Fun times with 3 year olds!!!

Aren't the 3's fun? Seriously!? Fun!

No. I am sorry, they may claim that kids go through the "Terrible Two's", but I definitely find the "Three's" to be just a tad more terrible.

Don't get me wrong, 99% of the time I LOVE having a 3 year old. And I will seriously tell you that I want her to stay 3 for a very long time. But there is that 1% of time that am ready to lose it.

Take yesterday evening.

My husband started back to work yesterday. I ran to the grocery store when he got home and then hurried home to try to get dinner started. When Kallie saw that I bought a few "goodies", including fruit snacks, she wanted them NOW.

Not after she ate, not in a little bit. Right. This. Very. Second. No if's, and's or but's.

So I got her a healthier fruit option, plunked it down and told her gently "just eat this and then you can have the fruit snack". She is a horrible eater.

I know, I know, I am probably doing EVERYTHING wrong (and I probably shouldn't have even purchased the fruit snacks in the first place), but I also honestly, truly think she has also inherited some of this stubbornness. Her dad did the same thing to his parents when he was a kid.

Anyway, my attempt to get her to eat some real fruit resulted in this:

A full blown tantrum by the tutu-wearing three year old.

And yes, after about 10 minutes, I caved, and allowed her the fruit snack after only one bit of the real fruit.

And we ate dinner, and she ate fairly well and life went on.

(Although I do need to add, we actually got her to eat a piece of grilled chicken, only to find that it was still in her mouth an HOUR later! She actually gnawed on that thing the entire time, before finally insisting it was thrown away. Score one, again, for Kallie.)

But then, right before bedtime, Daddy gave her a little (insert sarcasm) trim of the bangs:

And I forgot all about that earlier incident. Can't they stay this age forever?????

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A trip to the wild!

We are back!!!

It was a wonderful little getaway to Pennsylvania Elk country. The elk herd in Pennsylvania has grown to over 1000.

They are amazing creatures. Even more amazing, and a tad scary, is that many of them have become very accustomed to humans. In Benezette, a tiny town in the heart of elk country, you will VERY often see elk just walking through town. Cars stop just a few feet away from them and take pictures. And the elk just go about their business. They don't run away.

And yes, some idiots take the elks passiveness too far and do things like try to pet them or even put their kids on them for pictures!

But if you drive around Benezette early in the morning or right before dusk, and you see a bunch of cars on the side of the road, you can pretty much guess there are elk nearby. And it really is so much fun to watch them.

We have been going to Benezette for about 12 years. I absolutely love it. It is a gorgeous, mountainous area. This year we rented a cabin. Caroline stayed home with my MIL.

The cabin was small but very clean, pretty and included every single amenity you could possibly imagine.

The kiddos loved the cabin. There were bunk beds (which they get such a kick out of) and they could run around the grounds as much as they wanted. Eric and I built a fire, cracked open some cold ones, and just relaxed.

On the first night, we took a drive around the area and saw lots of elk. It was almost dark, so my photos are extremely grainy. I had to bump the ISO up as high as I could, which results in significant grain. I did some photoshopping to create a bit of an antique look, which almost makes the grain look like it is supposed to be there. I wish I could get a good sharp shot, but the lens I would need to create that shot would probably cost more than our cars.

Anyway, we saw a bunch of cow elk and their babies in some trees along the road. We then drove around and saw two huge bull elk in a field. This one was checking us out.

And he had as friend with him. In a couple weeks, these guys will be in full rut. They will be hunting down the chick elks and will be fighting each other for dominance. These two guys did a bit of thrashing with their antlers, but they pretty much continued to play nice with each other.

The next day we took a little walk from our cabin.

We found a pathway to the little creek and we climbed on a huge rock and enjoyed the sun, the view and the babbling waters. So nice!

Later that night, after dinner, we again took a drive to look for elk. We left a bit earlier so there was more light. So my photos are a bit better.

We saw a TON of elk! A few miles down the road we saw this in someone's front yard!

