McComb Family

Yesterday morning we get in the car to head to school and my car stinks! I tell the kids, "My gosh, it smells like an animal died in here. You guys need to clean your rotten lunches out of my car when we get home." Off to school we go with our noses hanging out the windows. Same thing on the way home, but now it's about 30 degrees hotter, so we've added gagging into the mix. We get home and Briana finds her orange juice from a while ago under the seat which is no longer orange, but green, from the mold growing on it. She gets rid of it and off we go to soccer practice.

When practice is over, we head to the car and open the trunk to toss their gear inside and get hit with this wave of stench that about knocked me over. I find the culprit of the smell in my car -- not rotten orange juice, but the decomposing carcass of a headless rattlesnake with a bulging belly of just-eaten mouse(?) that Briana had brought home from Grandy's the day before. Now what do I do?? The thought of just tossing it out in the parking lot crossed my mind, but then I thought leaving a dead rattlesnake at a school probably isn't the greatest idea especially when it's the school I work at. Plus, all the witnesses!! OMG -- what do I do?!?

So, once again, I drove home with eau de rattlesnake permeating my car. God help the poor garbage man who picks up the trash can I tossed that decaying mass of flesh into.

That's my little nature girl for you. And the next time she wants to bring something home to show Dad the answer will be -- NO!!! Absolutely, unequivocally no!!!

Posted in: on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at at 8:47 PM 2 comments  

Saturday my Uncle Jer and cousin Mary were at a reunion in Nevada City, so they came by that evening to spend the night. My parents invited themselves over, and pretty soon we were having a full-blown birthday BBQ. Not sure how it happened, but here they all are!!
Adam ordered the cake (via by mom), and it was dee-lish (chocolate on chocolate with chocolate -- how can you go wrong!?). Not only was it yummy but cute too!

He was insistent on being the candle lighter. What you can't see are the candles pushed all the way to the bottom of the cake (see pic below). I guess you can get a little more frosting on them that way when you pull the candles out to lick!! It was a very nice birthday party, and the next day (on my actual birthday) I hung out in my parents' pool all day. That wasn't exactly the plan.....but Mary left her cell phone here (figured that out when an unfamiliar ring went off) and we delivered it up to her at my parents' house. Of course, once we were there we had to stay for the swimming (and goodies from the cabana!!). Today I came across Mike's wallet in my chair (Mike is Mary's boyfriend). They're a match made in heaven!

Posted in: on Monday, August 25, 2008 at at 5:32 PM 2 comments  

Soccer season is underway. They've had two weeks of practice now, and have their first game in two weeks. They will miss it because we'll be at Stacie's wedding, but there will be plenty of others. This is the first time I haven't been the "team mom" so I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I actually get to just sit on the sidelines and be a fan!! What a novel concept!! Bret is now helping coach Adam's team, so they're both having a lot of fun with that. Here are a couple of pictures from practice.

And here are a few from Picture Day yesterday.

Soccer with an attitude.

Mr. Cooperative.

Posted in: on Sunday, August 24, 2008 at at 10:50 AM 1 comments  

Hold off on calling in the missing person's report, he finally showed up and is no longer missing in action. Turns out he really was at the other house working, but rode over with a friend and left his cell phone at home (or somewhere -- I sure didn't hear it ringing when we were calling him!). Anyway, he got the water working so we were able to take showers and brush our teeth this morning!!! I know my students appreciated that!! : )

Posted in: on Friday, August 22, 2008 at at 4:38 PM 0 comments  

We arrived home tonight a little after 6:00 and were ready for dinner! I went to wash my hands only to discover we have no water!!!! I send Briana out to find Bret as his car and the truck are in the driveway, but NO BRET!! Hmmm.....maybe he went to softball practice, But the quad and motorcycle are still here too. I can guarantee he didn't walk somewhere, so where does that leave us?? No answer on his cell either, and I've been trying since before 4:00.

