Sean, Trixie, Sabrina & Abby

Snow 2012

2012-02-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

Last month we had our first substantial amount of snow. And amazingly enough the girls actually wanted to play outside in it :) Sean was home and we went out and played. The girls tried to match their snowball throwing skills against the shovel. You can guess who won.

Abby allowed herself to be caught by her dad and then proceeeded to get buried.

The snow wasn't sticking together very well.

Sean burying Abby.

Abby, waiting to see if Sean would chase her or if Sabrina would help her.

Our yard has a pretty steep hill, and the girls thought it might be a good idea to go to the bottom to avoid the snow being thrown at them with the use of a shovel. um, not so smart, as they ended up trapped, and easy pickings.

From the Step-mom

2011-12-20T06:38:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine posted on her facebook page "One of the hardest things in life is watching someone you love, loving someone else. " by unknown. Then a friend of hers replied, "It could be watching the the children you carried in your belly loving their stepmother. " And that really hurt. I don't know this woman, nor, from her one comment do I EVER want to know this woman, but who the heck does she think she is? Is the step mom abusive to her kids & they love her anyway? Is the step mom mean to them & they love her anyway? Does she neglect them & they love her anyway? Does the step mom speak evil of the "real mom" & the kids love her anyway? Why is it such a bad thing that her kids love their step mom? Or does the step mom love those kids unconditionally just because they are her husbands kids & the kids love her anyway? Why would this "real mom" begrudge her children love from or for another person? Is her self esteem so low that she thinks that step mom could EVER replace the love her children have for her? Or is she just selfish? Or is she a bad parent and mad that her kids don't love her and is looking to blame someone else for the sucky job she is doing? As you can tell, this statement really bothered me. I'm a step mom. I have two step daughters. They both have mothers they love very much. I come in a distant third! (behind their dad) but I'm extremely grateful that they are able to love me as their father's wife. I've never tried to replace their mothers position in their life, it would be a losing battle and there would be much unhappiness on all fronts. Maybe that mom wants her kids to be like a student I overheard while subbing one time. This student went on to brag as to how she put salt in an open container of pop her mom was drinking and a few other awful things she had done. Really? Is that how we were taught to get along? There are many things I don't agree with in the parenting realm of one mother, but ya know what, there isn't anything I can do about it. They aren't my kids. I can love them as much as possible while they are in my house and care for them and teach them while they are here, but at the end of the weekend, they go home, and I have no say as to what goes on outside my house. So, for those of you that have to deal with a step mom, think about how life would be in her shoes, and don't begrudge anyone that would have love for your child.

Smells of the Season

2011-10-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Sean made a comment the other day that was totally appropriate. I was canning applesauce and he said " aaahhh, the smells of the season." So then we started naming all the smells of fall that we love.

Applesauce

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Cold Air

Chili

Pumpkin cookies
Candy Corn
Mellow Cream Pumpkins

As you can see, it's all about the food :) Ah, I love fall and the yummyness!

Funny Fruit...AKA the Cucamelon!

2011-09-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

We finished taking everything out of the garden yesterday. Actually Sean finished all that. We had taken out most of it 2 weekends ago, but wanted to see if some of the left over tomotoes would ripen. They didn't, so Sean pulled everything. And since he pulled everything, he picked the watermelon. It had grown a little bigger since we first found it, so we were hoping we'd get a little fresh watermelon at the end of the summer. uh, nope! This is what we encountered when Sean cut it open. No pinkness to be found.

And it smelled like a giant cucumber. Ugh. So this first picture was me trying to get the color of it. As you can see, one stripe of pink. And this second picture is me trying to not use the flash, but still get a good picture. My photography skills are suspect, let me just put it that way. And I'm not sure about the new set up for the blogger, cause I always have trouble putting my pictures where I want them. If anyone has any hints on that, let me know.

4th of July with Family

2011-09-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Iowa we were able to stop in Ohio to see my family for the 4th of July. I'm so grateful that my aunt & uncle have pool :) it was great hanging out with family. Even my sister from California was able to make it out. So the original reason for the get together is "Cousin's Week." Which I totally think I'm going next year!! I'm a cousin! right?! lol. Anyway. My aunt has all her great-nephews & nieces (my generations kids) over for a week in the summer. It's awesome cause kids that wouldn't usually get to know each other get to hang out and have fun. And since their parents are close to each other (me & my cousins) my aunt thinks our kids should get the chance to do the same. So at the culmination of the week,the parents come to get the kids and we all hang out and catch up.

Here is my niece & nephew with their dad.

Bobby is trying to put Grace's hat on, and she's not having it.

Miss Stella eatin some lunch.

Miss Grace is not happy about something. I think she wants to get in the pool. That crazy girl loves being in the pool.

B writing a note. I think. Deep in concentration over something.

Bobby, Grace and their mom in the pool.

miss Stella on the swing set. That little stinker got me in trouble. Well, actually she didn't, but made me feel like I was in trouble. ha. She had me put her up on the bar and then I found out she wasn't supposed to be up there. uh, huh. Stinker!

Wait a minute, that isn't your baby. :) Auntie C with baby K.

Aunt Edie with K.

Miss Kate did NOT like the water. Or at least not being able to touch the bottom. She screamed her head off when Ben took her any farther out than the steps. The funny thing was she was so excited to put her suit on she was driving her mom nuts. but alas, this is where she was happiest. on the steps, playing with Ariel.

And Brig, our fashion star :)

Needless to say, we spent lots of time in the pool and had a blast. Paid for it later with a lovely sunburn, but wouldn't have missed spending time with family for nothing.

And even more about my garden.

2011-09-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

I hope that when this posts the picture isn't as fuzzy as it looks right now. Cause I"m pretty sure I'm not THAT bad of a photographer. Sean is holding one of the tomatoes we got out of our garden. oh, how yummy they were. Huge & yummy. We are kinda tomatoed out at the moment, but still have a few that need fixin. We'll get to them, hopefully before they get yucky.

And this would be some of the crop. I never did get around to taking a picture of all the ones we had at one time. We gave a BUNCH of them away, and of course ate way too many. Although, i don't think you could ever have too many tomoatoes. But I've probably had my fill until next summer.

And this would be our surprise addition. We had a volunteer watermelon come up this year. Have no idea how it got there, but eh, we figured, just let it grow. The bean were done and it was in that corner of the garden. After talking to Sean the other day we decided that we would just pull it and get it out of there, so I attempted to do that this morning. uh, what is this?! We have been looking at some of the vines and seeing these little grape sized watermelons. shoot should have taken a picture of that and posted it. They are so dang cute. But anyway, that's all we've seen. So when I started pulling up vines I never expected to see this! holy cow, it's rather large. At least larger than the little grape ones we have. I'm not sure if it's big enough to eat, or if it would be just rind on the inside. Might leave it a while. I just hope the bugs don't get it.

And then I was pulling some other vines up out of the way, and I found ANOTHER one. not nearly as big as the first one, but a lot bigger than grap size. how cool is that. i might have to start one early next year so we can actually get some watermelon that we can eat. Although, I think they will take up a lot of space. Maybe I'll put them on the hill that Sean hates to mow. now there's an idea!

And here is the pepper plant that I thought I had killed. And it really did look dead for a while. And yes the picture is upside down, cause I took it upside down. And then forgot to rotate it. Sorry. Anyway. There are about 4 green peppers on it, I'm not sure when to pick them. They are small, but are big enough to actually eat. So, like the watermelon, I'll leave them for a little while longer and hope nothing eats them before I can!

