The Sweet Smell of Rain....

Don't you just love the smell of rain?!?! I do. Rain is a wonderful thing, it can mist lightly and make everything look fresh and clean, the colors of the trees and flowers look so vibrant after their shower. It can be a steady rain, the kind that offers just the right melodic beat that's so calming, it can make you feel relaxed. It can be a thunderous downpour, a hard and deep cleansing rain, a rain that makes your soul feel refreshed afterwards. There's so many reasons to love the rain. The possibilities are endless. You never know, you just may find your pot of gold after the rain.
I have the strongest urge to listen to "I love a rainy night" by Eddie Rabbit!!

By the way....Happy Memorial Day to everyone, please remember to thank someone who served our wonderful, free, Nation. Thank you :)

The house smells of Pledge and Windex right now, lol, Christen has gone on a little bit of a cleaning streak....and I'm NOT gonna complain!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's a good role model for me, lol.

The kids are all happy, they only have 6 days of school left. Then I have to be like a cruise director and make all their plans for them. I wonder just how many camps are offered through the summer, lol. I'm happy because in 16 days I leave for Tampa!! I can't wait to get there, it's a place that I've never been. I can't wait to see the ocean...yes, I've seen one ocean, but, I can't wait to see another....yeah yeah yeah, water is water, but hey, it has a different name, lol. I hope I can find one of those penny machines, I really want a flattened penny from Florida! Ben brought me one from Mackinaw Island, isn't he sweet **hugs for Ben** (he brought me fudge too!!)

Well, I don't wanna bore y'all to much today, so, I'll stop for now. I hope if it's raining where you are, you'll go out and breathe the air in deeply and enjoy a sprinkle or two.

Y'all have a great day and stay safe :)

2 down, 3 to go

Well, today I sent off 2 of my kids to a field trip/camping thing with the school. Acutally, the WHOLE Jr. High went (God Bless all the chaperones!)(God Bless the campers that have Ronnie as a chaperone, lol) I surely hope that the weather doesn't behave as bad as they are predicting. Of course, this IS Michigan and the weather can and does change quite frequently.Emily isn't too happy about what her experience will be on this field trip. Since getting hit in the head with a baseball bat at practice on friday, the ER doctor told her that she couldn't participate in very many activities, her reply you may ask, "Well that's just about half my life!!" and truely, she is right, half of her life does consist of activities that do NOT include sitting by watching the clouds float on their merry way. She may have to miss her 2nd track meet, but, alas, she will live!Alex was very disappointed that he couldn't take anything "fun" to do at the camp. You know....fun in the blow gun, shotgun, knife, hatchet kinds of varieties....**sometimes I worry about that boy!** He even considered taking the BIG battery out of his BIG flashlight and hiding things in it so they wouldn't find it in the luggage search, he's quite ingenious that way. (mental note, check Alex's room for BIG flashlight later)I'm psyched about the Spring Band Concert, I have to remember to take my video cam down to BestBuy and see if they can fix it before the concert, I really want to get it on tape, I've missed too many of them as it is. I'm such a band geek mother....I think I'm living vicariously through my children and their awesome musical abilities (2nd mental note: Check into music classes at Delta again) They got that talent from someone over here and y'all know how dad feels about it, lol.After reading over this post, I've come to the conclusion that it's a very BORING post, but alas, it'll have to do, I mean c'mon now, I finally figured out how to get back in here!!!!Y'all have a great day...wow, I almost spelled that "grate" I need more sleep!P.S....I was looking through my blog and found this, I thought it disappeared, but, it didn't, lol. Therefore, I'm gonna go ahead and post it, so, it'll be out of order, it originally was supposed to be posted on the 9th of May....

Thank You!

I want to start my blog today by remembering those who served our country and fought for it, it's because of these people that we have the freedoms that we do. I also sit here and think about my grampa, who served in the Navy in WWII. He's been gone for a while, but I still think of him often. There are people that I know that are still serving our country and it's for them that I offer up my prayers for safety and comfort when they need it, and my deep gratitude for all they give and have given. Even when our servicemen retire, their honor to our country will never be forgotten :)

Did I mention that it's cold right now? My toes are FREEZING!! lol, and yes, I DO have socks on! Of course, they're my Rusty Wallace socks, so, I guess they're just not as good as they used to be.....*snickers* oops, did I really say that?

Yesterday was fairly uneventful, well, ok, having a couple extra girls over here for Em's slumber party isn't exactly uneventful, and yes, I even survived it. Even though, for some strange reason our hotwater heater decided to kick a breaker (I checked it and it looked like it was on to me). Needless to say, there's double duty to do on the dirty dishes today...(wow, that was a good bit of illiteration there!!)

