Thursday, June 18, 2009

Dress Rehearsal for Dance

Tonight was dress rehearsal for the recital this weekend. They also did pictures tonight. I spent some time curling Lacey's hair......

Then, it rained....no, it poured.....the whole drive down. And, we all know what humidity does to pretty curls. So, it didn't last long! Still cute, though. And, she was all smiles before going out on stage.
But, then she had to go on stage. I don't think she understood - at all - what it would be like. Who would? And, I wasn't telling her in advance because I didn't want to freak her out. Maybe that was a mistake.

No, this is not a solo. :-) This is my sweet, shy little girl....not dancing.
She was sort of doing it here.

And...admiring her trophy.

Here they all are posing for their group picture.
Lacey was less than thrilled. Once I put my camera away and focused on getting her to giggle, she did. Getting her to do her individual pictures was slow going. But, she eventually relented & did a few.

I'm very proud of her for getting on stage, though. I really wasn't sure she would do that. She's telling me tonight that she will dance tomorrow at the recital....we'll see. She has a recital tomorrow at 6:00, then again on Saturday at noon. Whew. More pictures & videos to come!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Random Update

I hadn't realized how long it had been since posting last (2 months). So what's been going on, you ask?

I joined a gym. It's the one that Dee goes to. It's a bit of a drive (25 min.), but it's a women's gym, which is kind of nice.....I didn't think I cared, but I do like it. And, they have an awesome fitness instructor who teaches Turbo Kick. It's a really tough workout, but it's fun & she is so energetic. I was doing her class 2x a week for about.....6(?) weeks. Then, the gym offered the "Get Ripped Challenge". It's a sort of boot camp that was M/W/F for 4 weeks at 5:30 a.m. for 45 minutes. I signed up & it was awesome. I liked getting a workout done at the beginning of the day and it was tough. I kept going to the Turbo Kick classes & added some cardio on at the end of each boot camp class.....thought for sure I'd see some great results by the end of 4 weeks. Nope. Nada. My body fat barely went down.

No, I didn't give up my chai lattes during that time. But, I did (for the most part) give up wine. Between that & all those calories I was burning, one would think it would have worked. I need to chat with Genelle about that. So, I'm still working out 4-5 times a week and I'm getting ready to give up my chai latte. It just isn't worth it!

What else?

We all had colds in May. I ended up going to the doctor and got a prescription for bronchitis. The same day I went, I picked the girls up from Lisa's to hear Lacey complain about her ear. I wondered, but decided to wait.....but by the end of dinner, she was crying every few minutes, so I took her to the urgent care and found she had a double ear infection. So we were both on antibiotics.

And, I've had some car issues. Remember that I had my car worked on because of damage from mice? Well, when I drove it at night a few weeks after getting it back, I found that some lights weren't working --- the backlight for the odometer and the light for the heating/air. A few days later, the SRS (airbag) light came on. So, I took it back in to the shop about 10 days ago. GEICO tried to argue that none of it was related to the initial problem. But, the repair shop convinced them it was. We just picked up my car yesterday. I stopped to get gas on the way home, then stopped at Ledo's to pick up pizza. The car wouldn't start when I came out. Butch came to pick me up & the car stayed. This morning, I was planning to have a repair shop (across from Ledo's) look at it, but it started. I was going to drive it to the gym to see if it would start after that, too. But, I had a flat.

So, I took Dad's car (which we've been borrowing) to the gym. Then, Dad & Rick came to change the tire for me. I drove it across the street & had the tire patched. ARGH! Hopefully it won't refuse to start anymore. I'm just going to use it locally for a bit.

Last Saturday, Butch left for Atlanta to do a college tour. He was gone all week. I got by okay, but I would not want to be a single mom! The kids usually insist on me for baths and bedtime, but Butch is usually doing the dishes or something while I handle the kids. Not last week! It wasn't too bad. The worst was that on Monday night, both kids slept horribly. So, I ended up getting very little (3 hours total?) of sleep. It didn't make for a productive Tuesday! I had to skip Turbo Kick because I was exhausted.

I promise to try to do some more updates in the next few weeks!

The Deck

We've been spending some time on the deck now that the nice weather is here (well....when it hasn't been raining, it's nice). The girls like to have picnics on the deck (or "guck" as Leah calls it).



A couple of weeks ago, we decided we should grill out. We had a Jenny-O turkey tenderloin and grilling it sounded perfect. When Butch went out to get the grill cleaned up & ready....he opened it to find.....





Lovely. There was also a mouse nest....an empty one. Gross. When Butch tried to get the snake out (using a broom stick), it hid under the heating element. So, we left the lid open & just waited & watched while it slithered out. It finally got down to the ground & Butch chased it into the woods. While I wouldn't mind letting the snake die, I like that he kills the mice for us, so he was spared.

Back to cleaning the grill....only to find out we were out of propane. The tenderloin was cooked in the oven that night.

Calvert Wine & Arts Fest

Last month, we went to the Calvert Wine & Arts Festival with the kids. It was interesting to try to taste wine while handling the girls! This was actually supposed to be a "meet up" with my Calvert Moms group, but we didn't see the others around.

We didn't taste much, but it was a gorgeous day out and they had a few bands playing. The girls had a blast.