I'm going to have a little fun with this post today. I'm not quite myself; being in pain 24 hours is really exhausting and it puts me in a bad mood. So while I share all the things that are making me crabby I'm going to make sure to balance it out with something positive from the experience too. (Or at least attempt to.) Enjoy my rambling!

The bad news? My ear is really, really hurting me.
The good news? I found a pill combination (prescription to over the counter) that seems to manage the pain at least 3 of the 4 hours I'm on them without making me all loopy.
The bad news? I recently read that my pill combination is exceeding the daily dosage recommendation.
The good news? I guess I'm going to have to start using more of the loopy pills instead of the over the counter ones which means I will sleep well tonight!

The good news? My new camera showed up today.
The bad news? I can't play with it until I get home which is hours away.
The good news? I get to take even more amazing pictures to post for you!

The bad news? Max bit me in the leg yesterday.
The good news? He did it because he was excited and dancing, not because he was trying to be mean.
The bad news? He still bit me and it hurt.
The good news? I yelled "Ow!" really loud and it scared him. I'm hoping that will work for a while as he hasn't bit anyone since our last incident.

The bad news? There was a case of lice at daycare yesterday requiring everything to be brought home, washed, and returned.
The good news? I actually was able to get everything washed and returned to daycare today!
The GREAT news? My kids do not have head lice!!!

I think I'll end on that note. Great news is an excellent way to focus on the rest of the day!

Ear surgery was performed this morning. Yeah, the lump? It had to be removed. It actually wasn't extremely unpleasant, it was painful at the time, but once the procedure was over I was fine. He gave me a pain prescription and I went and filled it just to be safe but was feeling fine.

It's been a few hours since the surgery, and now, I'm in pain! So I popped one of the pain pills and I don't know how long it is supposed to take but my ear still is throbbing but my head is all dizzy. This should make for an interesting day at work! (Plus, I don't know how clear my brain is to be blogging - bear with me if this is a horrible blog...) Good thing it will wear off before I have to drive home, of course, I'm going to have to drive home in pain than instead. Man, what a day!

To make up for my unhappiness this afternoon I've got some cute kiddie pool pictures from this weekend! Dusty put up the new pool that Max got for his second birthday. It has a slide and raft to slide on. It took a little convincing but we did get Max to finally go down it. Daddy was of course on hand as he rolled over the side of the slide when he was originally climbing up it. (Oops!)

Rory on the other hand just had a grand time hanging out in the water. We didn't originally plan to put her in so that is why she's hanging out in just a shirt and diaper.

It was a nice afternoon of splashing and sliding. The kids slept great that evening too!

Max attended his first play! Dusty and I took him to see Tom & Huck which both of my cousins were acting in. He did so good, and even got a few laughs as he would say "oh oh" when actors fell. Here he is posing on the stage with Niki and Luke. He's wearing Luke's hat!

Niki had a solo right at the opening which was cool to see!

Luke was an adorable school boy. Here he is interacting with the lead, Tom.

We had a great time watching them and thankfully it was kid friendly and everyone was great with Max's activity throughout the play. He was quiet, but he certainly didn't sit still either. I mean, he is two after all!

What a great Friday! OK, really it started out terribly as I still can't seem to get Max to cooperate with getting ready in the morning without him turning into a crying mess - I'm working on it! Thankfully that has quickly turned around.

To start, Rory started scooting forward! She isn't really crawling, she more lundges forward and then tries to army crawl the rest of the way. The important thing is that she is continuing to do it more and more and I'm very excited! She is going to be chasing her brother around really soon!

Second, I logged into my email to see that I was one of the selected finalists for Snapfish.com's "Snappy's Road Trip" photo contest. I entered in some of my pictures from our stay at the lake over Memorial weekend and they liked them and the story enough for me to be a finalist. That means I won two $25 gift certificates to Restaurant.com! Guess who's going out to dinner tonight?

