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I was recently expounding on the wonders of the early morning ride to my friend Shawn.  After I woke him up I realized words just don't do it justice.  SO....this morning on my ride I took along my trusty ELPH and tried to capture a little bit of what the world is like when seen from two wheels in the wee hours of the morning...

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This could be the replacement screensaver for Windows XP!!

These people have wayyyyy too many cows in their yard

We have a favorite new pizza place - Johhny Brusco's.  The kids favorite part about this place is that they have these candy machines, video games, and this mechanical claw pickup game thing.  Ellie stashes away quarters that she finds under beds, in the street, in the Camry change drawer (this one is going to stop!) so that she can try her luck with the mechanical claw and try to pick up a treasure.  Today she and Ava only had 2 quarters between them - that was good for one play.  They scored big and "clawed" 2 pieces of candy.  Ave got the bite-o-honey (never liked those) and Ellie got a gigantic red "mint".  About 4.5 seconds after putting the gigantic red mint into her mouth she realized it was not a mint....  I took the wrapper from her to see what it was - an Atomic Fireball!  Remember those?  A little too spicey for Ellie :)

This afternoon a bunch of kids from Ellie's kindergarten class all met at one of the Highland Creek pools for a little hang-out time.  The kids had a blast and so did the parents...while the kids were all playing in the pool we had a great chance to hang out too!  See how many Ogden class graduates you can find in this picture...

 

Well, today was the final speedy meet of the 2008 summer swimming season.  Swim team is a big commitment for everyone - coaches for countless hours of preparation and practices, parents for many trips to the pool for practice, and for the kids getting up early for both practice and meets.  HOWEVER all that said, we are really going to miss this past month of swim team centric activities.

It must be something from my childhood, but anytime I have to get up early for an event on a sunny morning I get this sense of adventure...I felt that again today as I woke Ellie and Ava up at 7:30 AM to get dressed and ready to go to the meet.  We of course stuck with our tradition of getting bagels from Paneras first, and then headed to the Christenbury pool.  The atmosphere at meets is really fun - the cooler morning air, the sounds of kids voices, the sounds of splashing in the water, the low morning sun - it is a blast!

Nonna and Poppa spent the night last night since they were dropping Ava off from Cousins Camp and they had to be back here for the early meet anyway.  Hair was colored, beer was consumed, ice cream was eaten, and bridge was played - a lot of fun.  Anywho...  They all got to the meet in plenty of time to see Ellie swim all her races.  She again had a great time competing and we all had a great time being amazed by her aquatic athletic prowess.  I think everyone in our house is already looking forward to next year when we can do this all over again!  Maybe next year there will be two Drescher girls making some waves...

 

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Karin's parents have taken a brave new step into a brave new world...the world of Cousins Camp!  Inspired by the stories from our pastor's experience with his parents running Cousins Camp, they too have decided to give it a go.

What is Cousins Camp?  It is an overnight (one, two, or when the kids get older - 5 nights) visit to the grandparents that is full of planned activities.  It can be fun stuff like going to get ice cream, going to Carowinds, building a craft, learning a skill in the "wood shop", or many others.  The end goal (once all the kids are older) is to run a week long camp for all the cousins.

Lynn and Bruce went all out for this innaguaral installment of the young kids Cousins Camp and they went downtown, rode the trolley, went to the kids theater/library, ice cream, japanese steak house, played in the outdoor water fountains, colored with sidewalk chalk, made a super cool memory book of their first cousin's camp, had awesome meals, and TOTALLY enjoyed dedicated time with their grandparents.

After all that insane work they did what do you think Ava's favorite part was?  When they were driving the kids home Nonna made up a new car game - if you saw a red truck, a person, or a stop sign you had to yell "BINGO!!".  Yup...that was her favorite :)

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Ellie had her very first sleepover today.  One of the really good friends she made in kindergarten (Meghan) came over around 3PM and the fun began....  playing with stuffed animals, eating pushups, jumping on the trampoline, going to the pool, having pizza at the pool, brownies and skittles when we got home, sparklers, jumping on the trampoline at night, watching "so you think you can dance", staying up late and whispering while in bed....a full and busy day.  I asked both of them what their favorite part of the day was - Ellie said it was sparklers and lots of special treats and Meghan said it was going to the pool and sparklers.  A day to remember....

 

Ellie has started training for the Olympics.  Watch out Natalie Coughlin - Ellie has you in her sights!

 

Alright all you land lubbers - every day goes by with you saying "I'm too busy to work out" or "I'm too tired to exercise" etc...etc...etc...  I just want to give my wife some major props for her routine going on 2 weeks now...  After being up with an infant at 6AM to feed him, and then rushing around trying to get Ellie into her swim gear and Ava dressed for the day, and breakfast stuffed into the chitlin's mouths, she makes it out the door by 8AM with all three kids for a run/walk to the swim team pool which is about 1.5 miles from our house.  The first .4 miles is all uphill - and with 45 pounds of kid in a 15 pound double jogger stroller, that is no easy hill.

So in those moments when your internal argument is raging in regards to if you should get out there or not - do the right thing.  Do what Karin does :)

People are always like "What the ** is a virtual employee?" or  "You work at home?!  Do you do anything?" or "If I worked at home I would watch TV all day long...and eat bon-bons"  Well folks, I have some exciting news for you.  Today while I was "working it - virtual style" (worked the entire day out on the deck) a very strange thing happened.  Our canon digital elph point and shoot happened to be sitting on the table next to my working location and I must have bumped it b/c it took a movie of me while I was "working it - virtual style".  I was just so surprised by this that I thought I should throw it out on the the ol' blog site to give you cube rats a view into the life of someone who is....wait for it...wait for it....."working it - virtual style" - yeaaaa.

 

Today (6/21/08) Ellie got to participate in her third "speedy meet" of the season.  I think she is enjoying these competitions more each time she does them.  I love seeing her up on the starting blocks, staring straight ahead, focused on her next race...in these moments her inner Olympian comes out!!

I can't tell you how awesome it is to live in a place where she can swim on a neighborhood swim team, ride her bike to daily swim practices, and hang out with a bunch of kids from her elementary school on Saturday mornings at swim meets!?!?  So cool!  Highland Creek rocks!!!

ps - special thanks to Kimberly Buck who let me borrow her SWEET 300mm IS zoom lens for today's pictures :)

 

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