Cloris Is Finally Gone! Off To Tucson Tomorrow!

Cloris finally was booted off Dancing With The Stars last night. It was about time, but you knew that was going to happen especially since next week each contestant has to learn two dances and she could not even learn one dance. Susan Lucci will be the next to go, although I think Maurice Greene better watch out.

I leave tomorrow for my big tennis tournament. I am playing two matches thus far, but that always changes once you get there as people get hurt or don't play as well as they hoped, etc. We are in the same flight as Southern California, Intermountain, Florida and New England. I am playing the two early matches (7:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday against So Cal and Florida - yikes! good thing I am a morning person!). You can actually keep track of my progress if you are interested as I am doing a blog for the USTA on the usta.com Web site.

http://www.usta.com/USTA/Home/LeaguesAndTournaments/35_LeagueNationalChampionships.aspx

I am really looking forward to it and just praying that I do not embarrass myself. At least the 80 degree weather will be nice since it snowed here on Sunday.

Gotta "go, go, go"
Reagan's mom (who hopefully will turn into Roger Federer this weekend!)

Strawberry Birthday

Since I am being the worst mom in the world and missing not only Halloween, but Reagan's third birthday this weekend when I head to sunny Tucson for my tennis nationals championships, we had an early birthday party for Miss Reagan last weekend with my mom and dad and our friends The Spurrs.

Reagan was in Strawberry Shortcake overload with all the decorations and balloons. Then when we brought out the Strawberry Shortcake cake, I thought it was all over. She was so happy. Here are some photos from the party.

Gotta "go, go, go,"
Reagan's Mom

Susan vs. Cloris - They Both Need To Go!

I hate to say it, but it is time for the two old ladies to go! I am just not sure which on will go first tonight. I am thinking Cloris, but Susan Lucci's time has run out on the show as well. Both are awful. At least Cloris is funny and 82 years old. Susan looks hot in all of her outfits (wouldn't you if you were 4-11 and 70 pounds), but she is just an awful dancer. Susan was absolutely terrible in the group dance last night. I felt sorry for her. She had no idea what they were doing and was out of step the entire dance. At least Cloris is funny and knows her limitations.

On the upside, Lance and Lacey were great. I thought their jive was one of the best dances of the year. They are right back in the competition.

My favorites are still Warren and Kym. I think he is hilarious and he is really good. I am still shocked by how good he is. I also thought he was awesome in the group dance. Kym needed to give him more to do last night, but she is so into herself and her newly-enhanced chest that she sometimes forgets that he is the one in the contest. She looks great though. If I had that chest and looked that good, I would flaunt it too! And congrats to her for finally getting a good partner. She has always had such crappy partners - Mark Cuban, Jerry Springer.

Brooke and Derek were beautiful although there was not much dancing. You could tell they played it safe since she was hurt. Derek still annoys me.

Perhaps the best news of the night in a selfish way is that Julianne has to have her appendix removed (I am sorry for her about that) and Edyta is going to take her place until she can come back and dance again. That means I get to watch it on the big TV once again next week! Yes! Julianne says she can come back in one week, I am hoping it is like 5 weeks so I can watch on the high definition TV the rest of the season - get well Julianne, but not too soon!

Everyone else was fine. Maurice and Cheryl were good. Cody and Julianne were OK. And obviously the last people were not great since I cannot even remember who they were.

It was nice to see Micahel Flatley on the show as well. I cannot wait to see him dance tonight! He is awesome!

Gotta "go, go, go,"
Reagan's Mom

Susan Lucci Might Be In Trouble

I really did not like last night's format for Dancing With The Stars. I felt like the people who got to jitterbug had a real advantage, but then again, it might have just been who did what dance.

Derek and Brooke and Cody and Julianne were amazing last night. They threw so many lifts into their routines and they were so difficult. They were a lot of fun to watch, although I thought it was very interesting that both Julianne and Derek did not know alot about the jitterbug, but their routines were almost the exact same style. They must have talked.