Actually, and lastly, Dusty and I made plans for another date night tonight; winning the gift certificates was just the cherry on the top of an otherwise already great evening plan! Don't mind me, I'm just going to be floating on cloud 9 for a while now. Hope your Friday is just as great!

We were able to try out Dusty's Father's Day present last night!

The kids seemed to enjoy it, although Rory was more into picking grass off the blanket and Max seemed a bit confused as to why he was stuck in the trailer instead of driving with Daddy.

It was even big enough for me to crawl into and enjoy the ride.

Ahhh, this is the life!

It's shaping up to be quite the week! Max started to feel better on Monday only to have Dusty fall ill. He's still not feeling the greatest today, hopefully he'll get better as the day progresses. Thankfully, I feel just fine!

We had Rory's 9 month checkup on Monday. Here's the stats:

She weighs 21lbs, putting her in the 91st percentile for her weight. She is 2' 5" long which has her in the 92nd percentile for her height and her head circumference is in the 97th percentile! Once again, she is one big girl, but she is very perportionate so we can't complain. Plus, I mean, look at how cute she is!

Don't you love her new clip? I finally ordered some no-slip hair clips to help hold those long front hairs out of her eyes. I think she likes it and has yet to touch it or try to take it out. I'm sure that will happen eventually but I choose to believe for now that she understands it is meant to stay in her hair and is leaving it alone. hahaha

Picking pictures can be so hard sometimes because I want to tell the story but I also want to show off some of my favorites. Hopefully you'll enjoy these as much as I do!

Before we left Mom decided to let Dusty wear her "special" tick shirt. It was rather comical!

It was fun to see "the old folk" just sitting back and enjoying everyone. They just sat there and soaked up all the fun and everyone just came to them. Look at how relaxed and happy they seem!

I was able to get a picture of my kids with their GG John. As you can tell it was towards the end and they both were filthy from all the fun at the tracks. I wouldn't have it any other way. This is exactly how my sisters, cousins, and I used to look when we'd leave from there too!

They bring a book with pictures and newspaper articles from the Wood Tick Races in the past. Well, there also were a few old pictures from the family reunion that had me and my cousins so I took pictures of them. (Yeah, I'm real sneaky.) Here's one of them - I'm on the right:

When we got home I had my mom take a family picture for me. I wanted to get a picture of all of us dirty and tired. We all had a great time and I love that I get to do this tradition with my own children!

Here's two cute pictures of Daddy with his babies. He really is a great father and these two think the world of him. Their faces lit up at the site of him after he had been gone for a week!

Poor Dusty, his reunion with his family and Father's Day was unfortunately just a small moment of joy in an otherwise busy, busy life.

Friday afternoon I got a call from daycare to let me know that Rory had a fever - as I was driving in to pick her up! I made a quick decision and decided that we would still be traveling to the lake house as I had no desire to sit at home with a sick baby and no help. Thankfully, Rory was really fine. She did have a fever and was slightly more crabby, but really, she was also pretty great given that she was stuck in the car for over 2 hours!

Saturday she was still a bit cranky but otherwise seemed to be on the mend so we decided to continue with our plans to go up to Ino, WI to participate in the Wood Tick Races. We had a blast, the kids had a lot of fun, Max had WAY too much sugar between all the yummy treats that everyone would hand him if he got within ten feet of the food area, and everyone left dirty and tired!

Unfortunately, later that evening, Max got sick. We assumed he was just sick from all the sugar he had. (He seriously had a ton of treats and juice, which he is not used to.) But when he was still throwing up 6 hours later we figured he probably caught Rory's illness. When we got up with him at 2am, after the sheet/pillow case change and his 3rd wash down we crawled into bed and I snuggled up next to Dusty and said, "I think this is going to be the most appropriate time to tell you 'Happy Father's Day!'" We both giggled. I mean, why not just accept that his Father's Day is not going to be about you now? Thankfully, we gave him his gift - a dump trailer for his lawn tractor - on Saturday when it was just us and no grandparents.

