What's up Cuz?

Cousin Jackson and Uncle Michael came over for a little swim today. Our weather has been unusually cool this past week with highs in the low 90's! It's been wonderful...but the kids weren't as interested in being in the pool this time.

So they did a bit of jumping on the trampoline...

This little dare devil wasn't afraid of jumping off the waterfall a few times...just to show the boys who's boss...
A future hall-of-famer...
Here's a picture of Hannah showing off her mad computer skills to the boys...

Happy Birthday Tom!

This week we celebrated Jim's dad's 67th birthday! Tom and Carol came over and we all feasted on filet mignon and stuffed mushrooms. YUM!


Hannah presented Grandpa Tom with his birthday present...a basket filled with all his favorite treats!

And he even shared one of his Krispy Kreme doughnuts with her...they were both in heaven!

Hannah had so much fun baking Grandpa Tom's cake with me earlier that day. She cracked all the eggs, used the mixer, (licked the beaters, of course) and put all the sprinkles on! She loves to help!

Happy 67th Balkus!

Shaq Attack

Look out Shaq! Give a 2 year old a basketball and see what happens?

Baby G

It's official! I took pictures for my first paying job this week! "Mom" said she loves all of them...and they're for "Dad" for Father's Day. So hopefully he'll like them too!

The shoot was hard work but a lot of fun...here's some of my favorites....

A Bout with Grout

Remember these days? When your parents would be hanging out with their friends, talking, and drinking until late in the night? Remember winding down on the couch watching cartoons until it was time to leave...only, your parents were having too much fun, so that time grew later and later....so you CRASHED out?

Below is a picture of the tired little victims of the above mentioned scenario. Sean, Markita, and the kids came over last night to clean our carpets and tile (more about THAT later)...in exchange for a yummy steak dinner, drinks, and good company. A trade I'm ALWAYS up for!

Embarrassingly enough, this is a picture of the grout between our tiles (7 years worth of grout dirt) BEFORE Sean cleaned...

And here is the beautiful AFTER shot. I cannot believe the difference! Nor could I believe how much dirt was in that grout!

I know this probably seems like a really weird thing to blog about...but I guess you can only look at so many pictures of my kids, right? :)

Long Weekend!

Here's a brief re-cap of our long weekend...Friday: funeral. Sucky. Saturday: Lake. Sunday: Lake, spent the night on the boat. Monday: Lake. Got it?

It was actually an awesome weekend! On Saturday, we had an adult only trip to the lake with my brother, Stacy, Danny, and Michelle. Our friends Sean, Markita, and Heber were out on their boat too. I love spending time with the kids on the boat too...but it's nice to just worry about yourself once in a while!

Sunday, we brought our friends Brooke, Brian, and their boys Brody, and Brice (cute huh?). I haven't downloaded those pics yet but we had tons of fun together that day! Let's just say, Brooke was having so much fun that she didn't wanna leave that night! Brian had to threaten to leave her behind! What can I say? We're fun to party with! LOL

And finally, today was spent with Jim's sister Jenny, her hubby Steve, and our nephew Austin...along with Danny, Michelle and their son Kale. The kids all have so much fun together and they were swimming all day!


If you look closely, Hannah is asleep next to Austin, and Mason is asleep between Auntie Jenny and Jim!

Michelle, Jenny, and Me!

My over-exposed hubby and tuckered out Hannah.

The Stud Muffin

Jim, Danny, and Michael

Michelle, Stacy and Me!

Birthday #31

I had such a fun birthday weekend! A huge group of our old crew got together for a lake trip to Lake Pleasant. It sure brought back memories! We all had fun drinking and dancing on the boats...and when the sun went down, we headed over to the restaurant at the Marina for a hot meal (and boy, did we all need it!) After dinner, Tamara's boat and our boat headed out to a quiet little cove on the lake where the guys threw out lines in hopes of catching some catfish. No luck there...but it was such a beautiful and peaceful night under the stars.

Unfortunately, we were awoken at 4:30 the next morning by an emergency phone call from Jim's boss. Tragically, Jim's partner, Russ, had died in his sleep that night at the age of 36. It may have been heart failure due to medication he was taking because of cronic back pain following many surgeries. He has a stay-at-home wife and 2 small girls which makes this all the more tragic. We headed home a few hours later, and as you can imagine, today has been a very tough work day for Jim. I would imagine the funeral services will be at the end of this week. Please say a prayer for his family...as I've heard that his wife is not taking this well at all.

So...on a lighter note, despite the awful news, my birthday was better than I could've asked for. The kids sang Happy Birthday to me at home and helped me blow out candles on my white chocolate raspberry cake (yum) after spending the night with Nana (who spoiled them rotten). Here's some pictures from the weekend:

Me & Tamara...she's become such a good friend who also happens to be my, Jim's, and Hannah's dermatologist!
For some strange reason, Jim crawled into bed with Rachelle the next morning.??? LOL This is a picture of their big 'old platypus feet.
My good friend, Mo. She has 2 little ones at home too...so we really whooped it up together!
Rachelle and I...after swimming across the lake to get to this sandbar. We wanted a picture that looked like "we walked on water". :)

Tran and I...great buddy who was also celebrating his birthday. Happy Birthday you Asian hottie!


The newlywed, Dawn, and Olga...one of my back-in-the-day friends!
Here's Olga drinking from a coconut. Her hubby brought real coconuts on the boat and used the milk to mix with ice and vodka for an interesting concoction.

Scotty doing one of his famous back flips...he's insane!

Me, Olga, and Rachelle...gosh it's been a while!

Scotty: "Rachelle, tell it to someone who cares, okay?" lol

Randy and Rachelle came with us on our boat...they helped make my birthday so special and were super generous with gifts, and helping out with the boat and even buying dinner. Thanks guys!

Scott and Mo brought their boat which is big enough for a dance floor practically and has an AWESOME sound system!

Day #2...me and Rachelle

No, officer. I haven't had ANYTHING to drink! Notice the "birthday girl" badge on my hat..courtesy of Dawn and Tran. Thanks guys!