See, I can post a happy post. . . .

No deep and pondering thoughts this post, just some pics to let you guys get to know us a little better.

We are all a little silly and we love to have fun.

Here is M. on the podium at her state gymnastics meet last year. Don't you love the beautiful smile?

Here she is while up at the cabin

And here she is at her 5th grade graduation:

Here is a very excited M. She found a chocolate chip cookie the same size as her head:

She is not the only silly one. Here is her sister, J.

The girls together:

Unfortunately, this strangeness does not limit itself to the children:

The lazy man's way to mow grass on a very steep hill:

At the aquarium:

On your mark:

Get set:

GO!!

We also like to take silly pictures of things other than each other.

A tiny froggy that M. found:

M.'s hair curling in the humidity:

Apparently silliness is contagious. Here is our BB curling up with the bear skin rug at the cabin:

And poor BB trying to figure out how she is going to sleep with those two hooligans sleeping under her:

So, I know this was not a very exciting post, but my last several posts have been so serious and verbose, so just wanted to lighten things up some.

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

As always, let me know you were here.

I can't believe it happened . . . .

Alas! Woe is me! You will never guess what has happened in the very short time frame of 2 ½ weeks. I became spoiled. Life will never be the same again. I will long for the the “spoiling era” for weeks to come. For months. For years.

Let me explain. For those of you that know me personally, this will not be news to you, but look below at my normal weekly schedule when it is NOT Christmas break:)

Monday


6:00 a.m. – wake up
7:00 a.m. – leave for work/school
7:30 a.m. – arrive at work/school – work straight through until 3:05
3:10 p.m. – leave to come home
3:30 p.m. – arrive home
3:30 – 4:10 p.m. – eat dinner, change clothes, check homework that was done in the car, and leave for gymnastics (coaching for me, practice for the girls)
4:20 p.m. – clock in at the gym
4:30 p.m. – 8:00 – coach
8:00 – 9:00p.m. – wait on daughter to get done with practice
9:30 p.m. – whenever - arrive home, grade more homework, clean up dinner dishes from earlier, do a load of laundry, say hi to hubby. Go to bed



Tuesday – Friday


Lather, rinse, repeat with only slight changes of a half hour or so here or there



Saturday


7:45 – take J. to gym
10:00 – clock in at gym
12:45 – clock out at gym
1:30 – leave gym with J.
2:00 – get home and eat lunch, enjoying the fact that Hubby and M. did all the grocery shopping
Then, there are several hours of housework, homework, etc.
That evening, I work on the Sunday school lesson that I will be teaching the next morning.




Sunday


8:00 – leave for church
9:45 – teach Sunday school class
Lunch, errands, etc.
5:30 – leave for small groups
6:00 – 7:00 – small groups
7:30 – home, dinner, bags ready for school, etc.
8:30 – panick because I got nothing done this week



Well, since school has been out, here has been my schedule for the last 2 weeks:


Monday – Saturday
Sleep in
Eat late breakfast
Eat lunch
Take a nap
Eat dinner that was cooked by husband (he took 2 weeks off as well.)
Watch a movie or play a game
Go to bed
I coached occasionally during the break, but not near as many hours as normal. Sunday school classes were on break during the holidays as well, so I did not need to prepare a lesson for a few weeks.

Needless to say, I probably gained 850 pounds due to cruddy eating habits and zero activity. And I loved every minute of it. Now I’m back to both jobs. And I miss my cozy couch, squishy pillow, and snuggly blanket. Sniff sniff.

Leave me a comment and let me know how your break was, or if you had one. If you did not get a break, what would you do if you did have 2 weeks off?



Reminder:
(I am not sure if my notifications have worked for my last couple of updates because I would start my updates one day and finish them the next. I think the date would throw the notifier thingy off. So be sure to scroll down and read the last couple of posts. Then, at the end of the post, click on "comments" and let me know you were here. If you do not have a google account, click "anonymous" in the comments section, but be sure to sign your name after your comment. )

Camping trip

I realized that I never posted any pictures from our camping trip last month. So, without further ado, here they are.

Most of the clan that went:




For those of you that know my youngest, you know that she loves animals. All animals. Except for cockroaches, those freak her out a little. Here are her and her sister with a rabbit that was kept in the main office of the camp grounds.

Now, here she is snuggling up with the rabbit. She wanted to try to take it home. Naturally.

Here she is with a chicken. That she caught. By her self. She wanted to take it home.

Here is a huge grasshopper cricket thing that she caught. She wanted to take it home.

Here she is with a squirrel. A pet squirrel that one of the women there raised. She wanted to take it home. Notice a theme here???