Max was feeling better on Sunday. He was a ball of energy and running around for the most part but he still needed a good cuddle, extra sleep, and wouldn't eat much. Hopefully he'll be feeling better today. Daddy is home with him so I know he's in good hands!

Oh, and those crazy tick races? I'll post pictures later. I still have to sort them out to pick out some of my favorites. But here is Rory's 9 month picture to tide you over until then. We go in for her checkup today, I can't wait to see how big she is now!

All about our little Boogers. No, not about the body fluid, about Rory.

I don't believe I've ever mentioned this, while Lorelei's nickname is Rory to most people, in our household she is called Boogers. The thing is she has always, and I mean ALWAYS, had a runny nose. The poor thing got sick within a week of being born, as most of you know of our hospital stay at 3 weeks old, and she just has not learned how to fight all the viruses yet. It also doesn't help that she has an older brother that insists on being all over her and passing on his bugs too. So Dusty started calling her "Boogers" and it has just sort of stuck. We still refer to her as Rory and Lorelei, but Boogers is yet another name added to that list.

Rory has sparked Max's interest a lot more lately. Max has always been aware of Rory, but he has taken an interest in playing with her now. While this is great, what I find so incredibly amazing is how tough she is around him! Max will push his truck right into her or whack her upside the head with his styrofoam sword and she will laugh and laugh and laugh.

I don't know if he has taken on this interest just because, or if it is because Rory is finally able to move around and getting in his way he can't ignore her? That girl is rolling all over the place! Her favorite thing to do right now is to get up on her knees and then attempt to start moving. She's good at pushing herself forward and toppling over, but she hasn't figured out the whole complicated movement that is crawling. So eventually she gives up for a short amount of time, finds a spot to roll to, plays with whatever she wanted to roll to and then gets back up on her knees to start the whole process over. Once she does figure out crawling Max better watch out, because the majority of the time she is moving it is to get closer to him. I have a feeling he isn't going to appreciate his shadow as much as he does now.

This morning when we dropped Rory off in her room he started to flail his arms at Rory. The teacher got concerned and told Max not to hit. Rory on the other hand just started laughing - hard - as if this was an amazing new game. That of course meant Max had to keep it up, so I encouraged him to "tickle" her as it stopped him from swinging his arms at her. The teacher and I just laughed and joked that pretty soon little Miss Lorelei was not going to let Max get away with anything. That girl, she is going to be one tough cookie! It will help me relax more in a few years when she starts dating - well maybe it will.

Don't let their cute little faces fool you, these two are out to get me.

I swear their goal is to make sure Mama does not get one single stinking night of consecutive sleep while Daddy is gone! Sunday night we got home late and the naps that the kids got were really subpar since we were at the zoo. Max slept fine but Rory made noises all night long. (She does this when she is under slept so I wasn't too surprised.) What did surprise me was that she was up before 5am on Monday morning!

OK, one bad night. Monday night Rory develops a cough around 9pm and I go in there to see that her coughing has caused her to spit-up - and there are food chunks too! So by the time I get her cleaned up and changed, her bed cleaned up and place her back into bed it's already 10pm. Then I sit up by her room to make sure that she isn't sick and going to throw up (she didn't) and finally crawl into bed a little before 11pm only to have Rory up AGAIN before 5am. What's up with that?!

So yesterday I got this brilliant idea:

If you can't figure that out, I have taped two diaper boxes to Rory's windows. We already have blackout blinds in all the bedrooms but we don't have curtains to cover the side cracks and I have a feeling with the sun rising so early right now she is waking up to that. (I have to sleep with an eye mask so I'm pretty sure she gets this issue from me.) So I figure this should take care of Rory and I'll get to sleep until 6am. Nope, wrong again. A little after midnight I wake up to Max crying.

