My Map

I will post more snake pictures and stuff from Montana later this week, thought I would space it out a little bit so as not to bore anyone!

The map.  Oh the map.

So I bought my map and have it shipped to my house.  In my name.  I am not home when it comes, so hubby decides to open MY MAIL.  Addressed to me.  Not to Chris Nelson.  The map was supposed to be a surprise.

He opened it because he thought it was a fishing rod that I had gotten him for father's day.  But of course that was silly because I already gave him his father's day present early because I couldn't wait.

What a dork.  I never open his mail, although I just may start.  Because what if that teeny package addressed to Chris Nelson is really tickets to Italy for me?  I dream, and digress.

"The Map" is huge.  3 feet by 5 feet.  And as such, would cost a right arm to frame.  So I decided to build a frame out of 1"x4" boards.  Well actually, I call up my friend to see if her hubby has tools to build a frame.  I haul the babies over with the giant pieces of wood and her hubby helps.  More like her hubby builds it.  I held the boards while he cut, so I guess I kind of helped.  He offered to let me cut it, but I turned him down. Mostly because I was afraid that I would mess it up and look like a douche-bag (I have to admit, I love that word, it makes me feel like I am tiptoeing the line on being super naughty).  Plus, I figure since friend's hubby is a cop, he probably is the best person to do this, because cops are well trained with using their hands, you know in case they have to shoot someone, so in my book, this directly correlates with being good at frame making.

Then nice cop/carpenter hubby says that I really should back the map with something instead of directly stapling it to the frame so I didn't puncture a hole in it moving it around.  I kind of new that I should probably do this, but I was trying to avoid it.

So I went to Menards to buy this humongous piece of fiberboard.  4 feet X 8 feet.  I am trying to carry it with one hand, and  push the babies with the other.  Then I load this sucker up into the van, I wasn't sure it was going to fit, but I managed to jam it up and over the babies.  kembia started screaming the instant it went over her head.  I tried to convince her to pretend that it was a fort, but I don't think she knows what fort means because she cried the whole way home.

And I had to slouch down and half sit in the car for 15 miles because the board would go into the back of my head and I would have to sit as close to the steering wheel to drive otherwise.  So instead I pretend to be a midget and crouch underneath, hoping not get get into an accident and decapitate myself, and also hoping that I won't get pulled over by a cop for being a massive moron driving with an 8 ft. piece of material aimed at the back of my head.

I finally get home, and convince my elderly neighbor to help me cut it.  And by help me, I mean he cut it for me.  It was very nice of him, and he and his wife thought it was hilarious all the things that I was doing for this map.  They also thought my black kitchen was "brave".  Which I am pretty sure is a euphemism for "crazy".

Okay, so the map looks basically the same as when I posted a picture of it before.  But just pretend that you can tell this one is huge.

This is my crazy stripe wall, which I absolutely love and took me forever to do trying to level and move the tape all on my own.  Owen loves that we have a dead animal skull on our wall.  That's my dad's biggest mule deer that he shot.  He had the skull just hanging out in his garage (not on a wall) and I grabbed that sucker and brought it home.  I love things related to taxidermy and the like.  

Chris, bless his heart, came home and took one look at it and said it looked pretty good.  Man do I love that guy, lets his wife paint their kitchen black and doesn't haul me to my doctor and immediately start me on some meds!