Drew is Two!

Drew's birthday was Friday and the family celebrated in the back yard. Pappy and Vickie, his affianced, came all the way in from East Tennessee. Drew loves buses so I made him a special bus birthday cake.


Drew didn't waste time- he slipped and slided himself silly with big bro and the cousins.




As a bonus prize for his parents, Drew decided to gift us with using the potty on his birthday! We are in Potty 101,Phase I- Pottying First Thing in the morning (which is 5:45 for Drew). Potty talk is probably not good blog material, but if it's ever been your responsibility to force this life skill on another human being, you can relate to my excitement.

We spent the rest of Memorial Day weekend with bike excursions to various playgrounds, swimming at the new YMCA pool (which I am crazy for not taking pictures at, since it's so spectacular- blog post coming soon...)and hanging with cousins.

First Grade Graduate

Blaine is graduating from First grade this week. I can't believe that he's going to second grade! He drew a self portrait on day one of 1st Grade and another this week to show his artistic progress... move over Picasso. I laughingly remember that when he started Kindergarten, his stick men were just a head with legs and arms- no body. With this latest piece of artwork, he has surpassed my fine drawing skills.

Mother's Day , Reports that Rock, and Zumba.

Out for an 8:30am hike on Mother's Day

My Men on Mother's Day...

Mother's Day Hike

Note my boots from college(mentioned in blog below). Hiking poles courtesy of Tommy for my Christmas present- my knees never quite grew right (to say the least) and surgery helped 12 years ago, but they still need a little help on downhills- the poles are fantastic!


It has been too long since I posted, and I am sure that I lost most of my audience due to the neglect. Where have I been? Report writing and Zumba.

I have been elbows deep in a Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services training manual for the past two weeks during all spare minutes of the day and night. I am now a bona fide SQL report expert which you don't give a hill a' beans about, but my customers do...and now I can wow them with subreports buried within subreports that pass parameters hither and fro.

I also discovered Zumba about 6 weeks ago. And not just any Zumba- specifically, Rebecca's Zumba style. Rebecca teaches at the Maryland Farms and Brentwood YMCA and also at the Franklin Community Center (I think, I will check my facts)- she is fantastic to say the least. The most fantastic workout I have ever done! You've never seen the like of Booty Shakin' in Brentwood and in broad daylight!

You can check out Zumba at Zumba.com but it really won't give you much of a flavor for Rebecca's Zumba style. She adds lots of hip hop groove and replaces the standard Zumba music with cool tunes (right now, we do a dance to Pitbull's 'Anthem' which is at the top of the Latin charts and it ROCKS). I love it so much that I even bought special shoes- Nike Electro Shocks. This is a big, big deal (ex. I am still wearing my Timberland hiking boots from college).

Blaine and I also get our groove on in Rebecca's hip hop class once a week. I want him to be able to dance, but I don't necessarily want him in standard dance classes- Rebecca's hip hop hour is the answer. Picture Madonna and Justin Timberlake- that's me and Blaine at hip hop class rocking out to '4 Minutes.' Maybe I am not quite as limber as Madonna and Blaine isn't sporting JT's beard, but otherwise the resemblance is uncanny...hee, hee....