(By the way, this picture was taken in the restaurant part of the office at the campground. Notice the dog sitting next to M. and the squirrel? It sat in the restaurant the entire time we were eating breakfast in the hopes that it would get some scraps. The bunny was right outside the restaurant part - in the store. There were a dog and a squirrel running around where we were eating. I'm not thinking the health department visits there much.)

There is actually a strange story about the squirrel. The lady in the picture came in while we were eating and told everyone to be on the lookout for an overly friendly squirrel. (Overly friendly? Is it going to come up and say "hi?" Is it going to jump out of a tree and land on our shoulders, causing much screaming and running to ensue? Does it have rabies and is going to come find us all and kill us? What are the characterists of an "overly friendly squirrel?") She apparently raised 2 squirrels from the time they were babies and one had gotten out that morning. She then proceeded to take off her jacket and this squirrel was on her back. (I envisioned the whole squirrel scene from National Lampoon's vacation at that point, but that is irrelevant. :-)) The squirrel that got away was named Nutmeg. Later in the day, this lady was wandering around the campground calling, "Nutmeg, Nuuuutmeeeeg." Needless to say, we would all get the giggles when we heard it. It was quite the strange situation.

The campground had a petting farm. The kids got to milk the cows. (We actually had the milk at breakfast the next morning - fresh from the cows, no pasteurization. Again, where IS the health department???)

(I felt sorry for this cow. There were so many pictures taken of it's nether regions and no one was looking at it's face. I felt sorry for it and took a picture of it's face. And then I petted it and told it how sorry I was that we were all up in it's personal space. She forgave me.)


Here is a picture of the scenery that you could see from our campground. Isn't it beautiful?? I just love, love, love autumn!

This picture is not from our campground, but from pretty close to it.





There were also built in trampolines there:




J. trying to help put up the tent. (Nice biceps, girl!)




M. walked out onto this tree that had fallen into the creek. She then decided to practice her beam routine one the tree. While surrounded by water.

By the way, notice the short sleeves? They were all well and good as long as the sun was up. As soon as it went down, it was beyond cold. One poor person on the trip woke up one morning with icecicles in her hair. M. and I ended up going and sleeping in the truck at one point. It was in the 30's at night. I don't "do" cold. Brr.

Scary self portrait of me sitting next to my baby girl.

Thanksgiving post and pictures are in the works. Hope to have that up before Christmas.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let me know you were here!

. . . . And sometimes, life is great!

As some of you may know, or may have guessed, I struggle with depression at times. Then, when I am out of it, I realize how blessed I am.



I have a wonderful family:

(me, J., my sister, M., my nephew, my niece, her husband and daughter, and my mom and dad)










I have great in-laws:

(Father in law, M., J., Step-mother in law, and my hubby - C.)



I have a husband (who just got a great promotion at work - way to go honey!!) who loves me and will dress up to go to my high school reunion with me even though he most likely won't know anyone there:







I have a daughter who finally got past a mental block on her giants on bars:








I have a teenager who is silly:





I have an 11 year old who is not afraid to drive the 4-wheeler anymore:






I have kids who are silly when they see the camera:

I have the privilege of getting to go to my parents cabin with my family quite often. We get to do things like sit on the porch and enjoy the peace and quiet:

While at the cabin, we sometimes get to have unusual encounters with wildlife:
















We have fun friends. We were able to take some to the cabin with us this summer. While at the cabin with them, we got to enjoy the "twinnage" look of the two teenage girls:





How cool are they?





Their son seemed to read my mind and decided to relax:



However, don't let his sweet innocent face fool you. He's a stinker. He got my younger daughter to hide behind a tree when I was driving toward them on the 4-wheeler. When I got close, they jumped out and scared me. I almost crashed. I almost wet my pants. I almost wet my pants while crashing. They found it hilarious. I did too. Later. After my heart started beating again. I still think he's a great kid - I just want to keep him in my sights. :-)




We got to enjoy watching the kids play in the creek:

















While there, we kept seeing strange creatures that resembled our children, except kinda mushed together:

This strange creature metamorphed into a mixture of different kids:

Then, the metamorphosis continued, with the new creature appearing to sometimes be missing a head or torso:

The creature then began to slowly separate until it became two separate kids again:

When I see my youngest walking with her hands like this, it usually means she has caught some critter and wants to show it to me:

Getting closer:

Ah - a crawdad. I think.

Then, of course, there was the wonderful event on M's birthday, witnessed by many many friends and loved ones. Some of who are pictured here:

(My Mom, MD & his dad RD, C., myself, KG holding little KG, and JC with M. and one of her bestest friends - SE.)

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and a post that was not so whiny. Please leave a comment! If you do, please remember to leave your name if you sign in as "anonymous." Also, I know it is probably annoying that I use all initials instead of names. I do this for security reasons. When you sign the guestbook, please use initials as well.

Thanks!!!