Emily at Champs....

The first of the four days started off really rough, Emily didn't swim great in the 200 IM, in fact she added almost a second earning her the 17th spot, first alternate! That was a hard place to start the meet. Not making the finals was not in her plans, she had to refocus and get her head back into swimming for the next event.

I am happy to say she did. She swam the 50 free next, and when she came out of the pool she knew that she had given it her all, she dropped almost a second and made B finals. She ended up earning 13th out of over 64 swimmers.

I was amazed with how Emily swam the rest of the meet, she made finals in the rest of her events and gave it her all. Again I don't have any pictures but I do have one of the relay.

Her relay was no where near as fast as the other teams. They were fortunate to not be in the bottom two. The best they did was 16th. I have to say all the girls swam their personal best but it just was not enough against the toughest teams!

Kelly is at camp....

Last night I was talking with a dad at VBS and he said he saw a picture of Kelly from camp. This morning I when I got up I thought I would check it out. Sure enough Kelly was on the site four times. This one I love... it shows a true Kelly, she loves to take photos and she loves animals. I do not know who these other girls are. But Kelly is very good at making friends, that is one thing that I know for a fact. They must be girls in her cabin, not from our church.

This was my favorite picture of Kelly, she has one of the best smiles, sincere and beautiful! I will be glad when she is back home on Saturday, I miss her calling for me "Mommy!"

Long Course Meters Championship Meet

This is what warm ups look like, 300 plus swimmers getting ready for their events. Kelly didn't have any events the first day but the coach told her to warm up. She spent more time getting out of the way then she did swimming! Emily is actually in this photo, doing the back stroke towards the right side, half way up.

Kelly did great!

Kelly did really well personally at this meet, she place 11th in the 100 Back, 13th in the 50 and 100 Butterfly and 14th in the 50 Back. I was not able to get a good photo of her I am hoping the "team" photographer did. I just have to wait and see! She has yet to upload them.
Olivia, Marissa, Molly and Kelly.
This is the girls 10 and under relay team, they broke our team record in the 200 Medley Relay and the 200 Free Relay and ended up placing 3rd and 4th. The competition at the State Champs is tough, Coach Neil was very proud of them. Kelly swam her 50 Back *that is the lead off* in 41.42 seconds!

He is not my favorite Prez.....

But I have to say it is a great picture.....

This is some of the girls swimming at champs

Shortbread... it really is a cookie

So I have always loved Shortbread cookies. Kelly is a big fan as well and I got sick of paying $4 a box for Lorna Doones. So I thought I would give them a try I got book from the library and followed the directions to the T, including the size! Well look how dang big these babies are.... that is a quarter not a dime... Huge shortbread cookies.

So I got smart for the rest of the batch and cut them in half, you can see the big ones and the HUGE ones. I have to say they were very easy but a little time consuming to make and even better to eat. Kirk didn't care for them, but I have to remember he is not into "fluffy food." They were gone in 48 hours!

David was over... we listened to Brian Regan

So here we are standing in front of the computer watching YouTube and laughing about Brian Regan and another guy who talks about Hot Pockets, I laughed so hard. Google it if you have a few minutes.

This was my favorite....

I am not sure why he loves to wear wigs at our house! A funny boy!

The Best of NYC..... according to my 12 year old

Guess what she liked... Time Sqaure... Another look again from above...

From the ground level....Another from the ground level....

A walk on the beach---

This was mostly my view, everyone behind me. Kirk was throwing for the dog, Kelly was busy stuffing her pockets, and Emily was the big complainer "she was tired"! Kelly's pockets were so full that her pants at one point fell off. Emily did stop whining and started to have some fun, I think when she figured out we were not going home just because she wanted to! This is the dogs favorite place in the world, in the water chasing his Frisbee, you can see it, it's close to him but for some reason he could not always find it that well. It was fun to watch him swim and swim! I even got them to sit together and smile a real smile, not the big cheesy kind. Where we live is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I love not paying the taxes on this beach front property and being able to use it.

