Stray Cat Strut

Meet Remy...He is one of the two stray kittens that Reid and Jackson rescued from the storm drain while I was out of town this weekend.


He is named Remy after the Rat in Ratatouille movie. Get it? Sewer Rat = Storm/Sewer Rescued Cat. Jackson named his kitten Grip cause once he was rescued, he kept a good grip on Jackson.

Here's Remy all curled up in Reid's arm...

So I guess the old saying is true....While Momma Cat is away in Atlanta with the girls, the Boy Mice will play in the storm drain and rescue kittens.

Melissa

Jump

Reid, Griffin and Dane spent last Thursday afternoon "Jump"ing the skateboard ramp. And, yes, I realize they are not wearing helmets...what's a fun afternoon at Mo's house with helmets on?...and didn't Uncle Beau survive his childhood without a helmet?...'Nough said. :-)

First, I give you Reid's Jump version:



Then, I give you Griffin's Jump version:



And, last, but not least, I give you Dane's Jump version:



And in the classic rock words of David Lee Roth - Go ahead and jump, might as well, jump!!!!

Mo

Too Much Fun

That's exactly what we had on our Redneck Romance RV Racing Relaxation Weekend...Too Much Fun!!! For the redneck, RV, racing, relaxation part, just keep reading. For those of you questioning the romance part - when you are busy working parents - just getting away with other adults, no kids, and enjoying a sport together counts as romance.

Here's the chorus of the song:

Too much fun? What's that mean?
(Too much fun is 6 adults in a RV headed for a racing weekend in Atlanta.)
It's like too much money, there's no such thing,
(If we had too much money, we would own the RV, not rent it and we'd rent the $800 electric hook-up camping spot, and not use the generator.)
It's like a girl too pretty, with too much class,
(#14 Tony fan in front of us, you can't hide class like that!!!)
Being too lucky, a car too fast,
(Kasey's was real fast - he won the race!)
No matter what they say I've done,
(And apparently, according to the stories that were told, we've all done plenty!!!)
I ain't never had too much fun!!!
(Yes, on this trip, we did have TOO MUCH FUN!!!!)

( I can't find a mp3 of the Too Much Fun song. It is by Daryle Singletary if you'd like to google and listen to it.)

Big T, Jeff, Ryan and I have gone to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for the last couple of years for the fall race. We always have a big time...like last year...when we purchased pit passes. We usually stay at Cousin Jeff's, drive down to Atlanta on Saturday, watch a little college football, get up nice and early on Sunday, drive down to the track, tailgate, race and then head back to Cousin Jeff's for Sunday night and have a leisurely drive back home on Monday. But this year that all changed....

The first change is that the Atlanta Motor Speedway changed its fall race from the last weekend of October to Labor Day weekend in September and moved the race to a night race. How convenient!!! We would no longer have to take Monday off to enjoy racing in Atlanta. Monday is already a holiday. The second change is that we invited the Vantrease's to go with us along with the Stahly's. The Vantrease's had never been to a race. They would be the second newbies of 2009 that we (Workman's and Stahly's) treated right for their first race experience. The third change, since we would be really late getting back from the races on Sunday evening (since the race did not start until almost 8pm eastern time), we decided to rent a RV and camp/tailgate for the entire weekend. This would allow us to enjoy the Nationwide race, Sprint Cup qualifying, and the Sprint Cup race. All things we had never done before. And let me tell you....IT WAS AWESOME!!!! I've always wondered how it would be to pull up my camper, live at the track for a weekend, and enjoy all of the redneckness that is possible to man...I no longer have to wonder. We had a BLAST!!!

Ryan and Gary picked up the RV on Friday while Big T, Ash and I grocery shopped. While at the store, we bumped into Grandpa and Mattie. When I told him what we were doing this weekend, he simply replied, "Tell Ryan not to be texting while driving the RV." 10-4, Grandpa, No texting while driving!! We get back from Kr*g*rs to find this beast sitting in my front yard, parallel with the house, plugged into the electricity so the fridge can get cold....

The neighborhood kids all wanted a tour and Ryan piddled with the RV until late into Friday night. We all loaded up as much as we could...including tons of yummy food, cornhole, coolers, chairs, tables, skillets, grills, spatulas...you name it...we had it!!!

After sleeping very little on Friday night because 1. I was too excited to sleep and 2. cause Ryan kept thinking of things he could check on or pack into the RV, we loaded up bright and early on Saturday morning and headed out to pick up our racing peeps. As Ryan and I are turning out of our neighborhood he says to me..."Do you realize the amount of piddling hours I could burn if we owned this RV?" Yes, I do...and it scares me...