I go into his bedroom but instead of him reaching out to me, he is just laying there crying. So I move closer thinking he'll see me and then jump up to be held. I get right up to the crib and he continues to lay there and cry. Then it dawns on me, Max is sleep crying! (He definitely gets this issue from his dad!) I start to stroke his back but he whines a "no" at me and swats at my hand. So I stand there looking down at him in the crib all confused; I'm not going to be able to go to sleep with him crying! I make a second attempt and start to stroke his head around his ear. This works! He slowly stops crying and starts snoring. So once again I crawl back into bed and thankfully, wake up on my own a little before 6am. (The cardboard has worked!)

Now... what will tonight bring?

Please, oh please tell me that I don't have a biter and that this is just Max's coping mechanism while Daddy is out of town! He bit two kids and was stopped from biting on two other occasions yesterday. He even attempted to bite his teacher when she stopped him one of the times! Oh my little monster.

I'm hoping that once we are with Daddy again he will stop, but I know I am grasping at threads here. I'm trying to stay with the positive parenting at this time and praising him often when he is doing good things and then talking with him when we have some quiet time and explaining that we don't hurt our friends by biting or hitting them. We tell them "I'm mad" instead. Yeah, I know, sounds really lame-o but what can I do when he isn't acting out on me all that much right now? I'm not going to make a situation occur.

Naturally I've been researching and I even have a book on its way from the library to see if it will help. I hate that there really is no good advice. I've heard and read just about everything that is suggested and nothing is guaranteed to work. So while making him bite an onion or even flat out biting Max are some of the extremes, I don't want to go that route if it isn't guaranteed to work. I guess I'll stick with this method for now and hope it passes quickly. (Like Daddy gets home and he is instantly cured!)

Those terrible two's? Yeah, those. They are driving me crazy! Max bit, as in clamped down HARD on Lyla's arm yesterday over a bag of potato chips. And this morning when he didn't want to be buckled into his car seat? He pinched my arm, WITH HIS NAILS, even took some skin with him from the nails scratching me. Seriously! I am so nervous what is going to happen at daycare today. I warned them about his new love of violence when he is frustrated so hopefully that will keep them on high alert. I don't even know what happened that suddenly made a spark go off in his brain that says - "Hey I'm upset, lets hurt someone". We don't spank or hit him and he isn't getting hit or bit at daycare. (Well, he hasn't received any incident or accident reports to imply that he is learning that reaction there.) I realize this is partly just his stage in life but it is very, very frustrating.

OK, enough about that for now. Let's focus on the cute things instead right? We went to the Minnesota Zoo yesterday with Grammy, Auntie Rosie, Auntie Katie and cousin Lyla. Our original plans had us all driving down to southern Minnesota to go to a cabin and hang out with the extended family, but the weather down there was rainy and it got canceled so we detoured to the zoo instead.

The kids had a blast and were so cute to watch with the animals. They'd get all excited and make the cutest little faces, like here they are screaming in excitement over the monkeys.

A lot of the animals were active, I think it helps that it was cloudy and cool so the weather was perfect for strolling around like this tiger.

Or swimming like these two bears.

Rory was so good in her stroller, she mainly people watched as the animals didn't intrigue her much. But she did find a couple that she really enjoyed. Here she is watching those silly prairie dogs.

We also made it over to the farm and I took Max and Lyla in to feed the goats. That was one crazy experience!

Lastly, we were able to teach Max and Rory about the birds and the bees. They are so excited to share this information with all their friends! Haha

We had a really great time and the kids were great. We didn't eat lunch until 2:30pm and skipped afternoon naps to be there. You'd never had known outside of their tired eyes, they had so much fun! (The biting incident didn't happen until we left the zoo to have our picnic in the parking lot - so he really was good for the zoo part!)

