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I’m sure I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but it bears repeating – I love L’s soccer team, these girls make me laugh like few others can!  Tonight in the car on the way to practice…

Lib: Stop waving your sock in my face

Jules: Mmmmm, smell the goodness

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And yesterday they were playing a game called “Would you rather”, which has them tell two equally horrifying tales, and the person has to pick one or find a loophole in the story, such as:  Would you rather fall out of a plane and die ~OR~ fall out of a plane and live, but land in horse poop and have to eat your way out?  Each “would you rather” story got progressively more disgusting, but trust me, they ALL involved some form of potty humor.

Lest you think 11 year old girls are entirely gross, the second part of this game was called “good stuff”, and it went something like: Would you rather be rich, with a huge house and cars and a big pool, and have everything you want ~OR~ would you rather live just like you do today and be Miley Cyrus best friend?

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And back to tonight, we’re driving and pass an older model, 60’s vintage Volkswagon beetle, to which all the girls ohhh and ahhh over and say how much they love that car.  Then I hear “Ms Julia, is that the kind of car they had when… you know… you were young?”  I paused, tried to loosen my grip on the steering wheel and said “Yep, that’s the car we got right after we retired our horse and buggy.”

Gotta love ‘em. (photos from the April tournament they won)

Once everyone gets to where they are supposed to be, cheer and soccer camps seem to be going really well so far.

M loves cheer camp – she is a natural born screamer, jumper, cartwheeler, etc, so it’s just right up her alley. They spend most of camp learning the half time routine, which is much more complicated this year than it was last year, so I have my doubts on how they’re going to pull this off. She seems to be mastering it much better than I ever would though, she’s got that hip shaking action down pat. What I get a kick out of though – in my own little demoniacal way – is watching the team mom’s. You see, this weeks camp is taught by the local high school varsity cheer squad, there are anywhere from 2 to 4 varsity cheerleaders assigned to each age group, and I have to say – M is a little teachers pet, they just dote on her, it’d be embarrassing if it wasn’t just so doggone cute! But I digress… back to the team mom’s. After this week, the varsity squad goes away, and the practices get led by the team mom’s, who also have to learn the routine so they can continue to teach it to the girls. So you have the varsity squad lined up in front, then two rows of 8 year olds lined up, then behind them an assemblage of in shape, and not-so-in-shape mom’s trying to hop, jump, and shake to the beat. Really, this is good stuff.

In soccer news, L is also loving camp. It’s so funny, my dad and I talk about her attitude, or lack thereof, leading up to camp – she’s not excited, she’s not not excited, she’s just resigned to the fact that she has to do it. Then camp starts. Then she’s all giddy and chatty, and about as animated as L ever gets about anything, because she’s with her people. L is all about her peeps. As far as how the team is doing – all indications say they’re doing very very well… It’s structured similar to the way the University camp was with skills/drills in the morning, and scrimmages at night, but since last night was a rain-out, they had a scrimmage this morning. So far they’re record in the 4 games they’ve played is 3 wins, 1 loss. The only team they lost to was the ‘96 Elite. L’s team is the 97 South Elite (or blue squad). The teams are broken down into different levels of players/teams. As one of the dad’s told me, just remember it as ESPN – Elite, Select, Premier. The first two teams they beat were the 96 Select and 97 Select – but the good one came this morning – they played the 97 North Elite squad – which was also the team that won the state championships in May. And our team beat their team. Heh.

Just a short note to say this weeks schedule is kickin my butt, and it’s only day TWO, what with L’s soccer schedule and M’s day camp and cheer camp schedule, plus work…  But honestly it’s the daily – and sometimes almost hourly – coordination of the carpool that wears a person out.  The girls that live farther away are spending the days at other girls homes, so I was going to take tonight, but then Leslie calls and says I can’t because my little Honda Accord is not big enough because there are 5 girls that need rides, then I was going to borrow my parents van, but add in tonights little thunder storm shower that throws a wrench in the whole plans, because now a parent has to stay in case they call it an early night, and at these particular fields, there is NO shelter.  I couldn’t stay because I need to be at M’s cheer camp.  And again – it’s only Tuesday.  I realize this all makes no sense at all, but I know exactly what I’m talking about. 

