The cutest boys in all the world

Okay, I promised a new post about my nephews. So here it is.

Heather and the boys first got here on Saturday June 21st. The boys were excited to see Bodie of course (and he was so excited he couldn't help but pee all over the floor. Several times.) They were especially interested in his crate. I'm not sure why. But here's one of the first things they did.

Bryce even locked the gate on it. They played in there for a lot longer than I thought could possibly be fun.

I bought the boys some fun outdoor toys to play with while they were here. We spent a lot of time playing with Bodie and running around. The boys think I'm the greatest (okay, Heather, maybe the 3rd greatest) person in the world. So of course they wanted to do everything with me. (If you don't remember, they call me "Ly-Ly" instead of my name.) "I want Ly-Ly to take us to the park." "I want Ly-Ly to give us our bath." "I want Ly-Ly to sit next to me at dinner." This actually didn't change at all the entire time they were here. But I think they're cute, so I obliged.

Heather left on Wednesday morning. So the next day was my first official day of vacation. What's a more fun way to spend the day than going shopping? I took them to Penney's and bought them each 4 outfits. (On super sale of course.) They were so well-behaved, even after I made them try on clothes. We also were shopping for new linens and a comforter set for my new bed. (Oh, did I forget to mention that yesterday. Yes, I splurged and got a new super-comfy pillowtop bed. I love it so much.) We went to several stores to find just the right set. I finally got a comforter set on sale at Burlington.

Friday, after my bed was delivered and I got it all set up, we went to the Ankeny Aquatic Center. My two oh-so-wonderful aunts came as well as my two youngest cousins. We spent hours there - about 3 or 3 1/2. Bryce got a slight sunburn because I had reapplied to Blake (he's much whiter) but not Bryce. I, on the other hand, got super sunburned because I told my aunts "I don't believe in sunscreen. I like being dark." Yeah, I should have used a little. Most of me was okay, but there were certain parts of my shoulders and back that are normally covered by my shirts and they were pretty red. I peeled really bad eventually. I didn't get any pictures of this. It's not usually a good idea to bring cameras into the pool. Unless it's a water camera. Which it wasn't.

Saturday morning the boys woke up and got dressed and opened some of the presents my brother Josh had sent them. He got them a Bare-Naked Ladies kids CD to share and their own baseball glove for the game we would be attending that evening. The boys had never been to a baseball game and they were very excited to go see the Iowa Cubs. A lot of my family went. There were 19 of us there. We actually got to watch a double header and there were fireworks after the game. My mom made everyone a t-shirt. We all had to wear them.

It's hard to see, but she actually put our names on the front of our shirts. So if I didn't know which aunt was which, all I had to do was look at their shirt. : ) I love you mom. You're wonderful. Notice the boys wearing sweatshirts. Who would have known that it would be super cold at the end of June? We went on my brother Josh's birthday, so we had the I-Cubs people put his name on the board and wish him a happy birthday. Even though he couldn't hear it since he's on the other side of the world. But we were wishing him well anyway. We finally got home super late and the boys were worn out.

The next day was Sunday. The boys went to Sunday School. The last time they went, they hadn't really enjoyed the time in the preschool classes. They were really excited this time to go with the older kids and they even let them both go to the first grade classroom. They brought home a box that they called a tackle box with random verses and even random facts about sea animals. I wasn't really sure what they talked about. When I asked them what the lesson was about I got the standard answer: God. And also fish, apparently, but not about Jesus and fish. I'm still confused.

Anyway, afterward, we had a fun stay-at-home day with the boys. They opened their last two presents from Josh. Josh just happened to call when they were opening them, so he got to hear their excited "Wow"s. Bryce got some GI Joe Sigma 6 action figures (they're these ninja guys - he really likes the bad guys) and Blake got a Fisher Price learn-to-play guitar for kids. It's kind of like guitar hero, but for little guys.

Later that night, Blake crashed on the sofa. And so did Bodie.

