(cue music) Another opening, another show....

We are here this weekend:


This is the WI Dells Sports Center at Chula Vista. It is very cool and different because the venue itself is a huge inflatable dome. Yes, thats right, inflatable. But yet its very structurally sound. You have to go thru pressurized doors in & out. It makes my ears pop every time.

We are at a gymnastics meet this weekend hosted by our very own local
Janesville gym, CSAKids.

It has been a busy and hectic week. Emotional and exhausting. I need to go to work to rest!

We have no kids with us this weekend, so I am going to try and be gadget-free, chilled out and spend such much needed alone time with my hubby :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

It's a New Day!

Yes, Yes, YES we did!!!

Please indulge for just this entry while I cannot resist but to gush a bit.

I, amongst millions of others (as evidenced by looking at the National Mall this afternoon) am so extremely proud to have Barack Obama as my new president and to have been part of it if by only simply having cast my vote.

Do I think that this one single person can fix everything or can affect great change by himself? Of course not, but I believe in leadership. I believe leadership can affect great change both positively and negatively. I believe that great leaders realize that they are servants and aspire to replicate and reproduce service from others. I believe President Obama is one of these such leaders.

As I sat with my husband who also, more cautiously, but now assuredly, casts his support for Obama, and with my children, tears streamed down my face as we watched this momentous occassion, and tried to take it all that it may imply:

-that change has come, good or bad in anyone's opinion, change has come to America

-that anyone truely can aspire to be anything

-that we can come together on common ground, white and black, poor and affluent, republican and democrat, etc. if we really want to

-that if we work hard and work together, and work to our individual calling, we can fulfill our destinies and help our country to fulfill it's.

-that more rather than less people, have hope and optimism and faith and good intention

There is more nuances to a day like today than I can possibly begin to articulate. Let me just say that for today I am happy, hopeful, and little less cynical.

Some of my favorites of the day so far:

Tell me that this is not one of the most graceful, beautiful, elegant first ladies ever!

But this was my very favorite fashion item so far:

You Go 'Retha, that hat is awesome!

So Goodbye to the last 8 years. Gone but not forgotten, I think most of us collectively have learned a great many lessons these last years.

Goodbye Dick Cheney

Goodbye former Mr. President George Bush

Another awesome favorite:

A snippet from the benediction prayer,

Please listen through to the end:

A Geographical Escape

Where I will be fantasizing I am this weekend...

Where we really are this weekend:

Detroit

And here:

Grayslake High School

Bob made it to Detroit this morning by the hair of his chiny-chin-chin. The roads were very bad all the way across Michigan, but he's there. This weekend he is inside the ice area next to the ice, so he will be very chilly all weekend. I am off by 4am tomorrow morning to do a cheer competition in Grayslake, IL. This actually the first place we ever did a cheer competition and it is one of my favorites and near and dear to my heart!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Callie's Commercial

U Rah Rah

Pictures from Sunday at
Midwest Cheer Challenge, St. Xavier University Chicago:

The stands were full!

Choices, Choices...

Lynne & Rick the "Blinkie People"

We met these nice folks at the very first competition

we ever sold at and always enjoy seeing them!

Tracie & Lisa the "Adorabear" teddy bear vendors.

They can be found here:

http://adorabear.com

It was a very exhausting but enjoyable weekend. We hope all the skating and cheer competitors had as good of a time as we did! Now on to keep getting ready for this weekend, so we can do it all over again!

And fun was had by all...

Pictures from Saturday at "Foot of the Lake Skating" Ice Skating Competition:

A little skater making her choices

Some big skaters making their choices

Callie selling roses

Lexi slacking off

The skating event was great!

Flowers & Skating seemed like a natural fit and it was. We will definately do more skating events. In fact, we may travel to Detroit this weekend for the Mid-America Sectionals and we are hoping to get into the Midwest Sectional Championship at the end of the month in Denver.

I will post pictures tomorrow of Sunday's cheer event.

Osh Kosh B'gosh

Ice Skating competition is in Fond du Lac, but we are staying in Osh Kosh.

