Our new friend

This beautiful hawk landed on our fence and I was able to get a picture of him through the blinds and the screen porch. He was looking for his lunch and with all the lizards, frogs, turtles and fish I am sure he got a nice lunch. I just thought he was magnificent.

Mean Merlin

The video says it all. Weezer sent our dogs a present in the mail. It's a bucket and you freeze treats or peanut butter or toys, whatever the dogs like, into water and then set it up outside. Well poor Bailey couldn't even look at the treat because Merlin kept boxing her out and literally ate all the peanut butter out of the ice block. He was kind enough to leave her the apple slices though. For those of you who know Merlin you know how he gets his tongue stuck to the carpet or his leg. Well I was concerned with the extended licking of the iceblock that he might give himself some frostbite and be stuck with a tongue lolling onto the ground. Fortunately that wasn't the case (he might have tripped over it!). His tongue is probably raw though from licking so much ice :)

Another weekly update

Well another bit of time has flown by so thought I would give a synopsis of our week. It started on last Saturday morning when Tristan, who plays pitcher in baseball, took a line drive to the left eye. I knew right away and ran to get ice. He came out of the game put an ice pack on for maybe 5 minutes and he went back in to hit. Although he was sore we managed to keep the swelling and black and blue away. That night, Jaesen was working in the garage around 10:30 or so and heard someone in the laundry room, he called out to see who it was. Jack opens the door and starts peeing into the garage, slams the door and finishes peeing into the laundry room and dog water dishes. I woke up to a refreshing smell in the house which I later found out was an abundance of cleaner. Poor Jack, I don't think he had any idea where he was. I asked him the next day why he peed in the laundry room and he looked at me shocked and said "I didn't do that mommy." I said "yes you did honey don't you remember Daddy making you help clean up." He stopped and thought for a minute. Oh yeah, he says, I did that. "Why?" I ask. "Well I really had to pee." So the next day we went up to Georgia to Wild Adventures, they have a water park, animals, roller coasters. It was a lot of fun. Everyone rode coasters and had a blast. That afternoon we went to the water park and my Dad, Jaesen and the two boys went to the wave pool. Karen and I were sitting in the shade while Savannah napped and I commented on how someone was getting rescued because I saw the lifeguard jump in. So we watched and then saw poor Tristan being rescued. It turned out he was bobbing (safely) in the waves having a great time when the lifeguard made him hold onto the red floaty. He couldn't understand why but did as he was told and was towed in. The wave pool had been shut down and everyone was watching. When he got in he contained himself until he got to me and then started to bawl. He was absolutely mortified. The head lifeguard agreed with Jaesen that the other guard was a bit overzealous but I guess our kids will never drown while they are there!! Yesterday I had a 12 hour shift in Labor and Delivery and saw two babies being born which was so cool. When I got home the boys were getting out of the shower when Jack came out stark naked, bleeding on his finger and his face all covered in hair. Jaesen just looked at him and asked if he had been shaving. "No sir Daddy." Well we could tell he had tried as his right side burn has an interesting pattern cut into it. Jaesen sat him down and told him he is just too young to actually try shaving yet. Next thing I know he'll be missing eyebrows or leg hair or something. This weekend we are going to take it easy and chill, especially with gas as high as it is. Happy Memorial Day!

Tree Frogs

I had to take a picture of all the tree frogs that like to live in our umbrella. This day there were 13 of them here and 5 in the BBQ. We have to constantly check the grill so we aren't making tiny frog legs when we grill. They make a heck of a racket at night, although I guess we are used to them by now.

The New Car

Well with gas prices continuing to rise Jaesen traded in the truck for a Subaru Forester, that will still tow his boat and has room for all of us. The kids loved it, especially the gigantic sunroof. Jaesen wants me to add that no he is not a tree hugger (yet!) but he is being rational in the face of insane gas costs. At any rate when he came home last night with the new car the kids went ballistic, they love it. We all went for a ride and had fun looking at planes, birds, clouds and the sunset out the sunroof.

The Girl Who is Afraid of Everything

I am not sure if Savannah uses the tactic of ear piercing screams to try and disable the dog or scare it away, but I must say that her high pitched squeal and fear of coneheads is driving us all crazy. Poor Bailey can't even maneuver through the house without crashing into something and here is this child screeching at her constantly. And not only is Savannah afraid of coneheads, but also tree frogs (which we have loads of on account of the pond behind the house), lovebugs (which happen to be mating right now), and her shadow (loads of fun in sunny Florida). We definitely have our work cut out for us.

It's been a busy 10 days

Wow, I can't really believe that it's May already. Last week I had my finals and I missed my straight A's for the semester by 1.11%. I was pretty bummed. It's amazing that I am so excited about my grades nowadays because it sure was never a priority before. It's a good excuse to ride Tristan about his grades though, although he seems to do just fine without my bugging him. Anyway so usually we have a week off until we start our next semester so it's relaxation time. I tried to pack as much as possible into one week. I had my final and then went on Tristan's field trip to the zoo. I was so exhausted by the end of the day. I had forgotten what hanging out with 15-20 7 year olds can do to you. Wednesday I claimed for my own and scrapbooked all day long which was long overdue. Thursday was Tristan's reading celebration at school. All the kids have a goal to get to for the year depending on their grade level. If they make it they get shirts and a BBQ outside and inflatables to play on and the high school cheerleaders, drill team, chorus and drumline all come. The mascot and owner of the minor league baseball team came out as well, and it was just a great time. The top readers in each grade get to a throw a pie at the principal so the kids have a ball. Then Tristan, Jack and Savannah all had doctor appts to go to Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, it was crazy. Savannah's ear had still not gotten better so we are on a new antibiotic, Claritin and I have to clean her ear and add antibiotic ear drops. They cultured it as well so hopefully we will see what's growing in there. Jaesen and I went on a date on Friday night and then it was the weekend. We never bother to slow down for that though. We had baseball on Saturday afternoon and Jack was allowed to play. There were several other teams that had 4 year olds on them and we were told well if they are a coaches kid they can play. So Jack played. He scored a run and hit a pitch that was thrown instead of just off the tee. Of course he also picked the grass in the outfield and played in the dirt, but it was great to see him finally able to play and his favorite part was drinking gatorade in the dugout. Then we were off to see our friends from Japan, the Smith's, that are here for another two months before heading up to Maine for awhile. We had a great time and the kids were all really good, except for Tristan letting their dog out the gate so he could swim in the pond! Sorry Greg! And now Bailey is having ear surgery because she whacked her ear on the table and it all swelled up. Poor girl, Merlin is lost without his mom. He is somewhere here moping about. That about sums up my week off though, makes me tired to just think about it. This week I start my OB rotation which I am really excited about!!!!