Summertime makes me a happy lady

This one does not have stranger danger at all...

Anthony and Gus share a moment

Mr. Solomon Thomas in the house

Mom and Cleo

Keenan!!

Oliver and Gus riding on Thomas the Tank Engine

Photos from our summertime, thus far. The birthday bbq was awesome. It was so good to see everyone, and all the kids played and played and played. Gus and Cleo are still catching up on sleep from all the partying this past weekend.

On Sunday Gus and Andy went to Baldwin to ride on Thomas the Tank Engine, and they met up with our friend Blake and his son, Oliver. Gus and Oliver have just become little buddies. They are so cute together, holding hands, hugging, hanging out. An immediate bond, I tell you. Andy said they had a great time.

Sunday night we had our first kickball game with our team from Blue Collar Press (the official name of our team is The All-Beef Blue Collar Kicking Ball Society). Our kickball shirts have cheeseburgers on them. I've already met new people, which is always fun, and although my playing was pretty "meh" Sunday night, I'm excited to improve throughout the summer. Andy and I will have to take turns playing the late games (7pm) b/c of the kids. Andy plays this next Sunday night and I'll play on June 14. We're going to grill some grub at the games and take turns buying beer. You can tell how serious we are about playing if we're eating and drinking while playing. Yeah...gotta love Lawrence kickball.

I guess all good things sometimes come to a screeching halt...Andy and I got very ill Monday early a.m. and it lasted all day. After some serious investigation, we found out about 1/3 of the bbq attendees also got sick, so we assumed it was some kind of food poisoning from something at the party. But then the more we looked into it, the more we thought it could even be a virus that we passed around the party, b/c we know of a few folks who had the same illness who weren't at our house Saturday. Either way, it sucked for many. My stomach still isn't back to normal. I hate that, b/c I love eating so much. I get bummed out when food loses its meaning.

Work is ramping up b/c of all the changes, so I'm a little stressed, but so far it's manageable. We're gearing up to visit Kerry in Crested Butte, CO, over July 4. We finally have our condo rented, and we're going to caravan with my parents. Should be a blast, and I miss Kerry, so it will be really great to see her. We're also searching this summer for a new car, so that's exciting. I think we'll take a day off in July to get one. I'll miss the ol' Buick in ways, but I'm excited to listen to NPR on my morning drive to daycare without hearing screeching static blasting from the broken speakers.

I've been keeping up with my weekly lawrence.com gossip blogging, so check it out, if you so desire. New photos at our Flickr site, too.

More later...