We are picking up the V's when I got this text from Big T..."Calling the Rolling Turd, Where is the Rolling Turd?" And from that moment on, the laughing, the eating, the fun, the eating (yes, I put eating twice - we love us some good eatin')...NEVER STOPPED. Now, there is absolutely no way to explain how much fun we had on this trip. So, here are some highlighted quotes. They probably won't be funny to anyone but us but that's okay...this weekend will forever be cemented in our minds as one of the BEST EVER!!!

Well, dude said, when we drove by and Ryan was showing him his stuff, that the gas man would come by...

I'm way back here if you need me!!!

Who cares about Kevin Harvick's win and his victory lane hat dance...put THE GAME on the big screen!!! (I'll give anyone a blog shout out if they can guess who said that one.)

Who says you can't do it in a RV? (Now get your mind out of the gutter - the "it" referred to in this question was the incredible breakfast spread of bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and fruit that we had for breakfast on Sunday morning.)

A man's work is never done when you are on a campin' trip.

You gotta be present to win!!!

Hello, I'm AV, and I have a homemade rice krispie treat problem...that's okay, AV, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

Now, when we get home, I don't want to hear, "Does my butt look big?"

Okay, Melissa, you need to pull yours up!



I give her until lap 200. (And by our calculations - she officially left the stands around lap 204.)

She went from praising God to flippin' the bird at Kyle Busch in less than 1 lap!!! But she kept calling him Kurt Busch!!! Her boyfriend kept having to tell her, honey it's Kyle that you don't like, Oh yeah, right....

I could drive this car a lot better if those walls weren't so wavy...

How many laps in this race? 325. What? That's past my bedtime!

Take my picture and email it to me. Okay what's your email address? I don't know, give me yours and I'll email you first...WHATEVER!!!!

Kasey Kahne won and he thanked me!!! So you mean, he thanked all of his loyal fans?

Vegas - I spent a month there one week!!!

They have not had a shirt on since we pulled into this RV space. Do you think they even brought shirts?

On Monday, as we headed home...we stopped in Marietta to have lunch with Cousin Jeff, LeAnn and Davis. C. Jeff wanted to go to Chik Fil A because if you had your team shirt on, you got a free sandwich. C. Jeff wasn't sure that our race shirts would count as "team" shirts so he pulled out some extra Ole Miss and TN shirts for us to use. When reporting this info to the RV peeps...
this was the response I got..."Jeff's got shirts laid out, he's C-R-A-Z-Y!!!" AV jumps up and runs the 14 steps to the back of the RV..."I'm putting on my Bama shirt". I was pretty sure that all the Alabama clothes in AV's bag had been worn so I asked, "Do you have a clean Bama shirt with you?" AV's reply..."No, but a dirty Alabama shirt is better than a clean Ole Miss one!"

Big T choose to try the NASCAR team route with her shirt in Chik Fil A. When she asked if her winning team #9 Kasey Kahne Dodge shirt counted as a team shirt, the CFA order taker said "Anyone who sits in a car for 5 hours and doesn't pee, counts as a team to me". So, Big T ate a free sandwich without having to put on any contraband college team attire.

We stopped in Manchester to fill up the RV tanks and dump others of the RV tanks. I made the mistake of saying "So, can you just pull up and dump your stuff?" You can only imagine the tons of jokes that got played off of that one!

And as Ryan, Gary and Jeff stood at the dumping station, with the hoses hooked up, and ready to press the button to start dumping....possibly one of the best lines of the trip....Ryan says "I really like these shorts, I'd hate for something to happen to them."

We arrived safely home on Monday evening...unloaded the RV...and returned to our just a tick above cool and normal lives. And we can't wait for the next road trip!!!!

In this pic, AV still has on that dirty Bama shirt. And for those wondering Grace did not go with us, but she had not seen Daddy all weekend and wasn't about to let go of him. :-)

Melissa

Killing Me Softly

This week I have had two conversations with my kids that just about killed me...2 different kids...2 different types of killing me....

Conversation with Tay-Tay:

Tay: Mom, this afternoon, there were kids on the bus cussing, and it just destroyed me.

Me: Destroyed? Don't you mean that you were distraught?

Tay: No, I was destroyed. It broke my heart that kids would be using those words...and Mom, it wasn't the "okay" cuss words like you and Bebe use, or ones like I hear in PG-13 movies, it was the really bad ones!!!

Me: Oh, really, ouch, ummm......I'm so sorry you had to hear that hon.

Tay: It's okay, mom, I'm alright.

Conversation with Reid:

Reid: So mom, when you say that you are going to kill me, do you mean you are going to KILL kill me, or just that you are going to beat me?

Me: It just means that I am going to give you a really bad spanking, not that I'm actually going to KILL kill you.

Reid: Well, if you do KILL kill me, that's okay, because I'm going to heaven.

No argument from me, you will be going to heaven (see the Happy Day post). Glad you are comfortable with me killing you...just in case...

Melissa