I also have to give a big thank you to Dido as he rented a vehicle that would seat all of us for our trip. While we didn't make it to the cabin, we still had a great time at the zoo and the kids and the adults all enjoyed being able to ride together. (It was much easier to change our plans last minute when there was only one vehicle that had to make the plan change.) Thank you Dido (aka Curt)!

I came to the realization that Max has started having temper tantrums very, very slowly. He's been getting more and more difficult over the past few weeks and there have just been too many convenient excuses nearby.

His top eye teeth have popped through but the bottom two have not even though he has had two huge swollen lumps where they obviously are working their way out. I still believe this is the reason he's been screaming shortly after we put him to bed. If we give him some medicine, he'll only cry or whimper but if we don't give him medicine he'll be screaming within 10 minutes of laying down. Max is a very active guy and I think the pain doesn't really get to him most of the day, just when he's quietly laying down. So that has been a convenient excuse to use when he's been difficult.

Plus, with summer, we've had the occasional late bedtimes and it's easy to use this for an excuse too. Tuesday evening he's just a ball of tears and screams? Well he was up late all weekend while we were at the lake. Thursday morning he's impossible to get dressed and out the door? Well he did have a rough time getting to sleep last night.

So yeah, obviously it's finally hit me that these are just excuses to the real issue. He's two, he's going to start expressing his likes and dislikes and he's going to start establishing his independence. Where does that leave me? Reading all over the internet on what I should and shouldn't be doing.

I thought I was prepared for this, I mean I've already done a lot of research preparing for this but somehow I'm completely blown out of the water that he is really just throwing a bunch of temper tantrums. Oh the joys! I miss my old Max man, easy going, always the charmer; but I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to see where this new one takes me - a little scared too.

If you have any helpful tips I'd appreciate them. I mean, I am new at this and anything would be appreciated!

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring. He bumped his head and went to bed and couldn't get up till the morning. Or at least, that is what I sing to Max and Rory whenever it is raining out!

Max and I headed outside to try out some mud puddles in the driveway. He insisted on carrying the umbrella around, and my poor umbrella is uber muddy now. Thankfully, I have a second one I can use!

Later that evening I was finally able to get a couple pictures of Rory attempting to crawl. Which entails getting up on her knees and elbows and then rolling over because she hasn't figured it all out yet. It's pretty cute so you'll have to check it out! Here she is with her butt up in the air.

Here she is after she rolled to her side.

She's going to get it soon and then she'll move up a room at daycare. The teachers in the crawling to walking room have been sneaking into the nursery to encourage Rory's crawling so she'll move up to their room. Yup, I have two very popular children at daycare!

Since you probably read my last post about how my son almost got hit by a car I’ve decided to make this blog post all about the Max Man.

Saturday while we were at the farm, it was raining and Max really wanted to get out of the shop. Dusty got the great idea to put Max in our van. Given, this isn’t a new thing, we know it isn’t the safest play area but he just likes to honk the horn or climb all over the seats. Nothing a vacuum can’t fix up when he’s done. What Dusty neglected to remember was that he had quite a wad of cash in the center console as we had planned to go to the St. Paul Farmer’s Market if they decided not to plant the garden in the rain. So when we finally got the kids and get ready to leave we see all this cash lying all over the van. Dusty picks it up and says that his $100 bill is missing. So we both get out and start searching all over the van and we’re joking about it with everyone else. After we get home and I put everyone’s muddy/wet clothes in the wash Dusty reassures me he went through his cash at home and he really is missing a $100 bill. Sure enough, I go to put the clothes in the dryer and check Max’s pocket to find not only the $100 bill but also a $5 bill. I took this picture and sent it to everyone else that was at the farm too. He sure does make us giggle sometimes!