How do people do this with more than two kids?

I had an open checkbook last night at Middle School registration and everyone wanted a piece of me. $22 for PE uniform, $20 to sign up for online viewing of homework and grades, $27.50 for supplies, $100 into the lunch account, $25 for the locker, $22.50 for the school newsletter, $35 for the yearbook, $22 for “spirit week supplies”, $15 for a sweatshirt that has her school logo on it so she has something to wear for fall football games, etc, etc, etc…

Actually though, besides the money laundering – registration was a hoot! L was cracking me up – all the kids were. It reminded me a LOT of my college sorority. The high pitched squeals as the girlfriends saw each other again after a full 8 week absence and then running around in mini packs checking out their new digs, and then the flushed faces when a boy would stop, pick them out of the crowd, call them by name, and say “Hi”. EEEEEEE!!!!!!!! Then additional squealing when a few girls found out they were in the same rotation. There’s a red team, blue team, and white team rotation – L is in the red team.

I keep trying to start at the beginning, but then get distracted, so let me try again… We walk in at 5:30 and find out that we’re #188 in the line (the registration had only been open for 30 minutes at that point, but there are over 400 kids in the 6th grade class). Anyway, you sit down in the gym bleachers and wait till they call your number. When I sat down, the first number I heard was #110. Gulp. I had a looong wait. Well that’s when L discovered some of her buddies and off she went. I saw her again in little spurts. In fact my number had finally been called, and I went to have the registration docs checked, and she came over and stood by me for a few minutes – I was to find out later, she was only there to see which rotation she was on… but anyway, she pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open, then I guess thought better of it, closed it and put it back in her pocket. I just looked at her and said “what? you need to call you people?” She gave me a dirty look while the guy behind me cracked up.

Once your number is called, then your free to go about through 17 “stations” where you turn in documents at each table and sometimes write a check to go with it. At the end of the school supply station is a huge white poster board – one for each team rotation, where the kids can sign there names in the biggest and most obnoxious manner possible (well, that’s just the boys), the girls signatures are all incredibly neat and many dotted with hearts or little asterisk’s… it’s very cute. This is where L found out that a boy she’s had a puppy-love crush on since 4th grade is in the same rotation as her. She goes “Mom, look Tim is in the same rotation is me”. I was like “ooooo, coooool”. That’s when I got my second (or possibly third) dirty look of the night.

Oh, and this recap would not be complete without me mentioning how gawd-awful-ugly the PE uniforms are.  A few mom’s and I were talking about the nastiness of the over-sized red t-shirts matched with the over-sized gray mesh basketball shorts when one of the counselors mentioned that they do that on purpose so the boys will pay attention to the PE instructions instead of paying attention to the girls.  Well, that shut us up fast.  But another teacher/counselor piped up and said “yeah, the dance team is in charge of getting the boys excited”.  That brought nervous laughter from the parents, while personally I made a mental note – “no signing up L for dance team”.

We were walking out to the car – almost two full hours after we arrived – and we were talking about how much fun 6th grade was going to be, specially since she knows so many kids. She actually brought up that it’s good to know lots of kids, but also she needs to remember that there will be new kids there for the first time and people need to be extra nice to them so they feel like part of the group, because it must be so hard to be the “new kid”. Awwwww

And lastly – band is off. I returned her clarinet today. After speaking with a couple of teachers last night about her extra curricular activities, there is just no way she can add something as time consuming as band. She’d have to play at all the football games, which would most likely clash with soccer practice/games, or other activities she wants to get involved in. I’m just glad it was L that came to this decision before I needed to.

So… next weeks camp schedule just got a little bit easier on all of us.

• M wanted to know where she was since the last several posts have had pics of her sister and cousin, but none of her. Good question babe, and I was feeling really really bad about that, right up until I remembered that she spent the entire lake vacation underwater. Seriously. If she wasn’t riding on the boat, then she was swimming in the lake, and little M doesn’t swim on top of the water – she swims under it. Hence no pictures of mighty mite, but she was there… trust me.

