DQ and Grudge Issues

So, the kids were very good today and my mom wanted to do something special. Given their options, the kids chose Dairy Queen. This is a small town and the choices are very limited, so that was about the best we were going to get. Both Mom and I felt guilty, but we went anyway. The service was slow and terrible. My french fries never appeared, despite me going back and asking for them. DQ did agree to upgrade them to a blizzard though, so I didn't gripe.

However, I must now tell you why I generally do not partonize this particular establishment. Its because my family can carry a grudge very well. My brother Adam is especially proficient at this. A good 5 years ago when he was recently post-mission and living at home, he and his good friend Jon went to this same local Dairy Queen.

This is what Adam looked like back then. Okay, not true. This is a high school shot and this event occurred after his mission. But I do not have a picture of that and this one is so cute.

Adam asked for a mint shake and he asked for oreos on it. He was told that oreos were a blizzard topping, not a shake topping, so no, he could not have what he wanted. Adam was confused. Surely customer service would allow them to add what he wanted. So he asked if he could order his shake and order the oreos seperately on the side. He was told no. Adam was trying to understand this and he swears he was not confrontational or angry, just curious. He had just returned from a mission and had endured all sorts of confrontation and grief. So this was nothing- he could hold his temper and not be swayed! Still, Why could he not pay for extra oreos and add them himself? He just couldn't, he was informed rudely. So Adam ordered his oreo-less ice cream treat. His friend Jon asked for an Oreo blizzard that DID include oreos and requested that the oreos be on the side. The kid behind the counter said "NO. You'll just give them to your friend."

Now who cares?! Why would they not be accomodating? And I am serious. This did occur. And on to our story....

Adam asked why, in a reasonable tone, why could he not have the oreos? The manager flew around the corner screaming, "This is Dairy Queen and we do it the Dairy Queen way!" Adam was pretty cross by now, yet still he reasonably asked for a comment card or customer service number, or someone higher up. The manager threatened to call the police if they didn't leave, then rattled off a number. Wisely, the guys left. Later, when Adam called the number, it was a dirty adult hotline.

Fast forward to this year. His wife, Savannah, was tired of not getting to go to Dairy Queen, as she did enjoy their food. She finally wrote to Dairy Queen expressing her unhappiness, telling this story, and requesting that they do something to apease Adam, so that they could again visit their establishment. She recieved a letter stating that the shake Adam wanted did NOT come with oreos and thus the manager had taken the appropriate action.

Needless to say, Adam is not apeased. And I swear that this is true. Okay, it is as true as I recall it being told to me. Oh, and Savannah does have that nasty letter still so you will know that I did not make up such an absurd event.. And this is why I felt guilty taking the children there tonight!

Perhaps if you are really lucky, I will share my story of why I do not use AT&T!

Semi-Political semi-thoughts

I do not usually stray far from my usual blog- pictures of the family and minute details of life. However, my uncle sent this in an email and I thought it was both amusing and worth thinking about. Add to that that I really am not a fan of Al Gore, and I quite enjoyed this:


John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.

He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

Now, he could sit on the porch And fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover.

To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making.

Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully this year,
the bells are not always ringing.

The Eternal Tree House

Well, I thought I'd start with something different today! Today was the end of Summer Reading Program day at the library. So I dragged all 4 kids out there. Joshua and Marian had done the program, so they got a ton of free books. Callie wanted me to hold her the entire time and Delaney roamed around. Since Marian and Joshua got to go select their books off tables, sometimes they needed help choosing. That's when Delaney would suddenly decide she wanted to be right next to me and Callie would get concerned. After the first round of book selecting, I had it solved. Delaney and Callie read the books and were content. Towards the end, All 3 of my girls were sitting there "reading" the new books. Too cute!