Saturday night when I left, Rory had been put to bed and Dusty was hanging out with Max in the family room. I go in there to see Dusty playing his deer hunting game on the Wii. I was upset because I feel Max doesn't need to start watching a hunting game where animals are killed, it’s just a bit violent for a two year old in my opinion. Dusty tried to argue that it wasn’t a big deal and that Max only watched it for a couple of seconds before getting bored and playing. While we’re discussing this Dusty shoots a deer and it makes a bunch of noises and falls over to die. What does Max do? He goes “oh oh” and points at the screen. Dusty and I instantly smile because we both know who’s winning this argument and then Max points at the screen and starts going “pfff” “pfff” like he’s shooting the gun! Needless to say, the game was shut off. I know he’ll get in trouble at daycare if he makes shooting noises, so I’m not completely irrational here.

Lastly, we’ve cracked and bought our first box of Pull-ups on Sunday. The plastic pants have given Max two bad cuts or burns on his inner thigh in the last 2 weeks. I’m assuming that with the humidity and all his running it just wasn’t mixing well. On top of that, since we are spending so much more time outside, he has been having more accidents. I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about the Pull-ups so we only bought a box and we’ll decide after that if we want to continue (as in he is still keeping them dry and using the potty) or if we’ll want to postpone our potty training attempts until the fall. I’m really not sure which way we’ll go, I hate the idea of relapsing after all the progress we’ve made, but they are more expensive than diapers and I don’t want to waste money if he isn’t going to try to keep them dry like he has with his under ware. He has done his best to keep his diapers dry when we have put them on him so I’m hoping he’ll do the same with the Pull-ups.

Our weekend was more then I could handle! It started out on a Friday night, as Dusty planned a date night for us and we headed to Roberts, WI to watch a tractor pull. Yup, you read that right, my date night was at a tractor pull!

It was actually a really exciting date, as I’d never seen one. It was fun, for the first couple hours, then it got pretty lame and we left shortly after 9pm. I was giving Dusty crap because all the couples around us were all cuddled up and I looked down to see that we had quite the large gap between our two butts on the seat.

Yup, over a foot between us. We’re such good cuddlers!

There were a few girls that were competing with all the boys. I thought that was pretty funny and told Dusty I had to get a picture for my blog and that “the masses would love it”! Here’s to you my masses:

Saturday morning and afternoon were spent at the farm helping to plant the garden. It was raining and I forgot my camera so no picture shots but still great news to share, Rory started saying Mama while we were there. I’m so proud! Saturday evening I left the kids and Dusty at home and headed out to watch a friend’s band in Stillwater. We had a large group of girls and had a great time dancing and singing.

I pretty much danced all night and was exhausted when I got home. Katie also apparently had a good time as I found this picture on my camera on Sunday!

Sunday morning I had to be up and moving as the kids and I had plans to go to Como and meet up with Kristen and her boys. I was so tired, but we went, and when we got there I found out that the Polar Bear exhibit had opened that week, so it was really, really crowded. We had to see the monkey as both Jackson and Max were both talking about them on our drives to the zoo. Here's the kids checking out the animals.

We got the customary picture at the giraffe statue. Yeah, I know it turned out cute!

Then we quickly checked out the polar bears and left there to head to a grassy hill where the kids could eat and play without being so crowded in at the zoo. They had fun running around and Max had been great all day, staying close by if he wasn’t in the stroller and listening. Then the worst experience of my life to-date happened.

We got back to the van and I started to load up Rory and saw Max getting out of the stroller. I told him that I didn’t say he could get out and quickly turned around to get Rory situated in the car seat so I could get him. A couple was walking by and I heard the guy say “no no” and look to see Max walk to the front of the van and look at me with that “come get me look”. I yelled “Max NO” as he jetted out in front of the car. I dashed and miraculously was able to grab him as he was inches from hitting a car driving by. By inches, I mean INCHES, if he had been a little taller he would have been hit by the car’s side mirror, that’s how close it was! I scooped him up and walked around to see the couple standing there. Now in my much saner mind I realize they were waiting to make sure he was OK, but at that moment I was so stressed out by the situation I assumed they were upset with me and I just said something about him being a two year old and breezed past them to get him buckled into his car seat.