More to come at a later date, for all of you who aren't completely bored of my day-by-day account of my vacation with boys you either don't know or barely know. : )

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A WONDERFUL FRIEND

I just wanted to say a very heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful friend Val. Val and I became friends our first semester at college. I think it was actually the first weekend after our first week of classes that we met. I had brought a fellow JBUer downstairs to our dorm basement to teach her how to do laundry as she had never done it herself before. And while we were waiting, we were going to watch t.v. because there was a big one in the basement. Well, there was Val watching one of my favorite shows. SNL (Saturday Night Live for anyone who doesn't know what SNL means. Well, now you do.) And it wasn't just any SNL. It was the Chris Farley special. One of the best ones ever. And we've been friends ever since. That was 7 years, 10 months, and about a gazillion memories ago.
Valerie is simply wonderful, sweet, super-cool, hilarious, and totally fashionable! She is currently serving God overseas in the Philippines, raising two (and soon to be 3) wonderful kids and bringing an immense amount of joy and sunshine to the people around her. (As well as teaching her children how to be wonderful, sweet, super-cool, hilarious, and totally fashionable.) I am so blessed to have her as a friend and so excited to see her very soon since she's on furlough and is now back stateside!
Anyway, Valerie, I hope you're having a wonderful birthday!!! I love you and miss you and am blessed daily by your friendship.

Where to Start?

Since it's been a month and a half since my last post, I don't even know where to begin. Well, let's see, I've been working. I've started school. I'm on a mission to get my teaching certification. Hopefully in about a year and a half, I'll be finished and can move on to bigger and better things.

I survived the floods of 08. That's what they're called around here. Of course, they didn't affect me at all except that they caused my daily commute to feel a little like driving through the lower circle of Hades. But all's well that ends well, I suppose. The flooding wasn't as bad as had been predicted and thanks to lots of new safety guards, they didn't do a whole lot of damage in Des Moines. Some areas got flooded pretty bad, but for the most part, we all survived relatively unscathed. I do have family that lives in and close to Cedar Rapids, but they were all spared from major flood damage. Praise God for that.

I celebrated Bodie's first birthday on June 8th. He was actually sick the day before his birthday, so instead of birthday treats, I took away all of his food. That did the trick, so the day after his birthday, he got all sorts of yumminess. I had bought some gourmet treats at a kiosk at the mall. He had dog bone shaped biscuits covered in icing and sprinkles. He got a treat that looked like a giant lollipop. It was actually a big circle of yogurt type stuff on a rawhide stick. The next day his poop was really really blue. Dark blue. It was pretty funny. And I got him these peanut butter and carab treats that looked just like a reece's peanut butter cup, with an icing paw print on top. He didn't get to eat them all at once. But every day I'd say "Happy Birthday Bodie" and he'd run over to where the treats were and shake his whole body up and down in anticipation. It was cute. I definitely spoil him sometimes.

Bryce and Blake came out to visit from June 21st through July 5th. Heather was here until the first Wednesday and then she drove back home. I took off work from the first Thursday through the next Friday. I went back to work only this past Monday, so I had a total of 11 days without working. We did so much that I actually will have to post that at a different date, so be watching for it. (I promise it won't take me another 1 1/2 months.)

I enjoyed my past week at work. It flew by quickly and today I participated in a mud volleyball tournament. Every year around this time, Ankeny holds a city-wide celebration call Summerfest. Our church started holding a mud volleyball tournament. This year was the 2nd one, but I believe they're going to keep the tradition going. They dug out 4 pits on the land of the future site of our church and filled it with water. There were a lot of people there this year. It's not just church members, either. There are a lot of just young people (and some not-so-young) from the community that take part. It's pretty cool. We got completely trounced. We played 2 games. The second one, this team got in because they thought it was their turn. But one of the games went a little long, so they were behind. They actually played after us. This really sucked, because they definitely looked like we had a pretty good chance to beat them. Instead we got a different team. And we lost. But we had fun anyway. The only things that sucked were 1: the amount of rocks in the pit. I was told to wear old tennis shoes. This didn't work, because they just sunk into the mud and made it hard to move, so I took them off and stepped on jagged rocks the entire time. And 2: it was so flipping cold today. Yesterday was in the 90's. This morning when we started at 11, it was maybe 70. At most. And rainy and slightly windy and it didn't get much better before our second game. And the water was cold. So, of course, I was cold. If I get any pictures of me covered in mud, I'll definitely post them.

