Ahoy maties...Argh

Our kids got to participate in a local parade last weekend. They were on the rec center's float, representing the gymnastics team.

 

 

I really love the beard on that one..it made me laugh everytime I saw her!
The girls have moved into the next level of gymnastics and will be competing this next spring. They've been spending their summer at two different gymnastics camps, and are practicing 6 hrs. a week. Therefore, I am spending lots of time at the rec center as well!

What we do best

Our kids spent some time up in the river looking for cool rocks (and gold and pyrite nuggets).
I usually take them to the wading 'safe' area. Dad took them right out into the river. At least spring runoff is down!

 

Yesterday morning we were awakened by our neighbor's voices. I mentioned to my husband and he said they had company they were probably seeing off. Well... after an hour, I looked out the window, and yes indeed they had company. They were holding a 4 home garage sale with some of their friends.

After our girls went over and went shopping, they decided to capitalize on the event.

Who wouldn't want lemonade from these cuties?? The upside down sign just makes me laugh!! They were pretty pleased with the $11.00 they earned.

 

Our oldest daughter got a headband from the garage sale. Just recently she's started to take a little more self - interest. Yeah...she has started to comb her hair, and is actually showering after only being reminded 2 or 3 times. She's been in that 'stage' for a while, and is suddenly gaining interest in her appearance. I've been praying for this day for a while...I hope it isn't just a short phase! Then again, I'm glad she doesn't realize just how beautiful she is...she's got a couple more years for that to come.

 

July 6, 2010

July 6, 2010
That's a date we'll always remember. Pure torture doesn't even come close to describing what we went through on that day.
Here is my face that day just before leaving the house.

 

After a month of sweating about it and trying to get everything together (did I say EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING?)
we hopped in the car, picked up my husband and headed out of town...to the big city.

There we had a nice lunch at Qdoba - one of my favorite restaurants. The chicken mango salad (that I wait for every year) wasn't even enough to take my mind off of the inevitable torture.

We then headed to the Internal Revenue Service to meet with Mr. W. He referred to himself as Mr. - that was weird.

For the next 4 grueling hours, he pored over our 2007, 2008 and 2009 taxes. He gave us a short break during which my husband and I discussed the dissolution of my business...

Here's the deal. I run a couple of small businesses and I do everything by the book. Claim everything, record everything. I don't make very much and it would be VERY easy to not keep it above board, but I have been very forthright about everything I've made. Unfortunately, because of this, the IRS deemed fit to ruin my life for a month and a half while I scrambled around trying to find copies of all of my deposits, copies of all of my cancelled checks... you name it, they wanted verification of it. What a MAJOR pain. All I can say is don't get audited.

In the end, we got hung up on a $700 deposit that was made into our personal account (one that is seldom used). We honestly had no idea what the money was from (they told me they really mainly wanted to examine all of the business accounts). After 20 minutes of going over income that month and guessing, we finally guessed that it may have been a work re-imbursement for my husband's work. Then we were done. Arg...

The good news is that they didn't make us pay anything else. I did have additional expenses which had been incurred...but didn't want to press our luck.

Anyways - I'm so glad that is over. I hope I never EVER EVER have to go through that again.

Afterwards, we headed out and bought $4 tickets to see our favorite MLB team. While we enjoyed the game, it was a little dull and we opted to head out early. We'd hoped to get some major yelling and screaming (ie venting) done, but there wasn't much to cheer about. As we drove home, we listened to the end of the game and found that in the last inning our team pulled out of the trailing behind they'd done the whole game and came back and won the game. It was a historic game...best comeback ever. Too bad we weren't there cheering. Then again, that wasn't until 11:00 pm, and we were glad to almost be home.

Did I mention that you should never get audited??

Best fish story ever - The Piggy Fish

This year we celebrated the fourth of July for several days. Our cousins came into town and we rented cabins at our favorite state park for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The campfire cooking was fantastic and we only did hot dogs for one meal. We also did the smores and even tried banana boats - which were surprisingly tasty.

We had a great time and enjoyed making fires, sitting around and chatting, and watching the kids dip their sticks into the fire, and then pound them with rocks as they played "Blacksmiths". That was quite the entertainment.

However, the best entertainment came as a surprise. My husband is an avid fisherman. He LOVES to fish any time he can, and is often found in the river with a rod in his hand. Well, Friday morning, everyone went fishing. After quite a while, our oldest daughter ended up catching a rainbow trout. We were pretty excited since we've fished there before and never been successful.

We headed back for lunch, and for some down time, but we quickly got bored and just our family headed back out for more fishing fun. Our youngest daughter got her line out and a few minutes later started screaming... "I think I got one"...on and on. Well, she actually did! We were amazed and thought it was a fluke. It wasn't.
5 minutes later, we went through the exact same routine!
Then I caught one.
Then she caught one.
Then our oldest daughter caught one.
Then the youngest.
See the pattern here?

Then the youngest caught one and then the oldest caught one right immediately after her.
They both began to reel in their lines, and we found that they had actually caught the exact same fish. He was a little piggy that's what he was.

He gulped down one of their lures, and then grabbed the other one and gulped it down as well! We weren't quite sure how to count it. Did they get to both count him? Or only count him as a half? (We are still a little fuzzy on that)

Finally, with six fish, we decided to head back because it started to rain and storm.
Back in our cabin, my husband rigged us all up again, and once the rain ended, we headed back out. Guess what?

We caught eight more! Guess who caught them? Yep - our littlest fisher chic!

Here are our tallies for the weekend:
Friday:
Me - 2
Oldest daughter - 5
Youngest daughter - 7

Saturday:
Me - 0
Oldest daughter - 2
Youngest daughter - 1

I would like to point out that our youngest daughter soon became bored on Saturday after her first catch - 5 minutes into our fishing session. Also, we were using identical hooks, bait, everything. That girl is just magic I guess.

Our oldest daughter has a beautiful cast that even I am envious of. I guess my husband is right..."how can a guy be sad he doesn't have any sons when his daughters love to fish and go to ball games?"

We headed back home to clean up on Saturday afternoon and I made my first Rhubarb pie of the summer. We then headed out to see a fantastic fireworks show which was even better than ever this year!

This evening we spent time with our neighbors at a barbecue and then watched our town fireworks as we celebrated the fourth.

On a side note, our girls both just made the move from level III gymnastics to IV! They will begin competing this next spring, and boy are they thrilled! This means they will increase their gymnastics practices to 6 hours a week. Crazy! If you need to find us, you might just want to check the rec center! (Yes, I love exclamation marks in this paragraph)