The best Saturday EVER

What an eventful weekend I had. In a relatively boring life like mine, at least recently, watching food cook in the microwave can be quite exciting. But last weekend exceeded even that kind of drama.

Because I haven't been sleeping well lately, which means I haven't been sleeping that much either, I got up early on Saturday morning. I think I slept in until 4 a.m. (I was up at 1:30 a.m. this morning . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzz) The weather was dark, and chilly. I enjoyed sipping my coffee while staring out the window while updating my website at my laptop while my family slept in the nearby bedroom--exciting! I decided to check feed my chickens and check their eggs before the sun came up. I strapped on my low-profile headlamp that I always use each summer on my Colorado backpacking trips to survey the darkened area outside my tent for ravenous bears, and I entered the coop. Great! 5 eggs. It was going to make a delicious breakfast. A few roosting hens jabbed at my light with their beak as I went by. I warned them that next time I'd have chicken biscuits instead of eggs for breakfast if they did it again. They quickly layed off.

I quickly checked for bears before I exited the coop. No bears, just two hungry, 85-pound dogs, excited about a balanced breakfast of Kibbles, bits, the leftover pork loin from last week, and fresh, feathered chicken. I snuck out without a casualty and then fed the dog their Kibbles and a line about how they were REALLY eating "fresh" chicken. They SOOO bought it.

Back inside, after cleaning the chicken guano off the green-shelled eggs, I carefully set them out to dry and thought about how I could possibly top my chicken, dog, and bear-surviving experience of the early morning. The clock read 5:45, and my family would be getting up soon. I decided to finish my incomplete blog entry from Friday, which still posted as Friday, even though my thoughts spilled over. As I finished it a day later, I felt kind of "naughty" doing that, but I tried really hard to pretend it was still "yesterday." I feel better now getting that off my chest.

When the family awoke we enjoyed a fresh farm breakfast, which meant my two kids took one bite of their breakfast tacos, and I had to finish them off. I could tell it was going to be the kind of day where I would need the extra nurishment and energy.

With everyone and everything fed, we decided to jump into the Pathfinder and hit the road to do a little (more) shopping. As free-spirited as we are, we decided to go to the mall, the Sam's club, Academy, CostCo, then we would eat, then we'd end up in a shopping center where we'd drop into Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Target. The spontineity was exercised as we went to the malls stores in no particular order (not to mention getting a refill of a DIFFERENT beverage durin the alotted time for eating.)

I've discovered that it's a lot easier to use my credit card since 3% of each purchase goes directly into a fund set up for my kid's college. I'm not just buying them a Playstation, but and education as well--a little "play" of "today," and a little "knowledge" for "college." In my mind, if I buy them enough stuff, they're already well on their way to a their M.D., which in a way, is really planning for my OWN future.

When we got home, I unloaded the wagon and took a comfortable seat on the lounge chair to revel in the booty I had commercially captured. My son was already on the computer playing some game. My wife and daughter, though, were almost immediately back out the door for round two. "I get up WAY too early hang with those female kind of shoppers," I told myself.

But much to my surprise, they didn't go shopping--they went to the beauty salon for a secret hair appointment for my little princess, angel-baby, muffin cakes 5-year old daughter who previously had the most beautiful long hair.

She came in excited wearing short hair and bangs. . . yes bangs!! No wonder they didn't tell me. I would have adamantly objected. But to tell you the truth, they are starting to grow on me like they are surely growing on her. She DOES look more beautiful than ever.

But of all the AMAZING things that happened that day, the best experience came later that night as my daughter lost her first tooth.

Losing the hair in front of her forehead and the tooth in the front of her mouth was almost too much for me to bear in one day.

I cried myself to sleep that night--tears of joy.

I slept so peacefully and soundly that night. . . until 3:30 a.m.

The chickens were calling.