She Swims!

Somehow my father-in-law is a miracle worker. Mia spent one afternoon swimming with him and at the next swim meet, swam over half the length of the pool without use of the rope! It was a great Mia moment!! I captured it here for your viewing pleasure. It just kills me how much she enjoys swimming which is apparent from the huge grin on her face! I apologize for the sideways video. I turned my camera to get the long shot and forgot that videos don't rotate. Oops.

Unbelievable

A coworker sent me this video today and I've watched it five times and still can't decide if it's real or a stunt. Someone help me out here:

Either way, it's pretty bad ass.

P.S. on the tent, I got it down and all nicely folded but it took both me and Chuck to squeeze it into the carrying case. It was tough but we did it!

It's a you and me house

"Do we have to put the tent up today?" This is my husband still at work and not feeling at all into my idea of doing a practice run on the new tent. We're going camping this weekend and I just don't want to be those idiots who show up and look like idiots. But it's not worth fighting about so I said no, we don't have to do it today but we have to do it before we leave so we know what the hell we're doing before we get there. Then I thought about it for a minute and decide to try it myself. And damn if I'm not the most awesome woman in the world and put the tent up all by myself, even the parts that said to use 2 people! I tried to use Mia for one of those parts but she's not tall enough so I rigged it alone. I'm pretty proud of myself. I haven't yet tried to fold it all back up and get it into the carrying case though. I think that might be harder.

My life in The Office

Last week I had a lovely 69 year old woman come to pay for her grandchild to attend a week of camp. She got to talking about how we're expensive (we're not) and she's on a fixed income because she's retired and she doesn't mean to burden me with her problems BUT.......... I sat there for about 20 minutes, dutifully nodding and interjecting the occasional "oh dear"s and "bless your heart"s that a good southern girl should say (so I have learned living in the south as I was raised by two Yankees and was never taught such, um, pleasantries) I'm trying my darndest to be supportive to this woman who I don't know and not stop her by yelling "I don't care how much your ex-husband's heart medication costs, I've got work to do!" I've got serious poker face going on which is way impressive because I have no poker face. At this point, my boss comes in, says "I forgot, these people called earlier" and hands me a post it note which I have scanned for your viewing pleasure:I think it's clear that we watch entirely too much of The Office.

The Horror

Remember how I kept raving about our favorite Mexican place? We ate dinner then whenever we had the time or money and Chuck ate lunch there at least once a week since it is right around the corner. Well, check this shit out.
Most notable, to me, the mother of the girl who licked her cheesecake bowl clean and then proceeded to lick everyone else's, is this little gem : Violation of Code: [.05(6)(n) ] Dish machine not sanitizing at 50 ppm when tested. No sanitizer present in cloth storage container when tested.

Vallarta has since been inspected and received a score of 100. BUT after reading that inspection report and knowing that the previous 5 out of 10 inspections have resulted in "U" status I really can't stomach eating there ever ever ever again. Not even for bottomless margartias. *sigh*

The cute one

We discovered the beauty that is the Strawberry Milkshake Oreo this week.

Take me out to the Ballgame!

We got free tickets to the Brave's game on Saturday night. Four of them! And a parking pass! To a normal person, this is awesome. To a 5-year-old who'd been told she'd be going to see Kung Fu Panda that day, it is nothing less than the worst tragedy known to man. The tears, the lashing out, and the screaming brought me back to my elementary school days, watching helplessly as my younger sister bashed her head against the wall. How in the world did my mother handle that? (and how is it that my sister remains blissfully childless while I deal w/ her karma?) I can't do it. It's daddy's turn when the crazy comes out. It took about 10 minutes and her overhearing me call my mom to take her while we take Layla out to get her to calm the F down and listen to us. Then today she rationally tells my mom "Kung Fu Panda is there everyday. We can do that any other time" Where was that logic on Saturday?!
It was the first time we all went to a game as a family. I took the girls last summer to their first game. I couldn't even tell you who we played, it's a bit difficult trying to watch a ballgame with a crazy toddler and a 1-year-old. Who knew? This game wasn't much different. We stopped to eat beforehand to avoid paying $10 for a hotdog but God help me those damn vendors walk around just temping young children. "I want one of those blue things! No red thing! I want a red thing!" Doesn't even know what it is, but she wants one and she wants one NOW! I tell her at 8:00 she can have one, we just ate. Remember? That hotdog in the car? Yes, that was your dinner. No we're not eating here. No it's not 8:00 yet. See that clock? Over there on the wall. Next to the big yellow pole. The big yellow one! Ok, here's my watch. Tell me when it say eight zero zero. No that says seveN zero eight. It's not the same. You didn't miss it. No, that's 7:24. No, 7:32. Not yet, only 7:35. It IS fair that other kids have stuff and you don't, they probably didn't throw a temper tantrum at home. No, it's just 7:43. DO NOT TALK TO ME AGAIN UNTIL THE WATCH SAYS EIGHT ZERO ZERO! We were a constant form of entertainment for the lady in front of us who kept turning and laughing at this poor mom who was slowly losing her mind.
Chuck at one point asked why I would buy her something when she was obviously driving me crazy and using behavior he didn't want to reward. My logic here is that if she has a giant slushie, she has something in her mouth, making it difficult for her to ask me a question every 5 seconds. We did enjoy the game, despite the crazy. Layla for one, was very well behaved. Her favorite part was all the clapping and was sad whenever it stopped. Mia loved the Tomahawk Chop and the fireworks that happened on the one homerun (thank you Chipper!) we saw before we hightailed it out of there at the 7th inning. Since fireworks were part of the bargain of going to the game, I hate to think of the aftermath if Mia hadn't gotten to see them. I should send Mr. Jones a thank you note.

17th row baby right behind "my boy" Franceour

That was some nice scenery, let me tell you.