Unipro Show

Tonight we got the privilege to view the world's greatest unicycle rider. Seriously. He is. He showed us his award that he just received in New Zealand. Jamey is my brother-in-law's brother and he happened to be in town and was willing to do a show for his niece and nephew's neighborhood. It was so much fun! The pictures don't do justice, but you can check out his website at Uniproshow.
Here's Brett and Kyler waiting for the show to begin.
Here's Jamey juggling fire sticks.

Piece of cake....riding a 9 foot unicycle (he couldn't bring his 12 foot one from Australia) and juggling at the same time.

So impressive and funny! It was a great show.

Bridal Shower

This past Saturday, I hosted (along with my aunts) a bridal shower for my darling cousin Tara. It was just family and we had a great time catching up with each other.
My mom and I made this towel cake with the towels that Tara had registered for. It was so fun to make and decorate and it made a great centerpiece. Here's the beautiful bride with two of our wonderful aunts.

Wishing you a wonderful wedding Tara!

Happy Birthday!

On June 25th, my dear hubby turned 34. Happy Birthday babe!! PS - I have no clue what Gene Simmons (aka son #1) is doing in this picture.

Memory Lane....

I attended a two day seminar for work related topics. It just so happened that it was at my Alma mater. It had been about nine or so years since I had been on campus here. I was a little surprised and what had changed and what had not.
I thought it might be interesting to show you were I lived during my 3 1/2 years at SCSU. Ready? Ok, here we go.
My freshmen year was in the dorms. I stayed in the lame dorm where girls where on one wing and boys were on the other (versus every other floor). I'm pretty sure the dorm with the sticker in the window was mine - I think. After 9 months in the 4x4 cell, I was ready for bigger and better things. I moved into a house with 8 other girls. All but one were a grade ahead of me in school. Shall we just say it was an interesting year? There were creepy crawly things in the basement, lots of cloggged showers due to all of our long hair, but lots of fun and memories were made.
I couldn't get a picture of the front of the house, but here's the back. I can't believe this place is still standing. It looks extremely questionable and I'm guessing that's why the "For Rent" sign is still on the side of the house....
We used to go out on that little deck, but only 2-3 at a time for fear that it would crumble beneath us. All eight of us were ready to high tail it out of there by the time June rolled around.
My third year I downsized and brought one of the gals from the house with me to this duplex. We lived on the bottom level with 2 other girls - one of who we did not get along with so luckily she moved out and another gal came in. Lots of fun memories here! We had to replace the screen in the front window a few times as we'd forget our keys and that was our only way in. Well, unless we wanted to pay our landlord $50 to come let us in, but to a college kid, $50 was more than enough for 3 nights out on the town!

My last semester, I commuted but luckily 2 of the girls rented the duplex for a second year and would let me crash on their couch one night a week.

College was a blast and was life changing, but being back on campus gave me no urge to go back and pursue my masters. Yet.

Why I Had Kids....

Duh. It's so I can make them do the cleaning that I hate to do....you know, like scrub the unidentifiable crud out of the patio door track.

Here We Come....

As we were getting ready for my cousin's wedding, I thought I'd try and get a picture of our family while we all looked somewhat presentable. Easier said then done. I hauled out the tripod and the family and attempted to get set up. I hit the button on the camera and then started to run across the deck to get in the picture. It all sounds simple and easy, but as I found out, my heels were a perfect fit for the space between the boards and I about face planted as my shoe got stuck. The boys thought it was pretty funny. This is the only picture we ended up with because I wasn't about to attempt the dangerous run across the deck again. I don't know about you, but I. Love. Weddings. Love them. I don't even care if I barely know the bride and/or groom. The boys had a good time too. They kept busy stealing all the snacks and nuts on the tables at social hour.

While we were waiting for our table to be served dinner, I look over and see this:

Sometimes it's a wonder we get invited anywhere.

Proud Dad....

Tonight was a baseball night for us. Thankfully the rain stopped for the game as we've had a sketchy season based on the weather. Colton had an amazing game! Actually, the whole team did a fantastic job.
Mike is one of the assistant coaches. I was watching him at the same time as watching Colton. I think I saw a tear in Mike's eye. A proud tear. His boy, the one he's been playing catch with, the one he's been pitching to, had his best game ever. Mike just couldn't stop grinning.
It. Was. Adorable.

I'm Clocking Out....

After a week of not getting anything done around the house, I was on a mission this weekend. Mike was gone on a fishing trip so it was just the boys and me. I got so much accomplished!

• Washed and put away 413 loads of laundry (give or take a few) including some delicates that I've been meaning to wash for the past 2 months.
• Cleaned the boy's rooms
• Vacuumed the entire upstairs and downstairs
• Vacuumed the steps
• Enjoyed a visit by some good friends that were in the cities for a wedding reception
• Watched The Blind Side (loved it)
• Cleaned out the freezer in the garage
• Weeded the front garden
• Went to a parade
• Caulked the downstairs shower
• Cleaned my car
• Put together a puzzle with Colton
• Read books with Brett
• Made banana pancakes
• Wrote thank you notes

And now? Now, I'm clocking out. I'm going to park myself on the couch and watch a movie with my three favorite guys.

Questions For You.....Again

I think I did this back in November when I blogged everyday that month. Let's see how it goes this time around.

Questions

1. If you could have free, unlimited service for one year from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which one would you chose?

