I looked out the window and what did I see?....

...It wasn't popcorn popping on the apricot tree like in the sweet Primary song. It was Sadie playing in her little pool that was almost empty and had the hose laying in it from when we filled it for her yesterday....You see we fill it up and she spends her time splashing it all back out (then rolling in the dirt when she is all wet...).  We turn on the hose with our foot because the hose bib is behind a bush.  It has this adorable metal bunny on it rather than the regular circle knob and it pretty easy to turn on just by tapping it down with your toe and then turning it off by putting your toe under it and lifting.  Apparently Sadie has seen us do it and turned it on herself.   I looked out the window (after letting her out 20 minutes before) and saw that the pool was over flowing and she was dancing around it happily....We have created a monster.  So, the question is how so we stop her from turning it on when ever she feels like it?  Any suggestions?

Simple Pleasures: The Wind on Their Faces...

Today we had to head out early to drop Sadie off at the vet to get spade. We won't see her until tomorrow and we are really going to miss her.  Jake is having a friend over to keep his mind off Sadie' surgery-he is a little worried. On the way we rolled down the windows to let her enjoy the breeze and Jake decided to join in.  At first they started out enjoying the wind at 2 different windows.

And then Sadie couldn't resist and decided to join Jake at his window.

There is Sadie's nose...

...And here they are enjoying the wind on their faces together!

That is my simple pleasure for the day: watching two buddies enjoy the wind on their faces together. What is your simple pleasure? (These pictures didn't turn out that bad considering I was just sticking the camera out the window or by my seat and didn't even look because I was...well...driving.)

Memorial Day, My B-day, Jake's a Bear, and Our Pool

We all had Memorial Day off this year which was so awesome! I have to admit I was reminiscing about our Memorial Day tradition in Asheville and really missing it this year...We used to go to Pisgah National Forest with a bunch of our good friends and play in the river and cook out.  We decided to do the cooking out part this year and Aaron cooked some ribs.  I am not a huge fan of ribs but my guys are so I was happy to eat a couple for my b-day celebration dinner.  My b-day wasn't until the next day, but Aaron had class and work that day which meant he wouldn't be home at all, so we celebrated a day early.  I got a ton of texts, phone calls, and Facebook happy b-days on Tuesday so I felt loved. Thanks everyone!  (I got so many emails saying I had messages on Facebook I decided I better go on...I am NEVER on Facebook.  I even got a couple of "Not sure why I am saying happy b-day here because you will never see it!"  messages on it.  I typed a little message saying thank you and I will most likely not be on until my next b-day if people are nice enough to do it again.  Why Facebook when you can blog?)

Aaron got cheesecake instead of cake because I LOVE IT!  It has become a fun tradition to look forward to.

Wednesday at Pack Meeting Jake got his Bear badge. Way to go dude!

All Jake's glasses are in serious need of some bending back in place.  We are going this week to have it done no matter what!  I can't take it any more...Take a look at the next pic and you will see what I mean....

They also worked together to see if they could catch water balloons in towels. :)

And last but not least for our week:  We bought a POOL!!!...For $10 at Walmart.  :)  It was in the 90's with HIGH humidity all week and we thought this would be a fun way to cool off for Sadie...and us too.

Sadie jumped around and splashed the water like crazy-she had a ball...Jake in the tiny pool with a dog who is going crazy...Not so much!  She acted like she was digging in the dirt or something which was pretty funny.  I kind of love Jake's face in this one. :)

Holding his breath since she was splashing water EVERYWHERE!

Jake was not loving it so much...This is his "Eye-yie-yie!" (how do you spell that?  I know it is Italian and we say it a lot...but never really thought about spelling it....You know what I mean right?), moment.  At least one of them was enjoying themselves.  Now when Sadie has been outside we have to check and see if we need to grab a towel before we can let her in. :)

That was pretty much our week...besides spending Thursday night going a project for AIG math that was so fun! Jake loves to research and do projects (he learned that love from me. I am so proud to have taught him so well!), and I think we will be using that love a lot in homeschooling. He doesn't even know he is homeschooling yet but he already want to do projects this summer on Black Beard the Pirate and Beethoven.  We are going to have so much fun homeschooling. :)

Picture a day in May, Day 27: Sadie waiting for Jake...

