Ladies meeting

Alana came along to my synagogue Sisterhood meeting tonight (held at a member's house) and played with the daughter (Nicki) of another member. They spread out their stuff across the room from our meeting and played the whole time.

Tooth report

Last night Alana's loose tooth turned into two loose teeth - both the lower front teeth are now wiggling quite a bit. We may get a visit from the Tooth Fairy soon! She's very concerned about eating "hard" food - she wasn't even sure that the blueberries in her cereal this morning were acceptable!

Caleb decides

Tonight Caleb took a shower all by himself (instead of a bath). He decided it was more "grown up" and he thinks he should do it every night now. It's sort of awesome and sort of sad (he's growing up!) at the same time.

Renaissance Festival in Sterling

Absolutely picture perfect day. We had a grand time at the festival. We ate turkey legs for lunch. The kids rode the carousel (completely people-powered). We played some games - Caleb and Daddy did archery and Caleb and Alana shot ping pong balls out of mini crossbows. We saw the jousting, mud wrestling, acrobats, and sword fighters. We went home tired and happy.

Top photos - Caleb and Daddy having a "pyllow fyght," kids on the carousel (Alana can only be seen from the back, in the red chair). Next row - Caleb doing archery, Alana in her princess hat. Bottom row - Larry throwing an axe, Alana on a horse (I couldn't believe that she was completely fearless when riding this huge horse - a future equestrian, I'm sure).

Side note: we spent a small fortune at the festival last year, so this year we tried a different approach - everyone was allocated $20 for entertainment and souvenirs (Mommy paid admission and Daddy covered the food and drinks). I managed Alana's allowance (and, full disclosure, I let her go over her allotment), but Caleb really impressed us with his money management - he kept track all day of exactly what he'd spent and made careful choices to stay within his allotment. He was amazing!

Birthday party

Alana had a fabulous time at her friend Jerad's birthday party at Jungle Golf at the mall. A dozen plus 5 (or nearly 5) year olds running all over. Even the party coordinator said it was a rowdy bunch. The pictures came out badly, but on top is Alana playing golf and having cake, the lower photos are Alana with her friends (on the left is Emily and Anya, on the right is Caitlin).

Soup for 3

There's so few photos of me, since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, so I insisted that Larry take this shot of me when the kids came over to help me eat simply the best batch of vegetable soup I've ever made!

Latest flowers

After a big dinner everyone was tired, so I took Roxy to the park by myself. Collected this lovely nosegay of wild flowers (aka weeds).

Casey R.I.P.

I so hate to write this. After 15 years of really glorious life, we had to put our amazing cat, Casey, to sleep tonight. He had been fading for awhile, and really deteriorated the last couple of days. Even when I made the appointment at the vet, I wanted to believe that they could help him, but I knew what was going to happen. The vet said he was really far gone, and it was the best thing. I feel so bad. He was such a righteous cat, it's been terrible to see him become a shadow of his former self. He's definitely kicking ass and taking names up in cat heaven.

Deer helps Larry switch to biodiesel

I'm sort of kidding, but not really. Around 1 a.m. Larry called me to say that he'd hit a deer on Hwy 81 and the car had died. The front end is pretty smashed and the insurance company may "total" the car. If so, he wants to get a diesel, which he can switch to biodiesel - he's talked about this for ages b/c he has a ready source of used cooking oil at his very own restaurant. I hope it works out, both b/c it would save money, and b/c he would get such a kick out of having a car "powered by TRH"!

ADDENDUM

The adjuster called and they're going to fix it - all $6000 worth. Larry's not sorry, he said he wasn't really up for car shopping right now. And the insurance company is paying for a rental while the work is done.

ADDENDUM 10/10/08

A couple have months have gone by and the car has been nothing but trouble. The repair shop is no longer on USAA's approved vendor list and the insurance company is now TOTALLING the car and giving Larry $11K for it. He's stuck paying for the last week of the rental car though, because we used up our allotment of that benefit. He's looking at the Marano and CR-V.

Puddles are irresistible

A rainy day. We had planned to go to yet another local lake (one we haven't gone swimming at before), but that wasn't possible, so we ran some errands in the morning and then went swimming again at the YMCA. Then we took Roxy for a walk. The rain had cleared out the humidity, at least temporarily, and it was perfect - cool and lovely. But there were lots of big puddles and the kids looked for the Loch Ness monster and giant crocodiles (a terrific game that they made up on the spot).

I baked some delicious chicken for dinner and we watched Die Another Day (Caleb's first James Bond movie - he loved it).

Swimming at the Y

Here's Caleb taking the "deep water test" before he could swim in the deep end of the pool (though he already passed it at summer camp). We spent over 2 hours in the water, Caleb spent much of it playing with another boy (even after Alana and I retired to the shower).

Girls' Day Out

After talking about it for months, I finally got a coupon for a local salon and took Alana for her first ever manicure. She loved it. Alana picked a sparkly purple polish, and, as an added (unexpected!) bonus, the manicurist painted a pink flower on each nail.

Net hats

I had gotten one of these nets hats for myself last summer because the park is so buggy, especially in the late summer. The kids hate the horse flies that buzz around your hair so I got the hats for them as well. They're much happier taking Roxy for a walk without having to worry about the flies.