Got to Fond du Lac (weather wasn't great on way up) and set up. Watched the skating a bit. This is synchronized skating. So it is a team of girls, skating the same routine at same time. Like you know, like synchronized, like synchronized swimming. It's really cool, that is if no one falls, ha.

Then we went to eat. Applebee's (yummy spinach & artichoke dip). Then we went to the Osh Kosh outlet mall. They have an American Girl outlet store there. Only one in the world, who knew? Wish I would have known like 10 years ago! We didn't buy anything, but it was fun looking. Then girls and I went back to the hotel to swim and hot tub while Bob went to sell for the evening. Good ole Bob, thanks for letting us hang back!

Must get up early tomorrow. Competition runs from 7am to about 8pm. The reaction tonight was good, so hopefully will be a good day tomorrow. This is our first ice skating event. So, we'll see if there will be more skating events to come.

I'm tired, goodnight everyone!

I have a hankerin'

This is what I am craving right now:



Ever had one of these Symphony bars?
So yummmmmy, I like the toffee kind best.

Problem is I want one not the normal size above, but this one:

See that girl, watch that scene...

See our girl Callie? She's a SUPERSTAR!!!

Catch her in a new TV ad featuring her school, Monroe Virtual Middle School. She has lines and everything!

It is being aired several times each day on Fox 47 Madison. It will play during the 9:00 Fox news every night. It will even play during the American Idol premiere on the 13th!

Hope you catch it, she did a good job, we are proud :)

Nice work if you can get it...

Well, it's about that time...

Time to go back to work.

We had nice holidays and a nice time off. We had great meals, reconnected with loved ones, spent time with our kids, layed around, read books, slept, started a blog, bought a van, etc etc.

But now it's time to go back to work. Which is just fine when you love what you do!

This weekend schedule:
Jan 9-10 Foot of the Lake Synchronized Skating Classic
This is taking place in Fond du Lac, WI and will be our first ice skating event. We hope it goes well as we would love to do more skating events in other areas as well!
Jan 11 Midwest Challenge Cheer Event
This will be held at St. Xavier College in Chicago, IL

Hope to see many of our regular customers and make new ones too!

One less thing to worry about...

Hip Hip Hooray! We got a van!

No worries, peoples, there will be no interruption in our ability to bring you our wonderfully fabulous goods and services!

Introducing, our new work horse:

A 1993 Ford Econoline Conversion Van

*Best Features*

-We + our stuff can all travel comfortably

-It has a TV (Callie is psyched!)

-It looks pretty decent

-Everything works ('cept the air, which will be fixed as soon as we need it)

-reclining seats and a bed

-the interior is very clean and nice

-shades on the inside to keep the sun out (good for the flowers)

Please help us name her, any and all suggestions will be take into consideration!

Ok! Ok? Ok.

This is from Seth Godin's blog. You can find that blog here: sethgodin.typepad.com , if you're interested. Seth Godin is the Master of Marketing. He has written, "Purple Cow", "Tribes", "Meatball Sundae" & more. If you are a business owner or want to be a business owner, I highly recommend all/any of his books. I love marketing. I consider it an art even more than a science. If I went to college today, marketing is what I would study.

Anyway, I am pulling this from Godin's blog because even though it was written to apply to business, I believe I can apply it to my personal life as well:


Is everything okay?
Unless you work in a nuclear power plant, the answer is certainly no (and if you work there, I hope the answer is yes.)
No, everything is not okay. Not in a growing organization. Not if your company is making change happen, or dealing with customers. How could it be?
And yet, that's what so many managers focus on. How to make everything okay.
We spend so much time smoothing things out, we lose the opportunity for change, or for texture or creativity.
Instead of working so hard to make everything okay, perhaps it is more helpful to work hard at living with a world that rarely is.

