With friends like this.......

who needs enemies? There aren't many things that scare me but there is one fear that my friends think is funny. A few years ago at work we had a mouse problem. I didn't want to see the little creatures dead or alive. One day there was a mouse in the trap and I yelled. My boss proceeded to pick it up and try to get me to hold it. I yelled so loud that the Insurance guy from the office next to ours came over. He thought someone might be getting attacked.

With my job unfortunately I come across mice. I've almost crawled up a Colorado Springs Utility man when we were in a furnace room. Broke out into a sweat while in a house that was infested with them and had dead mice about every 2 ft. (seriously, it was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie). Just not my favorite thing.

My co-workers (currently lost the status as friends) love to put fake mice in my chair, coat pocket and different places I may find them. This hasn't happened for over a year. Almost forgot this was even an issue. Until today everyone was walking past my desk and kept talking to me. One "friend" even was on her hands and knees looking under my desk. She picked up a pen that I had dropped. Thought....wow that was nice of her! YEAH RIGHT!

As I'm shoveling through some paperwork and I see a fuzzy bottom in my purse. I screamed and then carefully pulled it out of my purse and threw it at the would be culprit. Everyone laughed and thought it was so funny. Come to find out it had been on my keyboard before. I was typing away and Teri was sure that I had dropped it on the floor and didn't notice it. (hence the picking up my pen)

This stupid thing even squeaks. Mike called just as I was figuring this all out and I told him to come kick their butts. He said sure, why? When I told him he started to laugh! So even though it wasn't funny to me everyone seemed to get a good laugh out of it. Just remember, payback is even better!

Boys

Our boys are very active, they love to be outside and do just about anything to get out of the house. Even with the age difference one thing they agree on is skateboarding. If you drive by our street there are usually some of the neighborhood boys out on boards. David and Reid both lost skateboarding a few months ago. David was on restriction and we were in California. We got a call that he was on the way to the emergency room. Come to find out he was skateboarding while on restriction just hours after it snowed. Not the best choice on his part, a sprained ankle and an ER visit that reached way past the budget. Not to mention how stressed I was being 2 states away and not able to do anything or know the damage. Reid, lost skateboarding just a couple weeks before David. We found out that he climbed up on top of our shed and decided to skateboard off the roof into the neighbors backyard. He was so lucky we didn't have an ER visit out of that one. We found out as Mike was out in the garage building something. Dad took the circular saw and cut the board in half. After both incidents I let both the boys know they would NEVER skateboard again. They tried to bargain and even said when they turn 18 and are in their own house they could? I said, no NEVER again. Well for Christmas both boys had skateboarding on their list. Mike and I talked about it and did think that they could eventually earn skateboarding back. We weren't sure when but knew we would make them sign a contract and have some major rules.

Finally the warm weather (fifties) was killing them and they kept asking if they would be able to earn it back. If we had talked about it. Mike told them he wanted them to write a contract, make a power point presentation and a presentation that lasted about 20 minutes. We had dinner at another families house last night so we got home late. The boys were jumping out of their skin to give us the presentation.

Sunday night they also agreed to clean up the kitchen after dinner. They did all the dishes and did an amazing job. They've just had to sweat a little more with the presentation. They took the task at hand very seriously and had a great presentation. They have earned skateboarding back but we haven't told them yet!

(we took the pictures with a cell phone but just couldn't resist)