That time of year again

First day of school for Cassie. She started her Sophomore year today at her new school. I hope that she does well and makes a ton of new friends.
Fortunately, she joined the volleyball team, and they've already been practicing all last week, so Cassie got to meet a few girls there. She didn't make the varsity or junior varsity team, but she did make their "C" team, and she's happy with that for this year. So far she's having fun with it, and I'm glad for that.

Speaking of Cassie, the neighbors have a kid that's a month older than her. When he first met her a month ago, it appears he was smitten with her. He was her shadow, following her around everywhere. He broke up with his girlfriend (but lied and told Cassie that his girlfriend broke up with him) and asked Cassie out. Cassie wisely said no, and eventually found his constant attention smothering. She's been avoiding him, and he went back to his old girlfriend again. (This was the same kid that accidentally shot me with a bb gun the other day, lol).


And here's an amusing pic. Neighbor boy pulled up a lawn chair and stalked...er...I mean camped next to our fence in the hopes of seeing Cassie while she was avoiding him. This was our view outside our dining room for a week.
Thank goodness school has started again :)

Wtf?

I got shot in my arm by a neighbor kid with a BB gun today. Ouch! The part that scares me though, is that if I was not on our swings with Sasha at the time, the BB would have hit her in her head instead of my arm. Fortunately, it was just my arm, and it was just a bb gun.
The story goes like this.
Sasha and I went outside to play. We were content to sit on lawn chairs, but I kept hearing a strange sound coming from our playset. It sounded like someone was either throwing rocks at it, or it sounded like it was raining an occasional rock onto the playset. I couldn't quite catch what was going on, as the intervals between when it happened was over 5 minutes between each time. There didn't seem to be anyone around, so I walked over to the playset to investigate after about the fourth or fifth time.
Sasha is my little shadow. She followed me to the playset, and since we were at the playset, she wanted to play. I couldn't find anything wrong with the playset, no explanation for the strange sounds, and dismissed it as maybe my imagination.
Sasha demanded I sit on the swings and swing with her. I enjoy swinging with her, so I complied. I sat in the blue swing closest to the slide, and she sat in the red swing next to me.
We were having fun, playing and swinging. We stopped swinging and we were just sitting still in the swings. The swings are comfortable to sit on, and I enjoy just sitting on the swings while reading. I read a book for a little while.
Then suddenly, BAM. My left arm hurt like heck. I looked at my arm and there was a red mark where I got shot by something. I wasn't quite sure what. I screamed and realized that the noises I heard earlier were probably bb gun shots from the neighbor kid (a friend of Cassie's, honestly a good kid), and that he shot me. I yelled loudly to my husband in our house, "Ow! They shot me!". But Jon couldn't hear me since the house was closed up so I ran up to the window of the room he was in and yelled for him. Then I panicked because Sasha was still at the swingset, so I had to run back to get her the heck out of there.
Jon, fortunately, didn't hear the "They shot me part", or he probably would have come out armed. He took Sasha, still unaware of what happened. I wasn't exactly stopping to explain. I was livid.
I marched myself out the yard and to the neighbor kids two houses down. The neighbor kid was laying on a mat, in a prone supported position, with his bb gun. I yelled at him, "Hey! You shot me!"
He looked at me horrified. I showed him my arm. He seemed really surprised and confused. I looked at his setup. He was laying down, bb gun pointed toward our yard. Between him and the yard, there was a target, some trash cans and boxes (he lined them up to catch the bb pellets), and then some bushes obscuring our playset. Well I guess he thought his trash cans and boxes would catch the bb pellets after he shot them. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Either his aim was off, or something was wrong with his system. He really did think that his trash cans and wooden boxes would prevent the bb's from going beyond his target practice.
I felt better knowing that at least he didn't intentionally shoot me. My arm hurt, but it was just a bb, not a real gun. It'll heal.
The part that scares me, however, is Sasha. If I was not in that swing, my wound was at her head level. I was DIRECTLY between her and the incoming bb round. If I was NOT sitting at that exact spot. If I had said, "No sweetie, I don't want to swing today. You can swing by yourself like a big girl", she would have been shot in her head/eye level with the bb pellet. And that would have done a lot more damage to her than to my arm.
That's the part that pissed my husband off. He was very upset and went over to the neighbor's kids house. He talked to the kid's mom and told her she needs to take away his bb gun. She said she would take care of it immediately, then the neighbor kid came by our house a few minutes later to apologize again (presumably under his mother's orders).
I know the kid was sorry. He truly was. For that, I feel bad that he probably got in trouble. I still can't seem to calm my husband down but he's very protective of Sasha.

