Courtney's Cauldron

So, as I mentioned earlier in the blog (and if you haven’t been keeping up with the blog, then you’re going to have to scroll down, or just take my word for it) last week we had to leave our camper trailer in New Mexico at a trailer-fixer-upper-place for lots of reasons (and if you want to know what they are, you need to scroll down). Well, we obviously couldn’t just leave it in New Mexico, so this week my parents went down to go get it. Yes, you heard me right (or read it right in this case) my PARENTS went to go down to get it, not us. “Us” here being me and my three siblings, Heather (17) Ashley (13) and William (9) The four us stayed here. Alone. The four of us. Alone.

Well, anyhoozer, on Friday the deal was we could only stay here alone if we got the house clean. So I set them to work on scrubbing the windows and mopping the floors. Around eleven thirty they all mentioned they were tired (alright, I’ll be honest, William had already fallen asleep…) so I told them we were done and that we’d be waking up at six in the morning. They gave me the evil eye and went upstairs. I decided to go fix myself a drink before I joined them in snoozerland. I went into the pantry to find that Heather had just thrown all the stuff from the dining room in there. I groaned and fixed it all, by myself. Then I made my drink and started for my room, and then conveniently noticed that the front living room wasn’t done right either. I proceeded to put away all the folders and too-small clothes that they’d tossed carelessly on the couch. Finally I could go to bed- but nooooooo. Ashley had thrown all the shoes on the “shoe-rack” (with six people in the family we need one, okay?) and they were all crushing each other. I spent the next few minutes straitening that out, then needed to go to the bathroom. What I found in there was atrocious! The things they put in the places they put them were unreal! It lacked any rhyme or reason! I gave up on the idea of sleep and cleaned up the bathroom. When I finally finished I promised myself I’d make sure they all did their chores the next day. I should remind you- this was FRIDAY, my parents hadn’t even left yet!

So the next day we all woke up at six am, as promised, to tell our parents goodbye. I promptly went back to sleep. I hadn’t gone to bed until well past midnight and I was exhausted from all the cleaning I had to singlehandedly do. William and Heather stayed up to watch a movie, I don’t think Ashley ever actually got out of bed. Around nine I got back out of bed to make sure Heather had fed William. As a first she had, but she also left a huge mess from their breakfast. I went to go tell her to clean it up when I remembered she’d left to go to the NBK (for those of you who don’t know what that is- good for you! It’s a comic book convention thing where a bunch of nerdy people- no offense to anyone who happened to go-  get together and discuss their favorite comic books or manga or anime or whatever) so I left the mess out so she could clean it up later. I went and woke Ashley up then got William dressed for his boy-scout thing (they went to go launch rockets or something) and then fed them. I had them do their chores and then did mine (for those of you who don’t have chores, you clearly don’t have a six-person family). William left soon after that. I went and climbed back into bed.

When William got back home, he was super excited and really happy, he wouldn’t stop talking about his boy-scout thing. I was thinking about what I needed to make for dinner (I have limited cooking skills and Heather wasn’t back yet)  when the phone rang. It was our neighbour (he’s about 70 years old and he was the one who took William to boy-scouts since our parents weren’t home and I can’t drive) He asked if we wanted to go out to eat with him and his wife. I figured we weren’t going to get a better meal than that, so I said yes. We walked over to his house at about six. On our way to where ever they wanted to eat he asked us “do you guys like steak?” we of course said yes, we love it, so he pulled over at an Outback Steakhouse. Now, if you’ve ever been there you’ll realize that Outback is a really expensive place, especially if you have three kids with black holes for stomachs. We were freaking out. The meal was good and the people were nice. They drove us home and told us if we were spooked by anything to give them a call.

The second we were in the door William just about fell asleep. Ashley and I had to practically carry him up the stairs and to his bed. He fell asleep rather quickly, so Ash and I decided to watch a movie. I, being a stereotypical teenage girl, wanted to watch The Proposal since I loved it, and Ash had never seen it. She, being the not-so-typical teenage girl, wanted to watch The Fourth Kind which is a horror movie about alien invasions. Neither of had seen it before and I’m not so big on creepy movies, though I’m not really a scardy-cat either, and I was fully against it. She agreed to watch The Proposal if we first watched The Fourth Kind, so we wouldn’t be sleeping right after a horror movie. I figured this logic made sense, so we watched it. Apparently The Fourth Kind is a movie-documentary combination and is totally based on totally real occurrences, supposedly every scene is backed up by video footage, audio, or multiple eye-witness accounts. It was somewhat realistic with several interesting or freaky points and it was really creepy, but I still have my doubts about a few of the “occurrences” that supposedly took place. During this entire movie Ashley is screaming and squealing and jumping ridiculously. It was actually very annoying.

About halfway through the movie my parents called to ask where Heather was. She wasn’t home yet (around 10) and that was freaking them out. As a result we spent the next ten minutes trying to find where out where she was and how she was going to get home. She was still at the NBK, and had somehow managed to lose her ride. We left the fine details to her and our parents and her friends and kept watching. When the movie was done I announced that I didn’t like it much, Ashley was too scared to walk across the some-what dark room to replace the DVD. I put in The Proposal and through all of the opening previews she complained about having to watch a chick-flick and not liking movies like this one. The entire movie she was laughing so hard and clutching her side that I couldn’t hear it well. It was extremely annoying and I am never watching another movie with her again, horror, romantic comedy or otherwise. Heather got home around 1 AM and we didn’t end up going to bed until after that.