There were cows, many babies and one bull elk just hanging around and relaxing. The bull elk is starting to get a bit of the rut in him...as you can see, he is starting to check out the ladies!

Men! Aren't they all the same?!

We were about to drive away when we looked up and saw this lady crossing the road right in front of us! She has been tagged so she is obviously an elk that they are studying.

We then drove up the famous Winslow Hill. They have a few elk lookouts on this road. We stopped at the first outlook and, while we didn't see any elk, we did enjoy the amazing view and sunset!

We then took a side road and found this little spike bull by the road. He stopped to check us out.

A few yards away we found these two cow who seemed to find us as interesting as we found them!

We then made our way back to the cabin. Kallie was SO tired that night that she literally crashed, not to stir for over 12 hrs!

The next morning we packed up and I tried to get a little family picture. Not the best, but still OK. Unfortunately, we are missing our little Caroline!

When we got back and picked up Caroline, she was so happy to see us. She just smiled and smiled. She had good time with her Mimi, but she was so happy to be back home with her family.

Today is Eric's first day back to work. Christina and Caroline start school on Tuesday. The kids are so happy to be home that they have been playing happily all morning. And I have been able to enjoy a bit of completely uninterrupted computer time!

Have a good one!

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...yawn....

This is our kitty Nugget. It is also good example of how I feel today - lazy and tired!

I had a busy, but very fun day yesterday! I started the day off with a nice run, I then spent some time swimming and playing with my kiddos in the pool, and then I was off for a few hours of outlet mall shopping before I met up with the Burgh Moms for dinner and cocktails!

Dinner was great, the company was great and I got home safe and sound - albeit a bit tired and bleary-eyed. I left a little early - since my drive home was a bit long - and I am curious as to how long the festivities lasted. Did any of you actually finish those margaritas??? And, did anyone dare to order anything else from the slightly PO'd waitress? Anyway, thanks for the good time and hopefully we can do it again soon!

Today my hubby took Christina and Kallie to his parent's cottage for the day. So it was just Caroline and me. And we enjoyed a very nice, very quiet afternoon.

I cleaned, did a bunch of laundry and then we headed into the pool. After a bit of swimming, Caroline fell fast asleep while I had some uninterrupted computer-time! It was very relaxing.

Tomorrow we are heading out of town for a couple days to stay in a little cabin in Elk county. My MIL is taking Caroline for 2 nights. This is only the second time we have ever been away from Caroline overnight. I am looking forward to the time away, but I am also a bit nervous. Caroline isn't your average kid. She definitely requires quite a detailed list of instructions!

We are going to just chill out, do some hiking and fishing and hope to see lots of Pennsylvania elk. If you have never been to Pennsylvania Elk country, you definitely may want to check it out. Those elk are AMAZING!!! To see these magestic animals walking around is so cool!!

Well, I need to get some very tired kiddos to bed (they are now home from the cottage). Tomorrow is another very busy day! I will see you when we get back (hopefully with MANY great photos)!!!!!!

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Photostory Friday! Fair week!!!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Hey, our little piece of the world is in rural USA, so the county fair is a really big deal!

And, considering I spent my early life in pursuit of life in big city, and I spent my 20's living in a bigger city, it is sort of amusing and ironic that I now find my fun and excitement at agricultural fairs.

So, this week we made our annual trek to the fair. It is actually not our county, but the county next to us. However, it is the largest agricultural fair in Pennsylvania so it worth the little trek on over.

Since this is such a huge fair, there are an amazing number and variety of animals. We stopped by to visit the pigs, goats, sheep, cows as well as the many MANY varieties of horses.

My favorite horses are the draft horses. They are amazingly huge. And I just look at them in awe. How can such an incredibly huge animal be so gentle and nonthreatening?

The most amazing part of the day was when we discovered this little beaut. A baby cow born only hours ago!!!!

