Summer vacay offiially starts tomorrow, so what the hell!

Look what one little trip to Wal-Mart can do for you:

Make you work your ass off. Mom decided to get an inflatable pool for the yard - improving and upgrading the rental property - so we set out to install it this afternoon while Adam was at work.

He missed out on all the fun.

As you can see above, Jayne had the easy job - supervisor/project manager.

Luckily, I had the airbed inflator, so we used it to inflate the upper ring. That made it go fairly fast. I can't imagine using a manual air pump (like a bicycle pump) to do it, which is what the introductory how-to DVD suggested.

The worst part was having to smooth out the bottom and try to get out as many wrinkles as possible. The box said READY FOR WATER IN 15 MINUTES. Heh. Maybe if you've done it a half-million times before.

By the time we were ready to stop and just watch it fill, two hours had passed. Those of you who have done this before - where did we go wrong?!

At least when I look at these two photos, I can see a definite difference in the "Before smoothing" and "After smoothing."

The water is still running. We'll be checking on it tonight, turning it off before bed, and starting up again tomorrow.

Hopefully the next post you'll see will have Jill relaxing on a floaty in the pool.

Memorial Day with the Fam 2009

This post is mostly photos, and a lot of them speak for themselves. Most were taken by me, but obviously the ones I'm in were taken by somebody else...

This is the home my grandpa grew up in - it's in Altus, the town in Arkansas where they filmed the first season of the simple life. As you can see, the house has been vacant for so long, it's basically falling down around itself.

I didn't go on the drive to Altus. When we got back from the boat trip, I got a migraine, so I took some high-powered ibuprofen and took a three-hour nap. So, I think Carrie or Ann probably took the photo above.

The highlights of the trip for me were taking the boat out on the lake, and two nights spent playing dominoes with my cousins.

It was cloudy and a tad on the cool side on Sunday, but we decided to try the lake anyway.

Sara got to go tubing for the first time.

We did brave the cool waters. Once you got in the water, though, it wasn't so bad. Ann shot the above photo of us.


Malachi didn't seem to be a big fan of the lake. He got in, but got right back out.


Same thing with Kenzie. She got in, swam out to her mom, and swam back to the boat.


Even though he wasn't a big fan of swimming in the water, Malachi loved the boat ride.


Sara and her girls.


We picked up Matt from shore so Ann could drag him around the lake. He was quite the skilled tube-er. He was steering up and over the wake, and doing all kinds of cool stuff.

Even my dear old dad got in the lake. As you can see, he thought it was a little cold. I had stuck my foot in and said "It's not that bad!" just before I shot this photo of him getting in the water...

Dad even went tubing. I think he really enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure he's never done anything like that before, but I could be wrong...


That's me way back there on the tube. The water was a little cold when you first got in, but once in the water it wasn't so bad. Ann shot the photo of me. (Hey, zoom in next time!)

Other than being out in the boat, we hung out in the condo most of the weekend, since the weather was chilly and rainy. I think I'll definitely go back to Beaver Lake again. It wasn't really crowded, and the scenery was nice.

This was the view down the hill from our balcony.


Here's the little goober.


Saturday morning I went down to the shore with the kids so they could go "fishing." Mostly, they just played around in the mud and water, but the weather was really nice at that point, so it was okay hanging out down there.




I really like this photo of Kasie. If I was shooting this vacation for a photo assignment, I'd have edited a lot tighter (obviously) but I figured I'd show off as much of the fam as possible.

Chalk up one more reason to despise PCs

The plan was to post a bunch of photos from the family vacay tonight, but when I attempted to burn a CD on mom's laptop so that I could put them on my laptop, all hell broke loose.

Thought the CD burned. Brought it home. It's unreadable by my Mac. PC people? Anybody? Help here?

I think I'll just take my jump drive over there tomorrow and copy them on to that - no burning required.

I won't post too much about the trip yet - the photos will make that better. We got back around 3:30 this afternoon. Adam and I helped Mom and Dad unload the RV, then we grabbed dinner at Ruby Tuesday's (Adam was craving salad, and they have the best salad bar). We were going to go to a movie, but decided to come home and watched "Close Encounters." Then, Mom called Adam's phone to inform us that I had left my purse and phone at their house, so I had to run over there to pick it up. Good thing they're only two minutes away by car...

I did come home to find one baby bird egg in one of the hanging plant baskets on the porch, so we'll have to keep an eye on that to see what happens. It rained on us all the way home from Arkansas, but none here, I guess. I really need it to rain, since SOMEBODY was "too busy" to water my plants while I was out of town.

•••

We have one half day with students tomorrow, and then again on Wednesday. I've got grading and work to do in the afternoons, hopefully all goes well.

Summer vacation - oh so close!

"That's why they pay me the big bucks"

Every one of my publications students would probably recognize that quote. Each time one of them thanks me for helping them figure something out, that quote pops up. It's what I do.

I'm getting ready to steam and press my graduation gown, and head off to Kemper for our graduation ceremony at 1 p.m. I think this year's ceremony will be a tough one for me, even though it's only my second year at BV.

This newspaper staff was one of the best I've ever worked with - they got along so well, the editors led by example, they worked really well with the sophomores who hopefully will be on newspaper for two more years, and it was just FUN to work with them. I couldn't have asked for a better mix of personalities.

Last Wednesday night, we had our "banquet" at Winstead's. Just about the entire staff made it, and the ones who didn't were working. I think that's a real testament to how they felt about newspaper this year - it was a huge part of their lives.

Of course there are days when I don't want to go to school - everyone has days when they want to "call in sick." But spending fourth and fifth hour with these guys every day brightens those moods.

These kids are so thoughtful. Our managing editor, Emily, gave the editor in chief, Mitchell, a scrapbook of the year - a few photos, but mostly quotes from the "quote wall." It was a hilarious walk down memory lane. They chose to collect money to make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for my efforts with Team in Training. I think that really says a lot about the kids I get to work with every day.

Hopefully I won't be a blubbering mess at graduation today.