Swimming lessonsAn afternoon at the park

We discovered upon arriving at Elisabeth's swimming lessons that they were canceled.

"You know, for the Fourth of July week," the guy behind the counter said.

Never mind the fact that the instructors failed to tell any of us that classes were canceled this week, I didn't know the Fourth of July was a week long celebration?! And how come my company didn't get the memo? Somebody ought to look into that.

So instead of wallow in the fact that we were missing lessons for the best sport ever invented, we decided to meet up with Mark and go to Red Park. It's nicknamed Red Park,well, because it's red. Shocking, I'm sure.


And we had such a great time! (Of which you could see proof, if those crazy bangs {that we're trying to grow out} weren't in the way. Again.)


Elisabeth looks rather pensive in this photo below, doesn't she? In fact, I would probably love this picture, if I didn't know the truth.

It's actually the teenager in her coming out, and her hiding from me. Lately I get a lot of this. Sigh.

When she didn't realize I was snapping photos, she had a ton of fun in these grasses (which by the way I had never noticed before). It's a cool grass maze for the kids to run through!


Elisabeth found a friend in the grasses, and they imagineered an entire house out of the maze. It was quite an impressive pad. Perhaps they have a future at this?


Sydney was not so much a fan of the grasses.


But she love love loved the slide.


Can you see the look of determination in her face here?

That determination took her all the way to the top of the playground, where she boldly plopped herself down and proceeded to go down the mighty scary twisty big kid slide. I'm telling you, this kid is fearless.


And super cute, if I do say so myself!


And the swings were okay. But, like, soooo last year, if you ask Sydney.



I couldn't resist the sweetness of this picture.


{Yes Forrest, life is indeed like a box of chocolates, and I LOVE what we got!}

Especially in black and white. 100% timeless. And pure love.

Anyway, as annoyed as I was at the swimming lessons kid, I sure am glad lessons were canceled this week!

So long, soccer!

The spring season of soccer is officially over.

Actually, it's been over for a while. I'm just a total slacker. But at least I'm an honest slacker!

Does this mean I have to relinquish my "Soccer Mom" title? (Because the season is over, not because of the whole slacker thing. Sillies!)


Do you see Elisabeth in the picture above? No? That's because my budding photographer (Elisabeth) took the photo while on a break after getting clocked in the head by another ball. Not a bad photo, considering the lens on the camera weighed a ton!

She also took this one, which I LOVE:


M. is our pastor's daughter, and she and Elisabeth get along splendidly.


But back to soccer. I thought I'd share some soccer graduation pics with you. Do you know what soccer practice/graduation looks like on a very stormy day?

No? Let me show you.

It involves the inside of a really great church, some balloons, and a whole lot of fun.


And the balloons were actually a great tool to help the kids learn to bounce the "ball" on their knees and head (and on their feet, chairs, hands, basically anywhere they could throw the balloons).


Happy Soccer Graduation, Elisabeth! We're very proud of you. Now if only we could get you to pull the bangs out of your face.


Up next? Swimming - my favorite!!!

In the words of Joey Lawrence...

I have lots of soccer pictures to share with you, but first I wanted to show you this one.

Do you remember when I had an epiphany about us living in one giant bubble? Where instead of putting our loved ones inside a protective bubble so they don't get injured, we're all in one giant bubble already? And God is technically that bubble, protecting us and comforting us in our time of need?

Well take a look at Elisabeth's group soccer picture above. Take a closer look. Do you see the blue arc underneath them and the rays of sun around them?

Woah.

I know -- technically this happened because the sun was entering my camera at a pretty bad angle. That and my lens was probably greasy from my budding photographer's fingerprints.

But really? Double woah.

I took this picture only a few days after that epiphany, which is why it struck me with awe. God does work in mysterious ways, even if it is by creating a technicality in a photo.

It's happened to us before. Want to see?

Last summer we were singing and dancing around the room while listening to this VBS song about God being with you wherever you go:



(which by the way, we still sing and listen to - it's catchy!)

And whadyaknow, we look up, and we see this:


I KNOW! I agree - WOAH! Joey Lawrence would probably agree too.

We had never seen the sun shine onto the window like this before, and it pretty much stopped us in our tracks. It reminded us that God is in fact with us wherever we go, whether we see him or not. I find a lot of comfort in that. How about you?

Intelligence runs in the family

We have very intelligent children.

They can remember people's names that they've only met once. I can't even remember people's names that I met 5 minutes ago.

They remember everything, even the things we wish they'd forget.

They can recognize people from miles away.

This last point was proven to us the other day when we went to Milwaukee to hang out with a couple of great friends and to see the Brewers crush the White Sox. (That's what we went to see. Except the opposite happened. Bummer!)

