our neighbor, the most racist man in the hood

i can't find the camera usb hookup.
there are lots of pictures of things that have
been happening in our little life.

but since the camera usb hookieupthingie is mia,
ill have to just talk.

Things are going well in the charles-bodtcher household.
(yes. to the dismay of my brother reed, i did
hyphenate my name. not because i am a feminist beezy.
not because i don't want to commit and take travis's name.
it's because im really proud of my charles name.
my dad's dad, papa charles, impressed something
on me at a young age.
he told us at a family reunion that we were charles's.
and not to ever disgrace that name. to keep the name proud and clean.
i tried my best to do that. family honor thing.
and i love my family so very much. and i like being a charles.
i like being a bodtcher, too.)

back to the charles-bodtcher household.
we are doing great.
travis has a new nickname for me.
"voldemort"
really travis, you shouldn't be so sweet to me. but he is :)
last night he made me dinner-
pork tacos, spanish rice, black beans, asparagus.
he bought me a brand new car. a black toyota corolla.
oh we were such a great team
with the salesmen. the good cop bad cop routine.
travis played bad cop, "im not paying that. it's too high"
i played good cop. flirt cop. "oh show me the pictures of your kids!
i see they got their good looks from you."
*winks. (don't argue with what works)
the salesman did score some points with me,
saying i look like katie holmes.
(i totally don't)
flattery works on me. try it sometime.
anyway, travis makes a big deal about calling it my car.
"sweetheart, can i borrow your keys?"
but he doesn't like for me to drive.
I did hyphen my name, but that doesn't mean i don't
like for him to drive, and open the door for me. :)
and still pay for dinner. even though both of our names
are on the account.

what else? well, we planted two blossoming pear trees
in the front yard.
thanks randy and julie, the great inlaws :)travis bought me a lilac tree. it's a hybrid of tree and bush.
i dug up all the weeds. and some bulbs,
before i knew what they were. oops.
spiders, as afore mentioned, are the bane of my life.
apparently spiders love gardens.
this was me yesterday in the flower garden.
"die! die! die! die!" *spears spider with shovel,
forgetting to just use shoes.
*sprays the spider killshot style.
hope the neighbors saw the show.

speaking of neighbors,
apparently the man across the street is a racist.
like i said, many of our neighbors are old. dying. deceased.
the man who lives across the street is older. grumpier.
so dave, the guy who sold us our house,
owns a house two doors down from us.
it's for rent. dave was allegedly showing the house
to a black guy who showed interest.
the old grumpy man across the street told dave.
"don't rent to that guy;
we already have enough foreigners in this neighborhood!"
ps there is one mexican man living on the street.
everyone else is pasty white. and
the black guy was totally american. not foreign.so then the grumpy guy says, "and this house you
sold to the bodtchers. it still looks
like the boydells live there."

**side note: the boydells were the super old people who lived in the house before us. don't worry they didn't die or anything. but they didn't really do much in the yard. or anywhere else.

so the grumpy old guy was sitting outside
when we were doing yardwork the other day.
i made a huge show of waving to him.
"how are you today" i asked, way too sweetly.
"doing fine. it's looking better over there." he answered.
"we're doing it all for you!" i shouted, smiling so sincerely.

travis and i are going to secret santa him this year,
see if we can't get him to lighten up a bit. :)

but that's life.

also, my brother reed got his mission call to sacramento, ca.
pretty excited about that.
and my brother chad is having a hard time.
please remember him in your prayers?

thanks love you :)