My jury duty that is.
I get called pretty much every year for jury duty. Sometimes more than once. It makes me wonder if there is anyone else living in La Plata County. Ya know, like Mark Palmer? He almost never gets called....
Anyway, most of the time the trial gets cancelled so I don't even have to go to the courthouse. One time I had to go in but after waiting for an hour they told us that they didn't need us anymore. But not yesterday.
Yesterday I dropped off my kids at my friend Tiff's house and raced to town to be at the courthouse by 8:15. I was actually early despite the fact that I had to park 4 blocks away. Unfortunately when I got upstairs to the courtrooms and was going through the metal detector I was told that my cell phone was not allowed at all in the building and I'd have to take it back and put it in my car. I misread the notices telling us this. I figured I could have my phone turned off in my purse, kinda like an airplane, and then use it to update Tiff during my breaks.
Nope.
I had to hike the 4 blocks back to drop off my phone. Booger. Now I was officially late and when I entered the courtroom where the other 70 people sat, I had to stand in the back because I was the last person there and the seats were all taken. Fun times.
By the way, we were told that we couldn't facebook, blog, tweet or google anything about the trial as long as we were jurors or perspective jurors. I was so sad that I couldn't whip out my phone and take pictures for this blog that I knew I was going to be writing. Didn't think it'd go over to well with the sheriffs that were there...
We watched a video about the wonders of our justice system - I sound sarcastic and I kinda am, but in all truthfulness I'm very thankful for the system we have. While definitely imperfect, there's no where else I'd rather be tried for something then here. Not that I'm planning on committing any crimes anytime soon though...
So. After the video I found a seat that was vacated by another woman who left. The bailiff called 25 people who were called the panel. They were the first 25 to be screened for the trial. I wasn't one of them so I figured my chances of going home were looking pretty good. That is until we went into the actual courtroom with the judge and lawyers and stuff.
Once there they asked people if the weren't able to serve and what their reasons were. I figured being inconvenienced and homeschooling my children wasn't a good enough excuse to leave so I didn't even try. I did, however, pray that God would get me out of it. It's not that I didn't want to serve. Actually the case sounded interesting and I thought it'd be great to serve. But this week is an insane one and one I'd rather have more time to do the insanity in rather than spend 3 maybe 4 days in court.
After the first question a couple jurors from the panel of 25 had to leave and then be replaced. And one of those replacements was yours truly. I became juror #2. Ugh. OK God this isn't exactly what I had prayed for.
I spent the next 3 hours being informed some more on the legal system and asked many questions. I was only asked two questions directly. One being if I understood what it meant that there are 2 parts to a crime - the act and the mental state. I said that I did. One was whether or not the act was committed and the other was why. I thought later {didn't say this to the lawyer} that I do that all day everyday. I try to figure out if the act had been committed and if so, why. Accident? Intentional? Anger? Pre-meditated? I realized I'm a judge and jury everyday of my parenting life. The monetary pay is much worse however.
I was also asked if I thought it was a good idea that we have laws in place so that we can defend ourselves or others. To which I said yes. Again I thought {but didn't say to the lawyer} that if someone was about to hurt my children or husband I'd do everything I could to stop it from happening and I'm thankful that I wouldn't be put in jail for it.
Lots of questions were asked. Lots and lots of boring answers were given. I don't know what it is but there's something about being questioned by a judge or a lawyer that makes you want to spill your guts. Probably out of fear that they already know the answer and you'll get in trouble if you leave it out. So everyone who knew a lawyer or someone in law enforcement spilled their guts. Everyone who'd ever been to a trial, whether as a juror or part of the trial, spilled their guts. Even if it was completely irrelevant. That's what took forever.
Over the course of the 3 hours many people on the panel were excused (including a woman who thought that if the guy was arrested then he must have done something - to which the defense attorney excused her immediately). But not juror #2. No I sat there listening and hoping that they'd find something wrong with me.
After a couple rounds of the attorneys excusing people (for reasons we didn't know) there were 18 of us left out of the original 70! I was planning childcare and trying to rework my week in my head totally thinking I'd be here the rest of the week. When what should I hear?! But "Ms. Palmer you have been excused with our thanks for your time." Oh my goodness it took everything I had in me not to celebrate right then and there! Part of me was disappointed because I wasn't going to hear the rest of the trial - like I said, it was interesting - but the rest of me was relieved that God had answered my little selfish prayer to get my week accomplished.
