My "5"

Yummy Colin Farrell

Yummy Colin Farrell.... Oops! Did
I post a picture of him twice? :)
It must be my Irish DNA calling
out to its own kind!


Gerard Butler


Goran Visnjic

George Clooney

Hugh Jackman

Dave's "5"

Big S spent some time today doing research and deciding on his "5". After that, he got in touch with his creative/girly side and created this layout of his ladies:

I guess you're gonna have to fight him for your alternate SC!!!

One year ago today............

One year ago today.....my back yard looked like this:

The morning started out with the ominous sound of rumbling thunder. You know, the kind that you can hear starting to roll and eventually your house rattles in that way where everything shakes. I was snuggled up in bed, but when the thunder sounded, I opened my eyes to an eerie greenish-yellow light in the room.....and then, the rain. Some sixth sense must have told me to get up and check the basement....when I got down there, there was a lovely - and growing - puddle of water. Shortly thereafter, the rain stopped and I spent a couple of hours cleaning up downstairs. Once I got everything dry, I went up for a shower.

About two hours later, the skies opened up. I think we got around 4 inches of rain in 45 minutes. There was no road in front of my house. The water was rushing down the street and stretched from my neighbor's garage (the one across the street) almost to my front door. Between my house and my next-door neighbor's house (where we played volleyball) there was a river. I was terrified that the water was going to start seeping into my living room from either the front door or the side of the house! The ground was so saturated from the earlier rain that water was gushing through the concrete block in the basement....and then the wash basin started backing up. In all, we probably had about 3 & 1/2 inches of water in the basement....in ALL of the basement.

We were the lucky ones. I had been home and was able to rush stuff out of the basement to the kids who were waiting on the basement steps to lug things upstairs. My next door neighbor had about 4 feet of water in her basement - she lost her hot water tank, washer & dryer and a freezer. My other neighbors were on vacation and the fire department had to break into their house to turn off the gas. They had a couple of feet of water. For the next couple of weeks, our neighborhood looked like a refugee camp. Everybody was lugging stuff out of their houses to either dry out, or put out for the garbage men - who, I'm sure, were cussing our street out that next Monday!

Anyway, I'm glad we've made it through this year without a repeat of THAT! I don't enjoy thunderstorms anymore, and I think that's sad. Camron is completely freaked out anytime it rains with any force or he hears thunder. He's quite adept at getting on the computer and checking the Weather Channel radar. Maybe he'll be a weatherman when he grows up????

Bruises, Science Curriculum, and a Computer

I didn't think I'd ever say these words, but I'm kind of sick of taekwondo....today. SC and I taught a Tiny Tiger class this morning that went surprisingly well. Then, against my will and better judgment, I taught the adult morning class. I only did this because Mr. D. called me up Tuesday morning crying and begging me to take the class because no one else was available (not really, but it makes me sound more noble:) I need to confess, I'm afraid of the grown-ups. I can cover up any stupid mistake in front of the kidlets, but the adults will know, and remember, if I do something moronic. And....I don't like people looking at me. That's already been established (except, of course, to my neighbor up the street who is so unhappy with her life that she makes herself feel better by making snide comments about others who she obviously wishes she could be like :) :) :) Also, my arm hurts....and my hip. I am sporting some lovely purple bruises courtesy of my jahng bahng. They're rather large and they HURT! Last night as I was watching tv Dave asked me, "What did you do to your arm? It's a mess!" Love you too honey. You'll just have to stand back in awe when I wield my jahng bahng at the Fair!!!


Cam's science curriculum for this school year arrived yesterday! I'm so excited. I looked forever and researched a million different things before I decided on this....A Reason for Science.


Do you see that way cool plastic container? That contains all the supplies needed to perform all of the experiments in the book (except for things like paper towel rolls). This curriculum is based on doing the experiment and then doing a sort of lab report on what happened. I've never been a big science experiment person, but since this came with all of the crap needed to do each one, I figured why not?

Here we have a picture of Camron, 1st thing in the morning, in his jammies, talking to his dad on the phone. The conversation went something like this:

"Dad, what's this huge box in the living room?"

"What does it say Cam?"

Cam getting down on the floor, "It doesn't say anything. Oh, wait, Dell.....is it the new computer?"

We hadn't told him that we ordered it, but he had been getting on Dave's case lately about how he couldn't play his games on our prehistoric old computer.....you know, the one that I have to use....Well, Big S didn't realize how horribly, painfully, eye-poking-outingly SLOW this computer actually was until he had to spend some time on it the other day....I should've made him work on it a long time ago and I'd have gotten Flash ordered much sooner (Cam named him....it's rubbing off!)

Look at him.....doesn't he look fast and clean and shiny???? We're happy to have you join our family, Flash.

Day 26: Yummy

Here we are...the final word and the final day of Southern Belle's Blog Picture Challenge! Today's word is "YUMMY" and I have taken a picture of a piece of blackberry pie from Sand Hill Berries. If you have never had a pie from here, it is quite possible that you have never truly lived!

I'm very proud of you girls (and those boys that have chosen to participate) for taking up the "Challenge" and stepping out into the blogging world! And I'm proud of you, SB, for blogging more regularly than you were prior to convincing us to join in your little game :)

I hope that you are all thinking of words/phrases for our next challenge. So far we have: something red, an animal (SC came up with these), something round, one of your children, and your wedding picture. As you can see, we are not making these too hard :) The rules of this challenge shall be (ooh, this is like a princess decree) that you will get to pick which word/phrase that you use each day, and each word/phrase may be used only once. Also, the accompanying picture does NOT have to have been taken on that day. *end decree* I think it will be fun and keep those ideas coming and keep blogging!

Day 25: Way to go!

Obviously, this picture is completely staged. But for the sake of today's word/phrase....."Way to go Camron! You did a great job of actually loading one of your dirty dishes into the dishwasher. I KNEW you could do it!" :) You've all seen my kitchen....it's not a large place, and, believe me, I don't mind because that means there's less to clean up. However, it completely boggles my mind that while the boys in this family are capable of bringing their dirty dishes into the kitchen, those dishes only ever end up on the counter or the cart/island! Why!!! Why do you do this to me???? If you get the dishes to the counter, no extra steps are required to open the dishwasher, just open the door (which falls downward by itself), pull out one of the racks and slightly bend to place your dish/glass in the proper place! I think that's all. (Other than this, and the fact that they can't manage to get their dirty clothes into the clothes bags on the back of their bedroom doors....they're pretty much perfect :)

This is just a "bike shorts" picture for Lady Leslie :) Ha ha!

Day 24: Tiny

This "TINY" treasure chest houses yet another of Camron's baby teeth that had to be pulled. Since the moment of Cam's birth he has had an unnatural attachment to and need for milk. I think, and I am in no way an expert, that all of the calcium that he has ingested over the course of his eleven years has made the roots of his teeth so strong that they are, in some way, attached to his sternum. You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? The child had TWO SETS of adult upper front teeth growing in his gums (supernumerary is the proper term :) He had to have surgery to remove the extra, weirdly positioned set. Here's a pic of Cam, quite high, on the morning of his surgery.

One would have thought that taking that action, plus pulling the baby teeth would have helped the REAL adult teeth come on down....but, alas, Cam was without front teeth for over a year! When his teeth finally came in, we celebrated with a "Tooth Eruption Party". Dave made cakes to match his newly "hatched" teeth.

When we got home from Dr. Bupp's office with our new treasure chest, we decided to see exactly how many of these Cam had collected. Pretty impressive for someone who has only lost 12 baby teeth!