First Day of School 2009

Today was the first day of school around here. Everyone was very excited to see which of their friends they would have in class together.

So yesterday, I took the kids up to my brother's farm to gather tomatoes and peppers. While there we also went to the local cemeteries so I could take pictures of the family gravestones. We then went for ice cream and to Lake Huron so the kids could walk in the water.

Unfortunately, the area was not dredged yet and they found out that they needed to wade knee deep in mud to get to the waters edge. Allard came out covered in mud after reaching the water only to find that the mud was deeper in the water. Evie got stuck by this picture and Allard had to help her so she could turn around and come out.

Swim Meet #2

On Thursday I got to see Lizzy swim the backstroke at her meet. This is the first year that the coach has asked her to swim this event. I had told her that I thought this was one of the easiest strokes to do. As of this year, she has been swimming in the 100 Fly, 100 Backstroke and the 400 relay. She is really hoping to get her letter this year and order her jacket. So far her team is 1-1.

On a really annoying note, I have been running the swim team website since last year, and it seems that last week my site was hacked and they put a virus on it. I have been emailing the web company every couple days, but am not getting any response back. The live chat people said they take care of things like these on a first come basis, but I should think that they would have contacted me by now. I really don't see why someone would think that a girls swim team would need to be hacked. I never put pictures on my sites, only written words, so they must have looked at the name of the site and thought they would see swimsuits galore.

Happy Birthday Evie

My baby is not such a baby anymore. Yesterday Evie turned 9. It doesn't seem that long ago that we brought her home from the hospital. She was our little suprise and so sweet we knew she was a keeper. She had some of the neighbor childs over for swimming and hot dogs, and on sunday we will take 10 of her girlfriends to CJ Barrymoores, which for you California people would be like Boomers. All she asked for this year was her party and a skateboard, so I took her to Kmart and got the board last evening and she got to ride it until dark.

Scout Camp

This week both Evie and Allard went to scout camp. Evie will be back on Friday and Allard will be home on Saturday. Allard has been doing alot of camping with his troop alone, but this is the first time Evie has been gone more then one night. I of course, forgot to take the camera with me when we dropped Allard off.

Here we are loaded up and ready to go

Waiting to Check In

Unpacked and bed is made.

Locks of Love

Evie Before:

And now some lucky person can have their own

naturally highlighted wig.

Evie has been wanting to donate her hair to Locks of Love for a very long time. Today she finally got the chance.

This Week in Life

Time has been flying by here with so many outings and appointments. Lizzy just returned from one camp out this month to go to another. She and five other Girl Scouts and two Leaders will be heading to South Manitou Island for four days of backpacking and nature. They will arrive by boat to the Island and hike in a mile and a half to their campground. This is a no impact Island so no luxuries will be had. Just planing her meals for the four days has been torture. You have no electricity, no local store, just mother nature and the animals. Needless to say, she has planned a lot of PB&J and Ramien Noodles.

Evie had the school picnic recently, with lots of bounces, carnival games, and of course a petting zoo. Of course the highlight of this event is lunch with your child.

The Friday before this was Field Day, and the week after the picnic was her classroom picnic. It has been one party after another for this month.

We also had to squeeze in two field trips to the Ford Rouge Plant for Girl Scouts.

And of course the Big event to end out the year was our Bridging Ceremony. All my brownies became Juniors at our school wide awards ceremony that we leaders had planned.

We planned a school wide Girl Scout dessert potluck where each Troop displayed examples of things they had done this year, and gave out all the Badges that each girl had earned.

Of course it ended with my Brownie girls bridging to Juniors and the older girls going to Cadettes.

Lizzy was of course a big help this year with my Troop. She helped out at our meetings and so it was only right that she got to be involved with the Bridging Ceremony. She was our caller for the Flag Ceremony and of course she read the bridging poem that I had found years ago.

If I had read the poem I would have bawled through the whole event .

Today is the last day of school so now the fun can really begin for these kids. First on the list for today - Clean the house before you can do anything fun. HAHAHA

Pudgee Pie

Lizzy went camping with her troop this weekend and the theme was pudgee pie. Which for non-girl scouts means anything that you can fit between two pieces of bread in an iron sandwich maker for an open flamed fire pit. If you have never had them you are really missing out on your food cuisine. They also worked on their Pets IPP and went to the outlet mall for shopping. Hence you see her in a clothing store. Where else would you expect to find a teenager.