How cute is he?? He was such a newborn that his mom was still delivering the placenta when we stopped by. OK, sorry, gross, but it actually didn't faze me a bit.

After she was done with that, she stood up and proceeded to give her new baby a complete head to toe bath. I mean, seriously....AWWWW!

After this little sight, we headed over to the cheesy, rip-off games so the kiddos could spend a few dollars trying to win a prize worth about 10 cents. But they loved it.

After the games, we stopped to see a few more animals when Kallie announced:

"I want a pony, and some candy."

And she continued to ask:

"I want a pony! Where is the pony?!"

We just laughed and asked her where we were going to put said pony. Her response?

"In my hand!"

And then I got it.

This little 3 year old spent the whole day thinking we were going to find this little guy:


And she was a bit disappointed. Sorry sweetie!

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We interrupt this blog...

For some last minute summertime! We are packing in as much summertime fun these last days as possible. And I have been blogging so much less!

I know I was complaining a few posts ago about "When does school start!?" (September 2nd in these parts). And even though I am looking forward to getting back into a routine and having more peace and quiet, I am, at the same time, sad that these days of summer are quickly coming to an end.

We had a very cool summer. I have read many bloggers saying that they are looking forward to the cooler fall weather, but seriously, we have had September-like weather in our world ALL summer.

We literally ran our A/C about TWO whole days this summer. And I think those days were actually in MAY! There were definitely some hot days, but we did not have much (if any) hot, steamy, muggy summer days and nights.

And this summer I was definitely looking forward to those days! We got a new pool this year you know! I would have loved at least a few days where it is so uncomfortable that the only place you want to be is in the pool. Oh well, maybe next year.

Well - here is my weekend recap -

Friday morning I stopped by the lake. It was so beautiful and foggy and completely peaceful.

We took the kiddos to the school playground that evening. They haven't been there all summer (sad, I know), so it was a nice treat. And it was a gorgeous evening.

Saturday we headed to my IL's cottage by the river. We expected to have a few friends and family join us, and it ended up being a bit more of a bash than expected. It was fun though, just a bit more crazy and less relaxing than we thought. The kids had an absolute blast though. They literally ran and laughed the entire time.

We stayed overnight and left early the next morning. The day before was crazy and wild, but the morning was completely gorgeous and peaceful.

Yesterday was a gorgeous, picture perfect day. The pool water was a bit chilly from the cool days and nights we have been having, so we cranked up the heater and got the water up to 85! And the whole entire family (I guess that is redundant) played in the pool all day. It was really fun. We rarely do that. But yesterday was just one of those days that we decided to forget housework, forget yardwork and just play. I felt like a kid, but it felt so good! And, since I pretty much swam all day, I took only a couple photos to make sure I didn't miss a day in my Project 365.

Well, the pool is open again, the sun is shining, so I think I will join my family for a dip!

Until next time!!!

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Photostory Friday - Getting THE shot!!!!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Photography is a lot like hunting. You can practice, practice, practice. But often the most sought after shots are completely out of your control. Those shots are the result of forces of nature. In hunting, you can have all the right equipment, perfect your shot, but if that big buck doesn't come your way, you are out of luck.

Take yesterday.

I was just putzing around the house, just Kallie and me. It had rained all afternoon and was quite cool. I was picking up my family room when I happened to glance outside and saw the most incredible sight in my backyard. And here it was:

The combination of the late evening sun and the mist from the all day rain created an amazing sight. My heart literally started pounding in my chest. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. Kallie was close on my heels.

I took about 30 shots yesterday of this sight. I tried different angles, different positions. I tried to think of the absolute best way to capture this amazing sight. Kallie thought it looked so cool she kept asking me touch it. The sun rays looked like they were "touchable".

And having an opportunity to capture scenes like this is the reason I have grown to love photography.

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When does school start???

Not soon enough.

Please don't get me wrong. I love my family. I just think that this was a tough summer. My kids are young enough that they need me every 2.2 minutes. But they are old enough that they can get into anything and everything in mere minutes.

