Vacation Away

It's Tuesday and we're having a great time on our vacation at Bugbee Hive Resort. I'm in the business center at our resort writing this. So far since Saturday afternoon we've logged about 15 hours in the pool, 15 hours lakeside--some on the water trampoline and some fishing, have stayed up until 1:00am with Matt and Josh mezmerized watching episodes of the first season of LOST (wow! what a good show), watched several kid movies, read 6 chapters of read aloud books to the little kids, played several games with Josh and Matt, finished a novel and started a new one, slept in, did water aerobics, colored with Katie and Caleb, went water tubing on a banana style family water tube, made a few crafts, played at the playground, grilled out three meals, lit sparklers every night, eaten a bunch of vegies, crackers and dips, and allowed Katie and Caleb to eat ice cream sandwiches for breakfast. Tonight we go horseback riding. According to the boy who is taking care of Brady dog, he is doing just fine. All is well. I expect we'll book next year's vacation here before we leave on Saturday. Blessings for your week.

I'm glad to have missed all the Michael Jackson memorial stuff on the TV this week.

Blog Interrupted

We are having so much fun this summer that I just haven't wanted to stop to write anything on my blog. We finally finished redecorating Caleb's room and have since moved on to Katie's room. Since we moved in to this house 6 years ago Katie has had the master bedroom as her room. Matt and I took the smaller bedroom that had a three season porch attached to it. We were concerned that Katie would wander out onto the porch in the middle of the night during the winter and freeze to death. We also erroneously thought that we'd be able to use the porch as a private sitting area/craft room off our bedroom. Well, due to our 9 months of 40 degrees or (much) lower temps in MN we can really only use the porch for 2 months of the year at best! So it has been dubbed The World's Most Useless Porch and has become the upstairs junk room for the past 6 years.

Well now that Katie is 10 and now that I have Mary Kay stuff that needs a home and now that I have scrapbooking and sewing stuff that needs a home we decided to bump Katie into the smaller bedroom and to reclaim the master bedroom for ourselves. We had to prime the idea pump with Katie for a few days since she's usually VERY resistant to any kind of changes. But eventually she decided that this would be a good thing for her. I let her pick out whatever paint colors she wanted and boy did she deliver!! Her walls are a very bright pink and deep lavender. I did try to talk her down to lighter colors but she wouldn't budge. So, the pink and lavender went up on the walls and the results are just darling (see pics below). She loves her new room and she is so proud to show it off to her friends.

When it comes to paint in kids' bedrooms I think they should be allowed to pick their own colors. Paint is relatively cheap and easy to do-over when the time comes. We expect to stay in this house for another 15 years at least so the rooms will need to be repainted at least twice before we move out anyway--so why not crazy colors if that makes the kids' happy!!! The only thing I do insist on now is neutral trim colors--white or cream. In our house in Cottage Grove I made the mistake of painting the trim in Josh's room a bright glossy red. Boy was that a %P4#8@ to paint over with primer and white paint when we needed to repaint!! Never again.

Anyway, Katie's room is done now and after vacation we'll start in on painting the master bedroom. We moved our bed and nightstands in there last weekend. I must say it has been so nice to have some breathing room again. We have a king size bed and it was quite cramped in the little bedroom for the past 6 years--but it was really romantic and cozy. I tried to make our bedroom look like an antique B & B room and I think it looked pretty cute. For our "new" bedroom I'll keep the same idea except we will have a loooooong skinny work table, short file cabinets, and some wall shelves to house all my MK supplies, scrapbooking and sewing stuff. Three walls will be a warm, light tan color with lighter trim--see the closet and trim colors in Katie's new room pics. The wall behind our bed will probably be a warm paprika or terracotta color. Eventually Matt will rip out the carpet in there and install wood laminate flooring to match the rest of the upstairs. So by the end of the summer everyone will have freshly painted, re-decorated bedrooms, even Josh--after we do our annual dumpster off- loading room cleaning and detoxifying!!! Josh's room WILL be clean by the end of July as Paper Mario is my witness!!!!

Tomorrow we leave for a week long vacation to Bugbee Hive Family Resort. It's a very cute, relaxed little family resort on Lake Koronis. We have the same three bedroom, 2 bath cottage that we rented last year. We'll have a week of swimming in the lake and pool, water-tubing, horse back riding, lots of board game playing, nightly grill outs, morning crafts, naps, reading aloud, and just having fun together. Brady dog will stay home to guard the castle and a neighbor boy will walk and take care of him.

I guess that's all the news that's fit to print. See you on the flip side of vacation. Have a happy and safe 4th! Enjoy the pics below!!

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Summer Fun

Well, we're just three weeks into summer and my kids have already had a ton of fun. Katie and Caleb started up with their summer swim program on M, T, and W mornings again this year. This will be the fourth year that they've participated in this free program for kids with special needs and their siblings. They really enjoy it and learn so much. This is the only swimming lessons Caleb has ever had and he is a great swimmer--off the board, deep end, front crawl, backstroke, floating, he's learned it all from our beloved Coach Keanne. Katie has been a fine swimmer for many years now and continues to improve her technique and speed with coaching.

Josh has started Karate lessons in earnest now and is going 4 times a week; Caleb goes 3-4 times a week. It's great to see Josh enjoying this sport and widening his social circle.

