summertime and the livin is....ah, sort of easy!

So tomorrow is the BIG DAY. Fred will be graduating COTA. I am so proud of him. I'm even a bit surprised that he likes it so much! These last 9 weeks have gone by so fast for us. Well, fast for me at least, Fred says they were excruciatingly slow! He's gone through restraint training, tons of physical training, weapons training, and he now knows what it feels like to be PEPPER SPRAYED! (oh you know as soon as I scan that picture, it's going to be on here!). Yes, there's even a picture! Someone snapped one right when he was getting sprayed. He's standing there with his eyes closed and his hands on his hips and this yellowish stream heading right towards his eyes. His sergeant sprayed him twice. Once on the eyes and another time across the mouth. Apparently the sgt didn't even like Fred's goatee. Fred said it was pretty much the suckiest thing he's ever gone through. He said it stung and burned for a long time.

I am so proud of him. Words can't even explain. I can't wait to see him tomorrow at the ceremony. We're driving down to Tucson with the wife of another cadet.

On Friday we leave for the weekend to go camping with friends of ours, Larry and Cindy and their 2 cutie pie girls. I'm really excited. They are such fun.

So far the summer has been a good one. The kids and I went to Pittsburgh for 2 1/2 weeks. We had a blast. It was the perfect amount of time- the kids really didn't get homesick like they did last year and we had just enough time to squeeze in everything we wanted to do. Although we didn't get to go to the zoo and I would have LOVED to spend way more time with family and friends, it was a perfect trip. The kids were on their very best behavior and really had fun. Today we went to the pool. There's a really fun one just a bit north of here. E and Em both brought a friend so I was pretty much left by myself- ahhhhhhh.

Well, better get going and getting everyone ready for bed. We're planning on leaving by 6:30 tomorrow morning.