Trip to Iowa

2011-09-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Awesome. I didn't realize I already had some of the pictures from Iowa uploaded. I think that was when the blasted thing was rebelling and wouldn't work for me. I must say, I'm not sure about this new blogger format. It does funny things with my pictures. but the pictures are a LOT easier to upload.
Well, onto the trip to Iowa to see Sean's family. It started with a trip to the temple for a friends wedding. That we missed. Cause the battery in the truck died. grrrr. So we had to go get a new battery. Then the radio wouldn't work. at all. no cd, no radio. NOTHING. Try driving 10 hours without a radio. not. fun. But we got there. The first day there the family took the girls to the local swimming pool. Holy cow, the thing is more like a mini amusement park! While we went and finished setting up for the party.
Day 2, and of course it's HOT in Iowa. Actually july was hot everywhere, so it wasn't really a surprise. But the boys got out the Slip & Slide, racing version. And the youngest had to join. Meanwhile, all the older girls, from 10 to 15 were in the house.....on the computer. oy!

Grandpa had to show how to do fireworks in a can. I guess they aren't as good as they used to be cause it was a total dud. He tried it a couple times, but no luck.

We are all waiting in our nice clothes before heading over to the church for the part. The girls talking, nonstop. And me reading to the munchkin :) Imagine that?!

And the reason for our trip. To celebrate Sean's Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. The lovely couple at the table of honor.

After it was over Sean had Abby shave his head. He left it "long" for the party, but once it was over, he cut it off.

Girls Camp! Fun for all.

2011-09-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, new blogger format, lets see if I can screw up this post :) So I'm finally getting around to posting about girls camp. So what if it was in July and it is now September. Better late than never, right?! Anyway. Our ward has a HUGE group of youth. 22 girls went to camp. We had a blast. Our stake, not sure if it's church wide, actually had 7th year girls. And they were the ones that ran a lot of the day to day activities in camp. Abi, would be one of the 7th years, and her loyal sidekick Kati :)

Some of the 2nd & 3rd year. These girls are amazing.

One of the activities that the girls did was to learn some basic self defense. Part of our stake presidency was willing to get beat up by his wife to show the girls some "moves." Actually he's no slouch himself, but ya know, girls want to see a girl beating up a guy. lol

i was with the 3rd year girls and these are some of the girls practicing what they had just been taught. it cracks me up how much they DON'T want to touch each other.

And you can't have camp without camp songs. :) This would be "bunny bunny." So incredibly.....funny funny. sorry had to do it.

And this would be "Brown Squirrel" they are supposedly shoving food in their mouths. After camp songs we went canoeing. Great time, right up to the part where someone flipped their canoe. Oh, what fun. The best part was, the girls that flipped it couldn't swim. luckily they had life jackets on, as you can see. It was quite and adventure and a wonderful learning experience for all involved.

The next day some knuckleheads decided to do a rain dance. Boy, did it ever work! The rain started on Thursday and didn't stop until Friday night sometime. jeez!! The dance is hilarious and I actually stop action footage of it, but it's too long to put on here.

Even our fearless leader got into the act. We were actually on a hike and had to turn back early because the thunder started, then we got soaked. My rain poncho was back at the cabin. lol, great place for it.

The older girls had to teach the younger girls certain skills. Most of which should have been outside, buuuutttttt because of the rain... well, you get the idea. We had been in the cabin for a little while but couldn't stand it anymore, so we moved our "classroom" outdoors. Kati was teaching about making a lean-to which would come in really handy later in the day.

The girls had to learn how to make 2 outdoor meals. We did foil dinners one day and then on the day it was raining we had to do dutch oven dinners. One option was to mix up the food and go to the cafeteria and put them in the oven, the other wassss......Let me just say we had the awesomest girls in our group!! This is what they did.

The built the lean-to and then a spit to hold the dutch ovens. It was an awesome job. We all smelled like nasty smoke and were kinda dirty and wet afterward, but it was really fun. And the food came out awesome.

One of the fun things the girls get to do during the week is come up with a skit about oatmeal. Don't ask, it's a camp thing :) Anyway, our ward has some incredibly talented girls that come up with some crazy stuff. On the last night they had the finalists present their skit to the stake president who happens to work for a TV station. His comment about the girl in front in the shorts was that she needed to get an agent. Their skit was hilarious!

On Monday the older girls go on high adventure and then they come in on Tuesday and work with the younger girls the rest of the week. From what I understand the one young lady in the black shirt gets injured every year. poor girl. She went over a waterfall and busted up her knee. So she was on crutches, and being pulled in the wagon for most of the week. But she was a trooper and stayed the entire time.

I had such a great time, and can't wait to go back next year!!

stupid blogger

2011-08-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

The last post took 3 weeks to get up, since the blogspot decided that it didn't like me and wouldn't post anything. grrr. So, I am going to get around to a few more posts. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the info that we have mounds of tomatoes and I am loving it!! I loovvvveeeee fresh tomatoes. I might even eventually post a picture of the mounds :) If I can remember to do it before we start giving them away or I eat them all.

My Garden is growing :)

2011-08-13T17:13:00.001-07:00

So I had a little drama with our garden. We had something eating our veggies. This did not make me happy. So I looked on line to find something that could kill various pests without being completely toxic. sigh. You know what they say about the best laid plans. A few of the websites I found said that you could use Ivory soap with water, spray it on the plants and it will kill the bugs, but not the plant. Well, sweet!! not. I thought I had some pictures of the devastation, but I can only find this one. The soap killed my cucumbers. ALL OF THEM!!! so sad. I was so looking forward to crisp, cool cucumbers. o well, maybe next year. It burned some of the leaves on the tomatoes, but they survived. Same with the zucchini, we actually managed to get a few zucchini out of the garden. Ate them right away. Luckily we haven't been buried in them, otherwise I'm sure there would be a different story. As for the beans, well nothing happened to them and they thrived. See, I planted 5 rows and they were out of control. Not that I'm complaining, cause we got about 3 gallons that we put in the freezer. And that's not counting the ones we ate for dinner and didn't freeze. yum! My tomatoes are loving the sunshine. I just wish they would hurry up and turn red!! We've got lots out on the vine. I can't wait to eat them. I'm hoping to get Sean to make the Roma's into some tasty sauce. The last time he made sauce it was sooo good.

And here is my pet spider :) Actually not my pet, I'm just letting she/him (shim) hang out in the cauliflower to eat the bugs. Shim is getting lots to eat. I was worried shim was gone because I went out and the web was completely gone, destroyed by the storm that rolled through. but nope, shim was just hiding, and rebuilt the awesome web and started catching more bugs.

And these would be some of the amazing bean crop. So good, the first time we picked them Sean and I were eating them right off the bushes :)

I'm workin' on it!

2011-07-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get at least 3 posts up since last week. The blogger doesn't seem to like me at the moment. So, soon there will be posts about our awesome garden, our trip to Iowa and girls camp. Fun stuff to come :)

Abby's School play

2011-06-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Abby had a play the last week of school, and Sean was able to go and watch. It was a play about important people in history and Abby was an abolitionist. Some of the great costumes that the kids got to wear.

Sean said the play was really good, and really interesting. The bad part was it was reallllllyyyyy loonnnnnnggggg :) Over an hour, and it made him late to work.

but it was worth it since Abby was really happy her dad was able to come.

more on the Garden

2011-06-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

My garden is growing quite well!! Yaaa, I can't wait to taste the yummy green beans and the fresh tomatoes, and cauliflower. Here are the beans right after they started popping out of the ground. It actually happened overnight. pretty cool.

One of the tomato plants. My plan is to have Roma tomatoes so Sean can make me some homemade spaghetti sauce. It's really tastey when he makes it!! Here is the cauliflower, I was really worried that the heat would be too much for it. Since we put it in right after the last frost and then the next week it was 90 degrees. Lovely weather we have here in this hell hole.
This is the cauliflower and tomatoes now. As you can see, the heat hasn't affect the cauliflower, it doesn't seem to mind. And of course the tomatoes love the heat. The crappy part is that we already have bugs munching on my plants. grrrr. I've got to figure out a way to kill 'em.

And this would be the bean crop. can't wait. I love them right off the vine. They are so yummy!!

