by the number of blog updates, you can definitely tell it's summer out there. i hope ya'll are having as much fun as we are. i wish i would have taken a picture of the impromptu water balloon fight that erupted on our front lawn on friday night after the pee wee baseball game, soaking friends, neighbors and especially the husband.

i also wish i would have taken a photo of the j boys and their favorite girl buddies riding bikes in swimsuits at 10 pm, or the beautiful sunset we all stayed home to watch last night (i cancelled the babysitter in favor of a bike ride and beer on the front steps). at any rate, i know that it will go fast. we're just trying to soak in every last drop.

i am getting ready to cut out 16 clown fish for vacation bible school tonite. i'm not sure how i ended up as a teacher in charge of 2nd thru 4th grade. at one point, i was making snacks in the kitchen...someone must have heard about my cooking abilities :) at any rate, i know rani raves about this position, so i'm hoping i can do the kids justice.

i am also getting ready to go watch the muckdogs play in about an hour... i was right about the jerseys. he he.

on a very final note...thanks for the prayers for sidney dog. you're not going to believe this one. they said she had a 95% chance at bone cancer, right? probably set to kick it in a few months. well, the vet called in disbelief on friday night and said they looked and looked and can find no trace of cancer in her soft tissue or her bones. he said she's got degenerative joint disease, and that amputation will stop the hurting and she'll be good as new again. sid will most likely loose her leg this week, but we are happy. our old friend may just be hunting pheasants again.

happy week :)

quick one-two-three update.

One. sidney dog has bone cancer in her leg and hip. there is nothing they can do to help her, but we are going to give her all the love and ice cream she can handle while we have her with us. she doesn't seem to be in any real pain, and is still happy...just prefers to watch a ball than chase one right now. such a good girl.

Two. i got to see karen today! :) we had a great lunch before she flew back home. wish she could have stayed longer, but i'll take what i can get.

Three. biking season is on and man does it feel good. sara and i cranked out 40 windy miles over memorial day weekend. i look forward to many more (but put in a request for a little less breeze).

i'm not sure why this whole thing is underlining. i apologize. it's kinda driving me crazy. but it's underline or nothing, apparently.

the husband took the hound to iowa state early this morning to get her biopsy done. they will tell him tomorrow what we're looking at. let's all pray for good news. we sure would be sad without her.

in other news, the baseball team needed the husband to fill in last night. he got up very early so i didn't have a chance to talk to him, but i did find two muckdog jerseys folded on the chair. one for home games, one for away. ahem. if this is what it think it is, this will be the husband's THIRD, count it, THIRD time coming out of retirement for the muckdogs. and you thought brett favre had problems.

ok, the underlining is ending this one early. i'll get it figured out and post more later.

happy day.

well, summer hit our neck of the woods with a perfect 90+ degree day that featured no wind, no bugs, no clouds and some of the greenest grass of the entire year. the kids came out of the woodwork and landed right in our yard for an impromptu waterfest. the funny thing is, these photos were taken at 8pm last night! now that's what i call a happy "last night before the last day of school" celebration. (i did make sure all of them had permission to get wet first)

a few funny things. big j is always a little bit of a water chicken at the beginning of sprinkler season. he stood up on the steps for awhile and declared the kids on the lawn to be "undisciplined." whatever. i told him to be a kid and get in the water. he eventually did, but not without putting on his swim goggles.

the two little blonde girls are twins named brooke and bailey. they like to come over and play with little j, but he can't tell them apart so he calls them both "brooke-or-bailey" like it's one word. "hey, mom, brooke-or-bailey is here. can i go play with her?" it's hilarious and they don't seem to mind one bit. they are cute, though. if little j only knew that hosing off two blonde twins was every man's fantasy ;)

we stayed outside until we squeezed the last bit of daylight out of the sky, and then called it a night. tonite begins a whole new kind of schedule. ahhh. happy, happy summer.