Last week Josh and Caleb attended the Redemption Cards mini-camp at our church. Caleb was a student, Josh was a table leader/teacher. The boys went M, T, W, and Th afternoons all week. Although Caleb was the youngest kid there he did just fine participating with the big boys. Then on Friday and Saturday Matt and the boys competed in the MN State Redemption Card tournament at our church. Matt ran the tournament. There were about 70 people (mostly 10-16 year old guys and their dads) competing from all over MN--and seven of the guys spent the night at our house Friday night!!! Josh stayed up with the crew until 3:00am, while Matt conked out at 1:30am. The tournament was a success and after clean up and a late dinner out my boys did not roll back into our 'hood until 11:00pm. They were all pooped, but happy.

As for Katie and I, we took Brady to dog school Saturday morning, dropped him off at home then were off to play delivery service for the Redemption tournament. We picked up food from Sam's Club and 16 pizza's from Dominoe's for Saturday's lunch. Then we stayed to help dole out the food, count the money and do a little clean up. By then Katie and I were done with boys and chores so we went home to relax. Saturday evening we treated ourselves to a Girls Night Out which included a movie, shopping and dinner. Katie and I went to see Disney's * PIXAR's "UP" for the second time. I liked it even better this time around. This movie has something for all ages--the primary character is an elderly widower voiced by Ed Asner. It's a great story. Dogs play a prominent role in the show and I just loved the characterizations--true and hilarious!!! If you are a dog lover you should go see the movie just for that aspect of it--very, very funny. Attention: Sister Sue--you and Mom should go see this movie, I think you'll both enjoy it--just don't take Mom to the 3D version of it or she'll get vertigo!

Anyway, after the movie Katie and I made a stop at Target and Katie charmed me into buying her a new dress. She loves dresses especially ones that she can twirl in. But she's sooooooo hard to fit. We had great luck on this little trip and I bought her a long purple dress with spaghetti straps made from t-shirt fabric--very stretchy! This summer one of the hot styles are these long hippy dresses (or granny dresses as we used to call them) so I succumbed and bought one for Katie. Then of course, we had to get a necklace to go with so we stopped at our favorite girls store--JUSTICE--and Katie picked out a multi-colored peace sign necklace and new purse. What a fun shopping trip. Then off to Applebee's for dinner. Katie and I rolled back in to our 'hood about 10:00pm. We had such a good time alone together. I really need to do this with her at least once a month.

On Sunday we all slept in then took Matt out for Indian food buffet for lunch. Matt absolutely LOVES Indian food and the kids do too. I really like it too as long as we don't eat it too often. After lunch the family dropped me off at church for several hours so I could help set up for Vacation Bible School. Matt and the kids went out to Grama Brinkman's house to visit.

The next day, Monday, Katie, Caleb and our goddaughter, Helen, all piled in our van (dubbed the "fun bus" by Helen's dad) for a ride to our church's weeklong Vacation Bible School. Today is the third day and so far the kids are having a blast. I had planned to re-paint our bedroom for Katie this week but the intense heat has made that project unappealing. Today I'll try to get going on with the primer. Katie will switch bedrooms with Matt and I so we can have a larger room (Katie has had the master bedroom as her room for the past 5 years).

After this week we're back to swimming for two weeks then off to vacation. Josh's friends have been over every day--multiple times a day--our backyard has been full of kids and my house is a wreck. Yes, it's summer!

80's Flashback

This clip is hilarious so I just had to steal it from my good friend Leah at Garden of Eagan. This song was popular when I was in college. I recall many late nights in Tau lounge watching videos on MTV and this was always one of the chick hits! You can see the video with the original lyrics here.

CLARIFICATION: The embedded clip is a satire of the original video for the Bonnie Tyler song "Total Eclipse of the Heart." The song and video were released in 1983--I was 20 and a sophomore in college.

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I was looking for him. I was expecting to see him at the top of the stairs. A year ago today the lack of his presence was painfully noticeable. A year ago today an unfamiliar silence met the knocks at our door. A year ago today I thought how loud that silence was. A year ago today I was still crying throughout the day. A year ago today I thought I caught glimpses of him whenever I turned around in the kitchen. A year ago today I washed out his bowls and stored them away for another day, for another dog. A year ago today I hung his collar up on his picture and cried every time I looked at that sweet, devoted face. A year ago today I never thought I could love another dog the way I loved Othello.

But now today, a year later, another dog is asleep in his prized spot on the couch. Another dog sleeps on the big bed with Mom and Dad. Another dog drinks out of the blue bowl (if the toilet is unavailable!) and takes walks on the blue leash. Another dog's howl breaks the silence when a knock comes on the door. Another dog is bonding with our children and learning to protect them. Another dog is greeting us at the door with wiggles and a shoe or sock or some other "gift" to bring to us. Another dog is learning that he has a good home and that he can trust us; and he is responding with affection and loyalty. Another dog is capturing our hearts and bringing us joy.

I think Othello and Brady would have been good friends had they known each other. Our family has been blessed by the presence and companionship of these two dogs. I'm thankful God gave them to us. Today is a good day.

Josh Updates

This spring Josh had the privilege of being in our church musical entitled "The Thorn." Josh was a Pharisee student. He didn't have any lines but he truly loves theatre. He looks forward to doing more drama at high school. On June 4th Josh graduated from middle school at Cyber Village Academy and left his three day a week school schedule behind him. On to five days a week at Henry Sibley High School next year. Josh really surprised me and the rest of his class by dressing in Matt's suit and tie for his graduation. He looked so grown up and handsome. Here are some pics of him from "The Thorn" and from his graduation.

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Caleb Updates

Caleb is still loving Karate. He has quickly advanced from no belt to white, to gold, to green belt. He enjoys the work outs and using his muscles. Here's an update on his Karate pictures. The first slideshow is from January when he first started. The other slideshow is from his recent gold belt graduation ceremony.

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Make a Smilebox slideshow