Okay, that's it for today. Check back soon for pictures....

Hello Again.

I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I last posted. I’ve been a little busy. To catch you up on everything I’ve been doing:

Well, I recently went back to school to work on getting my teaching license. It should take me about 1 ½ years, depending on how quickly I learn. I’m kind of excited about that. It has made it difficult to do much since it kind of eats up my free time.

Last weekend I went to my friend Abby’s wedding. I plan on posting pictures, but my batteries are dead in my camera, so I will post them at a later date (but soon, Val, I promise!) Her wedding was in Edmund, Oklahoma. That is actually right outside of Oklahoma City. So I drove to Heidi’s apartment in Hutchinson, Kansas on Friday night after work and the plan was to ride in Heidi’s car to Edmund the following day.

The trip down there was a 6 hour drive, but it ended up taking me 7 hours because of stops. I also made a decision to not drive more than 5 miles over the posted speed limit. (This was difficult for me because I routinely like to drive between 80-85 on my trips to Kansas City, even though the speed limit is 70.) It turned out to be a good thing because I passed so many cops I couldn’t keep track. It was nice to not get that queasy feeling in my stomach whenever I saw one. It took the worry out of passing a police car.

I enjoyed a Chipotle burrito on my drive to Hutch. For anyone who has ever eaten a Chipotle burrito, I hope they appreciate the difficulty of eating one in a car. I did get quite a bit of rice on my lap, but other than that, I kept it pretty much together. By the time I got to Heidi’s, I was dead tired, so after a little chit-chat, I went to bed. We didn’t stay up all night like we normally do. When I woke up the next morning, however, I was having quite a bit of difficulty breathing. Heidi has two cats and of course I have an allergy to cats. They are spending the month at her parents’ house, and she washed all of her sheets and cleaned everything really well, but it just wasn’t enough. Anyway, even though she had cleaned her apartment, she hadn’t thought to clean out her car which was covered in cat hair thanks to their trip to her parents’ home 4 hours away. So we decided to take my car to Edmund, a 3 hour drive from Heidi’s.

The wedding was wonderful. Abby looked stunning and it was great to finally meet Arthur and grant our approval. Aden (Abby’s not-quite-5-year-old son) looked so handsome and he was full of charm and all-over cuteness. Just adorable! The wedding was actually kind of short. It started at 2 and Abby and Arthur pulled away at 4:30.

Heidi and I wanted to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. We had planned on driving back to Hutchinson to watch it, but we decided to save money and go to a matinee. But I was way too dressed up, so we thought we’d shop for some cheap clothes. I got a cute outfit at Ross (with super cute Steve Madden flip-flops for only $7!!!) Heidi bought a hat that would have looked great on our cruise and a pair of sunglasses, but wasn’t able to find any clothes she really liked, even though we searched through 3 stores. It turned out to be a very fun day of shopping. And then we had to find a theater, which took probably close to 45 minutes. At that point it was after 7 and the next showing was at 8. We didn’t make the matinee so we didn’t save any money and we actually spent more on clothes than we would have saved anyway (quite a bit more actually). But we enjoyed the movie immensely! We got done after 10 pm and still had to drive 3 hours back to Hutchinson.