How to live an unconventional lifestyle:

• Sleep when you want, get up when you want
• Be your own boss
• Choose alternative types of schooling for your children
• Join the carnival every summer
• sell cool things to cool people in cool places
• travel around and live sometimes in an RV
• stand out on street corners and peddle your wares (keep it clean folks!)
• make friends with magicians, animal trainers and acrobats
• while you work, be able to watch amazing kids that could potentially grow up to be future Olympians, professional entertainers or Dallas cheerleaders
• work 1 day a week, 2 days a week or all 7
• be able to have your spouse and kids work and be with you all the time (hmmm, good thing or bad?)
• discover that although the landscape changes all the time, for the most part, people are the same, really nice
• get to work side-by-side with your buddies, often
• have your work not feel like work, but fun!
• realize that money isn't anywhere near as important as a desirable lifestyle
• be able to have time to stop and smell the roses (literally, ha, get it?)

Dream a little dream....

,


What does it mean?????

In our family it is pretty commonplace to report each day, one's dream from the night before. Then we often take turns giving our expert opinion on the possible interpretation of the other person's dream. Sometimes we convince each other that their dream had deep meaning, sometimes we find them just hilariously comical and sometimes we just ask the other person what they ate before they went to bed.

We have some pretty recurring themes that run through our dreams around here. Lexi and I have "tornado" dreams, Bob & Christian have "chase" dreams, Callie dreams of things that she longs for and tends to have several dreams in one night. (Can you say A N X I E T Y, for most if us that live in this house?)

I have had some pretty intense dreams in my life that I can still remember vividly to this day. One includes Lexi falling into the Grand Canyon that I had when she was small, one was about the world ending that I had when I was small, and as I mentioned before, throw in a tornado dream or two or 15.

But last night on the first night of the New Year (or was it technically the second night of the New Year?) I HAD A DOOZEY OF A DREAM!

I would put it up there in my top 5 all-time most intense dreams.

The dream started out with me being outside. I was walking in a city (I don't know where) and the sky started to get weird and I thought to myself in my dream "oh here we go again, tornado dream" but instead there just started to be streaks of lightning running through the sky. More and more lightning as each moment passed and I thought, "I need to get inside" so I started to run. But as often happens in dreams, the faster I ran the faster I got nowhere. So, I stopped and I thought, no I knew, I was going to get struck by lightning. So, again I talked to myself in my dream and I said to myself "I won't feel it, it's only a dream". So, sure enough I got zapped by a HUGE streak of lightning! And here's the freaky part, I felt it! It didn't hurt per se but I definitely felt it. It was zingy and tingly and shaky and freaky!!! (Maybe I pinched a nerve in my sleep?)

Soooo.....
Here is the question raised:
What is the interpretation of the dream?

It could be a few things:

1. I was talking that day about being out in a bad storm this summer and being afraid of lightning.

2. I recently saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". If you saw it, you will know why it relates to this dream

OR

3. This is the dream dictionary definition for being struck by lightning in your dreams:

To see lightning in your dream, signifies sudden awareness, insight, spiritual revelation, truth and purification. Alternatively, lightning may imply a shocking turn of events. It suggests the many forces governing your life may be beyond your control and even destructive. To dream that you are struck by lightning, symbolizes irreversible changes occurring in your life. It is a transformation of sorts.

So, I ask you, what is your interpretation? Please weigh in:

Just In Case...

(Just in case I cannot meet or maintain any or all of my 2009 resolutions, I reserve the right to revoke or suspend any, all or part of said resolutions, based on the fact that I did indeed have my fingers crossed at the inception of said resolution making!)

In 2009 I hereby determine to:

• Continue to work hard at working hard (we will let the recession not sour or frighten us but spur us to continue to give exemplary service, offer value for every dollar tendered, and contribute brightness and creativity to each place we encounter)
• To work hard at resting more and playing better (In a nutshell, we need to have more fun!)
• To balance and give as much attention to my relationships as I do to my business (I will strive to let the people that are important to me know that they are important to me, I resolve to work as hard on having healthier relationships as I do on having profitable ventures)
• To be more healthily assertive & avoid avoidance! (important)
• Practice better self-care. (you know like go to the doctor, the dentist, drink less soda, all that kind of stuff that I hate!)
• Embody Gratitude. (MORE important)

Here's wishing us all a very happy, healthy, fabulous New Year!!!

Let 2009 be your best year yet!