Test Driving

Went to shop for a new recliner today.  When we got in the store The Boy's eyes lit up and he was overjoyed by all the features the chairs come with now.  USB ports, cup holders, LED lights in the cup holders and under the foot rest, and a button that raises the foot rest electronically.  He had his heart set on this one...in chocolate, not red, though.  After I finally agreed and we got it paid for he was off to the sectionals to pick out one of those as well!  He better go get a job so we can afford all this new furniture he is picking out!

After getting the chair home I discovered that, although a great idea, the motorized foot rest is not ideal for when you need to get up in a hurry.  It is quite slow and Jayke and Jeff get a good laugh out of watching me impatiently waiting to be able to stand up.  I will get used to it but probably won't be buying any motorized furniture in the future!

We had several arguments who was going to sit in the chair.  I got it so that I would have someplace comfortable to sit in the living room again and could join him in the evenings.  He was all for this until I was actually in the room with him watching the game.  Apparently I'm too enthusiastic about basketball and by half time he was asking me if I was ready to go to bed.  By the fourth quarter he was TELLING me to go to bed, that it was "sleepy time!"  I finally gave up the chair and moved to the bed so he could take over.

Rain Delay

Jayke, Mason, and Mathew waiting out a rain delay.  Unfortunately it ended up being delayed for a week and we wasted an entire evening driving to Indy, waiting in the car, then driving straight back.  

A week later we went back and lost the game.  One more game to go and the regular season is over.  Tournament coming up this weekend though...hoping for better results!

Progress... Cheap Labor...

I really wish I had a before picture.  This area was a huge mess with dead bushes and over grown in weeds.  Not a shred of mulch since I moved in years ago.  Seems like the front of the house always gets priority over the back.  With the front in pretty good shape this year we were finally able to start working on the back a little bit.  Keep in mind it was Larry, Curly, and Mo (Mom, Me, and Jeff) working on this project so although it doesn't look like a professional did it, it does look 1 million times better!  Jayke is my lawn boy in training.  He was really into mulching.  

Laynie approves of the new walk.  With her failing eyesight she tends to fall off the pavers a lot though.  It will take her a little time to get used to them.  I think she likes being able to walk to the fence without touching the grass.  I'm also happy my bird sculpture from Mexico finally has a home and prominent location for display.  He has been tucked in the corner of the hedge where you couldn't even see him.  I got the electrical outlet replaced so now I can do some lighting on the Pergola too!

My helpers will all be happy to learn that painting the deck and working in a water feature are up next!!  Rest up crew!

Next year we will bring this flower bed around and run it down the front of the deck to join the flower bed on the other side...baby steps...

Movie Date

Took The Boy to see Tomorrowland for helping in the yard today.

Red Nose Day

We all wore our red noses in support of Red Nose Day to raise money for children in poverty.

Bunch of clowns...any excuse for a group picture!

Playing With ColorSplash

Did You Want This?

Miss Luna...always in the way of whatever I'm trying to do.  

Gone to the Dogs

Bark for Life was a success!  As of the last I checked we had raised over $12,000 with our BBQ sales at Relay still to come.  We should be able to give them a check for at least $13,000 this year.  There were lots of dogs and even a goat and a pig! Jayke loved seeing all the dogs and even had his own job holding leashes of dogs while their owners registered.  Looking forward to next year!

Bark! Bark!

It's Bark time!  I spent the entire day working on the above swag bags for the Bark For Life participants this Saturday.  Midwest Homes for Pets hosts this sister event to Relay for Life.  We host Bark then participate in Relay and present our check.  Last year we gave over $12,000 that we raised and this year we are on track to achieve well over that!  I volunteered to put the swag bags together thinking, oh that will be fun!  It was at first but after a while I was sore, sweating, and overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to put together 150 of these bags.  We have a lot of stuff this year, way more donations than last.  It literally took the entire day of two of us working pretty much non stop (they did give us lunch).  Hopefully my job on Saturday will be a little easier.  I am taking pictures for the day.  I think I can handle that!  

I also put all the signs together for the even...about 100 or so signs... here they are before I put the stands on them.

Below is a picture of our boss, Brad's, office where we put the bags together.  Tara took this picture and sent it to him in Europe where he is on business this week.  This is when we were just getting going...it got way worse!

Mom's Day!

Time to bring back these gems!  The above picture causes a lot of groaning from the older lady in the picture.  I told her to relax, it's a great picture of me!  (discoloration aside)

I like to call the below picture, which my sister plastered on Facebook for all the world to enjoy, my awkward stage.  Not sure I grew out of that yet.

No pics of The Boy and me.  We had a traumatic day of soccer.  2 hour drive one way for a guaranteed loss.  We didn't even have enough players to field a full team!  The other team, however, had 14 players!  14!!  That meant they could almost sub out their entire team.  Then, just to give us an extra dose of misery, it rained.  I don't mean it was a nice light sprinkle that kept us cool on a hot summer day.  It POURED SIDEWAYS!!!!  THE ENTIRE GAME!!  My child is blind in the rain on a soccer field.  Goggles just don't work in the rain.  Man was it a terrible day.  My intentions had been to snap a couple pics of the two of us but we were over it by the time we left.  He went straight to sleep and I had steam coming out of my ears the whole way home.  No pictures, please.

