I specifically told her not to put it up her nose

Every time I hand them out to the girls I tell them the tale of how my school friend Roy Anderson got one stuck up his nose and had to go to the nurses office. So, we were at the beach last weekend and I hand them one each. I again tell the tale about Roy and I also say don't choke on them because Granny Barnett would be worried about that. I say that about most candy and stuff because Granny Barnett is worried about that - Ian calls it my families' disaster planning scenario gene.

Anyway, we are loaded in the car, all safely bucked in. We pull the car out of the parking spot. Ian is driving, the music is on, A/C blasting and we hear the scream. You know Sawyer, this is not a low key scream, we are talking full on mega volume. She is screaming - "It's stuck up my nose!, It's stuck up my nose, help me".

Ian and I exchanged a quick eye roll and I dive out the passenger door, pull open Sawyer's door all the while yelling "I specifically told you not to put it up your nose".

I got to Sawyer in time to see the orange TIC TAC disappearing up her left nostril. Yes, a tic tac. Bullet shaped, small and not meant to be up your nose.

I had visions of explaining this one in the emergency room at Hilton Head (we know where it is on Hilton Head because of an incident a few years earlier with Romay).

I'll not get into the gory details but I managed to extract the TIC TAC before she panicked any more and before it got stuck further up into her nose.

I don't get it - I specifically told her not to put the tic tac up her nose and what does she do? Sticks it up her nose!

The picture above shows Sawyer. I've titled it - "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth but tic tacs melt in her nose".

(Orange snot came out of her nose later, because the tic tac melted some while it was up there).

We bought all this just to get free ketchup

Do you see that one little thing of ketchup - well, we bought all this just so I could get the ketchup for free. In total, I actually spent $1.10 so the ketchup wasn't entirely free!

For rent cheap, real cheap!

For rent- this beauty of a house, many careful owners, until the last one that is. Live in this and feel like the inside is part of the great outdoors - because it is part of it. Missing walls and no windows.

Since I took these pictures the council has boarded up the house and secured it. We are all hoping that it will be torn down in the not too distant future. All the reports we have heard say that it was arson - something that no one in the neighborhood seemed in the least surprised about. It really is suspicious to have this big a fire in the middle of the day in an unoccupied house - 6 fire engines.

The girls playing in Carson's firetruck - a slight difference in size!

Some of the first responders on the scene - the police, Romay, Sawyer and Carson!

The house 2 down from use was badly damaged in a fire last two weeks ago. We were all lucky that the fire didn't spread to any neighboring houses as things are very dry here with the drought.

Maren's Birthday July 26th

We celebrated Maren's birthday while we were at the beach in July. The English cousins and Granny Sandra and Co were there but they had other plans so it was just a table for "Party of 5". She loved the M and M carvel ice cream cake that I organized but bit into the candle while my back was turned. I think the words she used were "cake no nice". It took a bit of persuading to make her understand that the candle was not an edible part of the cake!

Kids Cafe breakfast date

Maren, Romay, Sawyer, Joe, Meredith, Meg and Patrick. A very motley crue for breakfast at the Delancey street cafe (? spelling). Oh, yeh, the Moms Katherine, Alisha and Tracy were also there and they had to pay the bill for the date. No fair.

A-1 Romay's class room for this year

This is it - the big A-1 classroom that will be Romay's home during kindergarten. I think there are 18 or 19 kids in the class and it was an alien environment to me - stuff everywhere. Were classrooms like this when I was a child? Are they like this in the UK now?

Her teacher, Mrs Amy Sullivan, is in blue and is standing just in front of Romay's desk area (circular table). She is sharing with Tanner, Meredith and Brandon. I wonder how the teacher decided where they would all sit?

Comp lab - room for 4 little ones.

Teacher's area - desk, filing etc kind of hidden away.

The home centre - you can see Maren in the background. These were all taken on the open house day/ meet the teacher morning.

Labor Day weekend at the beach

Two years in a row, we have rounded off the summer with a long weekend at the beach. Both times we have stayed at The Crowne Plaza resort on Shipyard @Hilton Head. No dogs (they were on vacation at the K-9 ranch where they have swimming, ball chasing etc). No cooking, no cleaning and no tidying. Sounds like paradise but we are all crammed into one room and with 5 it is getting pretty crowded!

The girls spend the max number of hours in the pool and very little time on the beach. A couple of favorite restaurants were hit up - Arby's, Mellow Mushroom, Subway etc and there was a pickle fest at Quiznos - poor restaurant owners didn't know what hit them when my three girls arrived and cleaned out their pickle bar!. You would be amazed at how many pickles a two year old can eat and show no ill effects.