I also thought Maurice and Cheryl were really, really good, as well as Warren (he was hilarious) and Kym. I guess Cheryl knew exactly what to do to light a fire under Maurice, although I thought that he has been really good the past three weeks.

Then there was everyone else. Lacey and Lance were boring - although Lacey was phenominal. Toni was OK. Cloris was actually pretty good for her last night and then there was poor Susan. She was terrible! I know she has broken feet, but she was absolutely terrible and really should be the one to go home tonight. I guess we will see.

The show is super boring this year. Maybe they need to see how much it would cost to get Barack and Caribou Barbie to be on the show and drive up ratings. Just look what they have done for Saturday Night Live.

Gotta "go, go, go,"

Reagan's mom

Stress!

I was so looking forward to this weekend as it was going to be a big family weekend. With only one event the whole weekend - Gopher volleyball on Friday night - I was really excited to spend a weekend with Reagan and Andrew. On Saturday, we decided to drive to Wisconsin and look at all the fall foliage along the river. It was really nice as the temperature was in the mid 50s and sunny. We stopped at a few places so Reagan could run around and play in the leaves.

Once we returned home...things started to go south. We received a letter that we lost our appeal on our storm door and will have to remove it immediately (long story short on this...we unknowingly installed a non-approved storm door on our house over 2 years ago and the association decided to finally let us know and to immediately take it down. There are three of us who have the same door so we all appealed to keep the door - and lost). I am not happy. Our property management company is terrible - then the door - and then they raised the monthly dues $30/month all in the last 4 weeks. Needless to say...I am going to really pay attention now and start getting involved with what is happening around here.

Then we are eating dinner when I look down at my wedding ring and notice that the main diamond is missing from the setting - it had snapped off the setting prongs, post and all. Of course I start freaking out and looking everywhere for it - to no avail. Then I started to panic that I lost it when we were playing in the leaves in Wisconsin - not to mention that I had showered, done laundry, cleaned house and emptied the trash since we had been home. I then remembered that I had taken some photos of Reagan and I in Wisconsin, so I looked at those and you could see that my ring was still in one piece. So I knew that the diamond was somewhere in the car or in my house, but being a total pessimist, I figured it got caught in my hair when I was showering and went down the drain. I looked all Saturday night - nothing. All Sunday morning - nothing. I figured it was lost but decided to look in my car one last time just in case. Low and behold sitting on the floor on between the door and the back seat was my diamond in the prongs! I couldn't believe it! So I am sure it is ruined because the setting is broken, but I at least have the diamond. Andrew was glad that I found the diamond, but he is getting a little irritated that this will be my third setting in just under 8 years of me having the ring. Maybe this time I should just get a band or a $5 ring out of a Cracker Jack box.

So once I found it, the rest of the weekend was good. It was my birthday yesterday so that made it a very happy birthday. Andrew and I played tennis in the morning with some of my teammates going to Nationals and then I had a match that night (which I got killed in, but it was still fun). Reagan made me a cake and things were great.

I am waiting the arrival of my mom and dad. They are coming to visit for a week so that will be fun for Reagan. Reagan cannot wait to play golf with Grandpa.

Dancing With the Stars tonight...hopefully this will be the last week for Cloris!

Gotta "go, go, go,"

Reagan's mom

Reagan update

I was looking back at my previous posts and you would think that I only cared about Dancing With The Stars and that I had nothing else going on in my life. Well that is almost true...except that I do have a daughter who is about to turn 3 and every day is a new adventure with her.

So yesterday it happened for the first time (and I am sure it will not be the last) ... Reagan got mad at me and told me "she didn't like me!" She got mad because I moved her car seat to the passenger side of the back seat and she could not get in on her normal side (these are the moments when I fear she has autism). After kicking and screaming, we started driving toward home and it came out, "I don't like you mommy!" I tried not to laugh, but it was sad. I guess that is better than "I hate you," but she is not even three yet. It did bother me, although once we got home and I got her some Cheerios, I was the best again. My little Reagan is becoming a teenager!