• I thought work was going to get SO much better now that I’m back to working for just one company, at least 90% of the time, but I’m underwater. I get to the point of thinking I’m really on top of things and have all my ducks in a row, and then WHAM someone asks about something that I completely forgot about. To say I have a lot of balls in the air right now is an understatement. I just wish I could have a few days off (which I have had) but then come back to work and not have regretted taking that time off. I’ve got crying employees in almost every office, I’ve got managers who are forgetting how to manage and making really interesting choices. I’ve got two field employees who both had accidents in our client vehicles where they seriously injured the other driver.  I’ve got two workers comp injuries in the past month, which is more than we normally have in a year.  I’ve got EEOC suits, and law suits, and all kinds of suits…  Anyway, I know this to shall pass, and I’ll get back in my grove and things will seem a little more under control, but right now is just not that time. Do keep in mind that I love my job… I just get overwhelmed with it at times.
• And speaking of feeling underwater – let me share our schedule next week, this same schedule is the same Monday thru Friday:

L – soccer camp 8:30am – noon
L – band camp 1pm – 3:30pm
L – soccer camp 6pm – 9pm
M – YMCA camp 7:30am – 5pm
M – Cheerleading camp – 6pm – 8pm

Anyone want to take a shift?

D had some great saves

But just as Uncle Jon swung the boat the other way – momentum changes and….

They even came up laughing when they had a wipeout  (caveat – anyone under the age of 13 came up laughing), you’ll see what I’m talking about there later…

She didn’t just go 20 or 30 feet this time.  Instead she went about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile.  Basically she went as far as she could go, because with the training ski’s, she can’t separate them enough to complete a tight turn, so we had to just cut the engine.  But seeing her actually get up and stay up out of the water, is something I’ll never forget, she was so proud of herself, and rightfully so!

Because I’ve got LOTS!!  Coming soon – first there are about 8 loads of laundry, and as M just reminded me… lunch to fix.

For example:  Wednesday I learned that glass on the outside doors of your home is called “tempered glass”.  That means if something hits it, instead of coming off in large shards of glass, it instead breaks the entire pane into a million little pieces.  I also learned that the glass on the door going into my garage is double paned glass, which means there’s not just one sheet of glass that breaks into a million pieces – there are TWO sheets of glass that break into a million pieces.

You know, I should really not be allowed to stay by myself.  One of the girls is always inside to let me in when I do really stupid things like… lock myself out of the house.  I realize there is no excuse for this, but here’s my story anyway.  I’d bought a new lawn mower, because I was very unhappy wtih the company that was cutting my lawn, they had scalped the life out of it last time they cut it.  Plus, up until two years ago, I’ve always cared for my own lawn, it was my baby, I take pride in my lawn.  Plus, it was really good exercise, and anyone who’s seen me lately has probably whispered – there’s a lady who needs some really good exercise.

So I’d been shopping around, mainly to satisfy my father, and since he was out of town, I was finally free to borrow his truck and go get the one I wanted.    Next I came home, set it up, and merrily mowed my lawn for the first time in two years.  It felt good, and I admired my handiwork.  So I took the blower, made the driveway all clean, moved the car in the garage, and shut the garage door so I could go in through the front door and admire my lawn one more time.  About the time I could see my closed front door is about the time I realized that when I came home, I never went inside – I had just opened the garage door, but now that was closed.  After a quick check of all the doors and windows, it was apparent that for the first time in my entire life – and I am 46 years old – I had locked myself out of my house.  Good grief.

L is the first grandkid to get up on ski’s! I’m working this week, and she’s at the lake with her cousins, grandparents and uncle. I’ll join them on Friday and hopefully get pictures. Monday was “tubing day” on the lake, and Uncle Jon showed my dad how to swing them outside the wake, so all the kids were having a blast and went on multiple rides. Yesterday was “learn how to ski day”. The age range is 9 to 12; M, being almost 8, was not interested, nor would I have wanted her to, so she was content watching the others try… and try… and try. Sking takes lots of attempts before you finally figure out what you’re supposed to do. But L was the first that stood up and was actually able to go about 25 or 30 feet before eatting water… I’m sure next time she’ll get up for even longer. Can’t wait to get some pictures – more this weekend!

