G's Haircut!

So, G has been wanting to get her haircut for awhile now, but she really wanted to donate it, but didn't have enough for lock of love. We discovered a great program called Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. It makes wigs for women with cancer. The best part is the wigs are free for the women. Lock of Love offers their wigs on a sliding scale, so this really helps someone enormously! G was able to donate two ponytales, nine inches each, so it counts as two donations (gotta love the thick hair on my girl). She loves her new 'do and feels great about helping someone.

OK Laurie....I'm Updating!

These are all pictures from our recent trip to Chicago. This is a picture of G with her cousin J and Lake Michigan in the background. H at Buckingham fountain. And dinner at Bubba Gump's. We have eaten at every Bubba Gump's we come across. I don't think it's because of the food, I think it is because we like the trivia they ask you during dinner, OH, and to get a t-shirt from that location to add to the collection. There was also a Lego store near our hotel, so of course we had to go. H had never been in a Lego store (yes, we know he is a porr deprived child!) and he loved every minute of it.

The other big adventure was taking G to American Girl. What a day that was. I have never seen anything like. G had a great time, but I think I may have liked it even more. We had lunch in there and the dessert was a little flower pot and heart shapped cookie, so I had to take a picture! Here is G with her doll Mia having lunch. And the other picture is from when she was trying on clothes showing them off to her audience. She did get the pink heart dress and wore it to see Mary Poppins the next night.

This picture is of me, G, Mom, and Aunt Brenda. We now call her Annio. She wanted a nickname from the kids, so that is what they came up with for her.

I loved this picture. I told H to pretend the bear was right behind him sniffing him to see if he was tasty. In reality we were at the Field Museum. Chicago is a very fun town, but there was no way we could come even close to seeing everything there. I am glad we went on that vacation, because our trip to New York has been cancelled. P was picked up to go to RFO school at Cape D so off he goes, and we are all left behind with no plans! While he is there he is going to see all his friends nad make a trip to visit his Mom. Her surgery went well (she fell and broke her arm really badly) and meet his brother's new girlfriend! Swim team is finally finished. H came in first in his age group for backstroke in the state championships, so he is pretty pumped up for swim to start again. G did really well and took third in her age group, swimming a 25m backstroke in 30.18 seconds, which is very fast! I hope you are all enjoying your summer. We have had perfect weather all summer. Coast Guard Festival is going on right now and we have 250,000 people visiting our fine city to celebrate. I keep saying if they really want to honor our boys they should give them a pay raise. Take care everyone...see you all here next week!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

Happy 4th everyone! This morning G and I spent our time making ath of July garland for the front porch. I think it came out great and thought you would all like to see it as well. We painted all the paper, cut it into star shapes and strung it. G loved doing the 'Jackson Pollack' thing with the paper and I think she is now going to want to do this with every holiday. It truely inspired P, because he wanted to decorate the porch with all kinds of stuff. Melissa, you would be so proud of me. I hauled everything up from the basement and decorated the porch for less than one day of enjoyment!

A shout out to Michelle and her gang...Happy Birthday Kiddies! I hope you all have fun at Disneyland.

Bunnies

Here in the great state of Michigan we have all kinds of wildlife around. In our yard so far we have seen our Turkey's and their babies (they are back again this year), a coyote, squirrels (black and gray), possums, deer, crows, a weasel and three bunnies. Tongith I am going to tell you all a story about the bunnies...

Paul, His MoRose, Hayden and I were all sitting around the breakfast room table (next to the big picture window) playing Catch Phrase, when I happened to look out the window and saw our three bunny friends (Grace has named the Todd, Lily, and Snuggles). I commented to everyone "hey, look! there are the bunnies playing ring-around-the-stump"(tree stump in the yard) and made everyone look. Unfortunatly they were not playing ring-around-the-stump, Todd and Lily were playing "let's make more snuggles" I immediatly told the kids to sit down, but it was too late...they got a quick lesson in "oh, how cute...they are playing leap frog". We are not going to be pointing out the antics nature get up to in our yard anymore!

So, Paul's mom is here for a visit. It has been lots of fun. She doesn't like squirrel, so we are best friends! We have been shopping, sightseeing, eating, and going to yard sales. She is here until Monday and than she leaves and the kids and I go to Chicago for a week. Mark (my brother) is taking H to a cubs game and G and I are going to lunch at American Girl with my Mom. Yippee!!! G wants to get the Rachel doll because she is a "New Yorkie" and we are going there this summer.

I hope everyone has a happy 4th and enjoy's whatever fireworks you get to see!

Summer

So it seems everyone is putting up summer pictures, so I will too. My pictures must be like M Bell's because they too loaded in no particular order. G finally lost her front tooth, well she actually had it pulled because it was so loose for so long that it got infected and the dentist pulled it because it was never going to come out on it's own. So she has lost her two bottom and one top and two of the three have been pulled for her. She does not have the lovey dovey relationship with the tooth fairy that everyone else's kids may have. But, she does get way better stuff from the tooth fairy, because, I don't know if you know this or not, the tooth fairy always feels bad when kids have to get teeth pulled, so she leaves them presents and stuff. The next picture is G showing off her new summer tops. She has this top in several different colors. Loves it! I love having a Children's place so close to home. Speaking of children's clothes...thank you for letting me sell you all out. I have $60 in credit right now and more to come, so when school starts I am going to cash it all in for new school clothes for G through MiniBoden, so thank you! The next few pics are of G in her first swim meet. She took second in two of her events and fourth and seventh in the other two events. She is a good swimmer like her bro, but she is better at different strokes than he is. H also competed in this meet and took first and second in his two events. Pretty good for them because it was a big meet and there were at least 15 girls in each of G events, they run them in heats and G pulled out second overall in both event. H only had 6 boys in each of his events, not sure why not too many boys in his age catagory are swimming. They are on the G.H. swim team, but in the fall it turns into a USA swim team. They have a great coach and we are excited about swim! H is really competative and wants to be the next Michael Phelps, so going USA is right up his alley. G just like swimming and being with the other girls on her team, having said that she LOVED coming in second and wants a first next time!