Memorial Day 2011

2011-06-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

Another year has passed with another great Memorial Day. My sister in law & brother in law came to visit for a day and we spent it at the state park since it was forcasted to be an awesome day! And it did turn out to be a rather awesome day. We have these awesome squirt guns, compliments of another brother in law. We love them and have just about as much fun with them as the kids do. As you can see from Sean and the boys. I'm not sure if he was helping them out, or trying to steal the guns. Clayson wasn't letting his go no matter what.

Sabrina and Abby got to spend some quality time with their cousins that they don't see very often, Camilla & Celesta. All girls had a great time.

I just had to add this picture cause Celesta is so dang short :) And I didn't realize how tall Sabrina was until I saw this. ha

The guns were passed around. The girls used them to fill up the holes they were digging in the dirt. I say dirt, cause it's dirt, not sand. Or maybe it's a little bit of sand mixed with dirt. yeah, not a pleasant beach at all.

Corrina loved the mud, and spent a large amount of time digging in it and them dripping it on herself. She also got buried in it, at least a little bit.

Camden does nothing but eat. Every pictue I have of this boy is of him eating something! He never stops.

Daren with Clayson & Camden.

Gardening

2011-06-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

We've finished putting the garden in. This was a few weeks ago, we finished the frame, tilled the ground, then put fence around it, and attached a door. I was the one cutting the boards, Sean was swinging the hammer.
This is now! Here are the tomatoes that I started in the house. I'm pretty impressed with myself, seeing as this is the first year I've actually gotten them to grow in the house. I usually have terrible luck with that. I'm hoping they get as tall as the stakes!!

I planted some marigolds to try and combat the bugs, and rodents. here's hoping it works!! Although I think the fence will keep out most of the rodents. Hopefully the rat family doesn't return and tunnel under it, since it's at least 4 inches into the ground! And Sean rigged an awesome watering system. We have a watering hose that has the pinholes in it and he threaded it through the top of the fence. So when we hook it up to the water, we get a nice little rain shower over the garden. It works awesome!

The finished product. We have nothing but clay here. it's really yucky!! hard clumpy rock like crap!! So we had to add even more stuff than the original mushroom manure that we put on . And since we put 400 pounds of that on, you can guess how crappy the soil it. We added a huge bag of peat moss, and 70 pounds of garden soil. I planted beans after our first attempt and not a single one sprouted. zip, zero, nada!! hence the soil amendments. We spread the new stuff on top and mixed it a little, but mostly we just planted the seeds in the new stuff. I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll get something. I can't wait for the tomatoes!! I love fresh garden tomatoes, there's nothing like them in the world!!

Funny Dog & yard work

2011-06-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

I think Sean is obsessed with yard work :) here he is cleaning the grass that had grown over the sidewalk. It looks pretty nice now. While Sean was cleaning up the sidewalk, Abby & the dog were enjoying the sun. Riddick cracks me up cause you can always tell when he's enjoying himself.

See?! Nothing like a big doggie grin to let you know he's happy!

Last update, and more spring!!

2011-04-17T13:17:00.001-07:00

So with the beginning of spring comes the flowers!! I love spring flowers, they give me hope that warmer weather is soon to arrive. ESPECIALLY around here!! ugh. Anyway. I almost planted my own spring flowers in the fall, but I remembered hearing something about not planting anything of your own for the first year you're in your new house, just so you know where all the flowers are. Glad I didn't plant anything yet. but now I know where to plant in the fall, so next spring I'll have lots more flowers than this. I guess these are mini tulips. Although the blasted rabbits munched on them, so I don't know if their stunted growth is due to that, or if they are genetically predisposed to be tiny. Either way, I love 'em.

And this would be what the little crappy rabbits did. Sorry peter cottontail, but ya gotta go! We put poison out for them, hoping they ate it and died. Ooops, did I say that out loud?!

For the damage the rabbits did, most of the tulips came up and are looking lovely. Actually the rabbits ate the ones on the other end, right in front of where the cats sit in the window and watch outside. Hmmmm, I wonder if the rabbits were harrassing the cats......

SPRING!!!!

2011-04-17T13:04:00.001-07:00

Since we now have a house and can do whatever we want to it :) We want a garden!! A nice BIG one! Ha, well, as big as we can put on a corner lot. So last weekend we took a trip to Home Depot to get the frame for the garden. We have to protect it from the rabbits & the squirels. At least as far as I can tell that's all we have to protect them from. I haven't seen any deer wandering the neighborhood.....yet. We'll see if we have to take any more drastic measures once we get something to grow. We will till it next weekend, and also put up the fence. This weekend was too cold and rainy, and Sean was sick, so we decided to wait. This would be one of my pepper plants that I got started in the window. The awesome thing about our house is the amount of sun we get. I love it!!

Some tomato varieties. Some beefsteaks & Roma's. I'm not a big cherry tomato fan, so I saved time & money on those.

And this is a mallard (duh) down at the creek near our house. We went for a walk with the dog & they were in the creek, so I took some pictures.

Catching up

2011-04-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's been a while since I've updated the blog. Believe me, I've got PLENTY of excuses :) They're all legitimate excuse, but excuses nontheless. I was reading my friend Nicole's blog and also a comment from another friend about seasons and how things come back around about once a year. uh, yeah, that'd be us. Although this last year has been kiiinnnndaaaa crazy!! not so much the norm, as out of the ordinary. For example, my previous post was that we had bought a house. Well, yeah, and all the stuff that goes with it. We bought the house cause I now have a full time job, which is 40 hours a week. and well, when i get hoommmmmeeee. Sitting in front of a computer is not my idea of relaxing, since I sit there for 8 hours at work. but i think i've already mentioned that. Anyway. I'll try to get better. if for no other reason than personal reflection & gratitude for all that I have. So, on to this post! In January one of my younger cousins, RJ, got married. The funny thing about this one was that my sisters and I were 11,12 &13 when his mom got married, and were at the wedding. So this one was kinda sentimental. At least for me. The ceremony was beautiful. I'm jealous of Laura's dress. She picked it right off the rack and it only cost $100, or something crazy like that. her bridemaids were all in black, with cool flowers. RJ had one of his "girl" friends as a grooms "man." And she high fived all the guys as she passed them to stand on his side of the preacher. funny stuff. Throwing the bouquet.

Brigitte, RJ's sister, dancing with B & Stel. My niece and another cousins daughter. They are some funny girls.

My aunt and another cousins baby.

B, dancing after the cermony was over. Or maybe just jumping around. She was launching herself off the steps for a while, until she got a little too close to people and then we had to put a stop to that.

I've been off to Never Never land

2011-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

So maybe not NeverNever land, but definitely out there. I've discovered that a 40 hour a week job totally interferes with my life. I don't have time to do any of the stuff I'd rather be doing!And that includes blogging, and reading other blogs. But for now, this little update will have to do. I have others, I will just have to find a minute or two to write. This is a pic of our new house. We closed on the 30th of September. I used to have a pretty easy commute to my new job. Now it's more hellish. Distance-wise, it's shorter, but waaaayyyy more traffic, which I totally hate, and it stresses me out. But books on tape saves the day.

So before we actually moved inwe had to finish the bedroom floors. The guys before us did the main rooms, but left the smaller ones. I thought it would be east. oohhh, no! slight miscalculation on my part. We ended up having to strip the varnish off the floors, then sanding them. A 5 hour job ended up taking about 12. Not fun. But they are done, and they look nice. As long as you don't look to close :)This would be the closet before I got it completely finished. For some reason they made this closet 3 feet deep. LOTS of wasted space. So I took out the old fashioned rod and shelf and put up shelves and drawers. way better use of space. I also left the doors off and put up some cool curtains instead. The kitchen. Nothing spectacular. Newly remodeled. Gas stove. Not as big as we would have liked, but a nice enough size. This would be my flour cabinet. now that I'm gluten free, I have to use several types of flour. And I got a little obsessive on the organization. The crappy part is, the dude before us didn't secure the cabinet to the wall and it is already coming off on one side. niiice. The joys of owning your own home.