UPDATED: It’s hard for me to leave a post without pictures, so I went back and added some from L’s first attempt at skiing two summers ago, when she was 9.5. She looks like such a BABY in these pictures! We all think she could have gotten up on the ski’s then too if it were not for the fact that the adults lacked brain power…. You see, the kids are learning on ski’s that are designed to teach you how to ski. The hardest part about skiing, other than keeping your balance, is actually keeping the ski’s together and not doing a split. So these ski’s have a plastic tether that keeps them from splitting apart, then rope is attached to the ski’s and has one attachment that goes to the boat, and another attachment, which is what she’s holding on to. Unfortunately for L, she was the last to try skiing and we had her part of the rope attachment set at a length that was appropriate for her cousins, which are all a good 6 to 10 inches taller than she is. So, if you followed my instructions, you realize that the rope was far too long for her to be even able to stand up. We of course figured this out later, but by then it was too late to try again. So this week is the first time we’ve had the chance to teach the kids again – and I think my brother and dad remembered to readjust the rope to her height… So, here she is, from two summers ago – eating water, compliments of her mom, grandfather and uncles:

That’s Grampie holding her. Uncle Jon is driving the boat and I’m in the boat. These photos are not cropped, I just had my 70-200mm f4, which I think I’ve mentioned before – this is my very favorite lens.

Now Uncle Jon guns it and trys to pull her up. We kept telling her to hold on and pull with her arms…

A little to the left…

And a little to the right…

Wipeout…

So then Uncle Jon got up and showed the kids that yes, it really can be done. He showed the kids his “chicken feathers”. When you go outside the wake and fan out a stream behind your ski’s, it’s actually called a “rooster tail”, but long ago, when Jon was still learning himself, he called it chicken feathers, and it’s kind of stuck ever since…

And here’s the one that started it all. We were a big camping family growing up and have had a ski boat for as long as I can remember. Here’s my dad on the disc – they don’t sell these anymore because I guess that someone thought flying wood out in the middle of a lake when you’re going 25 miles an hour would be a bad thing. I’m really surprised this one, which has got to be as old as me, has not suffered from dry rot. But my dad, age 70 in this photo, can still get to a standing position – he used to have a chair that he took with him, and would put it on the disc, then sit on it while he ski’d – you should have seen the look of people on other boats when we passed them. Good stuff.

She takes her chess very seriously…

We scored on so many levels today – all good stuff!  First the girls had hair appointments and I took them to my salon, which was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but they assured me they had a “Giggles and Wiggles” cut that was only $20.  In the past year I’ve been going there I have never seen another kid, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out, but L and I sat there with our mouths slackjawed when we saw how CUTE M’s cut was.  In fact, it convinced L to really wack off a good 7 inches off her hair, so it falls just a couple inches below her shoulders now – SO CUTE!!  L refused to sit for photos – have I mentioned we’re in pre-teen years yet? – but I got M to give me some smiles.  I really do have a hard time getting more than a plastic smile though, both kids suffer from PCS, or Photographer Children’s Syndrom, I’m sorry to say, but there is no cure.  This was the most “natural” looking smile though.

Another score came when we went to Pottery Barn – we were in the same mall area and I couldn’t ignore the huge SALE sign in their window.  I walked straight back to the media table I’d had my eye on for the past 6 months and it was marked 50% OFF!!  Any furniture piece you can get at PB for $350 is definitely a score in my book.  Unfortunately they didn’t have another in stock, so it’s on order and should be in about a week or so.  Next the kids had a b’day party to attend, which was right by another mall, and I headed into Ann Taylor Loft and scored on some sale stuff as well as some Abercrombie kids stuff for L.  All in all a pretty good day so far.

Oh, and I’ve been messing with the pictures some more from the post below and think I like this arrangement better…

My office at work is just your basic cream white walls, one wall is mostly glass, but since I had to move offices a couple of years ago, my fourth floor view now looks onto a tree which I believe was put there to disguise the parking lot on the other side of it.  I used to look onto the lake.  I miss the lake.  On the wall behind me there’s nothing there – but on the wall to my right are some pretty mirror framed art that I bought for when I did the kitchen remodel and never ended up using.  Plus there are some b&w framed photos of the girls, and other photos of them scattered throughout any horizontal surfaces.  But opposite me – what I stare at every day, when I’m not staring at the computer, is just a blank wall.  I figure I’m a photographer for goodness sakes, I should have at least one photo that I want to get framed, possibly done in a canvas print, and hang it up on that wall.  It’s about 9 feet long, so it needs to be a decent – poster size – print, but I can never come up with anything that I’ve been happy with.

