End of Summer?

One of the last weekends before school started we had a few people over to swim & BBQ. It's times like this that I love having the pool... but also hate it, because you wish you could invite everyone you know, but, it's still a neighborhood pool, so you have to only invite so many people (or have 2 parties and invite the other half of your friends for the other one) because we can't necessarily take over the whole pool!

We did have a lot of fun though!

 Tai & Joseph (Tui in the background, Tai's dad)

 What can I say, this girl loves her some watermelon! I may just have to send her to W.A. (watermelon anonomous) She can eat an entire watermelon herself if I would let her!

Coppertone baby? he, he, hee.

Two of my closest friends since I have been here in SC. Angel & Milo.

Joseph was very tired by the end of the night. When we started to pack things up and take them to the car, he thought daddy was leaving him behind. (or maybe he was just sad that the food was put away? probably!) So sad!

Now back to school, here we come!

SWIM, swim, swim...

so what did we do EVERY day after getting Ella's cast off? We caught up on our swimming of course!

This girl was right back to swimming around. She is a little fishy! She can swim around the pool all by herself, and dive even to the deepest 6' for her torpedo & ariel toy! She is amazing... a natural.

Freedom!

Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about 

my monkey jumping on the bed
(or rather climbing on it?)

Well, 3 1/2 weeks later,
after much bag covering (for swimming) decorating, protecting siblings & self from swinging cast (that thing really hurt!) & having to do sooo much more than she wanted me to do for her (little miss independent was very dependent,)
we headed to the ortho's office for... you guessed it! DE-CASTING DAY!
Before heading in to the Doc's office, we took a few final pictures of all the artwork that covered her cast. A lot of people asked to sign her cast; most of the time she would say no, but occasionally she would say yes. Mostly she wanted drawings, not names. So if you asked her if you could draw on it, she would say yes... as long as you drew what she wanted. Silly girl. I guess if she has to wear it, it better be what she wants!

From L to R you can see part of the flower I drew,
a butterfly by Tanner and a flower by Anson (she did allow their initials)

From top to bottom, a pig by me, eye heart u! by daddy & to the R of that the top of the flower from the above picture, with a flying ladybug... casts are difficult to draw on. Something about the permanent marker and the texture.) On the L of the picture is a note from her nursery teacher. She wrote "I love you!" -Miss Mary aka Miss Patsy. Ella almost always calls her Miss Mary. We don't know where this came from. Her name is Patsy, and Ella knows it's Patsy, but she insists that she is Miss Mary.

I think this is my favorite. Drawn by Devin. He swears he can't draw, I disagree.

We finally made it back into the room after a LONG wait in the waiting room. Ella is a little excited.

Until the cast tech comes in to remove the cast. She pulls out the little rotary saw that has what looks like a vacuum hose attached to it. She lets Ella look at it, tells her what she's going to do, and gears up for it. Then she turns it on and tries to go for it.

At that moment I realize just how strong Ella can be. She's a strong girl, and I know that, but there was no holding her still. It took all my strength to try to hold her on my lap. She was kicking, screaming, and scared. I felt so bad for her.

The cast tech left in search of someone who could help me hold her. Ella did a little of this. (below) and was certain she didn't need her cast taken off. She wanted it to stay on and it would be just fine.

The tech came back with another tech who actually did the cutting this time. The first tech, stood close by, ready to help me, but this time she was okay. She was hesitant at first, but once the first cut was made, she was very still and realized it wasn't going to take her arm off.
Next, we waited for the Orthopedic Doc to come in and give her the final good to go. While we waited, Ella did a little pouting...

And a little more of this (here she was crying because she wanted her cast BACK ON!)

The cast left these lines on her arm, and she had a little rash (I guess it's called cast rot) Hard to avoid that when you live in sweaty SC!

By the time we were leaving she was sporting a smile (and they even gave her a beanie baby on the way out)

So what did we do as soon as we got home? SWIM of course!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game?

Or is it take me out of the ball game? 

Some friends of ours were very kind to give us tickets to go see the Blowfish. (college summer league baseball... like a pre-minors/majors league) We had been trying to go all summer, and finally everything was falling into place to go to the last home game of the summer. We had to go... we didn't want to waste the tickets and we'd been so excited to go (the kids love going to baseball games. Not sure if it's for the game or the food. Maybe both)

So on a particularly over scheduled, busy Saturday, (3 birthday parties!) we rushed off to the game grabbing dinner along the way. As we were nearing the stadium a torrent of rain met us. It eased as we parked and we were able to get into the game, see our friends(who work there) and find a seat before the next down pour greeted us. I think we might have seen one at bat? Everyone in the stadium ran and tried to squish under the one covered area. It was quite eventful. This didn't stop us from having fun though. We met some very friendly people. A young couple behind us took pity on Devin trying to keep Ella's cast dry, and gave us one of their umbrellas. Thank you!

Then another young couple sitting next to us kept watching us... I think they were very entertained. They were also very amused with Anson's picture taking.

(Anson kept making funny faces and making me laugh. I'm not trying to make a silly face, promise!)

The man (who reminded us of Devin's youngest brother) offered to take a picture of all of us. Thank you!

While all this was happening, on the field they had quickly covered the field, and after much waiting, began to bide their time with a little southern slippin' slide! It was pretty funny! It started with the ball/bat girls & boys, and the team helpers... then the team got out there and gave it a try.

Then, before I know it, Anson is doing this...

And that evolved to this...

(there was supposed to be a funny video here, where Anson rips off his shirt and goes running through the rain up and down the seats. Funny and totally unexpected! Alas, I have tried to upload it several times and it is still giving me trouble. So just use your imagination, I guess.)

All I can say is, you gotta love that boy! 

He's always up for an adventure, and always ready to make you smile and laugh!

Needless to say, after trying to wait out the rain, we eventually made our way back to the concessions to visit with our friends, eat some treats & try some fresh, hot boiled peanuts (a southern delicacy?) We headed home without seeing much baseball, but overall it was a memorable and fun southern summer night.

The Relatives Came...

They drove all the way down from Washington. Packing up their RV, travelled many places along the way, until at last, they reached our house.

We were all very excited to have my sister Dani & her family here to visit. The first day of their stay we were excited to run out to the pool for a big day of swimming. The Dooley's were ready for some sun & water! We hopped into the pool, and unfortunately were greeted by some vandalism (someone had climbed up onto the cabana and tore off a bunch of shingles, throwing them into the pool and onto the pool deck... this was the first we'd seen of anything like that here, luckily!) The pool maintenance company was just arriving to close the pool down to fix the problem & deal with the insurance & police department. Bummer! We were looking forward to the POOL! Oh, well, off to the lake we walked.

The kids actually really enjoyed wading into the water, playing in the sand and sitting in the shade of the palmettos on the grass. Hurray, disaster averted!

Ella, uncertain she wants to venture into the lake. Has the cast taken the adventure out of the girl? No, but it made her think about sitting in the shade for about 2 seconds before she san for the water & the sand. She spent most of the time playing in the sand with Afton

Joseph, Aunt Dani & Heath

After the kids were tired of swimming, we headed back to the pool to shower off in the nice cold shower, making sure to take turns filling up on icy water fountain water. The kids couldn't pass up the playground, so we headed there for awhile before heading back in to eat.

Afton & Ella - aka the little momma's

Anson & Cora

All the big boys

The girlies

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing back at the house, eating and resting. The pool opened just in time to get a quick swim in before bedtime.