I can't wait until tomorrow, I love going to the parade in town, even if it's quite small, but to be able to hear our school's band play...that makes the parade twice as good!! I heard them practicing on Thursday, they sounded wonderful, I think my fave was the Marines Anthem. Sorry, I'm partial to the Marines, both of my brothers served as well as a few friends!! Did I mention that our school's band ROCKS!!!!!!!!!! Especially the trombone section, I guess that's why they go first in marching band, hehehehe. ( I will only offer a retraction if a bribe is included, lol)

Oh my, spring is lovely, but the fish flies are NOT!! There are literally clouds of them!! D, Christen and I took Abby for a walk, a long walk yesterday evening, I think I inhaled more of those stupid fish flies than one should really allow! No, I will not include that in my protein intake for the day either. Nasty. Not to mention knowing that they were getting stuck in my hair too....ugh! However, the walk was wonderful, I can't wait to start walking more. I really can't wait to start riding my bike!!! I'll have to sneak out with it though so that I don't have to putz with slower riding half adults....(kids with shorter legs than mine if that's possible, lol) Ok, no joke about the vertically challenged people!!!

Well, I think it's time I should end this and get some stuff done, yeah right, lol, y'all know me too well, I think it might be time to go shopping :) :)

Please take time to remember our servicemen.

Y'all have a great day and stay safe!

Summer Vacation????

Wow, whoever started calling this thing that happens when one finishes with school "VACATION" really didn't have 5 kids!!! I think I finally quit running around after kids at about 10 pm last night.
During the day, I had to make up a costume for D. Last night was his Kindergarten Graduation and one requirement for that was that they had to dress up as a Fairy Tale character. Easy enough for the little girls, there were MANY princesses there last night, not to mention one ADORABLE little girl dressed up as Little Miss Muffet!!(she had a rubber spider dangling from her hat) I really had to think about the choices of male fairy tale figures....we had Robin Hood, Pinocchio, Cap'n Hook, Peter Pan ( I guess the "Lost Boys" fits in that category), and well, you get the idea.....we decided upon Robin Hood. I cut a bit of green felt out, no pattern mind you, and proceeded to hand stitch this thing. When I got it finished, I was doubting that it would actually fit on D's head!! IT FIT!!! woo hooooo, and a finishing touch was a beautiful Pheasant feather (I'll have to silently offer up a prayer of thanks to the donor). Now.....should he wear the tights? LOL, I think NOT!! My hunter green turtle neck and a belt would do nicely along with a quiver with 2 arrows in it. When I got to the school, I quickly asked the teacher if the arrows were against the school policy, lol, she didn't really think it would be a problem considering I had them duct taped into the quiver :)
The program turned out to be THE BEST kindergarten graduation I've ever seen, and I've seen 6 of them!!!
After the program was finished and we consumed our fair share of cake, cookies, pretzels, fudge and punch, I drove our sugar induced comatose selves over to the ball field to pick Alex up from his baseball game, thankfully, the Morrison's brought Emily back there from her game and saved me a trip. On our way past the school, we saw that the bus was back from the Mackinaw Island trip, what luck!!!!!!!! I wouldn't have to drive back up town to get Ben, woo hoo! Sigh.....
After we got back to the house, we met up with the "other" "FAR grumpier" parental unit :
They were waiting and waiting and waiting for us to get back so that we could let Jon open up his birthday presants. Oh yeah, btw, it was Jon's 21st birthday yesterday. We finally got that done and he took off to do what first time 21 yr olds do.....did I mention that there was more cake to eat!! I finally wound down by playing a game of Literati and then went to bed!
Today didn't lack it's bit of work either....I spent the day with the elementary kids at the park helping out with field day.....let me tell you....one full hour of twirling a jump rope isn't the best thing for a sore wrist!! But, it was fun :) I think that all the kids there had fun and it didn't rain.
After getting home, I listened to a bit of radio online, my new favorite thing to do, they'll play anything you request!!!!! Got a few things taken care of while listening to the radio and then took Emily up to the store to buy dinner stuff and "sleep-over" party food stuff....(as if I didn't have it bad enough yesterday with all the cake and junk!! lol) Anyone wanna come over and help me eat all this stuff???? Or at the very least, come over and exercise with me after I eat all the junk!!
Well, I think this blog is wayyyyyyyyy too long now so I better try to end it now.

(pssst, Sarah....if you need a book, I have a few you can choose from ;) c'mon over)

Y'all take care :)