For instance, I don't know how many times Christina decided to make Kool Aid on her own. Yeah, I just LOVE it when that sticky purple powder is found all over my kitchen. LOVE it. Especially when she tries to be a big help and "cleans" it up herself. Oh my.

Add a teacher-husband who is home most of the summer and likes to comment on every single thing I do. All. Day. Long. Hmmm. Yup. Fun.

Last year I was so sad thinking of Christina going to school all day. But she loves school. She loves waking up early and getting ready. She loves her friends. She loves the teachers. She is very happy when she goes to school. And this year I kinda understand why my mom used to celebrate the first day of school.

Well anyway, yesterday was a big day, Christina lost her second front tooth. I love this stage, when they are missing both front teeth and they have that cute lispy speech. So sweet. And of course, this is the perfect time for lots of pictures!!!

And even though I long for a bit of peace and quiet, I still am so incredibly happy that I am able to be a stay at home mom. We definitely miss out on some of the "finer" things in life, but I would hate to miss important observations from my 6 year old. Like this morning -

"Mom, what is asleep right now?"

"Umm, I don't know, what?"

"An opossum. (duh) Opossums sleep during the day and are up all night. I think I would like to try that."

Yeah, that is JUST what I need, at least one kid up every hour of the day and night. Yup. That would be swell.

And then there is Kallie. She has a new phrase that just cracks us up. Whenever someone is leaving the house, she wants to tell them to hurry (like her older sister does).

But, instead of saying something in lines of "Go as fast as you can!", she says:

"Go fast and slow!"

We just laugh and it has now become our new mantra. We all tell each other "go fast and slow!".

Kallie has also discovered the fine art of belching, otherwise known as burping, ructus, or eructation. Yes, this cute little tutu-wearing princess can burp, LOUDLY, with the best of them. In fact this morning, after I gave her her morning milk, she politely said:

"Mom, go in da kitchen so I can burp!"

Yup, she is going to be one fine lady some day!

Go fast and slow!!!

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Special Exposure Wednesday! Life with a feeding tube.

Caroline is 100% tube fed. It is a scary concept for many. But in all honestly, it has become one of the easiest aspects of caring for her.

After Caroline was born, she ate like any other baby. But she suffered from reflux. And her reflux was incredibly severe. So severe, her esophagus became irritated to the point of bleeding. And to the point of creating a huge aversion to eating. She can eat if she wanted to. It is safe for her to eat by mouth. She just doesn't want to. And that is OK.

During her first few months, we tried every medication we could, we tried feeding in very small amounts, we tried keeping her upright during and after feedings to let gravity help hold the food down. We spent hours and hours completely devoted to just trying to feed her.

Nothing worked. She was literally throwing up everything she ate and she barely gained weight.

At 6 months old, we finally agreed with the doctors and she underwent g-tube surgery.

A g-tube is a basically a hole into your stomach that can be opened and closed. So, instead of food and water going in your mouth and down your throat, it goes through the tube. Simple.

The best thing about the tube, is that it allows us to feed Caroline with a pump. We set the pump to a feed rate (cc/hr) and the formula is gradually dripped into her stomach. Caroline's stomach doesn't handle huge volumes of food/formula. So having a pump makes life SO much easier. We fill the bag with formula, power up the pump and walk away. Easy!

Here, Caroline is looking at her tube. She often does that. Must be wondering why this thing is always attached to her!

We often put Caroline in one of her chairs during a feeding. She will roll around the floor quite a bit. There have been too many occasions where we give her a feeding while she is playing on the floor, only to realize that she rolled around enough that she pulled apart the tubes and there is formula all over the floor. YUCK.

It is possible to pull the whole tube out of her stomach accidentally. I did it once. It hurts her, but doesn't cause any major problems like bleeding. I just need to replace the tube, which, once you know how, is again - no big deal.

