What's new

Well, we deposited Alannah and Aidan off to mom at Andrea's house last Friday. They are off to Grandma and Grandpa Gray's house for a couple weeks while each girl attends camp. From what Aidan told Susie on the phone Saturday, it sounds like the spoiling is off to a great start! (hee hee hee!)

Aside from a last minute, frantic loss of important paperwork, Aidan got off to Art Camp Sunday afternoon. As I expected, Aidan's paperwork got stuck with Alannah's paperwork in next week's camp pile. (oops!) All's well that ends well... but a big thank you to mom and dad for fielding the angst of the camp staff and absorbing the panic. Alannah will get to enjoy catching up with some of her Owego friends this week, as well as get to be an "only child" for awhile! I'm sure that she will enjoy every minute.

I, on the other hand, am missing my "slaves"--Scott was very puzzled why we had used so many dishes yesterday. I had to confess to him that the dishes he was looking at were about 3 days worth.... Alannah and Aidan are very good at keeping up with washing and putting away. Me--notsomuch! I will also have to do all the laundry, floors, dusting and bathrooms alllllll by myself. Gotta hate it when you have to give the help a vacation! :)

Susie and Dan are a little lost without their sissies. Susie cried a lot on Saturday because she was missing Aidan. Aidan does such a great job entertaining them! So... Scott and I took Susie and Dan mini golfing Saturday night and then to Dairy Queen (between rain storms). That was fun! The river and the go-kart track runs along the mini-golf greens, so we got to watch the kids racing while we waited out turns. I was concerned that it would be too hard for Dan and that he would get bored, but he kept right up. Dan has been very impressed with Scott's golf clubs, so Scott set Dan up with his own little putter on a little putting green in the garage so he could practice. Dan was out there all morning setting up various shots.

Dan and Scott won, so Susie and I bought the ice cream. Dan has wanted a banana split forever, and I have never allowed the kids to get one. I decided to let him live it up for winning--I wish I had the camera to capture how big his eyes were when the kid handed it over to him! The sundae was bigger, though, and Scott and I were "forced" to take over. Poor us, eh? :)

The other thing we did this weekend was get Dan a real bike from the bike guy at the bottom of the hill. Dan was doing really well until he followed the big kids down the big hill in our back yard. He made it all the way down without falling, and was all excited--and then panicked at the bottom when it was time to stop. We watched, wincing, as he flew over the handlebars and skidded across the yard, right on his face. (ouch! Even Scott kind of moaned for that split second before we both raced down the hill to him) Luckily he had fallen off in the soggy part of the yard that hadn't been mowed in a week or two. His clothes were dirty and his mouth was full of grass, but he was completely unhurt. The other kids were great for cheering him up and getting him right back on the saddle. I could feel his little heart pounding and pounding away, though--poor little guy!

When it was getting dark we had the kids roast marshmallows before they went inside. Andrea found these massive marshmallows at price chopper. They are hilarious! Each marshmallow is about the size of 4 regular marshmallows. Again, wish I had the camera out to show you all the kids' eyes when they saw the marshmallows!

Today I took Susie and Dan to VBS. It looked like they would have a lot of fun. There were a lot of kids from the high school who were helping out, and many of them said hi to me and were excited that my kids would be there for VBS. (luckily, they were kids I was excited about leaving my kids with! That could have gone either way!) Dan was a little nervous, so he opted to stay with Susie, but by the time I left he had discovered his boy buddies from Sunday School and was ramming around with them.

Other than that, we got alot of other things done this weekend too. Scott finished the tables and shelves for my art space. I will get some pictures so you can all admire his work. I LOVE it! I worked for about six hours to try and salvage our garden. All the rain is rotting the tomatoes, so I got in there and trimmed and tied and nursed the soil back to some kind of dry. We just can't get a break!

In between getting things done, I am supposed to be using all this "free" time thinking about the adult bible study I will be doing this Fall. Hmmmm..... where to start?