We have reached a new point in pet ownership. It all started on Monday when I took the kids to the Clark County Fair. We went because the horse Shea rides for lessons was going and another girl was showing her. We walked through all the barns, starting with the rabbits. We found one Mini Rex that looked similar to our Bailey. There was a girl in the barn who had a leash on her rabbit and was... walking it!! I saw the look in Shea's eyes and I knew the next words out of her mouth.

"Mom, can I get a leash for Bailey and take him on walks"? How could I say no, she asked so nicely plus, Bailey could use more exercise than he currently gets. The next day we had errands to run in Hilliard. Our last stop was Petsmart. We picked up a leash and can right home to try it out.

Shea walking Bailey on his new leash.

Bailey seems to REALLY like his new found "freedom". The problem was he was larger than I thought. I did have to exchange it for a larger size. He tried that out last night and loved it! He was hopping all over the yard. For once he was happy to go back in his pin, he wanted to eat!! This takes the phrase a new leash on life to a whole new level. This is one lucky rabbit!

Now we are finishing up our packing for our vacation. Bailey will have to wait a few days for his next walk. He'll be happy to see us come home.

A Musical Lunch

It's a fantastic Friday around here! The kids woke up in good moods, the weather was nice for a change so we decided to head to the London Public Library for one of their summer concerts. On most Friday's in the summer they have some kind of music out on the lawn and a snack is served from a local business. Today the music was from the very well-known Central Ohioan Arnett Howard. He's traveled all over the world with his music and it's always a treat when he comes to town. The kids love him. We also were served grilled hot dogs, chips and water from the local bank. We sat out under the big shade tree on our blanket with our friend, Mary Jo, and her children. It was fun! Will was into it this time, compared to my last attempt at this. After me feeding him half of his hot dog he decided that he wanted to take the rest of it and eat it as he swayed back and forth to the music. Shea had a few friends there too. They danced, dug for bugs and eat their lunches too. It was fun!

Will eating his lunch!

Will had another friend there around his age, Ella. As I was trying to get their photo so was a gentleman from one of our county newspapers, The Community. He was successful and asked if their pictures could be in the paper. Of course! I have a son posing, why would I say no?! This could lead to a career, you know!

Ella and Will.

Arnett always has fun things for the kids to do. On this particular song he had them following him around to the tune of The Saints Go Marching In. I think Shea really enjoyed it. She jumped up and was off, then came back asking if she could go...Of course! Go have fun!!!

Arnett Howard leading the way!

Shea in line!

As it was becoming realistic that Will was about to fall apart as nap time approached we headed out. Shea picked a few books out and then we went for dessert. Ice Cream!!! YUMMY! It was fun being out with the kids for a couple of hours and kept them well entertained. It's nap time...What all can I get done??!!!

Good Friends and Great Times!

We had a great time today! It was our annual gathering of good friends. Shannon, Laura and I have been friends for years! I think we may have all met and began our friendship back in 3rd grade? I'll have to ask them about that. Now we are all grown up, married and have our own kids. The last few years we make an effort to get together as often as we can, which ends up being every summer. It just works out with every ones schedule. Today they came to our house this year, we take turns with this. The kids had a GREAT time playing as always. It is really neat to watch our kids playing together and getting along so well, since we are all such good friends. Of course the girls have really latched onto one another in the last couple of years. Will had a really good time with all the action too. The kids all were very nice and gentle with him. Here are all the kids, we each have two now!

Gavin, Corbin, Adrien, Shea, Will and Dalton!

It's a good looking group, eh?!! The kids played, swam, did hide and seek, swam, hide and seek tag, swam...get the picture here? Laura, Shannon and I had a fantastic day getting to talk to one another in person! We email frequently but it is much more fun in person. We can't wait until the next gathering and we are even talking of an over night er!

Adrien and Shea after they did their nails.

Being with friends started on Friday night. My friend, Nicci, has an up coming birthday and we wanted to celebrate. Our monthly Bunco gathering was cancelled, we did an impromptu night out! It was Nicci, Elizabeth and myself. We went downtown to the Arena District and ate outside at Bucca DiPeppo. YUMMMMMMY! Our waiter was nice and brought out candles and a small cake to share. It too was good. Nicci was embarrassed but isn't that was birthday's are for?! We hope she had fun. I know I did.

Nicci as we sing to her.

Elizabeth, Nicci and I.

We can't wait for the next "reason" to have a girls night out! What fun things did you all do over the weekend?

Happy Birthday, Nevan

Happy First Birthday to Nevan! Officially our niece, Nevan, turns one on July 21. However, this past Saturday she celebrated with a pool party. July is suppose to be hot and sticky, right? I mean we do live in Ohio! Nope, not this past weekend. It was in the upper 60's and we had on long pants, shirts and jackets at night! Doesn't make for eager swimming weather but that didn't stop the kids. They had a great time. Nevan received many nice presents, had a wonderful cake and great food. We hope she has enjoyed her first year. Next year, she'll have a sibling to deal with!