I often joke that I want to get feeding tubes for the rest of my kids. The tube does have some major advantages -

I pretty much control how much food she gets. If she starts to gain too much weight, we just back off the feedings.

If she needs medications - they just go in the tube. No fighting to get her to swallow.

If she gets really sick - we can keep her hydrated by giving her tiny bits of water or Pedialyte in her tube. Much easier than than trying to force a sick child to take a sip. And we have avoided quite a few hospital stays because of this!

Some people feel sorry for her because she doesn't get to taste food. But honestly, she never really had that sensation, so she really doesn't know what she is missing.

I used to feel very self conscious when I needed to feed Caroline in public. I used to try to hide the tube so people wouldn't stare.

Now? I couldn't care less. I am proud of Caroline and how far she has come. I know that having a feeding tube played a huge part in the reason Caroline is still here and still very happy and thriving.

It's a good thing.

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Aren't 3 year olds fun? And some weekend happenings.

Yup! Three year olds. So. Much. Fun.

Did you notice a tad of sarcasm there? Yeah.

My 3 year old is on the verge of being shipped out on the next boat out of town. Except there probably aren't any boats going out of town that are accepting 3 year olds, and I probably would miss her just a tiny bit. OK, maybe a lot.

She took a nap yesterday which was well needed. However, it screwed up her sleep schedule a bit. She went to bed later and she was up much earlier than normal.

At 7:30 she was up.

At 7:38 she was in time out, mainly because she was crying about nothing and needed to settle down (after being up for a whole EIGHT minutes).

At 10:00 she was back in time out for slamming the door on her sister and locking her outside.

At 11:30 she was banished from the upstairs because, after I told her older sister to put away clothes, she proceeded to grab said clothes and throw them around the room.

As much as I hate to do it, she definitely will be having another naptime today. And, looking back on the morning, I probably should have started naptime at 7:39 a.m.

And, I am out of creamer so I had to enjoy this lovely morning with coffee and, yuck, skim milk.

Anyway weekend stuff....

We went to our neighbor's wedding on Saturday with our kiddos. It was OK.

Kallie was tired and spent most of the time shouting "WHERE IS MARRIED?". Her sister told her we are going to see them get married, so she wanted to see the "Married" they were getting!

There were also a few out of control kids at the wedding that didn't seem to understand that wrestling and body slams weren't appropriate activities during a wedding reception. We got to the reception at about 4 and were gone by about 5:30. It was also a dry wedding, which is fine, but, truthfully, not as fun. I definitely needed a cold one if I was going to continue to handle my tired kids and the midget wrestlers around them. I think the rest of the wedding guests agreed, the party was over at 7. Kallie did look pretty, albeit a bit dazed:

Yesterday we took the girls biking up at my hometown. It was such a perfect day! We stopped by the houseboats:

After biking, we met my family for a picnic. The kids ran around and Christina and her cousin did some fishing. Yeah, they look like they know what they are doing...

On a very good note, the potty training is going amazingly well. Although, at 3, she definitely was ready. She had 2 little oopsies on day one, and has been fine ever since. The only problem we have is she refuses to use the potty for #2. So, in order to prevent any "problems", we let her use a diaper for that.

Well, I will get back to tending to my girls. Kallie is SO incredibly wound up right now, she literally is acting like she guzzled a few (or 10) espressos for breakfast.

I need to find the off switch. Holy cow batman!

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Photostory Friday - Busy, Busy, Busy!

It has been a very busy last few days. Here is a recap...in photos of course!!! Hence...I will just call it "Photostory Friday"!!!!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Yesterday morning I spent some time at our local lake. We had horrible thunderstorms in the very early morning. But when I got out of bed, the sun was poking through and the world was glistening. I grabbed my coffee, my camera and I was off!

It was spectacular! I was the only soul there and it was incredibly peaceful.

The ducks were a little upset at my appearance, but I got a few photos as they were flying away..

The lake was like glass and I loved how the sky reflected on the water.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning and getting things under control because I knew the next few days were going to be really crazy.

