We hope everybody had a fun, enjoyable and safe Fourth of July! We spent the morning in a neighboring town where they had a parade and a flea market. I honestly wasn't too impressed with either so next year we'll find a parade in another town. After the much needed nap / relax time the kids played in the backyard in their new pool (or as Damion calls it, mosquito trap).

Then after dinner we met up with Adam and Nicole at the park for fun and fireworks. And by fun I mean I watched Adam & Nicole run after Jack as he ran all over the place and watched Adam & Damion play a game while Anna stood next to them waving her flag cheering “Go Adam, Go!” On the way home we had two very exhausted kids. While Jack may not look tired he only turned because he saw my flash finder thing on him and turned to react to the camera. And yes, I know the pictures are the bestest qualities, but we were driving over some bumpy roads and these were the best of those I took.

For those of you who are looking for something to follow in your spare time, might I suggest the site, robertjfaulkner.com ? If you don't know who Rob is, well you should! He is a friend that we have known for over 11 years and he recently returned from his second tour overseas. He has decided to spend the next 50 days biking from Central IL to California. He started July 2, so you don't have a lot to catch up on, especially since one day was spent recovering from some learning experiences. GO ROB!

 I’m here to report that I have reached that point in my life where the biggest highlight last week was that both of the kids went poopy in the potty.  I’m still trying to figure out if that being the highlight is a good or bad thing.  Anna is mostly potty trained, which she is excited about because now she knows she has done her part and go to preschool this fall!  Jack has apparently taken on the “anything she can do I can do better” mentality or else he feels left out when she goes to the bathroom. Either way I’m supporting him in his efforts and have cleaned up several spots on floors because as I learned one day at a coffee house potty training boys is quite different than potty training girls.

Anna has decided that she doesn’t need naps anymore.  An unwritten agreement is in place and she gets to stay downstairs but she has to relax for about 45 minutes before she can continue playing.  Lately when that time is done she wants to be “Artist Anna” and she pulls out her basket that holds glitter glue, scissors, crayons, glue and colored pom ball things and a stack of construction paper and works away.  Lately she’s also snuck the tape out too but that is now hidden.

Jack has decided that he doesn’t like being on the ground.  He quickly climbs the entertainment center to get the phone so say “Hi D” (fyi “D” is Damion aka DadDy).  Over the last couple of weeks he has been found on the washer, once after he dumped a container of OxyClean, the other after pouring out the liquid Downy.  For the record cleaning products don’t clean up that easily.  The other day he noticed I hadn’t put the lock across the door and could get into the garage.  I went looking for him and noticed the door was slightly opened and in my scan from their wagon to the door to the backyard I found him!  On Damion’s motorcycle!

Other than that things have been quiet around here.  My birthday came and went without any problems.  Damion is off racing with Team Police Brutality this weekend, for some reason creating a link isn't working so head on over to speedycop.com to learn more.  The kids are enjoying the summer weather.  This year they are putting sand all over our backyard, which is better than in each others hair, which is the other preferred sand relocation site.  

And of course I’ve updated our photo gallery with all the other stuff that’s happened since the last post here so please take some time to look and read up on everything.

Today we went as a family on a mission to hunt geese........to take pictures of them. Jack seems to think that any animal with wings is a goose and goes a bit shy of bonkers when we drive by a local office building that seems to have geese in its lawn almost year round. I'd also like those not familiar with where this building is to know that we pass by it almost anytime we go somewhere and almost every time without fail he yells “Goose! Goose!” while looking for them.

Damion decided he and Anna would go out at 6 am today to take pictures of geese to put in Jack's bedroom. Well they did not get up a 6 am so I revised Damion's plans and we all went to the park. We were there for about 45 minutes. Damion & Anna took two cameras and took some pictures. I did some speed walking while Jack ran around on the trail. I think in the first 15 minutes he ran a half mile but it was over a 100 foot span going back and forth.

I have posted pictures in the gallery so you can see pictures that were taken. The first two were done by Jack & I. Please note that the camera was given to Anna to use since it had some problems and she couldn't make it any worse. Well, she didn't but Jack was running with it and fell on it and well, that is the end of that camera. Sorry Dawn. The next nine were taken by Anna with one of Damion's cameras. The rest were all Damion's expertise. With credit given where it is due, happy picture looking!

Last Wednesday was Damion's birthday and he had relaxing birthday by spending the night at home recovering from his minor eye surgery. Yup he spent his birthday weekend with Jeff and returned home hurt. This time was not as major as last year though. He was having eye irritation and light sensitivity. After getting yelled at by his general care doctor for not going to an er earlier, he got into an eye surgeon. After 30 minutes there he came out with his eye looking better than when he went in and said that the doctor removed a piece of rust that was embedded on his eye. Its a week later and he is doing better with the occasional headache and light sensitivity, which the doc said to expect for the next bit.

Moving forward to today, Anna spent the whole day, with the minor exception of nap/relaxing time, in training pants!!!! Don't think that's exciting? Guess I should mention that she did this without having a single accident and that even includes her wearing them around town for two hours while we ran errands. See, told you it was pretty spectacular, well at least for this household.

My parenting tip to the first day of success? A “potty timer”. Oh sure, to the common person it might look like a simple kitchen timer but in this house this timer magically goes off when Anna has to go potty. Pretty remarkable timer they sell at Target, eh?!?!

A nice side effect is that Jack is showing some interest in this whole potty thing. Now granted this morning his interest was more so in unrolling the toilet paper around the living room, BUT this evening he too decided to use the little potty. Much cheering commenced after his success.

So, here's to hoping that tomorrow is just as good as today.