You Go Ahead and Love That Glitter!

I won't judge! Just save some for me... my crafty friend!

Welcome Queen Elizabeth!

Necia & Lizzy

Apparently... dad has won this round. We are now the very excited owners of a playful and adoreable PUPPY! She came from the latest batch born to my Mom and Dad's dog Rudy. She was one of six, and after many protestations about not being able to have a dog here in our twin home in the city... she is firmy entrenched.

The kids (okay, okay and the parents) love her! But who could resist! We named her "Lizzy" which is short for Queen Elizabeth. She has an Elizabethan ruff of white fur around her neck, and since they wouldn't let me name her Shakespeare... this was the next best thing.

Necia spent a whole day working with her on what to do after eating... go to the back door, and go out to do your business. The first night we had a couple of accidents, but since our resident vet worked her training magic... she goes right to the door and hasn't left a deposit inside since!!! YAY! We are still working, however, on her tendency to CHEW everthing in sight. This pic shows her sleeping, but that's misleading... she actually rarely sleeps and wants to play all night long. Good thing she has lots of playmates that are willing to let her jump around and chew their hair while they try to sleep. We may have to start shutting her in the bathroom... yeah, that should be fun!

Salem Hills Swim Team

Kaila is having a BLAST swimming for our brand new high school! She swam for the city team for a few years when she was younger, and of course she spends AMPLE time in the pool all summer being a swim instructor and a lifeguard... so how could she resist swimming in school??

This new team is really enjoying their first season. And the nature of swim meets is that you are out of the pool waiting for your race more than you are IN the pool... so that leaves plenty of time for hanging with your friends, taking pictures and just generally goofing off! Oh, I mean... you spend all that time in intense focus planning your strategy for your next race. You can just see the focus and concentration being employed by these tough-as-nails athletes!

Yeah, she looks really miserable in these pics, huh? Its a rough job, but someone has to do it!

Just giving you a hard time Roo... It's very fun to watch how close they are as a team. They really do work hard, and the entire team is improving every day. Kaila's times have been getting shorter and shorter. She's turning in to a breast stroke phenomenon! At her past two meets the coaches had her swim a 200 IM, which means she had to swim 50 yards of each stroke: back, breast, butterfly and freestyle. I could do back and free... maybe breast if I had to... but butterfly... NO WAY! (oh, you do realize that I mean I could do that 20 years ago... yeah.) And she did it!! All 4 strokes, high speed, and not dead at the end of it! Now THAT is cool.

Kinda cool to be watching our kids in events where it's perfectly acceptable to jump and scream at the top of your lungs! GO SKYHAWKS!!! Whoot-whoot!!