No Mommy!

Jenna has been at camp since Sunday with NO MOMMY. She and 6 of her best buddies are all together in a cabin having an amazing time I'm sure...eating piles of sugar at the canteen, not taking showers, not wearing sunscreen & possibly not brushing teeth. I'm picking her up tomorrow & I can't wait! It feels weird when one of your kids is gone for so long.

Today Kendall is at Valleyfair with a bunch of friends and NO MOMMY! She went with her church youth group & she's running around having the time of her life with a bunch of teenagers. Things are more fun without your mom when you're 14. I know it's normal and we want them to become independent so it's good. It just happens too fast. I get to pick her up in 45 minutes and hear all about it. Huh...I'm often looking forward to "picking them up and hearing all about it" these days. It's definitely a new phase of life.

Sheesh, I must be hormonal or something tonight! :)

canine pageant queen

First of all let me say that I do not put clothing on my dog on a regular basis, and I do not, and will not ever carry her around in a purse. In other words, I'm not a weird dog person. However, when a cute cafe nearby decided to hold a dog fashion show/competition, we couldn't deny Casey her chance in the spotlight. The girls and I made a trip to Wal-Mart where we picked out this lovely little summery frock. Jenna also wanted the pink doggie barrettes, but her frugal (i.e.cheap) mom decided we'd just find something in our vast collection of human hair accessories at home. The final result is this little princess in all her finery.

Here are Jenna and some of the other contestants in the "small dog" category getting ready to walk in a circle in front of the panel of judges. Notice the dogs around her standing nice and calmly. I expected it to be mostly kids showing their dogs & thought it was pretty funny that Jenna was the only one. There was even one dad that had somehow been coerced into being there with his little white schnauzer type dog. He kept saying things like "ok, what are we doing?" with a deadpan voice to make sure nobody would mistakenly think he was enjoying himself. Casey & Jenna did GREAT! Jenna even got Casey to sit on command when the judges asked her to...not an easy task!Casey was a little worried about this wiener dog with wings...trying to look all angelic & all.

This poor, humiliated soul has a bambi purse around her neck, and if you look closely you'll see that her dress is held together by paper clips. A travesty to be sure.

Our sympathy for her was short-lived though, because she was crowned the "best dressed" dog at the show! I'm sorry, but somebody was paid off or something because that's just crazy. However, we are good sports in our family, so we told Casey that she was the grand prize winner and gave her a few treats. She was happy as can be and none the wiser. Look out red, we'll be back next year!

a new post....finally

Ahhhh...the lazy days of summer. When do they start?!? After returning home from a fun 4-day vacation with family, this week has been filled with the USA Cup soccer tournament ~ a giant tournament with over 900 teams from all over the world. Kendall has played 4 games over the past 3 days with one more tomorrow & MAYBE one on Saturday if they win. We've been spending most of each day there (what with weather delays), but it's been a great experience for Kendall & fun for all of us. Well, Jenna may disagree as she's pretty much soccered out & now lapses into a sort of semi-comatose state during the games, but she has scored lots of junk food out of the deal. :)

So, I guess I'm jumping around a bit, but the picture above is of ALL of us vacationers going horseback riding! I usually don't put pics on here of people other than my family for privacy reasons, but this picture is so bad that no one is identifiable anyway. :) When you hand your camera to a stranger, you never know what you'll get. Anyway, I have a slight horse phobia but tried to overcome it for my beloved daughters who were SO excited to ride and I was NOT going to miss out on experiencing it with them. We got to ride through beautiful woods & run across creeks (yikes!), and my horse, Shadow, was kind enough not to throw me off or scrape me off on a tree. Jenna hasn't quit talking about it & that's the best part!

Tonight the girls & I went and had pedicures (their first ones). I'm pretty sure there will be a picture on Kendall's blog soon. It was really fun, except when the lovely Japanese lady told Kendall that she shouldn't use the same nail color as me because "that color too old for you". Yeah, that stung a bit.

My sissy comes home in a few days! YAAAAAAAAY!!!

4th of July

Last weekend we spent a great 4th of July at the cabin! This was the first of TWO July 4th's we get to celebrate this year, as we'll be having the big annual bash & competitions in a couple of weeks with our favorite Goodmans. YIPEE!

We left the house bright & early on Friday to make it in time for the big parade with Grandma & Papa. We saw lots of marching bands & girls wearing crowns, but they must have outlawed candy throwing this year because the girls went home with empty baggies. I suppose someone lost an eye from a wayward jolly rancher or something. This years boat parade featured not only an Uncle Sam, but a Harry Potter themed boat as well! We're not sure what's patriotic about Harry Potter, but I suspect a mom spent a lot of money on some Halloween costumes & was determined to get her money's worth. Oddly, my new camera has a setting specifically for fireworks so I had to try it out. Kinda cool I guess. Here a few more highlights...

wild rides on the tube

Casey's kneeboard adventure (looks thrilled doesn't she?)

licorice on the boat & even Grandma swam in the 73 degree water!

loon mommy & baby that let us get really close

Hope everyone had lots of fun in the sun like we did! Yay for SUMMER!!!