Alaska: Anchorage part 3

2010-09-25T20:02:00.001-07:00

A few of the last pictures from the Seward Highway. We tried to get to this glacier, but the road was closed. We were about 2 weeks to late :)

A huge block of ice in the water from the glacier.

The pretty river running through the area.

The sunset from the airport.

We went for the drive along the Highway when we got back from Dutch Harbor on Sunday. We were glad we did too, since it was foggy and cloudy on Monday when we got up. I spent the day wandering around the city. Visiting all the gift shops :)

Alaska: Anchorage part 2

2010-09-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

While driving down the Seward Highway we stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center. eh, it was okay. These are the only wildlife we saw the entire trip. Except for the eagles at Dutch Harbor. Anyway. We got there at 5:30 and it closed at 6, and they still made us pay the full price. Uh, okay. I guess it was a good cause, so I didn't complain to much :)

Mr. Moose. He had the velvet hanging off the other side of his antlers. The brown bear. Um, can't remember her name. The caretaker was there feeding her a grapefruit.

ReindeerBull elk. The elk are in the rut at the moment. And he didn't like us looking at his ladies. lol. So he charged the fence. I knew there was no was he was getting through, since there were two fences an the one closest to him was 3 feet from us. One of the guys said it was electrified, but as you can see, he's touching a pole, I don't think it was on, if it was electric. Anyway. he got this close, and I got this really cool picture!The black bear. Right next to this encloser was a house that was demolished by the 1964 earthquake. It looked like half a house. I can't believe the environmental freak in me didn't take a picture, but that would be typical. There are large tracts of trees that are dead. They are from the earthquake, the ground dropped 10 feet and was inundated with saltwater, killing all the trees. Wish I would have taken a picture. They were really cool.

Alaska: Anchorage part 1

2010-09-25T19:34:00.001-07:00

The view of one of the glaciers from the plane. Thought it was pretty cool how 4 of them were coming together. The snow blower for the train tracks. Well, it's actually a has been. It used to be the snowblower. It's retired now. Along the Seward Highway the mountains were on the left and the bay was on the right. Pretty cool. There are small turn outs all along the road. This is an area where you can actually get down to the beach. It was pretty chilly next to the water. But it was pretty. Pretty view.

The train tracks where the Alaska Railroad runs. I wish we could have rode on that.

Alaska: Dutch Harbor

2010-09-25T18:57:00.001-07:00

After Fairbanks we headed to Dutch Harbor. Holy end of the earth!! The flight was 3 hours on a little puddle jumper that only had 30 seats. Fun. When we got there we went to a SMELLY fish plant. yuck. I could have really skipped this part of the trip. I mean the entire part, as in even seeing Dutch Harbor. I really didn't need to go. There was no map data there that I needed. anyway.

This is one of the mountains that could be seen from across the bay. It is really pretty scenery. Too bad half the time it's covered in fog. And raining. One of the many boats in the harborCrab pots. We missed the crew of The Deadliest Catch by 2 weeks. Not that I really wanted to see them, but ya know :)There are 2 museums on the island that we got to go to. The first was the Museum of the Aleutians. Pretty cool. This bald eagle was sitting outside of the building on a pole. He yelled at me, but let me get close enough to take this picture. We learned while were there that the island is really called Unalaska. Yeah, UN, as in not. Kinda dumb, but said that way cause dumb white people can't pronounce it right :) The real name of the island is Ounalashka, after the natives that live there. And it's pronounced A-un-a-lash-ka. (the un in like in Uno) yeah, anyway. enough on the name. The hats above are native design, out of wood. Pretty cool. They also had examples of gut coats. Yep, you guessed right, if you guessed that the coats are out of the intestines of seals.

The other cool place in town was the Russian Orthodox Church. It's the oldest Russian church in the US. Built in ...... 1800 something. I think. Outside there were bushes that had salmon berries on them. Kinda like raspberries. Not as sweet and not as tart. You can find them all over Alaska, but most places you have to compete with the bears :) Not on the island though, there are no bears. Besides the Aleutian museum, there is also a World War II visitor Center. Pretty cool, not sure why I didn't take a single picture. Anyway. The story of the bombing of Dutch Harbor and how the US took back the islands after the Japanese took the last 2 islands.

This would be the airport. Uh, yeah, the airport. There is a restaurant, and only one boarding gate. Small place. Where we got stuck. We were supposed to leave on Saturday night. The flight that we were on was returning to Anchorage. However, it didn't leave Anchorage until late, and the pilots wouldn't have had enough rest if they were to return right away. Sooooo, we had to leave on Sunday. bummer. But at least the plane was able to land in Dutch, sometimes they can't even land because of the fog or the low cloud cover. We were really worried that we were going to be stuck there more than just 1 extra day. We lucked out, I guess :)

Alaska: Fairbanks

2010-09-25T18:39:00.001-07:00

I love my new job! Partly cause I get to go to Alaska and I've only worked there for a month. And partly cause this is EXACTLY what I went to school for and what I've wanted to do. So ya, I love my job! So this Alaska trip, could have been so much better if I had been driving :) But I was at the mercy of the two guys I work with and they had control of the rental car. sigh. The first day in Anchorage we saw nothing but fog. Complete bummer, since we found out that that night the northern lights were out. booo, we missed them cause of the fog. The second day we headed up to fairbanks, ya, that would be flew. There and back. In one day. yuck! After we finished with the meetings for the day our host, Brent, drove us around so we could see a little of the city/area. This is some musk oxen from the Large Animal Rescue S.....omething :) I can't remember what the S is for. The Trans Alaskan Pipeline. The section of the pipeline that is above ground and a tourist attraction. A tree left in a fire break. Thought it was a pretty cool picture. I have to say, Fairbanks is a pretty boring place scenic wise, when compared to Anchorage. It's pretty flat. The last two are pictures of melting permafrost. There are actually houses in the area that are sinking into the ground because the people built them on the permafrost. Smart, I must say :/

Finally DONE!

2010-08-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I started this post last week and there was a serious computer malfunction :) For those of you that don't have facebook this will be news! I am done with my thesis!! Done with school, and I don't know if I will go back. I know it won't be anytime soon. I'm kinda sick of school. shhh, don't tell Sean. haha. I defended the thesis last Monday, did mad edits for 2 days, and turned it into the graduate office on Thursday. Of course it was later in the day, and the person that was to read it and sign the signature page was gone, but whatever. It was signed on Friday, and I made official copies on Monday, burned a CD with a MS Word version and a PDF version on it, and turned them all in! And I officially graduated on Saturday. Of course I didn't bother to go, went to the fair instead :) Some might wonder why I don't bother. I went to the first one, when I got my bachelor's degree for my Mom and Gram. Sat there in the gym for 2 hours, bored outta my skull, listening to someone babble on about something that I really didn't care about. Waste of time im my humble opinion. So I didn't go to the one when I got the first Master's degree. Still got the diploma, and didn't have to go through the crap. Fine with me. So I didn't bother with this one, cause I really do think it's a waste of time. So, onto even better news!! As I was a wits end looking for a job and actually contemplating going for my PhD, surprise! a phone call, outta the blue. I sent my resume into a company a friend works for, thinking nothing would come of it. Mostly because the company is about alternative energy and I'm more into development kinda stuff. But, becuase I did all this work on my thesis with GIS (computer mapping in normal people speak:) they wanted me to work for them. I will also be doing some policy stuff for them. Crazy how things happen. So within 2 weeks, I finished the thesis I didn't think I was going to, ANNDDDDDD I got an awesome job with an awesome company. We get to stay in the 'burgh, which I haven't decided if that's a good or bad thing :) The girls are here, and Sean will be finishing school here, so I guess, for now, it's a good thing.