Today (Sunday) we slept in a lot then cleaned the house some more. Our parents apparently broke down just near here (because any trip to or from New Mexico is destined to be cursed it seems) and didn’t get home until 3 PM. At least that is over. Finally.

~Courtney

Oh, one more thing: instead of the quotes I normally do at the end of my posts (which I keep forgetting about) I’m going to create another post page called “fortune cookies” you should check it out!!!

A question I’ve  never thought to ask someone, “are you enjoying our trip around the sun this year?” it brought a smile to my face. Next time you are in an awkward situation, try it out!!!

Thank you, random 83-year-old sub for my English class Old people are awesome.

~Courtney

…It’s not what you’re thinking- whatever that is. Last weekend we went to New Mexico for Heather’s (my big sister) scuba lessons. She was taking a class to receive her “open water certification” which basically means she can scuba dive wherever she wants- so long as she has a partner and it’s not night time.

Anyhoozer- I didn’t even go to school on Friday so that I could help my parents get ready to go. Heather, Ashley, and William (the other sibs, in case you couldn’t guess) even got picked up early from school so that we could get out of here and on the road. We finally got all packed, with one bag and one backpack each (note: they had no limitations the the amount of pillows we could bring. However, we have decided that next time we go on a trip we should bring about 20 less than we did on this trip).

We were well on our way, already having eaten lunch and everything, when we blew a tire on the trailer. At this point in life we were driving along some highway or another in New Mexico. We (and when I say “we” here I mostly mean my dad) pulled over at a Big-O’s Tire shop and bought a new one. My dad’s logic being “I’m not driving without at least one spare,” which seemed like a good motto to go by. We ate at a Burger King while they prepared the tire and then we were back on the road.

Several hours later, after night had mostly fallen, a car behind us kept honking and flashing its lights before finally pulling over in front of us. We (again I mean my dad) got out of the car to talk to them. We’d blown another tire. This one was worse, it was totally shredded up, there was practically no tire left. And the best part: we had managed to snap the axel in half. Now this is going to need some explaining. The “axel” which I’m talking about is the bar-type-thing that  holds the wheels to the trailer. Everyone which we talked to was totally amazed by this, they’d never heard of anyone doing that before. Summed up: we were in BIG t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

It took several hours (or at least if felt like several hours…I spent my time in the truck. Doing nothing.) but finally, after many phone calls and a lack of tow-trucks, we (meaning my dad) managed to find a semi-partial-solution. He wrapped the bar-type-thing in some sort of SuperWire! (meaning I have no idea what the heck it was) and we were on our merry way, never going over 45 thereinafter.

We eventually stopped in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in a town called Los Vegas (hint hint). By then it was well after eleven p.m. and we were all totally exhausted. We managed to drag ourselves out of the car to spend the night in the camper. When morning broke my mom woke Heather up around 6 a.m. (and in the process she woke us all up) to take her to her scuba lessons (which were a good hour away).  By the time the rest of us rolled out of bed she was already there and back again. That morning my dad got up to check all the tires, just to find one swelling so badly that it was sure to blow. Luckily for us, another Big-O’s Tires (which I am convinced planned this all out, just so we would break down and have no choice but to turn to them) was right across the street, so we bought TWO new tires. So then we had four brand-spankin’ new tires, but still the problem of the broken axel. We managed to find a guy in New Mexico who worked on trailers and would be able to fix it. However, this guy was an hour away… in the opposite direction of Heather’s scuba lessons.

So we went to this guy. But, of course, on the way we ran out of gas. And I’m not saying we were low on gas, we RAN OUT of gas. About twelve inches from the pump. We (in case you haven’t figured it out “we” means “dad” and occasionally “Heather” though sometimes it could be “me and this random dude I met on the street”) had to go and add gas by hand, by pouring in in a gallon jug and adding it to the tank (which is apparently illegal sssshhhh don’t tell anyone). By the time we reached the trailer-fixing guy we were pretty much sick of New Mexico. He informed us that it would take about a week to fix the trailer. We got all of our belongings out of the trailer (except for some things which we may have forgotten and are now wishing we hadn’t) and left the trailer there.

After that, it was another two-hour drive to get to Santa Rosa, where Heather’s scuba lessons were being held. It was a tiny town with about five restaurants and tennis courts that looked like the zombie apocalypse had already come and gone. The beds of the hotel were stiff and the pillows flat. The room we stayed in was small, with only two beds (and since we have 6 people in the family you can imagine how much we love only two beds) and NO DVD PLAYER or dish. You can bet the room was soooo muuuuch fuuuun. We ended up coming home a day early. We ran inside, said “hi” to the cats then laid on our beds for about twenty hours. That was a super “fun” trip!!!

…But it’s not over yet- oh no, as you remember (and if you don’t scroll back up and reread it) the trailer-fixing dude said that it would take a week to fix the trailer. A WEEK. So, tomorrow, my mom and dad are going BACK to New Mexico to get the trailer. Leaving us here. Alone. The four of us. Here. Alone. That should be… interesting… I’ll let you know how it goes 😉

~Courtney

This is the main body of my blog!!! You can post whatever you want here and everyone can read it!!!                                                                                                                       Fun, right?

“Without humor, life sucks. Without courage, life is hard. Without love, life is hopeless. Without friends like you, life is impossible.”

~Courtney

This is where you post if you are unsure how or where to. Give it a try 😉

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” ~James William

~Courtney

Hello world! this is officially the first post on my website! It should be fun to see where this place goes! Add a post to get started, or just sit around reading my posts- either way is fine.

“If you try to chase two rabbits, you loose them both.” Bummer.

~Courtney