Nevan turns 1.

Lots of gifts to open!

Happy Birthday, Nevan!

Good Guys, Good Times!

This past weekend was the 12th annual Good Guys PPG Nationals in Columbus, OH! How lucky are we that each year we get to go to the premier car show in the country and it's in our back yard? Shawn gets SO excited for this. He claims it's his favorite three days of the entire year. People from all over drive (or trailer) their cars to our city. Hot Rods everywhere! Shea loves to keep her eye out for any that are remotely pink. This was Will's first year and he was mesmerized by the poles that had lights or speakers on them. We also caught him checking out the shinny chrome and a blond once! Such a guy already.

Friday Shawn couldn't get off of work, this is still a very sore subject for him. However, the kids and I met him, we had dinner at our favorite Noodles & Co., then headed to the official hotel of the Good Guys. Wow, there are some amazing cars in this hotel lot. Famous folks too!

Will and Shawn walking around. Notice where Will is looking!

Shea wanted to find a pink car to get her photo taken by. We had passed a couple on the road and she'd yell when she saw one. Keep in mind yelling in an enclosed truck cab! We found one...

Saturday we headed to the Ohio State fairgrounds where we'd meet up with Shawn's parents and his brother, Justin. For once the weather people were correct (why did it have to happen now???) and it poured down rain most of the day. They toured the covered barns and we went through the big coliseum where the vendors are set up. Shea received so much stuff! This guy from Classic Instruments walked up to us and said if she smiled he'd give her a t-shirt. She smiled big! It was a nice shirt too. Then a lady gave her a pink tire necklace, Grandma and Grandpa bought her a pink Good Guys t-shirt. Plus she won or was given the following: pink dice for her jeep, a can koosie, stickers, key chain that is a compass, and ink pens. Just for being cute! Where can I sign up for that? While Will did receive merchandise, except for a t-shirt, he was made-over by perfect strangers too. Those two are like traveling with the paparazzi!

Back to the cars... Sunday the weather was perfect and we had a lot of ground to cover. We briefly met up with our friends from Indianapolis, Tom and Debbie. It was fun getting to chat with them, but not long enough. Hopefully this year we'll see them again. We do say this every year but this year it will happen!

Me while chatting with Debbie.

While cruising the grounds we always keep our eyes out for any restored 1964 Chevelle Malibu convertables, since that is the hot rod we own. We found a beautiful one this year out of Indiana. Before I show you that picture, here is our Chevelle when we went to pick it up and bring it home. Yes, that is the gas tank laying on the ground!!!!

Here is a restored 1964 Chevelle: Gorgeous!!!

Seeing this car rejuvenated us to work on ours more often. Poor Shawn just hasn't had any spare time to devote to it. We'll get it going!! I am also a huge corvette fan. I think the day we sold ours is one of the saddest days for me. I keep saying, someday we'll own another one. I saw one this year that I fell in love with and forgot to get a photo of it before we left yesterday. Bobby Alloway (a famous designer out of Tennessee) had done one for his wife. Lucky girl! It was nice and it did win an award.

Here is the mack-daddy of them all that is awarded. At this event, the Street Rod and Street Machine of the year are picked. Here is the 2009 Street Machine of the year:

It was hard to get good photos of it any time you saw it, it drew a crowd to say the least. The guys who build it were young, like us! That was fun to see. We had seen this in the hotel lot on Friday and thought wow, nice car. Uh, ya to say the least now. All in all, despite the rain, it was a great show. Shawn is already looking forward to next year!

Go Will

Will is not only kicking things into turbo speed with his crawling and standing on his own more... He has mastered how to climb steps! Can you believe it?! He isn't even 10 months old yet (July 15th he will be). Yesterday I told him I'd be right back to carry him up the steps, I just needed to carry the laundry basket up first. Well, I turned around to find him coming on up! Today I put him on the landing to see if he would do it again... Sure thing!

As he would move up a step he'd do this very happy, look at what I'm doing, type of scream. He was so happy with himself. See...

Will climbing the steps.

Now, please do not pay attention to our nasty carpet. That is the next project, hard wood floors. But I could not resist taking his picture for this milestone. Regardless of the shape the carpet is in.

The closer he got to the top of the steps he saw Chief waiting on him. He kept saying, "doggie, doggie". Chief moved out of the way when turbo came flying up!

So happy with him self that he made it to the top. What a big boy!!! I guess we'll be teaching him the proper way to go down the steps soon. Until then, the gate is staying up!