I knew I wasn’t calm enough to try to reason with Max. He was looking behind him the whole time, just smiling at me chasing him, and never saw the car, so he didn’t even get scared which would have worked to my benefit. After I got him buckled in I looked him in the eye and told him that he was almost hit by a car and he can’t run into the street. Really, what else could I have done? He’s a two year old and he did what two year olds do. He doesn’t understand what being hit by a car even really means. I think that is what makes me so upset, I couldn’t even use it as a teaching moment in hopes it never happened again; he just doesn’t get it and didn’t even see the car he was almost hit by.

So naturally the scenario has played in my head since that moment and I can’t get the sick feeling out of my stomach. I realize there really wasn’t much I could have done differently. I mean, I could have buckled him into his stroller or I could have put him in the car first since Rory isn’t able to move far on her own, but I didn’t and I can’t change that. I’m not really mad at myself for those things either, I mean, it was an unpredictable situation. I’m more upset that I couldn’t think of something different that would have distracted Max from his initial idea to have me come and chase him. That is what I’m more focused on, that I didn’t think to say “Look a puppy!” and have him look in the other direction long enough for me to get him. I guess if anything, I’ll have to take away something from the situation since Max really won’t be and there is nothing I can do about that.

My morning did not start out well. I haven't blogged about it because it wasn't all that interesting, but my hearing aids have gone from no big deal, to sucking up all my time. (OK, I'm slightly over exaggerating here.)

Two weeks after getting my hearing aids I went in for a follow up appointment and mentioned that the ear buds wouldn't stay in my ear canal. The audiologist took a look and told me that I'm going to need custom made ear buds. Well that sounded pretty cool, I figured it would make them even less noticeable as it would keep the ear buds in which would keep the tubes from sticking out further from my ears. She proceeds to put a putty like substance into my ear to make the mold to send off to the hearing aid place for my buds. It was a pretty cool experience, I was pretty much deaf with the putty in my ears for about 2 minutes.

Two weeks later I get my new ear buds and go on my way. Of course, by the next day even those are not staying in correctly. So I go to my next follow-up appointment that was two weeks later and we order a second set of custom ear buds that have a little "foot" that sticks out of my ear and helps hold them in place. Apparently all ear canals move with jaw movements but some people tend to have more movement than others. (I chose to believe it isn't because I'm flapping my jaw more than others and that I just have a stronger movement. HA!)

About a week after getting these ear buds I'm sitting at home and I got this ridiculous pain in my left ear and take out my hearing aid. I tried to put it back in and it hurt so bad I got tears in my eyes. Of course I can't get an appointment thanks to the holiday weekend until the end of the following week (today). So I don't wear my hearing aids for the rest of the week and go in to get checked out by the audiologist and end up getting squeezed in to see the ear, nose and throat doctor for a second appointment as my audiologist doesn't know what is in my ear. (The same doctor we almost had to take Rory to see - but thankfully she's been ear infection free for 4 weeks!) He takes a look and pokes at it - and yes, it hurts still! -then he tells my audiologist, who is in the room with us, some medical jargon that was way over my head. Thankfully they dumbed it down for me; either I have a blister that popped, or even sexier, a pimple that ruptured in my ear canal.

So now the hearing aid has to stay out of that ear until the pain is gone and then I have to go back to see the audiologist for yet another fitting and also do yet another screechy hearing test to make sure there isn't any unwanted feedback. But on the upside - I met the ear, nose and throat doctor, so now we're pals if I have to go back.

OK, now it is time for the funny pictures from the weekend! I mean, how can I not show those pictures off?!

Mama and her jazz hands are helping to clean up before the storm.

Tara is kind enough to protect Peanut from the wind on the boat.

Andrea is fist pumping down after successfully over throwing Dusty and Chris at goofy golf.

Chris is, well, just Chris, and getting ready to sumo tube.

 Yeah, we had a good weekend up at the lake!