Last night Dani called me and told me Southwest has an awesome promotion going.  Tickets for $139, each way, this fall! Whoo hoo!!!  I got on line and bought a flight for Sept. when baby Bootsie is arriving!!  Can.Not.Wait.   And as a surprise bonus Boots, Tate and their parents are going to be here for Halloween!! 

Mimi and Tate making cookies 9/12 :)

Best Halloween ever scheduled for this year!

What a happy Grandma I am!

At the crab festival they sold marionettes.  Lu wanted one.  Of course.  She wants everything.  It turns out she actually had more than a passing interest in one and has been wondering how to make one since.  This morning, 6am, she came in my room with some sticks she found outside, some yarn and her stock yards big eyed stuffed pony.  She wanted to make a puppet.  We did.  She likes it.  She now wants to make more, have dad build a special stand so the strings won't get tangled and put on a show.  Hmmm.

This morning we cleaned bedrooms.  This was kind of a dumb move because when they were clean then the children invited friends over and now...not so clean.

So Lu has Keean over playing, and Han has Alyssa and E has John, Justin and Aidan.  There is a lot of chaos and we have been through a lot of popsicles and crackers and drinks and open and closed doors. 

It's raining.  A curse on a summer day. 

I am making zucchini bread with chocolate chips.  Any guesses how long it will take the locusts to devour it?  I am guessing 15 minutes, tops.

It's officially summer!  Yea! 

This morning Lu and I got up at 4:30 to take Sierra to the airport.  Sad.  I was sorry to see her go, she was glad though.  I think if she had stayed 2 weeks instead of a month she would not have been as glad but she was here long enough to get bored.  She made it safely home to Utah and I am looking forward to seeing her at the end of summer when Bootsie is born :)

When we got home I was super tired so I took a nap.  Lu didn't, she is never tired and never sleeps.

When I got up we cleaned and had lunch then met the McCombs at the pool for some swimming fun.  We ended up staying for 4 hours and everyone is turning brown.

In the summer we try to be productive with our time.  I always get work books for the kids. 

This summer is no different and they went to work on them today.  Lu was funny she was filling in a page that said stuff like "a snowflake is __________" and "a plum is __________".  You were supposed to write in the color.  She found the page annoying because things could be more than one color, for example chocolate could be white, or brown or even black.  A pumpkin could be green if it was just starting or orange or white if it was a fancy one.  She told me "lots of times I know there are more than one right answer but I just put the answer the teacher expects to see".  Seems like a good approach to me.

Hopefully we'll do a lot of reading and some crafting and important skill building this summer.

Dinner tonight was BBQ chicken salad, we also watched an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" and it will be an early bedtime.  4 hours in the sun makes for tired kiddos!

Technology

Hannah is facetimeing her grandparents.  The 3 of them are listening to Nana's new iphone tell jokes.  Some are funny.
Then Han got her phone so she could call Nana's phone and they could hear it ring on the ipad.


Update: now the grands are playing temple run and Ethan ran out wrapped in a towel to watch and the two kids are advising the old folks ;)

Update again:  Now Abba is playing temple run, Nana is trying to log onto facebook so she can play words with friends, Hannah is helping Nana and is on her phone and Dad's ipad, Ethan is playing on my phone, Angry Birds in Space and R is playing pirates on his phone.  They all think they are playing together :)

I'm going downstairs to watch a movie with Sierra who leaves tomorrow morning at 5am :(

my fancy schmancy new car

No more suburban for us.  Turns out I am hard on cars.  We had almost 200,000 miles on it and pretty much everything was broken or breaking.  As much as we LOVE LOVE LOVE not having a car payment we had to break down and get one (for a while anyway). 

We have been talking about cars for awhile and nothing really really struck us as the right car.  Then a couple weeks ago R said he and E saw the best car, it was a Ford Flex.  We looked at it on line and agreed that it was pretty neat and what we would like. Kind of end of story.  We weren't really ready to pull the trigger on it.
Then Anna bought one. 

Then the sub started doing this weird shaky, noisy, break not workingy thingy.
And R had a a couple weeks of work stress.
And on a random Thursday night he called me a little before dinner and said I need to go to Salsas and who I am to stand  between a man and his need for chips and salsa?  so we went. 
Then he said he just "wanted to look and see if the Ford dealer had any flexs on the lot", and I said I had a youth conference conference call so we didn't have time.
But I did  have my cell , and my forms and so we went just to look.  We looked for a minute, then I sat in the car on my call.  Then two hours later conference was planned and I went in the office to drag R out and we ended up driving home the flex just to see how it feels.
And now we have a very nice, new, all working, shiny car.  That. I. love.

I hope we can pay it off in a year. 

Crab festival

 St Mary's County Crab Festival!  In the almost 3 years we have lived here we haven't been able to go because it was always on Sunday.  This year they changed to a Saturday so I put it on the calendar and we've been waiting.

It was a lot of fun.  They had crab, and crafts, and music, and drinks, and fancy cars, and a petting zoo (where Lu got bit by a miniture horse), and ice cream. 

It was ho-OT.

 R had to work, which is okay cuz he hates crabs, and crowds and heat.  It would not have been his cup of tea.

Lu is allergic to shellfish, and E thought he liked crab until he was sitting in front of one then he remembered that looking at them makes him light headed (he is a light weight for sure). 

Sierra and Hannah opted for the crab cakes and turkey legs.

I was wishing I had Dani and Jen here, they would have been more fun crab picking company.

 Anyway it was fun sitting at a paper covered picnic table, sweat dripping down the backs of our legs, loud country music being sung on the stage, cold soda sweating on the table, the smell of shell fish in the air, kids and couples and families all around enjoying the heat and the fun.

I'd go again, with different company for sure, but I'd still go.

In the end Hannah was happy because she got a cute charm bracelet from one of the vendors, Lu was happy because she got an elephant painted on her face, Sierra was happy that we didn't stay long, Ethan was happy because Sierra took the kids to the pool when we got home, and I am always happy.

a cool treat when we got home

SCHOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER!

Last day of school! Whoo hoo!!  Everyone had a good year!  Hannah ended up with a B in one class but that's okay.  E and Lu had only A's.  E placed 8% in the math Olympiad for the nation and got a pin and a patch.  Pretty cool!

When we got home we went to the pool.  Lots of people had the same idea and it was fun to swim with lots of friends!

They, so rudely, have adult swim once an hour while the life guards take a break.  Lu very "patiently" waited for them to blow the whistle :)

Yea for summer!