Catering in the middle of nowhere

My mother-in-law owns a restauraunt, and she frequently does catering as well. Sometimes she has to go to some odd locations. In this particular case, she was catering for a dog show for a bunch of sheep-herding dogs, and it was held on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. She invited us to come out for an hour or two to take a look at the scenery. So when I saw that covered wagon sitting out there, I just had to take a pic.
The grass was quite tall, but Sasha didn't mind. She and Cassie searched the grasses for all sorts of strange bugs.

Cassie posed with some grass :P

Mud

After a good quick rainfall, we stepped outside to do some yardwork. Sasha couldn't resist the puddles. Oh she got so dirty and it took a bit of restraint on my part to grab the camera instead of snatching her out of the mud.




This puddle was in our front driveway. The high school is across the street.

Curses!

When we speak, we have to be careful what we say. Sasha hears and remembers everything, and she'll repeat it all eventually.

A week ago, Cassie was teasing her little sister. Sasha was getting frustrated and angry. She glared at Cassie and exclaimed, "Cassie! You're pissing me off". She then spent the next few minutes scowling and repeating, "I'm pissed off".

A few days ago, Sasha was following me around the house as usual. I went up to the master bedroom for something, and along the way, Sasha found her favorite pair of pink flip-flop shoes. "Holy Crap! There's my flip-flops!", she exclaimed loudly.

"Holy crap" is one of her favorite phrases. We never know when it'll come out of her. I can't help but laugh when she says it, even though I know it's so wrong. She sees the reaction she gets out of people and it makes her do it even more.

She's said a few other bad phrases, but they're usually immediately after someone else says them. At that point, we can scold the original potty mouth.

Moving update

We have successfully moved to our new house. I was without internet until it got hooked up today, so now I have a lot of catching up to do.
I will start with pics of the new place. All pics expand when clicked.

Cassie's room
My mother-in-law used to be an interior decorator. Here's what she did with Cassie's room. Cassie's room is the only finished room in the house so far.


Living room
Living room and you can see the entrance to Cassie's bedroom off to the left.
We lost our entertainment center in the move and got rid of our tv, so uh, we have nothing to put in here yet except the sofa, chair, and tables.


Guest Room
We had four bedrooms and only need three so this is just a guest room in case we get visitors. For now, just a twin bed and some spare furniture.
This room is actually green.


Sasha's Room
Curtains are temporary and will be replaced soon.
Sasha's bed, armoire and her toy box/bookcase in her new bedroom


Master Bedroom
Master bedroom. We repainted it because it used to be yellow. So we painted tan and we're going to decorate with navy blue.
The french doors on the left side are the entrance to the master bedroom office. the middle door is to the master bathroom. And the white doors to the right are to the closet.


Den/Computer Room
Downstairs den. We will line the wall with our computer desks. Then Sasha will have a play area off to the right side.
There is a wood burning stove in the foreground of this first picture.
I hate the wallpaper. It has ducks and cattails. I will get rid of it someday. I don't mind the blue paint at the bottom.

A view of the den/computer room that shows Sasha's play area. This room is HUGE.
Dining Room and Kitchen
This is our new dining room. We have not finished painting. The house previously had seriously ugly wallpaper and we are getting rid of that. So ignore the walls for now as they are unfinished.
Kitchen View 1- from the dining area looking towards the kitchen
Kitchen view 2- The white door goes to the laundry room.
Kitchen view 3. You can see two stairwells here. The stairs on the left go UP to the master bedroom, and the stairs on the right go DOWN to the den/computer room.


Backyard
Sasha enjoys her new yard. It's actually bigger than it looks as the yard extends to the right quite a ways in front of and beyond the garage. Here she played with her pool on a hot summer day, but that playset behind her is a lot of fun too.