It's great being home, a nice bath, free food, movie dates, old friends, but the real appeal is my family.

My family is always on the go. There is always at least one member of the family absent during the day, either baseball, gymnastics, working on our lakehouse, working on our new house, etc. We never have dinner at the same time. I used to wonder why we had a kitchen table, but I see now that my mom has found it a good place to lay folded laundry. My mom makes a trip to at least one fast food restaurant a day and orders mass amounts of food. We are a family of 6 and at least one of my brothers always has a friend over, my mom has often been quoted saying "why is it our responsibility to feed the neighborhood?" but still she knows she loves it. She's already spent 40 dollars at Zaxby's today. When we dine out it's always mexican. I am not exaggerating either. I've been home since Monday night and we've already been to Pablano's twice. I say it all the time, but i could eat mexican for every meal (the waiters at On The Border can attest to this). It always makes me laugh because one of us (my mom or me) will say we're hungry and the other says, where do you want to eat and we act like we dont know what we want or that we're actually considering a meal other than Mexican and then when one of us finally does say Mexican the other nonchalantly says "yeah i guess that's fine." It's over food that my mom and I keep up with each other's lives. My dad has always said he hates mexican, but he always comes with us because he gets bored when we're gone. In fact, he gets bored more easily than anyone I know. He has to be doing something or buying something at all times. He's so funny, I sometimes forget he's my dad...as he sometimes forgets he's not in college anymore. One time last year I wanted to have a little party at home, he was so excited and when there was just 5 or 6 of us sitting around drinking he had to interrupt and ask if that was really what i considered a party. With the extra pounds, bank statements, and conversations he's overheard of my mom warning me that alcoholism is a disease this year, he never asks me questions like that anymore.

Then, there are my siblings...i dont know if anyone can say they have a more entertaining sister or couple of brothers than I do. Cody,11, is either: playing baseball, harassing my sister, chasing my dog around the house, burning things , giving my mom a heart attack with questions like "so...when i'm cooking something and it says lay it flat on the rack, does that mean on a pan and on the rack or just the rack" or " I just invited 5 boys to spend the night, is that cool?," (sidebar: I just had to get up from writing because Cody just sic'ed the dog on Taylor). It's always a surprise with him. On the off chance that i get bored at home, I can just watch cody for a few seconds and i'm instantly amused again. For instance, when I got home from school he was on the front porch hammering away at his baseball shoes trying to remove the cleats. I shake my head at him the most. It used to be that i was always taking up for him because Dylan was always harassing him, but now I find myself yelling at him the most to stay out of trouble...but he's also the one I get the most hugs from. I can always count on a hug from Cody before I've even stepped out of the car.

Then there's Dylan, almost 14. We're the closest in age and it might be because of this that I look at for him the most. He's into girls now, which is scary. He gets on the internet a lot and the girls on his buddylist have names like sweetypieXOXO, georgiapeach143, or my personal favorite sweetnsassyXXX. I try to sneak on him a lot, but I never catch him doing anything bad. I look out for him the most probably because he's getting to "that age." He probably wishes I'd leave him alone. Like about a year and a half ago, Matt and I snuck to check on him at the skating ring...I thought i'd find him making out or something, but he was being good and playing video games with boys. I felt bad, but at least I knew he was out of trouble. He's also an incredible athlete, I always have guys my age ask me how he's doing with golf, because he has played with a lot of them...and beat a lot of them too, but this summer he's more interested in baseball, and of course he's amazing at that too. He's a great pitcher and hitter. He and Cody are both great athletes. We also rarely fight anymore, I can feel us getting a lot closer as he's growing up. He's my movie buddy when I come home and I usually end up sleeping in his bed (I dont have a bedroom in this new rental house). Last night we watched Anchorman on his computer, the other night it was For Love of the Game. I enjoyed the movies, but probably because I was watching them with him.

Then, there's Taylor, almost 5. I could spend hours writing about her. She's so funny, my friends will sometimes call me and ask if i have any funny Taylor stories. I always do. Like when I got home, after I shook my head at cody tearing his shoes apart, I walked through the door to find her yelling at the dog and asking her why she was " such a SKANK?" Right now she's in the room with me playing Dylans X box. She's on her fourth game in two minutes, because (i've learned) it takes her about 30 seconds per game to discover she has no clue how to play. But, she's so stubborn she'll continue on until she's tried them all. IT will never enter her mind that she doesn't know how to play X Box. Not knowing how to do something isn't an option. She loves my girlfriends, probably she thinks she's 21 too. She doesn't like older guys...not even Paul Welch who attempted to buy her love with the purchase of 5 purple toe rings while we were at the beach. She did inform me though that she had a boyfriend. I asked his name, his hair color, his age, but forgot to ask eye color and on that note she yelled "uhh...don't you wanna know about his eyeballs? well they're blue!" Since I was 17 when she was born I feel like a second mother to her. But lately she's so mature i feel more like a sister to her. Her favorite movie is mean girls and she loves quoting the line "Gretchen, stop trying to make FETCH happen. It's NOT going to happen!" I'm going to end this blog with that quote...

p.s. i just did a spell check and would you believe that blog comes up mispelled in the blog spellchecker. losers.