On Friday afternoon we were going to head up to Virginia for our niece, Kayla's, high school graduation. For some reason I didn't feel good about leaving then, so we changed our plan and decided to head out first thing Saturday morning. Which worked out great-we got to see Aaron again before leaving (he had to work Friday night and 2nd shift on Sat. so he couldn't go), we cleaned the house so it is all ready for us all to have tomorrow off (YIPPEEE!), and got to bed early. In between thunderstorms we played in the back yard for a little while too. My favorite picture we took was of Sadie:

If you look closely you can see Jake outside the fence-that is why Sadie was waiting so patiently at the gate. The pot is there to hold up the plywood-she can still stick her head through it.  At one point I accidentally kicked the ball over the fence and when Jake went out to get it Sadie slipped out too...Long story short at one point she was running straight for the busy main road to blocks a way and I thought my child was going to be scarred for life watching his dog get hit by a car.  We were both screaming at her at the top of our lungs...She is definitely a leash dog so far.  When we finally got her back to the gate I opened it and let go of her collar for her to go in and she started to dart off again.  I was very proud of myself because I said her name in a way that she KNEW she better not even think about it and she went quickly into the yard.  I had a Cesar Milan  (The Dog Whisperer) moment.  I thought I was a dog whisperer...I think Emily was just so good that she would have made anyone feel like a dog whisperer.  Sadie-not so much. :)  When school gets out there will be some serious training going on.

This is just a picture of  the view looking up through the...what is it called-it is where the "porch" swing is hanging.  The sun through the leaves was so lovely! 

I was sitting on the swing trying to get a picture of Jake kicking the soccer ball, but we never got the ball in the picture...


We played a little Ben 10...

Took a couple of pictures of us...

Sadie had to get in on the action too, much to Jake's surprise.

I am glad we waited and headed out Saturday morning...even if it did mean getting up at 4:30 am.  I thought Jake was going to be bummed when I picked him up from school and told him.  He was for a second and then he said: "It is probably the Spirit telling you we shouldn't go today so we better listen."  It is moments like those that make my heart happy.  It balances out the other moments I want to ring his neck. :)  (you know I am kidding right?...)

Picture a day in May, Day 22: As Good a Place as Any For a Nap...

...if you are a dog that doesn't want to miss anything of importance. (Meaning: any plates or dishes I will let her lick off before putting in the dish washer.)

Picture a day in May, Day 18: Wordless Wednesday-My Shadow

This is my new shadow and I love it... :)

Picture a day in May, Day 16: Miss Sadie May

Sadie is 5 months old.  Sorry about the creepy eyes, but isn't she adorable?

Picture a day in May, Day 13: What we did today...(after we did the stuff we had to do..)

After work and school we headed to the Monroe Mall with my friend from work, Sharlene and her daughter Autumn to check out the animals that we kept hearing so much about.  Customers kept coming into Bi-Lo (local grocery store) and telling us all about the amazing array of animals in a tent in the parking lot.  So we decided that we would take the kiddos and check it out.  Despite the 86 degree weather (yes already...one of the downfalls of living in the South) we had a really fun time.  See for yourself by the next 1,000 pictures I took:

Jake and Autumn riding on a camel. 

Posing with a lion cub. 

The handler smelled a wee bit like alcohol...I'm just sayin'...But seriously look at that sweet baby!!!

Posed with a snake.  I hate snakes...a lot.  For some reason I can survive with out fleeing if they are in a large box and if I can't see it's head.  Did I mention that I hate snakes?...And someone actually choose to pose with this snake rather than the lion cub.  I freaked at that and had to flee...

A sweet Lama.

Feeding the goats and cows.

A kangaroo.  I felt so bad for the animals...What a crappy life...They were adorable though.

The black leopard we were trying to wake up to get a good picture of. We were calling it like a kitty cat...It didn't really work.  You can't see from the picture but it had beautiful leopard spots in different shades of black.

The white tiger was snoozing too.

They both woke up when the lady that smelled like alcohol came over to check them out and make sure they were okay.

And they got to pose with the lion cub again because they couldn't find the first one they took to print for us.

After seeing all the animals we went to CiCi's pizza for dinner. Sharlene and I talked while the kiddos played a few video games.  It was so much fun to get out and do something for the second weekend in a row! (I still haven't posted what we did last Saturday...I will get to it..)  Aaron was at home trying to get some much needed rest.  Last night was his first night off from 3rd shift after a week off (I haven't posted about that either...I will...), so it is going to take some time to get back into the swing of it!

When we got home we showed them how much Sadie has grown and then after they left, some how this happened:

Sadie's first experience with a sprinkler. :)

Needless to say, she loved it.

And so did Jake. 

It was a good day.  I almost forgot!!!!  I also told my boss I had to have the summer off  (...I didn't have the heart to tell him that even in the fall I won't be coming back to work and working 5 days a week like I have been...) and he said he would keep me on the payroll as long as he needed to without working me because he didn't want to lose me.  Cool!  I am going to be down June 8th (Jake's last day of school) and go in once a month to help with tags (pulling tags when sales end and putting up new ones)!  YIPPPEEEE!  The countdown for summer is really on now!  This time we actually know the official last day of school so we really can count down!