Skewed Version of Reality

Today my girls came back from daycare having completed a "project". The project was an "all about me" fact sheet. Ashley is too little to communicate her answers, but following is Katelyn's:

When I grow up I want to be:
A babysitter and a mom

I help others by:
Making Special Cookies

Favorite Food:
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Favorite Animal:
Elephant

Favorite Book:
Bernstein Bears Grow Plants

Favorite Color:
FEALO

I am special because:
When mom and dad put me to bet, I fall right to sleep.

Now, the first few answers are cute and Kelly was happy that Katelyn wanted to be a mom....but we soon became aware of Katelyn's version of reality versus ours. By the animal question, we were beginning to wonder if we were sent a different kids answer sheet home. Katelyn is afraid of elephants. They squish things. Katelyn does like Bernstein Bears, but we don;t have that book. I am not sure what color FEALO is, but we know for a fact that her real favorite is pink or purple, and the last question is the funniest of all.

In the last 276 days, Katelyn has stayed in bed 4 times. Typically we put her to bed, and she moves into a number of reasons of why she needs to stay up later, ranging everywhere from "I already took a nap" to "I have to poop". This involves either screaming at the top of her lungs until we come back in the room, or simply getting out of bed and opening her door and walking out of her room.

So, the only conclusion we can come to is that Katelyn in fact knows that she never goes right to sleep, and therefore is tormenting us with her sarcasm.

Three and half years old, and sarcastic. I think we are venturing into that realm of "wait until you have kids" that I used to hear from my folks.....

Even though I now wonder if the really mean it when they say I am their best friend.....I love my girls....

Pugly

I love/hate my dog. Right now we are in the hate period.

Today my dog cost me $410. She is lucky to have come home. Apparently it costs more then $410 to put a dog to sleep.

Bailey, my pug, is almost 6 years old. Today we learned that she had a triple chronic ear infection. She was partly deaf because of it. Also, her anal glands had to be popped. I don't want to give more details, but being that "popping anal glands" is in a vet's job description... I am thankful that I am a recruiter.

To put this in perspective, my daughter got tubes put in both her ears. This procedure will cost us $83 more then the dog's vet visit. I am grateful that my daughter does not wake up with ear infections anymore, and would pay a small fortune for it. On the other hand, Bailey will be lucky to get $8 more out of the household budget the rest of the year.

So, today we learned that Bailey is in perfect health except for her ears, her face, and her butt.

For those of you pet lovers who think I am being mean....Want a pug?

Because they are worth any amount of money, I love my girls....

Where have we been......

To the many patient followers of this blog, let me apologize for the lack of posts. (Okay, I know there are really 9 people who read this total, but that intro makes me feel better).

Anyhow, I have been negligent in writing posts to catch you up on the Minnetrista Smiths as believe it or not I have been leading a jet-set life touring across the country for a mix of vacation and work. I am writing this while sitting in my hotel in Louisiana....and yes, I was here on St. Patrick's Day. Yes....they are crazy here on St. Patrick's Day.

But, first off my wife and I went to Mexico. We went to Cozumel. It was perfect. My mom and Dad graciously watched our little ones again, we owe them,,,but we spent five days in the tropical paradise. Nothing too much of consequence other then to tell you the East side of island closes after dark. We learned this the hard way while trying to drive to a restaurant we heard was good. They forgot to mention that it was good 'in the daytime" We made it back safe, but not before seeing a wild herd of cows. Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I did not think there were wild cows in Mexico either. Much less a herd of them crossing a road in the middle of the night trying to get to the beach....

Then we were home for a week before we left for Las Vegas. As most of you know, I have never been to this town. This is for an amplitude of reasons, but mostly because I have never really been good at "moderation". My wife and I have talked about going once or twice over the years, but the time finally arrived. I will dedicate a post solely to this trip....including handing out my awards. (for those of you curious, this list of awards will include "Best Toilet Paper")

Home for a week, and then I head to New Orleans. I am here for work, touring a couple of our Phos Acid and Sulfuric Acid Plants. I arrived last night. I watched a St. Patrick's day parade. I don't even know where to start. The parade lasted 2 hours and it was a "small one". I will dedicate a post to this trip as well.

But, wanted to give you a quick update as to why the lack of posts. I get back to the cities tomorrow, and do not have any travel plans for some time so you can once again get excited to read about the exciting life and times of the Minnetrista Smiths on a more regular basis.

Even though I feel like they are growing up to fast without me being there....I love my girls.

An hour of my life I won't get back.....

Tonight I watched the Grammys. I will forever refer to this as "the hour I won't get back".

It started with Miley Cyrus, or Hannah (I am still not sure what her real name is), singing a duet with Taylor Swift about being 15. Not a bad song, but keep in mind, one is 16 and one is 19, and I am pretty sure that neither leads the life of a normal 15 year old.

Then it moved into rap music. I know I am old...but seriously I could not comprehend a thing these guys were saying. I don't know if I simply couldn't hear them, but if my suspicions are correct, they were not speaking English.

What happened to music? It is hard to make a scale sound magical. It is hard to blend harmonies into a melodic tune that puts the soul at ease. It is hard to capture the imagination and interest of a listener using rhythm and dynamics.

It is not hard to rhyme.

Yet something named Lil Wayne gets a Grammy for "Rap Album of the year".