At our friends' house, Sydney kept pointing and saying "guh-guh" and we couldn't figure out what in tarnation she was talking about, until I realized she was pointing to Joel.

And then I connected the guh-guh dots and realized that yes, Joel does indeed look like someone called guh-guh - my Dad!


Like I said, our children are smart. I like to think I'm (fairly) smart. My dad is smart. And Joel is smart. Coincidence? Hmmm, maybe I have a long-lost brother!

You oughta be in pictures

But you might want to avoid going down the big kid slide feet first on your belly right before your pictures, or you'll end up with a black eye (or black bridge of nose. you pick.) and something that looks like this picture:


Lovely, isn't it?

Dreams

Freud would have a field day with this one.

********

Mark had a dream last night that I was walking right down the middle of two side-by-side piers that were on a river.

One was wood, the other concrete.

One was also shorter than the other.

I was kind of straddling them both.

When I got to the point where one of the two ended, I fell in and went under.

He freaked, and stood there debating what to do.

Because I could either be at the bottom of the river, or the river could have pulled me downstream.

He debated and debated:

Does he go in to save me, thus risking his own life and leaving our children with NO parents?

Or does he let me go, knowing that at least our children would still have one parent?

He chose to let me go, for the sake of our children.

********

Oh.My.Gosh. I am SO glad I wasn't present for that dream. Well, you know what I mean.

We talked about his dream this morning as we got ready to start the day. It's quite obvious to us both that the dream was about Charlie.

I'm actually glad that he had this dream.

Tuesday happened so fast, and because I was the only one at the vet's office that morning, Mark and I had to quickly make the decision over the phone. It was hard! I was left with a fear that I had coaxed Mark into doing something that he didn't want to do.

Well, I didn't want to either, but again - you know what I mean.

It was good to talk and conclude that we are both on the same sending-Charlie-to-heaven page.

Feel free to call us Mr. and Mrs. Freud.

Prince Charles L. TaylorMay 1, 2001 - June 16, 2009

Our sweet little Charlie cat went to heaven on Tuesday evening and is now hangin' with some great folks, including Elisabeth's Gweat-Gwammas and Gwampas. (And according to Elisabeth, we're not quite sure if Great-Papa Marvin is there too. Maybe, maybe not. Even though I reassured her that he is still alive and well in Florida, she said "yeah, but how do we KNOW that?" I explained that her Grandpa Jim talks to him on the phone, and she thought that was so amazing - she didn't know that Papa Marvin could DO that!).



We spent the afternoon preparing for our bringing Charlie to the vet to help him get to heaven faster. Which of course started with us explaining to Elisabeth that Charlie was very sick. He developed a very stubborn bladder infection, and was on antibiotics for a total of 5 weeks. By the end we knew it was much more than a simple bladder infection because our super-friendly-always-in-your-face Charlie started hiding and rarely came out. He didn't eat and didn't drink. So I brought him back to the vet for the 3rd time on Tuesday morning, and the vet said that his bladder is blocked and his condition was now very serious. We could keep him there for 4 days and they could remove the block and wait for him to get better, but because of the way he responded to the medication, he would most likely have the same horrible experiences in the future. Or, we could take the other horrible route, and accept that he had a happy life up until now and put him out of his misery.

Seriously? How do you make that kind of decision? I can't even type out the actual words for what we did. So, I will say that we chose to help him get to heaven a little quicker and to help him be happy and pain-free.

That is how we explained it to Elisabeth. She was of course upset. She knew what we were going to say before we even got to the part about heaven. I could see it in her eyes. That girl is smart. For a 5 (and a half) year old, she gets it. She gets life. I even think she might get death. And she chose to be there with us when we helped Charlie get to heaven.


We spent as much time with Charlie as we could yesterday. We pet him and hugged him and kissed him. Elisabeth grabbed the prayer shawl that Mark was given after his heart attack and placed it around Charlie.


And of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without at least one of our children messing with poor Charlie just a little bit...


He's always been such a good sport. God bless the poor cat.

Sydney is too young to understand fully what has happened, but she has shown us that she understands we are upset. In fact, when we first started talking and crying yesterday and each grabbed a tissue to wipe our tears, Sydney stopped dead in her tracks, her expression changed from happy to very serious, she grabbed a tissue as well, and did this:


We talked at great length about how Jesus would be in the room with us, holding our hands, and when it was time, Charlie's body would still be on the table but Jesus would take Charlie's soul (and Elisabeth added heart - because God is always in our hearts) and would lead him up to heaven. Before the vet came in, Elisabeth told Charlie to say 'meow' to God for us. We originally talked about asking Charlie to say 'hi' to God for us, but she was quick to remind us that Charlie can't actually say 'hi' but that God could speak cat, so it would work out perfectly anyway.