Well, while we were in Chicago last month, I took a photo of the barn (see a few posts below).  I liked it, but not sure I want to look at a barn.  I have kind of contemporary office furnishings, and a red barn would just not be complementary to that.  But while at the barn, I also took lots of floral pictures (boy did I wish I had my macro with me!).  I’ve been playing with them this morning, and have grouped them together thinking – hey, this might work.  Still not sure though, I just don’t want to spend money on printing and frames until I know exactly what I want, so still thinking – but this one is in the running.

And now I have to go to Target, because the eldest has informed me that we’re out of milk, and she can get pretty darn whiney if there’s no milk in the house.  We are SO entering the pre-teen years.  It’s fun, stick around and I’ll share some of the joy with you….

but I’m so flattered – really! Isa and Ina’s mom just gave me the Blogs That Make My Day blog award and I’m thrilled! I’d like to thank my mom and my dad for always being there, and my kids, and the dog, and I’d like to thank my 3rd grade teacher, who pushed me when know one else would… um, just kidding, I have no idea who my third grade teacher was, but I’m sure she/he was a lovely person.

I love getting a blog award, it tells me that there’s not only the occasional drive-by reader out there, but that people actually enjoy the blog for one reason or another, and that they want others to know about it too – and I just think that’s cool!

Of course the one thing about blog awards, is that you need to pass on the love, so here are the blogs that I want to recognize. I really tried to put some thought into this, because there are so many blogs that I read on a regular/daily basis but I know you all do to, because they’re the adoption or photo blog rock stars amongst us with huge readerships – come on – you know the ones, there’s Waiting for Sophie, Jazzie and Tahlia, Never too Many, Salsa in China, Ni Hao Y’all – among others. But I also want to point out 5 that you may read, or may not have seen lately, but are definitely worthy of a click and a read.

1. Emma’s World – Her Momma just got a new camera this year and is doing some loverly things with it – plus her kiddo is from the same place that my 2nd kiddo is from, and so I’m just always curious what they’re up to.

2. A Joyful Life – Janet is just a sweetheart, and you can tell that by reading her blog, plus she takes fun photos of her gorgeous kids!

3. Ooh’s and Ahh’s – Another single mom enjoying the ups and downs of life with two kids. Their life reminds me a bit of my life, her kids are just a bit older like mine too and it’s just a fun read with fun pictures.

4. This next one was (and could be still is) one of the rock star uber-popular blogs – then she went private. And I so missed her, and then she came back (remind you of someone else??) and I’m so happy Donna is back with her Double Happiness virtual twins.

5. And lastly, because I still do some digi-scrapping, I wanted to point out Artistic Musings. Her layouts are very simple, but beautiful, and she has almost daily freebies that you can download and create quick little pages that take almost no time at all to do – so if you’re short on time like I am, or you’ve always wanted to try digi scrapping but don’t know how – then check her out!

Have fun – and I hope I’ve offered some new reads out there!

Waiting (impatiently) for Grampie to get the sailboat out of the boathouse

Watch out – woman driver!

She finally got some wind and off they went!

Unfortunately the wind didn’t cooperate much, so they didn’t stay out too long.  I rowed out in the kayak and had to bump them back toward the right direction.  L is a good little sailor though, she was doing a great job and she really enjoyed showing off for a friend.  So the two of them came back, and then headed out in the paddle boat.  When they got back out to the middle of the lake, Daisy realized she was gone and decided L needed rescuing…

So then L rescued Daisy – or I mean Daisy rescued L – or something like that, all I know is there was rescuing going on!

And they lived happily ever after…

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

I’m an HGTV addict, and I believe it was on House Hunters that this wealthy couple had two itty bitty dogs and when they went out on their boat, they put these goofy looking life jackets on those pitiful looking dogs.  I didn’t know whether to laugh heartily or just feel sorry for those poor misguided people…  Yep – it was kinda funny, right up until my dog almost drowned.

