Time once again for an update on my exciting life. Yep, it’s gonna be about as exciting as the last time I wrote but you’re stuck with it (as am I).

Well, Gothik is no more. I thought I would be sadder about that but I’m not. And it’s not as if I found being CM a hardship. I didn’t mind it. I always got extra time to finish my ‘zine and that was nifty. Now I have to actually get my ‘zine done on time. <big dramatic sigh>

Duncan completed another year of dance with Jo Hunter. This year's June recital was held at Western Heights High School and Duncan received his three year trophy. Let me tell ya, he'd been working toward that trophy ever since he saw them handed out his first year. Right now he's saying he'll do dance for another year but I'll believe it when he's enrolled. He enjoys dance when he's in it but it's getting to be more of a struggle for him to decide whether or not he wants to do it again.

Duncan played t-ball this summer with the YWCA. Putnam City Schools changed their rules for handing out flyers at their schools and the Y wasn’t aware of it so their flyers didn’t get distributed at the end of the year. As a result, very few kids signed up for t-ball and machine pitch baseball. So few, in fact, that they ended up with four t-ball teams and no machine pitch teams. Duncan should have moved up to the machine pitch baseball this year. Not really a big deal though. It’s not like he’s the most athletic kid. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Cal inherits some of my athletic ability ‘cause Duncan sure didn’t.

And speaking of Calvin, he’ll be a year old this month (the 27th). Yep, a whole year since I got horrible hemorrhoids. Also a whole year without gall bladder attacks. Hooray!

He’s taking steps now although he walks like a drunken old man. Crawling is definitely the fast mode of travel for him right now but he’s getting the hang of that bipedal thing and should be terrorizing the household even more soon.

Language is starting to come in that he can say “dadadada” and “mamamama.” He also has an approximation of Duncan’s name although I can’t recall what it is because he only uses it sporadically. Oh, and he barks at the dog. Grunting is still his favorite way to express his desires.

He’s developing quite an interesting personality. Very different from Duncan as a baby which has been fun to see. I know everyone tells you each kid is different but it still amazed me that he was so different. He definitely bites on things (and people) a lot more than Duncan ever did. I can’t figure out the biting people. Maybe it’s his way of giving us a kiss? I just know that “No biting!” may end up being his first full sentence. And let me tell ya, this kid loves to yell—when he’s happy or frustrated.

Oh, this is interesting. Mike and I have been married eighteen years. Eighteen years! Ack! And we’ve known each other for twenty. Amazing. I should feel real adult and grown up, shouldn’t I?

The adult and grown up thing reminds me that Mike had his twentieth high school reunion this year. I had to purchase real clothes to wear to it. My one dress was culled during the move. It went the way of all those other clothes we’ve been keeping but have no intention of wearing any more. I did not, however, purchase a dress. Basic black slacks and a black jacket over a red short-sleeved sweater did very well for me thank you.

The reunion was just okay. I graduated a year behind Mike from the same high school but I really didn’t know many people from his class. Most of Mike’s friends from high school decided to be anti-social and not attend so he only saw a handful of people he knew from having classes with them.

I know we’ll both have a better time at my high school reunion this next year. Not that I had more friends than Mike did I just know that more of my friends will actually make the effort to attend the reunion.

We’re in the new house and really loving it. Especially that central air conditioning thing. Loooove that. I still haven’t unpacked everything. Quite a lot of stuff is in the garage waiting to be unpacked but it’s so darn hot in the garage and it’s not a good place for Cal to crawl around so I’m stuck with doing that during Cal’s nap time and there always seems to be something else to do. Yes, you guessed it, the hot garage is a good reason to find something else to do. Ah well, there’s always Fall and I can see if my mom will watch Cal while I take a week or two to unpack.

We’re not doing a real vacation trip this year because of money and the need to spend it on the house. And the fact that we’ve already spent a butt-load of money on the house and need to pay it off.

In June Mike did get to go to Dallas for a week for Microsoft Tech Ed. My mom, Duncan, Calvin and I went down for the last part of Tech Ed but mainly to mooch Mike’s hotel room (at the posh Fairmont). Mike went to Tech Ed stuff and we saw a few things in Dallas (museums mainly). On Friday Mike flew home to OKC and we drove to my cousin Priscilla’s home in Red Oak. We visited a bit, spent the night and headed home the next morning. While driving home, it hit me that it was my wedding anniversary. Mike remembered that day as well. Aren’t we romantic. Needless to say, we didn’t do anything special to celebrate eighteen years of marriage. I know we’re pathetic. But, surprisingly, we’re happily married. Go figure.