Independence Weekend

Wow, we have a lot to catch up on from our long 4th of July weekend! We managed to pack quiet a bit into it. We started on Friday, Shawn actually had a day off!! This is his first entire day off during the work week all year. So, what does he decide to do? Start tearing the engine out of the Cadillac. A couple of weeks ago he and I drove up to Kalamazoo, MI and towed home a 2004 Cadillac SRX. This will be my "new" ride and I'm very excited!!!! However, it needs a new engine. No problem, says my husband. That is until he found out how this engine has to come out, through the bottom of the car. Which means everything had to be disconnected which took two and a half entire days to do. Whew...They don't make cars easy nowa days. This is our first time owning a vehicle in the 2000 era! My genius Shawn came up with a way to jack the car up high enough to pull the motor out of the bottom of the vehicle. See...He let me take pictures!

Shawn with his duct tape, WD 40 and the car all jacked up!

He said no red-necked project like this would be complete with out him holding the tape and WD 40 for the photo-op! I laughed and took the photo. Here he is pulling it out. He placed it on this dolly we had from a previous engine swap (see the trend here??). His invention worked wonders. Now we are just waiting, we have to decide which engine and from where we are getting the new one. Then swap parts and put it back in...Sounds so easy, 'eh?!

Here she comes out!

Saturday morning we all slept in, it was SO nice!! We had a late breakfast and then decided to head to the West Jefferson Streetfest for some 4th of July activities. We slept in too late to see the parade but we were able to see the small car show, flea market area, have lunch & Shea played a game. We headed back home and soon after the rain started. It never really stopped drizzling for hours. It was enough to dampen your Holiday spirit! We were glad to have watched Red, White & Boom on TV the previous night, just in case we were rained out at the Lake.

We watched it rain for a while and then got ready to head out partying. We started at our friends, Jodi & Marvin Homan's annual party. The rain did not keep the kids from playing outside in the bounce house and swing set. The Homan's had a pinata and the kids seemed to really enjoy it! We adults enjoyed a really nice meal, drinks and lots of chatting.

Will and I before the fireworks. The lake is behind us!

Shawn and Will in their 4th of July attire!

Ashton, Abby & Shea after getting candy from the pinata!

We still had another party to go to. We went down the street to our friends, Nicci & Brian Todd's house. We had a great time doing more chatting, eating smores by the fire, watching fireworks and the kids did sparklers! Shea was so thrilled not only to see Brianna but two other friends from pre-school, Olivia and Blaise who came later on. I think they were so busy chatting that they didn't pay much attention to the fireworks! Girls, talking??

Shea, Brianna & Olivia.

We had a great night and headed back home around 11:30, it had started to rain again!!

Sunday we had more fun! When we got up in the morning Shawn decided that he'd done all he wanted/could do to the bar top with the stain and wanted to install it. Cool! This particular part of the project has taken almost as long as the entire remodel on the kitchen. We encountered problems trying to get the wood to absorb the stain. Before he did, here are some adorable pictures of Shea outside trying to do handstands. Her friend, Amber, can do them and Shea wants to also. She tried practicing and I caught her doing on! Yea!!

Shea doing handstand.

The thing is, she became very frustrated with herself. I saw her laying in the yard with her head up to the sky. I could hear her saying, "please, please, please, let me do just one handstand". Ah, it was too cute....

Now back to the bar! Shawn and I were able to get it into place and we REALLY like how well it turned out. All of the staining, stripping and re-staining paid off. After we installed it, he had Shea walk on the edge to get the glue good and smashed. She was happy to oblige!

Shea showing off the new bar top!

Will needs a turn....

I can now get serious about buying bar stools. I just really need to make a decision and then buy them. Should happen soon!!!

Today we went down to the barn and Shea had another riding lesson. After Little Debbie was saddled up, I caught Shea kissing her....

A girl and her horse.

We hope you had a terrific Independence Day weekend!!!!

Clover Buds

Today was the day that Shea attended the Clover Bud day camp. Clover Bud's are pre-4H kids (5-8 years old) in Madison County. They all gathered at a Metro Park about 15 minutes from our house, it's a really nice park!! They did all kinds of activities, science experiments and they went 'creeking'. Unfortunately, it was a very cool morning. I know, it is July! The kids had on light jackets and capri's. Shea went with her friend, Kendall, and they both thoroughly enjoyed their day. It was right up both of their alleys so to speak. I'm sure Shea will want to attend again next summer.

Shea preparing to leave with Ms. Jen.

Jen dropped the girls off at the camp. She had to work this afternoon and I was able to get them at pick up time. It worked out really well for both of us. Scout, the Kuck's dog, went along with the girls this morning. I hear he was a huge hit with all the kids! We love Scouty!

Scout, Kendall & Shea

When it came time for me to pick up the girls, both of them were talking fast and a lot about their day. I think they both enjoyed going in the creek. Sounds like they did a lot of exploring. They came home with their science kits to do more experiments. This should prove interesting!!

Clover Buds Shea and Kendall.