The following day, we got up for church and decided to spend some time at Heidi’s pool, which had just opened. So we got on our swimsuits, grabbed our towels and headed for the pool. It turned out that Heidi’s pool was super ghetto. It was freezing cold since it had just opened, so we couldn’t swim. It was almost too cold to put just our feet in. And there were no chairs to lay on. There was one folding chair, but that does no good. The ground was really rough, so we couldn’t lay on our towels, either. So we spent the next few hours looking at stuff online. I left later in the afternoon and drove the 7 hours back to my house, stopping for Chipotle again, of course. I could only eat half, though, and enjoyed the other half on Tuesday night while watching American Idol.
This past week I have been very busy. My mom got a new computer – which is now sitting in my room and I am typing on right now. And she got a new desk. I put everything together all by myself. I’m very proud of myself for getting the desk together since there were no words in the instructions, only diagrams. She only got the tower, keyboard, and mouse because we had an extra monitor. But we couldn’t find the cable to hook it up to the computer. We got that the following day, and I had to hook up the wireless adapter (again, I did that all by myself, too!) but we couldn’t find the CD to install it. My mom called the tech support earlier tonight and my (mom’s) computer is now fully functional. I won’t make any promises, but hopefully having it in my room will make it easier for me to blog more regularly, but I really wouldn’t count on it.Oh, and I also found out earlier this week that one of my best friends, Val, is having a boy. Huzzah Val (and Josh

Too Close to Call?

I was reading this article about Hillary Clinton's chances of receiving the nomination. Readers were asked to write in their own scenarios of ways that Clinton would be the presidential candidate. It's great. Enjoy!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/05/08/obama-doomsday-scenario-contest-results.aspx?GT1=38001

Bodie's Last Day as a "Real" Man (dog)

My dog is finally going to be neutered. I waited way too long. Part of the reason for this is that my vet was going to charge me $260+ for the neuter. They have some new fancy laser technology. So I found out that the Spay clinic in Des Moines only charges $55 plus $10 for the collar. So I set up an appointment and let my boss know so that I could get off early. That was supposed to be today. But then Carey's boss let her know a few days ago that he was going to be in town, so I couldn't leave early. So I called around and found a place that will do it for about $90, but they also keep him overnight. So I set up that appointment and canceled the other one. And then yesterday, Carey's boss told her he wasn't coming after all, so I could have taken him in, but the soonest they have an opening is the end of June. Anyway, I have to take him tomorrow morning and I'll pick him up after work on Thursday. I know I shouldn't be, but I am a little worried about him. What if something goes wrong? It's silly. I feel like a mom. He's my baby. But at least he'll (hopefully) stop peeing over everything when we go for walks. It's getting pretty ridiculous.

4 Reason I Like My Job

Sometimes, I get a little frustrated watching children that aren't mine. They don't listen. The babies don't nap like normal babies do. The older kids fight a lot. It can really test my patience (and by test, I mean remove it completely). The twins turned 1 last Wednesday, on April 9th. So I thought I'd post 4 things I love about my job.
And here they are: Jimmy (on left), Olivia, George, and Joey (right). They're playing with part of the present I gave them for their birthday. It was still really early, too, so they weren't dressed yet. And I think it's one of the few pictures of all 4 kids looking at the camera with their hands down (Jimmy likes to reach his hands out) and smiling at the same time.

Yes, I am going to blog about the same thing I've blogged about for the past 5 months

Yes, you guessed it. It snowed again. And I just have to say how much I hate it. I was finally starting to hope that winter was really gone and spring was finally here. I'm just going to be positive and believe that this is the last snowfall of the season.

In other news...I was sleeping in my bed (which is where I normally sleep) but somehow during the night, Bodie had taken over. I didn't know it at the time, but I was sleeping right on the edge of my bed, even though I thought I was in the middle. Anyway, in the middle of the night on Tuesday, I rolled over. Now that Bodie sleeps with me, I always push myself up first, just to make sure I don't accidentally roll over on top of him. I don't think I'd hurt him now, but I got used to doing that since he was so tiny as a puppy. Anyway, I kind of plopped down onto my pillow, but instead of my head hitting my pillow, it hit the shelves on the side of my bed. Face first. My head hurt a lot and I got up to take Bodie outside. And that's when I noticed the blood gushing out of the open wound on my forehead. I was really lucky. If my face had hit further down, the corner that sliced my head could have knocked out my eye. And I'm not exaggerating. I really came down hard on it.

My head was throbbing yesterday. And today it hurt a lot, too. It's also getting infected and has been oozy all day. It's gross, but I think I'm going to survive. I'm not as sure that I'll survive the snow, though.