A good day for a swim

Last swim meet of the season last night. I've never seen the pool look so beautiful. The perfect weather didn't hurt.

Mia had not 1 but 3 events last night! The last of which was 25 Back! In layman's terms, 25 meter backstroke. To the mom's reading, have you ever underestimated your child? We all did last night. No way can Mia make it. In fact, the girl in the heat ahead of her gave up 3/4 of the way across and freestyled it to the wall. Mia will not make it. I've never been so proud to be wrong. Not only did she make it, she rocked it and used the rope only once to guide her! It was awesome and as soon as she got out she said "I'm ready to go back in!" I'm sad it's over but we can't wait for next year!

Literary craziness

My friend Jill sells used books. She gets some jewels and she gets some duds, and then she gets some that are so insane she is at a loss for words. Her girlfriend told her to create a blog about them and thank God she has and I now have a whole other way to waste time at work. Keep 'em coming Jilly Bean!

They Actually Print This Stuff

Family note: check out the author, I hope he or she is not a relation of ours.

Tips for happy camping

Tip #1: Make sure you pack as much crap as you can fit in your car. Don't be afraid of trapping your child in. Give them a pillow to block the tower of crap and they'll be just fine. Trust me.
Tip #2: Bring glow sticks for the kids but bring more than you think you need. They will go through an entire box in one night if you let them.

Tip #3: When going fishing, be sure to be at a lake with actual fish in it. Five year olds tend to get a little pissy when standing around for long periods of time without a tangible reward.

Tip #4: Swimming is good when the tent turns into an easy bake oven.

Tip #5: Listen to your wife when she tells you that the tarp goes under the tent.

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.