Survivor

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Sad news. We lost coach this week. The villains are falling apart, but I still have hope for Russel and JT! Love this show!

Weekend Agenda

It's going to be a busy one around here:

1. The king's sister is coming to spend the night tonight.
2. The princess has a school dance after school today. (I am not chaperoning!)
3. The prince has track practice after school.
4. The princess has dance practice after the dance.
5. Whomever is available will go to dinner with the king's family later tonight.
6. The prince has a track meet at 12 tomorrow. Shot put and javelin.
7. The princess heads to the dance competition at 2 to watch others from her studio.
8. The prince is having a friend spend the night Sat. night.
9. The princess competes in her dance solo and duo Sat. night.
10. We're back at the dance competition at 7 AM for the princess' group competition.
11. Book club meets at my house at 4 PM Sun. to discuss The Time Traveler's Wife.

Phew! Good thing we got lots of rest last weekend.

Oh, and did I mention I've lost my voice??? It's been trying to go for a couple of days. It's pretty well gone this morning. We'll see how it goes...

Belated Dance Photos

We have another dance competition and track meet this weekend. I thought I'd better post this set of dance photos before they get mixed with this weekends! (I know, you can never have too many dance photos!) The princess says she's not excited for this weekend's competition. I can't decide if that means she's nervous or not. We'll see how it goes. The prince will throw javelin this weekend, along with shot. I will get to go to his meet for a couple of hours, so I hope he throws during that time! We've got company coming this weekend. Book club meets at my house the weekend. Bring it on! It'll all be fun!

They got warm-ups this year.

She was none too excited that I made her get them bigger.

They need to fit next year too!

Cool-i-o!

And the clip in her hair is part of her costume.

Beautiful.

The dance director, peeling off the green eye shadow from the first dance to make way for the purple eye shadow needed for the second dance! Oh brother!

This is her awesome dance director who choreographed the duo and parts of the group song. Behind them is the teacher who choreographed other parts of the group song and her solo. We love these ladies!

The princess and Christian.

Gotta love this photo.

Two cute girls.

Two mouths full of braces.

Two full smiles.

That doesn't happen very often!

All 4 competition teams with their bling.

Group hug!
Can't wait for this weekend!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I just added The Time Traveler's Wife to my book list. I read it a year or more ago and found it VERY difficult because it jumps around in time all the time. The author does her best to keep you on track, but it's still very difficult. I didn't really like it much. Now I have re-read it for book club, and I liked it MUCH better the second time around. I liked it enough to give it two stars, and I'm curious to see the movie and see how they handle it. I might have to rent it.

Mad Mom Skills

You should know that I have many mad mom skills. I keep most of them hidden so as not to make the other moms feel bad. However, I am going to share with you what is, perhaps, my maddest skill!

I am told that I make the BEST toast, and I'm told this by many of my kids' friends. And do you know why my toast is so special? Are you ready? The butter is MELTED on my toast.

Now, this seems like a pretty simple thing, but apparently it is more difficult to do than one would think because seriously, numerous children--including my own--have commented on it.

So I decided to share my secret for getting butter to melt on toast. I know this is extremely generous of me, not to mention top-secret, but in the interest of mom-harmony world wide, I will share:

It's kind of difficult and requires a bit of practice, but here it is. You have to butter the toast AS SOON AS it pops out of the toaster. That's it people. Now you know the secret. Go forth and make your children happy.

PS: If you're making lots of toast and you don't get to the toast in time because you're also stirring eggs and flipping pancakes and turning sausage, just butter it as soon as you can and then stack the toast on top of the other toast. Keep stacking it. The heat from all the other toast seems to have this strange ability to melt the butter!

Have a beautiful, melted butter, kind of day.

The Ice Cream Man

We have a neighbor named Seth. Seth used to be the king's favorite neighbor because Seth worked for a beer distributor, and when they were changing out product, he would bring the king beer that was going to be thrown away. We all thought Seth was a pretty nice guy, but the king REALLY liked Seth. That is until a couple of weeks ago. Seth knocked on the door and this time asked for the kids. Seems ol' Seth is now working for an ice cream distributor, and he was changing out inventory. He invited the kids over to his truck to fill their arms with whatever ice cream they could carry! Yippee! Now we like Seth more than the king does!

A little side note: Seth says he makes more money pushing ice cream, even in the winter, than he ever did pushing beer. In other words, his best month of summer beer sales doesn't compare with his worst winter month of ice cream sales. I find that very interesting.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. I was a little concerned last night. The princess pulled a tooth yesterday afternoon. It occurred to me that both the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy would be visiting us in the middle of the night. I've heard that they don't get along very well, and I was sort of afraid I'd wake up in the middle of the night and have to break up a fight! Luckily, there was no incident, and I didn't see any rabbit fur or fairy dust around my house this morning. Thank goodness!

