Oh NO!

Guess who is still signed into my computer and now is in AFRICA!

JACK POT! (:

Last Full Day in NC

Today was a day of running around for Katie. She was in a bit of a bad mood... I'll explain more about that in about a year, possibly 6th months, if drinks are involved. Trust me people this will be worth the wait.

Here are a few pictures of our day.Katie just informed us that, "Jefferson (Curtis' new school) is a great school."

Eric responded with, "Kate is teaching at Jefferson in your future?"

In which Katie informed Eric that, "The only thing in my future is sitting my a$$ at the pool."

Well tomorrow was suppose to be the day I would fly home, there has been a change in plans... I'm now headed over the Ethiopia with a friend, Maureen, who is picking up her new child. I couldn't be more thrilled and honored to be along on her journey.

It will be hard to be away from the boys (this is the longest I've ever been away from them) but they are in GREAT hands. Nick has helped to pull this whole trip together for me at the last minute. Love that man!

Swimming, Shopping and Dear Mom...

We did a little swimming in the morning...

before the girl's headed out to check out the shopping in the area. I think we would all agree that the frozen yogurt place (Yoforia) was the BEST stop!

We had a successful shopping day and had a little fun in the process. At one point we were in a learning/toy shop. We found a book called The Tickle Monster and it came with some Monster gloves. Here Megan is preparing to go in for the kill...

Here Katie is being taken completely off guard by The Tickle Monster...

We will end with something we like to do when we reminisce about the past. We call this Dear Mom...

Dear Mom,
Thank you for giving the orthodontist the A-OK to put a lip bumper in my mouth. I no longer just drooled at night, I could do it all day! What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger... Right?
Love,
AnnMarie

Dear Mom,
Thank you for only allowing Katie to wear Multipules, tight-rolled pants and curling her bangs out (some might say feathering). You were right, the rest of us were too young for that stuff anyways.
Love,
AnnMarie and Megan

Dear Mom,
Thank you for making me wear AnnMarie's hand-me-down jeans. Clearly, they were too small. The red indent line is almost off my stomach. I owe you.
Love,
Megan

Dear Mom,
Thank you for never making us wear elastic jeans.
Love,
Katie, AnnMarie and Megan

Dear Mom,
Thanks for making me ask to eat junk food when I was little and hiding the Little Debbie's in the basement forcing me to go on a scavenger hung for a snack. Because of that I binge eat.
Love,
Katie

Dear Mom,
Thanks for never making me have a bowl cut.
Love,
Megan

Dear Mom,
Thank you for making me run up the stairs in fear of having my butt pinched.
Love,
Katie, AnnMarie and Megan

The House...

Upon family request I am posting some pictures of Katie's new house, I will try to get shots of the inside tomorrow. This picture doesn't look quite right, her house is up on a bit of a hill.

As you can see from the above pictures a little trimming of the trees and hedges was necessary. Fortunately Katie knows this really HOT landscaper that has "started" trimming the worst of the mess.

Unfortunately it's hard to get much done in the heat, so only 3 of the over 40 shrubs/trees got trimmed.

While the personal landscaper was busy, Katie was at the hospital with Curtis. He has been pretty sick and was really dehydrated from the heat and illness combined.

So someone needed to entertain the kids, I was more than happy to do this. Here Andrew is right after coming up from diving for rings.

Every time I get in the water Johnny asks me to "get the camera" so we can take video and pictures of him. It's really quite entertaining.

While Charlie was busy sleeping again...

I was busy making sure the water slide was safe.

It was so much fun, I was able to talk Megan into taking a few trips down as well!

Thanks to Charlie, Megan didn't need a flotation device (if ya know what I mean.)

One last story, tonight we were on a walk, in the woods there was a lot of noise. We all look back and Katie takes off running faster than I have seen her move in the last few years into the street (opposite direction of the woods). Megan and I both look at her and smile while she explains that she is sure "it was Edward". I told her next time she is being attacked to make sure she saves herself (Charlie was with us). After she caught her breath she decided it was not Edward after all because, "it was Jacob".

The Furniture Hunt...

We have been busy looking for furniture. Yesterday we went to name brand furniture stores and found a few things we liked. As you can see in the picture below we felt very comfortable, notice I even took my pants off to try the comfort level of the bed. It might look like I'm sleeping because my eyes are closed don't let that fool you. I can tell I'm faking it because I don't have drool coming out of my mouth. This morning at the pool we got a tip from a lady who told us to try a Closeout Outlet Furniture Store. She had warned us that it was "like a giant warehouse".

