First Blog Ever!!

Can you believe that this is my first blog!! I have heard so much about these lately I felt like I should get up-to-date, especially being a former computer geek and all.

Our family is changing everyday and its hard to keep up. I get to make the great announcement that Doug has gotten a new job with the Norfolk Southern Railroad as a Locomotive Electrician. He started there on June 12th. This is big for our family because he will be working year round with regular hours. He will go to Georgia for 2 months for training and that will be the only traveling he has to do. He will complete that sometime before November. Doug is playing softball with the Norwalk Alliance Church team and they are doing really well. He also still has his motorcycle that he bought last May. Its a Yamaha R1. He spends most of his time standing in the garage admiring it. Doug and I have been riding it almost weekly thanks to our great date club that we have joined.

I have started babysitting and so far its lots of girls! I am babysitting on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I may have some other ones trickling in too. Garrett is not thrilled about all the girls but I am. I have determined that the equation is 1 Garrett = 4 Girls on the difficulty scale. I have become a Sudoku champion and waiting for someone to stop by the house and give me a huge check for mastering this skill. I have also been reading a lot lately and enjoying all the quiet I'm getting by having a swingset in the backyard and toys in the basement. I'm also in the process of training Taffy. We have the important stuff done (housebreaking, crate-training, sitting), I just have to work on the annoying stuff like nipping, jumping and stealing the remote control.

Robyn is doing well and having fun with the constant supply of friends at our house. We even have the paper boy's sister stopping in everyday for a visit. She was in Robyn's kindergarten class. Robyn finished her kindergarten year with a bang. She received E's (Exceeds Expectations) in every class except for Music where she got a S+ (Satisfactory with extra effort). We are thrilled that she enjoys school so much. She still spends most of her time reading and writing about 20 notes and lists a day. Her favorite thing to do is to create some type of list and check them off. She is so much like me!

What can I say about Garrett?? He is still very much a boy and very active. His new partner in crime is the puppy Taffy. They enjoy wrestling with each other and getting into trouble. Garrett's new hobby is to the answer the phone before anyone else hears it or picks it up, more of his trouble making. His still likes to run off and hide. His new trick was hiding in a bathroom stall at church so his teacher couldn't get him out. He is so creative I can't stay ahead of him. He does have a sweet side though and he thinks it will get him out of trouble. He likes to whisper romantic things into my ear like how wonderful and beautiful I am, how many kisses and hugs he wants to give me and how he wishes he could marry me. He is a master of the art of sucking up. That is how he made it this far.

Taffy is the newest member of our family. She is now about 13 weeks old and getting larger everyday. She is at least 23lbs now with another 60 to go (her mom was 85lbs and her dad was 94lbs). She is a yellow lab who just loves water. Whenever we can't find her we look in the bathtub and there she is. She licks any lingering drops and I have even caught her trying to turn on the water with her mouth. She is fully housebroken and crate trained now! That means I'm done, no more kids or animals for me!