Celebrate!

Whoa...where has the time gone? My goodness it's been a long time since I've posted and there's been so many fun events going on in the Ribclan household. Yikes, I've got some catching up to do here. In an effort to save time, space, my hand strength (for typing), your eyeballs (for reading) and everyone's attention span, I'll give you the short(er) versions as follows:

Weekend of June 24-26: "Cabin Weekend a la Streamers and Noise Makers". Ms. Kdee had the option this year of having the usual friend party at home or taking 1 friend to the cabin for the weekend. Much to our delight (hey, prepping for a birthday party is a bit of work!), she chose having her friend, Ally, come with us to the cabin. We all had an absolute blast. The girls enjoyed catching frogs, being "super spies", swimming, fishing, tubing, waterskiing, shooting Kdee's bow and lots of giggles. We were so happy that they didn't stay up all night talking--all the sun and fun really wiped them out! Kdee was also treated to cake from her great aunt/uncle Barb & Tim on Friday night and cupcakes with great aunt/uncle Donna & Bart on Saturday/Sunday. ribB did his annual fireworks display--and I have to say, I think it was his best ever. He's put that pyrotechnics license to good use (I kid you not). The fun thing this year was watching little B take in the fireworks for the first time--the past 2 years, he's always been asleep! He was SO EXCITED by them and gave big cheers of "yea, Daddy!" after each one. What a hoot. On Sunday night, we drove home watching fireworks in the sky...always exciting for us this time of year.

July 3: "Kdee's Fun Night Out"! Grandma Honey & Grandpa Paul took Kdee out for a night full of her favorites: Subway (she can eat an entire foot-long ham sub...where does it go?), shopping & the movie, Ratatouille. This was a great night in her book and I know she was pretty jazzed about all of the alone time with Honey & Paul!

4th of July: "The Day Our Firecracker Came Into Our Lives!". It's still surreal to me that our first born was born to the sounds of fireworks, with her actual birth time being one minute after our city's fireworks were done. If I had been on the other side of the hospital, I could have watched the fireworks during her birth--definitely wild! Our special day with our little lady, Kdee, was a relaxing one overall. During the morning, ribB took the kids out for some splashing around in our blow-up kiddie pool to escape some of the heat. (I was busy doing some cleaning and birthday prep!) Later, ribB's parents joined us--fresh back from their 40th Anniversary trip to Mexico. Together, we all enjoyed boating up river to an amazing fireworks display. It had been 4 years since we've made the trek to see the fireworks and we were not disappointed. Kdee did not remember seeing them before (and was a bit uncertain during our ride up river...there are so many boats heading to the fireworks that you get some major waves!)Once there, we enjoyed champagne, shrimp and some fine finger foods to enjoy during our wait. As we expected, the fireworks thrilled us all! Our boat was literally across from the area they were lighting them off from, so to say they were practically on top of us is an understatement. The whole show was like one big finale--amazing! Kdee loved it. It's always a late night, but well worth it. So much fun! Overall, the big hit gift

July 5: "She's Caught The Bug!". This was one cool night for our family. We've never come home from work and headed out waterskiing...until this night. We called our friend, Brian, who joined us with his son and we all enjoyed a beautiful night out on a local lake. Kdee did a ton of waterskiing, as did the rest of us. It's exciting that our kids are getting old enough for us to do some favorite activities again!

Weekend of July 6-8: "A Little Recovery From The Busy Birthday Days". Ahhh, just some down time back at home. We tried to take it a bit easy since the kiddos had some late nights recently. One highlight was more waterskiing on Saturday night (the day was far too hot for the kids--100 degrees). Little B even tried kneeboarding (with dad behind him, of course!). He loved it. We also anchored the boat and did some swimming--it was so refreshing!

July 9-10: "Little B Gets A New Playmate". Little B didn't have daycare this week, and that's always a bit tricky for us to cover. Fortunately, ribB has some great resources through his job and his boss's daughter came to babysit little B for us. I think he had a great time and loved being at home (they did a lot of playing outside, little B's fave activity!).

July 11-15: "The Ribclan Takes A Vacation". With little B's daycare situation, it was inevitable that ribB & I would need to take some time off of work. In order to make the most of our days off, we decided to make it a vacation up north at the family cabin. The weather wasn't awesome, so we did a lot of fishing (which was pretty successful...a nice northern, bass and lots of great sunnies). The kids get a pretty big kick out of fishing (and when they start to get distracted, there's always the fun of playing with the fish in the live wells!). One shocking moment during our fishing was the unfortunate break of the infamous "Barbie" fishing pole. Lucky for little B (who was using the girly pole), he was upgraded to a "Spiderman" version...he was pretty happy!During our vacation we also did more waterskiing, kneeboarding, swimming (all when it finally warmed up to 70 degrees!), as well as some nice walks, trips into town and general relaxing in the cabin. On Sunday, we enjoyed hosting breakfast with Bart/Donna (family) and Carl/Rose (family). Always a good time! Then later, ribB's parents came up with the grandkids for the start of their week at the cabin (yeah, our time didn't coincide with little B's lack of daycare). It was still very nice to catch up for a couple of hours and Kdee got a chance to show off her skills to Grandma/Grandpa and her cousins! Her cousin, Dylan, even gave a try at waterskiing and kneeboarding, so you can only imagine the fun we'll be having in a few years with all of the grandchildren!

July 16: "Goodbye Sweet Mole". At her 7 year check up, Kdee's doctor prescribed another mole to be removed. Her first mole that was removed 2 years ago turned out to be technically fine, but it revealed she is susceptible to skin conditions. Our doc feels she has a lot of moles for her age (despite our faithful sunscreening!) and any that look a bit interesting will need to be removed. Well, this year's candidate was one that she's had since she was born (I remember admiring it in the hospital, as I have one in a similar location). On Monday, ribB took her in to have it removed--she's got 8 stitches and a nice long scar to heal. She's been an absolute trooper throughout it all and we're hoping for a speedy recovery. And, yep, she can't do any water sports for at least 10 days, if not more...ohh, the waterskiing withdrawl has begun! One fun tip we've learned during this experience--Fleet Farm has an awesome deal on bandaging (as recommended by the nurse at the procedure)--look in the horse section for "3M Vetrap"--there's lots of fun colors and it's only approx $1.50! It holds gauze in place awesomely and has been a great tool in helping Kdee's skin heal.

Whew! That's the lot of it...now we're just back to work, school and daycare around here. ribB and I are looking forward to our 12th wedding anniversary on Sunday and will be enjoying a date out (yep, Ann is coming to babysit!). I'll also be celebrating with my sis-in-law at her bachelorette party on Saturday. Friday night (see how I'm going backwards?) we're going to go watch the log rollers & boom runners during the 2007 STIHL World Championships of Log Rolling & Boom Running Championships, being held in Stillwater (during Lumberjack Days). I've been working with the International Log Rolling Association and these athletes are awesome--I can't wait to finally meet some of these folks I've been talking to and writing about! Fun!

Pictures: Kdee at the fireworks; the family watching the fireworks; Kdee & her friend, Ally; little B and his big catch; Grandma Honey & Grandpa Paul with the b-day gifts...