Come On In, The Water's Fine

This is what Tucker always says when we go to my mom's pool (which we did today, thankfully!) so I thought it would be appropriate for a title. (and yes, the water was fine, 80 degrees. It felt great!!!)

I haven't really been writing as much as I would like but I'm hoping to improve on that! So I'm going to bring you (and me) up-to-date on everything that has gone around here...

We did go over my friend Annie's house last Saturday for a barbecue. There were a lot of kids for Tucker to run around and play with; he especially enjoyed the trampoline. Annie is a friend of mine from work. She's a single mom who adopted a little girl named Natalya from Russia about 4-5 years ago. ( I can't remember how old/young Natalya was at the time, definitely past the baby-baby stage, but she's going to be six in November.) By the time it was time to go to the fireworks, the kids were wearing down and getting cranky. Annie had some legal fireworks to get them in the mood and then we all piled in our cars to drive about a mile down the road to the beach. It was a great night and the fireworks were great, even from the distance we were at!

Tucker finished up swimming lessons this week and loved it, as usual! He's swimming a little by himself now and does great in my mom's pool, particularly liking to float around in his life jacket. He also likes to jump in, which we let him do by himself in the shallow end! It amazes me how tall he is because it just seems like yesterday he could barely touch and now he's head and shoulders above the water and definitely very comfortable walking around! Also he was doing really well today using the face mask, swimming across the width of the shallow end.

Today (Saturday) we went to the library (got caught up on his rewards (2 weeks) for the reading program), went to lunch at McDonald's and then headed to Gra Doyle's (an hour away) so she could watch Tucker while I got my hair cut and permed (20 minutes from her house) then back to get Tucker and then to Gra Tucker's (25 minutes or so from Gra Doyle's) to swim in her pool. Well by then it was five o'clock and we were still enjoying ourselves when my mom came home from a day with her friends at 6:30. She joined us in the pool for a little longer and then we went out for a pizza. By the time I dropped my mom off, got gas, and came home, it was 9:30!! Needless to say, Tucker was asleep and I carried him up to bed. I'm pretty exhausted myself and alas, there's no one to carry me to bed!

Michael is actually at his friend Mark's house in MA for his bachelor party. (He's getting married August 9th). He left with Jeff (the best man from our wedding) at 7:15 AM to be on the golf course by 9:30 AM. After golf, they were going to Mark's for a barbecue and then out to a sports bar tonight for darts. Mark has a pool table, Foosball, and full bar so they could pretty much stay there and be content. So I'm guessing he's having a good time. Of course, he hasn't played golf since before Tucker was born and hasn't played darts since right after Tucker was born. (I actually went into labor on his dart night and he came rushing home to bring me to the hospital at 11:30 PM). For those of you who don't know, Michael had pretty much always played on a dart league since I've known him (19 years this summer); we have two dartboards in our family room but he hasn't really played in years. I'm guessing he'll be pretty worn out tomorrow!

Tucker had some thoughts on the motorcyclists we saw today (we see a lot more, even during the week, because of the high gas prices). First off, he commented that the man should be wearing a helmet because he was going to get a sunburn on the top of his head (he did seem to be lacking in the hair department). Then he wanted to know what he did if he wanted to listen to the radio, worried that he would get stung by the bees, and was concerned that he would get too hot because he doesn't have any A/C!!

Tomorrow we're looking forward to Tucker's friend Andrew coming over (with his mom Tracy and baby sister Emily, who is 4 months old). Andrew is the little boy who's birthday party we went to at the end of June. They're coming over around 10 because we're thinking it will be too hot in the afternoon and Tucker wants to go on the water slide with Andrew. Then it will be off to the grocery store because we never made it there today! And of course the usual Sunday-laundry marathon!