You want to give out a Grammy, send one to Shakopee. I know a gal there with more talent in her pinky finger then "Lil Wayne" has ever known.

Do you want to hear magic? Do you want to see someone who plays music simply because she is in love with it? Do you want to know what passion sounds like? Then go to a little church on Sunday mornings in a southern suburb of Minnesota. People at this church don't sing. It is not because they don't know the words to the selected hymns....it is because the don't want to interrupt perfection.

We will call this piano playing aficionado Kerry because, well, ....that is her name. If you want to do the world a favor, then buy her CD, and play it often. It is a Christmas CD, and it should be played year round, for it is a far more deserving "Album of the Year".

Because I know they will understand the true meaning of good music, I love my girls....

Everything I need to know, I haven't learned yet....

So, as mentioned, my trip to Canada was great, but I did learn that I have a lot to learn. Let me explain:

My first trip to Canada was approximately 7 years ago, when my bride and I went to Toronto. She was going there on business, I was going because I had never been...and hey, who doesn't want to go to Toronto.

I was under an absurd notion that in Canada they spoke some type of foreign language. I do not know why I thought this, but I was surprised that the only thing I heard was an occasional "eh". So, when we went into a bar to get a drink, and the waitress asked what we wanted, I came back with 'I'm surprised you sound just like us". Looking back, what a jerk I must have sounded like...as if the United States was the center of the earth. Terrible.

Fast forward 7 years later. I am in a Subway ordering a foot long Subway Club in Esterhazy. The sandwich artist asks me what kind of cheese I would like. I respond with "American" as that is the kind of cheese I always request when asked in the States. The employee looks at me like I am crazy, and suddenly I have flashbacks to Toronto.... Unfortunately though, I have no idea what else this cheese could be called. I only know it as "American"....My mind starts whirring, maybe they call it "Canadian"..etc... so I finally just point to what I want and pray she doesn't spit in my sandwich.

Sure enough, when I had a chance the next day to talk with a couple of our Canadian employees, they assured me that there was no such thing as "American" cheese in Canada.

For those of you interested or that want to contribute, I am now starting a Canadian to US glossary. "Creamer" is the next entry as apparently it is called "Whitener" in Canada.

Even though they probably will not want to travel to Canada with me, I love my girls.

3000 feet Underground

I am back. As mentioned in my previous posting, I went to Canada. Part of my trip was to visit our mining operations. This meant I traveled to Esterhazy, Canada and visited our mines referred to as K1 and K2. I had the pleasure of joining three others on a tour of the K1 mine. This meant jumping in an elevator shaft and traveling at 1300 meters per minute down. Here is a picture of the elevator:

Next, we traveled through 4,000 miles of tunnels that we have mined seeing everything we have built. Below is one more picture.

Yes, those are full size Toyota Land Rovers with the top's cut off (the ceilings are pretty low in thte tunnels). The walls in this shop were 4 stories tall. Need I remind you that I am 3000 feet underground when I snap this photo....amazing. The machines that we use to mine are to big to send down the shaft, so we build them underground. Did I say amazing yet?

As always, I love my girls....

Short Story

To catch you up on a couple things:

1) I am going to Canada for work in two days. I don't mind traveling, but I will miss my family, and it is cold in Canada. Instead of hanging out with our friends or family at a Superbowl party...I will be in Canada...Esterhazy....Canada....

2) My wife makes me smile. In so many different ways....but here is a story I just recently learned.

My wife took our oldest to the pediatrician for her two year old checkup, (yes a year ago, but I learned this story last night). Any time my wife goes to the doctor, she typically prepares a list of questions. You need to know my wife to understand the level of detail she likes to get into, but since many of my readers don't know her let me provide an example.

A typical question for me at the pediatrician's office would be "Is Katelyn healthy?"

For my wife to ask the same question, it would go more like this: "Does she have a cold? Does she have a cough? She had a temperature for 3 minutes yesterday is that okay? There is something going around the daycare, should I keep her home? She looked tired yesterday, should I be worried about her rest? She did not eat all of her peas three weeks ago. is that a sign of an eating disorder? Do you think she has a vitamin D deficiency?" and so on and so on....

So, I choose to avoid the doctor visits if possible. This is not because I am not a supportive husband or loving father, but more because I think they see my wife coming and know they are going to be staying late tonight.

So on this visit to the Dr., my wife was going through her usual list of questions, mostly gearing up for what her real concern is. You see, Kelly had been watching the reality show 'Little People Big World' that is about a family of dwarfs, growing up and the trials and tribulations they have to deal with. After watching the show for a while, my wife was worried that although many people at the time just thought Katelyn was petite, what if she is really a dwarf?

So after getting through the normal set of questions, my wife finally having mustered up the courage asks Dr. Hackett: "Is Katelyn going to be a little person?"

Dr. Hackett looked at Kelly, and emphatically says "well....yes...."

All color leaves my wife's face. She is on the verge of crying but wants to remain strong in front of her child. She knows, thanks to the reality show, that "little people" can live relatively normal lives...

Then Dr Hackett continues: "Of course she is going to be little. You are 5 foot 1, and your husband is not that tall, although ruggedly handsome" (I may have added the last part)

All color returns to my wife's face when she realizes that the doctor did not understand the question as she meant it, and instead of her youngest being a dwarf...she is just going to be short.

Although destined to be vertically challenged, I love my girls...