This house is too quiet.....

At Miss Amels daycare/preschool, our providers allows themselves 1 week unpaid to take vacation. They have 3 kids of her own, all boys and under the age of 3, so I think they are allowed. This happened to be the week. Nana and Hampa were having Miss Amels withdraws as it was, so the timing was perfect. We did the "go to mommy's work" swap yesterday and Miss Amels was on her way with Nana. Today is my brothers 27th birthday, and I received a phone report from Miss Amels that on "Happy birthday Buddy Day" (buddy being my brothers nick name-not uncle...), they went to "re robin". While at "re robin", the bird himself made an appearance. And she had chicken, and dip. The kid loves dip. Dip, of course, being ranch or any side condiment. Miss Amels was not up for going too close to the bird, but had a lot to say about him.

I also got a picture on my camera of Miss Amels helping Nana to make cookies. Nana and Hampa were kind enough to take her until Friday, giving daddy and I time to not only sleep with no monitor, but clean the house thoroughly for our annual 4th of July bb-que/fireworks show. It's amazing how much easier it is to clean without a 2 1/2 year old under foot. We will have the usual 8 hour, soaked in home made marinade, this stuff could win a competition, ribs. Add chicken, home made fruit pizza and beer, and you have a complete down home American meal.

As of early June, we've been living in our house 4 years, and we have some friends coming over that have never seen our casa. I love showing off the house. While it has much work to be done (it was only a year when we bought it, but new couches, a screen door, more of a porch in the back yard, a table/chair set for our front porch to drink tea at on a hot summer night, and other regular home owner things are to be desired), I'm still proud of what we work hard for every month. It's a damn cute house people, and we're proud! Seeing as how I'll probably be buried in the backyard, it's nice to show people where they can come pay their respects.

Until then...this house is quiet. Almost too quiet. 3 days and Miss Amels, her laughter, singing and gabbing returns.

Cooking, watering flowrers and all around happiness...

This week we got to watering the flowers. The weather has FINALLY shown up in summer form and the flowers need a good drink at the end of the day. Miss Amels is happy to help with this chore. While not doing that, I decided I REALLY wanted to cook something new/fantastic (Nick does the majority of the cooking, he likes to so who am I to say no?) I made an amazing sausage and penne marinara. It was a hit, even to the picky husband eater!

This week, Miss Amels gets the pleasure of being and Nana and Hampa's. My sitter is gone in Utah and they gladly stepped in to be replacements. We thank them. So now we have time to fully CLEAN the house before our annual 4th of July fireworks bbque/show. I will say after the first couple of days, the house will be quiet when I come home from work (other then Nick playing his games, I'm sure).

I also must say I'm quite disappointed in my recent discovery of my lack of tolerance to drinking. A girlfriend of mine that I've know for about 13 years had a birthday party last night. She came to my surprise party in April, and I was delighted to see her for the first time in 10 years. We were inseperable (just like last night). I got myself a 6 pack of Coores Light and figured I'd have a couple and be ok to drive home. 2 beers later and I was feeling good....Obviously, gone are the days were 2 beers were as good as a glass of water. Oh college...my liver misses thy.

Pictures of the most fabulous dinner (with chocolate chip cookies assisted by Miss Amels) and help with watering, follow....