At almost 13, she is always striking a pose. I took a few pictures of her and some how they are all a little blurry! But you get the point! Kelly is always collecting stuff on the beach, mostly rocks. She wanted to collect this stuff and I said how about we take a picture in stead, that way I don't have to smell it too!

This is before he started using the Ab Master, notice the lack of muscles to his abdominal area... see what the Ab Master can do for you in just using it once!

This is just after using the Ab Master just once, notice his abs how firm they are!

Don't you hate those ads? If you didn't at least smile, check your pulse.

YEAH $24 later and the labor from Kirk.....

My camera is working again.....I found the battery door to my camera on Ebay for $24 and Kirk followed the directions and replaced it with a new. In the upper left hand corner of the door there is a little plastic square that broke, it is intact in this photo, but that caused the entire camera from functioning. I am thankful for a handy hubby, even if he is more frugal than me!

Adventures with Emily.... Day 1

They are off.... NYC and the East Coast here they come....This trip would not have been possible without the lady in the picture, she has been putting money in an account for 2 years to save up for this great trip. Of course now that Dad is (re)tired he wanted to go with too, I was a little nervous at first but Emily said she got used to his weird humor and ways. Mom was a saint, Emily said she was fun, kind, helpful and kept things interesting. When people think of NY they mostly think of big cities, Emily was surprised by the farming and country so she took a photo out the window. Another great view from the plane window just before landing.... What a great bunch of smog, gotta love the big cities of America. You can see the Empire State Building in the left hand side, look carefully! Emily in the window at the hotel, she said she was amazed at all the sites of the BIG CITY! This is from the top of the Empire State Building. They arrived in NYC late but knew that if they wanted to most out of their trip they had to get there that night... What a great site it was!
I hope to post more of her photos soon.

Funny old photos....

Today is Riley Day. That is what we call Thursday at our house, she is spending the day with us. Most of the time it is fine, but today she is mad because Emily is not here to play with and she MUCH prefers Emily to Kelly. So Kelly wanted to entertain her a little and got out some of our older photos that are collected in boxes. Riley laughed, Kelly laughed, and I got nothing done for about 1 hour because every five seconds Kelly would say "oh, you have to see this one, it is funny." So I would look and a flood of memories came to mind, and I am thankful that I did look and that I too got in a good laugh or two! Lexy in Mexico spring 2005, not sure at all what kind of fashion statement she is making but it is still really funny. That is one thing for sure about Lexy she is usually very fun to be around unless you give her a task to complete, then she might not be as much fun.

Kelly and her broken wing. She really needed that beer to get through her tough stay in Mexico. This picture shows what a trooper she was in spite of not being able to really swim. I did spend hours wrapping (and unwrapping) her arm in hopes of not getting the entire partial cast wet.

Enjoy your day and I hope that this post made you smile!

We have a baby birdie in the flower basket again!

One month ago a bird was going crazy around the front door, I thought you can't be building a nest again in my flower basket, but sure enough the birds were! I moved the basket away from the door so couple would feel a little safer with less coming and going of the humans.

Three weeks ago when we came home from a weekend swim meet there were 3 little blue with brown speckled eggs in the nest. We waited.

On Thursday I went to water the poor dried up flower basket only to find one egg and one very small baby bird. The bird was so small that it didn't have any fuzz and it's ugly little eyes were closed.

Today only five days later the baby has some fuzz and what looks like feathers, her eyes are open and if I take the plant down to water it she opens her mouth always ready to eat. She looks like she has doubled in size! The other egg is still there, not likely to hatch now. Not sure what happened to the third egg.

It is always fun to have things like this happen right out side out window!
I am hoping that the broken piece to my camera arrives soon, I am sad not to have any photos. Emily is with my folks on the East Coast with her camera, that is what I have been using since January! I am saving all my extra money to purchase a Canon Rebel.