Who needs Botox?

WELCOME HOME SHAWN :) Check out those lips :( poor guy... who needs Botox when you've got coldsores???

Shawn says he had a great time at camp. I'm going to try to get him to write a little about it later.

LATER... tried to get Shawn to write about camp... no such luck. He did tell me all about it though... FUN - yep, that was it, I poked and prodded for details as long as I could, then he just got annoyed.. So FUN is all we've got to go o :) !

SUMMER TIME By Sarah

Well summer has been so much fun !!! One of my friends in my neighborhood took me and a friend of ours to Chuck E. Cheese's yesterday and we had so much fun. My friend Mackenzie is moving on 4th of july weekend so she and I have been spending a lot of time playing in and outside or at the pool!!! My summer has been going so well so far.

Today my brother is coming home from camp, while he was gone it was so peaceful it was like I was an only child. Then it comes to thought if I was an only child I would have no one to play with and then I would probably get bored. I guess could say that I missed him a little bit.

You've got to be kidding me!!!!

This week at my new job we have had "team building" in the afternoons on Mon & Tues and all day today.... I'm not sure how much team building we actually did since it was really deep cleaning of some of the meeting rooms and cleaning out storage areas, but it was certainly a necessity and most likely the quickest way to get the huge task done (and I say that lightly as I think there is much more to do - but we were only scheduled for the 3 days)..... Anyway some of it was outside and all of it was totally physical and completely exhausting!!!! So needless to say I was thrilled when those of us who had worked all three days were given first pick of the stuff that was selected to be sold at the employee sale or given to good will. I just took a few items and one (or two) was this beautiful chair and ottoman set (someone else referred to them as hideous, but I love them) - so I get them home and all set up in the perfect or shall I say purrfect corner of my bedroom and lo and behold the furball cat takes no time at all to get cozy right in the middle of my new chair!!!! Hiss hiss.... kitty kitty.

By the way - Shawn has been at camp since Sunday - and I haven't heard a word from him. I'm assuming that must mean he's having a great time. Poor thing, he's stuck here with Sarah and I all the time - I suspect he's in heaven just soaking in all the guy time :)

And - I haven't heard back from Charllis yet with the copies of the letters from my dad.... I'll have to send a reminder as I've been waiting on pins and needles since she told me about them :)
Has everyone forgotten about me already???? Or maybe they're just ignoring me - like the cat!

Surprise - housekeepers :)

Here I am acting surprised because while I was out frolicking around with Jim this evening (actually we were delivering some water storage barrels) I left Sarah and her friend Sydnee home alone and came back to fine that they had cleaned up the house..... not only the messes they had made, but other messes as well - WITHOUT even being asked. WOW - what a nice treat for a Tuesday evening - actually - for any evening!

Did I say Tuesday? Yikes, I'm so exhausted I already feel like its the end of the week. We've been doing "team building" aka deep cleaning at work in the afternoons this week and I've had a couple of outdoor projects... Tomorrow will be a doozie for sure as we start on ALL outdoor projects first thing in the morning. Hopefully the morning will be as nice as it was today - It was absolutely gorgeous this morning - maybe even most of the day - I'm not sure - I just know it got ugly when I was outside cleaning doors and windows. I don't know how people do manual labor all day long - especially in this heat. Kudos to anyone who has to exert themselves in their jobs!!!

And kudos to the girls for cleaning the house :)

Parenting 101 ???

Ahhhhh... All's quiet on the home front. Shawn left yesterday afternoon for scout camp and it couldn't have come at a better time - I was just getting ready to start searching for a camp to check myself into. Did I say camp? Maybe I meant padded room??? Anyway - I'm already enjoying the break from the constant unsolicited job I acquired (since having children) as referee. Who knew? Why on earth doesn't anyone tell you how hard being a parent really is? Is it some kind of conspiracy??? Or -maybe its like childbirth - you forget (or block out) how painful it really was after its over and then you decided to have another one and the panic doesn't set in until the flashbacks start and you realize what you've gotten yourself into and its too late to back out!!! At least there's an end in sight with childbirth. This parenting thing goes on literally forever (I hear) - not just until they are 18. And - seriously - if I had parents I'm sure even I would have moved back home by now :)

I'm not sure how I missed out on the Parenting 101 class with all those years in school - and I never in a million years thought I'd be a single parent, so here I am winging it with no instructions and no 800 number to call for support and so far we're all surviving. I'm doing the best that I can and I figure at the very least - my kids will be less emotionally scarred than I and their children will be less emotionally scarred than them. So - its all good :)

I remember feeling so relieved a few weeks ago when I heard another mother actually admit in a talk at church in front of everyone - that sometimes she is overwhelmed being a parent - it wasn't anything in particular or a specific crisis, it was just everyday parenting. Can I just say "Thank you very much!!!" With all the gushing so many people do over their children I sometimes start to think there is something more wrong with me than just missing the class. I realize we need to praise our children and its great to talk about all the fantastic and/or funny stuff they do, but sometimes its nice to hear that other people have child rearing challenges too - it helps me not feel like such a failure when everyone else is talking about their perfect children :)

Libby Lu 6-21-08

I (SARAH) went to Libby Lu for my friend Scarlett's birthday party and we got our hair done, you can see!!! We went to the Libby Lu at Downtown Disney and had so much fun!!! After we went to Libby Lu we walked around and we had so much fun because it was all girls. After we walked around for a littel bit ,then we went home and played hide and go seek in the dark.

