A LampPost Flickering

I'm grabbing life's bull by the horns and taking no prisoners! (Do you like how I just grabbed random cliches that are completely unrelated and mixed them together with my bare hands?) In the past two days: **I mowed the lawn...with an electric lawn mower...in a thunderstorm...by the ocean. Yowza! Can you feel the adrenaline?! **I allowed my kids to paint for hours at the dining room table. Seth and Lily included! My heart was a-racin' indeed. **I baked 5 dozen cookies and one loaf of beer bread...and I only ate one cookie. I washed it down with a glass of Slim Fast. Bring it!! Now I'm on fire to see what other damage I can do! How have you lived dangerously this week?

Okay, so this update is long overdue. June: Beach Days Swim lessons July: Independence Day We adventured on a three-week vacation from Texas to Missouri to Indiana to Ohio...back to Texas. We survived. Thrived. And I have pictures to prove it. Oh, and Rob had to work, so the four kids, one dog and one mom drove up without him. He was to fly up and meet us in IN the second week. I feel like I accomplished something significant in simply getting us all there in one piece. And...the first leg of the trip was without A/C. It was 107 in Austin when we drove through, if that gives you any indication of the heat factor. But, good news was in the works. First stop, Denton, TX to crash on my sister-in-law Stacey's house. Great things happened here. 1.) I saw my awesome nephews Bill and Kelly. They are great. 2.) I got to meet Stacey's kind and handsome boyfriend, Sean. 3.) Kind and handsome boyfriend finished fixing the A/C on our van, making the remaining hours of July travel far more ...

Long-ago friends of ours from college have an awesome band called Threadspinner. Jon and Sarah Ziebarth moved from Indiana to California several years ago (like ten, maybe?) so Jon, who is now a brilliant research scientist, could attend grad school at Stanford. Jon used to play in a band called Fresh Cod, and they practiced in our musty basement in South Bend. Good times. Sarah is a beautiful vocalist. They just released their first video "Night Chorus" this last week. I love it! It's sweet and artsy and beautiful. I know you'll enjoy it, too. Check them out! ">