She failed to mention it would be like shopping at a flee market (think stuff everywhere) with no air conditioning. We made a BIG rookie mistake by heading out in the heat (97 degrees) without water. We were dying... After 2 hours we were awarded water by the sales lady when she had to break the news to us that they could not get us everything but one piece that we just ordered. We left approximately 5 pounds lighter with soaking wet shirts and our purses still heavy.

Katie might, just might get an little anxiety about the way weather is reported down here. Tonight we turned on the TV only to read, "WARNING: Richmond County flash flood watch. If you see flooding... Don't drown."

I'm having a bit of trouble getting picutres to download, so I'm going to cut this short and hopefully I will have more patience for this tomorrow...

Make New Friends?!?

Here is a picture of the outside of Katie's neighborhood poolThis is our pool story. If Katie was hoping to make some new friends at her pool perhaps she should not have chosen Megan and myself to come to NC. Let's just say lifeguard break/adult swim + digital underwater camera = PARTY TIMES!

We noticed that all of the women hanging around the pool today were standing in the water or sit on the water's edge talking to one another, there hair never got wet. Then we showed up...We were by far the whitest people at the pool. One of the lady's even comment to my sister Megan, "Did you just move here? You are as white as a lily." So today I affectionately refer to Megan as Lily when we are at the pool. I may have been seen today used my body as a human surf board and pretended I was a whale so Johnny could ride me around the pool. Can I get a yee-haw!

Tomorrow Megan will no longer be the white lily of the pool, she appears to have missed a few spots on her body with sunscreen. She will now be referred to as Lily the Lobster!

The heat index was 107 degrees today, I have NEVER been in weather like this before. It's getting HOT down here...Charlie has been doing a lot of...Curtis has been really sick, so honestly I haven't seen a lot of him. 104 degree temp and trip to the doctor today. He actually was awake tonight and did eat a little.
I had the honor of watching Johnny play flag football yesterday. He did very well, he has picked up the game quickly. Here is what I captured of his near touchdown...

Favorite Katie Moving Moments...

My sister Megan and myself are headed down to "help" my sister, Katie, with her move from Minnesota to North Carolina. Like I said yesterday I'll try and blog some of our fun while I'm away. You can also check my sister Katie's blog, it's on my blog list as "My Three Sons". To start of my week of NC blogging I've asked my sister Megan for a little help. I do not live in the town that both of my sisters lived in (we will refer to the town as NP) so I missed the drama of her move. However, I asked my sister Megan to list some of her favorite Katie Moments from the last week before her move. Hope you enjoy them... - Katie packing up and cleaning out her garage. By cleaning out, I mean driving stuff across town and putting it in our 3rd stall. Thanks for the broken vacuum Katie, we owe you big time. - Going to the OB/GYN for my 6-week appointment and having the receptionist, the nurse, the other nurse I ran into in the hall and doctor tell you that they "heard the news." I've always wanted to discuss both my rinker and Katie at the same appointment. - Katie may have been in the middle of moving across the country, but did that stop her from taking corners like it's nobody's business to beat cars to garage sales? Can I get a HELL NO!? - Kennedy came to stay with Katie for two weeks. One day Katie showed up with a couple of freshly squeezed lemonades from the coffee shop for the two of us. As she sat back on my couch and kicked up the footrest, she looked at me and said, "Yeeeeeaaaahhhh, pretty sure Andrew isn't going down for a nap today... I feel bad for Kennedy." I'm not confirming or denying, but Katie may have smiled and sipped on her lemonade as we listened to the quiet hum of my air conditioning kicking on. - Katie called the cops when she heard a noise in her yard one night, they came out and looked around. I'm not saying it wasn't an emergency, but do you all remember the last time she called the cops? Katie saw someone across the street turning a flash light on an off walking around her neighbor’s house around 2 am, possibly looking in windows. She called the cops. After a little investigative work by the NPPD, they figured it out. What Katie was seeing was a light in her neighbors landscaping, and a garbage can that had fallen over in front of the light. When the wind blew, the lid on the garbage can would flap in front of the light. It made the weekly police report. Bottom line, Katie is not afraid to exercise her fingers to the tune of 911. - Katie did a lot of crying when she was saying her goodbyes. I'm not talking a few tears, but serious crying. Like the kind of cry where you're worn out afterwards. Actually, there's a good chance Katie had a cry hangover for 2 weeks straight. Anyway, nothing made me smile more then when she cried leaving the grocery store after saying goodbye to her favorite bagger. It may be a common phrase to most, but to Katie "Paper or Plastic" translates to "Hey potential BFF, are you on Facebook? Maybe I'll poke you later." - When Katie said goodbye to Meredith, Meredith gave her a kiss on the cheek, waved and said bye-bye. Katie turned to me with tears in her eyes, clutched her heart and cried, "Uuuuugh, she GETS it!!!" Yep, all 15 months of her "gets" it. That being said, don't think you're going to get out of buying Meredith her first American Doll and her prom dress like you promised her. She does "get" that and will hold you to it. - I can’t forget about Erik. At the neighborhood going away party for their family, Erik sold his lawn mower to a neighbor. He even threw in a couple of full gas cans. I’ve never been to North Carolina, but I think it’s safe to assume they have yards there, with grass. In about a week, Erik might be second-guessing his decision to sell his mower. - Last, as Katie was hugging us goodbye, sobbing, and hugging us goodbye again, she pulled out of our driveway (kids in the back eating Subway, lettuce falling everywhere, Andrew shaking a sippy cup with milk splashing out all over the car) and rolled down the window. “Make sure you get a New Prague Times today, I wrote an editorial and it made it in the paper.” Kyle and I were DYING. How hilarious. Only Katie. It did make the paper, and it was a very nice editorial about how much she loved NP. Even after Katie moved she is still part of the buzz around town. It went from “Did you hear Katie’s moving?” to, “Did you see the article Katie wrote?” We will miss having them in town, 1.4 miles away to be exact. The night after she left, our house got hit with a paintball. We live in front of a stop sign, I’m pretty sure it was just bad luck. As Kyle scrubbed the paint off our siding I couldn’t help but miss Katie. I just know she would have hunted down the little rat bastards that did it, and make them apologize to us, and then babysit her kids.