Nothin' goin' on

2010-08-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

I was looking at some pictures wondering what I could post on the blog. I've felt like quite the blogging slacker lately. While looking at the pic's I realized there AREN'T new ones. hmmmm. But then I thought, I've been busy! I've been working crazy hours in the computer lab, trying to get a computer model to run. A computer model that I have found won't work, at least not all the way. sigh. Luckily part of it will work, so I am able to complete my thesis. As for the girls and their usual antics, well, they haven't been here most of the summer. Sabrina is now the teenager that is never home cause she has all this cool stuff to do. She went on a mission trip to Tennessee and spent a week helping to fix homes. Abby went to Ocean City for a week with her Grammy and her cousins, she came back all tan. I'm so jealous. Then Sabrina went on a cruise with her mom and their family. And Abby's mom has been laid off for 2 weeks, so Abby has been spending time with her. So in the past 5 weeks, the girls have only been over one weekend. Not that I'm complaining. I haven't been home much myself. I've been scrambling to get this blasted thesis done, so I haven't even been home. Sean has called me a couple times while I've been in the computer lab at school wondering when I was coming home :) He's so sweet. I can't wait to be done with this blasted thing! Then I can move on and have a real job!

Pickin' Raspberries

2010-07-24T06:49:00.001-07:00

My sister and I had this great idea that we were going to go raspberry picking and get all these berries to make jam and put in the freezer. Well, at least I was going to put some in the freezer. Little did we know that raspberry season almost passed us by! We thought it was a little later than it ended up being. So this is what we were looking for. And this is what we got. The red and black berries had been completely picked over and were nothing more than dormant leaves and dead berries on the branches. We picked "purple" raspberries. Anyone ever heard of those? Us neither. Although I must say, they are rather tasty. They taste exactly like that raspberry flavor Kool-aid, and any other fake flavored thing:)

My nephew Bobby went with us. He's old enough to pick, but short enough to see under the branches. So he got quite a few.... before he got bored, and wanted to go to Peggy's and go swimmin'. Sine most of the berries were under the leaves and towards the bottom, we spent most of our time squating down and bending over. Not fun.
When Bobby wasn't picking, he was running between me and his mom, who was two rows over. He'd go "help" her, then come back to me.
We managed to get a little more than 7 pounds, and were able to make 3 batches of jelly for a total of 14&3/4 pints. Not bad for 2 hours of picking. Would have been nicer if we had gone a week earlier and the picking would have been easier. O well, maybe next year.

Camping 2010

2010-07-09T16:09:00.001-07:00

Another year, another camping trip. This year we had to change location because our traditional place was closed. We thought we were going to be outta luck, but we managed to actually get in a spot for the 4th of July weekend. This year we went to Cook Forest, in northwestern PA. nice place!!! Way better than where we have been going.

Of course, Sean is the fire master. While the girls sit ready with sticks to play in the fire :)This would be the girls gathering firewood. lol, or in actuality, peeling the bark off the poor defenseless trees. The campgrounds were really nice, mostly pine trees with lots of room between sites. This would be how the three of these guys spent most of the weekend. looking for crayfish. Not sure what the fascination is, but...... Sean taught Sabrina & Abby and now this is what they like to do. uh, okay :)

They attempted to go fishing. There wasn't anything biting. at all. But it was a good excuse to sit in the shade, next to the river, on a really hot day.

The river we camped near isn't very deep, in fact we went canoeing and the bottom got caught at least twice. So the girls were able to get out in the river just about anywhere and have fun. Which they did. Although, we had a scare with Abby. The rocks are slippery in some spots and she fell and we were worried she may have broken her wrist. Oh, yeah, what a fun way to end a vacation instantly! but she was okay, scraped up, but ready for more fun. Well, ready after an hour with an ice pack on the wrist. ha We took a walk after dinner one night and ended up here at an overlook. really nice place, beautiful view. There was talk of taking the trail down to the river, but it was vetoed, as the trail is REALLY steep, and we would have had to come back UP. Eh, no thanks!

This is a fire tower that is in the national park. It's no longer used for fire detection but you can still walk to the top. It's not nearly as tall as the light houses in the Outer Banks, but for some reason I got to the last set before the top and couldn't go any farther. ha, so much for my not fearing heights. o well. The view from the top. I made Sean take the camera up and take a picture. He tried to take one of me standing at the bottom of the tower, but since he doesn't know how to work the camera, it didn't come out. bonus!!

One of the cool things to do in the area is visit the Cathedral Forest. Old growth trees, over 200 years old. REALLY tall, and really huge. Thought this was cool that it had pulled out all this ground. Girls were annoyed that I made them stand there. A really big Lincoln log :) not sure what the notch was for, but it was big enough to sit in, so Abby did. There was another tree that was down, but it looked like a big seesaw, so the girls had to get on each end and pretend that that was what it was. O look, catching crayfish. imagine that!The last day we were swimming, etc. I found a cooler come moron had left on the bank of the river. So I grabbed it to throw away. Wouldn't you know, my family thinks it's a great place to keep crayfish they've caught. good grief! Sean used 2 of them to try and get some fish to bite, but nothing was hungry, so the girls threw the rest of them back in the river. The funniest part was, they had named ALL of the crayfish :) They are such girls!! hahaha

Homemade Ice cream

2010-07-07T18:42:00.001-07:00

I got this hairbrained idea to use the ice cream maker that I have. Abby was the ice girl, and was in charge of adding the ice. The maker is 25 years old, at least. i'm really happy it still works. Now if I could just get the ice cream to set up. :(

I had it running for almost 2 hours and got nothing but soup. Rather tasty cold soup, but soup nontheless. Would have really loved some fresh ice cream. But oh well. We stuck it in the freezer and ate it anyway. Not as good as we were planning, but it was okay. I'm thinking I need more salt in the ice to make it colder, and to use whole milk instead of 1%. not sure which caused the lack of solidification, but... we'll see.

Crazy hair

2010-07-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Mostly cause there is nothing going on, partly cause the computer doesn't like me and won't work all the time. Or maybe it's our internet that doesn't like me. Who knows. Anyway. Abby had crazy day at vacation bible school and this is what she wanted me to do to her hair. I have actually done the 6 at the front a few times and then left the rest of her hair down. It looks really cute. but when she takes it out, her hair is crazy poofy. She wanted the poofy. So the next morning, she took all the "little people" out and had some insanely crazy hair. I had to work, so I didn't see it, nor did I get a pic. Can't count of Sean for anything :)

Day of washing

2010-06-03T13:33:00.001-07:00

Nothing like giving everything a bath when it's nice and hot outside! The dog hates it, but he stinks otherwise, so we toture him with water. The girls like to wash the car. However, they do a HORRIBLE job on it. I had to go back over it and rewash it. I think the next time, I will be giving directions so I can have them do it, without having to do the work myself :)

After finishing the was cycle, Sean was rinsing the car and the girls were running through the spray. Nothing like getting wet when it's hot outside!

Memorial Day 2010

2010-06-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

We went to Moraine State Park again this year for Memorial Day. It was nice and warm, but cloudy most of the day. The event was actually our ward activity, so there were lots from church there. Kaitlin broke her arm a while ago and had to have it wrapped in plastic. Did not make for a most enjoyable day. She had to dig in the sand with one hand and keep the cast out of the water. Once lathered in sunscreen the girls, and all other kids, headed to the water. It was pretty nice, not too terribly cold, surprisingly enough. Although I will probably never get in lake water again, the kids loved it. After completing their time in the water, the girls headed to the dirt. I say dirt, because it's not really sand, it's dirt. The kids end up pretty grubby when they get done playing in it. Kurt does not like to get wet, but he likes to use squirt guns :) There were about 4 of these "guns" and the boys had lots of fun with them.

