Apricot Goldmines

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Apricot cookie season!!

You might not know about the Mann family apricot cookies, but if you know, you know. They're small-town famous if you ask me. I've never known a cookie to bring two grown men together before. My brother and his co-worker once discovered their mutual connection to Aunt Laurie because of apricot cookies!

They're so good my Grandma turned them into a holiday side hustle when I was a kid and sold tins of them to friends and coworkers. She could only sell the pretty ones so the grandkids got to eat the ugly ones - fondly known now as the rejects. 

I've come to especially enjoy the rejects because every one is a little different. It might be crunchy, stuck to a buddy, too much apricot goop...it's always a delicious surprise. Plus, it reminds me of Grandma Mann and her need for perfection. 

These cookies are incredibly special because they are a terrible pain in the ass to make. Only Aunt Laurie has carried on the tradition. Until recently there was only one official cookie cutter and Aunt Laurie inherited it. She who has the cookie-cutter makes the cookies. 

If you ever receive an Apricot Goldmine somebody loves you. It's not easy to share such a rare and delicious treat. It's not uncommon for people to hide them from their spouses and children. 

I wonder who will be next in line for the cookie-cutter? It's a big job. I'd say it's probably 2nd to Santa himself. 

Zipper Dripper

(09 April 2020) I've been home with the kids all day, every day, since March 27 because of COVID19. I have never spent this much consecutive time with my husband and children at the same time, ever. There have been a few moments when I would have given almost anything to be alone for a few hours.

Overall, it really hasn't been too bad. In fact, spending this much time with the kids has lead to some interesting conversations that might not have happened under normal circumstances.

Jackson had a major wipeout on his new bike last week. He skinned up his knee pretty bad and has been limping around the house ever since.

Last night at the dinner table he had an urgent need to check on the status of his scab. He proceeded to drop his pajama pants in the front window. Dad said "Hey! Ms. Trish is outside and she's going to see your underwear."

To which Jackson responds, "I'm not wearing any underwear."

"That's even worse! She'll see your ding wangler." Dad said.

"You mean my Zipper Dripper?" asked Jackson.

And now it's a Zipper Dripper...and we can't stop laughing.

A Full Moon on the Lake

We bought a boat! This Quarantine has been rough. We normally like to keep busy with adventures. We had done about as much gardening as we could do. I had searched high and low for a kiddie pool and everyone was sold out. So, the next thing I know, we bought a boat.

I knew the maiden voyage would be a good one. Nothing we do is ever picture perfect. To be safe, we went to Glen Springs Lake because it's a place we are familiar with. We've been there to fish off the dock a few times. I know the boat ramp is a slippery one because I've had a few good laughs watching other people slip and fall in the lake. So when Josh stepped into the water to get the boat off the trailer I was giddy with excitement. I told the boys, "Hey, watch. Dad's going to fall in." And he did!!!  He landed on his butt and flopped around like a fish.

The guy in the boat next to us on the ramp says, "Yeah, it's slippery." Meanwhile, his 12-year-old kid is backing up the truck and pulling the boat out like a pro.

We get out to the middle of the lake and I have to pee. It's rough being the only girl in this tribe. So, I drop my shorts and hang my butt off the edge of the boat to take a leak in the lake. Mid-stream, Silas casts his fishing pole and snags the back of my shoulder with the hook on his lure. Of course, I scream bloody murder and anyone on that side of the lake looked over to get an eyeful of my pale white ass hanging off the side of the boat.

Thank goodness the hook just scraped the skin and didn't actually get stuck. But you know what was stuck? My shorts...my sweaty, sticky, swim shorts were stuck around my thighs. I couldn't be sly; there was no hiding the struggle to get my bottoms back up. Everybody saw the show.

Shortly after that, Jackson accidentally fell in when he was trying to feel the water with his feet.

Silas jumped in because it was so hot and he needed a swim.

We had some good laughs and it was a really great day. At first, I thought the Quarantine made me lose my mind and agree to buy a boat. Now I'm thinking it helped me come to my senses.

Goodbye, Old Friend!

I said 'goodbye' to an old friend today. You probably knew her as Olive, but she went by many names: The Green Car, The Beano Mobile, Green Machine, and most recently Turtle Tank.

Grandpa Kern liked to hang out at the car lot with one of his old friends, so he was happy to take me car shopping. I was 22 years old and I had my first real job at the casino. I was ready to upgrade from the Dodge Dynasty that had been handed down through the family from Grandma Patty. I didn't really know what I was looking for. I just wanted a car with a CD player, a sunroof and a payment of $250 per month.