Survivor some more!

Spoiler Alert!

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About last week...Russel is brilliant. Tyson was undone by the master, and by his own stupidity. And that Colby dodged the bullet again...amazing.

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About this week, I will remind you that of our 5 original players in our pool, 4 are still in. We still have Daniel (who is the master at flying under the radar), Coach (who I really thought would be gone by now--and what a dork, he gives his "word" to two different people and then is tormented by this? He kids himself when he claims to be honorable), JT (who seems pretty safe on the hero side right now), and Russel. So this week it was down to Russel and Boston Rob. And I really like Boston Rob. But what a dork I am. As Jeff was reading off the votes I was hoping for Rob to win!!! Until about the second to the last vote when I got it together and remembered there's $50 on the line, and I stand a much lower chance of winning if Russel is gone!!!! I may be as dumb as Tyson! Luckily, Russel pulled out the win. He's the man!

Book List

I just noticed that the 13th book I read happened to be Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. Funny. And, if you're paying attention or even care, I have read a book by a male author this year, finally.

Arizona Trip

What follows are the highlights of the trip...there was food, fun, and baseball...not necessarily in that order. Judging by the exhaustion and grouchiness of the prince, they must have had a good time!

The Air and Space Museum

An older Air Force One.

This plane was used to fly dignitaries, like Kissinger, around.

The Guppy. Used to transport stuff.

Cosmonauts.

How do we know we're in Arizona? Check out the mammoth cactus.

The Fire Fighter Museum

I love all these photos. They remind me of the little boys they used to be. And they were just like little boys when they found out they could try on the gear. And check out Reed. His jacket isn't buttoned straight! Love it!

There was the Science Museum

They stumbled onto this museum on accident when the one they were looking for was closed due to a lack of funding. They enjoyed this one the most though. It was a happy accident.

Don't ask!

Morphing oneself.

Lying on a bed of nails.

I wanna try that too.

Apparently, it doesn't hurt.

There was swimming

I know, let's go all the way to Arizona to buy tennis balls so we can pay sales tax on them.
The king was never quite sure what the boys intended to do with these tennis balls. You'll see they do show up in the following hot tub photo. Hmmm...


One night, while hot tubbing, they met a guy who is a trainer for John Deere. The boys were thrilled when they told him they were in high school and he told them he was sure they were in college!

There were several trips to Sonic

The boys' dinner of choice.

I'm pretty sure the prince has a mouth full of fries here.

Oh yeah, and we saw some baseball.

They knew they wouldn't be allowed back in the house when they got home unless they coerced someone into taking a group shot.
Good Times!

The King thought the yellow sign in the outfield was hilarious. Click on the photo to see it larger.

First Track Meet

The prince had his first track meet today. He had to make it to practice yesterday in order to have enough practices in to compete. They got home at 9:30 AM so he had no trouble making it to the 3:20 practice. But he sure was tired and grouchy.

He had a good first meet and improved his distance with each throw. He never scratched. Yippee! He only threw shot this meet. He'll add javelin next time.

This shot cracks me up. It looks like he's dancing and the kid from Senior is giving him pointers.

This one went over 25 feet which wasn't enough to place in the top 4, but it was close.

The weather was sunny but not warm. And of course, it was windy. But at least the clouds waited until after we left to come in. The next meet is next week. Here we go!

Best April Fool's Day Prank of the Day

The principal and one of our teachers pulled off the best prank I saw all day in Middle School.

The teacher teaches the lowest scoring math students, and she's quite a joker by nature. She asked the principal to come into her room and tell the kids that they had all flunked the recent state tests in math and would have to take summer school.

The principal went a step farther. He came in with a stack of papers. Gave them the bad news. He told them that summer school would run ALL summer with the exception of the first week after school was out and the week of the 4th of July. He then asked if any of them had summer vacations planned. A few raised their hands. He told them that if they went on their trips, they would automatically have to repeat 6th grade. One girl raised her hand and said she was moving. He told her he would tell her new school that she needed to go into 6th grade again.

By now the kids are sweating bullets and the teacher's laughing out loud. Finally the kids figure out that it's the BEST April Fool's joke ever! They laughed and several of them came to tell me about it later, but boy were they nervous for a few minutes!

Happy Birthday Shelley!

Happy Birthday to my April Fool's Sister!

Here she is with her boyfriend.

He's a hottie!

True Story:

When she was born, our dad,

who was quite a prankster,

called his parents to let them know that she had arrived,

and they didn't believe him.

They thought he was playing an April Fool's Day joke on them.

It was no joke though.

Have a great day SMELLY!

Friends

Uh oh!

