Rachael & Collin

 Rachael and Collin got married at St Joes church here in Battle Creek.

Her reception was our near Marshall at a beautiful bed and breakfast.  It was an outdoor reception under a white tent that was next to a cool looking barn.  I went with Mesha and we met Kelli and a couple other CDC girls there. 

The token Kesha picture.  It's been awhile since I've taken one of these. 

Kristina and her girls with Rebecca looking pretty. 

Rachael was a beautiful bride.  She is so pretty naturally and such a sweet girl.  I don't know Collin very well but I do know that he is a lucky guy. 

All of us girls. 

Kristina, Heather, Rebecca, Rachael, Me, and Mesha

Nascar June 2012

We weren't sure if we would see a race on Sunday this year.  It was a wonderful weather weekend for us up until Sunday.  The sky opened up and it rained cats and dogs.  The race started a couple hours late but it started, thank goodness.

The track, and this year the blimp finally made an appearance.

Rain, so we found a bar.  Honestly I didn't think there was a chance that the race would go on.  It rained so hard so much so fast.  The poncho crew!

Ah, the lovely Josh and Allison

Allison, Kayla, Jeana, and myself.

I love hanging around these ladies.  We have so much fun at the race. 

Josh and Jeremy lighting up one of our lanterns.  No security guys to steal it from us this year.  We were able to let off quite a few. There were tons of them in the sky this year. 

All in all it was fun weekend.  I'm sad that Jimmie didn't win again, and even more sad that JR did.  I can't stand it.  One of these years he'll win. 

Sarah's 9th Birthday

Sarah had big plans for her birthday this year.  She had a guest list a mile long.  The girls pictured below are the ones that made the cut.  It's so hard deciding who to invite.  I didn't want to leave anyone out but sometimes having a daughter who is friendly to everyone is a problem.  So she picked her favorite 8 people and lucky for her they were all able to come. 

We went to Howard's ceramic's first.  The girls were able to pick a dog, cat, or bunny to paint.  Sarah made a beautiful golden pup.

After painting we went over to Pizza Sam's for pizza dinner.  This is our favorite pizza place and since its usually pretty empty when we go inside I figured 9 girls running around wouldn't be much of a problem. 

Once we got home we opened presents and had cake and ice cream.  She was blessed with wonderful presents.  She received lots of makeup and crafy projects to do, also a slip and slide that she has been begging for.

Mad libs, YEAH!

I asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she said "just one in the cake pan with pink frosting"

That I can do!! 

9 birthday candles, I can't believe it.

These are the troopers.  The ones that made it through the night.  3 of the girls went home the night before due to prior commitments.  It was a late night of movies, Just Dance, and fireflies.  I hope that Sarah had a wonderful day.  She's a lucky girl to have so many wonderful friends.  But most of all we are very lucky to have this girl in our lives.

Thanks to Grandma Turkey, Aunt Emily, and Mama Mesha for helping me with the party. (keeping me sane!)

Mesha

Everybody should have a friend like Mesha. 

Sometimes I don't know how I would get through a day without her.

She reminds me of appointments, she tells me when I'm over reacting, she mothers my children, she knows who I'm taking about even when I don't remember their names, she has a memory like an elephant, she brings me goodies from her moms house, she tolerates Kenny (and is even beginning to like going to his concerts), she reminds me to breath and relax.  Sometimes I wonder what I do for her.....besides drive her crazy with my horrible memory.  I think that I've blogged about her and other bffs before but one day while I was flipping through the People magazine she left on my desk for me (I think she is secretly trying to help me with my celebrity recognition) I stumbled across this page. 

Now Mesha knows that I love the People magazine crosswords.  Mostly cause I can almost finish them.  And she also knows that those dang pictures of celebrities always stump me.  Notice what she did there, she left me a sticky note with the answer to 18 across and 20 across....I would've never known that was January Jones, I thought it was a young picture of Cybil Shephard. 
See why she is irreplaceable to me!!

Memorial Day 2012

We spent Memorial Day weekend up in Harrison again this year.  We went to Wilson state park.  It didn't take long for me to remember why it isn't my favorite park.  The traffic is horrific and loud and it is so dirty.  Because it is shaded so nicely the sites are pretty much all dirt.  And it rained, ugh!
We did go to my dads in Wolverine on Saturday and the kids got some 4-wheeling in.  Jeremy took Sarah back in the woods much to her dismay.  We had a yummy bbq of hamburgers and a beautiful day.  It was a long drive but I am so glad that we went.  I miss seeing my dad and it makes me happy to see him healthy and doing good.

The look of fear on Sarahs face!

My view from where I was riding.  yes I let Jacob drive, crazy I know.

Sometimes they like each other!

We spent most of the day there and then headed back to the camp site.  We had left the dogs at the camper and needed to let them out.  I sure wish my dad lived closer to us so we could see him more.

Daddy teaching his girl how to drive a 4-wheeler

you can't tell that it is raining and storming

 It was a great weekend but we were sure happy to get home and get showers.  I'm still doing laundry and trying to get that camp smell out of everything.  When I turned the suburban on Tuesday morning a big puff of dust came blowing out the air conditioner vents.  It was so dusty/dirty.  Next year I think we'll be trying a different park....but I think I said that last year.

My little peanut

Soccer Saturdays

Sarah started her spring soccer season.  They had picture day already and as usual she looked adorable.  We have the same photo from the last 4 years.  Although I think last years ball was blue. 
She's playing better this year.  Her kicks go farther and her throws have improved.  I believe she is doing the soccer camp again this year, this may be her sport.

Jacob on the other hand wasn't so excited about watching Sarah play soccer.  He's just lucky he went to this game instead of the one last week when it was sleeting.  He would rather be home in his room hanging out. What a sweet boy to sacrifice his day to cheer on his sister.

After Sarah's game we had to drive Sarah to a birthday party an hour away.  The Couch family minus Mike came with us to keep us company.  Once we dropped her off we went to Red Robin for dinner.  The kids were so good and I was thankful to not have to go alone.

Random May Stuff

"olives, cat food"

Sarah's brownie troop uses part of their proceeds from cookie sales to support a charity.  The girls choose to help the humane society.  So Mrs. Becky had the girls meet at Walmart to spend their money.  They spent about $130 on all kinds of things for cats and dogs.  One of the things the Humane Society requests is that the food doesn't have red dye in it.  I don't really know why and I should probably find out since we feed our dogs food with red dye, hmmmm.

Anyhow the girls had quite an issue finding some food without that dye.  I was dying laughing when Sarah said mom look theres a cat food called "Olives, do cats like olives?" lol

looking for red dye

Averie has become very outspoken at school.  I just have to laugh cause I think that Kelli is going to have a little stinker in Averie like I do in Sarah.  Very loving and sweet but a whole lot rotten!!  She enjoyed finger painting with blue shaving cream. 

I was finally able to take Sarah to a school skate.  Seems like we've had a lot of things going on and school skate always got pushed to the back of our plans.  This time Sarah took her friend Kaylie and they had a blast.  It was a warmer day so they were both super sweaty.  ewwww

I hope that we'll be able to go to some Saturday skates so she can get better at it.  It seems like she was just getting good on her skates and it was time to go.

Our biggby here just opened.  They had 5 days of free shots. 

Everyday was a new flavor....I am proud to say I made it all 5 days, lol.

I do like them better than Starbucks but I still think McDonalds has the best Mochas, if they make it correctly. 

I guess enough of the randoms.  I still need to post my pictures from the 30 days of May.  I'm doing pretty good.  I've only missed a couple days.