I guess it was love at first sight. She was the only car I even test drove. And she was the perfect color of funky green. She really stood out in a crowd. She was small town famous. You could always see Olive coming. I usually got a honk and a wave from somebody when driving around Council Bluffs. When we lived in Fallon, NV the gate guards stopped checking my ID. They'd see Olive coming around the corner and they'd just wave me through the gate and say "Have a nice day Mrs. Price!"

When I bought her in 2005 I had no idea I'd be sitting here crying about having to watch her drive away with a new family. We've been through so much together. My friend Gina pointed out that having Olive is one of the longest relationships I've ever had!

I used to drive her to Kansas City so often, she could probably drive herself there. She got me home safely from the bar a few times when I probably should have walked (I was young and stupid and I'm just being honest). She kept my cigarettes hidden in that secret compartment under the passenger seat (yup, young and stupid).  She was my work truck when I fixed up my house. I floated her around the corner on Avenue G with Josh's Grandma during the flood the weekend we got married. She brought both kids home from the hospital. She's been to California, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

I've shed way too many tears this week. I might be crying because I just miss my Grandpa Kern so much and Olive was our greatest souvenir. Maybe I'm crying because I just can't figure out where the time went.

We spent 14 years and 157,700 miles together. When she drove away today Silas burst into tears too. I was trying to make him feel better so I lied and I said, "It's ok. It's just a car."

Happy Birthday

I'm not good at birthdays. It's a long running joke that on my birthday there are only blizzards, the Super Bowl and the flu.

In life, I'm a pretty jolly gal. I find plenty of things to laugh about and can usually see the bright side of any situation. But when it comes to my birthday, there's always this little ray of sadness that creeps up on me and before you know it, out of almost nowhere, comes the annual birthday cry.  I've never been able to put my finger on it. I think maybe it's because time just goes by so fast and I'm sad that another year has passed by so quickly. Sometimes I get down on myself because I didn't accomplish some life changing feat like running a marathon (hahaha) or losing 100 pounds (bahahahahah).

Then I remember that I'm awesome. My life is pretty awesome. I have some really awesome friends. My kids love my birthday just as much as they love their own. A birthday is a perfect excuse to have Oreos and take a nap. Josh always tries to make the day special in hopes of preventing the inevitable.

I think this year I'm going to try really hard to skip the birthday cry. There's really nothing to cry about. Not even a little mouse poop in the birthday donuts.

2018

01 - Believe it or not, we had two Sneaux Days all the way down here! The amount of snow we got was laughable and so was everyone's panic. The base was closed and there was no school. We also had one really good fishing day despite the kids claiming to be frozen solid.

02 - I have just one word...DISNEY!! We skipped town for Mardi Gras and went to Disney with Gramma and Grampa instead. It was the best!! We had the best time and made some great memories. Watching the kids enjoy the fireworks is something I'll never forget.

03 - Jackson turned six years old and Grampa came to visit. Jackson took treats to school for his birthday and Grampa came to Sector 6, a trampoline park, and Barataria Preserve to look for alligators. 

04 - We happened upon a "pick your own" blueberry farm. I was shocked to discover how many blueberries four people could eat in a week. We visited three times and picked about two gallons in total. Josh caught up with some highschool friends, Ashley and Seetal, when they came to New Orleans for a girls weekend. 

05 - Jackson lost his first tooth! Silas helped by pulling it out for him. We went to Ohio to see our friends Brian, Ashlee and Bailey Shields. My first concert was Alabama when I was in kindergarten. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do the same for the boys. We saw Alabama in Kentucky with our friends. 

06 - June was a busy month! Tball was in full swing. Josh was the coach of the Royals. Silas turned five and Gramma joined us on a road trip to the beach in Pensacola, Florida and Lambert's Cafe in Foley, Alabama to celebrate. Josh and I celebrated our 7th anniversary just after he got back from a fishing and bear hunting trip in Canada with my dad.

07 - My cousin Sara and her family came back down for the 2nd annual Manzer family vacation. The kids had a great time on the swamp tour and even got to hold a baby alligator. I snuck away for a girls weekend with my friend Ashley Nuss. We spent the day floating the lazy river at L'Auberge Casino in Lake Charles. 

