C'mon lemme see ya shake a tailfeather....

Happy Friday one and all! Well, both my boys are gone, gone, gone. We safely stuffed Owen away at Indiana State Troopers Camp yesterday. I think the boy was honestly nervous. I could have left Alex at the curb of Loyola University with all of his gear and he would have just waved good-bye. Owen needed a little more hand-holding. You'd think, with him being the seemingly more outgoing one, that he would just bolt from the car and be done with us...not so. He's typically a little leary of new situations, wants nothing to do with recognition (he's MORTIFIED that I sent the press release on him winning the essay contest to the paper), and won't actually choose to talk to people he doesn't know. Who's his mother???? Crazy talk.

I had to force him to go over and meet his roommate..."I'll just meet him when we get up to the room, mom" he said through gritted teeth and much eye rolling. He was concerned about wearing a sleeveless shirt to camp because he didn't know what kind of impression that would make. He was worried that he would be hanging out with "all smart people, and I don't know how smart people act!" Ummmm, Owen, the camp isn't ONLY for essay winners...it's just that we didn't have to PAY for camp because you're an essay winner. And if you're definition of smart people is kids who write essays...guess what? YOU'RE in fact a SMART PERSON.

Holy mother.....
So much worry in my little one.

So we went and talked to the roommate anyway, didn't really give him a choice, and I'm glad we did, and I think he was, too. They had quite a bit in common...they both play lots of sports, like watching wrestling on TV, have the same uniform (long basketball style shorts and under armor)...I predict that he's having a good time. He hasn't called for me to come get him yet, which is encouraging...not that I really expected him to. Once he got in the mix, I'm sure he took a firm hold on his heritage of having friends before other people have seats. He'll probably want to have his roommate over to the house (they live in Southern Indiana now, but are moving to LaPorte soon)

The name of Alex's band at camp is Sideshow. He said he's having a good time, learning stuff, playing a ton, and that his guitar players are lazy...well, only two of them. His roommate is like he is...play and play and play. The other two are good for a couple of runs, and then they want to take breaks. Ummmmm....for $1800, you can break when you sleep, baybees...until then, shut up and play.

I pick him up tomorrow and I'm excited to see the concert. There's a concert tonight where the bands will be playing songs they've learned to cover, I guess. I've ordered the DVD of tonight's concert as well as the concert they're giving tomorrow with their original music. Very exciting!

I'm already tired of the heat...even as I sit here in my air conditioned office....

It's been one week since you looked at me

threw your arms in the air and said you're crazy....

Hello Bloggers...anyone still with me. So many stories to tell, so little time. I'll start with this weekend and hopefully I'll find some breathing room this week to fill you kiddies in on the nuttiness that is my life from the past couple of weeks. It's been a doozy, lemme tell ya. I literally JUST unpacked on SATURDAY from fabulous desert vacay, if that tells you anything, and the only reason I unpacked then was because Alex needed the suitcase to go to Power Chord Academy.

First:
Owen's all star team played in a local Morocco tournament all last week. Our league got tired of participating in the official little league all star tournament and getting spanked. We have great kids, good ball players, but when you play against the bigger towns/cities where their all stars literally play together all year long, we just don't stand a chance. So we played teams that are more in our demographic to give our kids a fighting shot. And fighting shot they had. They swept every game, and it wasn't even close. 18-2 on Monday, 11-1 on Tues, 14-3 on Thurs and the championship game on Friday? A 17-0 blowout in 4 innings. In fact, we didn't have one game in the tourney that went past 4 innings. As you can see, the boys were thrilled with their win:
Nut jobs, all of them, and so much fun. Owen and Coach Kevin are actually undefeated on the year...Owen looked awesome on the mound on Friday night. The Watseka coach told Kevin that his kids were afraid of Owen - he pitches faster than their 11/12 pitchers...he was constantly on his team to "stay in the box! he's not going to hit you!" "Don't worry, just swing the bat! Don't close your eyes!" It was actually kind of comical.

Saturday found me at the market and on the beach with Julie and Hayden. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!! It was her birthday weekend! I got stinky cheese and a slight sunburn in the places where my sunscreen spray didn't quite make. Whoops. Because the air show was going on in Gary, we had a stealth bomber slowly creep right over top of us. And creep it did...it was ooky. Julie said it looked like a giant lego piece flying overhead and she was right. All big and black and quiet and OOKY, I tell ya, OOKY.

Sunday we moved Alex into PCA. It's going to be such an awesome experience for him. There are 6 kids in his band: 3 15 year old guitar players, a 13 year old bass player, and...wait for it...a 16-year-old chick lead singer. Yeah, that's right, my son has a GIRL singer!! ROCK on! I can't wait to see what happens with this...Alex says she's got a Christina Aguilera style voice, but I wonder if she can rock that voice. And I quote him: "I heard a little edge in her voice like you get a couple of times, but not a lot. She might be able to rock like you..." yeah, that's right, not only am I TOTALLY screwing my son for the future with my cooking, and the fact that he'll never understand a woman that actually puts her make-up on IN THE HOUSE instead of IN THE CAR...now, now apparently I've benchmarked what a chick rocker should be. Oy yoy. Heaven help his future wife. Heaven help me this week as I fight the urge to call him 52 times a day to find out what's happening. And I'm also fighting the urge to drive over there an listen outside the door!! AGH!! Can't wait for the concert on Saturday!!! His roommate is one of his guitar players and they are two peas in a pod already. Totally hit it off in the brief time I saw them together. Kevin thinks they had already worked out a secret handshake before we left. oh my.


Stay tuned...I've got a coyote story, the Dan Toler story and much, much more!!

C'mon baby light me on fire....

Seriously....I need sleep. In a baaaaaaaaaad way. I'm crabby. I have bags under my eyes. My eyelids are feeling very heavy....heavy....heavy....

I feel like I could sleep standing up. I need a vacation from my vacation! We really did pack it in, but hey, it took me 37 years to get that far west of the Mississippi...who knows when it will happen again!!

I must share with you all one of my favorite pictures snapped on the vacay...
These monks were cracking me up that day. Something about a guy sitting on a blanket, eating fruit and dressed like a monk talking on a cell phone while snapping pictures with his digital camera...it was just...funny. But then I caught this as I was taking a pic of the fam and I just cracked up. Too fun, too fun.

Owen's baseball season ended with Coach Kevin and the boys having a 14-0 season. We missed two games due to weather, but we would have beat them, too.

Alex's band had a gig over the weekend at a graduation party. Their first encounter with a) the drunk family member who cannot be controlled (and no, it wasn't me...it was a party-goer) and b) the guy in the audience who is so jealous of what you're doing that he feels the need to draw attention to himself by being the most obnoxious thing walking. It shook their confidence a bit, but they took it all in stride. Alex may be starting another side project, too...and power chord academy is happening soon. Good thing he's working every single day this week. He actually had to put his hair in a pony tail for work today. Oy vay.