And Sean was volunteered to throw kids :) I'm not sure how this started but he ended up with a line of kids begging to be launched into the water. Luckily he works out and it wasn't too tiring for him. Right in the middle of the day the thunder rolled in, along with the lighting. Everyone had to get out of the water and wait. We were all debating whether to stay or not. We stood around looking at the sky and feeling a small amount of sprinkles, nothing major, but the sky was really dark. Found out from the ranger that the storm went right around us. yay! As soon as allowed everyone went right back into the water. Some were not as hearty as us, and left once it started to rain. We just put everything in the car and waited. The only crappy thing was having to unpack everything again, once the rain stopped. but a fun day nonetheless.

End of an Era

2010-05-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today was the estate sale for my gram's farm. It was done by auction and there was lots of farm equipment so therefore, there were LOTS of people that showed. I had to park half a mile down the road in front of the place where we used to live. This is all that's left of it. Kinda makes me laugh, since we said it should have been burned down YEARS ago, but it never was. This happened by accident :) Burned brush a little too close to what was left. oopsThe family hired an auction company to come out and sell everything. Great guys, funny too :) Miserable day for an auction though. It rained almost the entire morning. We were standing in puddles by noon!Some of the vast array of stuff that was in the house. Toys, puzzles, glassware, plates, and on and on... Gram made it so that EVERYTHING had to be sold. If you wanted it, you had to pay for it. No one was handed anything. I was actually able to get this barn. But it doesn't "moo" like it's supposed, kinda bummed about that. The one crappy thing about auctioning everything off is that a lot of the stuff that should have gone together, didn't. There were animals with the barn, but they got sold early on in the auction in a plastic bag, this was later, with a box of junk :)

This is an awesome bank that I remember playing with when I was little. Don't know how much it went for, probably not a lot. I used to drive this tractor when I was a kid. This is where you started when you worked in the field bailing hay, driving. After you got big enough to lift bales, you weren't allowed to drive anymore, you were forced to do hard labor :) I miss living on a farm. Hopefully some day, I'll be able to live on one again.

Baseball in the backyard

2010-05-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Saturday for FHE the girls and Sean played baseball/whiffle ball in the backyard. They didn't use a real whiffle or baseball, it was kinda a cross between the two.

Sabrina trying her hand at pitching. They had to do underhand, softball style, cause they kinda sucked at over hand. They kept hitting Sean in the head :) hmmm, maybe they were just aiming it really well. ha! Sean swinging one handed.

Abby pitching. She's not bad, but can't throw overhand very well either. Um, neither can Sean :)

I have no idea how they were playing. I think it was Sean against Sabrina & Abby. I'm the photographer, I don't play. haha! There were ghost runners everywhere.I was really happy that they actually got to hit something. They did pretty well keeping their eye on the ball and connecting to get a hit. Abby threw the ball AT Sean to get him out. And it hit him in the head, so he had act it up :)

"Don't rednecks usually leave their LIGHTS up?"

2010-05-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

This was Sean's question to me on Saturday when I had him get the boxes down to put away the Dickens village that has been up since...... um, Thanksgiving :) As I was taking them down I ha to wash them off cause they were covered in dust and grime. Great.

If I would have just taken them down 4 months ago, I probably wouldn't have had that problem. What can I say? I've been busy :)

Interesting foods

2010-05-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Now that I have this wonderful food allergy eating has become quite the hassle. And I mean HASSLE!!! Sean is always worrying about what I've eaten. Sad to say, most nights, it's a bowl of ice cream for dinner. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but it's not exactly the most nutritious thing I could eat. but let me tell ya, it's such a PAIN finding stuff without wheat in it. This means I have to make pretty much everything, since most processed foods contain wheat. sigh. So, Sean being the awesome man that he is :) made me some great stuff. Above is a pot of millet. A corn tasting grain that has no relation to wheat, so yay, I can eat it!! And you cook it kinda like couscous, so, it's easy. at least for Sean it's easy!And this would be the veggie version of Mexican food. Black beans, tomatoes, peppers, green onions, and um, not sure what else. Add a little cumin, garlic, and chili pepper and we are good to go! So yummy! This is what it looks like when you put it all together. It was so good. He also made some Quinoa, which is a South American grain that is, again, like couscous, but SOOO much better for you. Anyway, he made it like rice pilaf. added squash, onions, celery, and carrots. tasty. So we had lots of leftovers that I was able to eat for almost a week. no hunting for food necessary :)And here are some more pics of my boy Rocco :) He's so dang cute. I'm glad his mom lets me steal him for a few hours every week! Funny boy, he likes to smile, UNTIL you pick up the camera, then he gets this blank stare on his face. lol. Sean had to make him smile while I had the camera so I could actually get a picture of him smiling! And he's happiest naked and chewing on his toes. It amazes me, the flexibility of babies!

Cats & more practicing

2010-04-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

My life is really boring. I finished a 15 page paper on Saturday and have been reading books I enjoy ever since! I have a final on next Wednesday and then I'm done with school. Kinda. I haven't been able to get any results from a model I need to run for my thesis. Therefore, I will not be graduating in May, I will be graduating in August. I'm hoping to get some results tomorrow and then I'll be off and running an finishing up the last 2 chapters of the thesis. I'm kinda stalled since I don't have any results and have the first 3 chapters pretty much done, so I wait until I get some results. In the meantime... It's a wonder I have any clean cloths. The stupid cat seems to think that since they are clean, she can lay on them. grrrrrr. Of course I had to get a picture before I chased her off :)I take Riddick for a walk pretty early in the morning and am always impressed with the great lighting that our neighborhood gets. So I go around taking pics, trying to improve my picture taking skills. I managed to figure out that I needed to change more than one of the parameters on my camera before I try some of the things I wanted to try. So this is my attmept after changing a BUNCH of settings. I got the idea for macro pictures from Pioneer Woman, the link is on the right. love that blog!! I learn lots about how bad I am at photography from that one :) It rained the night before our walk so I tried to capture the raindrops on the leaves and the flowers. Some vape out better than others. This one is a little washed out, but it still looks kinda cool. Too bad I can't go back out and try it again, I think I know just how to fix it. The crappy part about these is that I tried several settings, AND checked the screne to see what they looked like. Even with the "see right now" feature I couddn't figure out if it was good or not. All I could tell is whether it was horrible or not. The random tulips in our yard, I think there are about 4 total. But they're pretty
And this would be the one of the Bleeding Heart bushes that the chipmunks haven't eating from the bottom up. Love this plant! As you can see, it looks kinda yellow, even though I was outside. Not sure why. Changed a few settings cause I did notice that on the screen on the camera, but when I changed various settings it came out all kinds of funky. will have to work on that.

1/4 of a cow

2010-04-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty talkative today :) sorry you have to read so much! Sean and I went in with some friends and purchased a 1/4 of a cow. Grass fed, no drugs, yummy meat. Although, I have to say, the meat isn't as good as some we got from Ashtabula fair one year from Al. And Sean (the chef, that has some training cutting meat) says the butcher sucked and didn't so such a great job. But anyway. We got these HUGE soup bones, and I mean HUGE!! So Sean is cooking up some beef stock for us to put in the freezer.

These are the bones, after Sean has roasted them and is waiting for the veggies.

As you can see, the pictures are all yellow. Another great example of my photography skills. sigh. I tried to change the white balance, but they turned out this horrid blue color, and made the food look really gross, so i switched it back, it looks better yellow :)

I suck at taking pictures

2010-04-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get a picture of this tree with the bush under it for the past week. It's is beautiful and every time I leave the house to walk the dog I am amazed by it. So, I have tried to get a picture to capture the awesomeness of it. I have failed. seriously. As you can see in the background the sun is just coming up and can be seen through the blossoms, tried to get that, but failed there too. sigh. So I thought, the next day, maybe I should get closer up. That might capture the whole purple/white color thing and the perfect lighting. yeah.Failed again. As you can see, the purple flowers in the front are blurry. The next one I changed the settings on, and the sun shining on the branches is really cool. buuuttttttttt, it just doesn't capture it. Needless to say, I don't think I will be hanging up the engineering anytime soon, and switching to photography. nope, can't get it. And the blog wouldn't be complete without a picture of my dog :) I was sitting on the ground when I took this, I think it came out okay. Too bad I was trying to get better pictures of something else. ha. such is my life!

