Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Wow!

It has been quite a while now since I have posted anything. I think this has been the longest. All the leaves have fallen and been burned, and we have had a few days of snow now. The boys are growing more and more like the handsome young weeds that they are. BB has entered into the world of middle school wrestling and just loves it! LB is still plugging along, gaining steps little by little in this big world. Hubby is still working away from home with 3 more years to go. And I am still here helping each of them carry on, while enjoying myself in my circle of family and friends.

With the holidays coming and going, a lot of rushing around is in order. Trying to get gifts bought, dinners organized, cookies baked. All while fitting our normal everyday lives in between. If this is the key to keep us young, I hope to be as busy as I can stand without having to collapse. In fact, I should be out there now finishing up my shopping. And getting younger.

Well, since I have discovered Facebook, things have changed in my bloggy world. I believe most of my readers are on Facebook so I haven't made it a point to update alot on here. If there are any readers out there who have been waiting around for some stories, I apologize. With the change of times come the change of direction in some of us. With Facebook and Twitter taking over the web, we don't have alot of sitting down and actually writing anything more than the size of a paragraph anymore. Attention spans are growing shorter and shorter now. It is a technologically saavy, but a little sad world we live in. I was just talking to Hubby the other day about how people don't just sit down and write a letter now. The old pen and paper haven't been touched since computers started taking over. Now e-mail is a thing in the past! That's just strange. And yet, here I sit typing away. Connected to that machine that has taken over so many lives. Time marches on, and times march on.

So on that note, I will be going out to finish my shopping. I wish all of you out there the happiest, healthiest of holidays and hopefully I will be back on here posting again in the near future. You know for nostalgia.


:)

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

It sure is FALL!



Yesterday we got rid of some of our leaves. Grandma came over to help and got to play with the leaf blower. She's a real pro at it! While she got all the leaves into piles I was burning them. Then the boys came home from school and helped gather them together. I would then bring over the trash cans and burn at a steady pace.


Sophie was not enthused.


The can is almost full of ash and I still have to pick up some more today!


We worked for about 4 good hours yesterday. I came in the house smelling like a campfire and am a little sore today from all the bending. But no worries, I only have this much more to go:


:)

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Punkin' patch!


Today we went to the pumpkin patch. Grandma, me and the boys. We had a good time! Here are some pictures from our day.

Froggy came with us on the hayride!





Pumpkin bowling!






The corn maze.




We sat around a nice fire to warm up.






A nice day! Thanks for the idea, Grandma! Love yinz!

Monday, September 28, 2009

And the story continues...


Well, I am back from Ocean City. Me and my BFF had a super duper good time at Sunfest 2009. We did a ton of walking and laughing. Such good times! And naturally we brought along the Guitar Hero for our down time. :)

Yeah, after you read the recent post on The Adventures of Dippy, Dingy, and Goofy, what was conveniently not mentioned was on the results of our duel. Yes, she won. I will give her that but as you can see in this picture, I was the winner also:


See that? Yeah, "best performer".

And also, the last song we played was left out of her post. I was on the hard level and she was on medium. I kicked her butt on that one.

Ok, I feel better now that's out of my system. :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Our Summer Safari

Well the pics from our vacation are here. Finally after fixing a few bugs with Photobucket, and help from my good friend, I figured out how to get these on here.

We went to African Safari Wildlife Park while we were enjoying our stay in Huron, OH. You get to drive through it in your own vehicle and feed the animals. The animals know that there is food in the cars so they really do stick their heads in to get at it. Lots of animal slobber on the cars! And a bit on the inside too. Yum!

We took the sunroof off of our car so the boys could get a bird's-eye view of everything. They even got to feed the giraffe from the roof of the car. It was really cool!

Enjoy the pics!

Friday, August 28, 2009

One week down...

Well, excluding the first day of school, the first week was a success. The boys are in their routines. I am trying to get into my routine. I woke up on time for the rest of the week. It's hard getting used to waking up when it's still dark again. If only school started just a half hour later, I could see the sun the moment I opened my eyes. But alas, it's 0-dark thirty every day for us. And hey, at least I can go back to bed for a while. :)

Oh, and I am not one of the cool moms that takes pictures of their kids on the first day of school. So there are no first day pics to post here. But they looked well-dressed, and their mood was positive. That's the best picture I can post.

