If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

The DePew family is trying to remain as normal as possible - whatever that means. I am getting up every morning and going thru the motions - hell I even shaved today. Along with shaving I am pasting a smile on my face and trying to keep that lump in my throat down. We saw the orthodontist and plastic surgeon yesterday. We all listen, we nodd in agreement -that we understand, then we all paste those damn smiles on our face and we move on. Lance and I fight over the littlest things, then 30 seconds later find each other to apologize - we know what is really going on. Lance has taken some time the last two weeks to do things w/ just Rylan. I think it has comforted both of them. Yesterday, Lance took Rylan to the orthodontist in the morning then they went to swing-around-fun town. A good memory and distraction for both of them. I see Lance reaching out a bit more, and being more tolerant these days; and for that I am grateful. Rylan is a bit more aggressive - towards me at least; this make

I just realized that I forgot to post on father's day - which by the way I did not see my father. Yes, folks - for the record; I SUCK. We spent all of Saturday on the river and by Sunday we were spent, no excuses -just reality. So in an effort to not be a complete arse, I did call my dad. Luckily enough for me, that is enough for my father. He is not a big Hallmark holiday kind of guy - as I have said before he will dazzle you with the little things so you had better be paying attention. Secondly, I am not sure that he is up to company - well company with kids. Or should I say company with kids for an extended period of time. He is still, much to his displeasure, recovering from being hit while riding his motorcycle. He luv's us and our small children, but in the same token, he does not mind luving us from afar. Which by the way, I totally get, and for the record totally don't mind. My small twinge of guilt comes over not seeing Lance's dad for father's day. For g

The DePew Family has been hooping it up at the river and lake lately, these are photos of some fam'damly time. The top two are from two weeks ago at Black River, and the bottom two are from this past Saturday when we spent 9 hours on the Meramac River. I know I cring when I write it - the Meramac is a dirty, trashy river - but we made the best of it by skiing, tubing, boating and hanging w/ good friends. I skiied my butt off, and luv'd every minute of it. Rylan did the knee board and rocked the river like a champ. It was his first time and you could see the hesitation, the fear and the anxiety starting to take over while he was in the water holding the line. I stood at the back of the boat yelling encouragements at him - yes I had to yell, so he could hear me over the boat. Then you could see it, the instant his made it - his knees were set and he was still alive and well. Then his face held the confidence every parent lives for. I cannot begin to find the

Day duex at my new digs and I am feeling extremely handicap. Sort of swimming around in the land of the lost at the moment, hoping that I get a freakn' grip. From an outsider looking in it seems like this dept is run in the dark ages, and the that the lady I am replacing spent a LOT OF time spinning her wheels and FORCES items to work. That in general makes me cringe, I mean it makes my skin crawl. I am hoping that my initial thoughts are not the case, but everything I review and touch I want to change. Normal generic things have been turned into major projects - and I am not sure why. Perhaps it was her lack of understanding about the sources of the data, therefore she did not know how to process it without tearing it apart. *just a thought*. But something as generic as getting a revenue deposit, seems to be a big deal. That I don't understand - at all. I don't want to show up guns-a-blazn' and change alot of things, but then again I can get the same result w/ less

As if things could not get worse..........someone stole my purse. SWEAR! Okay, so I am part to blame, I did leave it in my car overnight - unlocked. My bad, totally my bad. However our subdivision is not a bad one, I have done this several times before. The purse was in the hatch of my trailblazer, not even in plain site. They took my purse and all of my loose change, but left the GPS, the video player for the kids and the beer. My purse was behind the beer that was left over from us hanging out w/ some friends on Friday night. I mean for real. By process of elimination I 'think' it was a bunch of kids - otherwise they would have taken the other items; which are prob worth more at a pawn shop. I had no money in my purse - zip, zero. But what I did have was all of our social security cards *gasp, gasp*. Why, you may ask? I had taken them out of the safe, so I could sign my kids up for my new insurance at my new job last week. They were going back in the safe this weekend.

Before I get into today, let me say a few bits about yesterday. To sum it up - Yahoo! Much to my hesitation we packed up and went to Six Flags (stl). As a sidebarr - I hate heights and rollercoasters. I am not the best person to take to Six Flags, and in my short sightedness, I thought my kids would hate it as well. Color me all wrong. First yesterday, Pyper woke up with an ear ache - so at 8 am I am visiting the doc in the box (Walgreens) and trying to think up ways to get out of the whole trip. Lance would not hear of it, so at 10am, we packed up, grabbed two extra kids and went to the theme park. All the way I am grumbling under my breath 'why in the hell are we doing this. this sucks blah, blah'. We drive to where the coasters are in site and Pyper forgot all about her ear and she was animated and ready to see the coasters. Needless the say we had the BEST TIME EVR'. We stayed until 7pm, we practically had to drag everyone out of there. Pyper was just tall enou

See the broken tree above - well that happened yesterday. I got home from work to see that the brief storm had left us a present. The nice storm left us a broken mature tree, which decided to land on our deck, roof and gutter. The up side to this damn thing - now I don't have to stain my deck, which I had planned to do over the next two days. Now, I will spend my time calling the insurance company, and try to get a damn adjuster at my home to assess the damage. Hang on, because I am fully of good news - you know the kind that makes you shake your head and wonder why in hell do you really visit my blog? Last week my father was hit while on his motorcycle. Scared the living hell out of all of us. He was stopped, making a left hand turn in to his driveway when a lady who was TEXTING hit him from the back. He saw her, he had his blinker on, he even put out his arm in a effort to make sure she saw him. Well, if her nose wasn't stuck up her text message she would have seen hi