And, she's baaaaaack! :)

And, I STILL can't figure out how to write above the first photo of a post! GRRRRRR....ha!

So, I happened to look at my blog and realized that the last photos and events I posted about were from...wait for it...MID-MAY!! WHAT THE...that's insanity, and I am slightly embarrassed. I do read all of your blogs and stay current, I just can't keep up with mine. But, this is a BIG week for us, and now that summer is coming to a close and things will be on a tighter schedule, I WILL get this blog back up and running and up to date. I just hope I still have some followers. Let's see...since mid-May we have:

1. Made the blog private! YAY! Now, I can curse if I want to (I tend to let one slip every now and then :/... and I can tell you things without getting attacked like, 'hi, my name is Andrea and I am a Republican!' ha! And, I can post about us making Auntie Anne pretzels without getting contacted by the company! (True story...it wasn't for a bad reason, but still creepy none the less!)

2. I can talk about things like...Scott leaves for Afghanistan in exactly 3 months, to this day! :( We are preparing for it already. He has training coming up. One takes place here in St. Louis and won't be a huge disruption, but another is in DC, so he will be gone for that (clearly). We are trying to plan out all of our traveling between now and the time he leaves. We don't want to miss visiting with anyone, plus we will be celebrating some stuff early, especially since he will be gone during Thanksgiving, Abby's bday, Christmas, New Year's and Valentine's Day. BUT, he will be back on his birthday! What a celebration that will be! I wanted to make this blog private so that I could regulate who sees it, but also because I will not be broadcasting his deployment on Facebook, so this will be a place where I can talk about it and keep people updated.

Other things that have happened since mid-May:

3. Abby graduated from preschool and will starting Kindergarten on Thursday! This Momma is NOT ready for that, but she sure is, so we are all VERY excited! :) She got the teacher I was hoping for, all the kids from this neighborhood are in her class, as well as some other friends from tball, etc., so she was very happy about that. The last 2 years she has been at a different preschool, so she was nervous about not knowing anyone. Once I told her about all the kids in her class, her exact words were, 'now it's time to get wound up!' ha! I will post pics of her darling preschool graduation as soon as I start getting caught up!

4. As you can see in the picture above, Scott and I had an adult night out, and it was with friends from college! Sooo much fun. Most came into town for the weekend and we all went to a Cardinals game!

5. The girls had swim lessons and did SO good. They did private lessons, so they both had one on one instruction. It was really good for them because as wild as they both are, they can be timid in big groups so this was a good fit for us. They both are water bugs and Abby is really doing a good job swimming this summer.

She evens jumps off the diving board! :)
5. We've done quite a bit of traveling...mostly Dixon to see Scott's family, New Albany to see my family and Paducah to see Scott's sister and her family! :)

The girls with Goggy and Gi-gi! (who happen to be celebrating 40 YEARS of marriage today! Happy Anniversary, we love you both very much!)
Relaxing in Aunt Sara's pool! (This is my favorite picture of the entire summer, by the way! What a rough life she leads! ha!)
Swimming with Baby Will! He is still the girls most favorite person! :)
6. We celebrated 4th of July!!! :)
7. We made mud pies and did LOTS of playing, playing and more playing!
8. Late night catching lightning bugs and taking funny pictures while we released them!
9. Spending time with friends....
and getting my first ever pedicure (I am addicted by the way, and will probably never paint my own toe nails again! ha!)
9. We went on a fabulous vacation to Tan-Tar-A Resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri (lots more pictures of this trip to come, also).
10. I took my cheer squads to camp in Carbondale, IL. (and sadly, because of Scott's deployment, I had to resign as coach this year, but I am still helping here and there when I can).
Both the JV and the Varsity squad had a great week at camp. Carlyle won just about every award given: both squads won Top Team, both received bids to Nationals, 4 of my Varsity girls won All-American (see above photo :), and one of my seniors won Overall Top All American of the whole camp and also received a staff application to work for NCA next year! I could not be more proud of all of the hard work they have put in since I have been their coach.

Here are both squads with all of their awards! :)
**Since I have spent less time coaching at the school, I have put in some extra time at the gym where I coach tumbling. Thankfully, the summer session is almost over, I have an almost 3 week break before fall session and my hours will be back to normal. I LOVE the job, but I have torn up my shoulder pretty bad. If the break and fewer hours do not help, I am not sure what I will do! :( Surgery is more than likely what I need, but at this point, there is no way that is possible. We just don't have the luxury of extra help while I heal, etc. But, like I said, hopefully with some rest and some therapy, all will be well on it's own.

11. And, last but not least, we have been up to....having FUN WITH OUR GIRLS!! :)
I think I have covered most of the major things, but like I said, I will be back with more photos and posts about everything from the past few months. :) It's been a busy summer and while I am no ready for Abby to go to Kindergarten, I am more than ready for fall, a new routine, etc.