Red-Tailed Hawk of Death




Anyone that knows me, knows that I love red-tailed hawks. I think they are beautiful and majestic and just bad ass. When I took a wildlife photography course at GSSM, I got to "hold" a red-tailed hawk at a falconry meet. Her name was Zoe and I am pretty sure she could have gouged out my eyes in about 3 seconds. Well, today the Wilson5 had our 2nd wildlife experience while geocaching and it involved a red-tailed hawk. We were headed down a trail headed towards the Forest Hills Shoals cache (GC1BYRY), when Justin suddenly yelled for Alden to stop! Immediately, I am looking for snakes since we were right beside a creek and the weather was warm but not too hot or perhaps that bear that was spotted in Boiling Springs had somehow high tailed it to the southside of Spartanburg. Then, I saw It. A red-tailed hawk was sitting a few feet off the trail giving us the evil eye. Seriously. It looked at us and we looked it, and it looked at us and did not blink. I am telling you- the freaking bird had the look like it could pick all of us up in its 75 foot long talons and carry us to a nest and feed us to the babies. No joke. Since the behavior seemed weird to me (I remember a little bit of bird behavior from Dr. Bill's ornithology class even though its been 11 years since I took it), I couldn't figure out what to do. Should we chance the utter devastation that would hit if that bird attacked? Turn tail and head back to the car? Was the bird a robotic decoy set out by a hunter to play with the minds of unsuspecting geocachers and have a good laugh? Justin decided to be brave and take a chance of walking past the bird on the trail- now keep in mind that Eleanor is riding on his back so I imagine the bird grabbing her by the shoulders and flying off (picture the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz). As Justin walked by the bird, the bird slowly turned its head and followed Justin's progress. So we retreated, took some pics as proof, and decided not to take the chance of becoming prey today. As we started to head back down the trail, Justin took a small branch and tossed it towards the bird (not at it, just in front of it) and the bird extended its wings but didn't move otherwise. At that point, our decision was made. We'll just head back another day and hope that we don't have to have a stand down with another wild animal again.

Shirt Tales

God love him, Zachary is such a bright kid but getting him to get dressed and have all of his clothes match, it's a pretty hard task. He tends to match plaid or striped shirts with camo shorts. Just the other day, he emerged wearing a God awful John Deere camo shirt (which Justin allowed him to pick out and purchase) with a pair of camo shorts and let's just say that he definitely wouldn't be unseen by animals or snipers in that combo. But today might be the day he took the cake. As he is getting in the Ody to go to school, I noticed that his brown striped shirt was on INSIDE OUT!!!! So I told him to turn it right and out it back on before we left the driveway. On the short ride to school, I sighed with relief since we caught it before he got to school and others kids saw it. Big mistake. As he got out of the van and started walking into school, I realized that he had his shirt on BACKWARDS!!!! And it's a polo shirt to it is obvious that it's wrong since the buttons are at the back of his neck. How is it that he can plow through a Harry Potter book in a matter if days but can't put his shirt on right? Sigh.

Cheese Toast Surprise

With Justin being in Canada for two weeks and the kids too young to appreciate what day it was or have the ability to hop in the Ody to shop for some gifts, this past Mothers Day was shaping up to be a bummer for me. Add to that being 28 weeks into a pregnancy that has left me unable to breathe properly and ungodly exhausted plus being the poster woman for being hormonally unbalanced and it was not going to be pretty. But I completely underestimated the ingenuity of my Zachary. He actually got up early (and quietly) on Sunday while the little kids and I slept in (until 8:00!!) and he decorated the kitchen with Happy Mothers Day signs and made me a princess hat. And he made the best gourmet breakfast that an 8 year old can pull off- cheese toast. My day was instantly brighter and it turned out to be pretty special.

Four Months

Four months....that's how long it has been since I've updated this blog. Let's see- what has happened in the last four months? Let's break it down by order of event and by the numbers. We moved back to SC just 6 months after moving to FL. Alden turned 3 years old. Zachary turned 8 years old. We found out there is only 1 baby in my womb (thank god) and it is a girl. Justin and I (as a relationship) turned 11 years old. Justin turned 29 years old. And we found our 100th geocache (well that one is a little out of order but I am too lazy to go back and edit). And Alden officially halfway potty trained. Apparently the pottying in FL was a one day fluke because he didn't start actually going potty on a regular basis until just recently. So if I can get him full-on trained in the next 3 months, I will be so golden. If I could Eleanor using the potty too, I will be out of my mind with excitement. Only 1 kid in diapers? I can't even remember those glorious days.

