Memorial Weekend fun 2006

We spent the weekend up at our cabin, which always seems to get smaller every time I go up to it. The boys spent most of their days shooting the BB gun and beggin' to go to slippery rock.

We met their Aunt Shannon and Uncle Cory (and baby Gage, the newest arrival) up there on Friday night.

This big pictue is from the dam that you cross to get to 'The Rock'. I just love how it turned out.


The smaller picture is Brock sliding down the rock. There was some other's that showed up but it wasn't over crowded at all.

The next small picture is Reece crashing in to the rock at the bottom. I was told there is a trick to it. You must turn your butt at just the right time to hit it or you will hurt your hip.


This is one of my favorite pictures of Zeb. True to form, he is just yapping his flap and his brothers are playing in the background. Zeb likes the water but in small doses and only his feet getting wet. He doesn't complain about it all though.

And after all the excitment Zebbie crashed on the couch with Uncle Cory's dog, Chance.

Counting Down

The Boys will be out of School soon, We have signed them up for some summer classes in June but otherwise nothing. That was mainly to meet kids their own age to prepare them for school in the fall. As each year closes I think of all these wonderful chores for summer. I have written down a list of chores that will be put in a jar and each day they must do 2 of them. They are mainly house cleaning right now, but I want to do something for them to read this summer. They have suddenly found much enjoyment reading Franny K Stein books. They are both at the same reading level, which is kind of nice, The books can get read twice. I think Reece is ahead of Brock but he doesn't rub his nose in it. Which is SO nice! Reece is a Great kid, he really is. He likes to be happy go lucky and has a terrific sense of humor. I have high hopes for him to do well in school and maybe college. Brock I don't see going to college at all. I hate to say it but at 18 I don't see him moving out. He just lacks motivation and drive. Zeb well he is just to young to tell. Although, he definitely has drive. He likes to keep pushing till he gets what he wants. Yesterday the landscapers were here working on the lawn and I didn't want him to go outside so I wasn't going to put on his shoes, That didn't stop him at all... He went to Brock and Reece, Brock put on one for him and Reece the other, so he made it outside.
The first weekend in June is a Fishing Tournament Again for the boys out at the same place I will be doing the Triathlon (gulp). They had fun last year but Duner had to work so he couldn't make it. I told Duner to try to avoid working on that day. It is a Sunday morning so I hope he can be there. I don't remove fish from hooks. I step on them, hold them with my foot get the hook out and kick them back into the water. Not very humane I know but that is the only way I will do it. Luckily last year, Angie(a friend from work) was there with her Daughter and Husband and so he removed the hooks for us. I have coached Brock all year now, if he has a choice between a BIKE or A WALK DOWN THE LINE what should he choose????
BIKE! BIKE! BIKE!!!!!

Zeb has plans

Zebbie tells me that he is going swimming tomorrow.
He said he needs to bring his swimsuit cause Grandma is going to watch him swim.
She can drive me too, he says.

How much do you want to bet she doesn't know this?

Were Famous!

We recently had our picture taken with our realtor in front of our fireplace and just found out it is going to be posted a couple hundred gas stations in the area. Holy Cow! Were Famous! At least My husband, Zebbie and I.

This was the note I got...

Hi Rachel and Randy!

Did you see your pretty faces in the May issue of Fox Cities Homes and More magazine? You're also going up at a couple hundred gas stations! Be sure to show the boys, and thank you again! You look great!!!!!!!!!


Lisa Kortens, Realtor

Rainy days a Wasted

On Saturday I painted my oldest son's room.
2 colors.
One is 'Evening Sky' it is a dark Navy blue to be the back drop for the Universe that I (or my sister can help too!) will be painting on it.

The second wall is called bleached demin. It looks more like a steely blue to me, but on that wall Brock wants 'Science wall with test tubes bubbling over and a microscope and stuff like that'.
Per his request, I am thinking of getting a poster of the periodic timetable of elements and other simple (and cheap) ideas to help decorate it.

That was 3 hrs of this rainy weekend that I used up. Then I spent probably the good part of an hour vacuuming up by dryer. It had been taking longer to dry our clothes and on our last electric bill the amount due was quite a bit more than we were expecting. We (thankfully) had turned off the furnace weeks ago and had left it off to save money, but the dryer seems to have made up for that.

I went out side to our new handy dandy dryer vent and opened it up to find it was PLUGGED completely with dryer lint! I am very curious what our vent looked like at the old house cause we Never cleaned it, (that I am aware of) and it had a funky exhust vent.

Well, needless to say, after cleaning the exhaust vent and the part under the lint trap it works in a fraction of the time.

Amazing what a little cleaning can do.

In the above picture, you notice a white thing sticking out of our house (or at least that is what it looks like). That is our new fence that we just put up. I was straight. Just before the ''Wind Advisory" we had last week. Actually it was even worse. Duner fixed it on Saturday from what it was.
Thanks to the salesman at the store we bought it from who said.... " You shouldn't need any cement."
Hmmmmm. Thanks

Happy Mothers Day

Yesterday morning my kids tried to make me breakfast for Mothers Day. Brock started with the pancakes and Reece helped with the Bacon. Brock has ADHD and I could see it yesterday as he took 10 times longer than the average person to get the pancakes ready. All you need to do is add water. But he somehow could not find the 3 other measuring cups I have, and felt he had to use the one he used on Saturday to make Mac-n-cheese. He started off by looking for oil,which I thought was odd considering you should only have to use water. Turned out he was looking at the Waffle directions. I was picking up the house while he got going on the cooking. A short time into it I could smell something burning. A smell I am quite used to since I get off track while waiting for things to cook. I am not so patient for cooking. I checked and both Brock and Reece were manning their posts but Brock had his up a little high and was burning the pancakes. By then he was on number 3 burnt pancake. Always the optimist, he told me 'At least the other 2 are ok.'