We said many prayers. We thanked God for a wonderful 8 years with our Charlie cat. We thanked God for making him so soft, so cuddly, and for making him such a stinker that he always managed to sneak outside.

He never got far whenever he got out of the house. Only to the garden, where he would happily plop himself down and relish the feeling of the plants under his body, the fresh air surrounding him, and the sun that warmed him. So that is where we will spread Charlie's ashes. It seems only appropriate.

I had no idea this would be so hard. He's a cat, not a person. But he's been a part of our family for 8 years, and today it is very weird to not have him here. As I walk through the house I will catch something out of the corner of my eye and think it's Charlie. I'm quickly reminded by the pain in my heart that it's not him.

Hopefully he is having a great time in heaven and was able to catch the kisses that we blew up to him as we lay in bed last night. You don't actually have to blow that hard - the kisses just seem to float through the air.

And hopefully he was able to say meow to God for us.

We'll miss you Charlie cat.

Charlie and his brother Jordan. One last snuggle.

Thank you for being a friend

I have some truly great friends. Some I see on a regular basis, some I talk to about 20 times a day {and you know who you are, kate}, and some I rarely get to see or talk to other than through portals like Facebook. In fact, I even have some very close friends that I've never even met face to face! **gasp**

Of all the people I met in college, I became and stayed close with 5 girls.

One is a childhood friend named Kris. We used to eat chocolate chips until we thought we'd throw up and used to play Super Mario Bros. until we couldn't feel our thumbs anymore. We had silly crushes on boys and still giggle about them to this day. We made crazy videotapes of ourselves dancing to The New Kids On The Block songs, and filmed our own SNL skits. Kris' dad had a greenhouse connected to his house, and it stunk. Like plastic. So naturally we started speculating that her dad's girlfriend had gotten plastic surgery.

Ah, those were the good old days! Young and naive. And having such a great time. We don't get to talk or hang out like we used to - but it seems when we get together it's like nothing's changed. You know, except for the husbands and kids and jobs and new-found knowledge that plastic surgery does not in fact make you smell like plastic. Greenhouses do that.

All 5 of us lived in single dorms our Sophomore year at UW-Madison. Not single like "no boyfriend single" - like you didn't have a roommate single. There were 9 of us in our wing, and we loved it. I couldn't tell you what happened to the other 4 girls, but they were great too! We all used to sit in our own dorm rooms at noon with our doors open and we'd all watch Days of Our Lives. And yell at our TV's together. It was great! Erin, Kris, Christine, Becky and I became great friends!


So after we graduated, we all went our separate ways and lost touch for a while. But recently we have reunited and now get together for our own mini college reunions. They're so much fun! When we first started doing our reunions, we were all married already but Elisabeth was the only child. Now there are 7 kids between us all, ranging in age from 10 months to 5 1/2 years old.

5 of which are also girls!


This time we all drove to Minneapolis. And we had a blast! We didn't watch any Days of Our Lives. But we did do a lot of talking and giggling. And just plain old catching upping. Oh sorry - is that not a phrase? Nobody ever said I was good at following protocol.

Anywho.

Here are a few pictures from our reunion:

It poured rain all day Saturday. Rumor is Minneapolis had actually been in a drought. Go figure! So we went to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. It. Was. Gorgeous.



There are fish in the pond shown above and below. If you look closely, you can see them in the picture above, right in front of the rock wall.

And you can definitely see them in the picture below. What with Sydney pointing and all, just to make sure we all saw them.

She also yelled "sha!" which is Sydney speak for "fish". Naturally.


We also had a lot of fun throwing pennies in the fountain. Here's hoping everyone's wish comes true!


***Gratuitous baby curl shot***
***Thank you. I couldn't resist.***

Sydney inspected the entire conservatory. Every plant leaf, every fish, every flower. Sometimes a little too closely. Notice the petals on the ground by her feet. Certainly OUR child didn't do such a thing.


We also got to see some really cool big fish and cute turtles!


Sydney pressed her face up to the aquarium glass like that for about a half an hour. She was absolutely mesmerized. I struggled for a split second at the thought of the germs she was sucking in that way, but quickly got over it. A kid needs to be a kid.

Even if it means sticking your face on dirty, warm-humid-air-surrounded germ provoking glass.

Right? (Okay, maybe that is pretty disgusting. Now that I think about it.)





No, the everlasting glass kiss was tortoisely totally worth it.

Have I mentioned that I have some really great friends?


And Becky, one of the Fab 5, has a mad love for The Golden Girls. Becky, this title's for you! :D