And on to the ever-lasting tree house. The sad thing is that I worked on it from 1pm till 7pm tonight and I looks very similar to when we began. Sigh. Let me mention that it was 87 degrees at 8:30 this morning when I got home from my run. And that doesn't take into account the humidity. Ug. I drenched my clothes today. I am a sweaty girl anyway, but today was exceptional! I seriously could have wrung out my clothes after working on this tree house. I had drops of sweat rolling off my elbows, eyebrows.... well, everywhere!

Here I am with Joshua. We are hammering in the logs to make the ramp. It was a great idea, that looks cute, but isn't as user-friendly as I had hoped. And it was time consuming to do. Yes it was!

Here is the finished product though. The kids LOVE it! Delaney can scramble up it, but not down. It takes all of them a little while to go up and down, and they did it over and over once it was up! It is a little steeper than I envisioned, and not as textured as I expected. I mean, its a little more slick. I thought it would be more ramp-like, but its more like climbing a steep wall- you really do need the rope.

Sooooo, we got the entry done. We got the facia up and then started on the roof. I mean my dad and I. He did all the work and I handed him nails and stuff. We got the main body of the roof done before I headed in at 7 to put kids to bed. Roof means we put up plywood and put metal roofing over it. What fun. 15 feet up in the air.... how do you do it!?! Well, it helped to have the tractor. Dad stood in the bucket and I raised him and the plywood up. Hee hee hee. It was fun!

Especially for Dan Mc

Here is the treehouse with the walls up. There is a doorway there on the left. We'd talked about a doggie door on the right, but we didn't have one, so it got boarded up. still, we can always go back and put one in. Same thing with windows. We'd like windows so it won't be dark inside, but we haven't got any. We need to aquire some small windows, and we don't want to pay a fortune for them, so we're stuck on that right now. The brown seemed like a good choice, but its a little boring looking now. I hope the door and windows will liven it up.... Well, wait till you see the railing; that's pretty lively.

Here's me and Delaney! We (as in me, Dad and Callie) went traipsing through the woods yesterday, looking for proper sized branches and small trees to lop down to make our ramp. Dad had a grand time with the chainsaw and Callie helped me toss the cut logs into this wheelbarrow. After we were done, Delaney went for a ride. She is cross in this picture because I had stopped moving! She wanted to keep going. Oh, and the ramp is not constructed, although we have all the materials now.

Isn't my dad the greatest?! Look at this railing?!! Is that not the cutest thing yet?! Now that it's up we feel a little better about all the kids roaming around up there while he's working. You can see where the ladder is- that's where the future ramp will be installed. There is an opening there for entry.

This is my favorite picture. Joshua said they all had to wear paper hats to be in the tree house. So my mom made them all hats. They are too cute!

Today Dad had some help from a ward member and they put in the rafters for the roof. It involved an incredible amount of time cutting precisely and measuring exactly. It is very exciting to see so much progress and to have it nearly done. And did I mention that Delaney scales the ladder all by herself and climbs into the tree house?! Monkeys, all of them are monkeys! (And why is that not spelled monkies?)

For those of you who are construction minded, here's a shot of the rafters from inside. The roof will slant back from the tree and then off to the 2 sides. Yeah, that was descriptive! You'll see it when its all done. We've got metal roofing ready to go, but we're running out of time today and its stinking HOT out there!

This is how much fun the tree house is already! Just imagine what Callie will look like when its all done!

It's Getting There!

Okay, Dan and Miranda were complaining that they saw no treehouse progress. Here it is, picture by picture. And let me tell you, it took a LOT more time, energy and work than any of us expected!

We got all the supports up. There was a minor issue with the one that didn't take well to torque and needed some repairs. Once the support beams were done, a spiderweb of other supports was put up inside the spokes, and the floor laid down. The floor is like decking.

Once the floor/decking was down, the wall structure was put together and put up. Hard work! And taking pictures in the evening makes for bad lighting! Sorry.

Half the 6 sides will be enclosed, and here you can see that the wall structures are all up. Joshua is making faces at me. Last night we painted all the siding and its being installed right now. More pix of that later.

Here is Marian's self portrait. I think she's so cute and funny!