Holy buckets (of water)!

Brandon, the girls and I ventured to a local lake that is currently more than 34 FEET above it's standard pool depth. Brandon and I have fished this lake quite a few times and it's one of Brandon's favorite crappie "holes". Due to the high water, the flood gates on the dam are open...all four of them...and they are releasing in upwards of 54,000 cubic feet of water per SECOND. That translates to about 405,000 gallons of water per SECOND.

Pictures:

"...next time won't you sing with me!"

Lily was singing her ABC's all the way to school today. 30 minutes worth. I enjoyed every second. Here's how it goes:

Lily: "Aah, bee, ceeeee, deeeeh, eeeeeeeeeee, eff, gee, ache, eye, jah, kah, elle, mmmm, en, ooooh, pee, qu, arrrre, essssssssssssss, tee, ewe, vee, dubble ewe, x, why, and zee. Now I no my Aah Bee Ceeee's, deeeh eeeeeee, eff, gee, next time sing with meeeee!"

Love it. Ava would scream, "Again! Again!".

Also...I have made my deposit to the university and am waiting to hear from the registrar as to what credits transferred in and how long my program will run. I'm reallllly hoping for a year. But I won't be (too) disappointed if it's longer.

We're hoping to be enrolled with the girls in a Parent and Tot swimming course at the local YMCA. First lesson is August 5th. I really, REALLY don't want to get in a swimsuit, but I will for the girls. It will be depressing, I'm almost certain. But I'll deal.

Hmmmm. What else? It's been a really boring past few weeks. As detailed by my phonetic spelling of Lily's ABC sing-a-long.

My new favorite blog!

The Pioneer Woman!

Oh my gawd! I have already made a list of about 10 recipes that I want to try, 2 of which I will be trying today (if not tomorrow...depending on my husband who is feeling a little bit under the weather).

I know Sarah has this listed on her BlogLinks, but I'd never visited it. Not until yesterday when I asked my homeboard on the Nest, Married Life, what the most fattening dessert they'd ever had was. I have a co-worker who is currently battling Adenocarcinoma in the duodenum. She has hit an all-time low in weight, 85 lbs. This woman isn't much shorter than me, so that would put her at about 5' 9". She visited the office last week to bring treats, as she did find that the tumor has gone down a bit in size. But it's still taking a hell of a toll on her, as she can't possibly eat enough to keep up with what the tumor is stealing from her body. She must eat every 2 hours. This means waking up through the night, eating hot dogs, cheesecake, milkshakes, whatever she can find that is fattening and appeals to her. Poor thing. I can't imagine. Anyway, some of my Nestie friends suggest these apple dumplings from the Pioneer Woman blog. Or cheesecake. So I decided to send her an Eli's Cheesecake gift pack. The same one I sent another friend last year who was fighting cancer. He is now in remission. I sure hope there's some magical healing powers in these Eli's Cheesecakes.

Anyway, I'm going to make the dumplings (which involve TWO sticks of butter and a can of Mountain Dew...clearly an ideal recipe for my husband) this weekend.

And now I must go, before the girls kill each other.

Ava and Lily...enjoying a Saturday morning breakfast of "Loopy Loops" (aka Fruit Loops)

Well, it's the truth!

Can I get a "HELL YEAH!"

School update!

After I decided that I wanted to finish my degree, I called the benefits person here at work. It turns out that the hospital has a "loan and forgiveness" program which will basically pay for my schooling. As I work her, my "debt" is repaid at a certain rate based on the number of years I have worked here.

Now, there are no excuses. I've requested all of my transcripts and I think the University has received a few of them. I'm anxious to hear about what will or will not transfer over. I'm hoping that most (if not ALL) of my business credits transfer over. Wouldn't it be great if I could lop off an entire year of the total program time. Yes, yes it would.

The girls and I are meeting my parents and sister-in-law (and her son) for dinner tonight. My Dad is golfing in town today, my Mom is keeping my nephew while my sister-in-law has meetings for work...so the girls and I will just be meeting up with them once we get back in town. Should be a wild night. Brandon is working on his friend Scott's roof, re-shingling.

Not much on tap for the weekend. Brandon will either be working on the shingle job, or working at another side-job he started last weekend.

Kids Picture Post

Ava - Ornery as ever!

Lily loves her Crocs...she thumbs her nose as fashion snobs everywhere!

My Lily-bear!

"This flower STINKS!"

"I agree, Sis!"

Cheesy!

Serious Lil

Rockin' the two piece

Snap-pops are the best!

Canada Picture Post

Us

Sunset at camp

Our pilot, Shane and Brandon

Pretty stream leading to the portage

Again...

"Hurry up and get our shit on the plane, thanks!" - Jeana

Shane coming to get us...THANK GOD!

Our little friend...Mr. Squirrel.

Sexy fisherwoman!

Home, sweet, home...er...kind of.

Brandon and his 32 inch Northern Pike.

Holy Crap...a month?!

Wow. I'm surprised I haven't been verbally lashed out at because of my inability to update my blog! In all fairness, we didn't have Internet at home until this past Saturday, so I'll just use that as my excuse.

The birthday party for Ava and Lily was a blast. They had so much fun. Neither knew exactly what to think about the bounce house, but both decided it was okay to at least sit in once their cousin, Hunter, got in. Lily would do this funny non-bouncing bounce...but Ava just sat there. She enjoyed watching at least. They got tons of nice gifts and had a very nice party. The only bad part of the whole party (which turned out to be fine), was that the bakery FORGOT to make the ladybug cupcakes. FORGOT! Jerks.

The trip...ooooh the trip. The drive up was nice. Brandon and I were both so excited that the time just flew by and before we knew it, we were in Dryden, Ontario. The scenery was beautiful, even though it was raining..all...the...way...up there! We found a nice restaurant, Riverview Lodge, for dinner. The phone book (LOL @ me for doing my restaurant research in the phone book!) said that they offered casual and fine dining. Okay, works for us...as I was dressed in Capri's and a tee with flip-flops, and Brandon in shorts and a tee, flip-flops as well. Well, when we got there, they seated us on the fine dining side. DOH! At first, we were self-conscious because we looked a little scurvy. But, when we looked around we noticed a few others dressed just like us, so we stopped feeling bad and started enjoying our meal!

We got to the air base at 6 am, so we could fly out at 7 am. It was raining and our pilot, Shane, told us that it might be bumpy. I'd taken some motion sickness pills, so I kind of thought everything would be okay in that department. But, alas, about halfway through the trip I was proven to be wrong.

The fishing was great (Fishing Report), but we had one mishap of the furry variety. A bear. On the third morning. On our deck. He knocked over the propane tank of the grill, and licked the sliding glass door. He wandered around camp for awhile, finally settling down at the exit drain from the cabin. I guess he enjoyed the taste of shampoo and dirty dish water. Brandon got a lot on film, but we didn't get any still shots. Finally, after Brandon screamed at him once (which resulted in a "Whateva, Buddy...do you think you're gonna scare ME?" look) he decided to bang some pans together...which was loud enough to scare the bear off. But, the damage had been done. No more trips to the shitter alone for Jeana. No more cooking and creating "smells" and "scraps". I was ruined!

5 days was plenty of time in the wilderness and we were both ready to see the girls. The return trip seemed to go just as fast, luckily. We picked the girls up the following morning and they wouldn't allow us to leave their sight for days!

We've settled into the new house, and are enjoying it immensely.

Work is going...okay. We'll just leave it at that.

I'M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL! I'm very excited and looking to start classes in January 2009.

Other than that, day to day...same old, same old!