happenings

well, we've finally been reunited with t after almost a month of separation. he flew here yesterday, and s celebrated by pulling out the front tooth that's been dangling for a few weeks. now she has that toothless grin so cute in kids this age. the tooth fairy came, yada yada.

today on the beach while swimming in the big-but-dangerous waves, what did the girl find floating in the surf? a full can of beer. and it hadn't even expired yet! but alas, it was a busch. almost undrinkable. well, it was a good find anyway. she was proud of herself. here's a strange photo of her 2 big things:

h built an army of sand yesterday then invited the kids next door over to help destroy it. good times.
and LAST but not LEAST... my mom paid s $5 to pit 3 quarts of cherries to make cherry pie for a special treat for t. she diligently put each cherry on the pitter, pushed the plunger, and placed the pitted cherry in the bowl until the whole lot was done. it wasn't until we all started to eat our delectable slices of homemade cherry pie that we realized almost none of the pits had actually been removed! we giggled and giggled, blaming that darn batch of cherries that "grandma" had pitted. s promised to teach grandma how to do a better job with the pitter. s counted the pits on each of our plates to see who had "won." grandma won with a record 9 cherry pits in her piece of pie. we were just glad we hadn't invited company! oh, and the pie was heavenly. wish y'all could've had a slice (with the winning number of pits).

summer

i greet you once again from the lovely western shore of michigan. we will be here, as usual, for an extended amount of time, soaking up the rays and enjoying the cooler temperatures. my parents are always kind enough to host us without either losing their marbles OR kicking us to the curb. so, for THAT, i thank them profusely.

i realized it's been awhile since h made a blog appearance. his hair has gotten really long, and is now, in fact, longer than his sister's. this creates no end of glee for the girl, who has morphed into a camo-garbed tomboy this summer. so here is h in his goggles after having explored the depths of lake michigan. this is the first year, believe it or not, that he has consented to swim underwater. we never pushed him, and after 9 long years, he is finally discovering the joys of swimming.


we were lucky enough to have a visit from my high school pal tracey and her son kailash who are normally found on the small island of koh tao off the coast of thailand in the gulf of thailand. the kids spent a fun day in the sand while tracey and i reminisced. below is the lovely lady who was once my maid of honor about a zillion years ago...


that's all for now. today is a wee bit overcast, so i may take the kids to a movie or sumpin'. although, it's terribly tempting to curl up with a good book while they're giggling at old woody woodpecker cartoons! more on what i'm reading in my next post. promise.

strawberry day

today we got a box of fresh strawberries and found this giant among the batch...

s was quite tickled about it, and wanted to take a photo of it. i used it as a small opportunity to test out the new camera. i still need to read the manual and experiment some more.

the deck floor with shadows...

the girl getting cleaned by jingle bell.


and from the mouth of this babe came... "fallin'... yes i am fallin'... and she keeps callin'... my bank account."

we're going to see lou reed on april 28th! i am so excited.

what a trip

a week ago tomorrow, we started out on our annual trip to michigan to stay with my folks at their place on lake michigan. when i say "we" i mean the kids, the dog, and me. t stays home and slams down as much work as possible in the month that we're gone. he keeps meaning to come with us, but work keeps getting in the way.

my dad, who is retired, is kind enough to fly to nc then drive a minivan full of madness through 5 states back to his own home, delivering us safely to grandma. what a guy, huh? let's hear it for my dad.

we started out on my almost-bald tires, but when we discovered that there would be rain in the mountains of west virginia, a detour to discount tire was in order. this, of course, set us back a couple of hours and several hundred dollars (not to mention a pleasant 2 hour walk around a shady parking lot with 2 kids and a dog), but we kept on trucking. 8 hours of driving, and we were through akron, ohio, and decided to stop at a motel. finding one that took dogs proved to be a little tricky, but the shady-looking motel6 said okay, so there we camped. turns out it was a "ho"-tel with lovely ladies turning LOUD tricks in the next room. good thing dad didn't have his hearing aids in.

on the road again on friday morning, we realized that after many stops and many walks, the dog still hadn't done her business. not any kind of business. well, you can't force a dog to go, so we just stopped every couple of hours and let her walk, but to no avail. 15 minutes before reaching our destination, the dog finally couldn't hold her bladder any longer, and the splashing noise coming from the back of the van could only mean one thing.

for the past week, we have had a great time playing with my older brother, nephew and niece who are close in age to my kids. here's a pic of the cousins:



and here's a pic of me with my BIG little brother and my little big brother.




everybody (but us) left today, so it's a little quieter around here.