Another one in the books

Day Camp is over.

I said I would be back with pictures, but I guess I didn't mean it because I not only didn't take pictures, I didn't even take the camera

In a nutshell, it was hot. I still have a tiny bit of yellow dye under two fingers but the majority of my Easter Egg-ness has faded away. Tuesday night I was a big colorful mess starting with my tie-dyed hands and shoes and ending with the sunburn on the back of my neck. Right now that burn is pealing and it is SO pretty.

Wednesday I shopped in three different grocery stores spending around $400 buying cookout food for 170 people. It was crazy but it also went super smooth. I only forgot 3 bags of carrots and a bottle of ketchup out of all of it. When you go in a store and buy 23 pounds of ground beef most people would stop and stare. My two overflowing carts barely caused a ripple in the store though. I was surprised how NOT surprised people were at my shopping.

The theme of the week was native Ohio animals but the actually underlying theme was, "It is so damn hot out here!" Groups of girls would go down to the river to observe nature and come back drenched head to toe. A little dip in the river never hurt anyone and probably saved a girl or two from heat exhaustion.

Everyone wants another duct tape craft for next year. Thank goodness I have a whole year to come up with something.

Day Camp and Duct Tape

Day one of Day Camp went off with many hitches. Many, many hitches. But being true Scouts that we are we made the best of it by begging leaders to be flexible and drinking lots of tea.

Monday is always the day that we tie dye all the camp shirts. That's my big job, overseeing the tie dye station. Unfortunately the shirts didn't come in. So scrambling around we flopped the Monday and Tuesday schedules and instead I led the making of duct tape lunch bags. Now I've taught tie dye for years and I have it down to a science. But I've only taught duct tape once before and that was to three girls in an air-conditioned room. My first group today was twenty-seven strong and everyone wanted the pink and lime green tape. I only had twenty cutting surfaces and eighteen knives. Luckily, their leaders jumped right in cutting tape and helping the girls who were clueless. It was chaotic, but we got through it.


By the end of the afternoon almost everyone in camp had been through the station and emerged with tape covered bag. My giant mountain of tape is down to a small hill. Some of the bags were works of art. Others were a piece of work. But not one girl complained that it was stupid craft and when working with that many girls, that equals success.


The shirts are suppose to be in tomorrow so when you see me my fingers will tinted blue and red. If I'm lucky and careful it will just be my fingers though and not my arms, legs and face!

Molly Watching

The neighbors went out of town and put us in charge of this happy face.

This is Molly. Last summer when The Man and I went to Mammoth Cave, Molly's people were in charge of our cats, fish and bird. But not Marco. Marco is much too much dog for us to ever put on anyone we know and love. He is the biggest, neediest spaz ever. Marco has always and will always be shipped off to professional boarders who have the space and patience to deal with all of his nonsense.

Molly here is another story. Having her around was way too much fun. She's a basset hound so she's low and heavy. I measured her and she's nine inches across and eleven inches high at the shoulder. When we would take her back home at night, she would plop down in the middle of the driveway and refuse to move. The Man tried to pick her up and confirmed without a doubt that she weighs more than Marco.

Marco loved having her around as much as we did. Only the cats weren't thrilled. They were terrified and probably still traumatized by the whole thing. Molly thinks chasing cats is great. Thank goodness she can't run very fast! The cats only had to meet her once over our four days together and spent the rest of the time on The Boy's top bunk.

This is the only picture we got with the two dogs together. I had to look way down to talk to Molly! The dogs would run around the house chasing each other. Molly could get under Marco and bulldoze him around. Our long legged boy was powerless under her ruthless pushing.

There was lots of this. Lots and lots of belly rubbing. And she has quite a bit of belly to rub.
Thanks for the visit, Molly. Come back anytime!

The after weekend Whoa!

Saturday was the big graduation bash for The Brother. The weather cooperated and it ended up being a beautiful rain free day. The mayflies made sure everyone kept from sitting still and were the endless topic of discussion.

I said that I would take lots of pictures. I ended up taken five. Here's three of them.

The other two are not worth seeing. Trust me. So you'll just have to take my word that it was a truly lovely party. My favorite part was that my parent's neighbor when I was a kid showed up. Seeing Barney and hearing him laugh took me right back to ten years old. Catching up with him was such a treat.

Sunday was the recital. And yes, of course, I cried through the whole thing. We had a ultra rude family of chair kickers and talkers right behind us headed by a mommy who didn't mind dropping the eff word now and then. My grandmother was highly offended. I tried to get them to move by pointing out empty seats in front but they didn't take the bait. In retrospect, we should have been the ones to move.

But despite all that the show was a success and The Girl was graceful and beautiful. Today she's a bit of a sleepy grump, but I guess she's earned it.

News Flash: Dancing can relieve zombie fatigue!

In all the time that I've been a zombie sitter, I've never even been asked to work the last day of school. But yesterday I had to do it and it was sucked. It was awful. It was WAY too much to ask of any one person. What can you possibly do to zombies on their last day of school in order to make them sit down and shut up? Nothing. Nothing at all and they know it! I don't want to say anything more about it because that would involve me thinking about it more and I just want to put it behind me. Needless to say, I will NEVER do anything like that again.

Happier thoughts now!

This time of year there is only one word that dictates our days. Dance.

Dance. Dance. Dance. Dance. Dance.

We miss meetings and events because of dance practice. I'm not returning your calls because of dance practice. Our eating schedule goes all to hell because of dance practice. And this morning, when I was hoping to sleep in and recover from yesterday's zombie attack, we've got to get to dance practice.

Luckily, this only occurs the few weeks right before recital. It's nothing close to the kind of life-changing schedule of parents with kids in a big sport like baseball or hockey have to put up with. I know that even though these few weeks are a bit of a blur it's really no big deal. And it's worth it.

That said, here's some shots of The Girl from picture day. Do you notice anything about her?

Could it be something around her eyes? Or in her eyes? Yep, that's it. We said that she could get contacts before recital. And while we are pushing the deadline here a bit, we have come through and she will be dancing glasses free.

But don't mess with her. She may be pretty but she's one tough ballerina!

Last Day of Junior High

Hurray for the last day of school!

Today was the last day of junior high not only for the kiddos, but for the whole city. From now on Northwood will carry the inglorious title of Middle School instead. Just how they are going to fit another whole grade of students into that building is beyond me. But it's also not my problem.

The Girl took her camera to school and took oodles of shots. Here's a few featuring the regular cast of characters.

Fancy Tea Party

To celebrate Mother's Day, albeit a bit late, my sisters and I took our daughters and mothers out for a tea party. The tea house we went to was a fancy little place with beautiful place settings and hats for everyone. The tea was lovely and the lunch was delicious. But it was the hats that made the party!

If any of my sisters have pictures they want to add to this, send them to me. And thank you for the charming afternoon!