Finishing the masks

2010-04-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

The paper mache that we did last weekend was dry this weekend, so the girls got to finish their projects. Sean got the idea from something he had done in school a LONNNGGGG time ago :) Here he is working with Abby on her mask. This is Sabrina's. Notice it doesn't have a mouth. This really bothered Sean and he really wanted to put one on there, but Sabrina and I convinced him to leave it alone. This is what Abby's looks like. She's a little more willing to go along with her dad than Sabrina is. Although it was her idea to put the cheeks on and the tongue sticking out. Mine needs more paper mache stuff, but since we have no flour in the house, well, mine will have to wait.

Next week we paint. As long as the clay stays stuck to the paper mache. I have no idea what we will do with these once they are done. hmmm.

Fun things to do on a lovely Saturday

2010-04-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Start with a lovely walk in the words at the nearby park. Although Sean forgot our water and snack, and we had to depend on the girls water bottles for us, them and the dog...so luckily it was a short walk. kinda :) No matter what, one of them ALWAYS picks up a stick. What is it with kids and sticks? :)

Poor Riddick was sooo thirsty when we got done, he was drinking right out of the spigot, but Sean tried to give him a "bowl" to help him out. Yeah, the dog bowl was in the pack that Sean forgot too. After our lovely walk without water, we came home and had FHE, although in our house it's Family Home Afternoon, since that is when the girls are here. And this was the activity. Of course, only Sean would come up with something so messy, when he KNOWS I'm not the neatest person when it comes to fun crafty stuff. jeezAnd this is what 3 balloons look like when you put paper mache on them. The idea is, when they are done drying, to use them as a mold for clay to make a clay mask. I figured I could just make the mask outta paper mache and be done with it. I'll probably have to do another layer, but eh, for now, it work. Oh, and this is what we do with our left over flour in the house, since I'm allergic to wheat and we can't use it in anything. Well, here ya go :)

Trouble in River City

2010-04-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, i'm a blogging slacker, my life is really foring or I'm REALLY busy. Hmm, must be one of those :) Now that spring has arrived and the daffodils are showing their pretty little faces....We have other issues. There are little critters in our yard that seem to think they have the run of the place. Yeah. this is one of their entrances. And here is just ONNEEEE of their tunnels. Our yard is riddled with these things. This is the best one that I could get a picture of. The yard is like walking on a sponge cause there are so many holes under the topsoil. Anyone know of a good quick, lethal way to get rid of chipmunks? shhh, don't tell the kids we are trying to kill Alvin and his buddies.This is another one of the spring flowers in our yard.

And this is my new boyfriend :) His name is Rocco, and he is soo cute! Especially with the bunny ears.

Food Allergies

2010-03-04T10:30:00.000-08:00

Where to start this explanation? hmmm, who knows. I guess I could start years ago when I went to the dr for post nasal drip that would NOT go away, and asked him if it could be allergies and he said "does it come and go?" and I said, no, I have it all the time. Well, then it can't be allergies. Or maybe to all the doctors I whined to about being EXHAUSTED. And I'm not talking the tired you feel from not getting enough sleep. I'm talking the get 9 hours of sleep and still feel like you need to take a nap in the afternoon exhausted. Those of you that have been pregnant might have some idea what I'm talking about :) But that wasn't my problem. I even went and had a sleep study done, cause I thought it might be sleep apnea. nope. Not to mention the constant heartburn. So bad at times that it would wake me up choking. Yeah, like no air getting to the lungs, choking. Or maybe the last trip to the dr. when i thought my blood sugar was ALL outta whack, my hands were swollen so I couldn't wear my rings and my hands hurt so much I couldn't squeeze out a dishrag. Or maybe this is where I will start.... Last summer Sean took an anatomy & physiology class and had to do a presentation on a genetic disorder. Can't remember what he did his on, but someone in his class did one on Celiac disease, and handed out pamphlets about it. He brought the pamphlet home and it immediately found a place on the dresser in our room. And got buried. About 2 weeks ago, maybe more like a month now, I saw it sitting up there. Thought, hmmm, wonder what that is, still not interested enough to pick it up and read it. Then on TV the girl from The View was talking about when she was on Survivor and almost died to figure out she had a disease, and it was Celiac disease. This got me thinking. hmmm, wonder what that is. That's twice it's popped up in the last little while. So THEN I open up my internet, and there on AOL is a link that says something like "the most common disease to check for in infertility that isn't," if that makes sense. So then I click on the link, thinking it's probably a site that they want you to pay money for some crap, but it wasn't. But the link went to an article on Celiac disease. hmmmm. So I went to find the pamphlet and read what the heck it was about. Then I went on line and did a little research there too. Celiac disease is when a person is allergic to the gluten in wheat, rye & barley. The gluten is what makes bread dough sticky, and reacts with other stuff to keep what you bake together. In the simplest of terms! Anyway. When I read the list of symptoms for Celiac my mouth dropped open. And I actually got excited. Of the 15 or so symptoms for the disease, I have 12 of them. YAY!! I have found the reason I feel like crap, I'm going to get tested and get this crap fixed. hahaha. one of the big things that got me excited was that this disease can actually cause infertility, miscarriages, and a host of other crappy things. But I'm thinking, ooo, this might be the reason we haven't been able to get pregnant for FOUR freaking years. And it would explain the bipolar mood swings, and the achy hands, and the swollen body parts, and the exhaustion, the bloating, and like I said, a host of other things. So I go to the dr. and get a blood test, POSITIVE I've got this disease...... negative Ghostrider. DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!!!! so now what do I do. Well, as an experiment for 2 days before the blood test results came back I cut all wheat outta my diet. jeez, that is NOT easy. holy cow, I couldn't eat anything. And you'd be surprised at where they put it! I felt awesome on Saturday and most of Sunday. I ate something Sunday afternoon that sent my head spinning, something that I didn't know had wheat in it and bingo, my head starts spinning, my stomach hurts, and I generally feel crappy. The funny thing was, I spent the entire rest of the day trying to "dilute" the yucky feeling by eating all kinds of other stuff. oy. No wonder I've gained 20 pounds. Which I can't understand since I was training for a half marathon all last year, running over 15 miles a week, along with 20 miles on the bike. Most people wouldn't gain that much while doing all that exercise. but I digress. So when the dr. called and told me I was negative, I felt defeated and like the wind had totally dropped outta my sails. Disappointing. BUT, I told the dr. that I had tried the no wheat thing and he said, well, lets go with it, and see what happens. So I'm trying to stick with it. It's not easy. Wheat is in everything!! A couple of things I've noticed. Not only have I cut out wheat, I've cut out most sugar too! It's amazing how the two are connected. Although I've got some non-wheat flour, I think I'm going to be making some cookies :) I've stopped getting heartburn! I was taking a Zantac before bed every night cause it had gotten so bad, not even the papaya enzyme was keeping it down. I'm not exhausted anymore. Even in the last week I've noticed I can actually stay up all day without even wanting to take a nap. I can get my rings on!! For the first time in 3 months my rings are on my fingers and they don't feel like they are cutting off the circulation. And the hands don't ache anymore. The rest of my joints do, but I'm more inclined to think that is from 13 years of playing basketball, than from a food allergy, but it may contribute to the problem. So all of these things lead me to believe that I have an intolerance for something, that could lead to an allergy. Probably wheat. Weird how that happens. I probably should go get tested for allergies, but I think there isn't much left on my insurance, and we'd have to pay for that ourselves, which we can't really afford. sooo, we will wait on that. But, in the meantime, I'm going to try and keep a food diary and see where that leads me. Like my life wasn't complicated enough. jeez

Are we done yet?

