anniversary weekend

we didn't go away after we got married. couldn't afford to really. so we wanted to do something for our first anniversary. back in january we talked about going to a bed and breakfast. that didn't work out. a week or so before our anniversary wayne said, lets take a day trip to seaside. sounds good. except lets stay the night. even better. leave saturday morning come back sunday afternoon.

so our journey begins. we leave saturday at 8 a.m. wayne says we should be there by 9:30. yea ok. he says he knows several ways to get there. uh huh. i believe we got there around 10:30 or 11. apparently he made a left when he should of made a right. he didn't realize it til we saw all the freehold signs. oops, he says, this isn't right. we must be lost. we need a g.p.s. so i say lets pull in and get breakfast and ask for directions. oh i dont need directions he says. {i believe all husbands say that}. we pull into a burger king. while he went to the bathroom, i ask for directions. making sure i point out that my husband got us lost.

naturally we made it to our destination. and wayne says we were sight seeing. and oh the sights we did see.....

i do not recall what town we were in, but i've renamed it. "The Land of the Wondering Jewish People". mind you that i am not prejudice. but we both had a good laugh. for several miles, all you could see, were people walking around in their dress clothes. not unusual i know, but it was the men who had us going huh??? some had the traditional hats and clothes. others had some sort of shawl, while others, and mostly the men who were a bit larger, wore these furry hats. those i dubbed the russian jewish people. cuz that's what the hats reminded me of. now naturally we thought they were all going to their church or some sort of function. except that we only saw 1 church and they were going in all different directions. again, i dont normally make fun of peoples cultures. however, this was strange. and we had to pass threw this area twice. remember we got lost.

we had a great time on our trip, we plan on making it a yearly thing. except the getting lost part. we are sore from all the walking on the boardwalk. legs and feet mostly. but it was worth it. cant wait to go back. to the Wondering Jewish People. hope you all enjoyed what ever adventure you's were all on.

childhood innosence

as you all know i am a mother of 4 great kids. 3 of which have long gave up believing in santa or the easter bunny. which didn't quite effect me in a bad way. all part of grokwing up. however, the last one will. my son, who is 9, still believes, for now. he had questioned santa last year to us. me panic stricken asked him what he believes. he said he still believes in santa. whew. my response was, then he is real. was that my opprotunity to tell the truth?? probably. but the thought of crushing his childhood beliefs was not setting well with me. i remember years ago while attending a gathering for christmas eve. uncle joe always played santa. one year his beard was falling down. aunt sis {uncle joe's wife} said "hon, fix your beard". ahhh. i nugged her and she looked mortified. opps she said. naturally my older 2 girls heard. and did i get ther questions when we got home.

today is easter. and joey has not came with questions about the easter bunny. relief. i actually was up at mid-night, putting the basket's together wondering if this will be his last year to believe in them. the magical beings who bring toys and candy to him. does this bother me. yes it does. i realize part of growing up is to stop believing. but, he is my youngest and last child to help him believe. and its coming to an end. i love playing santa and the easter bunny. sometimes growing up is no fun.

well if this is the last year, i've had fun. but then again, if i continue to get up in the middle of the night to place present under our tree and put baskets on the table, then santa and the easter bunny is still alive.

OH NO A NEW TOY!!!!!!!

one evening my darling husband comes home and informs me that he aquired a new toy for the kids. and when i say kids, that means him too. he continues to say it is in the back of his jeep. o.k. not something to big, right. wrong. we have to put it together. so what is it you ask..........




yup, a trampoline. already i'm worried. not over the kids being hurt mind you. but my other kid, otherwise known as my husband. the children are pros on a trampoline. their grandparents have one and their there every week during the summer. plus a neighbor had one. now wayne has been on one before. he likes to pretend he is a child and thinks his body is limber enough to do these things. like stepsledding and man hunt. last time he was on a trampoline he fell off and hurt his back and didn't want the kids to get me cuz he thought i would get mad at him. see another kid.

so now we have this trampoline up in the yard. and he has been on it. he wants to do stunts like the kids so. however their stunts are flips and things. his idea was to get on the roof of shed, jump off onto trampoline and bounce high enough to clear the fence. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. needless to say i will stock up on my first aid supplies, keep 911 programed on my phone and get a life insurance policy on him.

getting older... i mean.. growing up.

