Hi Ho Hi Ho, it's back to work I go

School year 11-12 officially has begun. Tomorrow is my first day with the ED kids and I am anxious to get started. My Phono kids don't start til right after Labor Day this year because our building still isn't quite ready. We will be able to start moving back in on Wednesday and I can't wait to get back in the groove there.
Eileen, my supervisor, shared a good quote with the speech language pathologists to start out the school year. "When you arrive at your job in the morning, let the first thing you say brighten everyone's day". I like that. It's amazing how contagious attitude is.

Playing the Back Nine

Every year we get together with Chuck and Teri to celebrate our anniversaries. Their anniversary is July 24th (29 years) and ours is July 30th (28 years). Sometimes it takes us a few weeks to coordinate our calendars, but we always manage to make it happen. Last night, Chuck and Teri came to our house and brought half the meal with them. That's kinda how we do it these days and that makes it less work and more fun. At one point in the evening, we were talking about our long-standing friendship and how the years have flown. Jack used a great golfing analogy, seeing as how Chuck is an avid golfer, and said we were all "playing the back nine" and we just don't know what hole we are playing! Which is true, chances are that I will not live to be over 100 years old (I hope not really) but it was quite a realization. Guess we gotta make the most of it! We are so fortunate to have lifelong friends like Chuck and Teri, that we can grow with and reminisce with and share our lives with.

We always laugh a lot

Jack and Chuck

Birthday Club fun

We celebrated Teri and Trish's birthdays last night, with Kathy and Sue as hostesses. I had such an awesome time. It was one of those nights when the mood was light and we laughed a lot. We were coming off the high of Caylen's shower and being together with our daughters. Great night. Here are some pictures, including one of Kathy's puppy, Denzel.

Birthday Club Mother-Daughter Shower for Caylen

Sheila and Carol hosted a mother-daughter bridal shower for Caylen at Sheila's house. It was a pool party luncheon, so of course the weather turned ugly right in the middle of the shower. We were all sitting on Sheila's deck, catching up with girls and then it started to rain. We moved inside and while we were eating, a storm blew through, including gigantic hail! It did not dampen our spirits at all. By the time we were done with lunch, the weather had cleared and we were able to go outside to give Caylen her present. Sheila organized a gift from the whole group, which was so thoughtful. Caylen and Joe received the patio furniture that they had registered for!

girlfriends

Sheila, Caylen, and Sarah (Sheila's daughter)

Sally, me and Brittany

MOB Teri and  the bride, with our gift

Mary and her four girls

 It was such a wonderful afternoon. I have some very fun friends and they have darling daughters. It is a blessing to be together with everyone to celebrate such a joyous time. BTW, how about the hail??

Happy 5th birthday, Abbie!

Abbie turned 5 on Friday, August 12th. Last week, Jack, Sally and I took Abbie and Nina to the bakery so that Abbie could pick out her birthday cake. At the end of this post, there is a video of her telling the clerk how to spell her name. Precious.
We celebrated Abbie's birthday yesterday with a party at Jenny and Jay's. The whole family was there. Both Matt and Julie were able to come, too.Abbie loved being the center of attention and opening up presents and in general, the whole birthday production. Nina, being 2 1/2, wanted in on the action too and Abbie was kind enough to share with her. The girls are at such great ages. They entertain us no matter what they do! Here are some pictures from the party.

Nina, Beth, Arne and Abbie with the Nemo cake

Belle costume and Belle Barbie

Matt, Sally and Abbie

Nina gets a turn

Marmar and the girls

Abbie and Wayne

Happy birthday, sweet Abbie!

Productive!

We had the most productive day here this past Friday. It was my last Friday of summer break and I was feeling the need to get some things crossed off my to-do list.

• Trim bushes - We have evergreens and some other bushes in the front of the house that get very long and scraggly in July. Drives me crazy every time I pull in the driveway! Our guy, Jimmy, came Friday and got the job done. Yes!

• Fix oven- Our oven hasn't worked since mid July. The night before I left for the Birthday Club weekend at Clark Lake, I was supposed to make a coffee cake. We had all been assigned things to bring and I was assigned to bring my sour cream coffee cake. Well, that night, I had the batter in the pan and all ready to bake, but the oven wouldn't light. It was too late to call anyone and ask to use their oven, so I was such a problem solver and cooked it on my gas grill! Yes, you can do that. NOt easily, but you can do it. We hadn't missed using the oven with these scorching hot summer days, but it was time to get it looked at. I left a message with an appliance repairman and he called back 20 mins later and said he could come right out. While he was fixing the ignitor on the oven, I asked if he could do anything about our refrigerator door that has had some issues with closing. It's strange but our fridge goes through phases when it will not close properly unless you push on the door really hard in just the right place. Rich diagnosed a problem with "the cam" and we got that fixed, too! Yahoo! It's only been ages that we have dealt with that annoyance. Two appliances fixed! 

• fix peeling paint by front door- Our house needs to be repainted and we had a call in for a guy to come and give us an estimate. In the meantime, the paint around the front door was peeling and being a bit of a "picker", I started chipping away at it, getting huge pieces at a time. For a little while. Then it wasn't coming off. And it looked terrible! Turns out our painter isn't able to do the job yet (he is busy with two other ones right now) and I could not live with the peeling paint. So Jack took a paint chip to his favorite hardware store and got a little can of paint to match and I painted it! Looks so much better than it did and is fine for now!! See for yourself

August. Ugh.

I don't like it when July turns into August. For one thing, it means that my birthday and anniversary, July 30th,  are over. (I married Jack on my 28th birthday, 28 years ago. As Jack likes to remind me, I have been married to him for half my life now.) Secondly, it means that my lovely summer schedule will be coming to an end soon and I will be back at it, full time, in just two more weeks. Really? How did that happen? Summer always goes by too quickly.
I had a busy first week of August. We had dinner with both of Wayne and Sally's significant others and their parents. On Sunday, we went out to dinner with Julie and her parents, Marie and Gordon and on Thursday, we went to Matt's for a cookout with his whole family. Also, I had dinner with my Phono work friends on Monday, did four speech/language evaluations, seven private speech therapy sessions, had a fun Friday lunch with Jack and Sally, got to spend some time with Abbie and Nina twice this week, and topped it off with a totally relaxing and delicious meal at Nick's Fishmarket with and courtesy of Mark and Cath. All in all, an excellent start to August. I am determined to make the most of my remaining days of  freedom :)

Abbie and Nina chatting it up with Lisa at Kramer's

Phono friends...Ellyn, me, Lisa, Eileen, and Sally.

Gordon, Marie and Julie

my honey on our 28th anniversary

Jenny and Jay at Kjell's All-star game 7/30

Matt, T, Bob, Cassie and Mary