Seriously...this is one HOT Dog!! Everytime I walk in the room she is planted in front of the fan. Usually, she follows me all around the house. However, not on these 100 degree days...she is like, pfft...I am too hot and lazy to get up. Our Scout is also one Lucky dog...she gets to go to Sunriver with our friends Eric and Stacy!! Talk about spoiled!! We are heading out for California in a bit...but we will meet up with Scout in Sunriver next Tuesday. We couldn't let her have all the fun!! :)
Lauren is such a determined little girl. Last Thursday, I asked her if she wanted to go down to her school and practice riding a bike without training wheels. I told her she was outgrowing her little bike and she should practice on Emma's. Of course she said YES and was happy to get to be on big sis' bike! So we trekked down to the school to learn. The last time I took her, she just whined and cried and said, "she couldn't do it". She wouldn't even try so we packed it up and went home. That was about 6 months ago. Well, this time was different. A lot different!! She hopped on and I held the seat for her and ran with her, but as soon as I let go she immediately just fell over to the left. OOpps!! But, she got up and tried again. When we started out, I told her, "Lauren..you have to balance yourself". It was as if it all just clicked in her head at that moment!! She goes, "Oooohhhhh, Okay, let go of the seat mom, I can do it." So I did and she just rode off. AMAZING...she just rode around and around like she had been riding forever! She even stopped herself with out falling off. After riding for about 20 minutes, she was determined to be able to start herself. This was a little trickier, but she kept doing it until she mastered it!! She has had lots of practice for the past 5 days. We have taken her down to the school and she rode around on Bart's parent's sport court this weekend. Ahhh...no more training wheels. I am a HAPPY mom!! Oh and the funniest part was after she learned how to ride, she was all excited and ran to Emma to tell her...guess what Emma.... ( I am thinking she is going to say "I can ride a bike"), but no, she says, "Emma, now you get a BRAND NEW BIKE!!!"
This was last night....riding a bike in 98 degree weather=a hot, sweaty, tired girl!!
Emma has had a busy week too. She lost two molars, got new braces on her bottom teeth and got a BRAND, NEW, SHINY BIKE!!!
Showing off the new bike!!
Well this is just sad. I was in Albany for the past 4 days and while we were down there, I thought I would drive the girls by the house that I grew up in!! How fun, we could take pictures in my old back field and I could show them where mom played as a kid. I used to love staying out until dark, running around in the field, playing in the filbert grove, climbing the big willow tree, riding my bike up and down the driveway, playing HORSE and shooting hoops.
So we drive up and to my surprise the place was in shambles. I knew it had been sold to a developer years back, but sheesh...when we pulled up I couldn't believe it!! The place was almost drowning in weeds, blackberry bushes and sky-high grass. No need to go to the back field for pictures, we could just stand in the front yard!! I have never even seen the yard look like this!! It was always nicely mowed and green!! In fact, everyone wanted to mow the lawn when we were young because it meant getting to drive the riding lawn mower. As I got older and became a teenager, I didn't mow the lawn, but I remember trying to sleep in on Saturdays and hearing it roar by my window as my dad mowed! Seeing the house like this was so dis-heartening. My dad would probably roll over in his grave if he saw it like this!!
My brothers and I loved climbing our Willow Tree. It had a tire swing and my dad nailed 2x4's that you could use to step on up the trunk and bigger branches to make it easier to climb. You could build forts up in the branches and then swing from the switches to get down if you were on the lower areas.
So after the initial shock, we get out of the car and decide to take a look around. We used to have a deck, greenhouse and a small pond in the backyard. As you can see it is now very overgrown and full of weeds.
Once in the back, I had to tell the kids to be extremely careful. The back door was wide open and there was glass everywhere. People, probably teenagers had vandalized the house. They had broke out most of the windows and trashed the inside. There was sticky red stuff dripping from the walls and all over the floor. I am assuming it was kool-aid or pop, hopefully not blood, although it looked like a murder scene! There was a baseball bat on the ground...obviously used to put all the holes in the walls. There were remnants of fireworks blown off in 3 of the rooms. Boxes of papers strewn about...basically every room was trashed. We all tip-toed around...and then Emma just blurts out.."Nice house, MOM, " in the most disgusted teenager-ish tone while Lauren looked around and then asked while almost about to burst out into tears, "Mom, you had to live here when you were little?" LOL. I had to explain to them that it looked nothing like this when I grew up. We had furniture, nothing was broken, everything was maintained..we even had different carpet.
Even the mailbox looked old!! I remember having to get the mail when I was a kid and thinking it was such a trek down the driveway. Pffft...looks totally short now!!
So in the end, we took a few field shots (in the front yard, LOL)..not the best...it was in the blaring sun, the girls were sweating as it was 97 degrees out. They were not willing to participate and all they wanted to do was get to the Country Club and swim. They had no interest in "The Little Blue House on Gibson Hill" where mom grew up!!
Remember my last post where I said all the kids end up at my house.....see I wasn't lying!! Today was slip-n-slide fun!! Slip-n-slides make me a tad nervous though. One of our friend's daughter was on one last month and slid INTO another kid. It knocked her unconscious and they had to take her to the hospital. The poor thing broke her ocular bone. OMG...that just makes me cringe thinking about it. That would be some serious pain. so I reminded the girls of that story and told them to please go down in one direction and BE CAREFUL!! Thankfully no accidents today!! The last pic cracks me up...her entire body is so strait and the only thing touching the ground is her hands!! Such Talent!!
And then after all that..I forgot to put the pictures on the blog!! This all happened two weeks ago and I just now realized that I never put it on the blog. So I am furiously typing to get this up before she notices!!
Another big highlight of the trip was when Bart woke us up at 2:30 in the morning to let us know a BAT had flown into the room!! He tried to quietly wake me up to leave and go downstairs!! Yeah right, like that was going to happen. So basically, the entire cabin was soon up wondering what we should do. The kids were all laughing. Renee and I had to see it. ((((shudder)))) That thing was freaky looking! Ryan 2.0 went in to get it out and instead screamed and jumped back out of the room...SCARDY CAT. Ian tried to "shoo" it out by hitting a towel around, Umm, that didn't work, but he did have the good idea of opening the sliding glass door. We sat there for about 15 minutes and then Bart went up to figure something out again and BAM...the bat was gone...it found it's way out the door!! So then we all went back to bed!! Of course, I did lay there for awhile wondering if another one would somehow get in. Oh and it didn't help that I had been reading Twilight that day all about vampires!!
Ryan in his "party hat" playing darts!! We called him Ryan 2.0 because he was a better version of Ryan Ekre!! He was more fun, he played with the kids more, just all around better, LOL....Ryan Ekre gave him that name!
