Last summer weekend**edited with photos**

Delaney spent the night on Friday, and the girls ended up spending the whole weekend together. They made tents, played moon sand, and hung out in our back yard on Saturday until being forced to clean up ( "blow the stink off" as I call it ) late in the afternoon. We then headed over to Jenn's for an Anniversary celebration for Danny's Aunt Kathy and Uncle Kirk. It was their 40th anniversary.

Happy Anniversary Kirk and Kathy!!!

Skylar ended up spending the night with Delaney that night, then Eliza and I met back up with them at the Farm for one last dip in the pool before school on Sunday. We soaked up the 90 degree weather and 88 degree pool water until the sun went down. I even got a little reading in. It turned out to be a very relaxing day. Kathy and Jenn treated us to a wonderful dinner of porcupine meatballs and corn on the cob also. Perfect summer day, really. Thanks, Jenn and Eliza for making me get out of the house...Iwas having a hard time getting motivated to vacate my pj's Sunday AM.

I wish Danny would have been there, but he did have some fun too. He spent the day riding 4-wheeler with some friends then relaxing in our cool basement at home in the peace and quiet. I am sure it was the perfect summer day from his perspective too. : )

Back to work

Back to work today. Thank goodness for my Blackberry I didn't have too many e-mails to catch up with, but had plenty of work to choose from. I actually had a pretty productive Thursday and Friday to round out the week with not too many meetings and a few "to-dos" crossed off.

Left a little early on Friday to check out Azalea's restaurant at 400 Locust for http://www.azaleadsm.com/ a United Way event I have been recruited to help with. This is a fairly new downtown Des Moines restaurant that recently received some press from visitors during the caucuses. Loved the ambience and the menu, and the prices were extremely reasonable too. They have some good old Iowa food like homemade noodles and free range chicken along with Angus Beef and locally raised pork along with some gourmet sides and a great wine selection. I am hopeful that we go with this venue for our event, so I may experience the cuisine first hand.

I took the girls to sign up for dance class Friday also. We signed up for hip hop and tumbling along with their regular tap, ballet , and jazz classes. When I say we, I mean we too. I even signed up for a class. Jenn, Joell, and I convinced them to offer an adult hip hop class, and we start on Saturdays in October. This should be funny. : )

After dance registration, we ate at the Christian Church and let the girls play a little at Perry's Friday fest downtown Perry. They played in several "bounce houses", but Eliza's favorite was the giant slide. She used all but one of her tickets on that one ride and kept inventing "new moves" on the ride down. She twisted while sliding and landed on her side several times. That child has no fear.

prayers needed

I just wanted to pass this blog address on to those of you reading out there. http://katiebloomprogress.blogspot.com One of my high school classmates suffered a brain bleed a few weeks after having her 3rd child, and was given little to no hope for survival let alone quality of life. Well, that was nearly 4 weeks ago, and she is recovering, walking, talking, remember, and hopefully going to physical therapy Friday.

Just wanted to pass on her miracle story and illicit any prayers you could offer up for continued recovery. She and I weren't close, but we were in a bible study together at school and she was a really sweet girl in high school.

AWKWARD

Not much to post today...went back to work after vacation and had a hard time readjusting. Oh well, that's life, I guess.

I did have a funny conversation with Skylar tonight, though. She was sorting school supplies and organizing her new school bag, so I started singing in the kitchen. (Did I mention school supplies make me happy?)

Mom: (singing) School supplies ...they are so cool! School supplies...they make me drool! (I should be a songwriter, huh?)
Skylar: MOM!
Mom: Yes, honey? Did you hear my cool new song.
Skylar: AWKWARD!!!
Mom: What's wrong?
Skylar: Most mom's don't sing about school supplies.
Mom: YES! I have done my parental job for the day. I have made my child think I am strange. : )
Skylar: (rolling the eyes and giggling)

I am soooo looking forward to many more eye rolling, giggling days ahead. : )

Back to school**edited with photos**

Well, we had a day to get ready for back to school today. Eliza had to get her kindergarten check up and 5 immunizations and a blood test. RIDICULOUS!!! No child should have to go through all of that at once. She screamed and I cried. I don't know what was worse. She quickly recovered though, and we headed to the McDonald's play land for dinner and a little play.

Then, to Wal-Mart for school supplies and school hair cuts. YAY!!! I love school supply shopping. Eliza got an Elmo backpack and Skylar got a camo messenger bag. No more boring back pack for her. Why are they getting so big!?!? : (

Finally, we met friends for dinner at Cheddar's. Danny and I have childhood friends that I thought should meet each other. Andy was Danny's classmate and now lives in Kansas City and Tina is my classmate and lives in Ankeny. It was a little difficult and weird to find a place for them to meet, but I thought it was worth the chance. Setting people up is hard, but at 30 something, I was willing to take a shot for both of them to meet someone nice possibly. Bars just don't cut it as ideal meeting places... They've now met and have each other's numbers. My fingers are crossed.

vacation Aug. 7-12**edited with one photo**

I have been on vacation and will add a long post soon with photos. Danny, Jenn, Tim and I went to Brainerd, MN on our annual trip to the NHRA drag races. http://www.brainerdinternationalraceway.com/

We decided Danny and I had been going for 9 years now.

Here is a photo of our first night tradition. Minigolfing at Pirate's Cove.

Work,work,work

Where do I start? I haven't posted in over a week.

July 26&27th I scrapbooked with some great friends. Judy hosted a crop at the Perry Library complete with M&M cookie birthday treats for me on Saturday. : ) It seemed like forever since I had seen some of the gals, and I managed to get quite a few pages done too. I saw Jenn for the first time since her Florida vacation. Man, I missed that girl!!! Sunday even included some Mother/Daughter scrapbooking on Sunday with Skylar. I think she enjoyed it. She enjoyed playing Wii with Kevin and Delaney even more though I think. We had another Sunday weather adventure as well with tornado sirens and crazy wind! When will this insane weather stop?

July 28th-August 1 Work, Work, Work and more work. Not much else exciting going on in our world this week.

Aug.2-Spent the day at the Farm swimming and sunbathing. Perfect summer day...

Aug. 3-Cleaned, Cleaned, Cleaned

Pretty boring few days, huh?!? Well, it may be a while again before my next post because we are getting ready for or annual Brainerd vacation for the NHRA national drag races.http://www.nhra.com/content/preview.asp?articleid=2440&zoneid=90&y=&navsource=16

I CANNOT WAIT!!! I love the smell of NITRO in the morning!! Thanks Mom , John, Dad, and Carol for helping with the kids!!!