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Detained.

Here's Grandma Kay this morning, detained behind a glass wall during the security check at the airport. She claims it was her artificial knees. The TSA claims it's the tube of toothpaste she's smuggling in her bag. Too many ounces. Mmm hmm.



This is when they found the culprit - toothpaste.



Here she is getting a full body sweep. I love how they single out a lovely little lady in white keds because she has the potential to be a terrorist.

For shit's sake, she's wearing a Morning Sun sweatshirt with a mock turtleneck collar. Yep, that just screeeeeams terrorist to me.



Today when we arrived at Disneyland. It was hot and we were all tired from getting up early. We did have a good time, however, and Remy was thoroughly entertained all day! She was SO good on the airplane and enjoyed the endless people watching (scrutinizing) at Disneyland today. Tomorrow is a new day!

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Here's Jack in action at his soccer game on Saturday. I know nothing about soccer, but I have noticed that Jack is a great defender. He doesn't have that aggressive nature to be someone who scores all the time, but he's great at keeping himself in front of the goalie and thwarting the other teams' score attempts.

Let's hope he loves soccer and wants to stick with it for awhile..

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Friday morning, Jack and Remy just happened to have pretty damn near the same shirts. Remy was yelling at me in a way only Remy does.

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Remy transformed into the Cookie Monster earlier tonight. I would like to say she ate this whole biscuit, but she's in that 'cause and effect' stage. Eddie, being the genius dog he is, patiently awaited the moment she began to test the theory again.

She ate well over half the biscuit. But wow, it really kept her occupied!

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This is my buddy, Declan, on the trail this morning. I felt pretty safe from the wildlife with Wolverine at my side. He's wearing his 'Mt. Reindeer' hat that his grandpa got him at a gift shop on the mountain.

Declan is no stranger to the transformation capabilities of the costume. I've seen him in all sorts of garb and he pulls it off with a confidence that only a 4 year old has.

Rock on Declan!

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So, today was a busy day. One of the things we do as a PTA organization is hold an annual fundraiser to cover our operating costs and hopefully have enough left over to give back to the schools in the form of grants requested from the staff. Last year we were able to give about $14,000 back to both schools. We have very generous parents and usually have successful fundraisers.

Of course, the key to every successful fundraiser is a kick-off to get the kids excited since they are the vessel that bring the catalog and information to the parents. We had some scheduling conflicts and other minor catastrophes that forced us to do some creative kick-offs today.

This morning, our fundraiser rep, Thomas, came to Endeavour (the 2-5 school) to do the kick-off there. He brought a Mac with a detailed PowerPoint slide show, some swirly disco lights, a giant stadium speaker on wheels and a projector that connected to the Mac. As the entire student population filed into the tiny gymnasium, Thomas had some exciting BMX and skateboard video running on his high falutin' set-up. The room was full of oohs and ahhhs and a lot of excitement was building. Thomas' presentation was concise, exciting and full of jokes that the kids understood. He executed superior crowd control and was able to keep the kids silent for most of the presentation. After he was done, he told the kids a cocka-mamie story about an invisible key that turned off their mouths. As the kids filed out, they were silent; just as Thomas instructed them.

We still had the Discovery (grades K-1) school to go, but Thomas had another engagement that he had to do in the afternoon. Thomas drove 2 hours from his home to get to our school and then had to go back another 90 minutes to his last venue. So, Leanne (our Fundraiser committee chair) and I decided we would do the kick-off assembly for Discovery. Thomas kindly put his stellar PowerPoint show on a jump drive so we could have the same tools he did. Leanne and I studied his technique earlier and we were confident we could entrance the kindergarten and first grade audience just as he had...except for a few things. 1. We had a PC to do the slide show with, so it didn't translate quite right. There were no BMX videos to enthrall the audience. 2. Thomas had to take all his gizmos with him to the other venue, so we didn't have much in the way of prizes to show the kids, but we did have a poster. 3. All the jokes and audience behavior tricks Thomas exhibited kinda went up the highway with him.

Leanne did well for her first fundraiser presentation. The kids clapped when we mentioned ice cream and I'm pretty sure we lost them after that. The principal got stern with the noisy kids, but they did like it when I put on the fake eyeball glasses after we told them they could win them for selling 2 items. Later, many of the kids wondered why the glasses weren't in their packets they had to bring home. They really didn't put the two together.

I enjoyed the glasses so much, I took them home. That's why I'm modeling them here. It's hard to figure out the appropriate mouth to make in glasses like that, so I went with the Mary Kate and Ashley look. My friend Mike once read that the key to getting a perfect MKandA pout was to say the word 'prune' as your picture is being taken. I think it works pretty well.

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Today we went to what was pretty much the last hurrah of the summer; Brandon's birthday party. Brandon chose to have a pool party at Donna's friend's house in Gig Harbor. She lives in a millions of dollars home on the water. She also has a kick-ass pool, hot tub and all around awesome place to have a party. We had a blast.



This is a home that would probably be featured on MTV's Cribs. It's got this great waterfall and water slide that dump into the pool. Here's Mazie with her safety dollar store life ring.



Here's the birthday boy taking the final crack at the pinata.



The MOTHER-LODE!



Mazie's turn at the pinata left the motorcycle with only one wheel. Mazie smacked the hell out of it and busted the wheel off. It doubled as a handy container for the bounty contained inside the pinata.

Later, Mazie kneed herself in the eye on the trampoline. It's getting close to shiner-ness. We told her to tell her friends at school that she spent the weekend honing her cage fighting skills.