Lake camping

We thought it would be great to have a family camping trip! We have always gone with at least one other family but, wanted to just have some quality time with our kids. That part was great! The bad part was where we camped the average temperature is between 110 & 120! ugh! Yes, you are reading that correctly! My darling husband suggested this camping site and I think he is getting tired of me telling him, "He will NEVER pick the camping spot again!" I had no idea it would be that CRAZY HOT! We have also never camped in a camp ground close to a LAKE. You get a completely different crowd of people. People who have no respect that you are there with your children and you might not want to hear every bad word in the book until 3am. All in all, when we were out on the boat and in the water it was very relaxing and great. We pretended to have a camp fire one night-(it was just way to hot to actually light one!) and the kids, the girls espically wanted to hear every baby story about themselves that we could remember. That put the ole brain to work. I had to think, and then I had to make sure I remembered which baby did what. It was a lot of fun to be with them.

Finding some shade in the hot 112 degree sun!
Gotta tube! This tube is actually called THE DRAGON and you lay flat on it. I figured it is good for everyone except us women. The BOOBS just don't handle it well getting bumped all over the place.

Tyler, I have told you that crack kills! He will not be happy with me if he sees this. I just love it though. It is how his swimsuit hangs 99% of the time!
I think the best part of camping is the breakfast in the morning and the SMORES at night! We never lit one camp fire though. With the temp being between 110~115, the last thing we needed was more heat or to start a fire of the camp ground.

We tried to catch some fish. They were jumping all around us. I think they were teasing us!
More water,,,,,,way to hot! Crazy HOT!
Lindsey loves to find little treasures for us to bring home. We have brought home many rocks, shells, leaves, bugs,clams etc......I have finally started saying NO! I feel mean but, there is only so much you can have in a 10 x 10 bedroom. So, we started taking pictures instead. Look how RED her skin is from the heat!

We didn't tell the kids that their cousins were coming to surprise them for the day and go boating with us! We haven't seen them in almost 7 months. They only live about 20 mins from where we camped. They pulled up Thursday morning and Tyler was all smiles, Natalie's chin dropped and Lindsey kept saying, "No way, No way!' These guys really love each other.
We are missing one cousin from this picture.....

Davin had summer school. We missed you!!

Tyler having a good time with his cousins.

Tyler's 12th birthday festivites

Happy Birthday Tyler!

12 years ago on this day, the most amazing, wonderful, dream come true, life changing thing happened to me! I became a MOM! Can you believe that my beautiful boy is 12 years old! Doesn't seem possible. Seems like I wanted to be a mom forever and now I have been one for 12 years! I love you my sweet Tyler......more than you could ever know. I love being your Mom... through the good times (& bad!) Thank you for being my loving, caring, sweetheart baby boy.....I am so thankful you were brought into my life.......

A day at the County Fair!

I caught Lindsey sucking on this while watching T.V. Silly Lindsey!!
Raider helping BBQ...

4th of July 2007!

I got a new camera and it-(& I) had a hard time taking pictures in the dark....I thought this one turned out kind-of neat though... although it kind of looks like the fireworks are really fire in the sky!~colored flames of fire!
We went to the Country club like always for the great 4th of July party!! It was really hot! Last year,, I think we bundled up in sleeping bags, this year it was so hot you could barely stand being up at the tables for dinner. Tyler was really done with me taking pictures at this point. It was just too miserable to sit there and pose!

Uncle Chrissy(Chris) & Auntie Leelee (Lisa)
Lindsey's first ballon POODLE didn't last long from the moment it touched the grass so, Natalie went over to try and get her another one.....(it was a good sister moment!).................so, once they came back with the 2nd dog we thought we would get a photo of the animals just in case they didn't last long again!

Daryle & CAJ havin a good time!

Coolin off on the 4th!

3 way slip & slide! Who knew?!?!?!?

After hours of soaking the lawn with the slip & slide we thought it would be a good idea to switch to the "volcano dude" sprinkler head. My kids seem to have had more fun washing their "tushies" with it instead though....

A's game

A fun filled pre-4th of July~A's game! The A's beat the Blue Jay's 3-1 and then they had a great fireworks show afterwards~just gettin us ready for the next night!
I love it when they love each other and act all cute & goofy.....
I wasn't sure if Tyler would like this hat I got for him. He loved it and wore it the whole game!

Special Treat!

Yes, their feet are ALMOST the same size!

For the last 3 years at the beginning of summer, us girls have gone and gotten a pedicure & Natalie and Lindsey get a manicure too.......(they always want me to get a manicure too but, I am way to rough on my hands~it'd be a waste!) I enjoy this special time with them and I think the ladies giving us a pedicure enjoy them too because they are so fun and are loving every minute of it. We all got red & blue for the 4th-Lindsey & I on our feet and Natalie got it that way on her hands, Lindsey did one hand pink and one hand purple with flowers painted on every nail and Natalie did pink & purple toes (every other toe!) with "Diamonds"-(as she calls them....little rhinestones!)

Last day of school!

Well, we finally made it to our last day of school on Friday! We finished out our last year of year-round school and we will be going onto a regular school schedule next year ~which is a huge bummer but, it was good while it lasted. They just bulit a gigantic new school over here that will hold almost 1000 kids! So, our school got split in half. No one had a choice of where they wanted to go or stay. It all depended on where you live. And for us, TONS of friends & teachers are going on to the new school. Our school will be down to 400 kids and we had over 900 being a mulit-track year round school. It will be different next year. I am trying to keep an open mind and be positive & strong for our kids. That's what I am supposed to do~right?!?!?!?
Don't wanna say good-bye!!!! Natalie and her best little bud Sarah will be going to different schools next year! Our houses our about 5 miles apart from each other so, now that puts them in 2 different schools.

