnets, key chains as well as some very expensive items that have been pawned there. I thought it would be fun to pick something up from there. Ah. No. Guess not.

2nd DS was there a couple weeks ago and did a little investigating. He walked around to the back of the building to their warehouse where the big overhead door was open. Guess what he found inside. T shirts. A whole wall of boxes of T shirts and nothing else. He was like..."Can you say tourist trap?"!

There are no pictures allowed at any of the shows and so no more pictures but we went to Jay Leno who is the same onstage as the standup part of his nightly dialog. Fun to see in person but if you watch regularly it felt like you'd heard it before.

The next night we went to Kathy Griffin. Funny but with a bit more of an edge than I'm comfortable with but it was ok.

The last night we were there we attended Cirque du Soleil Love (Beatles). Amazing. Huge. Spellbinding. Very loud Beatles music. Acrobats coming from the ceiling, over your heads, up from the floor, down the aisle. Like a 3 ring circus, there was so much going on you couldn't see it all. Did I say Amazing and Spellbinding?

It's always fun to go to Las Vegas. People to watch. Shows to see. Lots of good eating. A little shopping. Relaxing.

If you can, you should try it sometime!

Pretties

My birthday gift from 2nd DS & DDIL. Are they lovely?! Tulips are the best.

If the tulips and daffodils that I planted a few years ago hadn't been eaten by gophers I would soon be growing my own with the way the winter is disappearing.

It actually was the "winter that wasn't" and is continuing to be unusually warm...upper 60s for the weekend. I think we are breaking temperature highs almost every day now. Nearly every speck of snow has already melted. As a farmer's wife it freaks me out a little wondering what the weather will bring for this summer.

President Clinton will have super weather to visit Grand Forks on Saturday. He will be here for the ND Democratic Convention. He was here in 1997 when Grand Forks flooded. It will be nice for him to see the recovery and see how much his efforts helped the town get back on it's feet.

It's my birthday!

And so we celebrated it yesterday with homemade ice cream cake (1st DDIL made it. Scrumptious!) and presents.

I hated cropping the grandkids out of this picture. They LOVE birthdays and they LOVE blowing out candles but their mom & dad don't like their pictures on the web so you'll have to imagine a very excited 5 yr old boy, 6 yr old girl and 2 yr old girl, all with brown hair and brown eyes and big smiles helping Gramma blow out the candles and open a package or two. It was FUN!

This isn't a birthday picture but I love it and since it's my birthday and I want to, I'm adding it too. It's me and my older sister...can't you just see the love?

Have a wonderful day everyone! I hope your day is as good as mine.

Sometimes I wish

that I was a cat! Who wouldn't want to be so adorable and cuddly?

Demo Derby Days

Yup, I'm still around...just couldn't think of anything to say!

So while trying to find a picture for a post, (the weather is dull, the knitting nonexistent and the cats aren't particularly interesting right now either) I found 1st DS's first demolition derby car. I thought it might make an interesting post and that it is summer with all the lush green grass probably doesn't hurt either!

These pictures are after the derby. It didn't look great going in but not this bad!

Right after college 1st DS got a job in a town in NE North Dakota and met new people and made good friends. One of those friends was into demo derbies. And so they concocted the idea to get a car ready for a derby.

It takes quite a lot of time, planning and effort. Certain cars are more desired than others and there are some that are not allowed because they are so durable and heavy duty.

The gas tank was removed and the plumbing redone so there was just a small gas can inside the car. Some people screwed the tires to the wheels so they couldn't go flat. The trunk was screwed to the body. All the doors were welded shut. All glass was removed. And there were probably some super secret things that each contestant did that they thought was the best way to reinforce their cars.

The fun part was deciding what paint job to give it. One of the harder things was getting sponsors to give you money so you could afford to do a derby car at all.

The derbys were held in an open field that had high dirt barriers pushed up around the area where the cars bashed into each other.

There was usually some seating provided but mostly people arrived in their pickups, backed up to the ring and sat in lawn chairs in the back end of the pickup. There was also usually an organization selling food as a fund raiser but lots of people brought their own.

The cars were inspected before anything started to make sure they had done everything they were supposed to and to have not done anything against the rules.

They were required to wear a helmet, a long sleeved shirt and have a fire extinguisher inside the car during the derby. There were several heats and if you could survive your first you could work on your car until it was your turn again. And so they always took a pickup loaded with tools, air compressor and a generator for power. It helps to be a farm boy with access to dad's shop!

But one of the most important things to bring is this:

Yea, it was a bit nerve wracking but all 3 of our boys are excellent drivers and have enough common sense to get them by and so I relaxed and enjoyed the shows. Yes. This was the 1st of...if I remember correctly...3 derby cars!