Now THAT'S a frog!

Just had to share a pic of Joe with the huge frog they found at his work. Now THAT'S a frog!

The 2 Worst "S" Words...

Swimsuit shopping. 2 of the worst words in the English language. Nothing like a 3-way mirror, flourescent lighting and 59 non-fitting swimsuits to dampen the spirit. I had to do it this past Saturday, because of our upcoming day-trip to a nearby waterpark this coming Saturday. Brendan earned a free ticket from school, and it expires this Saturday, so we can't wait any longer. Before kids, I always wore a bikini, but now I need to wear a one-piece (at least for this season until I lose the remaining 20-ish pounds). It is amazing to me that it could possibly be so difficult to find a decent one-piece!!! Would it kill them to have some support, helloooo?! I went to Kohl's & JCPenney, and it took me trying on about 60 different suits before I could find one that my "girls" were not spilling out of or looking squishy or what have you. And I don't have huge ones, what do the rest of the women wear??? The rest of the suit would fit, but the top part was seriously lacking support. I remember seeing online that there were special D-cup suits, and so I looked all around for that, thinking those must have extra support cups or something, but no luck finding those. Now come on, there are LOTS of women with my D-cup size (and bigger), what do they know that I don't? There must be some secret I'm missing! lol After about swimsuit 49 of 60 I began thinking I was going to have to borrow some boob tape from Katherine to get a suit to work for me! lol
After way too long of searching in crowded loud stores (and those who have been around awhile know that I already don't like shopping and can't stand crowds), suit #59 actually fit me well on the top half, but the bottom part of the suit "legs" came down so low and resembled something an old-fashioned grandmotherly figure would have worn in the 50's or something. Not very flattering. But then it finally happened. Suit #60 was one that actually fit me everywhere, and that I wouldn't be too self-conscious wearing in public while I'm still losing the remaining 20-ish pounds. Whew! So here it is, only the one I have is black with brown, not purple. It was the only color combo they had, and at that point I was taking what I could get! When I got home and put it on for Joe to see, he liked it. Then he said, "So what are you going to do with that in a few months when it is too big for you?" I will happily get rid of it and go back to wearing cute bikinis, thank you very much! But for now, it will do for the waterpark this Saturday.

Finally Friday!

This has been another busy week filled with something every night after work. I'm so glad it is finally Friday! Tonight I have something after work too, but it's fun, and doesn't involve taking Brendan all over town or working. Tonight is our monthly Mom's Night Out, woohoo! This month we are meeting at someone's house for food, drinks, ping pong, Wii, chatting, laughing, etc. I'm definitely ready for a little fun time away after these last couple busy weeks. And I've been dying to try playing a Wii! lol

Brendan did not pass Level 2 swimming lessons this time, so he will have to retake it again in July instead of moving up to Level 3. I understand that it is very common for most kids to have to retake it, and there are so many requirements that he needs to pass, so he'll just have to keep working at it and practicing! I did see a big improvement over the last 2 weeks of lessons though, so maybe one more round will be enough to get him to Level 3.

Yesterday was my most recent weigh-in at the WW meeting. I lost another 3.4 lbs this week, for a total of 13 lbs lost in 5 weeks. I'm really happy with that, and can't wait for even more to come off.

Saturday I have to cover for one of my part-timers again, but luckily it is only for 3 hours. Then Sunday we have a picnic to go to. I really need to find time to catch back up with things around the house this weekend too!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Father's Day Fun

(2 posts from me in the same day, can you believe it?! lol)

Father's Day was good. The boys and I gave Joe a new shop vac for his new garage (one you can hang on the wall so that it is off the floor), and one of THESE. I always get him a "fun" gift for Father's Day that he can use to play with the boys. (past years I've gotten radio-controlled airplanes, marshmallow shooters, etc). Since Joe likes fishing, and since I thought the boys would get a real kick out of the "rocket shooting" effect, I thought this would be a fun choice for this year. Joe didn't want to go out anywhere, he just wanted to have steak and ice cream, and us hang out as a family at home. So, that's what we did. We walked through our woods to the creek at the back of our property so they could try out the rocket fishing rod.

It was a cute and fun idea, and worked for awhile, but Brendan was too impatient to wait for a fish to bite. Joe ended up catching a little fish, which renewed Brendan's interest temporarily, but then the shooting mechanism wouldn't launch it anymore. But, it could still be cast like you would a regular fishing pole, so it was still usable.

While we were paying attention to the fishing pole, Adam had worked his way a little further down, and had proceeded to scoop up handfuls of wet dirt/sand and rub them into his hair. He had a whole head full of wet goopy stuff, and it was dripping down his face leaving dirty water marks all over his face and shirt.

And he was sitting in the muddy stuff too. Of course I grabbed the camera.

Then we played in the water for awhile and Joe and Brendan got in a splashing fight.

Adam wasn't too thrilled about being in the cold water, but we all had fun.

It was a good family day :)

How was everyone else's Fathers' Day celebrations?

Busy weeks, Catching Up, & Tagged!