ok, yes. these pictures are ridiculously bad. out of focus, grainy, dark, red-eyed, yeah. i know. but at least i have some sort of documentation of the big day. the husband was inducted into the mitchell high school athletic hall of fame this week. he was kind of embarrased by the whole thing, but i think in the end he had a nice night. his old football coach drove from custer with his wife to be there--he's the cowboy looking guy on the left, and his wife is on the right. the husband's mom is getting a hug from the coach, which tells a lot about how tight they all were. the husband's dad passed away during football season, so i know without being told that there are a lot of emotions associated with this award.

the husband did a really nice job with his speech. probably the funniest part was when he walked up on stage and little j says "oh great. he forgot his sheet." he didn't use the speech notes he worked so hard on the night before, but that only meant he was able to look his mom right in the eye when he talked about all her sacrifices and thanked her for being at every game.

so the award was cool. but the other part of the night--the part i thought would be boring--was really inspirational as well. the induction took place during the mitchell high school athletic awards banquet. everyone says that kids these days are just a bunch of slacker slobs with no motivation, manners or politeness. i totally beg to differ. these athletes were SMART and clean-cut and eloquent in their manners. most of them juggled amazing schedules filled with sports, school, church and volunteer activities. God was mentioned more than once during the evening. i walked away feeling very positive about the future--and about the choices my family recently made.

i know that sports aren't everything. but i do think that sports teach kids some valuable life lessons, whether they are star players or not. actually, i think the "or not" probably builds more character. sports hold kids accountable for their grades. it keeps them in shape. they learn how to be part of a bigger picture. if sports helped mold my husband into being the amazing man he is today, then sign my kids up. and your kids too :)

finally. i quick recap of the annual girls weekend. it was a great time (we missed you deann and jen) up in the cities. the only time we weren't all laughing was when the cop pulled shelly over for illegal passing. ok...there might have been some giggling in the backseat when it happened but don't tell her. otherwise, we did a little retail therapy, spent some time at the oh-so-heavenly day spa and hit a couple of great restaurants. check out all those toes...karen, fifty bucks says you can guess which ones are mine.

we figured out this was our 15th official weekend together. those first weekends starting with us fresh out of college and got pretty crazy...i bet the cab driver in madison, wisconsin still remembers smashing 10 of us into his car after they ushered us out of the bar. i love these women like sisters, even though we are scattered all over the place and don't have a chance to keep in touch as much as we'd like. we joke about the day when we are 85 years old, hanging out in florida playing shuffleboard and drinking margaritas. i can see it happening. i really can.

craziness.

i went from a slow week to an insane monday that had the phone ringing off the hook, and it continues today. wheeeee! on top of a BIG project that has both bobbi and i on cloud nine, i also just got a really fun project helping a woman get her new business off the ground. this one came through my other graphic design partner, the guy i work on harley-davidson with. at any rate, my week is going to be fun fun fun. and the sun is out. and the grass is green. and i'm wearing flip-flops. ahhh. i've said it before and i'll said it again: life is good.

on a few sidenotes:

the hound is going to iowa state university on may 21. NOW they say she has a tumor growing in her leg, and they need to do a biopsy to determine whether it's cancer or some kind of weird fungus...so the saga continues. i think we want to pray for the fungus, cuz it can be cured. we'll keep you posted.

i just handed the husband's baseball uniform over to the team this morning. i think this means he is officially retired? i guess i'll keep you posted on that as well.

our house is all designed and i love it! it's out for bids now and we hope to get rolling on a decision next week. i'm ready to dig some dirt.

i'm going to an ortho guy next monday to hopefully, once and for all, find out what is wrong with my stupid gimpy hips so that i can start running again. i'm thinking hip bursitis, and if that's the case, i think a corizone shot or two might do the trick. i'm going to beg this guy to give me the needle, i don't care how big it is.

i can do about 50 push-ups in a row without stopping now, and about 130 if i take breaks in-between sets...get on that hundredpushups.com site, girls and boys (hi mike). it totally works.

the j boys have 10 days of school left. do i smell summer??