Wow - long time no blog!

Nicole and I are sitting in our office in front of the computer trying to solve our complicated life issues. Since finding out 2 weeks ago that our daycare lady Anita decided to change her business model we have been frantically trying to find a new place for our kids to go. What a hassle! Nicole has called all over our neighborhood and in surrounding areas trying to find just the right fit for us and the kids. It is a delicate balance of trust, personality, location, environment and cost and of course our part time need complicated things even more. We are getting close to making a decision so stand by for that...

We are also forced to make a last minute decision to use our timeshare that we purchased back in 2002 and have yet to take advantage of. If you ever get the "timeshare pitch" while on a gorgeous beach in Mexico while they are feeding you free Corona's try to keep your cool and DO NOT SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE! I think we had good intentions but with little kids our travel opportunities have been severely limited to say the least. Of course once that winning lottery ticket comes in we will have not more worries because we can go on awesome vacations and bring the entire family so they can help babysit!

Nicole has been working towards her goal for fundraising for the 3-Day Walk and is getting very close to reaching the $2200 mark. If you have not yet contributed feel free to do so by visiting her website at the left of this page.

I recently participated in the 3rd Annual MS Crawl 4 The Cure (I prefer to do my charity work behind the wheel of the Jeep instead of walking 60 miles!) and it was a great success. We managed to raise $35,000 for the MN Chapter of the MS Society and it was a really fun weekend. To all of you that supported me with cash donations or by purchasing raffle tickets for the Jeep I want to thank you for your support. If you are wondering - the Jeep was won by a woman from Fridley, MN and I am sure that she is a happy camper to say the least! I will post some pictures from the event soon so you can see what it is that we do on the trails of the Iron Range Off Highway Vehicle Park in Gilbert. Oh - and I did manage to make it through the weekend with only a broken rear driveshaft and a leaky tire - neither of which are that big of a deal so I would consider it a successful outing.

The kids have been having a great summer and keeping very busy. Nicole has been trucking them all over town to parks, beaches, the Children's Museum, the zoo and on all sorts of play dates. The both really love the water and swimming is one of their favorite activities. Paige also started doing dancing and "Pre Games" - a introductory class to get her started on sports like soccer, t-ball and more. She loves every minute of it and she has her very first dance recital this Thursday. When I ask her what she does at "Ballerina Class" she just tilts her head and tell me that I will just have to come to her recital and see for myself! What a cutie.

Addy Jo seems to be following in my footsteps and has already had her first ambulance ride after taking a fall from a slide at the Children's Museum onto a concrete floor below and landing on her head and back. It really gave everyone a scare but she has been given a clean bill of health and was back to her normal perky self within a few hours. Now why they would have a concrete floor under a slide at the museum is beyond me -but hopefully the next time we go they have that remedied. Just to top things off tonight she managed to break open a glow-in-the-dark bracelet and rub the green crap all over her face and eyes. For all we know she ate some too but I guess we won't know until we change a glow in the dark poopy diaper! (ha-ha) She is fine from that but she is becoming quite a handful to be sure.

What else has been happening...hmmm, let's see....
Nicole had a great month selling furniture in June and was the top salesperson at the store. She has the proven to be a valueable member of their team and as usual she is doing an excellent job. Nice work!

We had our house sprayed for spiders the other day - so that is cool. We seemed to have an increasing amount of webs on the outside of the place so a quick conversation with our neighber Floyd and our spider problems are in the past. If you have any pests, insects, etc. that you want to deal with we highly recommend giving Advanced Pest Solutions a call. (/gorilla marketing)

My "recycling" efforts have been paying off so far this summer. The big seller seems to be bicycles so if you have anything in the yard collecting dust let me know and I would be happy to take it off your hands.

I think that is enough of an update for now - until next time...