videos

Not much to write about today…just enjoying the second half of summer vacation. It’s hard to believe that it’s half over huh? Our kids don’t go back to school until the Tuesday after Labor Day so we have lots of time yet. I plan on enjoying these few relaxing weeks before we get super busy with football season. Enjoy today’s video!

I previously wrote about our trip to our neighbors campground on the Marble Lake. Here is some video from the day…

The family is watching Wipeout so I thought it was a good time to blog. I hate this show so I am trying my best not to laugh at some of these morons.

Andrew finishes Segment One of drivers Ed tomorrow. He still has 4 more driving sessions, but he does have his pink parent slip which allows him to drive with a parent. Ken is having issues with the ignition on his Buick Regal, the car that will be given to Andrew and we haven’t made it a priority to get fixed yet. So yesterday I let Andrew drive my Yukon to pick up his friend and drive to the school for football workout. Holy sweaty palms, actually sweaty entire body! I was so nervous. Ken is a freak about his Camaro and won’t let Andrew drive it, which makes no sense considering it’s value is half as much. Oh well, I figure he needs to learn to drive more than just one car. One thing for sure is he is no where near ready for busy roads. He drives fine, but he focuses solely on what he is doing and doesn’t watch his surroundings enough. Maybe that is how it is when you first learn?

We’ve been having fun with our Thursday playdates with 3 other families in our neighborhood. We rotate whose house it will be at each week. The kids have a blast and I enjoy the adult conversation. Today I realized that summer vacation is only half over! Our kids don’t go back until the Tuesday after Labor Day. God help us, LOL! Just kidding. The kids have been fine, they only get on my nerves a few dozen times a day. The worst part is just getting them to go outside. They last all of 20 minutes and then they come back in whining that it’s hot. Then I have to drag Andrew outside to watch them while they swim. I’m not complaining though, I love that we are able to be here with them everyday. Can you believe this next school year all the kids will be in school all day?

My plans for posting videos isn’t going as well as I had hoped. Many times throughout the day things will happen with the kids that I think to myself- Darn, I should have been recording! That was funny! But I am working, or cleaning, or floating on a raft. Not to mention that anytime I would sit down to work on videos I had issues with my laptop. Windows Movie Maker would lock up or uploading to Youtube would fail. BUT, I have found a solution – I am now uploading my videos to our Mac instead and iMovie is so much better to work with. Hope you enjoy some snippets of Blake’s birthday…

We decided to take a day off work Tuesday and we took the kids to Cedar Point. The last time we went we only took Andrew and his friend, but now Blake is tall enough to ride all of the roller coasters. He rode several roller coasters with Ken, Andrew, and his buddy while I went around with Chase and Karli and enjoyed some of the kiddie rides.

It was a perfect day, low 70’s and not crowded at all. We got on all rides really quickly including the roller coasters! Anyone who knows Chase won’t be surprised to hear that he wanted to ride everything, including Top Thrill Dragster which I included in my video below for those who aren’t familiar with CP, but unfortunately he wasn’t tall enough. (Just a video of the ride, Chase was not on it! – at the 1 minute 20 second mark) He was able to go on Disaster Transport and Iron Dragon which he absolutely loved. Blake on the other hand was pretty nervous about riding the big roller coasters for the first time.

Going to Cedar Point always brings back memories from my childhood like how my sister used to scream her head off and whenever we got to the top of a hill she used to try to stand up and say she was getting off the ride. I also remember the one year that my sister had smashed my finger in her bedroom door the night before we went to Cedar Point. She slammed her door so hard that my finger nail fell off and all day at Cedar Point my entire hand throbbed and I could only hold on with one hand on all the rides. Lastly I remember going with the 6th grade crossing guards and I was playing skeeball and won this big huge stuffed parrot. I actually cheated to win the game by somehow pulling the ball release lever back only half way so it flipped the score numbers to a higher score than I actually had. I named the bird Cheater! The bad news was that night when I came home I found out my mom and sister got into a bad car accident. That was when I decided that whenever you do bad things…bad things happen to you. I still believe this to be true!

Well that school year surely went fast didn’t it? I remember a year ago when I was sort of complaining that Karli didn’t get picked for all day Kindergarten. I wasn’t happy about her having to be home every morning when I was supposed to be working. In the end it all worked out perfectly and having her home was actually no trouble at all, in fact it was fun having the morning with her. We ate breakfast together, got ready for the day together and she chatted on and on while I worked and did my best to block her out when I had to.

Now here we are, summer vacation has begun and my baby girl is going to be in First Grade and my oldest son is going to be in High School! OMG, how did this happen? Andrew is growing up so quickly and each day I sit back and watch him turn into such a respectable young man. He has been dating his current girlfriend for a couple of months now and I was able to finally meet her the other day. I think this is like his 4th g/f this last school year so I figured she would be just like the others…it eventually dies out and they get bored with one another or whatever happens when he breaks up with them. The other day Andrew and I were having a pretty serious conversation and he said he really likes Bree more than any other girl. Yikes! Another sign of him getting older! She spent the afternoon with all of us on Friday and then went to Andrew’s baseball game and then I actually had to drive her home about 45 minutes away by myself because Andrew had to go to his dad’s afterward. She is such a sweetie and she is comfortable talking and has no problem being herself around me. Ahhh, young love.

Tomorrow starts the first official day of summer vacation. I don’t really count the weekend. I have some great things in store for the kids this summer. I will share my plans tomorrow via video most likely!