His Practice Partner Brings His Own Equipment

#Boogeymanpatrol

I feel so safe with these three on guard duty!

Wretched With a Side of Wretchedness!

Is how I feel about this project.  Mini Economy, Market Day...whatever you call this.  I call it Wretched!!!  Jayke's class had to come up with a product to sell and open a store in the gym in which to sell his wares.  Jayke and Oma made book marks and rubber stamps.  We didn't have a lot of time for this project so I feel we could have made a few improvements.  The book marks, although cute, would not stand up to use from a kid.  The stamps might have been a good idea if we had provided some sort of ink.  Over all, he sold most of the book marks, very few of the stamps, and learned a valuable lesson in business.  He came home and said, "They made me pay $30 to open my store and I didn't even make $30!  I lost money!"  Welcome to the real world, son.  

All I do is Win, Win, Win...

No matter what!  Another win today.  Season is going really well!

I Deserve a Lil Appreciation

Apparently the school thinks showing appreciation means letting me buy books at their book fair.  They did have some donuts, coffee, and juice in thanks.  I figured since this was going to be the last one I ever get a chance to go to, I better go.  Jayke was happy I did.  He got to show my the mural the kids painted this year in the cafeteria.  He pointed out the square that his group of three did.  The back pack in the last picture.  He is quite proud of the mural and he should be, it was really nice.  Brightened up the cafeteria.

As we head into the final weeks of elementary school I'm finding it hard to believe that it's over.  Middle school is just around the corner.  We go for orientation on the 18th!  Jayke is nervous that he will get lost but I think he is excited about middle school.  That makes one of us.  :(

Halloween in April

We FINALLY got our championship trophies for the Halloween Classic we played last October.  This whole trophy business was a mess from start to finish.  First we had to wait 6 months to get them since the tournament organizers weren't prepared and didn't have them in time....apparently they hadn't even ordered them since it took so long.  We got a message a week or so ago that we were going to finally be getting them on picture night.  We would receive our trophies and there would be a team photo taken etc. The whole club would watch us receive them since this was our first win at this age group ever.  We have been looking forward to this for a long time!  This morning when I looked at the weather forecast I wasn't even sure that we would have pictures at all let alone the trophy presentation.  It was cloudy, cold, and windy.  I mean, brutally windy.  Turns out we barely did have the presentation.  After this season's pictures were taken the kids were taken over across the field and each one was handed a box with their name on it.  The trophy was inside.  They told them to stand in front of this trailer because it was blocking the wind, and we all snapped a picture.  So here they are...the champs...looking like a rag-tag bunch of kids just trying to stay warm.

Soggy Bottom Boys

No Oma, no big hat, and we got the win today!  I'm glad it was warm because these kids were drenched.  The first rain drops hit my windshield right as I was pulling into the parking lot and it didn't let up the entire time we were there.  Jayke had a hard time seeing since he wears goggles to play.  At one point he ended up tossing them over to us on the sideline.  The coach told me later he came over and said, "I can't see anything but the ball!"  I guess if you can only see one thing, the ball is the one you want!

At Least There Was no Giant M&M Umbrella

Jayke was so embarrassed that Oma wore this big floppy hat to his soccer game today.  I, oddly, was not phased by it.  I am becoming immune to her old lady ways, I guess.

He will get to enjoy it for an entire week when she takes him to Alabama this summer.

We lost the game, first loss of the season, maybe it was the hat.

Cotton Candy, Jumbotron, and Boomer!

Yes, we have great seats for a change.  Back at another Pacer's game.  Jeff bought 6 tickets for us all to go and made sure we were down on the lower level this time where we could be close to the action!  It's a different experience when you sit this close and the kids loved it.  Jeff and I were pretty happy with it too!  Jayke finally got his $4.00 cotton candy, we made it on the Jumbotron twice.  Apparently we were even on the televised broadcast.  Boomer came up to see us and the game went to double overtime to keep the Pacers' playoff chances alive!!!  It was an exciting night and everyone had a lot of fun.  Definitely the most fun I've had at a game.  This was Jayke's second Pacer's game this season and mine too.  Bob took him to one a couple of months ago as well.  He thinks he is a regular now.  

Reunited...and Rewarded!

These two are teammates once again!  They were both thrilled!  We even brought back the "fancy feet" and got matching cleats again.  This weekend was our first look at the new team.  From what I had been hearing from Jayke after practice I didn't have very high hopes.  He kept telling me how the coach isn't playing anyone in their normal positions and some other crazy stuff.  I quickly changed my mind though once I saw us roll over the competition at our season opening tournament in Brownsburg.  

After day one we had won both of our games and it was looking pretty good for us heading into the final day of play.  We easily won our third game which put us in the championship game.  Great way to start the season.  Coming off of last season's Championship win at our final tournament, this was a great sign for our team this season! 

We ended up going to overtime in the championship game but couldn't quite pull off the win.  We ended up as tourney runner up and got a nice trophy for it!  Finally, getting to bring home some hardware that isn't just for participation.  Runner up right out of the gate isn't too shabby, looking forward to what this team can do the rest of the season and in our next two tournaments!