Today, Christina and I had a girls' day out. We did some shopping and did lunch. It was so nice. I got some great deals at our local outlet mall on some "back to school" clothes. Can you believe we only have a few weeks until school starts?? YIKES!

When we got home, Christina was again off for her last summer swim team event. They had an invitational .

She dropped over 20 seconds in her 25 free event. Which is great, and a bit hilarious if you know anything about swimming. That time drop is HUGE! After the meet they had a picnic and went swimming in a local park. And interesting thing to note is that the temperature was only about 65 but Christina and the rest of the kids swam without a complaint!

After the meet, I took Kallie to the park to play by the fountain. I thought I may be able to get some nice photos, but Kallie-Wallie was less than cooperative. This was the best "fountain" photo I could get!

Yeah, she wouldn't even look at me. I took about 20 shots. Every. Single. One of them was blurry because she would take off running the second I tried to push the shutter.

She's difficult I tell you!!!

But finally I decided to try bribery. A promise of ice cream and she quickly parked herself on the bench for a few shots.

After Kallie and I left the meet, the coaches gave out medals to all the swimmers. To this 6 year old you may as well have given her an Olympic gold. She was THAT excited!

We got the kids home tonight and they pretty much fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

Tomorrow we are going to a neighbor's wedding. We were all invited, including the kids. It is nice for the kids, because they will have a blast. But it is a little harder for us as we need to keep the kids from getting too wild and crazy and out of control.

Well, have a great weekend!!!

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Special Exposure Wednesday!

As I promised, I am working on trying to get better photos of Caroline. Coincidentally, I found these photos on one of my favorite photography blogs.

This amazing photographer posted photos of her sister today. Her sister is disabled and, looking at the photos, her sister really reminds me of a much older version of Caroline. I think her photos are amazing. And they inspire me.

So tonight I attempted a quick photo session outside next to my Black-eyed Susans in the late afternoon sun.

I propped Caroline on a beanbag chair covered by a blanket. The light was perfect and she did quite well!

And then her sisters joined in the fun. And Caroline quickly became incredibly thrilled and so excited to have the attention!

And my heart melted..

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Stop the presses!!!

Alert the media! It was a HUGE day in our little world yesterday!!!!

What happened you ask? Well....Kallie Wallie, our little obstinate 3 year old.....USED HER POTTY!!!

Yup, you heard me right! We tried lots of bribing, we were sure we would packing Pampers for college, but finally, FINALLY....she did it!!!!

I think the key to this success was the fact that we let her run around with just a bathing suit a lot this summer. And I think this helped her quickly come to understand and know when it was time to go. The real sign that diaper time was over was over the weekend when she was running around outside (in her suit) and was showing us the obvious signs of a kid who has to GO. We asked he if she wanted to use the potty, she said "No, I will go in the grass". And she did.

So yesterday, after swimming for a bit, I took off her suit and told her to sit down on the potty. She showed a bit of resistance, but finally sat down. Christina was so excited when she saw what Kallie was doing, she quickly joined the bathroom party.

We all waited, and waited.

Christina got some toys to help pass the time.

I gave her some goldfish to snack on.

And, after about 45 minutes, it happened!!!

Yes, it was cause for a huge celebration in our world. Especially since Kallie then willing donned her new Ariel underpants and used the potty for the rest of the day. She even, on her OWN accord, ran to the potty and did #2! Talk about being more than ready for potty training! She had one little mess up after dinner, but that was it. I knew she was way ready for this, and I knew when she finally did it, it would happen very quickly. Thankfully, I was right!

So we ate marshmallows, we went out for ice cream (a big rarity for us) and we overwhelmed her with many MANY hugs and kisses.

She is so proud of herself! And so are we!!!!! Way to go big girl!!!

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Best Shot Monday

I was again taking pictures of Caroline yesterday. I know I have many more pictures of my other girls, because Caroline is definitely a much tougher subject.

