The-week-before-school-starts ramblings...

Yep, school starts NEXT week! August 7th. This summer has been so very busy, it's flown by!

I'm always excited when school starts. Not so much that the boys will be gone all day (OK, so I'll admit, it is *I* who plans the annual first day of school lunch with my group of friends and calls it the "Freedom Lunch"), but that it means we only have about 2 more months of hot weather! WooHoo. Well, if we are LUCKY it might start to cool down by October. At least at night. Maybe.

Anyway, the weekend was taken up by shoe shopping. A pair each for Kent and Kurt, 2 pairs for Wyatt (one to keep in his locker for PE). And then there are "the shoes" that we ordered for Grant. They came on Friday. OK, they really aren't shoes, they are cleats for football. These are cleats that are only available at one store on the Internet because Grant had to have them in orange and white. And he loves them so much he didn't even roll his eyes when I said I wanted to photograph them before he got them dirty. I guess they are kind of cool.

Today was all about doctor appointments. Four of them. The big boys each got 2 shots, but the little boys escaped unscathed. Shots are no big deal for Wyatt normally since he gets allergy shots twice a week. But the tetanus shot is kind of painful and they are both complaining of sore arms tonight.

Tetanus shots always remind me of the time that my sister stepped on a nail and we had to all go to the doctor to get one. I think I was probably about 4 years old and for many years thought stepping on a nail was contagious, when in reality it was just an excuse to get us all vaccinated. Anyway, I am the youngest of 5 children and I was the only one who had to get the shot in the cheeky rear area (if you KWIM). My siblings all got them in the arms. That night my leg was so sore from the shot in my behind that I could barely walk. Yet even though it was just my siblings' arms that were sore, they made me wait on them like a slave all night! I remember all 4 of them sitting on the fireplace hearth, saying "Mary, get me a glass of water, I can't lift my arm." and "Go get me that book, my arm hurts too much." And I would hobble around and do their bidding. How mean is that? And where were my parents while this was going on anyway??? ;)

The rest of the week will entail getting schedules and finding out which teachers everyone got. Like every year, I'm crossing my fingers, and praying they all get good ones. We've been very lucky through the years and have had some great teachers, so hoping our luck holds out.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Back from the beach...

Had a great time in San Diego.

Bad news...turns out both of my lenses didn't work for my new Rebel, so I got very few good photos. Thank goodness I took my point-n-shoot camera along!

Some highlights...

We all enjoyed boogie-boarding. We toured the WWII Midway Aircraft Carrier at Seaport Village. The USS Reagan had just returned from Iraq and was across the bay from us. So cool to see that! We also went to SeaWorld, which Kent and Kurt definitely loved.










Glad to be home; glad to have carpet under our feet; glad to have air conditioning; glad to have a comfy sofa to sprawl on; and DH is definitely glad to have a nice TV to watch. Miss the bike rides; miss the cool weather; miss the ocean; and wish I had gone boogie-boarding more than one day.

A beach, a bike and a bell

Soon we will leave for a trip to the beach. Can you believe we have never been as a family before? You see, most of our vacations are spent visiting family in other states or going to Disneyland for a couple of days. But this year we decided to rent a house on the beach for a week. We are very excited!

In our living room we've been gathering stuff to take: boogie boards, beach chairs, sand toys, fans, and other beach paraphernalia. We are also taking our bikes. Now, my bike is the perfect beach bike: a cruiser with pedal brakes. I've had it longer than I've been married (which BTW, will be 16 years tomorrow) as DH and I bought used bikes for each other one Christmas when we were dating. However, my bike doesn't have a bell or a basket and my friends, who are beach aficionados, say both of those are a must for riding on the boardwalk and making a trip to the market. When I told DH I must have a bell, he started laughing profusely. "You are not getting a bell for your bike! That's embarrassing!" But, of course, since it made perfectly practical sense to me to have a bell on my bike (so you could signal to people on the boardwalk that you were coming up behind them and they needed to get out of the way), his ridiculing made me all the more determined to get one.

As luck (I thought) would have it we have a bike shop just down the street, so I went over there the next day. At the front of the store, they had the most beautiful pink cruiser bike with a basket and bell - I fell in love! Until, I saw the price...$320?? Uh, I think I love my $50 used 20 year old bike more. So I scour the shop for a bell. No bell. I even ask "Do you have bells like on that bike over there?" as I pointed to the lovely pink cruiser. "Oh, no, no bells, except in the kid's section." Erg...so I hustle over to Target and into the bike aisle. Bells, bells...how hard is it to find a bell for a bike? Finally, I find one. A Hello Kitty one. Complete with handle tassels. Oh wait, there's also a Disney Princess and a Power Ranger one. No others. So I pick up the Power Ranger one (force of habit to buy the boy one) and headed out. But then, I stop. Wait, this is for MY bike, so I stride right back and get...Hello Kitty. When I get home, DH thinks I'm completely insane! "You are not putting that on your bike!" Oh yeah...watch me. :P

You see, I am too old and have given birth too many times to be embarrassed about much of anything. A Hello Kitty bell? " "Pshaw!" I say bravely.

But wait...then my friend tells me that she is sure she saw bells at the bike shop down the street. The same bike shop with the pink cruiser bike. Small black non-kitty bells. So we head back over there the next day and she walks right up to them. (Very informed employees they have there, huh?) So I stare down at this black bell. It's small, it's chic, it will be barely noticeable on my bike, and just gives one "ping!" when struck. Definitely sophisticated...for a bike bell. So I sigh...and buy it. I tried to be brave, I really did...but instead, I said Goodbye Kitty.