Is it Monday yet????

After the weekend we've had, we need Monday, BADLY! We woke up on Terry's 33rd birthday to a neighborhood of slashed tires. Guess what Terry got for his birthday? TWO slashed tires on his truck! YAY! And those tires, which are full of luxurious goodness, loads of rubber, and sporty to boot cost $225 each to replace. And you just can't get them anywhere, because no one but Goodyear makes that size. Oh, joy! And they can't get them from the warehouse until Monday, so we are out of a car again, for the weekend. As luck would have it (since Terry got slashed tires AND a favorite pilsner glass of his broken, by yours truly) State Farm came through for us and is reimbursing us for the tires soon, we hope, under our comprehensive policy...which has a zero deductible. Thank goodness for insurance!!!!!

Then today was the day. Bullseye, the black cutie that we've housed and loved on since he was born on July 4th, went to his new home. Talk about a hard day! That kitten was so flippin' cute and I had just assumed we would overlook the fact that we weren't keeping any of the kittens and just keep the last two that we had....unspoken words, ya know? Well, my friend Bobbie found him a home, knowing that too many cats is just too many cats, and well, thank you for that Bobbie. But now I expect a full report daily on how Bullseye is doing what he's doing, where he's sleeping, how he likes the long haired guinea pig he's living with, etc, since he lives across the street from you, so far away from his "Goshen family!" I will admit, I was the only one of the Casey household to cry over this event, and it just made the weekend that much more, well, crappy!

We are looking forward to the alarm blaring in our ears at 4:30am, dragging ourselves out of a bed for another workday before the sun comes up. Can't wait....seriously!

Sunday was NOT my day!

Aside from a good hair day, that's about all that went right with my day yesterday. On the highway to West Hell (White Oak---I am NOT a west sider, sorry!) my van starts misfiring while acclerating, doing 70mph. That's never good. Terry blames me the driver, but no, it did it for him as well (tongue sticking out). His answer? Fuel cleaner. My answer, go get the check engine light tested, which I did this morning. Another coil pack bites the dust, causing two of my six cylinders to fire at random. At least it's an easy fix....thanks to my Dad. Car problems were just the start. We fought and fought with the kids all afternoon to clean up their playroom, until I could finally take it no more and just did it my darn self. I do not like cleaning up their playroom, I do not like picking up all those toys, I do not like it, Sam I Am, I do not like green eggs and ham! Spoken like a true 5 year old! Then I'm a teary mess for the rest of the day about my missing cat, which Lillie just now informs me she saw last night a street over while playing with her friend. UH, are you serious? Why didn't you grab her furry ass and bring her home? So now I will be on the hunt for Lucy (which I hope she saw her YESTERDAY for real, and not sometime last week...you know kids and their "timeline" of events). And then to end my day, my LONG AWAITED summer for Desperate Housewives, was just a "catch you up" from last season.....I NEED MY DH people! NOW! Is Edie alive or what????????

Then, just to start my day off right today, I forced Lillie and Zac to the bus garage and once we got there, realized that Lillie has a fever. Mother of the Year, here I come! So, I have the day off now from my other job and I am sitting here typing, while she's catching up on Noggin (again, Mother of the Year, here I am!)

Monday WILL get better...........

Missing

If you've seen her, bring her home! Lucy hasn't been seen since Thursday, and while she likes her life out in the wilderness, she usually comes home a few times a day to eat and hasn't done that. Pray for our fur baby's safety....you never know in this neighborhood.

In other news, Zac and Terry completed their first overnight camp with the scouts this weekend. It was with all ages in the Pack, so there were many different things going on, but they had a blast! Zac was content to sit in our brand new tent...he even wanted to go to bed early, you know, the newness of a tent and all! Lillie and I hit Family Christian Store for some "baptismal" shopping and then went to Grandma's for awhile before we came home for a quiet sleepover in Mom and Dad's room. That's much more our style!

New adventure!

We are now into scouting! Forget the days of baseball....and karate. We are an official Tiger Cub of Pack 285 in Goshen, Ohio! And Terry is the assistant den leader...so we buy TWO of everything....shirts, patches, etc. Although Terry refuses to wear the neckerchief (I would have paid money, people!) he is in uniform and I think he looks damn hot! This weekend is our first campout....and I will go to see them, but will not be staying in the wilderness....Lillie and I have grand plans of air conditioning and mattresses and pillows! Oh, and cats! See below for some updated pics of our furballs (well, a few, not all of them!)