"Getting older ain't for sissy's" says my dad. "Just wait til your my age" says my mom. "never" says me. I swore along time ago that there were certain things my parents said to me that i wouldn't say to my children. Oh well, i've said them. especially the wait til your my age. or wait til you have kids. Years ago, and i mean about 20 years ago, i didn't mine getting older. my early teen years were rough. and i hated school. so naturally i couldn't wait til i was out of my teens. then the 20's. 3 out of 4 kids were born. that was good. bad marriage, not so good. so i didn't mind turning 30. I had my last child when i was 30. that was good. ending bad marriage was good too. realizing a marriage ends never sits well even if you wanted it to end. you tend to wonder if you can raise the children as a single parent. and what will the future hold. but i can honestly say, the future got brighter. and with the help of my parents, the child raising went pretty smooth. Thanks mom and dad. late 30's met my wonderful husband, wayne. that was good. now i'm a year away from 40. and i'm not really looking forward to it.
I used to shake my head at my parents when they would talk of the aches and pains of "getting older". now it's my turn. and i'm sure my kids shake their heads at me.

I always thought that certain ailments were for women who were in their 50's. WRONG. almost a year ago, i started having nightsweats and hot flashes. WHAT IS THIS. 38 and menopause??? no way!! looked up symptoms of menopause. yes way. on the bright side.... like there's a bright side, better to get it over with. then a friend say's she's been going through it for 4 years or so. YUCK. then i read women can suffer for 10 years. NOOOOOOO!!!!!! sorry to say this is a part of life i cant do anything about. Mom says since she's been through menopause she doesn't have to shave her legs. Hmmmmm, there's a pro to this. no more shaving my legs. I can deal with that. and i've noticed, that i'm not shaving them as often. not because i feel lazy, who wants to shave every other day. it's because, not much there. now it's once every 2 weeks. the only other pro is, eventually, no more monthly visit's.

yesterday, i was talking to my cousin. and as she would brag, she's younger than me. by 10 months. and she is starting to go through menopause too. we trained stories of being hot one minute and cold the next. and i told her how i wake up in the middle of the night laying in a puddle. time to get the towel. and the other pain of this, which wayne hates as well. achy boobs. that needs to go away real soon. Then my cousin mention the other problem she's having. it's called the Mansfield Curse. and only the women in my family suffer from it. although i'm sure many women in the world have a similar curse. The Mansfield Curse is when us Mansfield women get older we expand. not it height {sorry mom and Amy} but width. our mid-section balloons out. and there's nothing you can do to stop it. anyway, my cousin complained that she's gaining weight. ( last i saw her, a couple months ago, she was a rail) actually, come to think of it she always was. quit complaining Heidi. she says her thighs and hips have added some weight. now most people would say, since she's so thin, your finally getting curves. BUT, me and her both know, it's the Mansfield Curse. hahahaha. oh, wait, Mansfield blood runs in my veins too. ugh. that would explain why my hips have grown a bit too. double ugh. I guess by the time we turn 50, we will look like our aunts. Which we used to laugh and say "look how big they are. Sorry Aunt Helen and Aunt Madeline. They couldn't help that they were cursed. They were Mansfield's after all.

I also always prided myself that i didn't have gray hair. my little sister {loving known as seester} has more gray than me. so does that same cousin who is 10 months younger than me. hahaha. the occasional strain would show up in mine. no big deal. until today. when my 11 year old daughter {who likes to brush my hair} says she found a couple. what??? and she's counting them. ok valerie, that's enough counting. wait til your my age.

to sum this up. getting old aint for sissies. however, i've decided today that i'm not getting old. i'm just growing up still. after all, i'm still young at heart.

sleep walking and talking.

Some of our adventures happen at night. no, not that, get your mind out of the gutter. there are many occasions where my wonderful husband keeps us entertained while sleeping. {I cant believe he actually said i could write about this, better get it in before he changes his mind} Anyway, Wayne, occasionally, walks and talks in his sleep.

now most of the time when this happens, he talks about work. he can be heard yelling at co-workers. or complaining about them for damaging the trucks. those nights I try to get him to stop and go to sleep. oh wait, he is asleep. There have been times he has gotten up at midnight thinking he has to go to work. It's not always easy convincing him it's the middle of the night. Get back to bed. those nights are usually a pain. However, there are other nights, nights where I get up and grab a pen a paper and start writing down what he say's. naturally for proof of what he says, and so i can remember them. these are the fun nights, or I should say funny nights. so where to begin....

he started this {I should say i noticed it} while in wilkes barre. I cant remember things that he said, but Me and the kids would listen in and talk back to him. He told us that he bought me something i always wanted and that it was purple. {my favorite color} but we couldn't get him to say what it was. Other times he would ask "Who put that ugly thing there?" when I'd ask what ugly thing he would say "you should know you put it there"

Now to tell you all everything he has said would take forever. so I'll just highlight the more memorable ones.

