Simply Baffled

Ok, for the most part, I keep my political opinions to myself.  Or at least only air them to small groups of trusted people.  It's not that I mind "debating" my beliefs or opinions but most people can't simply have a conversation in which we disagree and move along with life normally afterwards.  I can.  I don't mind a healthy, intelligent debate.  That being said, I am so freaking ticked right now.  Let me first say that I'm all for this idealistic notion that the Affordable Care Act says it wants to accomplish.  Everyone gets health care. no one gets turned down.  Fantastic.  What I am absolutely against is the punishment that my single income family receives because we do things right by electing to have workplace insurance.  Disregarding the fact that our insurance rates have more than doubled in the last 12 months, can someone please explain to me why my husband was told he had to pay nearly triple what a person without insurance would have to pay for the exact same immunization!!!  Why is this ok?  Why does my single income, family of 5 pay $700 a month for insurance and on top of that, we have to pay double to triple more than someone without insurance at the doctor's office.  Someone please explain to me why this is ok?  How is this fair or even reasonable?!?!?!  Argh!!!!!

I'm done.  

Metal Earth: Gifts

For my father in laws birthday I bought him this: Steam Locomotive.  He likes to put things together. He's got lots of free time (lots!!).  And he likes steam engines.  Perfect gift, right?!?!  

After putting it together recently, he questioned whether I got the gift at "some old person torture store". You can read more about it here: Little Engine Blog

After discussing the difficulty with David, David was inspired to come home and put his set together. For Father's Day, I got him a set too.  His set had 4 landmarks: The Eiffel Tower, One World Trade Center, Big Ben and The Leaning Tower of Pisa.  

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You can see how small the details are.  This plate contains all the pieces for The Eiffel Tower.  

For your information, I found a large selection at Barnes and Nobles, which is where I got there.  After further investigation, there is an even larger selection online.  Think Millennium Falcon.  

It took David about 40 minutes to put together this one.  

It took my father in law two days to put his together.  

In all fairness, the steam locomotive is supposed to be one of the most difficult ones to put together.  

Anyways, all of ours are put together.  It problem took David two hours to put all four together.  They look.  Although Bob griped about the tedious effort in putting his together, he said he enjoyed it.  I'll give Bob this: he doesn't have good eyes and the little pieces do put a lot of strain on your eyes.   

A Night at the Creek

A couple weeks ago, we spent an evening at the creek with my dad.  He recently acquired a go cart that he's working on, to get back in good running order, for the girls to play with.  It runs now, but still needs some minor repairs.  At the time of the picture, it did not run.  The girls managed to have fun with it regardless of it's not running status.  

Visits to Bayside drive would not be complete without 4 Wheeler rides.  

Hannah and Grandpa fried some deer meat.  

My happy boy.  

I love this picture, and those goobers. 

More go cart play.

Hannah, playing around in the barn.

Riley, playing in the barn.  Her play consisted of picking up handfuls of sawdust and throwing them up in the air, over her head.  She had a bath that morning.  

The after effects of saw dust throwing.

Grandpa and Joshua, with similar, solemn, expressions.

These next four photo's are what Hannah's truck looks like now.  

This is what it will look like.

My dad does have the body, it's just outside of the barn so that he could more easily work on it.