Movie night

We watched the Bourne sequel - The Bourne Supremacy. More action than the first one (and it went on forever - I don't remember it being that long when I saw it in the theater!) Caleb liked this one too.

Family movie night

Caleb is interested in action movies, so tonight we tried The Bourne Identity. It's a lot talkier than I remember, but he loved the action sequences. I think he would really like Jackie Chan.

Emma at 4 months

She is so darn cute (and a carbon copy of her mommy). This is the daughter of Larry's cousin, Ellen, who lives in Riverside, CA. She is the first granddaughter for Larry's aunt Karen, so needless-to-say, they're only a tiny bit thrilled.

Family day

Didn't take a single photo of a terrific day. Larry was off, what a bonus. It rained all day, so we couldn't go to my office picnic, but we made good use of our time anyway. We had a nice breakfast (I made a fretta - meat eggs and potatoes, cooked together), and then Alana went grocery shopping with me (she was so freaking cute, with her mini shopping cart), while Larry and Caleb stayed and played the Wii. Then we had lunch and went swimming at the YMCA. The kids are getting so good, due to their lessons. Caleb swam the length of the pool three times. And Alana is fearless - 4 years old and she was doing "cannonballs" off the side. Larry made chicken enchiladas for dinner and then we made popcorn and watched Shrek the Third. A wonderful day.

Swimming at another pool

A picture perfect day. After taking the kids to Burger King for lunch (for new Pokemon toys!) we went to the Van Buren Community pool in nearby Baldwinsville. We haven't been there since last year. I thought it would be mobbed on such a gorgeous day, but it wasn't. Caleb worked on his "diving" (really jumping) - on the left is the "pencil dive" and on the right is the "twist."

Alana played in both the kiddie pool and the full size pool (which is shallower, in the shallow end, than our local YMCA pool, so she can touch the bottom). After swimming, she took a break and built a "palace" out of all the toys we had brought along.

Golf score card

Caleb's field trip this week at camp was to Putter's Paradise mini golf. He played all 3 courses, but only brought home 2 of the score cards. He said he got a total of 5 holes-in-one!

Beach fun

We headed back to Williams Beach this evening, because the weather was PERFECT and beause they have a weekly concert there on Thursdays in July. The concert was terrific and the water was FINE. After swimming for awhile, Caleb built a funky sand castle (yes, that's my foot) and then of course Alana had to make one too (the photos don't do these justice - both castles were very cool). They both played on the little playground too.

One more photo

I love this shot of Alana on the climbing structure.

Second cousin

This is a photo my Uncle Dan sent of his granddaughter, Raleigh, during her BD party. She turned 8 just a few weeks after Caleb (but she looks much more mature than he does!) They all (my uncle and his kids and grandkids) live in Texas.

Green Lake

We went east today, just for a change of scene, to the beach at Green Lake. We brought two of Caleb's friends - Jake and Phillip.

The boys used the buckets to try to catch minnows.




Later, after much swimming and running around, they poured water over their heads, making "waterfalls." Then they constructed a "water park" on the sand and had the "grand opening" while Alana and I splashed in the (very chilly) water.




It's Matt's last weekend with us before he heads to Florida for a month. He spent most of the time making inroads into the novel his grandmother gave him when she was visiting last weekend. Here, Alana looks on. Overall, a really pleasant afternoon.

Super Saturday

We had a terrific day. Ran some errands, had lunch at McDonald's (Alana's request, because they have Littlest Petshop toys again). Then we met some friends at the East Area YMCA, which has the best kids pool in the entire county. Then we went to their house and had pizza. It was a very fun day, but I didn't take a single photo unfortunately.

Independence Day

Nice shot of Larry and Roxy playing at the park before we went to our friends, Jim & Linda's house for a terrific picnic. The weather was perfect.

We (me, Larry, Matt & Caleb) also played a lot of "4 square" before the picnic (a driveway ball game where you try to make your fellow players miss the ball), while Alana entertained herself with filling in her own 4 square with pictures.



We didn't get to any fireworks, unfortunately. It's too much trouble to go to the fairgrounds, and the smaller, local fireworks didn't start until 10:30, which is just too late for the kids. Doesn't really feel like the 4th without them, though.

Scooters

We were all riding scooters today, so I snapped this shot of Matt on Alana's Disney Princess scooter.

Beach day

Gorgeous day. Took the kids up to Oneida Shores after work, and Larry even joined us. I should have taken more photos.

Cloud

This funky cloud, right outside my building, looks like a Heavenly Being is about to emerge from the middle.

Summer is great

A terrific evening with our friends Jake and Maddie and their mom Joanna. We went to the library and signed the kids up for the summer reading program. While there, the kids played together in the toy area with a large doll house.

Then we went across the street to Heid's - a famous local eatery that sells Hoffman hotdogs. We also enjoyed ice cream from their companion establishment, Sweet Treats.

Then our friends headed home and we took Roxy to the park, where we ran into a nice couple walking their sweet mixed breed named Coco. Roxy and Coco played together for a long time. I tried to get a photo, but they were jumping and running around too much!