A long weekend!

Wahooo! It's a 3-day weekend! I LOVE holiday weekends! I spent the evening thawing out 500 fish filets for our annual fish fry. Thank goodness my sister-in-law Amy came over and helped me! Thanks Amy!

I heard on the news that Northeast Indiana is the nicest place to be in the country this weekend as far as the weather goes! Sunny skies and high in the 70's. Only one downside to that rain we got last week - MOSQUITOS. I thought the kids might have been lifted in the air tonight! Have a good weekend everyone! :)

All eyeballs!

Storm Damage

Well...I think we are getting all the rain from the entire summer that we are due in a period of about 2 weeks. We had a quick storm fly through last night about 5 p.m. Look at all the sticks and leaves in our yard and we don't even have any trees! My in-laws took the brunt of the damage. A huge part of one of their trees fell into the lake, they lost one of their pine trees, and the top of another pine tree fell off and landed on top of their neighbors car (ouch!). I think I'll just take the twigs in the yard!

Ryan's First Day of School

It's been a week since Ryan had his first day of school! I am so messed up this year with school starting so early. What a short summer! I really don't believe we could have packed any more activities in this summer. Ryan has Mrs. Jackson as his 3rd grade teacher. I'm trying really hard to remember who I had...Mrs. Caley? Do any of you remember your third grade teacher? I do remember the most significant thing that happened to me in 3rd grade was that I had the chicken pox. As you can see, Ry wore camo for the first day - he works it into his wardrobe each day.

Little Lake Friends

Chris came to the door tonight with two presents for Kayla. One was to touch a huge catfish that he had caught last night. The other little present was this tiny little leatherback turtle. We are always welcoming little creatures into our house for temporary stays. Right now I'm trying to get Kayla to keep the lid on the container and convince her that the turtle's mommy is missing her and she needs to return back to the lake.

Prayer Request

I would like to send out a prayer request for my good friend and fellow speech pathologist Amy Krahn's father. Please keep him and her family in your thoughts. He recently was diagnosed with a grade 3 brain tumor and started chemo/radiation this week. On Wednesday he suffered seizures and is in an intensive care unit. He is demonstrating speech and language difficulties due to the tumor being in the left hemisphere of his brain. These deficits are new. Please pray for this family as they are going through a difficult time.

Our Little Dancer

Kayla started dance classes for the first time tonight. She was very patient with me as I attempted to put her hair into a bun. As you can see from the smile on her face she was very happy to be heading to dance. Parents were not allowed into the dance studio, however, there was a 2 foot by 4 foot window that about 15 of us crowded around to try to watch the girls. She has 15 minutes of tap, 15 minutes of ballet, and 15 minutes of tumbling. After we left Kayla said, "That was really, really great!"

Missouri Vacation Highlights

We just returned from one of my favorite places in this world - southwest Missouri! We had such a great time visiting with my family. We stayed at my aunt Coralee and uncle Ed's house near Nixa, MO. We visited with my cousins Mike, Jeni, and Scott and I also got to visit with my aunt Debbie and uncle Phil.

IT WAS SO HOT! We spent our time either indoors in air conditioning or outside at the pool. We visited the Wildlife Museum next to Bass Pro, spent a ton of time in Bass Pro, went through Fantastic Caverns, ate at my favorite place the Mexican Villa, went to the Nixa community pool, played miniature golf, went to my cousin's show in Branson, and drove go-karts multiple times. Ryan's favorite activity was definitely the go-karts. Kayla absolutely loved my cousin Mike's show in Branson and has watched the DVD of it multiple times daily. I want to post a plug for Mike's show "Grand Jubilee" at the Grand Country Theatre in Branson. This is a GREAT show that all ages of people will enjoy no matter what your musical tastes are. I have always loved to watch Mike perform. He is so incredibly talented and makes me laugh like no other! Needless to say - we had a GREAT time!