Listing

We are back home from our fantastically wonderful vacation.  There are so many things to do now that we are back home; so many, in fact, that I have been incredibly busy creating many many lists to keep track of all the things to do.  So far, I have made a To Do list for Unpacking, Garden Work, Inside Work, Home to Do, Sewing Projects (Started and To Be Started), Kid Chores, Honey Do, and, me being the ambitious one, I even started a Christmas To Think About To Do list.  Unfortunately, in the midst of all of this listing, I got quite distracted by some very cute fabric I forgot I had and made myself a skirt instead of getting anything on any of the lists done.  I added "make self skirt" on the Sewing Projects lists and crossed it off so I could feel productive today.  Tomorrow, I will start conquering the Lists...and perhaps find the random one or two pics I managed to grab while on vacation!

Simple Amusement

This is what my husband likes to do for fun - put the chickens in various roosts and high positions throughout the yard, take pictures of them, and anxiously wait for me to find them when I download all the other pictures.  What's great is that I do find this all incredibly hilarious.  We unfortunately had no camera around the other day when there was a torrential downpour.  The chickens were in their "clubhouse" as Smoosh calls it and Joe was trying to get them to their coop.  He had a large, plastic blue bowl over his head and ran across the yard with 3 of the chickens running after him.  He found the story quite humorous and, inside, I was giggling quite a bit about the image of it all as well.  I wonder if we have some screws loose over here. 

Summer Saturdays

Summer is our time for doing so many activities.  So many activities.  Here is what happened today:

Beanie's first Feis (the word for the Irish dance competitions!) - 5th place :)  Very nice for her first competition!  The picture is the preshot before her wig gets put on and the massive amounts of hairspray are applied.  Egad.  Both she and Daddy had loads of fun!! Even Squeaks was part of the action.  What made me the happiest was hearing her reaction to her friend Kate getting 2nd place - "I was just so proud of Kate."  Nice work Beanie Bops!  (Sorry, no pics during the competition were allowed!) While she was at the Feis, Smoosh and I were rooting Otter on, who was swimming away at his first home meet for the Sun Prairie Piranhas.  He swims all exhibition, but man oh man he puts his heart and soul into it.  Here are his results (something I will try to post each Saturday as I know at least one person is very interested in them:)). 50 free - 56:66; 50 back 1:19; 100 free  2:10:01.  He sliced a few seconds off his 50 free and added a little bit onto the others; but he's just warming up:)  He also swam a Free Relay.  Beans joined the swim meet and was able to jump in to a relay as a sub, exclaiming to Coach Nancy with great joy "Your Super Sub Swimmer is here!"  She did a great job for being up early and dancing at a competition just a little bit earlier.  Once the swim meet was done, Otter was supposed to go to a lacrosse game to help out his team that had already been playing all morning, but that was rained out.  I know it is hard to believe, but I wasn't too upset that we didn't have to make the 45-minute drive out there and sit outside in the sun some more.  I don't think Otter was too upset either after swimming his heart out for the morning either. Our exciting day kept going with tornado sirens sending us to the basement to watch some family movies.  We then packed Beans up for a sleepover and are all headed to bed ourselves right now!!  We are done done and more done!

Delicious

Thy name is first strawberry from our strawberry patch...well, our first strawberry...it looks like some ground squirrels and slugs might have beaten us to the true first strawberries.  Either way, truly delicious, both in looks and taste.