08 - Back to school! Silas is in Ms. Chenevert's class for kindergarten and Jackson is in Ms. Vodopija's class for 1st grade at Belle Chasse Primary. Other than getting back to school, the biggest event in August was when a drunk driver drove through our favorite donut shop. The boys were so upset! Thankfully, nobody was hurt and dad was able to bring donuts home the next day.

09 - Another busy month! We took Josh out bow fishing for his 35th birthday. We didn't get any keepers, but we saw plenty of fish. Hurricane Gordon was scheduled to arrive but took a turn and left us high and dry (phew)! I made a trip back home for my dad's surprise 60th birthday party. Then, for Labor Day we took a road trip to West Monroe, Louisiana with Ashley Nuss and her family to see the Duck Dynasty warehouse, meet some duck men and enjoy their Faith, Family & Fireworks event. 

10 - Josh headed back to Iowa for a week of deer hunting. Surprisingly, he didn't shoot anything! Unsurprisingly, I ended up with pneumonia while he was away (something always happens when dad leaves town). Gramma came for her usual October visit but she wasn't here for Halloween this year. Jackson was Black Panther and SIlas was the blue Power Ranger. 

11 - The Price family came to visit for Thanksgiving. Over two weeks we managed to get everybody together. It was nice for Grandpa Mike to have all the grandkids together for the first time in a few years. Dan and Amanda were nice enough to take some family pictures for us too. 

12 - Whoa! I didn't know we could cram so much into one month. Our elf, Fredrick, came back the first of December. He took a field trip with us to Lafayette, Louisiana to see The Grinch with Ashley Nuss and her son Caden. I took off for a family girls trip to New York with my mom, Aunt Vicky, my cousin Amy, and Aunt Marilyn. I've always wanted to see New York at Christmas. The highlight of the trip was video chatting with the boys from the tree at Rockefeller Center. We wore matching shirts to the Rockettes and I drug everybody over to Grey's Papaya for a hotdog! I also got the chance to catch up with an old friend from high school, Mike Engstrom. My parents, brother Lucas and his wife Katey came for Christmas. My favorite part of their visit was visiting Global Wildlife Safari in Folsom, Louisiana. I laughed so hard watching the cows try to lick everybody! 

2018 - It's been a pretty great year! It's hard to believe we only have about six months left down here in New Orleans. We'll be headed to Josh's next duty station in Millington, Tennessee after school gets out in June. We're certainly looking forward to some new adventures and whatever comes next. It's crazy how fast the kids are growing and how quickly time flies. I have to say, it was a pretty great year.

Vomit

If you're queasy, please read with caution.

Jackson had been suffering from the squirts for a while, which may have had a little something to do with the incident. However, he's also a notorious over eater (we're working on that) and that might have been the real instigator.

We went to Banana Blossom, a Thai restaurant, for dinner. Jackson ate a very large bowl of ramen noodles followed by two scoops of pistachio ice cream. It all caught up to him when we got home.

Vomit. Vomit like I have never seen. Green. Nickelodeon slime. The volume and projection completely slimed the entire bathroom and it even flowed into the hall. We were trapped inside, surrounded. He yacked on my feet. The rug. The door. An ocean of pistachio noodle soup.

The smell filled the house. Josh threw me a beach towel that we used as a bridge to cross over the vomit river. I had to clean it up but I didn't know where to start!! Do I clean my way back into the bathroom or do I clean my way out? How do you scoop it up? Should I just throw away the rug?

I tried wiping it up with toilet paper and throwing it in the bowl. I tried to used the beach towel to pool it up. I tried paper towels. It was so overwhelming, I took off my pink rubber gloves and called Aunt Laurie.

It was one of those laughs where she thought I was crying.
"Are you busy?"
"Oh my god. What's wrong? Are you ok?"
"I don't know what to do."
"What happened? Amy, what's wrong?"
"Jackson threw up everywhere!!! I've tried everything. There's too much. I don't know what to do. I already threw away the rug. It's so sticky! It's like somebody spilled a pot of chewed up spaghetti. I keep trying to wipe it up but the noodles are just rolling around on the floor!"

I really got the giggles when I looked under the vanity and saw that the force behind his stream of spew was strong enough for the slime to ricochet off the rug and splash vomit up under the vanity and across the base boards. I had to stand on my head to clean that!

More than an hour later, it was finally cleaned up. I closed the door and decided to disinfect and mop in the morning. Do you know that the next day when I was mopping, a dried up ramen noodle fell off the door jam?