The end.

What’s that? You’d like to hear a little more about my summer? Well, okay. But it mostly revolves around being too hot to do anything that doesn’t involve air conditioning or a swimming pool.

Except for this:

I went to Youth Camp for a week with the middle and high schoolers from our church. The above picture is my group of 7th graders. We had morning and evening worship, small group time, games, a ropes course, and nightly “cabin time” for sharing and prayers. I worked the snack bar and made a bazillion ice cream cones and slushies. Savannah went with me and in our free time we cooled off in the wave pool. Because the temperature? It must have been 1,864 degrees in the hills of Tennessee!

Meanwhile, my parents let Emery stay with them. Apparently he had no problem beating the heat:

You met Lady in my last post, but keeping with the theme of “smothering heat”, here she is with her new hair cut, lounging in the A/C with her new friends:

She’s so stinkin’ cute!

We started a new homeschool year, which has been challenging, mainly because the sibling rivalry has been off the charts! Here is one of Savannah’s recent journal posts:

I attempted to grow tomatoes on my back porch this year. I enthusiastically bought 2 containers, a big bag of soil, and 8 small plants. I watered thoroughly. And after 2 months, this is what I got:

That’s one expensive mater. I figure it cost me about 40 bucks.

Lastly, and probably the most time consuming part of our summer, has been the opening of our new retail store: Anglers Warehouse. After months of remodeling, stocking, inputting, and ordering I am proud to say the doors are officially opened (and so is the web site, with shipping all throughout the United States…hint hint).

So there you have it. Summer 2011. And now I need a cold drink. I’m sweating just typing this.

We have a system that has worked in this house for over 11 years. I fall in love with every puppy I see, in a trunk in the Walmart parking lot or lost alongside the road, it doesn’t matter. I want to take it home. I hold it lovingly and smell it’s yucky puppy breath and give Jeremy my best “puppy dog eyes”. Please???

And he always says the same thing: “No. We don’t need another dog.”

But two weeks ago, the system crashed. We are now the proud owners of another Shih Tzu. Eight month old Lady. All together now…. Awwwwww….

You are a very sweet kitty, and I realize that in the land of all things cat, bringing gifts is your way of showing gratitude.

I should consider it an honor that you bring your dead mice, lizards, and birds to my doorstep. Why last week, you even went the extra mile and disemboweled the tiny offering.

But please, I’m begging you, for the love of critters everywhere…stop it, stop it, STOP IT!!!!!!

I’m sorry. I hope you know that it’s me, not you. Your sacrifices are obviously the finest vermin this property has to offer. I should see them for the compliment that they are.

It’s just that I have such a hard time accepting gifts that I feel I don’t deserve. I guess what I’m saying is, your appreciation is going well above and beyond what is necessary.

In the future, a simple purring sound when I pet your head and rub behind your ears is all that’s needed.

Thank you for your understanding on this sensitive subject.

Your friend,
Jodi

I am baffled. “No. Why do you think I got you a new dog?”

“Because there is one in our garage.”

Okay. Seems logical. To a child.

I go outside and sure enough, there is a dog in our garage. The garage that was completely closed until a minute and a half ago when Jeremy pulled up in the driveway.

What the…????

I am guessing it belongs to someone in the neighborhood. I mean what other explanation could there be????

Oh, me of little faith. I should have known better.

Right about now Jeremy comes around the corner with a dumbfounded look on his face. I’m like, “Hey look at this! A dog is in the garage.”

And he’s all like, “Um I know. It just jumped out the truck.”

So now I’m trying to put the pieces together. “You brought home a dog?”

He looks as confused as I feel. “I guess so,” he says. “But I didn’t know it was in there.”

I’ll skip the parts of our conversation relating to “how do you NOT know there is a dog in your truck?” and jump right to the part where apparently while at his dad’s house they were setting off leftover fireworks for the kids and his best guess is that this dog, that they noticed as a stray earlier in the night, got scared of the noise and jumped into the truck which was left open because that’s where the fireworks to be lit were at, and then since it was dark and everybody was tired, nobody noticed that the dog was in there until he got home and opened the back door for Emery and the dog jumped out!

Got all that?

Me neither.

What’s even more bizzare than the story of how she got here, is the fact that this sweet little doggie made herself at home in a matter of minutes. She put Stafford right in his place, grabbed his chew bone and jumped up on the couch with it like she’s lived here for years.

I started calling her Lady right away and it’s stuck. She’s completely house trained, understands a few commands, and was even taking protective measures (aka: barking) against strangers after only 2 days.

Stafford is completely enamored with her and we are equally pleased with how well she is fitting in with our family. I never in a million years would have thought we’d have a second dog in the house, but she just seems to “click”.

The kids keep asking if we are going to keep her, and truthfully we haven’t decided. I have called a few places to see if anyone is looking for her and today I took her to the vet’s office to see if she had a locator chip under her skin. I’ve also driven out to Papa’s house twice this week to see if anyone has put up flyers.

I certainly would not want to keep a pet that didn’t belong to me, especially one as loving as this pooch. I’d think somebody is missing her dearly. But so far I can’t find her owner. And if she keeps looking at me with those big brown eyes that melt my heart, I will just have to give up the search and buy a bigger food bowl.