At Libby Lu we bought tons of things like purple hair spray and when you take a shower it comes out ,but i didn't spray any of it in my hair because i didn't want it to get mest up.then my mom came and got me really late that night and when i woke up the next morning and was sick:( That is why i was not able to go to church today. When i stayed home i just slept and it was not fun.

1st Day of Summer 6/21/2008

Yowza its a hot first day of summer - 118.... the temperature's high and gas prices are too -although they are down from last week - I only paid $4.41 yesterday. My friend Kelli (from grade school - who I recently found on our high school website) is living in England and tells me that the gas prices are equivalent to $12/gallon. She hardly drives anywhere!!!

I added a few new summer songs to my playlist. One's an old favorite Bryan Adams song (I'm feeling a little nostalgic with the recent birthday) and the other's a new Kid Rock song... who knew??? I've never heard anything from the Kid before this -its a mix of Werewolf in London and Sweet Home Alabama - talk about a blast from the past - I love it! I can't believe how talented people are - first just to write any kind of song is amazing, but then to have it enter ones mind to blend two songs and add new lyrics and get a whole new song - completely unbelievable. Thank goodness there are talented people out there working to entertain the rest of us!!!

Happy Birthday to Me !!!!!

Eycarumba -41!!! I still can't believe it... And although I've had a few days of melancholy and feeling a little like I should have done something more with my life by now (or at least put on some make up :) - today turned out to be a nice day - lunch with some new work friends and then a wonderful dinner with Jim (anything with him is wonderful - breakfast, lunch, dinner, diet pepsi break, staring at the walls - you name it - but this was particularly nice) - and lots of cake - as it should be!

And - I got a birthday message from my half sister Charllis - she's sending me some letters that our dad sent to her while she was away at school. I'm soooo excited - I can hardly wait to get them. Since he died when I was a baby I have no memories of him... just a few pictures. These letters should give me a little insight into his personality... very cool :)

Sarah's 11th Birthday June 15, 2008

We went to Legoland yesterday for Sarah's birthday. It was Shawn, Sarah and I and Sarah's friend Rachel. Most say Legoland is for younger kids, but we still love it! It's amazing what they have built out of legos. Their newest addition is the Las Vegas Strip - its unbelievable!!! Shawn took this photo of the Treasure Island hotel.

And then there are Shawn and Sarah in front of a lifesize Volvo built from Legos and the Whitehouse below.

We had a great day - then headed to Mike and Melanie's on Saturday night so the kids could spend father's day with Mike - and we celebrated Sarah's birthday when Grandma Nancy (Melanie's mom) got home from working at Disneyland. Another nice day there - then back home to the desert where it was 112 when we got home around 6:30pm!!!!

Back to the grind tomorrow :)

Speaking of Beckham.... LA Galaxy Game June 7, 2008

Okay - even better than Shawn's soccer tournament (sorry Shawn) was the LA Galaxy Game Saturday night... they won 3-2. The game was fantastic and Beckham was beautiful as usual!!! How is it that the beautiful people are usually talented too? Not very fair if you ask me - I think it should be divvied up a bit.

Anyway - Mike and Shawn and I met Jim and his kids at the game while Sarah hung out with Melanie and Grandma Nancy (Melanie's mom). It was my first professional soccer game and I can't wait to go back!

Citrus Soccer Tournament June 7, 2008

Shawn's too fast for action photos...

We all (me, Shawn & Sarah and their dad Mike and step-mom Melanie) went to Redlands to watch Shawn play in the Citrus Tournament. The team won 1 game and lost 2, but Shawn made 3 amazing goals... One was a total Beckham shot!!! It was a great tournament - we had a fun time. Sarah on camera....

Summer's here - its been a long week!

Here's a picture of the kids on a bike that one of our neighbors was kind enough to give them :) It's too bad Shawn wasn't riding it instead of his dirtbike when he ran into the back of my car!!! It looks a lot worse in person :(

and this is how I'm feeling right about now...

Desert Living & Post Tramatic Stress

Well - I never really thought too much about post tramatic stress until today. I mean sure I've had traumatic events throughtout my life, but I figure - you just accept it and move on - until today.... I got in the shower sans contact lenses (for the last time ever) and felt a little something on my leg. I looked down and saw a very blury something - big and black and screamed and jumped out of the shower - grabbed my glasses and looked down and saw it: a huge black Date Beetle (aka COCKROACH for you non-desert dwellers) - YES - right there in the shower and it was on my leg!!! And I call my son and say why didn't you come when I was screaming - what if something was wrong and he says - well it was just a bug scream - so no reason for me to come running. Just a bug scream? Are you kidding me - there was a cockroach on my leg. All through the day I've been having phantom crawling on my leg and I'm sure to wake up with night terrors tonight!