So I'm going to go do that right now.
This one, Ashlee Biessenberger of AshleeJordonPhotography, needed some models for her brochure she's doing. She wanted to photograph a family and some kids. What do you know? We are a family and we have kids! Perfect! :)
Kate got Tangled
And Jack got Cars
We had lunch at the Bayfield park today and Jack had a nasty, disgusting, major, got-on-all-of-his-clothes blow-out. So he finished off the day in a pull-up and it didn't much matter to this almost 3 yr old.
And Kale decided it was a perfect day to go all-in at the swimming hole. Brrrr!
Then I saw his plan. Take a tiny piece of toilet paper and try and pick it up. Sam was not having it. It actually looked like it jumped when Kale touched it. That kinda scared both Kale and me.
Our next plan included poking it with a stick and trying to push it out. It worked. Sam climbed out of the sink (so glad I had put the cardboard on before!) and slithered behind a water bottle up against a wall. Seriously I kept thinking "Gotta take pictures of this for the blog! People aren't going to believe this! Mark isn't going to believe this!"
We pushed it off the counter into the box.
Sam wasn't liking the idea of going in a box but I really wasn't liking the idea of Sam going in my bed, so I kept poking him!!! Eventually he fell in and I felt so relieved! Carrying Sam in a box was so much better than seeing it in my sink.
After we got Sam outside Jack had to inspect it. I think if Jack were older he probably would've picked up the snake for us.
We released Sam back into our yard. Someone on facebook told me that I shoulda killed it but there was no way I could've squished a snake! A spider is one thing. A snake is so much bigger with so much more blood and guts. Nasty!
I'm not totally sure how Sam got into the pipes. I have a feeling that there is a crack in our pipe out in the back and Sam slithered in there but that's all I can think of. We've gotta go look around and see. But I'm confident that Sam came in through the drain. Oh please Lord let there be no more snakes!
None of us had ever ridden it so this was the maiden voyage for all of us.
My seat partner and his uber cheesy smile. Thanks bud.
We rode the trolley to the Rec Center and played at the park for a while. I'm pretty sure if we'd driven here it wouldn't have been as fun but because it was a special trip they had a good time.
But of course, as most Fridays go, we had a bit of a sad moment when Kale got super wet on the slide (it rained the night before and he didn't see the water at the bottom).
They were fine though...probably because Kale had dried the slide off...
Then we headed back on a different trolley.
And hiked on over to the Chocolate Factory and used a gift card that we had to get some yummy treats.
Whew. FF accomplished in the midst of chaos. Success!
So. After the video I found a seat that was vacated by another woman who left. The bailiff called 25 people who were called the panel. They were the first 25 to be screened for the trial. I wasn't one of them so I figured my chances of going home were looking pretty good. That is until we went into the actual courtroom with the judge and lawyers and stuff.
Anyway, it's actually a really great market. Tons of food and things to do. There was a fine arts fair going on at the same time so we had plenty of stuff to look through. They also had the old schoolhouse building and farmhouses open with people dressed up telling you about life 150 years ago in Golden. It was seriously happening in Golden this weekend!
Heading to school.
Can you just feel the excitement in the air?
Heading from the Arts Fair to the Market...Kate with her Aunt Katie (my NY sis)
Mark, Jack, Katie, Kate, my dad and Lilah
They have free carriage rides through historic Golden so we hopped on and went for a quick 10 minute ride through an old neighborhood.
The boys side
The girls side. Me with the Kates.
One of the houses we went by had a killer tree house. It's made of metal! The kids wanted us to build one. Nice except we don't have one tree on our property that big...or thousands of dollars of metal to use up...
After the carriage ride they had Popsicle treats.
Then slid down the slide that led to...
the giant, burning hot, metal trout. I have no idea how Kale is actually sitting on it. They were so hot!
On the walk back to the car, super-aunt (that's her super-hero name) put the chubby, sweet baby to sleep.
We left Golden after lunch to head back to D-town. We encountered a bad accident just two hours into the trip. We sat in traffic for almost an hour as they cleared the road.
The kids did really well despite the extra hour in the car. This was Jack during the stop...
We made it home, unpacked, put the kids to bed, then crashed ourselves. We had a great quick trip to G-town.