So, I have decided my new goal is to get more creative photos of Caroline and try to capture her sweetness. It is such an amazing quality, that I really want to bottle it up to share. So many people are fearful of children like Caroline. They feel sorry for them, they think they could NEVER EVER handle such a responsibility.

I know. I was one of them.

But don't feel sorry for me, I don't.

And don't feel sorry for her, she definitely doesn't. In fact, she is a lot happier than most people!

Anyway, I was taking pictures of Caroline and she wasn't too happy about it. So I asked Christina to come over and talk to her.

And Caroline's mood did a complete 180 as her face lit up with a big smile.

And then I sang "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly" to her and she became quiet as a mouse while hiding her little smile:

Christina, although willingly obliging me by entertaining Caroline, was actually impatiently waiting for me to let her get on with whatever it was she was doing. So I snapped a shot of her:

Looking at this picture, I am struck at how old Christina looks. With her arm across her mouth, you can't see her toothless smile. To me, she looks years older than she is. And it makes me so suddenly sad when I realize again how fleeting her time as a child really is.

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Blah blah blah.....

I feel very uncreative lately! I have been taking pictures as usual, but I download them and think - blah, blah, blah. Nothing too bad, but definitely nothing too great.

And I sit down, read a few blogs, and think of what I could blog about and all I think is - blah, blah, blah...Nothing too bad, but definitely nothing too interesting.

But I decided to just do it, just post some of my blah pictures, and to talk about some blah stuff and move on to enjoy this absolutely GORGEOUS Sunday! It is truly going to be a picture perfect day in our world!

OK - on to the blah...

Friday was a nice relaxing day around the house. My husband's back has been bothering him, so he decided a day by the pool doing nothing was in order.

Of course, Daddy's plans for "nothing" were quickly changed to "throwing kids in the pool"...



I mean, how can he resist once Christina batted her blue eyes at him...


The kids ended the day playing on a new playground that a very generous friend handed down to us. The thing is HUGE and includes two towers connected by a bridge. Christina and Kallie lugged their phones outside and have dubbed one house "Christina's" and one house "Kallie's". They talk on the phone, read stories and just are having a good ole time.



Saturday we headed to a local amusement/water park for my MIL's annual church picnic. It is a great park for little ones as they have a lot of rides for little kids. This year the park also added a brand new wooden roller coaster that is quite amazing and breathtaking.

We started the day at the kiddie rides. They all had a great time as expected.

Kallie was initially excited about getting on the Frog Hopper:

She showed a bit of bravery by going hands-free:


Only to suddenly be struck with a wave of terror as the ride suddenly got a little scary.


Don't worry, she was fine, but she definitely let us know that "I no like that!". And stayed far away from Mr. Frog for the rest of the day.

I did something I have never done before....I rode the ferris wheel. Now why have I never ridden this ride? I have no idea. I used to go to the BIG parks like Cedar Point all the time when I was young and single and I rode all the rides, except this one. I think it was just because it seemed boring and I didn't want to waste time in lines for it.

But yesterday we all went up in the Ferris Wheel and I have discovered that I have a bit of fear of heights. Actually, I already knew that, but it just emphasized that fact. I was getting a bit freaked out as we ascended, but then I saw the view....


Yup, pretty damn nice! Maybe I'll try it again someday!

And I will end this post with an observation...

Amusement parks are, shall we say....amusing! The parade of, um, interesting people provides almost as much amusement as the rides themselves!

I don't know what it is, but the overwhelming majority of park-goers must meet the following guidelines:

1. A hot bod (insert just a touch of sarcasm).

2. that is covered in all sorts of interesting artwork (aka tattoos)..

3. and holding a lit cigarette at exact perfect height to singe all the 3 - 6 years olds running around (don't ya just love that?).

WHY is that!? WHY I ask? I just don't get it, but about 75% of the people (maybe more) at the park yesterday definitely met all these guidelines, and more.

Well, enough blah blah - have a great day!!!!

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