One Mother of a week...

What a crazy Week! We had been trying to work on putting up a vinyl privacy fence for the dog run after Duner gets home from work at 6pm every night. We managed to get 3 panels up before the impending winds. Unfortunetly we listened to the guy we bought it from and didn't buy cement. I think we are going to purchase some soon. Yesterday after a solid day of winds it was just flappin' in the wind. Bummer.
I had recieved a bunch of scrubs from a former co-worker that had worked with Dr. Al and his dad. She had made quite a few of them and the are adorable. I even got a Green Bay Packer one for our 'Green Bay Packer' Fridays! It was kind of sad, since she is missed ALOT! We still don't have a replacement for her... That was over 2 years ago now!
When I got home from work yesterday I came home to find we had NO electricity. I had installed fort knox security on our front door and garage door. I was real worried that I wouldn't be able to make it in the house, but thankfully when I left the house that morning I didn't have the front door security latch. If it would have been I would not have been able to get in even with the key! I ended up driving to work and calling Duner from there, since my cell phone was also dead and we ended up eating out at our local Perkins Resturant for supper.
Tonight we were suppose to be the scouts at a local park for a potluck type get together but with the weather so friendly it was moved to the cafeteria of the boys school. Since I wasn't able to cook, I ran to the grocery store for my dish that I had to bring to the 'Crossing Over' Ceremony for Cub Scouts. Reece 'graduated' from Wolves to Bears and Brock can no be an official Boy Scout. They actually had the boys walk over a bridge, to symbolize the official Crossing over. Brock hated his picture being taken, as you can tell here....


Reece was in heaven with his Best Friend in the whole world Jacob. He got a belt loop for Archery and a patch for Sacking it to Goodwill. That is Jacob in the middle and Jacob's Dad Luke on the left of Reece.

Tonight Reece gave me my Mothers Day Present. I just love it. It is a flower in a pot that he made for me. I am going to cherish these moments. He was SO EXCITED to give it to me. I love that. Real Genuine Excitment. You can't buy that anywhere. That was the best part. I really do like the pot and flower too!


Awwwwwww.......

Gee, Do you think they had FUN?

Can you just see the "Hurry Up Mom, so we can jump in the fun!" look on their faces? Zeb was all excited to climb up to the top until the HUGE Bucket at the top dumped a load of water and he got SOAKED~(you can see the bucket in the picture at the top...)
Zebbie Just LOVED controling the water for anyone else. The let you use those life jackets for free. Zeb didn't seem to mind wearing it at all which was nice for both of us!
It's so nice of Brock to act as a Bridge for that Girl!
Wooooaaahhh, there Reece. Dont fall in!!
At 5:30 I dragged the kids out of the water park and we ordered pizza to the room, which was actually quite reasonable. After the pizza was done, we went to the Arcade where the kids got to get enough tickets to 'buy' some things to play with that night.

The kids just hated to wait for the park to open the next day! They were up and READY by 8am but the park didn't open til 9am!

It was fun for the kids. The hotel was average, but the fun was huge. I missed getting a picture of the lazy river and the 2 water slides. The also had 2 whirlpools, one was outside and that was the one you could bring your kids with you to. Zeb's favorite parts were definitely Lazy River and whirlpool, when he was not controling the water of course.
It would be a fun thing to do for a Birthday party that is for sure.

Treat night!

Tomorrow I will be taking the boys for a special treat, but I can't type it because they will know so I linked a website to the words.

We have never been there before but some friends of ours invited us to go with them. I just hope after my ride tomorrow I have the energy to have some fun with the boys. I was going to bring a life jacket for Zebbie but his is at the cabin in our boat. Oh well. I will just be stuck on him like glue. Luckily, the people we are going with have a little boy Zeb's age too so they will be insperable. If you are lucky I will remember my camera and post some pic's later. The boys are going to be so excited.

I have yet to tell them. Right now Zeb and Brock are at Stock car races with my dad and Duner.
Brock had his Civil War Retreat today and that kid was psyched! He was Mr. Motormouth from the minute they let him go home on Thursday. I think he tired himself out by all the excitment because when I picked him up today he hardly said anything about it.

Reece had a swimming field trip today and said more than Brock did about the civil war thing.
Both slept on the drive home though. I think the last 3 days of getting up at 5 am is wearing them out a little. Go Figure. Wimps.

Another ONE?

Another One?

That is Exactly what I asked Brock this am when he came in from waiting in the car to go to school.
I was finishing up with Reece and Zeb, getting them ready to go to school and Brock cam running in and said "Hey Mom! I lost another tooth!"

Ok, that makes 3 teeth in 3 weeks. He only has one more loose tooth in his mouth and I will not be surprised if he comes home tonight with it in his back pack.

I have been trying to upload a picture that I scanned of some membership cards that Reece made for a Boys Only club that he has started. It was so cute he was working on them on the Kitchen table and when I walked past he would cover it up so I wouldn't see it.

I will try again later and see if I can't scan it in.

Here is the picture, Iwas finally able to get it in... Brocks' on top.