The week we were in Chicago, my parents kept Daisy and spent most of the week building a new deck down by the boat-house.  Since Daisy has only wanted to go in the water if one of her peeps are in the water, then she was given free reign to roam the property.  When my parents realized they hadn’t seen her in awhile, they started looking for her… then a bit more frantically around the water.  It was about that time that a fisherman came by holding a soggy black and white dog and saying “Is she yours?”  He said he’d found her trying to get out of the water on the other side of a dock that is probably a good 30 to 35 yards down the lake.  Since the lake is surrounded by a sea wall, there was no way she could get out.  Daisy, like most dogs, can swim, but let’s just say it’s not really her strong suit.

So once learning of her mis-adventure, and knowing she’ll still be spending quite a bit of time at the lake, it was a no-brainer to go looking for her own life jacket, and this is what we came up with…

I hope L comes home with some pictures of soccer camp today. This is her second year at the University sponsored camp, but they have a new head coach and a fairly new staff, so this part was going to be different for her from last year. Plus, last year the girls from her team (only 4 of them) stayed at my parents lake house, which is nearby, and commuted to the day camp. This year the girls (now 7 of them) stayed in the dormitories on campus and have been there since Sunday. Camp lets out today and I can’t wait to hear more about it. L has called me at least twice a day during their lunch and supper breaks and all evidence leads to the conclusion that the girls have had a BLAST! Here’s just some notes as I think of them…

• The 7 girls were originally split into three rooms at the dorm (interestingly – this is the same dorm I lived at on campus for my first year there over ~gulp~ 25 years ago).
• On the second night, the girls convinced the coach they should all be in the same room (one of the girls had a “suite” of rooms), so he agreed. I bet he re-thought that decision later when the hall monitor had to go tell them to be quiet and settle down at 10:30 (lights out were at 11pm, but they were keeping other campers in nearby rooms up)
• There are 4 different camps at the University, and this was the “Elite” camp, girls ages 10 – 18. As the coach described it during the orientation Sunday, he said this was the toughest camp with the toughest schedule and the highest expectations. These are the girls that want to go on to play in college and be considered for scholarships, so a lot was going to be expected of them, and the schedule was tough.
• The girls started out each morning with a 7am breakfast, and they were on the fields from 8am – 11:30am doing drills, then an hour for lunch and to change into fresh uniforms, then 4 more hours of drills in the afternoon, and then the “fun” starts – after supper, at 6:30pm, the games start. Each night they’ve done three games, and the girls get to play in two of them due to the rotation. After the games there is an exhibition game by the older players and/or coaches. They get back to the dorm by 10:30, then lights out at 11pm.
• Based on the schedule I was REALLY worried about L going into it. She’s been away from home for over two weeks straight with just constant action: First she went to an out of state soccer tournament for 3 days, then her cousins were in town for a week of swimming and boating, then immediately after we went to Chicago, and then the day after we got home from the 11 hour car trip, I stick her in soccer camp. I was just concerned that another exhaustion based meltdown was imminent.
• Not to worry. My sweet girl would call me just to tell me how much fun she was having. I wish you could hear her excitement on the phone, it’s contagious. I kept asking her if she was tired yet, and she was like “No, I’m great mom, we’re about to go do ________________!” Same answer – with some slight variations – every time, but almost always with giggling girls providing background noise.
• Her grandfather has gone to watch the games at night and gives me an update on L and her teammates performance. The other girls that make up their group of 14 players, come from other teams around the southeast, and each are equally good – there are no poor players in the group, so imagine L’s excitement when she’s scored in BOTH nights games!  They’ve had her playing all over the field too – she got to play forward (which she never gets to) and that resulted in one of her goals.  She also played center-midfielder, which is not something she normally plays either – her position is typically left-midfield.  She also played the center defender, which is tough because the only thing between you and the goal is the goalie, and no one was able to score on her in that role.
• And lastly – after reading through this I had to recall something L said to her Grampie in second grade…  We were exiting the soccer fields and L was in the car with Grampie.  I had forgotten something on the field so ran back to get it.  While I was gone, L asked “Did I play good today Grampie”, to which he responded yes, and she replied “Good, because Mom likes to brag about me”.
• Heh… a truer statement was never made.  I brag about her a lot, and I know it and make no apologies for it.  She’s and her sister and pretty bragable kids.

If they weren’t in the pool – then they were playing pool…