stolen from Dawn's blog

okay i liked tghis idea but I had a ton of trouble trying to copy and paste so now I am handwriting it.....

So the 1st 5 people who respond to this post will get something homemade from me. I get to choose what and I get up to 1 year to do it- but I promise it will be sooner than that b/c I'll forget if I wait that long. I get to choose what it is and if you are one of the 1st 5 people, then you have to do the same thing for 5 people on your blog.

2nd Oh crap moment of Dog ownership

That Sam is still alive is due to Shawn's great sense of self control- and his desire not to have our daughters in tears for weeks because he killed the dog. This evening Shawn took Sam for a bike ride. We did this last weekend with Shawn holding on to Sam and pulling Lily in her bike trailer and it was a great experience. Tonight Shawn went alone with Sam and they rode quite fast. At on point, they were going REALLY fast and Sam saw a rabbit. Sam chased the rabbit even though it caused him to pass right in front of Shawn's bike and continued to chase the rabbit even as Shawn started falling on him. Shawn hit the payment with his chin and arms and damaged his bike as well. Sam, however was not at all hurt and in fact continues to chase the rabbit. Shawn had to walk the bike and dog about a mile to get home.

He came home as I was return from chasing down the women who brought Charlie home from camp because 1/2 our stuff was still in the van. Shawn's car was so full of camp stuff that I could not get him to the ER until I moved some of it. Even though that took a minute and he was in severe pain, Shawn refused to go to the ER until I took pictures of him. (the pre ER pics are the ones w/o bandages). The whole time we were at the ER Shawn kept telling me that I would need to take post pics and blog this ASAP. Since he is in considerable pain, I readily agreed.

So we are home now and he's doped up on vicodin and ibuprofin and luckily didn't break anything. Still he's probably staying home from work tomorrow since both hands are bandaged and his chin is so nasty. BTW- the black eye is from earlier this week from a basketball game.

Special thanks to Sarah who dropped everything to come over and get the kids to bed. I told that she could leave right away since Charlie was there, but when the ER told us that it looked like tornadoes were on the way, we asked her to stay until we were done. (And it's kind of freaky to have the nurses pulling out all the flashlights) and then she came and jumped Shawn's car b/c I left the lights on. I owe you big time.

And yes Nessa, I totally know you would have come but you've just moved and got hurt last week yourself so we asked Sarah.

Tornado

Yesterday was quite an exciting day for us. We went to check out a friends new home. They wanted Shawn to check out their fireplace. With no radios or TV, we had no idea how bad the weather was getting until the sirens started going off. We decided to head back to our house with our friends since this was their 1st tornado. As we came upon the track near our home, we could see the cloud rotation, which appeared to be very near to our home. We realized that we really couldn't head to our house at that pointed and started heading to the home our friends were currently renting. Then, as the fast moving clouds passed in front of us we again headed to our home.

We spent about an hour in the basement in the dark before it was clear for us to come back upstairs. During that time we had 4 kids (9,4,3, and a baby) and upto 6 adults and a dog hanging out listen to our weather radio. This was a pretty scary time as the last NWS kept announcing that there were tornadoes touching down in the NW. In the end, the closest one was more than 2 miles away, but having seen the damage it is really scary.

We're happy to say that as of last night their were no deaths or serious injuries, though we have heard the police, fire, and ambulance sirens pretty regularly through last night and this morning.

Also, Charlie, who was away at Girl's Camp for the 1st time, called early this morning to let us know she was okay and to check on us, and that based on the NWS predicting more storms this evening, camp is ending early and she'll be home tonight.

As special thanks to the Connett who came to check on us when we didn't answer any of our phone (because I promise they really never rang)... It's wonderful to have the kind of friends that go out in a storm to make sure that you're okay.

Here is a link of some of the damage that occured. Thank you Brad (Weber) for sharing the pics you took. Our new camera should be here sometime today........

Piano Recital

Charlie and Emily started piano this year and they had their recital on Tuesday. Both girls did a great job. Unfortunately some of the pictures were kind of blury. Since our last camera died after it's trip through the wash, we have been trying out different camera to see what we like. We also took some pics outside by the Irises. The girls loved the location and we wanted to get on final shot of Lily in the dress Grandma Camp made her last year.

Camping

Well our camera didn't survive the trip through the wash, but luckily our memory card did. So here are some pics from our trip. We had a great time (Except for the early morning rain).

Can we say crazy??

It's hard to believe that Lily is really 4. To celebrate her birthday she invited 14 friends to come over for her party. We made visors, did side walk chalk and bubbles, opened (way too many) presents, had cake and ice cream and then played in the pool, went down the slip and slide and had a water balloon fight. It was a ton of fun with only a few mishaps (see the previous post about taking the cake). The hardest parts were having 2 Claires, Emmas, and Abbys. Every time I said anything to one of them 2 would respond, and trying to keep track of the shoes, towels and bags that all these kids brought with them. I finally just gave ups. It was so much fun, especially since 7 of the kids were from preschool.

He really takes the cake....

Here is our 1st really big "oh crap" moment of dog ownership. After spending about 4 hours last night baking 2 cakes so that we could make Lily the doll cake she swanted for her birthday, Sam ate them. So, in the middle of getting ready for Lily's party today, I dropped everything and went to Walmart and purchased 2 caked there so I could feed the masses (14 3-5 year olds). Then, on the way home I calmed down enough to worry about Sam. So I could the vet who informed me that really, that much cake- especially chocolate isn't good for any dog, and since Sam already has allergies it's even worse. So, I got to give Sam 2 tsp of hydrogen peroxide (1 tsp per 35 lbs of dog in case you ever need to try it.) And wait for him to expel it. I couldn't believe how much cake he had actually eaten until I had to clean it up. It was a very nasty experience. And now of course, his ears are REALLY stinking!

BTW- a very HUGE I love you and thank you to Vanessa, who's 2nd response (the 1st of course was a LOT of laughter), was to ask if she could bake Lily a new cake. Since she had just moved into her new home this week, I went with the Walmart option, but it's great to have a friend who would seroiusly drop everything to bake a cake for Lily.

Ballerina Girls

Charlie, Emily and Lily have their dance recital tomorrow. We got their dance pics back today and Shawn was able to scan them in- a good thing since :

1) I can not figure out the scanner

2) The camera is so not working.

Unfortunately, the scanner was very dirty so the pics are quite dusty. hopefully we'll be able to get a new camera soon

Enjoy the pics

.

In the leg of Emily's wet jeans

I had a conversation that went like this:
M(eredith) "I have some good news and some bad news"
S(hawn) "okay".
M"In the leg of Emily's wet jeans is the bad news."
S "Huh?"
M "That's the bad news"
S "Well what's the good news?"
M "I found the camera"
S "Great!"
M"I found it as I pulled Emily's jeans out of the washer'
S "Oh"

So, I have found the camera but I still have no new pics for you. The load that the camera was in was washed twice because I forgot it in the washer overnight and they smelled funny. The batteries are rusty, so we'll see what happens when it dries.....