I am finished with school for the summer. I had my last final on Tues. We must be the smartest Coastie wives because I got all A's again, and am hanging with Tara in the 4.0 slot...looking down at the rest of the young and inexperienced kiddies in college thinking "if you would drink less beer, get more sleep, and do what your mother tells you, you could be up here with the honor students", now that I said all of that don't you ladies go checking for spelling mistakes in my blog, you will find them and than make fun of me!

P's mom is coming to visit next week for 10 days YAHOO!!! how nice to have family visit. The day after she leaves we are heading off Chicago to meet up with my brother, mom and aunt for a long weekend. Summer is going to fly by. In August we are driving to N.Y. for 10 days, before I head back to school. Gas prices better stay down or we will be living on Mac n' cheese until we leave.

Summer TV- ARMY WIVES!!!!! I am so glad it's back. It is so good this year too. I am waiting to see whatDenise does. I like the character, but I hate what she did.

The next network food star-P and I got sucked into this one, and we like it. Anyone else watching it?

Waiting for BB-hope you are too Amy! SOON, SOON!

Ice Road truckers, Deadliest Catch both good, although lisa drives me crazy!

We started watching The Tudors on DVD, it is really good. Has anyone seen it?

OK, I hope you all have a good week. I know I said before that I was going to be really good and update my blog from now on, but now I really mean it.

MTTC'S and all that fun stuff!

OK, I am very excited and must share with everyone. I recieved my results a few days ago and I passed my MTTC's. For those of you I haven't talked with recently, the MTTC's are the Michigan Teacher's Test for Certification. The state boards basically and I passed with flying colors! YAHOO!!!! I still have to take the test in my major (language arts) but the Reading/Writing/Math portion is done and I will never have to take them again! School is going great. I have a few weeks left. The kids get out in a few weeks as well. They are ready, I am not ready for them to be out. I don't have a lot to say this week. TV has been very good, but coming to a summer standstill soon. BOO HOO. I think it is pretty pathetic how wrapped up in TV I really am. I love TV and I watch more than I should, but I still read a lot as well. I am thrilled that JT won everything in Survivor, including the extra $100,000. I love that Kris won American Idol. I don't think I could have watched if the shreaking cat won. I love that Shawn Johnson won Dancing. She is a plucky little thing...Good For Her! I haven't watched the finale of AxMen/Deadliest Catch/CSI yet, so don't spoil it if you know. I have still not caught up on Gray's of Desperate...soon, I promise! I want more Disney pics. I need to know what I am missing and depriving my children of. Like I said, not much from me today, but seeing as I am the first to post, maybe I have more to say than all of you! take care my dear friends!

My, Oh My, It Is I, the slacker....

Hello ladies! Yes, it is me, I am back! after my long absence, I have returned to the blog world. I am pleased to announce that i got straight A's in all my classes and i have a perfect GPA. Not bad for an old lady. I am taking two classes this summer, Teaching Literature to Children, and Technology in the Classroom. I have discovered i am not a "techie", I suck at it and I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Melissa, would you please stop getting so high tech with your blog....I suck and it is a total reminder to me that I do. I had to create a webpage for my class in technology and when I am all finished I will share the address with you, or.....you can all google me at somepoint and you will see it in progress as I add to it every week and complete the project. I love my lit class, reading kids books and discussing them is my favorite thing to do. we just finished reading "Bud, not Buddy", by Christopher Paul Curtis. I highly recommend it for everyone, but I know all the boys will love it. I had one full week when the kids were in school and I was not. I spent the whole week ignoring the laundry and reading my stack of fun books. I plowed through one a day and loved every minute of it. Paul and I also got in a bunch of golf while the kids were in school. Speaking of golf...the whole family is in a golf scramble over Memorial day weekend. It is through our golf club and it will be Grace's debut! She has been golfing with us for a few weeks now and loves it. This summer it is swim and golf. Both kids are swimming for the Grand Haven swim team this summer. They are going to be in shape by the end of the summer. They have practice everyday and a meet every Thursday, that with the golfing when Dad gets home every afternoon, and these kids are going to be powerhouses. We have two trips planned for the summer. A trip to Chicago in July and a trip to New York in August. We will be very busy beavers. I had a very nice Mother's Day. I slept supper late and had an ice cream sundae for breakfast with my coffee...in the big bed! Now for all the TV viewers in the audience...

Survivor-J.T. better win. I think I have a huge crush on the southern hottie. It sickens Paul, but who cares. He is adorable and nice to look at and to close your eyes and listen...UMMMMM. Coach drives me crazy. Someone needs to scheme him off the island. I am also glad Sierra is gone, she annoyed me as well.

American idol- I have been watching the singing, but not the kick off shows. i want Danny Gokey to win. I haven't liked Adam since he killed the Johnny Cash sone in week two or three. He is so shrill sounding. Plus Gokey is cute. He kind of reminds me of Josh Gracin...my other favorite American Idol cutie pie!

Hells Kitchen- I want the bot to win....of course, now that I am trying to remember his name I can't! Season finally is tomorrow while I am at school, so Paul is taping it for me.

Amazing Race-I loved that Tammy and Victor won. They worked really well together and they kicked butt.

I have not watched Gray's or Desperate in ages. They are both on my watch this summer list, so I can catch up.

Has anyone heard anything about Army Wives?

Is anyone watching the new season of the Bachlorette? I am!

That's it for me. I will post faithfully from now on, no more slacking off.