I'm not a player, I just crush a lot! ;)

haha! Okay, I couldn't resist quoting that gem of a song for this blog off!

As always, feel free to play along. This time the topic given to us was...who were/are your crushes! Ones from when you were a teen or current ones! And, yeah...I have a lot of current ones! Sorry, Scott! haha!

Okay, all of mine are SO random, but here we go:

Crushes from back in the day (SEE ABOVE since this STUPID blogger won't let me type above a picture anymore-grrrr)....I don't really remember having a lot of crushes. I liked the NKOTB guys, but didn't have a die hard crush on any of them. I don't really remember watching much TV, so I didn't love Kirk Cameron or any of the usuals from back then! BUT....I love music, always have, and in high school I LOVED me some Gavin Rossdale! I'm still a little jealous that Gwen Stefani stole him from me, but oh well...whatever! Can't you just hear him singing Glycerine now! ahhhh! haha!

Another crush that started way back in the day when I was a teenager but is still going strong today is Wade Robson. Since things didn't work out for us at first ;), I now say that he's going to be my second husband and we are going to have little dancing babies! ha! Most of you are probably wondering who he is....he's a dancer/choreographer. Supposedly, he's the one that broke up Justin and Britney! He briefly had a show on MTV, he's a genius choreographer, and well...just look @ him...he's HOT...and, did I mention he can dance! ha!

Another current day crush is Dierks Bentley. I know he has great songs, but I would rather just watch his cute curly headed self on videos. The good music is just a bonus! ha! This is the only crush that Scott acts offended by...as if I am going to run off to Nashville to go get him or something!...I think Scott is just jealous that Dierks can play the guitar and he can't! haha!
Okay, here is one that might throw you for a loop since I am pretty sure this guy bats for a different team so to speak, but hey...I am a equal opportunity crusher and I don't care if he likes men because I LOVE HIM! Anderson Cooper! I love an intelligent guy with a sarcastic sense of humor and a smart mouth! (Hence my marriage to Scott! ha!) And, the salt and pepper hair doesn't hurt either!
That about sums it up! Like I said, totally random. The only other 2 guys I can think of are...

Kyle Chandler....the Dad/head football coach on the Friday Night Lights show! And, David Morse...he played Tom Hanks' friend and the other nice guard in The Green Mile. He was also in Crazy Alabama. Yes, he's older than my parents, but like I said...the salt and pepper hair...love it!

And, of course...SCOTT is my #1! Really, I did have a big crush on him when we first met. We even went to homecoming together my freshman year of college, but we just stayed friends for years and never dated. God knew when the timing would be right! :) Funny enough, though....someone saved a note that I left him in the library one day YEARS before we ever started dating (and he still has it). Sounds like someone had a crush on me, too, huh?! ;)

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.

I'm working on it!

If you have emailed, posted on here or on Facebook, I have you accounted for! :) I just need to find the time to do it and get emails out to everyone. Hoping to do it this afternoon when/if Liv naps!!

For those of you that don't have a google account *cough* Mom, my aunts, etc!-ha!, you will have to set up a google account but you can use your normal email account and it only takes a minute! (I can hear my Mom grumbling and having technical difficulties with this all the way from here!-ha!)

Blog is going private....

Well, I am pretty sure that the blog is going to go private. If you are a reader and would like to have access to the blog, just shoot me a message with your email and I will make sure you are on the list. :)

Strawberry Pickin'

We love going to Ekert's anytime, but especially during strawberry season. Instead of a tractor they put us on a bus, but oh well! ha! Still fun!




They have the best market and resturants, too!


We had such a fun morning. We were there for hours, lots of goodies and good food! :)

Fishing!

Our neighborhood is situated around a nice big lake, so we are able to go fishing anytime we want. The girls love it, and it's a stocked lake where you throw everything you catch back, so on most evenings, you catch something just about every time you cast.


Had to get a close up of Liv's bow tie! ha!
Wine and bug spray...yep, I'm ready! ha! I actually took that picture for my sister because she got me that cup. I don't normally take a cooler cup of wine fishing with me. It had apparently been a long day. ha!
Love it! :)

She isn't scared of anything. She will touch any bait, any fish, etc.
These crack me up! The fish started going wild and the girls were freaking out!

And look who got the biggest catch of the night! And, that is the first time I ever held a fish!

A day in the life...

I just read this blog that I really enjoy, and the lady did a darling post, documenting her day with her 2 little boys. She is so cute and they had so much fun and her kiddos are so good and happy and she appears to be so organized, etc. and...I nearly wanted to cry! ha! I would do a Day in the Life blog, but 1. anyone reading along that does not have children would certainly never have children after reading it, 2. I am not sure I could make it an entire day of taking pictures without leaving my camera somewhere, losing the lens cap and/or a child dropping and breaking it, and 3. if I did make it an entire day with my camera still in one piece AND remembered to take photos of everything, there is no way I would have time to post it that day (or that week, or heck...maybe even that month at the rate I am going)! And, I think her pictures were staged, anyways...there wasn't one single picture of her kids throwing a fit, fighting her or one another, refusing to nap/go to bed, refusing to eat, singing a made up song about how her rules are stupid, no storming out of the room and declaring that they will never play the other sibling again....nothing! Yep, that's it...it must have been staged...just a make believe story! Whew, I feel better now. haha!

Seriously, though the Day in the Life post reminded me of an incident the other night. After dinner we went to get a snow cone as an after dinner treat. Nothing was out of the ordinary...both girls knocked over their snow cones thus creating a big scene and a big mess at least once, we were the loudest group there, etc. Scott made a comment asking if I noticed how people always stare at us when we are out. At first, I found his comment rude and took slight offense to it because he had to throw in a little dig about how we are similar to a 3 ring circus at all times and how we are the loudest people he knows but that's okay because he's 'noticed all the women in my family are loud, so we get it honest!' (insert daggers flying from my eyes and a smart a$$ comment back about how if he wanted to marry someone boring, then he married the wrong girl-ha!) That all being said, YES...people do stare at us, but usually it's 1 of 3 reasons...1. they stare, then smile, then tell me how beautiful, cute, nicely dressed, etc. my children are :), 2. they notice our accent and want to know what in the world we are doing here-ha! or 3. we are a walking freaking amusement park (yes, I will throw Scott a bone on that one). Well, well...what do you know. The table of people that were staring at us that night fell into category #2!! I hope Scott still feels bad about his comments, especially the ones about all the women in my family being loud and how we are a constant 3 ring circus! I mean, there is no way they were staring for any other reason ;) ha!

Now that I think about it, maybe I will do a Day in the Life post! Could be quite interesting!