Date Nights

With the kids off visiting their grandparents, Wes and I have been trying to work some "quality" time into our schedules. I had the weekend off 2 weeks ago. We met up with Wes's friend Mike and his wife Sierra.
The plan was to go out on Mike's little boat to a restaurant out on the harbor, but rain cancelled those plans. But, by the time we met up, the rain was gone (of course). We met up at a sports bar so Mike could watch the last couple innings of the Yankees/Mets game. I was ok with that since I like to see the Yankees lose, and Mike is a Mets fan. We got some appetizers, I had crab cakes that were really good. Then we went ahead and went to the restaurant we had planned, but by land instead of by sea. Its actually on the tributary, not the harobour, but it was cool to sit there on the dock and enjoy the weather. We saw some dolphins and pelicans in the water and they had a guy singing John Mellancamp songs. I had some She-Crab soup and warm crab dip. So it was crab night. After dinner we went to see The Hangover. Hilarious movie! The movie theater was pretty cool. Its called Cinnebarre. They've taken out every other row of seats in the theater so waiters can walk through and bring you things like beer, pizza, milkshakes, yes even popcorn. I've decided I can only wear flip flops when we go out with Mike and Sierra. You might recall what happened to my little red shoes when we once went to their house (the dog chewed them up). Then the last time we went out, my shoes fell apart, the soles just completely came off. This time I stepped in gum. Forget flip flops, I'll just go bare foot.
Briana and Russell spent last week with us. Its kind of blur to me, I was asleep most of the week. One of those weeks where it just seemed no matter how much sleep I got, it wasn't enough. But we had some fun playing guitar hero and watching some old movies.
Friday night Wes and I wanted to go out and see Transformers. I even got all dressed up for it. We don't get out much, so I figured why not wear a dress? All of Summerville seemed to have the same idea because all the evening showings at both theaters were sold out. We tried again Saturday afternoon. We were going to go to the "cheap" theater because they have matinee prices, but they were sold out all afternoon up until the last showing at 10:20. So, we went ahead to the other theater, we were determined at this point! Its a long movie, but worth all the trouble. Very good especially for a sequel. We highly reccomend it. That'll probably be our last movie until Harry Potter comes out in July. Then I'm sure Wes will want to go see GI Joe. Boys and their toys and all that.
Besides that, life without the kids is almost too quiet. We miss them. We especially missed the part where Joel cut his own hair. I'm kind of glad Grandma and Grandpa got to deal with that one. But they are having a great time being spoinled by all the Bakers and Kindigs. They come home this Friday for a few days before they head off to Washington for the rest of the summer before school starts August 17th.
Speaking of school, Mackenzie's teacher pleaded her case and got her enrolled in the GATE (gifted) program for next year. She's very excited because her friend Blythe (see below) is also in GATE. I'm trying not to dwell on the fact that Joel starts school this year, or that Joey officially becomes a teenager at the end of July. I feel old enough already without those reminders!

Summer Projects

With the empty house for most of the summer, and therefore no excuse (other than work) for not getting stuff done, I've decided to make a to do list. Thanks to Rachel for the idea. So, this will be my main list with detail, and I'll post a smaller check list to the side. So, in no particular order, here we go:
~do "something" about my bedroom
this means pretty much what it says, my room (our room, whatever) has become the catch all room. Also, there are still boxes of Wes's stuff that hasn't been unpacked, mostly because we ran out of closet and drawer space by the time he got it all over here.
~go through the junk piles throughout the house
this is seperate from the giant junk pile that is my room. This is all the magazines, flyers, stuff from school and what not that has piled up in several places throughout the house.
~Get stuff off to Goodwill.
I have a ton of stuff from Joel & Macenzie ready to go (Joey's stuff stays for Joel's later use), and it is time for me to go through my things again.
~super clean all rooms
Just that, take the fine tooth comb, tooth brush, white gloves to each individula room. Spring Cleaning if you will.
~Clean out front and back gardens
While I don't have big plans to plant anything something must be done about the weeds. Yay, weed pulling, my favorite!
~Wash the outside of all the windows.
Still figuring out a way to do that for the upstairs windows with no ladder and a house with sucky water pressure
~House train Gillian
We've been coralling her in the kitchen, but with the kids gone and unable to instigate her hyper puppy issues, I'm hoping to get a chance to teach her what is chew toy and what is not, to stay downstairs, and to quit running around like a mad dog.
~Organize Stamp & Scrapbook stuff
~Go through photos
I have all the family photos and had promised to scan and share. I have alwasys intended to do so, just never really been up to undertaking the task. But, I've started on this one already.
~Actually do some scrapbooking
~Find a new job
This has been on going for a couple months now, not going well
~Figure out what to do about Joey's school issues
Long story, but will keep you posted
~Blog more
~Finally write that novel
this one is a joke, really
So, remember to bug me about all this, but keep in mind, I'm still working and while the kids being gone takes away an excuse for not getting stuff done, it also gives me more to do as someone has to do their chores while their gone.

The Cutest Thing Ever!

You may recall that a girl down the street invited Mackenzie to go to the Taylor Swift concert with her. Well, her name is Blythe. We've tried a couple of times to have her sleep over, but she can't. Blythe is a diabetic. She has to have her blood sugar checked in the middle of the night and her mom just isn't ready to let her handle that on her own. She also has to wear a monitor at all times. It looks kind of like she's got a cell phone or something under her shirt. Anyway, one day she was over here along with another neighbor, Angelina. The three girls were having some fun with my stamps. The next thing I know they had made these:

So they could all be like Blythe (on the right, showing off the REAL monitor. How cute is that?

I'm in trouble

I talked to my sister today and she got on my case about not blogging. So here I go. I had tried to post a video of Joey singing karaoke, but it wouldn't load. This weekend he's going to get it up on his youtube account and I'll post the link, along with his band concert. How did it come about that Joey was singing karaoke? No, we didn't take him to a bar (althoug it was somewhat close). At the campground where Wes' family has a permanent site, they host karaoke on the "big" weekends. And Joey was the only brave one of our group. He sang Mambo #5, and the karaoke host was very impressed with how he did. He (the host) was sure with his age and shy demeanor that Joey would need some back up help, but he didn't, he did great. Better than some of the adults, although a lot of them were pretty plastered. I also made him do the Chicken Dance with me:

He also got up and did the Cha Cha Slide, I was busy taking the pictures this time:

What about Mackenzie? She was hanging out at the camper with Briana, and keeping an eye on Joel, who doesn't like loud music. But she did celebrate a birthday. Yep, I am now the mother of 2 kids of double digit age. 10 years old, where did the time go? I still remember when she didn't have hair. Of course, she was 3 before she had any, so it isn't as hard as you might think. We had dinner out at Applebees and they embarrassed her immensely by singing to her. Here she is opening one of her presents, she was so excited over what she got, I couldn't get it in the picture:

As for Joel, he just seems to make himself scarce whenever the camera's out. But here's one from a month ago of him doing the limbo in his pajama;s (sounds like a song title!):

The kids are gearing up for the end of school next week and their impending trip to PA to see Mike's family. Then they'll be off for a visit with my family. So with the anticipated absence of the kids most of the summer, we went out and spent an insane amount of money to see UP in 3D. Joel actually did pretty well. He got a bit antsy about halfway through, but I pulled him onto my lap and he sat through the rest just fine, until he had to use the bathroom. I made him tough it out though. Oh, and warning if you haven't seen it, the beginning is a tear jerker, but all together a great family movie. I don't know what I'll do without them all summer, it'll be way too quiet around here, that and I'll have to do the dishes.