ECHO! (echo!)

question:
if a blogger fails to update her online audience for months at a time, will anyone still check her blog? let's find out.

well my friends, it's been a busy and adventurous few months. i'm basically having the time of my life here in summer-y winona lake. i'm in my second summer of professional nannying and discovering more and more reasons why God isn't calling me into parenthood in the next few decades. can i just say that SUGAR is the hallucinatory drug of choice for children...its mind-altering molecules should be banned in all 50 states, but i would settle for just the state of indiana. (charity, your idea to not feed rachel sugar was ingenious, and i'm so horrifyingly sorry that i fed her strawberry ice cream at lauren hein's graduation party, and i solemnly swear that i will never feed your children sweets again if you don't want me to.)

i've also decided that children should not be provided with options. i recently took my four nannying charges (ages 6,5,4 and 2) to "tokens and tickets" a popular warsaw establishment that has arcade games (ski ball, pound the gopher and the like). the point is to earn all the tickets possible with the tokens that your frazzled nanny gives to you, and then present aforementioned tickets to the equally frazzled adolescent behind the counter in exchange for "prizes." now...these "prizes" range anywhere from beanie babies to spider rings. of course my kids only earned enough tickets for the lower end of the loot...so i was forced to watch them root through endless supplies of bouncy balls, rubber snakes, silly putty and bubble gum (all of which i was sure i would be finding littered all over the SUV later that night) until their last tickets were spent. options=death.

don't get me wrong, i love my job SOOO much more than my job last summer. this summer, i basically make my own hours (and get paid by them), i drive a tricked out SUV all over creation, i spend most of my mornings at the club being waited on by handsome young boys in polo shirts, in the afternoons you can find me cruising around the lake on the boat, i have tickets to see american idol in august and I'M GOING TO THE VIRGIN ISLANDS. plus, i'm in love with the kids. ella, nolan, grant and ava are my summer entertainment:) ella can't get enough of my stories, nolan can add numbers like a machine, grant holds all the doors he can for me, and ava thinks she's the next american idol (for real...the "bad day" song is her personal theme: she closes her eyes, spreads her arms and belts out "had bad day, take one down, sing sad songs, turnitaround!"). if you knew me last summer, and you know what i did...you'll understand my excitement.

in other news, i still live in the fabulous house with all my lovely girlfriends. we spend our evenings swinging on our porch swing, spying on the neighbors, playing with our new kitten and hoping to God that this isn't a foreshadowing of the rest of our lives. no, for real, we have a great time cooking out with everyone, rollerblading and generally causing mischief. i broke it off with greg and it seems to be the best decision of my life thus far...thank you to everyone who helped me through that entire relationship.

i'm sure that everyone knows by now that i'm going to be someone's sister!!!! oh wait, i already am landon's sister...but soon i'm going to be erin's sister too because on june 3rd landon took the train down from new york to propose to erin at matt and isabelle's wedding and she was really surprised but she said yes anyway and when you get engaged that means you get married soon afterwards so that's what they're going to do and so not too long from now erin and i will be real-life-honest-to-goodness sisters!! oh, and landon and erin will be husband and wife:) that's pretty amazing. on a more serious note, i am so thankful for erin aleta. she is a blessing to my brother and our whole family. i can't wait for you all to get to know her. to know her is to love her...we all are blessed.

i really wish i knew how to post pictures on here...i have some neat ones of our house, landon and erin, our new kitten, and the kids that would be neat to share. so i guess that was pretty anticlimactic, because i'm not posting them...

so to the faithful few who tune in to see the comment number increase...wait no longer. the update has arrived.
~loving life in the lake~