Reagan is doing great in school. She actually has graduated from the preschool curriculum and they are going to start her on kindergarten studies. She knows all her letters and numbers (although she forgets 14-19 when she is counting to 20) and is really a smart cookie. They tell me every day how impressed they are with her and how much she enjoys her "schoolwork."

She also earned her first trip to the library with the 'big kids" at school today. This is a really big deal as they take the big kids to the library once a week and Marcy decided that since Reagan is so into learning and education, that she would get to go to the library today. I cannot wait to see how that turned out. Secretly, I am hoping that she hated it since the library was never one of my favorite places when I was in school (i.e. look at my college grades), but I am very proud of her.

Another sign that she is growing up is that we played Candy Land for the first time the other day and she understood all of the rules and how to play. The only thing she failed to grasp was that you did not want to get Peppermint Forest when you are about to win the game. She thought it was "cool" that she got the candy cards. Oh well. That means I win much more often.

Her social calendar is also starting to fill up as she has been invited to a number of parties recently, including one tonight at Pump It Up which is an indoor inflatable place. She loves her friends! She also went on a field trip at school yesterday where they rode the light rail downtown and then looked at all the "castles" as Reagan likes to call them. She thought that was pretty fun, especially when the train went fast! She starts gymnastics practice November 10 as well.

Getting her ready in the morning has become quite challenging as she is not a morning person (like her dad) and she refuses to do anything until the "sky is open" (which means the sun is up). She also needs to pick her own diaper, clothes and shoes and then try to put them all on herself which doesn't really work out at age 3. She also refuses to let me brush her hair so she goes with a rat's nest on her head every day. I am sure I look like the worst mother. Let's just say my stress level is pretty high when I finally make it out of the house in the morning.

Nighttime (when the sky is closed...I am not sure where she got this from) is also a challenge as she wants to stay up until 10 p.m. every night and not take a bath. So not only is she smelly, but she is just a bear in the morning. The joys of parenting!

She is excited about Grandma Vicki and Grandpa Rick coming on Monday. She cannot wait to play golf with Grandpa and go pick apples with Grandma. I think she also knows that her birthday is getting pretty close and that a Strawberry Shortcake cake is somewhere in her future.

As you can tell...she keeps us really busy, but she is an awesome kid.

Gotta "go, go, go,"

Reagan's mom

Rocco's Last Supper

It looks like Rocco will be leaving Dancing With The Stars after his performance last night. He was definitely the worst dancer of the night, and as my friend Kathleen said, he looked drunk. Most men become better dancers once they are drunk, but he is certainly not like most men (of course he isn't - he cooks). I think Rocco's last supper is tonight.

The biggest surprise of the night was Cloris. She was actually good. She should just leave the clowning out of her act (it is so old) and just dance. She was really good last night, and honestly, it is amazing that someone 82 years old can get her leg over her head. She will be back next week.

The rest of the show was pretty standard. I really liked Maurice and Cheryl, but the judges did not. Brooke and Derek were good. Lacey and Lance were really good. They are back in the game. Warren and Kym were not as good as normal. Kym looked great, but Warren did not dance that much.

Everyone else was fine...Toni, Cody, Susan.

One thing I will say is that the women did not wear much last night. Brooke, Toni, Kym ... they hardly had anything on. Andrew probably would have like that, but since he is boycotting the show after the departure of Edyta...or maybe it was just because the Browns were on last night (A sidenote: I hate Derek Anderson and every game he does well means more time that Brady has to stand on the sidelines...maybe that isn't so bad since he is stadning there with his helmet off.)

As you can tell by my summary, it was a pretty boring show.

Gotta "go, go, go"
Reagan's mom