Speaking of pictures, I do plan on posting some of our vacation pictures on here. We went to Huron, OH again this year for our "last hurrah-vacation" before school, and we, again, had a blast! Thanks, again to the Marble family for the invite.

Now the only pictures I took were of the cool drive-thru safari we went on. Really cool! We spent alot of time at the beach area, and chilling in the lake house, but I don't have pictures of that. When we were at the beach, I was in the water. Not a good place for a camera. And then when we were chillin in the lake house, I could have gotten out the camera but that would have interupted my relax-time so, well, you get it....

Anyway, I will be posting those soon. As for the weekend, I welcome the time to sleep in. Gotta get my rest caught up on, to be ready for Monday morning, so we can do it all over again. Nighty night all.

:)

Monday, August 24, 2009

School? What school?

Well, I've done it. It took me 30-some years but I have done it. I woke up today to daylight and the sound of a bus backing up. Yes, I slept in!! The first day of school! I can't believe I did that. Never, ever in my entire life have I done that! I have always been the one to be so nervous about not being on time. I have had bad dreams in the past where I got to school late.

Last week I got the kids' backpacks loaded up with supplies. We went shopping for some clothes over the weekend. I knew it was coming. But last night when I set the alarm clock for the crack of black, I really don't remember hitting the "ON" switch. Me! The one who, when trying to fall asleep at night often opens her eyes to make sure that the little light is on that let's you know that the alarm is set. Me! Who has always been even too nervous to sleep the night before. Yep, me.

Now the kids actually did get to school on time because of my cat-like reflexes to take action in any way to avoid embarrassment. They didn't get the full-belly breakfast that I planned ( they got a bagel in the car), or the sweet, slow morning-hug goodbye-"Have a good day" that I also planned. But they did get there on time. And I gave both the kids permission to use the name "Dodo-head" in reference to me today.

But I hope that they do have a good first day anyway. Nothing like adrenaline to get you moving in the morning! Man, my stomach hurts. I'm gonna go lay down. But I won't fall asleep. At least not without setting my clock, hitting the on switch, and setting my cell phone alarm too. No maybe I shouldn't lay down. Hmmmm...this may be a good time to take up jogging.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Fun Day!



Well, we had such a good time yesterday! I am so tired and will be going back to bed soon to rest up some more. My balance still hasn't....well, balanced out yet and my legs are a bit tender from the walking. But, wow, did we have fun!

It did rain off and on while we were there, obviously we wouldn't be sporting the ponchos just for kicks. (On second thought you never know what will happen when a group of girls get together.)

We did ride just about everything there. We wouldn't try the bungee-type rides that you pay extra for, or the one where it just drops you out of the sky from waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy up, but we did The Phantom's Revenge. This is their only steel coaster I believe. So much fun! The first time we rode it had just started raining again and I couldn't keep my eyes open because the raindrops were hitting my face so hard, I was afraid one of them would knock out one of my contacts. So a couple of us had to try that one out later without rain. And one of us almost lost our cell phone on the ride. While we were riding the phone went up in the air and the girl behind us saw something and grabbed it! It was the phone!! How often does THAT happen?! That was cool!

All the classic rides were still there. The Jack Rabbit, Thunderbolt, The Whip, The Racer, The Turtle, and Noah's Ark. We also went on ones I don't remember like the Kangaroo, The Pittsburg Plunge, and The Exterminator. I think we will be taking our kids sometime after LB is done with the phase of being afraid of the amusement parks. Gotta keep these family memories going. Hubby remembers Noah's Ark from when he was a boy. Cute!

Oh and all those pictures I promised? Yeah, you can't take pictures on the rides and well, I was on all of the rides. :) But we did get this one nice picture of all of us in our poncho glory! That will just have to do.

Thanks, girls for the great day!

And now, back to bed...

:)

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Girl's Day Out!



Tomorrow is our fun day! I think we are all excited about it. As some of you know, I have been battling an ear infection this week, but I am still going to go. Who knows how my ears will be after all these rides. Maybe it will shake things up in there so I can hear again! I hope. I never really realized what the kids had gone through when they had ear infections when they were younger. The last time I experienced one was when I was very young also, so I didn't remember the "loss of hearing" thing that you have to put up with. It kinda sounds like I'm talking in a box. It's really annoying! But, I think I will be preoccupied by lots of fun tomorrow. I hope to have some pictures to post also!

