Thursday, July 26, 2007

Check out my killer life jacket



Tube-tacular

Robin tubing
Me tubing
After our night camping, we went to Robin's parents house. They live on a lake and were kind enough to come and let us boat/tube/hot tub. We had a gorgeous day and the water was very warm. If you know me, you know I'm not a huge water person but I decided to be adventurous and go tubing. With my lifejacket on extra tight, I took the plunge and enjoyed the 40-45 mph boat ride while hanging on for dear life and screaming. I learned a very important lesson, though. When going tubing, do not wear a two piece. I repeat, do not wear a two piece. When you fall off the tube (which is inevitable), the bottom of your swimsuit will try to come off in the lake. That's right, folks. I almost lost the bottom of my suit in the lake. Thanks to some quick thinking and some excellent leg maneuverability on my part, it was saved. Whew!

A First



The kids (and I for that matter) had a first while camping. We brushed our teeth outside. It was a lot closer than making the 1/4 mile trek to the bathrooms.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

As I always say, they gotta pass out sometime, right?


Who's Mommy's little fella?


It's so hard to pick up chicks when your Mom's giving you a kiss.

The OTHER reason why there was camping

Running to get to the lake
Rest period


Check out my sweet ride
Yes, it was so the kids could enjoy some crazy fun swimming around like fools in the lake at the campground. They had a GrrrrrrrrrrEAT time splashing and playing around in the lake. They took turns with the floaties (see also blue rhino and yellow duck). Altho I like the safety the floaties provide, I do not enjoy the kid's false sense of confidence that they are good swimmers even without them.

The Iron Chef



We all know why Aron wanted to go camping so bad, right? For the glutonous eating bonanza that is camping. Between Aron, Jeff, and Robin they ate nearly 2 loaves of white bread in approximately 24 hours. Every time I turned around, I saw Aron with his beloved pie irons in hand getting ready to make himself
1.) Another blueberry pie
2.) Another panini (again, something that I thought was too g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s for camping) or
3.) Another breakfast panini (egg, cheese, bacon all smooshed in the pie iron--an Aron exclusive).

Hmm...this doesn't seem like roughing it...




Now maybe I'm a purist. Maybe I'm an idealist. Maybe I'm just a little on the naive side but when you're camping, aren't you supposed to, you know, do without some of the luxuries? Somehow, I don't think that you're supposed to have a French Press coffee maker, a grill, and kebobs when you're "roughing it."

Bean-tastic!








Ok, so we all know that camping is all about the food you eat while you sit around an open campfire, right?

So, Robin, Jeff, and Aron come up with the bright idea to take a can of beans and stick it in the fire to heat up like they did in the Civil War days (wait, was that in the Civil War? I don't remember. I'm sure Dad will post a comment and let me know). I think it might have been some sort of odd tribute to my Dad and the heinous/awful/hideous/hell-like/unbelievably bad family vacations he planned for us when we were little (if you haven't heard of them, let me know and I'll fill you in the horror that was the vacations of my youth. There was no Disneyland I'll tell you that much). Anyhoos, so despite the fact that we had a perfectly good pot to cook the beans in, off they went into the fire. Here's the bad part--no one realized we didn't have a can opener, thus, the above pictures of Robin with a large knife hacking away at the can. I'm sure there were shards of metal in the can (how could there not be? She was opening the can WITH A KNIFE FOR GOODNESS SAKE!) but they were eaten none-the-less. Well, they were eaten by Aron and Robin anyway.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I'll take "Verbal Children for 100, Alex"

The answer would be "Luke." He's starting to talk up a storm. He's really starting to string together phrases and sentences as well as initiate conversation. This evening when I got home. He turned to me and said "MyMy coming over night?" Most Tuesdays when Grammie's watching the kids, Myles will come over and play for a while so Robin can go to a meeting but he hadn't come by the time I came home so he was curious to know where he was.

He's also started to dream and remember his dreams. He woke up from his nap last week and turned to me and said "Poppy...nuggets...fries....PIE." I asked him if he just saw Poppy and he grinned and nodded and said "yeah...poppy...nuggets....FRIES." This translates to me that he had a dream that Poppy came over and brought McDonald's (which he sometimes does on Tuesdays). I told Poppy this and so he decided to drop in for a visit today.

Happy Birthday to me!



My unit at work helped celebrate my birthday today. One of my coworkers brought in her infamous chocolate cake to help us celebrate in an oh-so-tasty way. I walked in my house after work and set my box of leftover cake on the kitchen table. I ran upstairs to change my clothes and came down approx 2 minutes later and this is what I found. My children had pirated my cake! If only they weren't so cute--I might be able to get mad at them! Little rascals!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Aunt Annie visit!




Aunt Annie and Uncle Kevin came for a visit on Saturday so we all went to Lindy and Steve's for a little BBQ. Good times were had by all.

Luke got hold of the hose and well, I think you know what happened after that. Doesn't he look sneaky coming out of Lindy's little shed?

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Sparkle shots

The real reason I put this shot in the blog is because I know my babysitter checks it. Her dad owns a greenhouse and he sold me the flowers in the bed. I hope she shows him and he can marvel at the fact that I've not managed to kill them yet.
Some of us take our sparkling seriously, ay?

Who let this guy have a sparkler?


Thanks for the sparkler, Aunt Robbie, I think I'll set Uncle Jeff's crotch on fire...


Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Eating Out(side)

You gotta have energy if you're walking around the park!
Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, GOOOOO!
Ella the fearless leader
Speed? I AM speed!
Aron and Ella have been in a phase lately where they want to eat outside and have picnics. Luke doesn't really care how he eats as long and as there's food involved. We went to the State Park that's by us on Monday night to have a picnic there and then take a walk on the trails.


Ella was the leader as we walked around. She kept an eye out for the trees marked with the green dots because we were on the green trail. She had a blast looking for them but kept doubting if we were going the right way if she didn't see one for 10 feet.

He's probably going to be mad at us someday for this...


but he really wanted to walk around the house like this. I guess that's what happens when you have an older sister who has 10,000 purses.
P.S. that's Aron's finger in the picture, not mine

This piece of FLARE is for you, Amy!


Biker Gang



At some point, the kids started playing bumper bikes. Hmm, seems like some responsible adult should've stopped them...

Blades of Glory



I bladed around a little while Aron had the kids off playing soccer. When they were done, the kids ran over to me and wanted to try them on and ride. The funny thing is that Luke did quite a bit better than Ella when I steered them around with the blades on. He was able to keep his feet together and going in the same direction. When Ella had them on, her feet went every which way including directly away from each other! I guess Luke will have to be the one to earn the prestigious Roller Blading Athletic Scholarship to college.

Soccer!

She could be the next Mia Hamm but I don't think she wants to put down her calculator long enough to practice.
Aron, Ella, and Luke are waaaaaaay back there
We have a soccer complex down the road from our house. Aron and I used to go roller blading there B.K. (you know, "Before Kids") sometimes because there's very rarely any cars or other people back there unless it's soccer season. We took the kids there for the first time today. We brought along all kinds of fun things to play with like our soccer ball, bikes, and my roller blades.