We headed to my parent’s house over the weekend to give her pool some action. I’m not sure though, I wish there were some way to tell if my kids were having a good time. Hmmmm…

I seriously love taking pool pictures in the summer. There’s just something about brightly colored bathing suits against the crystal blue water on sunny days. And everybody is always smiling! At the end of the season I print out way too many favorites and have the arduous task of choosing a select few for the scrapbooks.

It’s very cut throat.

I thought that was all I’d have to submit for You Capture this week until today when my dog got a little too curious in the backyard.

I’m not completely positive, but he’s either thinking:

A. “I can’t believe I spent all that time rolling around, getting that road kill odor perfectly even, and now she’s gone and washed it all off. Geez, what a wasted morning!”

B. (sniff, sniff) “Do you smell that??? Is that Tropical Breeze??? I hate Tropical Breeze. I smell like a Plug In.”

or

C. “Three times??? Really? I mean, I worked so hard. You could leave a little bit of the skunk-ish smell. It’s not that bad. (pause) I did it for you.”

***For more captured Expressions, visit Beth.***

I admit the birthday celebration may have also been an excuse to try a new brownie recipe my friend was telling me about. (By the way Amy E…OMG!!!) As I was digging into my soft, warm, peanut buttery goodness, Savannah says, “Mommy? Aren’t we supposed to sing first?”

Ummm, oh yeah, whatever.

Family prayer time consists of all of us sitting on the floor or on somebody’s bed, and then we all take turns saying what we are sorry for, thankful for, or what we can praise God for from that day. Then we hold hands and say our sorry’s, thank you’s, and praises together.

The only one that doesn’t get in on the fun is Stafford. But not to feel the least bit slighted in any way, he does manage to gain some attention during family prayers.

Imagine us sitting there in our circle. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Then Stafford runs in the room chasing his tail. It’s hard enough to keep my 3 year olds attention on praying without the ruckus that dog creates. One night we heard a funny sound and all of us looked up to see him humping the big teddy bear in the corner. Now let me tell you, that lead to an interesting post-Amen discussion.

As much as we want our kids to know the importance of prayer, we never want them to think it’s something boring or dull. I think Emery is catching on, as these were 2 of his prayers from yesterday:

After breakfast I walked into the kitchen and he asked, “Mommy, can I be a race car driver when I grow up?” I said, “Well, I’m sure you can. But you need to ask God what He wants for your life.” So Emery immediately looked up to the ceiling and shouted, “God? Can I be a race car driver?”

Then he looked down and under his breath in a deep voice said, “Yes.”

Next he looked up at me with his eyes as big as saucers and exclaimed, “HE SAID YES!!!!!”

Then at dinner, Daddy asked who wanted to say the blessing. Emery got excited and said that he would do it. He started out praying in his best fire and brimstone voice, “FAUDER GOD, tank you for my train and for my lellow airplane that hooks to the big gun and when you pull it back it goes like ‘dis…(whooshing noise here)…Amen”.

See, nothing boring and dull about that! :)

The last time I posted about Stafford I was confessing how hard it was to like any animal, furry or otherwise, who would use my nice clean floors as their bathroom, and in a moment of complete frustration and lack of self control taught my 5 year old some choice language.

Let’s not dwell on that, shall we. Moving on…

I feel that I gave Stafford a bad rap. He has turned out to be the sweetest little pup! He is great with the kids who love to pick him up and drag him all over the house. Savannah puts bows in his hair and Emery thinks his ears are to be used as a leash! Stafford takes it all in stride. He has snapped at both of them only a handful of times, and let me tell you, what they really deserved was the roar of a lion. He puts up with so much.

Someday I am hoping that he will be unseparable from the kids. Sleeping in their beds, curled in a ball at their feet, or waking them up at 6 am for his morning pee. But for now, he is my little buddy. He follows me everywhere, even waking early from an afternoon nap to sit outside the bathroom door while I tend to business. Maybe it’s his way of saying “thank you” for all the times I’ve had to go outside with him.

Isn’t he thoughtful?

So just know that the fact that I had the following done to him, it wasn’t because of any negative feelings towards him:

This is simply his summer haircut. Sure, it’s not as attractive as his long hair, but it’s much easier to take care of. When he goes outside with the kids, he does everything they do. Dig in the sandbox. Play in the mud. Run under the hose as I’m cleaning 3 inches of pollen off of everything in sight. And that long hair is a pain to clean every single day. And trust me, he doesn’t want a bath everyday anymore than I want to give him one! Now, a quick dip in the sink or the stroke of a brush does the trick. And come summer, he will be cooler. A LOT cooler!

And then I heard our door chimes ring.

They only ding, ding, ding when someone opens the door. “Savannah?”, I questioned. “Is that you? What are you doing?”

“Mommy, I’m taking out the trash,” she said, and proceeded to tie it up and take it out to the garage.

I thought, “that’s awesome” and then my mind wandered back to the nasty snake that dissapeared in there yesterday. Hopefully he’s not still around.

A few seconds later she came back with the trash bag in hand and calmly said, “Well, I can’t take the trash out. The snake is back.”

Impressed with her demeanor, I had to see the snake for myself. How could she be so calm? I would be freaking out! So I cracked open the door (snakes can lunge at you, ya know) and peeked out. Nothing. I walked onto the top step, and then I saw him. Or rather…half of him. And now I have a new hero in my life:

Lucy the Snake Eating Wonder Cat. I love you more than you’ll ever know.

More of Wordless Wednesday here.