So, apparently my husband has disappeared off the face of the planet. Hopefully he'll find his way home soon. In the meantime, I'm sitting here having to drink a margarita since we have no water.

Posted in: on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at at 7:49 PM 2 comments  

Briana and I made it through our first day of school today!!! Yea!! (Yea that we made it through, not that it was the first day!!) I was there until almost 8:00 last night and only left because I needed to get Brie to bed. It was a long day. Needless to say, I was beat by the end of the day today. It was actually Adam's second day of school though, because he went yesterday while Brie stayed with Alexxa. Here they are in their "first" day of school outfits.

I hope everyone enjoyed the posts during the summer, but I'm just putting a disclaimer out there now that they will be slowing down now that I'm back at school. I don't have near the time to play around on the computer anymore. *sob* Plus, I've now started a blog for my class, so I'm doing double duty. I'm trying to keep it short and sweet, but things always take longer than you want and/or expect. If anyone is interested in checking it out, go for it (I'm not promising much though!!).

BTW, I ended up with a kindergarten/1st grade split. Things kept changing up until the last minute, but what's new?!

Posted in: on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at at 5:21 PM 2 comments  

Adam and his 5 year old "girlfriend" staged a wedding the other day to marry each other. The next day (they move fast) they had a baby(doll) to take care of, and then proceeded to barricade themselves in Adam's room with EVERYTHING he has in his room. His shelves were cleared, toybox empty, bed stripped!! It was impossible to even push the door open.

So, I'm wondering.....is this normal behavior or should I be worried?

Posted in: on Monday, August 18, 2008 at at 8:55 PM 3 comments  

The people have spoken and chosen outfit #1 for the first day of school for Briana. Thanks for your participation (and I think she's secretly quite pleased!!). Now she has a new accessory to go with her outfit........a toothless grin. Yep -- that's #6!!!

Posted in: on Monday, August 11, 2008 at at 8:42 PM 0 comments  

The whole summer has gone by, and have we taken the boat out yet - NO!! It has sat for 4 years because Adam was just a baby and they didn't make life vests small enough for him, and then we've been building (and by we I mean Bret!). This is our first summer with "nothing" to do and it has flown by without one trip to the lake.

In the meantime, Folsom has basically shut down with only one ramp still open (not the one by us!) and a 5MPH speed limit on the whole lake. Oh yeah, that sounds like fun!!

So Bret finally decided he wanted to take the boat out and even invited people to come with us, but unfortunately he likes to wait until the last minute to get things done. Thus the reason he started replacing the brakes at 9:00 the morning we were supposed to head out. In true McComb fashion, one problem ended up leading to another problem. He finally got the brakes done to realize the tire was flat. Then the air compressor wouldn't start to fill it up. Finally got it filled and then it had a second hole!! We ended up having to put the spare tire on and were finally ready to hook up the trailer. We thought we were on our way, and then Bret realized the boat's steering was locked up. Not real fun to back out from the ramp only to be able to go straight back up it!!!

Long story even longer, we finally got on the road about 11:30 and were on the water about an hour later. It turned out to be a great day after a not-so-great start.

Here's Bret getting ready to wakeboard. We all got a couple of good runs in which was fun!

Briana thought she wanted to try wakeboarding as well, so here I am getting her set up and teaching her what to do. This is as far as she got! It was a little harder than she thought it would be.

Finally, here is tubing. The kids started off on the raft and Bret kinda submerged them, so they wanted an adult with them. Here's me and Brie. Tubing is definitely NOT my idea of a fun time, but the kids enjoyed it. Brie calls it the belly bouncer!

Good times!!!

Posted in: on at at 10:43 AM 2 comments  

Unfortunately Briana looks slightly like me after a bee sting. This was before she swelled up even more and looked like someone had popped her in the eye.

And here's daddy and son.

Posted in: on Saturday, August 09, 2008 at at 6:53 PM 2 comments