Things have been kinda busy lately. After the chaotic first day of summer school, everything has been fine with that. Brendan is enjoying it, and we haven't missed the bus or gotten off at the wrong stop any more! lol

Swimming lessons started up again last Monday. This session meets every night for 8 nights. It's good in that it gets it over with and doesn't drag out week after week. But, it is very annoying having to drive him back into town every night, and getting home kinda late, etc. On top of that, he has Tae Kwon Do on Thursdays, and I've been having to cover for one of my part-time staff on Thursday nights as well, so we are rushing around from one thing to another, and no time to drop him back off at home. So, he ends up coming with me and we don't get home until after 10pm those nights. Then I had to work an activity Sat night. I haven't been able to keep up with all the daily things at home that I normally would do in the evenings, like dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc. Our house is a mess! Ugh! This week we do it all again. But next week it will drop back down to just work all day, summer school and the Tae Kwon Do for Brendan, and extra work on Thursday nights. So at least that will be better.

Oh, and so far on my 4-weeks of WW, I've lost 9.6 lbs :) Would have been more if I hadn't have eaten all those snacks while my mom, sister and I were on our annual scrapbooking weekend in the cabin the weekend before last! But even that week I didn't gain anything, still lost 0.2 lbs that week. lol Thursday is my next weigh-in and I'm hopeful that I'll break the 10 lb mark. At this rate I'll finally be back to what I was before kid #2 by August, but I know things will slow down too, so I'm not gonna get my hopes up too much for it to happen that soon. I'm not aiming to get down to what I was before kid #1, that was too skinny for my height. But I am aiming to get down where I was in between kids, which was right where I should be for my height (5' 8").

I'll write about Father's Day later today when I can upload some pictures to go with it :)

For now, Carolyn has tagged me, so here goes...

These are the rules.... each player starts with 7 random facts about themselves on their Blog. People who are tagged need to blog 7 facts about themselves and post the rules as well. At the end of their blog list 7 people you are tagging. Let them know that they are tagged by leaving them a comment.

Here are 7 random facts about me you may or may not know:

1) I don't know how to ride a bike! I can ride a dirt bike type bike, but if it has any gears, speeds, etc, forget it! I never learned how to work those things. Joe tried to teach me once, but I was about 6 months pregnant at the time...not a good idea. lol I've just never really had an interest in riding bikes.

2) I love to drive barefoot. First thing I do when I get in the car is slip my shoes off to drive. This started in high school when we used to go on float (canoe) trips and camping trips all the time and I'd jump in my truck with my swimsuit on and drive back from the river. It became a habit.

3) I tried out for and made an All-Star Dance Team and danced in the half-time show of the Hall of Fame Bowl on New Years day in Florida back in the 90's. There were dancers from all over the US, I really am not sure how or why I made it. Although I could do a mean high kick in a kick line...maybe it was that? The teams playing were Boston College and Tennessee. Don't ask me who won. I can't even remember. lol

4) I hate to run, but I joined the track team in high school because my boyfriend was on it. (silly girl). Turns out I wasn't too bad in field events. I competed in high jump, triple jump and long jump. I broke the school record for girls' high jump at the very first track meet I'd ever been in. LOL Then I broke my own record again. I still had the record when I graduated, but I hear through the grapevine that my record was broken again shortly after I left. No surprise there, I expected that.

5) I love tomatoes, but don't like ketchup. I love oranges, but can't stand orange juice or anything orange-flavored. I like apples and apple desserts, but I don't like apple juice or anything apple flavored.

6) I would rather drink beer with the guys than go shopping with the girls. (nothing against girls, I like hangin' out with girls too, I just don't like shopping and I do like beer. lol Our friends' wives like to go shopping, so I usually end up hangin' with the guys, drinking beer.)

7) One of my favorite things in the world to do is sit around a campfire at night, talking, drinking, and if there is a guy that can play the guitar there, that's even better!

Okay, if anyone wants to be tagged, then you're it!!! Let me know if you participate :)

First Day Chaos

So our adventure this week was Brendan starting summer school. We had quite the day yesterday-we missed the bus because I had it in my mind that the bus came at 6:50, but it was actually 6:45 so we had just missed it (we got there at 6:47). So I had to drive him to the school. It wasn't at his school, it was at another school that is even further away (and in the opposite direction of my work too). We finally got there, but we were too early (because he would have been on the bus for along time while they pick everyone up). So, I had to stay and wait with him for about another 1/2 hour until the teachers were ready for kids to be there. Finally I was able to leave and rushed out to get in my car, only to find that I was blocked in by busses and cars of parents dropping kids off. So I sat waiting to back out for at least another full 5 minutes. Ended up at work an hour-1/2 late. Ugh!

Then, when I went to pick him up at the bus stop after summer school, the bus pulled up, all the kids got off and NO Brendan! As I'm walking up to the bus to ask the bus driver, she calls out to me that Brendan got off at the wrong stop and one of the teachers was driving him to this stop. So, the bus driver had dropped all of the kids off by then and she insisted on waiting with me until Brendan arrived. It took what seemed like forever, but he finally got there.

So far today has gone much smoother, he got on the bus no problem this morning, and he said he knows where to get off the bus now. lol I can see why it was confusing to him though, because during the regular school year the bus picks him up at our house and drops him off at our house, but for summer school there are just a few designated bus stops. So, I guess he just wasn't familiar enough with what his stop looked like yet.

This week cannot fly by fast enough. I can't wait until Friday. I'm off at noon on Friday to leave for the annual cabin scrapbooking weekend with my sister and our mom. Girls' weekend. No hubbies, no kids, just us 3, scrapbooking, food, drinks, and whatever the heck else we feel like. I cannot wait!

Basketball Camp Pic

Just wanted to share a pic I took of Brendan at the basketball camp he attended this week. He had a lot of fun! Now next week it's on to summer school for the month of June.