WE FOUND SPANKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have lost Spanky about half a dozen times since we've had him. Each time he's been lost, he's gone longer. The last time we lost him, I found him about 3 or 4 days later. That was August 2. Then, while the cousins were here, of course, Max and Jay wanted to show them. My BIL calls while Ang and I were out and says Spanky is no longer in his cage. I didn't worry, because it's not the first time, right? Well, we tear the house apart for days looking for him. I put out a bowl of food and water. He just didn't show himself. We had to leave for vacation and Spanky was still MIA. I put out more water and hoped and prayed for the best.
The other night, while I was cleaning up dinner, I turn around to see Spanky hanging out in front of the dishwasher. Eric thinks he was hiding in the tiny space between the dishwasher and the cupboards. Before he went missing, he had a nice, fat tail. Why is this relevant? That's where geckos store extra food/fat. When we found him, his tail was pretty skinny. He seemed weak, once we got him back into his cage. Although, we have him back, I'm afraid he got in to something, or is sick. He won't eat and just doesn't seem like himself. If he doesn't do better today, I'll have to shlep him to the "exotic pet vet" we used for the Chris-the-newt fiasco of '06. In the meantime, we feed him chicken baby food via dropper and attempt to hand-feed (tweezer-feed) him crickets. Keep our albino leopard gecko in your thoughts and prayers! Hell yes, I'm serious!!! :)

Hattie wanted to be a mermaid. Well, she got her wish!!
The "girls", aka Mom, Mia, Crissy and I went on a shopping trip. My favorite? The Chocolate Tree!!! Everyone got yummies!!
My sister's birthday was close to our dates in Fripp, so Dave (hubby) planned a little surprise party. He got her a book with pictures of her girls over the years with captions. It was awesome! There were tears of joy shed. I think it was a pretty nice surprise.
L to R: Nick, Dad, Chris, Crissy, Max, Jay and Al, Meleah, Dave and Mom.
This was a great trip. Hurricane/tropical storm Fay, put a little damper on the trip towards the end, but the trip as a whole was a lot of fun!!

We saw these little guys all over. The crabs were extremely interesting. The kids were loving it.....little critters. Little critters they don't normally see? Heaven.
This horseshoe crab washed up on the beach. None of us knew what it was right away (Um, yeah, us adults ) Jay knew immediately what it was. Judging by all the barnacles or little growths on him, he'd been in the ocean a long time.
Right up Jay's alley..........
My sister is beautiful. I love, love this picture of her and Tessa. Beauties on the beach!!!

My brother, Nick, who I haven't seen since Christmas had just as much fun at the beach as my boys! Here Nick and Jay? are boogie boarding. (You'd think Nick would be sick of water, after being IN the Cedar Rapids flooding ~ yes, yes, I know. It's a completely different kind of water :)
This child could sit by herself all day long and play. Yep, that's what she's doing right here.
I just thought this was a great picture.
Another great picture. Jay looks like he's out there all alone. he wasn't, and he's not out that far. There was a huge sandbar that appeared and disappeared with the tides. At one point, my brother, SIL, BIL, and other brother had Max and Jay out at the end of the sandbar. I was playing with the girls and relaxing. I decided I wanted some pictures of them, so I grabbed the camera and headed out. I realized once I started walking that the tide had come in and the sandbar was disappearing. I started yelling at them. Of course, they couldn't hear me, but when they finally noticed me, they thought I was yelling for them to get out cuz there was a shark!! I was scared, cuz I wasn't sure they could get the boys back in knee deep, wave water. It's tiring pushing through those waves! So, I'm afraid I might have over-reacted, especially after Chris told me he thought there was a shark sighting....oops :)

The beach. Enough said.
This was our own little tide-pool. It was warm, like a hottub. The cousins all together...Max, Jay, Tessa, Hattie and Al.
Max is taking on the waves! Can I just tell you how much fun this was?! I firmly believe the beach can cure anything that ails you!
Riding.......

My BIL, SIL and family came for a visit this past week, all the way from Iowa~just to see us!! :) Their son, C, went straight for fishing in the pond. He actually caught a couple of fish!
Al and cousin,L. One night, Ally told me she loved L like a sister!! Does it get any sweeter than that?!
All the cousins together. It's pretty interesting how they all could pass for siblings!! Those are some very serious Schreiber genes!

The first full day they were here, we took in Zoombezi Bay. It's a new waterpark attached to the Columbus zoo. It was pretty massive! My favorite part was the wave pool. I really thought I would lose a kid or two in it, but only lost my bikini bottoms(almost completely), so not as bad as it could have been.
The boys went with Uncle Kurt down the large funnel waterslide. Or, as the boys called it, "the big toilet bowl". I truly wish Kurt could've snapped a couple pictures, because I understand the faces on the kids were priceless...especially cousin C's.
Of course, baby J was cracking me up the entire time. The way he said, "Whuuut?" like you just told him the most unbelievable story........the best.

ITS FOOTBALL TIME!!!!!!!


The boys started football one week after baseball was over. Talk about back-to-back! Max moved up to the junior team this year, while Jay has one more year in the intra team (7 & 8 year olds). There are 30 kids on the junior team, so Max will have to get the coaches to notice him. This won't be hard, since the boy is fast and very competitive! It's funny to watch the boys do a "jog" around the field. The coaches have to yell at them to slow down. They are all wanting to be the first one across the line.

It's the beginning of the season, so my attitude will change, I'm sure, but for right now I'm very excited. We love football in this house, and I found it somewhat poetic that the first pre-season NFL game last night was on the coolest night we've had in a long time. There was a chill in the air and football on the TV.......

That being said, the reason for attitude change would only be because we have football every day. *Summer schedule: Max...M through F 6-8
Jay...M-W-F 6-8

*School schedule: Max..M-Th 6-7:30
Jay..M? W? 6-7:30
*Max's games are at 2:00 every Saturday and Jay's games are yet to be determined, but last year they played Sunday afternoons. So, apparently, I mis-typed earlier. Once school starts, we will have Fridays off. Yay! That means we will have time to go to the Highland High School games or Fredricktown, to watch Abby cheer. It may sound like I'm complaining, but not really. The complaints will come later, after several weeks of this. I'll get tired of trying to plan meals and homework around it all. Anyhoo, watch for pictures of the boys in all their gear.....................speaking of gear...................athletic cups were required this year for the boys. This was a very humorous venture. Once the "cups" were purchased, they had to be put on. Ok, I'll stop there, but there had to be phone calls to Dad regarding how to exactly maneuver these little treats. Ahhh....the joy of boys. Gotta love 'em!!!! :)