Teachers

We had some great teachers this year! It was hard to say good-bye to them, espically Lindsey's teacher. This was our 3rd time having her and she is going on to the new school next year. :o(
Natalie's teacher is the daughter-in-law of the teacher Natalie had last year. She was so sweet to me the last day of school. Normally, you give the teachers a gift at the end of the school year, they don't give you one but, she was so happy to have parent helpers she gave me a gift card and cried as she handed it to me, so of course I could not let her cry alone. I am such a big sap! She is going to the new school too! I really enjoyed Tyler's teacher this year.....more than I thought I might. It was only her 2nd year teaching and it was the first time I knew nothing about the teacher before going into the new class year. She is a great teacher and I wish my girls were going to get the chance to have her too. She is also moving on to the new school. It was such an emotional last day of school-(for me!) saying good-bye to great teachers and friends. Things will be very different next year. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised though.

Last day of school fun times! Lindsey's kindergarten class & the other classes had a big play day on the little playground with all kinds of fun things for 6 year olds to do! Lindsey loved it all!

The 3rd grade classes had their field day party out on the big playground. This day almost ended in a cast for our dear Natie.....during the sack races she fell-(as I was capturing it on camera!) She was standing back in line with HUGE tears and holding her wrist! YIKES! We iced it for awhile and after many comments of,"you should go get that checked out!" We made a trip to the Doctor and then to get it x-rayed. Our Doctor said he was 50% sure it was broken which in my mind was, "Well thats only half a chance".........and to make a long afternoon short......the guy that did the x-ray told us to go home, everything was fine! Whhheeeewwww! That would made for a long summer having one child in a cast!

Lindsey got a perfect attendance award. She never missed one day of kindergarten. That is a down right miracle. I don't be expecting to be getting another one of these again but, you never know! I just thanked my lucky stars we somehow escaped all the stomach flu that had been going around her classroom!
Tyler got most ARTISTIC in his classroom vote. His classmates thought he was a very creative boy with lots of ideas. It was neat reading what everyone had to say about him.

Girl Scout Picnic

I love this of Natalie getting ready to jump!

Lindsey was very brave jumping in the deep end and off the diving board with her tube! She kept going again & again & again & again!

Great day last Sunday for a pool party and to celebrate the end of the girl scout year! Thank goodness! I am ready for a 3 month break! We had a nice BBQ and all the kids had a great time swimming, playing, diving until their little hands and feet started to shrivel up!

Father's Day 2007

We love OUR Daddy Daryle!!!! He works so hard to take care of us!
Daryle's first FISH in 10 years-(it might be even longer than that!)Then he lets it go.....and they say us women don't make any sense.... We took the boat out for Father's day weekend. Had a great day of swimming and fishing..... Not too many fish bites (but the one we let go),,,,,,(still don't get that one....), we stopped to swim lots of times. It was a great day!

May & June updates!

Well, you end up having lots of pictures when you can't get on your computer for almost a month! So, here's just a quick wrap up of our month! Almost everything is coming to an end, yea!! Baseball ended-thank goodness, girl scouts is basically over-right on!! 14 days left of school-I can handle that! Boy Scouts is year-round but, hey thats once a week! I am looking forward to some down time and more time doing fun things with the kids & hubby.

Just a quick note!

Hello Blogger world! Us McLaughlin people are still here....we got a lovely VIRUS on our computer.We got it off but, everytime we got on-line, we would get ANOTHER one! So, after checking into it and wondering if it would be worth it to get it fixed or just get a new computer?!?!? Daryle has been wanting a new computer so, we went for it and yippeee! Here I am again. Although, now I have to figure out how to save all my pictures on here again. Thankfully, I already had 99% of my pictures on CD's that I also had on my computer. When we first got the VIRUS I had just saved all my pictures from, Easter, Mother's day, Daryles' birthday on the computer-I had not saved them to disc yet. Let me tell you the stress, time, & TEARS I went through to try to get those pictures off my computer. 305 pictures! I don't think I have cried that much in a long time. Luckily my husband understands my picture obsession and was very patient with me. Love that guy! It took hours but, we got them all but, 16 picures off the computer. I will always save my pictures to disc now along with saving them on my computer because you just never know!

Kids are doing well,,,,,,couple weeks left of school....we are finishing up our last year of year-round school. It is such a bummer that they are going back to traditional but, I guess we just gotta deal with it. Basball will be over this weekend! THANK YOU! We are ready.....we have been dealing with baseball since January! Tyler's team lost its play-off spot last week so, now the girls are just finishing up!

RAIDER is doing well...he is going in for his doggie VASECTOMY-(don't know if I spelled that right!)next Tuesday! He weighed 36lbs at his last check-up. He is getting so BIG! He is a lot of fun when he is not biting someone or chewing up a beloved toy!

We have been working on our hall way-(well Daryle has been but, I have been very supportive!) We painted-(yes I did help paint) and put up all new doors. He even made me a closet door for the Linens. It was 2 cupboards before and just looked OLD. So, now it looks so much better....I will have to take some pictures-although now that I think about it, I didn't take any befores. oh well.......

Ooh, and the biggest NEWS of all.....After 12 years I am employed again! Yep! I got a JOB! I am a YARD duty at the kids school. I get paid $12 a shift-(I know BIG BUCKS-no whammies! hehe-just kidding) So, I guess you could say I am not there for the money! My main reason for doing it is to have an "in" in the school. I think I already am well known around there but, now if I request a teacher, I should get the teacher I want. Plus, it is a great way to get to know the kids-all the little darlings, see which ones are the kids you want your kids to hang around with and which ones to keep away from. And let me tell you, there are a lot of hellions! There are some punks! Boys & Girls.....

Well, my quick re-cap turned into a novel......I will hopefully POST some new pics SOON!