McComb Family

The kids and I went to my aunt's cabin up near Clear Lake. We hadn't been there for a summer or two, so it was nice to head over there and enjoy ourselves for the weekend. My aunt and parents came up Friday night too. Here we all are the next morning enjoying breakfast out on the deck.
Everyone slept outside in beds, air mattresses, or tents except for moi. I slept inside on a nice comfy bed. Here are the kids set-up for the night. Not bad!!

We played lots of card games while we were there. Here's Adam playing Solitaire.

Then we headed off the to pool. Normally there's the regular pool and the "cold pool". Well this year the regular pool was actually the cold pool. It was freezing. Um, yeah no thanks. I didn't get in further than my big toe, but that didn't stop my kids. In they go!!!!

Here's where we set up "camp" at the pool.

We even enjoyed some sand volleyball.

Jenny and her boyfriend Brian came up on Saturday, so here's the gang for dinner. Nice shot Adam!!

And of course a trip to Pine Grove is not complete without a bingo game with Bingo Bob.....

......followed by dancing!!

Good times!! Thanks for the invite Cindy!

Posted in: on Sunday, August 23, 2009 at at 4:47 PM 2 comments  

Yes, we really are still around but somehow life seems to keep getting in the way of my blog!! It's not like we've been doing anything super fun that would warrant a post of its own -- it's just that we've been busy!!! Here are a few things that have been keeping me from posting......

• Work -- I know what you're saying....."But it's summer vacation." Yeah right. Since I'll be teaching a new grade level (again!!) and developing a whole new program -- I've been busy.
• Softball -- I've lost track but I think we're about 3-3. Considering we've never won a game before this season, we're stoked!!
• Dentist appointments and appointments of all kinds.
• Birthday celebrations that stretch into birthday months (you know what I'm talking about Nate!), and it's not even my turn yet. I know how to stretch a birthday out!!! : )
• Helping my grandma and uncle move (just shoot me if I ever tell you I'm moving -- that house on Morning Mist is so going on the market!!).
• Shopping, chores, shopping, swimming, shopping, BBQs, shopping.....you know, all the "must-dos".

Anyway, hopefully something exciting will happen soon, so I can start blogging again! He he. What have you all been up to?

Posted in: on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 at at 4:08 PM 2 comments  

So while we were at my parents' house Saturday night, we decided to head down to L.A. the next day with my friend Angie. She had to go down to pick up her kids from her mom's house, so we thought we'd hitch a ride with her and hit Magic Mountain!!!
The kids were super excited...

They went on little roller coasters...

This was the best ride they went on....

....too bad they let them out at the end of the ride!!! : )

Adam the Engineer

One of the many water rides we went on (it was hot!!!).

Supermen (wow - look at those muscles)....

....and Supergirl.

But, by far, Brie's favorite thing to do (now that's she's over 48 inches!) was to go on the big roller coasters!!! She convinced me to go on Goliath with her (because nobody else would!!), and it was the tallest, fastest roller coaster I had ever been on in my life. She loved it!!! The last ride we went on was X2 (picture below), and it was WILD!! You know how all roller coasters start by going up, up, up and then dropping you straight down? Well, this one has you going up the hill backwards, so you have no idea when you will drop. Then it flips you around and the next drop has you going down head first straight towards the ground. I felt battered and bruised after that ride, but she got off with a huge grin on her face.

Being able to do all that made the Sunday - drive, Monday - Magic Mountain marathon, Tuesday - drive home all worth it!!!!!

Posted in: on Friday, July 17, 2009 at at 2:44 PM 2 comments  

This past weekend we celebrated my parents' anniversary with a little get together. Of course, it revolved around the pool, because where else would you find my mom on a summer day!!?
Brian and his friend had gone up to Ice House and caught crawdads to snack on at the party. Here are Brian and Adam preparing the pot to cook them in.

Here's their haul -- almost 50 pounds of crawdads!!! Adam thought they were awesome! He liked playing with them but not eating them!!

The final product!

Bret with his plate loaded. Good thing they caught enough for about 10 parties!!

The cousins -- a new generation of Kissinger cousins growing up!

Not only did I try my first crawdad, but I also had beer can chicken for the first time as well. Yum!!!

Bret and I just celebrated 12 years and that feels like a long time, but 40? Wow!!!!

Posted in: on at at 2:03 PM 2 comments  

My email has been restored -- happy days!!!!

If you've sent me something since 6/26 I probably didn't get it, but I should be good to go from here on out!!! Ah....the small joys of life!