In about a week Duncan will be going on a vacation with his grandmas to Branson, Missouri. He’s excited about Silver Dollar City. I’m not so sure he’s going to be excited about all of the country shows his Nana Gayle has selected for them to see. Mike, Calvin and I will be staying at home working around the house. I think Mike’s going to take a week of his vacation time around then to putter and rest.

We also got a new dog. Sadly, our other two dogs (Dusty and Blackie) are no longer with us. While we were still moving stuff from the old house to the new house we kept the dogs in the back yard at the old house to guard the place and also because we hadn’t dog-proofed the new house’s back yard. Our Houdini dog, Dusty, dug out and she and Blackie started roaming the neighborhood. Now they had gotten out of the yard before and for the most part they would wander around and leave people alone. Not so when it comes to the mailman. They must have had it in for him because he entered their territory every day and they could never get at him. They encountered the mailman a street over and attacked him. They only ripped his pants but evidently they had him down on the ground scaring the crap out of him. The police were called and were about to shoot Blackie (who was a biiig dog—Rotweiler mix) until my brother-in-law calmed things down. Animal control took the dogs and the mailman filed vicious dog charges against the two.

What does that mean? Well, basically we would have had to pay $400 per dog to get them out of the hoosegow but we still had to go to a special dog court to prove that they weren’t vicious dogs. The judge could still find that they were vicous and have them put to sleep and we would have had to pay the $800 anyway. So we elected to turn them over to the animal shelter where there was a chance that they would take the vicious dog charge away (don’t ask me how) and someone could adopt them.

Now to the new dog. Max is his name and he’s a chihuahua/beagle mix that my mother-in-law gave us. She took in a co-worker’s chihuahua and before she was able to get his noodles snipped he impregnated her beagle (she thought the beagle was out of her child-bearing years). Anyway, Sparky had three puppies, two girls and one boy and Duncan picked the boy. He’s pretty cute and a small dog although not dinky small because his dad isn’t a small chihuahua and the beagle blood gives him some more size. We’re trying the indoor/outdoor dog thing and right now I’m opting for having only one dog. It’s too tempting to relegate two dogs to the back yard permanently and then it’s easy to ignore them. So far he hasn’t shown any extraordinary ability to get out of the backyard for which I’m grateful.

Oooh, here’s something exciting. Well, to me anyway. I finally broke down and gave Mike the go-ahead to set us up with a cable isp. Yes, I can now surf and talk on the phone at the same time. That wasn’t really a primary concern but the weird connect rates I was getting through Earthlink were. I swear some days I would connect at 1200 baud. 1200!! Now I don’t have that problem and it’s sooooo fast. I love it. It inspired me to set up my very own Blog at Flooby.com. Mike set one up a long time ago but he’s really bad about updating it. I figure I can blather on about inconsequential things as well as the next person so why not have my very own blog.

As far as movies this quarter we’ve been to see the traditional summer SF blockbusters: Matrix 2 (liked it), Terminator 3 (mindless but entertaining), Pirates of the Caribbean (great! Johnny Depp in eyeliner!), X-men 2 (loved it), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (only good for viewing Peta Wilson’s costumes), Incredible Hulk (yes, I liked it. I must not be a true comic fan.), Spy Kids 3 (was it just our theater or was everyone’s 3-d blurry?) and I think that’s it.

Television viewing for me this summer has consisted of watching Xena, Warrior Princess reruns on Oxygen. I started watching with the intent of seeing them all somewhere in the middle of fourth season. I have since seen most of them except for a few I missed taping because of the occasional brain fart. I do believe I will be purchasing this series on DVD.

I had intended to watch Big Brother this summer but it started right when we got the new cable modem and being wowed by how fast I could surf the internet took precedence. I still haven’t caught up on my Buffy DVDs (I’m still on Season 2) or Babylon 5 or Farscape on DVD so if I get bored with playing on the computer I’ve always got those to watch. If this new Fall television season is anything like last year’s I’ll probably be able to watch DVDs in the winter too because there won’t be much for me on network television.

So I think that’s about it. We’ve spent most of our summer puttering around the house and swimming in the pool because it’s been damn hot here in Oklahoma.