In case you didn't get an email....

Hey gang,
Sara's Dance Team made it to the final 20 in America's Got Talent Video contest. It's time for America to vote...go here.. http://www.youtube.com/agt and you can vote. I'd love it if you'd vote for West Springfield Dance Team. :) If they win the video submission contest, they get to go to LA and perform live and compete for the big prize...$$ :) Please pass the link along to all your friends and they can pass it along to their friends and so on..and so on..and so on.. ;) Oh, you can vote every day until July 8!! :)

Thanks for your help and I hope you all are having a wonderful day! :) Hugs and kisses...Cindy :)

storms and painting

I'm finishing the painting in the next few days. It looks so good. I love fresh paint. Right now I'm working on my bedroom. It's taking me a long time since I'm having the move furniture around, tarp EVERYTHING, and going over each wall with a second coat cuz I'm covering up a different color. I don't mind, but I want it done...I want to just be able to look at it. :)

Last night some crazy storms blew through. I'm not sure if the thunder woke me up, but I stayed up a while and listened to it. I'm a little tired today, but hopefully I'll get to bed early tonight.

Dance practice has started for Sara already. We're having a fund raiser tomorrow at Outback. Yummy, but I'm not sure if I'll get to eat. Last year I spent most of the time outside with the kids holding signs. We'll be doing lots of carwashes and dance camps over the next year...ugh, but it's nice to fundraise instead of having to fork out the entire chunk of money it takes to be on the team, and Sara can help contribute...that's the best part.

Anisa is in WI right now for a couple of weeks. She went out to visit friends and go to Country USA. She's super excited about that, and will probably have lots of pics to share when she gets home. She's been seeing friends and riding Aaron's dirt bike. Poor Aaron. He probably hasn't had much time on it cuz Anisa is a bike hog.

Not much else is going on here. Sara's last day of school is Monday..technically Tues. is the last day of school, but I'm told that NOBODY goes on that day. I guess the teachers would be happy to not have anyone there so they can clean up their classrooms and not have to come back in. I'm not sure what our summer plans are...we are not taking our Ireland trip...long story and I'm pretty bitter about it. I'm sure we'll come up with something. My bff is moving to Texas, so I know I will be making a few trips down there, possibly one this summer...we'll see. Sara has a week-long babysitting gig lined up to earn money for her Wisconsin trip in a couple of weeks. I'm planning to go to the Capital for the 4th of July this year. It MIGHT be our last chance if we get to move back home next summer. So, that's my update. Not much excitement, but that's ok. Life is exciting enough without all the added stuff. :) Hope everyone is great. love and kisses!! :)

Our 3 girls

One of my cute little friends just bought an Element. I'm so happy and I hope she loves it just like we love our little Foxy girl. She also asked me to post a pic of the new little preciousness by her big sisters (yes, you all know I'm a freak and all the vehicles are names and gendered...whatever!). So, here they are. Baby, Foxy and Little Girl (still haven't figured out her appropriate name). You can see how itty bitty she is, but she's oh so fun to drive. :) And she only sips gas unlike our other 3 rigs, which is great at STILL over 4 bucks a gallon.

The Arnold Family visit

We had company from Sturgeon Bay about 2 weeks ago, but now it seems like forever ago. Randall, Mary, Em and Olivia came to stay with us over a long weekend. We had a COMPLETE BLAST~ It was so fun to see our VERY FUN, AND AWESOME friends. ;) We totally exhausted ourselves by seeing as much as humanly possible in 5 days. Monuments and Memorials, National Cathedral, the Capital, Library of Congress, Arlington and we even got an air show in at Andrews AFB. Oh, and a shopping trip too. :) heehee

It all started on Wed, they arrived in DC in the afternoon. We got them safely home and got Popeye's chicken, red beans and rice and biscuits for dinner at home so we could catch up. The next day we headed into the city to see the Library of Congress and do the Capital tour. The big time bummer about the capital tour was that they now do not allow ANY, NONE, ZILCH food or liquids inside no matter what. We threw away a bunch of food and 5 brand new water bottles. Ticked us off, but we wanted to go inside. Lucky for us we had already had hot dogs from a cart! :) Or wieners, as we so lovingly called them. :) On our tour, we found out that we could get passes from our senators to go into the Senate gallery. Yeah, you know the place where you see on CSpan?? We got to sit up in the balcony and see what happens there. The day we were there, not much was happening, but it was still cool. We rode into DC on the Metro so the A Fam could experience THAT. :) I still think it's kinda fun to ride metro.

That night we headed to Chipotle because it was also Sara's 17^th birthday. She was a pretty happy chickto get a Chipotle gift card and a Robek's (her favorite smoothie place) gift card and a pair of Toms shoes. Click on Toms to see what THAT'S all about. :) Her pals, Hannah and Dori joined her for her delicious burrito.

Friday we headed to Andrews AFB to check out the air show. It was SOOOOO.COOOOL! I really liked the Thunderbirds and their extremely loud jet blasts! Oh, and Travis' plane. :) The weather was perfect. Overcast and cool, but that also meant we didn't prepare for sun rays! We all got a little crispy. Em got super crispy. When we are all done looking at planes, we found out that Anisa was out of school and wandering around Georgetown, so we decided it was the perfect change to hit Georgetown Cupcakes – famously known as DC Cupcakes on TLC. So, we headed to that side of town, found Anisa and her school pals, got our cupcakes and figured since we were so close to Arlington National cemetary, we'd take a chance and see if it was still open (it was late afternoon by then). We got there with an hour to spare! We went to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then looked at the headstones on our way to the old Arlington House where we got a fabulous view of DC. By then, it was time to head out since the park was closing. We found our way to the Iwo Jima statue and took pictures before a huge school group showed up.

Saturday, we went to the National Cathedral (one of the Nolen family's favorite places). There was a wedding going on at the end of our trip, but while we were wandering around looking at the cathedral, the musicians were practicing. There were 2 violinists and the organ player. OH MAN. The music sounded so good in that church. Wow. We sat and watched them practice for a bit, then took the gang downstairs to show them where Helen Keller was buried, then we got in the elevator to the top and looked out all the windows over the city. We wandered through the garden before it was time to load up in the van again and head toward DC to check out the monuments and memorials. We saw the Washington Monument and the Lincoln, Jefferson Vietnam, WW2, Korean War and Martin Luther King Jr Memorials and feed some squirrels - really, what is a trip to DC without feeding some little fuzz balls? :) Too bad that the Reflection Pool is being refurbished and wont' be done for 2 years, so it was kinda ugly with tarps, cranes and dirt. It was hot and we were all pretty drained from the rest of the weekend, so we headed home to chill.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church. After all that we had done and seen in the last 3 days we were all ready to just relax, so we went shopping at Tyson's Corner (not relaxing at all, but fun). :) We enjoyed a late lunch at Gordon Biersch and got home to enjoy the last part of our visit.

Monday, we had to say good-bye to our wonderful friends. What a super time we had, tho. I love company, and when it's FUN company, it's even better. :) But, of course, my family and friends are all fun. :) heehee