HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Once again, I have been missing in action from this whole blogging thing. It seems as if the days are getting away from me way too fast. Ever since the kids have been out of school it's as if our lives have been nothing but crazy. Don't get me wrong, it is always a special sort of crazy around the Shelton household, but if you can believe it, it has been worse than normal as of late. All we have been doing is run, run, run, go, go, go.

A little look in to our lives the past month:

The last day of school was celebrated by us [as always] packing what seemed to be the entire house in to our car and making our way to Zumbrota for a fun filled weekend of camping.

The next weekend the Mr. and I were lucky enough to drop the monkeys off with Grandma and Papa for a long weekend so that we could get a nice relaxing weekend away on the North Shore. And relaxing it was - but the packing, organizing, list making, and everything else that is involved in getting away was crazy and stressful.

We arrived home from that glorious trip on Sunday, only to start running like crazy on Monday as Ava and Lucas had art camp in Hudson all week from 1-4pm. Over to Hudson to drop them off, back to Hudson to pick them up, over to Hudson to drop them off, back to Hudson to pick them up... This would not be that big of a deal, but getting to Hudson from our house is no easy feat. Even though it is a mere hop-skip-and-jump from our house, it takes 20 minutes to get there being that there is no real direct route.

Art camp finally ended only to land us on the weekend where we were actually home for once. But it was Miss Liv's birthday and we had a celebration planned for Sunday with family. Which meant cooking, cleaning, organizing, you know - all the getting ready stuff. Not to mention we had to fit in a showing of Toy Story 3 as Anthony had been asking and asking and asking to go see it for months. Now that it was finally out in theaters, we thought it wise to bring him to see it so that we no longer had to listen to "I want to see Toy Story. When can I go see Toy Story? When??"

After the party on Sunday I stayed up packing, grocery shopping and getting ready to leave for Nona and Papa's cabin for the week. Early Monday morning we packed the car and headed to the Minute clinic. Nope, not Nona's cabin quite yet, as Anthony had a raging fever the day before and was now complaining of a sore throat. After spending and hour in Wal Mart [a special sort of hell] we found out he did not have strep and then made our way to the cabin. We spent the week playing with cousins, swimming, making sand castles. The kids were having a great time. Me? I spent the weekend dealing with Anthony being sick, then Olivia being sick, then Lucas being sick. On top of that I spent the weekend listening to my lovely sister chime on and on about eating healthy and how we are poisoning our bodies with all foods that are not organic or hormone free. I listened to her rant about high fructose corn syrup and how it is killing us, how our meat is tainted and there is a big "conspiracy" going on between the farmers, meat producers, and all kinds of other people, Apparently they are all out to get us. I listened as she droned on and on about how all these foods we eat are processed which also kills us as it is not "natural" as it is not "straight from the earth." I listened and listened as she pushed her views on all of us, as she does every time we are together. Oh the fun.

I returned home from that crazy week, managed to fit in a play date for Ava with her friend Emily, packed again and headed out on the boat for the weekend with friends. Right now, as I am typing this, we are home resting a bit before heading out to the boat for more fun in the sun and another night of sleeping away from home.

And it does not even end there.

Tomorrow we return home only to pack up again and head to our friends Jimmy and Tara's house with our camper to spend the night celebrating the 4th of July.

I think I can safely say, that after Monday morning I am not going to go anywhere or do anything. That is until Wednesday when I have Olivia's 2 year check up, followed by Anthony's appointment at the oral surgeon's office [more on that later], followed by my 36 week check, and my nieces birthday on Thursday, followed by Anthony's appointment Friday morning to have his tooth pulled [again, more on that later.] Did I mention the Mr. will be out of town all week? Oh, and we will be leaving on Thursday June 16th to go camping for the weekend.

Seriously, it is never ending around here. Me being exhausted does not even begin to describe how I am feeling.

Maybe when this little peanut that is cooking away in my belly decides to make his grand entrance, things will slow down.

Maybe not.

I am thinking not.

Speaking of this baby - 5 more weeks to go [hopefully a little bit less] before that grand entrance I was talking about will be made. The brothers can't wait -

another boy in the house to join in their wrestling, fighting and mayhem!

Oh, and there really was a point to my title as I wanted to say - Happy 4th of July! [A day early.] I guess I just got caught up in my little run down of how summer has been unfolding thus far. Have a great weekend!