How one should NOT get ladder ball balls out of a tree ...

... and why one should not get them stuck up there in the first place. :)

Check out Leah's side of the story as well!!!

It was just another ordinary day. Loving the sunshine, loving having Grandma and Grandpa from Wyoming visit, loving being outside, taking silly pictures with best buddy Leah, trying to play ladder ball and completely not getting it, getting bored of completely not getting it and then trying to throw the little bolo balls (ladder ball balls) at my best bud with my feet. Ahhh, yeah, that didn't work. Then, being more weird then usual, I decided I was going to see if I could throw the bolo balls with my feet and make it on the ladder. :) Yeah, this is the point were the little common sense man should have appeared and said, "I don't think that's such a good idea." Or maybe he did and I just blew him off. Either way, I kicked the bolo balls and away they sailed. Up, up, up past the ladder ball thing-y, up, up, up, into the sky and down, down, down onto a tree branch. Yup, should have listened to Mr. Common Sense. And not only were they up in the tree, but they were way up(!!) in the tree, I couldn't even reach them with the very, very high ladder that we have. *Sighs*

Okay, as I'm writing this, I realize what a complete weird-o I am and I question why I'm writing this for all the world to see. :) If you prefer to avoid really weird, strange people and really strange happenings I would recommend that you cease reading right now. And please, just so you know, I'm not usually this weird, :) so I ask that you do not assume that the very weird way I'm acting in the videos is the way I always act. :) 'Cause it's not.

I also realize that loading all of the videos will take a substantial amount of time, so I'm going to write the gist of what's going on in the videos above them so if you choose not to load them you'll still get the basic idea of what's going on. Also, I'm sorry about the shakiness of the videos, it's hard to hold a little camera still and laugh at the same time. :)

So yeah, this is the video of me trying to throw the bolo balls at Leah with me feet, obviously that didn't work so swell. Then I tried, as I said, to throw the balls at the ladder and then succeeded in getting them stuck up in the tree. How smart is that?

The bolo balls stuck around the branch (the little blue things). They weren't just in the tree, they were on either side of the branch.

So, we decided to survey the damage. This is where, when we realized what 'fun' it would be to get them down, we should have called for help. But, feeling guilty and responsible for getting them up in the tree, I thought it only right that I should get them down from the tree.

See where I circled? That's about where the balls were. Up ... nice and high.

After a quick survey of the problem I decided it would be best to try and throw a lager ball at the smaller bolo balls and try to knock them down. So I produced a softball. I tried throwing the ball numerous times, failing each time (I decided to spare all ye peeps from that very embarrassing vid. :)). So Leah, softball child, decided to give it a try. I love how she takes off running away from the ball when it comes falling down. :) She's amazingly brave! Wahoo, go Leah!

After all three of us kids, Leah, Ethan and I, tried our hand at throwing the softball at the bolo balls, Dad came to save the day. He threw it a few times unsuccessfully. The last time he threw the softball it went up and then straight down onto Leah's freshly planted cantaloupe plant. Needless to say, he didn't retrieve the ball, but quickly decided he'd tried enough and headed inside. Leah was quite disturbed that things kept landing on her pour little cantaloupe. :)

Obviously the whole softball thing wasn't workin' out so swell, so I looked for a new weapon ... I found a board. :) I threw that many unsuccessful times as well, as did Ethan. :) Actually, all my plans were unsuccessful, Leah was the one who actually got it down. :) But in this video I'm standing with the board under the tree, ready to fire and dying of laughter telling myself, aloud, that our family is totally normal. Every one gets bolo balls stuck in trees and then throws very large pieces of wood at them to get them down, right? :) As I was dying of laughter Ethan chucked the softball up again and then the softball got stuck in the tree. Yes, things were flowing quite smoothly I think.

Yes, not only did we get the bolo balls stuck up in the tree, Ethan managed to get the softball stuck up in the tree as well. I have never seen anything like that before.

You might have guessed that the whole throwing of the board thing didn't work. :) So Ethan grabbed his soft pellet gun and tried to shoot the softball out of the tree. Why? I'm not really sure, because his pellets are smaller then a pea. You might have also guessed that the gun thing didn't work either. :) He did, however, manage to shoot some leaves down.

As the gun didn't work I went to work looking for the next object to throw and I found a very, very large sick. :) I tossed it straight up quite a few times, then switched to throwing it like a 'harpoon' as Leah said. Although I didn't manage to get the bolo balls down I got the softball down. :) Wow, 'mazing! :) And I did it without taking out Leah's cantaloupe, which is a HUGE plus. :)

Soooo ... after the stick failed we reverted back to the softball. Having that fail again I decided that I would just jump and my fingers would slid perfectly around the branch and that I would just pull the branch down and retrieve the bolo balls from the grasp of the tree ... hummm, how high can I jump? Probably not the 10-15 (or maybe 20) feet needed. Also, if any of you have seen the Veggie Tails 'Jonah' then you know the part in them movie when the little caterpillar thing is listening to the tape and it's telling him that he's a great something or other. :) That's what Leah was telling me when I was jumping. :)

As I couldn't reach the branch from the ground I scaled the tree in hopes that I would be able to push the branch down from the top ... yeah, I couldn't even see the bolo balls from in the tree. So much for that idea. :)

Finally we broke out the ladder. As we should have long before. So Leah climbed the ladder, softball in hand. (We have such a faithful softball, we used it three times, getting it stuck once and it still stayed around. Such a nice softball.) She was so sacred up on the ladder and she was trying to keep her hat in place ... needless to say she didn't throw it very well but it makes for great footage. :) So she slowly made her way back down the ladder. This is where the tree turned against us.

When Leah was climbing down the ladder the tree threw this branch at us. Okay, okay, I know, not possible, but hey, if I was the tree that we were attacking, I'd throw something too.

Celebrity sighting!!! It's Rudolf, the non-red nose non-reindeer. A.K.A. me. (I circled my "antlers" so you can see them better. :) ) Shortly after Leah climbed down the ladder, Ethan climbed up, and then he pulled on one of the branches to see if we could pull the bolo balls to a place where I could reach them, and in the process Ethan pulled this very large branch out of the tree. My face looks a little weird in the picture, I think Leah took it just as I started to laugh.

Our last plan of attack was actually Ethan's plan. I had run inside the house to get something and while in there Mom made of list of things she needed from the store. So I grabbed my purse and headed out the front door. When I exited the house Ethan was on the ladder with, I kid you not, a rain gutter, or more properly a downspout ... a very, very long downspout. :) It was certainly an interesting sight. :) I grabbed the camera from Leah and filmed as she bravely climbed the ladder with the extremely long downspout (after Ethan climbed down after he tried and failed). Finally success!!! (This movie is VERY long, just so you know.)

So in all, our plan of attack went something like this:

1. The softball
2. The board
3. The gun and softball
4. The stick
5. Back to the softball
6. Jumping to grab the branch
7. Climbing the tree
8. Setting up the ladder to grab the branch
9. On the ladder with faithful softball
10. The downspout

One time I threatened to grab a shovel. :) But I didn't.

The little golf ball sized things that we were after. Such big trouble the little things caused. In all it took us nearly 40 minutes to knock the balls out of the tree. :) So the point of this whole post is this ... don't play ladder ball, and if you do, don't throw the balls with your feet, and if you do, don't get them suck in trees, and if you do, you're on your own.

And that, dear Peeps, is our story. :) Was it worth waiting for?