A Little Ribbing

For some reason I can't get the picture of this week's Deal of the Week ad to upload correctly, so we'll have a text-only blog today (sorry I'm so boring). Even though its already Thursday the deal this week is good enough to act on quickly. We have 40" Toshiba LCD TVs on sale for $699 this week. That is a $100 reduction over the normal price. Hurry in and pick yours up today! (time to start filming commercials with that stellar sales pitch)

New at The Current Connection is a selection of TV stands in stock to hold your audio and video components and the big screen, if you so choose. We also have wall mounts on hand so if you're looking for a project over the 4th of July weekend, we've got all the goods available today. We are open all day Thursday and Friday.

We started the week with a whirlwind of activity. Rodeo entries opened on Friday for events in Faulkton, Fort Pierre, Interior and Wall and took a steady stream of call-in entries on Monday. A fair amount entered online, but the first two weekends in July bring the cowboys out in droves, trying to cash in on prize money in their respective events. On Tuesday, we pulled in some more extra help as I headed to Belle Fourche for some photography projects. I took pictures of the Miss Rodeo South Dakota contestants for the photogenic portion of their competition, and of Miss Rodeo South Dakota herself as practice for the "big time" in Las Vegas this fall. They are some gorgeous ladies and while we printed the photos in Belle that afternoon for judging, I haven't had a chance to get them off of the camera and posted for your viewing pleasure (soon, I hope!). I also met up with a good friend from college to take pictures of her two sweet girls at the park in Spearfish. We had a great time and I headed home just as it was starting to rain - perfect timing. Jack was out of town on service calls for a good share of yesterday and returned to Lemmon just in time to catch up on late entries for the rodeos. Needless to say, we've been busy but its very exciting at the same time. Believe it or not, next week will be even busier with three of the largest rodeos of the season to enter, and Boss Cowman activities beginning mid-week.

The "ribbing" comes from the member of the family who refuses to leave my side...alone. I've been getting lots of kicks and punches to the rib cage lately as the little guy likes to remind Mama who is in charge. Three months and we'll see what sort of personlity comes from a big kicker. Gage was a mover, but not as much of a kicker and definitely not as hard. I can't imagine having another high-energy mover and shaker but we'll take whatever comes our way. Gage still thinks we should name the baby JB Mauney after his favorite bull rider, but not James Burton (JB's real name).

In other Gage news, we spent last Saturday with cousin Carter hitting up rummage sales and riding horse. Its nice that the boys are finally to the point of wearing each other out - much easier on the rest of us. We did have Wrestlemania Smackdown a bit but they seemed to enjoy rough-housing with each other. On Sunday we were able to take in the Dakota Zoo for a few hours and he still enjoyed the bear and tigers the best. He also "baa'ed" at the camels and was pretty certain the antelope were, in fact, deer.

Gage is enjoying spending time with his "rodeo entry babysitter" and her family and even took in his first baseball game with them. He talked about it for days, but it may have more to do with the pound of gummy worms that he ate than anything else. His extra time away from Mom and Dad has made nighttime a challenge once again and he ends up camping with us for a good share of the evening. We hope to spoil him with attention this weekend just in time for Grandma and Grandpa Franken to spoil him with everything else next week.

Here's wishing you all a safe and fun holiday!