:)

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Happy 4th!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. Here are some pictures of our evening.





Friday, July 3, 2009

Trip to the mall

We wanted to go out to do something today. We tried going to the "local flea market" today but found that the traffic was just too much. They only operate on Fridays so everyone and their brothers go out for all the cheap junk you can buy, and also some fresh fruits and veggies. Well, we crept in the traffic for about 30 minutes and decided that it wasn't worth it today. So we turned around and decided to go to the mall. Probably finding the same stuff but more expensive. Positive note-no headaches. So we are walking around and found the Shiatsu chairs. LB started. He asked for "tickle back?". Couldn't resist. BB sat down beside him. I think we got our $2 worth.




Wednesday, July 1, 2009

In my garden

As promised, the photos of my garden so far.

My Dad getting my ground ready



Green beans


Peas


Peas a week later


Green beans a week later


I just put in tomatoes and green peppers in the middle. I did plant cucumbers and carrots but haven't seen any yet. I think it's because of those darn critters.


Hopefully we will get a good bit of veggies this year.

:)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Ahhh Summer...

So, obviously I haven't been blogging alot lately. I try but I get distracted. But enough with excuses.

Summertime has been very nice so far. We have already gone on one vacation (the slideshow is at the bottom of the page now), I have been starting up a garden, and we have just been enjoying ourselves here at home with the beautiful weather.

My garden this year will be the first garden I have ever......um...gardened. :) I will post pictures later. My Dad was kind enough to bring his rototiller over and get the ground all nice and chewed up for me. Thanks, Dad! I have started with seeds and am learning about the little creatures around here that like them for breakfast. Goofy critters! Also, I will be keeping a log of my mistakes throughout this whole process so as to better myself next year. Hope I have enough paper in my notebook! My Grandma was very good at gardening. She made it seem so easy. Even the neighbors knew of her green thumb! I sincerely hope that there are some gardening genetics in me so I can have some decent results. We'll see.

So far this summer the kids have been having a great time. BB got to go camping with his friends this past weekend. More fishing! As you probably know from SAAM's blog, BB has been quite the fisherman. We're so proud! He also did some swimming, hiking, and had a good time on the paddleboats. When he got home, he was tired. A good tired. He has also been having a great time with the kids that visit the neighborhood's grandparents every summer. I'm so glad we got the trampoline. It has paid for itself many times. These kids are out there for hours at a time playing around on that thing. A nice way to keep them active and away from the TV. Even LB has been hanging around everyone. He's becoming so social lately!! And normally when we have people over for dinner or whatever, he is usually in his room watching his videos. But just recently he has been coming out of his shell. He is hanging with the crowd now!!

He really has been doing well this summer. This boy, who has had quite the speech difficulty, has been talking soooooo much!! We are just all amazed at how his progress has been! He's got some great teachers that work hard with him throughout the school year. He has been talking about school very steadily for the past 2 weeks now. I keep telling him that he won't go until August, and he understands that. He is just talking about it over and over. And it's only June! We will be hearing about school for the rest of the summer I think. You know, how when you pray for something, you sometimes get it? Well, prayer for speech has been getting answered. And it's cool!

Well, gonna wrap up this post. I will have to show you some of my garden pictures soon. As soon as I get them out of my camera. Right after I check in on Facebook. Oh man, there's that distraction I spoke about earlier. I'll try to get better. Honest, I will.

:)

Monday, June 15, 2009

Hershey slideshow

I've been having a bit of trouble with trying to get the slideshow on here. This is the best I could do. I know there isn't a place to comment above, but feel free to comment under this post.

The pictures start with the museum, then the Hershey Gardens, our hotel room, and then Hersheypark and Chocolate World.

Enjoy! Oh, and you might want to have some chocolate handy while your watching. It will get you in the mood plus you will get hungry for it anyway.

:)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Wondering where I've been?

Yeah, you know what really takes alot of my computer time? Stupid Facebook! Not only are there friends to talk to and check in on, but there are other things like games and web pets and such. I have been on this thing for a while now and every time I get finished with Facebook, I don't do anything else on the computer. Obviously, since I have been away for a while. So I apologize for being away so long. I will be better about posting on here. I'm sure you have been wanting an update on us here.