Milo! One of the babies.....he's gotten so BIG!

Milo watching Max (our BIGGEST baby play with the Momma cat!)

Max the monkey upside-down in Lillie's doll stroller! He's a hoot to have around!!!!

What is the next generation going to be?

DUMB! Well, not all of them at least, but I'm shocked to know that 6th graders don't know their multiplication tables! We learned those in the 3rd grade when I was younger, and now they are learning them even earlier, but to not "get it" after 3 or 4 years of experience just blows my mind. I had my first set of students yesterday and 1 of the 4 honestly KNEW multplication in his head. Two others had to think about it, which is fine, but one was either very shy or didn't know them at all. It's gonna be a long year! They are great kids though, so I think if I can find a way to make learning math FUN (which I think math is a blast!) then it will go smoother. Any ideas????

This is SOOOO bedtime here.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uISuvTiTYJA

It's Grandparents' Day today!

And yes, we celebrate it. I know, I know...another Hallmark holiday, but call me crazy, I love excuses to get together for a family meal/party and see my parents and grandparents. We got cards for them and are sticking in a cute pic of each kid that was taken recently. They love pics more than anything else anyway! And I made a cake to celebrate the day...a gluten free, chocolate cake with powder sugar drizzle icing---my Grandma has celiac disease, so most cakes are off limits! Hope it's good....it has chocolate chunks and for my Grandpa, I added black walnuts! YUM!

Here's Zac cheese-in it--he's got his Bengals jersey on and is ready for a WIN tomorrow!

And here's Lillie during the WEBN fireworks for Labor Day! Gotta have sparklers!

And today we got rid of a kitten! She went to her home next door (no, not the hilljacks, the other neighbors!), so we can visit her anytime we want! Next one should be out the door next week or the week after!

Rain, Jaxon and miscellaneous things.

Rain! We finally have rain! I thought Cincinnati would become a desert soon, and the casinos would start rolling in and then we'd become a mini Vegas. Dreams....

Today I got to go to the mall with Bobbie and hold Jaxon for awhile too! It was so fun, even when I got pooped on! I think it terrified Bobbie, but hey, what's a little baby poop...that's nothing compared to cats!

While at the mall we went into the Disney store, which had all their lunch boxes on sale for $4.99! Zac has lost 2 lunch boxes since August 21st! Not a good record. I bought him one of these new lunch boxes, with his very own money! When he returns one of the lost ones to me (which I know are in that school building somewhere!), I will release his $5. Until then, I think this might help him remember to bring home everything that he walks out the door with in the morning. Don't you?

Lillie is done with preschool. She's ready to be a full fledged Kindergartner after the first 3 days of preschool. It's gonna be a looooong year!

Long overdue date night!

FINALLY, Terry and I got to go out someplace that we didn't have to order two kids' meals! Last night we celebrated our 9th anniversary by going to dinner, a movie, and a bar for drinks. It was so nice! Terry being a Chef and all cannot take these corporate places for dining (pretty much any restaurant in Cincinnati has some kind of corporate backing), but we managed to find one that he liked more than he disliked! We went to Mitchells' Fish Market in West Chester were we dined on oysters from the raw bar, swordfish (me) and rare yellowfin tuna (Terry) and for dessert their banana rum bread pudding with cappucinos. It was the perfect meal! So perfect that we couldn't finish all our dessert (which we split) and we didn't even want to hear the word "popcorn" when we got to the theater. We saw Superbad by the way, which was HYSTERICAL! We laughed so hard, and kept laughing about certain lines from the movie all night long. We ended our evening at Shooters, a new bar and grill in Loveland, where I had my first ever whisky sour, which wasn't bad.

Back to the movie....I've always considered myself more conservative or even mature at times, and when I saw American Pie all those years ago, it wasn't one of my faves. However, this movie was truly funny, and you couldn't help but laugh even at the "so stupid it's funny" parts. Add that to sitting next to your husband of nine years and realize that you are both still silly and child-like sometimes, and you have the perfect evening.

We slept in today until 9:30 and got up and went to an old standby from our dating years, Perkins. We even remembered we went there the day after we got married, when we met up with all the out of town family and friends that had attended our wedding, before we headed out to our honeymoon. How cool!