COMPANY PICNIC

Next weekend is dad's company picnic at his boss's home and although I did not hear anything about no kids invited I figured that it would be best to leave Mimi at home. She would have more fun playing with her friends anyways as opposed to going to a party full of "boring people" as she puts it.

Although it would be fine if Keri took her for a couple of hours, I decided to ask Krista instead. I love Blake and his family a whole bunch but I think that Blake is growing up way to fast for me. I noticed several months ago that whenever Mimi would go over to play with Blake, she would come home and be very aggressive with dad and myself. She would say things such as "YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!! I WANT IT NOW!!!" Sort of like Verucca the brat from Charlie and the chocolate factory. I had a talk with a male friend about it one day and he told me that it is because Blake is a boy and he is trying to exert his dominance over Mimi.

One day I heard her blurt out "What the hell?" "Oh really? And where did you hear this?" I asked to which she replied "Blake". Now I know that one day she will learn all of these words but I prefer she not use them at 7 years old. Therefore I have cut down her playdates with Blake. She still plays with him now and then, but a couple of days ago they butted heads and she crossed him off of her friendship list.

So now we have this picnic coming up and I got the idea to have Krista watch Mimi and Butch for us to which she agreed. Cause although I know that Keri would watch Mimi, it would mean that I would have to lock up Butch for quite some time and I cannot bring myself to do it.

At the picnic today, Krista told us how excited Xander (who just turned 5) is. "Is Mimi going to stay overnight?! I have tons of room in my bedroom for her! We can sleep together!" I just cracked up laughing sooooo hard. I am sure Butch will have loads of fun with his friends Ziggy and Marley.

LABOR DAY PICNIC IN THE PARK

When Mimi and dad were done with their hike, they came home just in time for our neighborhood Labor Day picnic in the park. Of course Mimi had to play with her boys Blake and Shad till they decided to go for a bike ride with Patrick (Shad's dad).

Then Mimi was left to play with Noah (pictured here with Mimi on the slide), while her girlfriends Halli and Erin played together.

In kindergarten there was a boy who would bully Mimi at times but somehow she has the knack to turn things around and this particular boy became her friend. Same thing happened with Noah here. Mimi would tell me from time to time how Noah would bully her at school and we would talk about it and now Noah is her friend and they played all afternoon together till it was time to go home.

I found out from Erin that the girls gave McCallister a new name. They all now call him "The Calli-nator". Where that came from I have no clue.

Even ole' Butch got to have a playdate with Reno at Reno's house.

HIKING WITH DAD

Since dad doesn't get to spend much time with Mimi during the week as his job keeps him busy and the project is so far away, I try to make sure he spends his Saturdays with her as their special father/daughter day. Today was not as nice as last Friday but still nice enough to go hiking and we have so many nice places to go hiking, that is exactly what they did. Butch even got to tag along much to his delight.

SLEEPOVER WITH HALLIWELL AND SARA

We are trying to get in as much summer fun as we can. So after lunch with dad we headed for home just in time for me to get our house in order and dinner cooked before our overnight guests were too arrive.

The three of them had loads of fun. I think that Sara who is the younger sister at her home really enjoys being like the older sister when she gets together with Mimi and her friends.

Pictured here the girls are having a movie marathon watching "The Pink Panther" cartoons and laughing themselves silly.

AT THE OFFICE

After lunch we brought dad back to his office. Mimi got a real kick out of that. She loved seeing how dad could have two monitors hooked up to one computer and how the items on the left screen with the help of the mouse could shift over to the right screen.

CALIFORNIA DREAM'IN

Last Friday was like any other day in Southern California except we are up here in Washington. It was clear blue skies, 85 degrees outside, traffic jam on the 405. The only two things that California has that we don't have is the aggressive drivers where they flip you the bird and honk their horns the nano second the light turns green. Don't miss that about California.

I thought that since it was such a nice day and nearing the end of Mimi so-called summer vacation, we would make a surprise visit to dad's office and go have lunch with him. Before she hit first grade we were able to do it quite often but now it's a whole new chapter in our lives.

Dad took us to a place called Anthony's down by the water. It was sooooo good to be out in the sun again for once.

TOTEM POLE

While up in Everett the other day, I spied this totem pole in someone's front lawn. As I got a closer look at it, I saw that it is a Jewish totem pole and thought "How cool is that?" If you blow the picture up you can see the menorah and the star of David. Just not sure what the three people represent though.