Have Media Will Travel

A blog about outdoor adventure, family travel, national parks, media, technology, marketing, fitness and me.

humor

“Dirty Jobs at Johnsons,” Episode 1

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So, you’ll recall from a previous post that my husband, Jerry, recently had a 4-level neck fusion operation. He’s doing great, but part of his rehab requirement is to be on his best behavior. (Read: no lifting or bending his neck, etc.)

As part of his rehab I’ve had to take over most of the “heavy lifting” at home. I knew Jerry was a huge help, but now I really know. Now on my list of things to do is scooping up the dog’s poop and hauling garbage.

At the same Jerry’s rehab started, school started. Our older sons, Wolf and Hayden, ages 9 and 7 respectively, have new chore lists as a result. They are now scooping Taiga’s poop among other dirty chores. I’m grateful to their help I can tell you that! For the record, Fin, our 2-year-old son, is trying to help them as well.

Wolfie has ambitions to be a movie producer. It was his idea to create “Dirty Jobs” episodes while capturing them doing some of the yuckier chores they now have as their responsibilities.

Here is Episode 1 – waiting for, and then disposing of our husky, Taiga’s, scat:

Enjoy!

Losing Books, our Minds … and Time

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Day 3 of our Spring Break vacation found us on a road trip.

It started with a laugh. My husband, Jerry, turned 46 on April 6. So we prepared breakfast in bed for him like a good family should and then he opened a small batch of gifts we had packed for the occasion. Among the gifts he received was a book from me called Younger Next Year. It’s well known for its wisdom and use of humor to enlighten about how men can “grow old gracefully,” and uh, even improve their memory as they age.

Here, Jerry holds the book for the first/last time.
Here, Jerry holds the book for the first/last time.

Well too bad he didn’t read it before we left.

Jerry had set it on the roof of our car outside the yurt in Mancos State Park for a staged family photo. 10 miles later I asked for the book figuring I’d read some excerpts out loud for both of our benefits as we motored down what would be a long and open road that day.

It was then Jerry said some cuss words and lamented the fact he forgot he had set it on top of the car. At the same time we passed a Neighborhood Watch photo that featured a bandit on it. The boys started talking about how it was probably a bandit that stole the book.

Neighborhood Bandits?
Neighborhood Bandits?

After a few minutes of Jerry racking his brain and looking throughout the car, and around the car, we decided to back-track on a bit of a treasure hunt. Wolf, our 9-year-old, said, “This can be our geocaching adventure we talked about.”

And besides, so what, we weren’t in a hurry… we were on vacation, right?

We backtracked and got out looking in the weeds, and returned all the way to our yurt site, but to no avail. All we can hope is that someone –– other than Jerry –- will age gracefully as a result of my gift.

After lots of extra driving on what was already going to be a drive day, we turned our thoughts toward Four Corners.

As you can see from this video, the boys were less than thrilled to learn we’d be spending the bulk of another day motoring down the road.