Just stop the blaming.

So tired of hearing about people trying to place blame in the Florida gator attack. There were signs, they said no swimming. Florida is gator territory, it doesn't take a genius to understand why you shouldn't swim in the Lagoon. It's not Disney's fault. Yes it's a terrible tragedy, and it's super horrible but why do we have to find someone to blame. It was an accident, let it go. No I'm not blaming the parents either, and they don't deserve anyone's animosity, can you imagine losing your beautiful 2 year old in such a horrific way. Then you have assholes around the world bashing you and telling you what you did wrong and that it's all your fault? Can you imagine? You don't think they are constantly beating theirselves up on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis? Reliving the whole thing in slow motion over and over. It was less than a foot of water, I'm sure they thought he was completely safe. I can honestly say I would have thought it was safe as well. I'm from Michigan and I know nothing about alligators, I would not have thought one could get to the baby that fast in such a low bit of water. Just stop. Your blame is never going to make them feel worse than they already do. Just stop, laying blame helps no one.

It's 90 degrees and you don't have A/C, what do you do?

Well you pitch a tent on your back porch of course!  Yea it's pretty freakin' hot, and I can admit I've whined about it, I'm no saint, BUT after I got over that I started thinking.  We never had A/C when we were kids and though I can remember some pretty awful nights of sweating it out, for the most part it was fine.  The more I thought, the more I realized, why not just grab the small tent (not the tent I camp in) and put it up on the back porch?  It will lose heat faster than the house and stay cooler all night.  So I did, slept in it last night and it was fabulous! Listened to the crickets chirp, and slept like a log.  Guess what? It's supposed to be in the 90's for the rest of the week and I don't even care.  I'll be on my sleeping porch chillin'.

One of the best days...

Warning lots of pics

We planned our annual trip to the "Thunder Over Michigan" air show at Willow Run Airport in Detroit.  I always let my son take a few friends, so that was the plan.  On Wednesday last week I told him to get it hammered down who was going for sure so we were scrambling on Saturday night trying to figure out who was going.  So he got busy well several of his friends had a baseball double-header on Sunday, and the rest had football practice.  So in the end it was just him and I.  Sweet!

Well for months he's been wanting to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for wings, and I kept telling him "it's super over-priced so sometime when it's just you and I, I'll take you."  When he found out no one else could go that was the first thing on it his mind.  So yes, we can go after the air show.

On to the show.  It was great, The Blue Angels were performing this year.  There was a really great F-16 demo.  Now I've been to a LOT of air shows and seen a LOT of demos of a lot of planes, even an f-16 before.  This pilot was exceptional, this had to be one of the best demos I've ever seen.  SUPER cool!  Maybe it was because it was overcast and he had to stay low, but he definitely wowed me and my son.

We watched several other planes fly, this is the B-29(only flyable one left in existence), B-17, Lancaster flight, with maybe a P-51, a Corsair, or a Mosquito thrown in, can't remember which was which and my phone wasn't great at taking pics.

Then the Blues got their shot, started with Fat Albert of course, which if you don't know is their name for their C-130 crew transport plane, but it also does a demo before the jets fly.  It used to do a great demo of a JATO(or Jet Assisted Take Of) but apparently it doesn't do that anymore, which is sad because it was really the only thing that made it worth watching.  C-130's are kind of boring.

On to the Blues, they were of course amazing, and somehow I even got some pretty good pics of them with my phone, even though it was so sunny I couldn't really see the screen most the time LOL.

They are always the last of the show, so we packed up and headed to see my younger brother's new place that he just moved to in Ann Arbor.  It was very nice, we visited for about an hour, and he lives right down the road from The Big House, which my son asked me if we could drive by on the way home, well, of course!  I'm a Michigan fan so hell yeah!

Then we drove through downtown Ann Arbor, back to 23(the freeway), I've been there before, but my son thought it was pretty cool.  We decided to go to B-Dubs in Brighton but the exit I was going to use was closed so I had to go to the next one, which led me several miles through Brighton, through the downtown, and back out to some huge mall with a ton of traffic circles, thank God it was late Sunday and there was no traffic, or I'd still be stuck in the circles.  Went to the restaurant and ate, it was fine, I hate wings, so I had a wrap, he had super hot wings and ended up ordering a glass of milk to go with it LOL.  

Then we were cruising back through downtown Brighton, and I thought I caught the glimpse of a car show down one of the side streets.  Well I LOVE cars and I didn't have any particular time to be home so I turned down the next one to see if we could find it.  Parked the van and head back that way.  Heard a band playing, we kept walking and low and behold they had the coolest sorta amphitheater on the river, and a live band was playing classic rock covers, really well I might add.  SUPER cool, but, we came here for cars, so with the music in the background, on we walked. Turned the corner and JACKPOT! WOOHOO!

LOVE IT!

Funny, when we pulled in to park, my son said, it would be so cool if there was a Lamborghini... well there wasn't, in the show.  We were walking back to the car, and I happened to look down another side street and I just barely spotted the back corner panel of something and I stopped and pointed and said "WAIT!, what is that?!"  So this is what we found:

My son was in heaven, he took all the pics, well...except the one with him in it.  He just stood and stared for a minute.  The best part for me, he said, "Mom, this is my BEST DAY EVER, Jets, cars, b-dubs...dang!"  It was certainly one of mine too, and the best part for me, hanging out with my almost 14 yr old son, 1 on 1 for the whole day, and him having a good time.  Cause let's face it, when your that age, hanging out with your Mom all day is usually not high on your list.  He even thanked me, "Mom, thanks again for the best day ever" :)  Just happiness. Certainly, one of the best days ever.

Is it body shaming? Is it?

So this popped up on Facebook this morning, and I don't agree...not at all.  Here's my thoughts.  The school has a dress code, most likely one that parent and child agreed to by signing a paper saying that they had read the handbook.  Not sure if all schools do this, but my kid's school does. I have 3 boys and 1 girl, so both genders and it would not bother me one bit if my child called me and said they needed extra clothes, in fact, in most cases my child would get in trouble for not wearing appropriate clothing in the first place and interrupting my day because they felt like wearing whatever.  I drop my kids off at school everyday, and you would be shocked at was IS deemed appropriate, I know I am.  I'm not saying that anyone needs to dress like a Puritan, but HOLY shit, I wouldn't have ever made it in the door of my school wearing what some girls wear to school.  I can only imagine that their parents may have already left for work before seeing what they had on, or the kid changed at someone else's house after leaving their own.   In my opinion it's called FOLLOWING THE RULES THAT YOU AGREED TO.  If you don't like the dress code then talk to the school board, I'm sure it won't do you any good, but you can try.  Or there's always home school, then your kid can wear whatever the hell they want and no one will complain.  I don't agree that it has ANYTHING to do with body shaming or protecting boys from distractions, it's about wearing appropriate attire to school, which has been going on for HUNDREDS of years!  It's also about learning to tolerate a dress code, almost all employers have one, so why wouldn't you want your kids to learn to follow one?  This is another great example of Americans being too sensitive, it's not about YOU it's about everyone, and it's the rules, DEAL WITH IT! Would you rather have to wear uniforms ever day?  I'm not a fan, but maybe it IS the answer to the problem.