Blog Hiatus

It's been awhile, we have a lot going on in our everyday life. Summer is going great, we are BUSY. The boys have been enjoying; biking, the library, strawberry picking, parks, soccer, children's museum, hanging out as a family, etc...

If the truth be told since the summer started I haven't been on the computer much at all until today. I need to wrap up a few loose ends around here that required using the computer, so here I am blogging (this wasn't a loose end). I'm going on a little trip and leaving home tomorrow night! I'll be with two of my sisters, I'll try and blog a bit if my sister lets me borrow her computer:). My computer has had better days, it appears I'm having some power source issues, so I'm using Nick's. His computer has a sensitive keyboard, the computer and me just don't see eye-to-eye (this is just another excuse for my lack of blogging).

Next Kindergarten... Then a Job...

Cullen has his last day of 4K school today. When I was helping him get ready this morning we were whooping it up and celebrating a little. After our cheer/chant Cullen looked at me and said, "Next year kindergarten and then I can get a job!" Um, I think you missed a few steps in that equation kid.

Yesterday we had a visit to Urgent Care. Cullen cut his finger with a sharp knife when he was, "Cutting the watermelon for Geremu and me to eat." He did a pretty good job of trying to do the wound care himself, unfortunately it left a big mess. By the time he had come upstairs to show me his finger I could pretty much retrace his steps since the incident happened. Turns out little fingers can hold a LOT of blood. The good news is he will be just fine and in a few weeks all that hopefully remains is a scar. On the way home from the doctors office Cullen told me that, "Next time I will think twice before I cut the watermelon." Really? How about next time ask for help and don't cut the watermelon.

This past weekend we headed to visit my sisters. It was Charlie's baptism and we helped celebrate the big day with the family. Charlie is CUTE, you will have to take my word for it, I wasn't really good about getting pictures on our trip.

Graduation

So I was telling the boys last night that Nick wouldn't be home because he was at graduation, he teaches in a high school. Then I asked them if they knew what graduation was? Cullen piped up with, "Yes, it means you retire from school. Aunt Colleen just graduated." (Cullen just learned about retirement because one of my best friends that I teach with just retired.) I smiled and explained a little more about graduation and what can happen after, etc. After I finished talking with the boys it was silent in the car. A few minutes later Cullen announced, "I think I'm going to retire from riding my bike."

Schools Out...

For SUMMER!!!