one afternoon {while staying at my parents} Wayne fell asleep in the livingroom. he started having a conversation with my dad. It started out innocent. Elephants were blocking a round, it seems. and the 2 of them where trying to figure out the best way to remove them. {mind you, Wayne is sound asleep. and dad is trying to keep a straight face} my mom thinks wayne is faking this, Me and dad assure her otherwise. then Wayne tells my dad how he loves my "cupcakes". parents start laughing as i turn all shades of red and wake him up. Lord only knows where that conversation would have went if i let him continue.
he has talked about kimmie on the bus with curlers in her hair. {she better take them out or her hair will look like frito's}. and giant red flies. oh and our favorite, the white raccoon. that also involves sleepwalking. one evening, around 7, during the summer, the 2 of us were in our room watching t.v and talking. seemed perfectly normal to me. He got up and left the room. i thought he was getting a drink. I was wrong. i hear the front door and then the kids coming to me asking where he was going. I went outside and found him out front of the house. I asked him what he was doing. he says he saw a white raccoon digging in the garden. Hmmm, i didn't see it. neither did the kids. He claims he could see it from our bedroom. which by the way, is at the back of the house. cool, didn't know he could see threw walls.
I've noticed when he is sleep walking that he forgets where our bathroom is. sometimes he thinks it's in the closet.{caught him before he actually did} or out in the kitchen. {didn't make that one in time, good thing the sink was empty} the shower stall.
me and the children have had alot of laughs at his expense. and of course he thinks we are making this all up. sorry babe, we're not. one day i will buy a tape recorder to prove it to him. i'm sure in the future i will have some other funny night time stories to share {now that he has giving me permission to tell them to you all} with you. i may even make a whole other blog page dedicated to his night time antics.

family wii night

my children have been wanting a wii for quite some time. and i admit i would like to have gotten one too. the kids have playstation. they've had most of those other game systems too. i'm not that great at playing those other games. i always crash the car, or lose the battle. so i stay away from them. but with the wii, i could play with them. and since you dont just sit there and play, i was game. so for christmas this past year the kids {that includes wayne and me} got a wii system. $200.00 for it. well worth the money. every weekend we play. we compete big time. "lets see who can reach pro status first". 5 of us are pro bowlers. which is amazing to me. why you ask. we have gone to bowling alleys. and let me tell you, we suck!!! amber actually drop the ball along side of her. i'm still amazed she didn't put a hole in the floor. and our lane had the cleanest gutters in the place. and naturally after throwing a horrible game you look around hoping nobody was watching you. but on the wii, pro's. strikes and spares galore. then there's baseball. now some of my children have no cordination what so ever. but they can hit that ball. we have a blast with the baseball. we yell at the little people on our teams who don't catch the ball. {of course, they don't have arms or legs. so how they run is beyond me} But we get a good laugh. the best part of this game system is, we all play together. quality family time. and with everybody's busy schedule, it can be hard to get everyone to agree on something we all can do and enjoy.

snow plowing

everyone knows how pretty the snow looks. ugly brown dead trees are transformed into beautiful scenes. mountains are more majestic. and children< and adults love to play in it. making the snowman in the front yard or sledding. and lets not forget about the snowball fights. but there is a down side to the white stuff.

driving is a nightmare, the ice, slush, yuck. my husband, wayne, has to plow. and although he makes good money doing so, he hates it. on our big snow fall this winter he spent almost 3 days sitting in a big tri-axel truck going round and round in circles, plowing a big area for a local company. he started at 11 a.m. i packed him plenty of food for his adventure in the truck. around 5 p.m. or so my phone rang. Wayne had called to see what i was doing. just finished making dinner i said. his reply was how would ya like to keep me company. naturally i said sure. he picked me up at 5:30 to join him in his plowing.

He warned me that it was boring. but i smiled and said i'm sure it will be fun. and the first 45 minutes were. then boredum crept in. it was dark and you could barely see anything. after 2 hours everything started to look the same. So i said jokingly, "i spy something white". he laughed. we could of continued to play the i spy game, but, there were only to colors. white and brown. we were plowing at a cement factory, where they make concrete underground pipes. not alot of color there.

the snow was coming down fast. you couldn't see where he had plowed. it was definatly a losing battle. occasionaly we would hit a spot that wasnt plowed yet. that became known as the unplowed territory. and we would look for those area's just for the fun of it.

finally it was time to call it a night. 10 p.m. it was a long night, even longer for him since he started his day of work 13 hours before. we drove home on unplowed streets. imagine that. (they remained that way for 4 days) and altough it was boring. no sightseeing other than snow and concrete. i still had a great time.

so, thank you for the 2ft of snow, it was beautiful to look at, even if it was a pain to drive in. and thank you to my husband, for giving us yet another adventure for us to share.