2. Do you squeeze your toothpaste from the bottom, middle, top or do you roll it up from the bottom to the top?

3. Do you save greeting cards (birthday, anniversary, thank you) or do you toss them? Why?

4. What is your first memory?

Answers

1. Hands down - housekeeper. I cannot seem to stay on top of things. Every time we clean, we keep saying, ok, let's try to keep things picked up. Then life happens and I'm pretty sure a tornado comes through our house on a very regular basis.

2. I squeeze from the bottom. My kids and husband squeeze from wherever. Drives me nuts. But, I've come to accept it and just have my own tube to use it how I want to.

3. I don't save them. I've got nowhere to put them. I take that back. Kind of. If they are from my parents, husband or kids and they've got something extra special written I'll keep them. But 99% of them get tossed within a week or two.

4. This is TMI, but what the hell. I remember not liking to wear underwear when I was young (or socks for that matter...you know that seam that runs across your toes? I couldn't STAND to have that at the tips of my toes. Thankfully I got over that in time). Anyway.....I remember being in preschool and my teacher saying to me, "I have a granddaughter that is about your age and size, what size pants are those? She kind of pulled out my pants to read the tag and I was mortified that she had seen me without underwear. You know, I never thought that situation was all that weird until right about now. Hmmmm.....

Your turn.

Why????

I will be billing my parents for any therapy I will have to go to as a result of my popped collar and knotted bandanna/headband. Do I even need to mention the hideous perm that looks like it didn't take all that well?

What Would You Do?

We have this family in our neighborhood. They have been here for about a year and I have never seen the parents. Ever. However, there are anywhere from 3-4 kids living there at any given time. The cars that are parked in the driveway rotate monthly.
My dilemma is that the kids, who I'm guessing range in age from 5-12 roam the neighborhood at all hours of the day and night. I'm not opposed to the roaming so much, but the fact that they zip down the street on their bike/scooter/skateboard without any regard to traffic. I have heard horns honk multiple times when I know that they are outside. Mike has had to slam his breaks on twice to avoid hitting the kid cruising down a neighbor's driveway into the street while he's laying on his skateboard.
What would you do? Do you go to the house and knock on the door and inform them of what their kids are doing? Do you try to talk to the kids about what could happen if they keep thinking they rule the road? Advice please.

Walkin'.....

Today was the day of our 20 mile training walk. The 3-Day isn't until August, but Marilyn and I want to get in a few really long walks before the big event. We started out at 7:45 am. Lucky for us, Marilyn's dad put together a route that wound us through the suburbs of the cities where we ended in Edina at a burger and malt shop were we enjoyed some really tasty lunch.
By about mile 15 or 16, I'm pretty sure we started to get a little delirious. My feet felt pretty heavy and every now and again I'd trip over the air and we'd just start to giggle. At one point, we had to cross the street and had to jog across it before the cars came. It was nearly impossible for me as I felt like each leg weighed 150 pounds and we started to giggle. Marilyn got a battle wound by stepping on a stick and it came up and scraped her shin. We didn't giggle about that, but that fact that she was looking for something in her fanny pack (yes we wore them), dropped some band aides, had to bend over to get them and almost face planted because it was so hard to get back up - we did giggle about that.
All in all, I feel pretty good, but if I had to wake up and do it again tomorrow and the next day? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I would die. Luckily, I've got another 80+ days of training!

A New Version

Brett's really into doing eenie meenie for everything! In trying to decide if he should wear shoes or sandles - eat vegetables or potatoes - which book to read. The list goes on....

Incase you can't understand it, here's Brett's version of Eenie Meenie......

Eenie Meenie Minie Moe

Catch a pod a tide a toe

My mom makes the berry (very) best food eva (ever) eva again

Moments.....

It's moments like these that keep me smiling during the craziness of life.

When I grow up.....

I'm always looking for a challenge, so when I got an email from NaBloPoMo tempting me to post every day in June and they'd help with a topic a day, I figured why not. I may or may not use their ideas each day, but I'm going to try my best to post each day.

Today's topic (well, not really today's - it was yesterday's topic, but whatever): When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I had two. I wanted to either be a teacher or a business woman - whatever that means. I remember that I had a real classroom desk in my room. You know, the old school kind that opened up and had a chair connected to it. Oh, and I had a chalk board too! I remember going into my mom's closet and wearing her high heels and making sure I walked through the kitchen to make them click on the linoleum floor.

Looking back, I think I must have known I wasn't cut out to be a teacher. I remember "setting up" my classroom. I would write my student list all nice and neat, take attendance and lunch count, put a few grades in the grade book, but that was it. I had no interested in actually teaching my pretend students.

I didn't know what a business woman meant, but I remember thinking it was important.
Secretly, I think I wanted to be a business woman because I figured they got to wear high heel shoes and boss all the boys around.


What did you want to be?

What a weekend!

It was a busy one! Mike had to work overnights all weekend so the boys and I kept out of the house during the day. Saturday we hit up the Minnesota Zoo. We had so much fun. When I asked the boys what their favorite part was, Colton thought the mister was the best and Brett thought the cows were the best. Had I known that, we could have saved some money and drove down the road to the local farm and came home and ran through the sprinkler in our clothes. :) After the zoo, Mike was awake so we hit up the beach with some neighbors. The kids did a little shore fishing, dragon fly watching and then we grilled hot dogs for dinner.

On Sunday, we took a little road trip to my dad's to have a little belated birthday party. We grilled steaks, played some baseball and set up a tent which the boys thought was the coolest thing ever for some strange reason.

Brett hit the wall on Monday. We tried to go out in the boat, but all Brett wanted to do was lay on the beach on the towel. Poor little dude was exhausted. I took him home and he laid in his bed or on the couch from noon until bedtime.

It sure was hard to get up today and return to "normal" life.