Gotta Love Summer

Boy do I love summer!!!! It is not only because my birthday is in July, and anyone who knows me knows I love my birthday....... even if it means I am getting another year older. My parents always made a big deal about birthdays when I was growing up and so the expectation has always been very high. But I digress..... summer is about more than my birthday, or two of my four children's birthdays.( I just happen to be sandwiched in between) Or my husbands or his sisters or even one of the grandsons. Wow, we have a lot of birthday in the summer! Okay, I am digressing again.

I love that you can be outside more...... I love the feel of air conditioning on my skin when I come in from the heat. I love the longer days. I love the smell of rain on a hot summer day. I love to relax and just gaze out at the lake. I love dangling my feet in the cool water. I love the smell of bar-b-que. I love the feel of the sun on my skin and the smell of sun tan lotion. I love all of the festivals there are to go to. But most of all I love seeing family and friends.

It always seems like summer is when we either visit family and friends or they visit us. We just got back from South Dakota visiting my parents, sister and her family. Now we will be seeing Dales sister and her husband soon. Then my eldest son Brendan and his girlfriend for his 21st birthday! (opps I said the B word again) Then we have my best friend from Kansas and her son coming to visit. I am so excited!!!
We still have plenty of summer left for more visitors.......and now you all know how much I love them.

One of the nicest things about summer is having my son Marc here all summer with us!

The Old Fashion Photo....or 2 ....or 3

Well, we are still visiting family in the Black Hills. The weather has been more like April than June, so we have been limited on our days that we can go outside to play! I still love playing tourist with my kids and being lead around by which ever family member draws the short straw for the day....... but we have had to modify our activities because of all the rain.

One of the things I really wanted to to while we were up here was get an old fashion photo taken. Just happens that is something we can do on a rainy day...... First time up in Keystone we had Marc and Cassie get a photo. It was so fun to see those two all dressed up. Cassie loved her dress and wanted to buy it..... Marc loved holding the guns and a whiskey bottle...... but complained that they didn't even put anything in it. I don't think he was hoping for whiskey...... just to look like he REALLY had some whiskey. After all, how tough is a cowboy that has an empty whiskey bottle?

Well after Cassie was done charming the photographer and Marc was done charming all the bystanders, we ended up with some really cute photos.
Now it continues to rain more and more ever day. Marc and I got to go to Deadwood on Saturday with Rhonda and Hali. While Cassie stayed home and watched her grandparents. Not only was it rainy, but very chilly on Saturday....... and since we are not big gamblers we had to find something fun to do in Deadwood. First Rhonda came up with this great idea while I was looking in one of the many gift shops. We should all get funky hats to wear while we walked around Deadwood....... after all it is raining. Really we had a blast with this, and I think Marc has decided to wear his for all special occasions.
I guess we got so into the dress up thing and our choice we limited to do in the rain so guess what we did?????? We had an old fashion picture taken!!!!! The place was really busy, and we had to wait, but it was so much fun. Marc was such a good sport. He was game to do pretty much whatever we wanted, but when the girl was trying to dress him and couldn't find a jacket to fit the length of his arms she called him "orangutan arms". All in all we had more fun getting ready for the photo than having photo taken. It just did not compare to the place in Keystone...... and there prices were outrageous!!!!!

The next day my brother-in-law Marty got back into town, so we decided to head back up into the hills. Mom stayed home to cook..... and Dad to watch mom cook. (He says this does not happen often and didn't want to miss it!) The kids and I went with Rhonda and her family. All plied in my new Suburban!!!!!! (So that is what all the seats are for.) Of course it was rainy and we had to look for indoor activities. We went to the National Presidential Wax Museum, which was very interesting, but then we went looking for something else to do. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I have heard these old fashion photos are fun to do!!!! I know you are so thinking NOOOOOOOO! Step away from the studio. But no, we wander on in and get all excited about a new idea we have. After all now there are 6 of us, and who knows when we will be together again. We had a great day, and the photographer was the same one that was so good with Marc and Cassie. All in all we had lots of fun even though it rained. And now I have some great photos to add to my wall at home!

Storybook Island....... again......

If you have ever been to Rapid City,SD and you have a little one you have probably been to Storybook Island. It is definitiley one of the jewels of this city. I have to admit that I was really looking forward to taking Cassie there. All of my other children have been there multiple times, and I have tons of pictures of them with the various character. It is always fun and interesting to see who they have added since our last visit. Well, it has been quite a few years and they have really improved the park.

We have always had a routine for going threw Storybook Island..... go to this setup and pose with this character........ Thus we have all the kids with the different characters throughout the years..... add the new ones as they are added to the park. You wouldn't think that we actually go to someplace like this to let the kids play? Not when you have a prime photo opportunity like this.
Problem number one..... someone forgot to inform Cassie of our plans. She seem to think she was there to run all over and play. This child is use to having her picture taken, but when there are so many wonderful things to see and play with you can't really expect her to stop and smile on command. So both mom and grandma had to get really good of catching her on the fly.

Problem number two.......something like a dozen school buses dropped off a bunch of wild animals impersonating children. OK, I have been to Storybook Island dozens of times over the years and I have never seen so many wild children out there before. So to make the challenge of getting Cassie's picture at the designated spots even more challenging..... we had to snap our shots in between the little heads that kept running in front of the camera.

All in all we had a wonderful day..... and it was very enjoyable to see Storybook Island again......Secretly, I think Marc was more excited to see it than Cassie..... or maybe that was just him putting on a good face for his mother. Yeah, probably just a good face. He was a very good sport. He was even very helpful keeping some of the wild children out of our shots. At 6'2" he is very intimidating to the little ones. Except Cassie.... she knows she has him wrapped around her little finger.
Well we are off to do more exciting things in the Black Hills today.

HELLLLLOOOOOO OUT THERE!!!!!!

Wow..... It has been a long time since I blogged. My husband being laid off is really throwing me off. I have been going crazy on so many levels that I should have been using this as therapy. My daughter has regressed and is now screaming and rolling on the floor every time I try to get her to go to the potty. I will have the only 10 year old that is still not potty trained. If I ever get it figured out how to finally get her potty trained I should write a book just in case some other poor soul finds them self in my predicament. Who knows.... maybe this is Cassie's secret to securing herself a college education.
In his attempt to help with the potty training, daddy bought his princess a fitting potty seat. It is literally a princess potty seat. It is padded purple seat with pink swirls and a crown and says princess. Cassie really likes it...... as a HAT! She runs around the house with it on top of her head. I think she still has yet to use it to go to the potty. Well good try daddy!!!
Well off of the potty training, we are visiting my parents, sister and her family in South Dakota. I am sure I will have lot to blog about and pictures to post. You might just get spoiled by all the new post I have on here......