I Got a Bad Owie!

Yesterday Ozzy's friend Lucky came over and Ozzy got so excited he hurt himself! Nothing that $396 won't fix. Hopefully, anyway. The vet said he didn't break anything but may have torn some ligaments. He has to keep the splint on for a week and then they'll remove it and see if he's any better. He cried and whimpered all night long. Rick and I even slept in the family room with him since he is not too good on the stairs just yet. We are all going to Champaign for the weekend for Lauren's graduation. I hope Ozzy is up for college!

Nothing but Rain

Yep. Two plus weeks of it. We still managed to enjoy our time with family and friends. And I always adore some alone time with my man. Nothing like it.

Ron and Bon joined us for a week and Lauren and Nathan came down for Easter weekend. Rick and Ron caught plenty of fish. Enough for a Good Friday fish fry and then some. Ron caught a 20lb. spoonbill catfish that he cleaned and fileted. Not knowing what it would taste like we cooked a small portion and all decided it was not fit for human consumption. However, it was the biggest fish Ron has ever caught. Go Ron!

Nathan trailered his new motorcycle down here but only got a chance to ride once. I felt bad for him. All he wants to do is ride that bike. When he was buying it a few weeks ago I told him he needed to get a helmet for my daughter and he did. He is such a nice young man. The nicest boyfriend Lauren has ever had. I can't find a thing I don't like about him. Makes me suspicious, just my nature. But I'm going to try and lighten up. Lauren, Nathan and I stayed up late one night playing Sorry and the two of them were so busy jumping each other that I won. Twice. I love it. I never win at Sorry but they won't play Scrabble with me anymore. I'll have to wait until we go to New York this summer to play Scrabble. Gotta beat Caroline.

And then there was the egg coloring party. Rick made his usual "Floyd" egg and Nathan made a "John Deere" egg. Yes, he's a farm boy. Lauren made an "I heart U" egg for Nathan. I looked at Nathan and said, "I used to get the "I Heart U" egg!" So Lauren made another one for me that simply said "Mom." Oh well.

We had some of the most incredible storms over the past 2 weeks. Several trees in the hood are down including two of our neighbor's trees that fell on her boat dock. A total mess. It looked as if the neighbors would be able to salvage their boat dock but after more heavy rains and rising waters the dock just couldn't take anymore and went under. DOH!

Rick had a client come down for a weekend of fishing. Something they have been trying to do for years and finally managed to get it together. Well, needless to say there was no fishing. It was all we could do to get to the dock. But the inventor and the patent attorney put their heads together and came up with the Redneck Raft. I have to say it worked pretty well except that you really need to step onto the raft in the middle. Learned that the hard way.

Last but not least, our house was struck by lightning. We were lucky, though. No fire and no serious damage. But it did fry our TV, surround sound, my beloved ipod, the Wii and my Jacuzzi tub. Currently waiting for Lakeysha, the insurance adjustor, to get back to me. I have expect to get screwed by the insurance since insurance is the biggest "legal" scam going. As soon as you make a claim, boom, up go your rates. We'll have to see what happens with that. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Cadiz April 2011

A couple of weeks ago was my last Mom's weekend at U. of I. Colleen flew in from New Mexico to tag along with me, Karla and Michaelene. Then, just for fun, Rick came down on Saturday. That meant that Rick, me, Karla, Mikey and Colleen all shared a hotel room Saturday night. Rick has been known to crash Girl's Weekend in the past and the girls never seem to mind. He fits in quite well. So we get back to the hotel on Saturday night about 2am, Rick is parking the car and we are heading to the room when someone says, "Do we have to sleep in our bras?" Turns out it wasn't an issue since we were all tucked in by the time Rick got to the room. Lights out, ready to crash and who starts the giggling? That's right, Rick. We all were like, "REALLY Rick?" Guess he never had too many sleepovers.

Lauren has a good friend, Billy, from high school that pitches for U. of I. baseball. Billy and Rick have always had the baseball bond and have talked incessantly about the game over the years. It was fortunate for us that Billy was pitching that Saturday of Mom's Weekend so we finally got to see him play. Rick sat right beside the girl with the radar gun and asked her after each pitch how fast Billy was throwing. Billy was so thrilled that we came to see him play that he got Rick a game ball signed by the entire U. of I. team. It now sits in a case on our fireplace mantle in the basement. A nice addition to our sports memorabilia collection.

Oh, and Ozzy loves college!

Mom's Weekend U. of I. 2011

Next up is graduation weekend. Where did those 4 years go?

A belated happy birthday shout out to Justin. Love you and miss you man.

And Henry is walking! Look out world!

Movin' On

Our baby is now a college freshman! Hard to believe. The graduation ceremony was insane. 715 graduates and the ceremony only lasted 70 minutes. They were reading the names faster than the kids could cross the stage. By the end of the ceremony, the names had all been read and there were still about 50 graduates to cross the stage. Lauren wore her gold tassel that represented her being in the top 10% of her class and she also wore a gold cord around her neck that represented her being a member of the National Honor Society. Those achievements proved more than worthy when Rick and Lauren went to U. of I. on Monday to register for classes. Lauren will start college with 13 credit hours. Five credit hours earned for AP calculus, four for AP economics and four for scoring high on the English portion of her ACT. This means that she will only need to take 13 hours per semester and can transfer into the School of Business her sophomore year as long as she maintains a 3.0 GPA. She says, "No problem!" Her schedule at U.of I. couldn't be better. She doesn't have class until 11am on Fridays which is apparently key since Thursday nights are "bar" nights!

Did I mention only 73 days til she goes away?

Only One More

Now that the "Top Ten Percent" dinner is over we only have one more school function to attend. Graduation on June 2nd. If I had a dime for every school/sporting event we have attended for Lauren, I'm sure it would be enough for at least a semester at U. of I. In the words of Ronnie Milsap, "I wouldn't have missed it for the world!"

Its Official

Lauren will be attending University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana beginning August 18th. That would be 144 days from now. Not that we're counting or anything. She is very excited as are we. She came home from school yesterday and told me that they were done learning for the year. She proceeded on with this long diatribe about why she wouldn't be learning anything the rest of the year. When Rick came home and I told him this, he was like, "What?" I simply pointed to Lauren and had her explain to Rick. I'm relatively sure she had this speech rehearsed since she repeated to Rick, almost verbatim, what she told me. Who cares. She's in at U. of I. and that's all we care about, now. Congratulations to the newest Illini as she joins a long list of family and friends, including Bobby, Michael, Carolyn and Debbie. LONG LIVE THE CHIEF!!