it had to happen. i've had my laptop for over three years now, rolling along smoothly without much effort on my part. i don't really ever do much with it as far as maintenance or file cleaning or even deleting my emails. so...yeah. it had to happen.

last week i lost my work email and the whole machine was dogging. i took it to the computer shop for THREE DAYS (it felt like losing a limb) and got it back on friday. brought it home, and the problem was not fixed. still no access to work email, and the little dinger told me i had 12 new messages waiting out there in cyberspace.

so today i'm back to square one. i've told most everyone i can think of to mail me at my personal address--thank goodness that is still up and running. but those TWELVE nagging emails out there are driving me nuts. what do they say? are they important? is one of them about a really cool job that i'm now missing out on?

i guess i may never know. i'm going to call the computer shop this morning and talk to the man who supposedly fixed the problem. i may end up having to take the machine back in again, so if you don't hear from me for awhile, cross your fingers.

and happy fourth of july :)

thanks to this rainy rainy spring, we hadn't had a chance to take the boat (aka the blue dragon) out yet this year. well, we made up for it. we took it out last thursday, friday, saturday AND sunday. the dragon is a treat--a 1978 baretta, baby blue inside and out. we bought her before we got married, as a "congratulations" for buying a house lot just a few miles from a beautiful lake. at the time, neither one of us even knew how to waterski. since then, the dragon has given us tons of good times. now, the kids love to go tubing and fishing and the husband and i love to ski when the water is glass at the end of the day. yep, the dragon has been good to us.

thing is, i've been itching to upgrade the dragon for a few years. she's a good sport, but you know, she's just not that sexy. then at the end of the summer last year, something happened and she just didn't have enough power to get the husband out of the water. i thought, "well, time for a new boat. yahooo!"

but miraculously, she started right up this spring and popped the big man out of the water without any trouble. THEN we took her to a mechanic this weekend for a little tune-up, and he said "i have seen two year old boats with engines that don't look this good."

the husband couldn't have been prouder. sigh. i guess we'll be hanging with the dragon awhile longer.

little j and grandma kathy worked together to make a crown, a shield and a sword for father's day. of course, he needed his own crown, shield and sword for "when dad retires and i get to be the king."

ok, so i've been slacking. i'll try to catch you all up on what we've been up to in the past couple weeks. big j has been playing baseball, he's got FOUR, count 'em FOUR games this week. so yeah, that's keeping us busy. the boys also invented something they call Cobra Skiing. they ride this cobra scooter down the hill, and the husband pulls them back up again on his bike. it's quite the hit. since the weather has finally gotten nice, we've been spending a lot of time on the back deck, grilling, eating meals and enjoying the nice green view. my mom came for a 7-day visit, and we spent two days down in omaha at the zoo and a waterpark. things are basically cruising along this summer, i need to keep up with the blog a little better. hope you all are enjoying your days. stop by for some cobra skiing and a beer on the back deck. :)

finally a sunny beautiful weekend in our neck of the woods. we tried to cram all the "outside" we could into it. my question: exactly how often does a person have to apply SPF 45 if that person is going to spend 4 continuous hours at the lake, and that person is very white to begin with?

i found out that every hour is NOT the right answer.

what the heck is sunscreen good for, if it doesn't screen the sun?

sheesh. i swear all these freckles are eventually going to grow together and i'm just going to have one kick butt perma-tan.

stop smirking, cher.