J's Visit

I hope everyone has a friend like my friend, J. She just really knows how to have fun. And she brought some of that fun with her when she came to visit us this past few days. She leaves tomorrow, and we're very sad. The kids adore her because she's tons o' fun and sends them cool things from her travel adventures. I adore her because she'll sit through 12 hours of dance with me during her "vacation"! We joke about some of the attributes the kids have that are way more like her than either the king or I. She really is part of the family, and we're lucky to claim her in our family. We hope she comes back soon!

"Here Jeanette. I'll give you a Wii skiing lesson."

"You'll have to actually start the game at some point."

"You're going to want to lean a little to get him to turn."

"Maybe not so much. You'll fall off the Wii board."

She's SOOOO addicted now. We're pretty sure she's going home and buy one of these promptly. She mastered Wii Ski and Rockband guitar and drums.



Yesterday we went to Candy Town, USA. Every town should have one of these stores. We bought some Pop Rocks, and J challenged to princess to a Pop Rock eating contest. Who could get the package down first!


Ready, Set, GO!

"Try to get them all."

"Why is your mom taking photos of us?"
"My mom's a stalkaratzi with the camera. She always does that."
"Is this going to end up on the blog?"
"Oh yes!"

"They aren't as bad as I remember them being as a kid.
I don't think my stomach will blow up."

"Let me see YOUR tongue."

What you can't see from this photo is that J is also sticking out her tongue.

We're going to miss her when she leaves us, but we hope she'll be back to see us soon!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

The king and the prince left for Phoenix yesterday. They will see 3 days of spring-training baseball and were very excited for the warmer weather as they and their white legs boarded the plane! Last night the prince sent me this text-photo with the line, "Look what we saw on the interstate." YOW! He could have totally messed with me by saying, "Got in a wreck. Here's the other car." I'm glad he didn't! I'm kind of hoping the baseball games are a little less exciting.

Bling Alert!

The princess had a great day at dance yesterday. These awards are all hers to keep. There were awards that will stay at the studio too. Let's see if I can remember everything, but first let me say that the performances are judged in several categories depending on catagory of dance, age of dancer, number of hours a dancer dances and at this competition they are scored by diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire, with diamond being highest:

Her duo for Puff the Magic Dragon was a diamond winner. In addition they won top in their category and a Judge's Choice Award. This was the "Peanut Butter and Jelly" award because they blended so well together.

Her team for Halo was a diamond winner. In addition they won their age group, their category, and third place overall for all afternoon performances.

Her solo for Anyway was a diamond winner. In addition she won top spot for her category and 6th place overall for all morning performances.

I have to say that their studio did very well. All performances were at a diamond level with only one exception. They took home a boat-load of awards and they had TONS OF FUN!!!

I'll post more photos later. It was a great day and we are so appreciative of all the support from our friends and family!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to Marty and Shelley--23 years--impressive. I wanted to post that photo of you two on the ship balcony on your Hawaii cruise, but I couldn't find it! Here's to 23 more... you guys should take us to Hawaii with you next time! :)

Happy Birthday Jajuan!

I know you're twelve today, but this picture of you is so sweet! Have a great day and year. We love you!

The Zonkey

A little humor to start our potentially stressful day of dance competition!

This is a ZONKEY.

I don't know if this is real or the awesome product of Photoshop, but it's clever either way!

TWO WORDS!

EARLY OUT!!!

Today we are out of school at 1:15, and boy do we need it. After testing last week and better weather this week, the kids are really quite certain that school should be out for the year. We also have a four-day weekend next week. Good thing!!!!

Competition

The princess has her first dance competition tomorrow. We are very excited and a little nervous. I have seen the group dance they do and the duo dance she does. I have not seen her solo. She wants it to be a surprise. I'm told that it's beautiful. Her dance teacher tells us it'll make us cry!! Yikes! So I am very excited for this fun time. She'll be at the theater all day. Her solo and duo are early in the morning. Awards are around noon. Then the group dances again in the late afternoon with awards for that part of the show around dinner time. She'll be exhausted. But it should be a great time. We're glad Jeanette can be here to share it with us. We're also glad the king and prince don't leave until Sunday for their Phoenix trip so they can enjoy it. We're also glad Grandma will be able to share the morning with us, and maybe even Aunt Kathi. What a great support system she has!

Yippee!!!

Jeanette is coming to visit today! Yippee!

Track News

The prince started track last week. He's doing shot put and javelin. He likes these field sports because there is very little running (read: real training) involved, so he hasn't yet pulled his "growing muscle"!

He had to sell $240 worth of coupon books. We had to pay for him to participate and for his warm-ups--which are really cool--I want some. The alternative would be raising our taxes to pay for these things. I'm good with it this way. I only have one kid in track. I don't want to pay for the 150 who went out this year!

First track meet is while he's in AZ with his dad and grandpa. He'll make the second one. I hope the weather's good!