Posted in: on Wednesday, July 08, 2009 at at 4:24 PM 2 comments  

So I'm already frustrated with the whole IE8 thing, and now my email has been down for over a week!!!!! How's a girl to function without her email? It's been horrible!!

First Bret told me I had somehow messed up the settings. I don't think so!! Finally a couple of days later he looked at it for me, and...surprise, surprise...everything was set up correctly. It ends up the problem is with register.com who Bret has his domain name through. Apparently they have switched over to a new system, but not my email. That's right, his email works fine, it's just mine that doesn't work.

I got on the phone with them and was put through to the correct department with only a 25 minute wait on hold. Apparently I'm not the only one having a problem. They said they would look at my account and it would be fixed by Monday. I wasn't thrilled to hear it would be another 4 days before it was fixed, but I waited (somewhat patiently).

Guess what.....today's Monday and still no email. Bret called today and was put on hold for 45 minutes. Oooo...sounds like lots of pissed off people to me. He was told that my account is a "special case".

I'm not feeling so special.

You can always reach me at my junk email account at batons97@yahoo.com. However, hopefully this problem will be resolved SOON!!!

Posted in: on Monday, July 06, 2009 at at 8:31 PM 3 comments  

I've fallen behind in my posts, and some of my loyal readers have started to comment about that. I just want to let you know it's not from changing my background to a fun summery one, but rather from Bret "updating" our computer. I'm cursing Internet Explorer 8.

Ever since he downloaded it, I've been having problems and many of them are related to Blogger. Ugh!! It took me 3 days to finally get the post of Adam's graduation on there, and frankly I've given up. It's too much work (and way too time consuming) with the way it's working now. I'm waiting for Bret to uninstall it, but since he works about 20 hours a day that hasn't happened yet.

I will let you know that we are having a great time time this summer. We just got back from camping at Bullards Bar again. Of course, you wouldn't know about the first trip yet, because the draft of that post it still sitting unfinished on my computer. Anywho.....we had a GREAT time (both trips!!) and maybe I will get pictures on here sometime. One highlight was Briana learning to waterski, but I'll let her tell you all about that on her own blog.

Well, we're off to swim. I'll try to get this computer back running like it was before IE8 and then will update again. Until then......happy summer!!! : )

Posted in: on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at at 1:34 PM 2 comments  

Since it is summer now, I thought my blog needed a little updating. What do you think?

Posted in: on Friday, June 12, 2009 at at 2:09 PM 3 comments  

Adam's preschool had a graduation for all of the children who will be going on to kindergarten next year. It was too cute!! Here he is with his good buddies Addie, Kaden, Ryan, and Logan.
They started off with dinner. If I had known that, I think I would have brought him a bib. He was, of course, the first person in line, and what does he go for? The raviolis with red sauce!!! I was foreseeing disaster, but he managed to keep himself fairly clean. Then came the ceremony.
Here is the Cool Care Class of 2009.
Diplomas were handed out.
He looks like he's shading his eyes, but I think he was really saluting!!!
Then diplomas were played with. It looked like a boat of pirates looking at us!!
Finally, we all went in for cake and celebrated with the now official kindergarteners!!!

Posted in: on Monday, June 08, 2009 at at 9:16 PM 2 comments  

This weekend we spent most of our time outside working on the landscaping. It seems like we should be done by now, but there is always more to do. We had to finish planting everything and get the water system in.
We also had a rock wall to build (which means, first going around the property finding rocks and then stacking them up in to a wall once you've hauled them over).It's finally coming together though. I can't wait until they start getting bigger and filling in the area. (And, of course, we've still got the patio to do in the middle which will make a huge difference!)

Anyways, while we were spending all this time outside this weekend doing the landscaping, getting the pool ready, etc. etc., the dogs were constantly around. Tyger shows up with what the kids called a "skeleton" in his mouth. I didn't see him, but he went off and started gnawing away on this thing. I was imagining maybe a rabbit or gopher, so I asked Bret about it. He said it was a skull and entire backbone. I went over to take a look and the thing was huge. What kind of animal could it be? Then both of us got the same idea....

Bret: Do you think it could be....?

Me: Uh, yeah. I was just thinking the same thing.....

Bret: Do you think we should.....

Me: Umm yeah, I think I'll go for a little walk.

Ick, yuck, gag.....could they really? Had enough time passed for her to be to the point of just bones? A million thoughts were running through my mind.....

Luckily, for all, her grave was still intact and untouched.

The mystery remains though......what kind of animal was that?

Posted in: on Friday, May 29, 2009 at at 7:11 PM 4 comments