Happy Birthday To Me!

"Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday dear Duchess.

Happy Birthday to me. "

Can you guess who's 38 today?

If you guessed "me" you're right!

Since the hubby's out of town, the son spent the night at a friend's, and the daughter is still sleeping I figured I'd sing to myself.

37 was pretty good so I'm hoping 38 will be too.

In honor of my b-day, I found a couple of quotes that I thought were cute and true:

The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.

- Lucielle Ball

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.

- Jennifer Yane

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

- Robert Frost

The hubby will be back at the end of the week and we head off on vacation next week, so I guess I'll just save the celebrating for then.

Hope you have a great day!

Dog Days of Summer

Wow, has it been HOT!

The kids thought Chase (who stays inside all day) might be hot for the 10 minutes he actually ventures outside.

So, they decided to let him do his favorite thing - play in the water hose.

Since he was wet, G decided to give him a bath while she was at it.

What's the first thing he does when they're finished?

That's right - goes for a roll on the grass.

Can't handle being clean for long.

That dog!

Is too cute to stay mad at long.

Hope you're staying cool in this heat.

New Blooms

I'm just loving discovering all that the previous owners had planted in our yard.

If you missed the first round of blooms, take a look at those, too by going here.

Here's what's bloomin' now.

Just had to throw this guy in for fun.

Hope you enjoyed this look around our yard.

If you're ever in Greenville, SC

If you ever get the chance to visit the Upstate of South Carolina, please add this beautiful area of downtown Greenville to your "must see" list.

Reedy River Falls Park

Greenville has a beautiful and quaint downtown area complete with a lovely park that just bustles with activity in the evenings - especially the weekends.

Sit back and take a look at our first visit last Friday night.

The scenery is just beautiful.

There is an ampitheatre for putting on plays.

There are restaurants that back up to the park and lots of them up on the street level.

Here is the beautiful suspension bridge that curves through the middle of the park & over the falls.

The view from the bridge.

The kids took a moment to pause for a picture or two.

I loved the gardens.

G was wading in the river until......

.......this little guy showed up. Snakes - yuck!

There was a commons area where lots of local street entertainment showed up.(It was really cool & kind of reminded me of midevil times when they would have all of this in the town square.)

Anyone could go out there and do "their thing". Of course, my little one had to go out & work with one lady doing acrobatics. (G's really a ham - very unlike her shy mother.)

Once it started getting darker, we headed back up to Main Street and went to get ice cream at Spill the Beans, sat around the fountains for a while & then headed home.

Here is one last picture of downtown Greenville at night. I hope you get to see all of this in person one day - they've done a great job on it.

Thanks for taking my little downtown tour. Now I've got to go convince my hubby to take me out for a date night to some of these great spots (w/o the kids). Maybe we'll even take a ride in the horse drawn carriages......my birthday is coming up soon. I'll keep you posted.

Olympian Gymnastics Camp

Last week my little gymnast was able to attend a week long summer camp. That's exciting enough but this camp was run by real Olympians.

Svetlana Boginskaya to be more specific.

Not only was Svetlana there (and wonderful) but they also had Olympian Oksana Chusovitina.

She competed in the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing and won the silver medal on vault.

I cannot tell you how much fun she had.

They were so good at coaching the girls and they had lots of one on one attention.

Here are a few pictures from her last day.

Sergei has a gym in Charlotte, NC. He's a wonderful coach. He as her balanced on his head - how funny.

Here is Svetlana today. Her daughter also did the camp with the girls & was in G's group.

Here is the coaching staff that did such a wonderful job.

Here's G getting her certificate from Oksana.

Her summer is off to a good start.

What about your family?

Any summer camps going on?

What's Bloomin'

I took my camera out into the yard the other day - take a look at what I found.

Have a great weekend.