Quite a Summer!

Playing catch up on my life again... it's somewhat ironic that when we're busy living life and have tons to talk about, we don't have time to blog about it, and then when we're not doing much and have nothing to talk about, we have plenty of time to blog. Oh well, at least catching up makes it seem as though I have something to talk about while I'm busy doing nothing so interesting as to be blogworthy ;o)

Time since coming home from doing a week of summer camp has just flown by.

In the week following camp, Fuego, Emjay, and I took a day trip to New Hogan Lake where Some-of-the-time-girlfriend was camping for the week with his family. Other than enjoying SOTTG's wonderful family, we also got to go water skiing and tubing behind SOTTG Sr.'s speedboat (flat bottom, bright yellow, V-8, environmentally unfriendly, loud... basically it's AWESOME =o).

SOTTG and I had tube wars (no, that's not a euphemism) behind the boat with SOTTG Sr. taking tight turns at high speeds to propel us over wakes and into the air in occasionally successful attempt to throw us off our inner tubes (actually somewhat of a misnomer since the tubes were some of those designed to be towed behind a boat and don't go inside of anything). Fuego got some great pictures and we stayed for dinner with SOTTG's family before heading home for the night, sore and tired, but stoked on a great day's outing! Thanks Some-of-the-time-girlfriend!!

The following Monday an amazing group of kids bicycling from Rhode Island came to stay the night at St. ECWIW's. The group came last year as well, as part of a coast to coast ride to raise money and awareness for low-income housing. On their way from RI to SF they stopped at eight different locations for a full day of helping to build some of the houses their annual trips help to fund. There are six annual trips, coinciding during the months of June through August and we were thrilled to have them come through Dtown the past two years. Planning, setting up, hosting, and cleaning up basically crammed about twenty-two hours into two days of work, but it was well worth it.

A scant few days later, Emjay, Fuego and I left for vacation in Ohio, where, as you may have read in a previous blog, I live on in infamy from Uncle Rockin's radio show. I can certainly say that one of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to teach our nephew, Doodle-bug Squarepants, to ride a bike. DB is now eight years old and I couldn't help but think that every eight year old deserves to have a bike and know how to ride it! Of course he had a bike when he was younger, but he had outgrown it almost two years ago and hadn't yet graduated to a two-wheeler without training wheels (a tough step!). Fuego and I bought him a bright red BMX style Schwinn at Target and I spent the next week and a half having daily lessons with DB about safety, riding theory, and test runs. It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life when I was able to let go and watch him really ride on his own -- plus he never crashed (a step up from when my brother taught me how to ride a bike without telling me how to turn or stop ;o). Within another few days, DB was able to start all by himself with no help from me to get him going or to get his balance. It's practically like magic to see someone ride a bike for the first time without any help, I could have cried! We did a few "advanced lessons" after DB's successful completion of the basics, including "Path Riding" and "Hill Riding." I got to make a bike license for him, which he and Lulie printed out, cut out, and laminated for him to carry with him. That is one amazing kid, we love him so much! It's hard to live so far away =o(

Fuego's family was amazing with Emjay and we got to have a wonderful visit. Fuego's Uncle Rockin' runs a summer-long music festival on the Cuyahoga River on weekends ("Rockin on the River"), so we got to listen to some great music, have a few beers, and spend some time with Fuego's cousins -- it was the first time we have both been away from Emjay and even though she was sleeping (we went after putting her down for the night), we were still nervous and held the cell phone in one hand all night just in case.

We got to stay with Uncle Rockin' at his family's amazing home for a night as well, and Uncle Rockin' basically taught Emjay how to babble and mimic in the same night (previous to him, she would only mimic Ginger!). Between he and Mam'maw Emjay came home saying "yayayayaya," and "dadadadadada." Since then she has added in b's, g's, t's, m's, s's and several other vowel combinations -- family rocks!

So we're home again, the program year has been kicked off -- with a bang, I might add (bouncy houses, water balloon fights, 2X4 races, and BBQs), we're simply amazed at our daughter (seven month olds literally learn something new EVERY day!), and things are slowing down enough for me to stay up late blogging for the first time in weeks.

All in all it's been a pretty great summer =o)