Well, we did go to Hershey and had a great time. Yes, the smell of chocolate is in the air. Yes, there are chocolate kisses for street lights. And yes, we ate alot of chocolate. Really really good chocolate. The funny thing is, when you eat chocolate in Hershey it ACTUALLY tastes better than the bars you buy at home. I believe it has to do with it being fresh. We went out and bought a Hershey bar at the store down the road from us and did a taste test. The store stuff tasted just like the wrapper it came in. And the stuff we brought home from Hershey was OUT OF THIS WORLD! It really wasn't just a placebo thing being there and all. There is a real difference. So a word to the wise....If you plan on going to Hershey, bring alot of chocolate home from there to nibble on for a while. Well worth it!

I will be posting some pictures up here soon from our trip. I haven't gotten them all on the computer yet and am trying to get a slideshow going but having a bit of trouble figuring it out. So until then, you can imagine it in your heads. :)

We stayed at the Hershey Lodge for a couple of nights. We got a package deal that got us park tickets, some tickets to the museum and the gardens. The first day, we went to the museum where we learned all about Milton Hershey and his ideas getting together. --And cool side note...Milton Hershey's birthday is also mine! I knew I liked this stuff so much for a reason!-- Then the Hershey Gardens and it was really pretty. So many roses! They also had a Children's Garden with a butterfly house. The weather was a bit on the coolish side so they weren't fluttering around. Just clinging to the walls and waiting for it to warm up. It didn't warm up too much while we were there. But is was still in the low 70's, high 60's. Not too bad. At least it wasn't like Disneyworld in August. That was a bit warmish. whew!

The next day we went to Hersheypark. We rode alot of the little rides because LB felt safer with those. He really liked the rollercoasters in the past, but this year, he has decided to put those on hold for a while. We did manage to get one rollercoaster ride in. A mild, hilly, wooden coaster that must have been one of the firsts. It was really fun. And even though I had a little pout-fest of my own because no one wanted to tackle the BIG coasters with me, we all still had a good time. We got some entertainment in, had our $40 burger lunch ( you know how those parks are!), and got to see all the walking and dancing chocolate treats! And yes, we did get to ride the ferris wheel. Gotta do that!

Next to the park, is Chocolate World. This is the place to go through the tour, see a cool 3-D movie, and buy all the cocoa paraphernalia you can find. --Remember to stock up on goodies for home here.--

We did get quite a few freebies while we were in Hershey. For the three days we were at the hotel, we each got a full-sized bar for each day. Also we got free samples at Chocolate World for taking the tour and seeing the movie. It was awesome!

We all had a great time! Hope to have some pics up here soon. Oh, and I recommend this vaca to anyone out there. After all, chocolate IS good for the soul.

:)

Friday, May 29, 2009

How do I do this again?

Oh yeah.....

Sorry I haven't been writing too much here. I guess I have been busy - OK lazy. :)

We do have some things coming up that I will be posting about next week. Last day of school coming up and first vaca of the year. We are excited. We are going to the mecca of all things good. Yep, Hershey, PA! I can't wait to eat all that choc.....er, I mean spend all that time with my family. LB is, of course, looking forward to the rollercoasters. And chocolate. BB is excited to stay in a hotel. And have chocolate. And Hubby and I are looking forward to being together. And eating chocolate. I hope I can stand the waiting bringing home the souveniers. Hmm...it might melt in the car on the way home. I guess we will have to eat them. OK, maybe we'll also get a t-shirt or something. That should make it home.

Can't wait!

:)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Bowling humor

We watched Jim Gaffigan the other night. Whew! My gut hurts.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day


Thanks to all of our Veterans for their sacrifices. You will all be remembered.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Duel anyone?



Just don't go looking for trouble in the woods after practicing!
:)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Oh yeah, I'm a bowler!!



Tonight we had our banquet for our bowling league. We had great food and fun. Then they handed out the money and trophies! I got a trophy for most improved average. My average is a lane-busting 101!! Yay, me!!




'Twas a lovely evening. With my winnings I can finally pay back BB the money I borrowed off of him! Yep, I have a debt with my teenage son. But not anymore!


:)