Speaking if glorious days, mine are getting numbered with this pregnancy. I am 25 weeks today which means I have 15 weeks left give or take a week. And while I am greatful (grateful? pregnancy has rendered me unable to spell) to be having a healthy baby and no complications so far, I look forward to having the baby in it arms and out of me. After getting over the wicked morning/noon/night sickness that knocked off 15 lbs, it has been pretty smooth sailing except for the tiredness that accompanies being pregnant and taking care of 2 active toddlers all day long. It's going to be interesting to see how baby Harper is going to fit into the dynamic. She better come out fiesty because she is going to need it to keep up with Eleanor.

And speaking of keeping up with Eleanor, time for me to sign out but I promise that I won't let 4 more months pass by without a post.

A Christmas Miracle

Today something miraculous happened in the Wilson household....Alden potty trained himself in one day. Yes, my friends, I said 1 day. Now there has a lot of talk of "pee pee in the potty" but no action at all on the part of Alden. I didn't push him- we would just talk about it and sit on the little potty occasionally but I hoped that one day he would take a liking to the potty and become its friend. A dream that every mother dreams, right? Apparently, my dream came true today. This morning, Alden declared his intention to pee pee in the potty by taking off his diaper but I thought it was just another false alarm. I told Zachary to grab the stool for Alden since he was headed to the big potty in the guest bathroom and a few minutes later, Zachary screams "he's peeing in the potty." And indeed he was. And he's done it all day with no accident- he even woke up from nap dry and peed in the potty. And he pooped in the potty too (well, he pooped in front of the potty having been unable to perch himself on the seat). Now, I know he's not technically potty trained yet but by george, I think we have all just witnessed a Christmas miracle. God bless us one and all.

Carolina in my Mind

I didn't realize just how much of a Carolina Girl I am until I moved away from South Carolina. Friday night football, that crisp in the air that comes with autumn, the mountains and how you can pretty much see the mountains from most places in upstate SC, hiking in said mountains- it just all forms together to make SC a pretty damn awesome place. I grew up dying to get out of SC- I wanted to be lawyer and live in the City (as in New York City although any city would do when you're an adolescent). Well, my law application got lost in the mail apparently as I still haven't received my acceptance letter from Harvard yet, but I'm no closer to NYC than before I left SC. And I'm okay with that (at least until I win the lottery and can afford to visit NYC on a frequent basis). But let's about the weather- the glorious weather. Sure, it's as hot as Hell's kitchen during the summer but you get the beautiful perfect autumn that more than makes up for it. You gets trees with leaves that really change colors, you get to wear pants and long sleeve shirts, and on a good day, a scarf too. And when you're finished gallivanting outside in the glorious weather, you can go into a restaurant and order a sweet tea- not some crappy powdered sweet tea, but real, honest-to-goodness sweet tea.

So if you're driving on the following interstates this weekend: 75, 4, 95, 26, and 85- you might want to watch out for a blue van 'cause I'm going to Carolina.

Trick or Treat


Well, I have decided that trying to get a picture of all 3 kids at the same time is definitely a trick, there is no treat involved in trying to wrangle all of them. Last night, I also found out that Halloween is much better in Florida and that we have cool neighbors. No less than 5 houses just on our street had adults dressed up giving out candy and we are talking premium candy- not cheap Halloween Mary Janes here- it is the good stuff. It was pretty freakin' awesome. Now I have 364 days to figure out my costume for next year.

Originally, I had planned on sewing the costumes for the kids but Zachary was embarrassed at having a homemade costume (he didn't say that, but I am pretty sure he was) so he chose the soldier costume. But I was still planning on making costumes for the babies (they were going to be convicts- in stripes complete with a ball and chain) when a trip to the Children's Place changed all of that. I found the cutest costumes for Eleanor there, I had to buy them. Yeah, I said costumes with an "S"- she had 2 costumes yesterday because every diva needs a costume change. For music class she was a fairy but for the afternoon and for ToTing, she was a witch. For what should be obvious reasons, I preferred the witch costume but the fairy costume had a tutu so it was perfect for music. So, I didn't think it was fair for the other 2 kids to have real costumes and for Alden to have a homemade one, so he got to be a knight. Which he totally played up- complete with stabbing the sword into the ground every so often. I guess we have watched King Arthur a little too much because there is a scene where he does this in the movie.

Eleanor has shown to be the bravest of the trio because last night, she didn't care how scary your house was decorated or the fact that you might be wearing a Jason mask deter her from getting the candy. If there was candy to be had, you could forget trying to scare her because she was going to take it and you could take your strobe light and fog machine back to the store because it was not about to scare her. Zachary and Alden just fell into step behind the strange magical powers of the littlest witch.