2010-02-27T12:57:00.001-08:00

It will be March in one day and we got another 6 inches of snow last night. At least I think that was all. Sean used the snowblower on the driveway yesterday and I still had to shovel it this morning. This is what the neighborhood road looked like before the snowplow came through. When it warmed up for a few days Sean and I took all the icicles off the house, this is one that came off the front porch. It's now covered in the snow. sigh. I'm really sick of all this white stuff. And now the weather people are saying that we are going to have record breaking runoff in March. It'll be an interesting spring.

Stuff

2010-02-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed we've had a few inches of snow. I've also been sick as a dog the entire time. lovely. And that means I've been camping on the couch. The cats love it, so Sean thought it would be funny to get a picture of me and the cats.I was finally feeling better today, and REALLY sick of being in the house, so I went out in the neighborhood and took some pics. This is our back porch, the snow is slowly melting off the roof and creating lovely icicles. A ladder under the back deck.

Someone's house

Our front porch

Digging out

2010-02-09T05:11:00.001-08:00

The only thing of note lately is 21 inches of snow. And this is what 21 inches lookes like. Actually pretty darn fun. The trail that the dog and I had to make out of our house. The road was.. um... kinda plowed. It had been a few hours sicne they had been through so there was at least 4 inches on the road. not bad compared to the 20 in our yard.

The back deck. Sean was so nice, he threw Einstein, the cat out in this mess. I coulda killed him

And poor Riddick does not like snow touching his belly :) Which of course, it was. For a great dane, that's pretty impressive!

I have several....

2010-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

Collections it seems :) Besides my trees that I put up every year, I have another collection that seems to be growing. My nativity scenes. This is the first one that I got when I was first out of college and had my own place. Yes, these are Native Americans and they are in a teepee. This is the second one I have acquired. My sister Amy got it for me when she was on cruise in Mexico. Cool, eh? I actually got the building part from Target when it was 90% off and I only paid 2 bucks for it! But it goes well with the set.

Here's a little close up of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus
This is the next in line. I'm glad my sis travels a lot, she got this from the Vatican while she was on a Mediterranean cruise. And this one. Sean noticed that I had inadvertently started a collection, so for Christmas he got me this. It's carved from an olive tree and was carved in Israel.

I think my sister needs to go on more cruises to get me different ones, or I need to go on some :)

Christmas 2009

2010-01-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

A tradition I didn't know about around here is that the Sunday before Christmas Santa visits all the neighborhoods and hands out candy from the fire truck. On our way home from church, a Santa in another township stepped off the firetruck right into the side of our car. Luckily we weren't going very fast and he could walk away :)The tree with all the loot, before it got annihilated. Abby opening gift from Sabrina.Sabrina opening a sweater. You know, the fun stuff :)Abby opening zookeeper and animals. Riddick enjoying his gift!The girls got a science project thing so they could dissect a frog, but the had to make it first. This is them stirring up the goop for the body. notice, they haven't even changed out of their pj's. After the frog had set for an hour it was time for dissection. Can I just say, these are girls after my own heart. hahahha, nothing like dissecting a frog for Christmas.

Sean had to get the frog out of the mold, it wasn't as easy as it looked on the directions.

And then we let them loose with a knife. Plastic, of course. But they had fun.

Randomness

2009-12-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

A few random pictures that I liked. Here is the latest cat. She was thirsty and her water dish was empty, so she took advantage of the dog's. Sabrina has been asking to make microwave s'mores so I found some snowman peeps at the store and thought they'd be fun. Here they are before the microwave

and AFTER :) The girls had more fun watching them blow up in the mircowave than eating them. They were bigger when they came out.

I put up my Barbie tree while the rest of the family was putting up the other tree. This is my favorite Barbie ornament.

This is the coolest one I have. I mean how much cooler can you get than Barbie on a Harley.

Decorating the tree

2009-12-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

Sean and the girls put up the family tree on Saturday. Here they are trying to figure out the tree stand. Took all three to figure it out, and some intervention from me :)Fluffing the branches. Sean contemplating the lights that don't quite work right. Abby helping put the lights on the tree.

I can't believe Sabrina is tall enough to reach the top of the tree. When I married Sean both girls had to stand on the couch to get the decorations up to the top. Supposedly she will be 6'1," I can see that.

Back to Bethlehem

2009-12-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

Our ward had a Christmas activity where we went "Back to Bethlehem." We had a wonderful time, the youth presented the Christmas Story complete with live Baby Jesus. Abby and Sabrina playing with the Dreidel.

Mary and Joseph. As you can see in the background, even the signs over the booths were in Hebrew.

Sean was asked to be a Roman centurian. I made the costume. I looked for a pattern, but it seemed easier to fly by the seat of my pants. So I did. I think it turned out pretty well. Don't you? I didn't get the sandals in the pic, darn it. I made those too. Abby and Sabrina teased him the entire time that he was wearing a skirt. hahaha

Thanksgiving

2009-12-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post about Thanksgiving. Oh, wait, i didn't forget, I just had a 20 page paper, a 5 pager, a take home test, and a presentation! Fun, fun, fun. But school is over and I am done. All I have to do is finish my thesis, but that will be done by February or March, at least I hope so. Depends if I can get the computer program to work or not. So here are a few pic's from Turkey day. We had 19 people in the house, it was great.

The younger Cox boys, Camden & Clayson, playing football before dinner. They wore Sean out, he didn't even last an hour. This is how they play football, full out tackle. Crazy boys.

Sean playing Uno Attack with the neices and nephews. Niece Kate, and nephew ClaysonThe youngest of Deann's, Corinna. She was spinning with the toy. The girls had such a great time with all their cousins. They all slept in the same room, five girls from the ages of 8-13, you can imagine how much/little sleep they got. They "found" this club house in the woods. They didn't seem to see the house at the top of the hill 100 feet away, that belonged to the clubhouse. They had fun while it lasted.

Sabrina is 13! Gasp!

2009-11-13T15:36:00.001-08:00

On November 5th Sabrina became a TEENAGER!! AAAAAAHHHHH! Run for your lives :) A cookie cake with cream cheese frosting. So yummy. A few candles, we didn't have 13. A Nintendo DS game from dad and I.

A puffle from Abby and some Littlest pet shop animals.
And this is what happens when the dog is left alone with the cookie cake. He liked the cream cheese frosting too. luckily he didn't eat the chocolate chip cookie, although he's so big it probably wouldn't have even made a dent.

Weapon of Mass Destruction

2009-11-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping that I don't get a visit from the CIA, FBI or homeland security cause I titled my post as I did :) This is the latest addition to our family. We got her from my gram's farm. So when we got her home, she got a quick bath, since she was dirty. She was NOT happy. Oh, and her name is Chilly.

This is where she likes to sleep. And Sean love's it. He likes his cuddley kitty. Me, I prefer Einstein who leaves ya alone unless he wants some love. This one follows you around the house meowing, wanting to be picked up. Kinda like a kid :)

This is the first indication that she is going to be trouble. This hat was hanging on the chair, she didn't let it stay there.
She was jumping on the window trying to play with Einey through the window. She will play with ANYTHING.

Prime example right here. I heard this paper rustle, and was thinking, "what is she doing?" I walked in and found THIS!!! These were 5 neat rows of journal articles that I need for my thesis. Um, not so neat anymore are they. As I was standing there cursing her up and down, she runs through hits the one side of the stack and slides through the pile, papers flying around. AGAIN. These papers have been here for weeks before she got here, no one bugging them, not even Einstein. She's here 2 weeks and she's already making a mess. jeez. She's lucky she's too cute to get rid of.

Halloween, times 3

2009-11-06T14:48:00.001-08:00

Abby was lucky enough to go trick-or-treating 3 times. I guess we can call it that. Time 1: School. This is her in the parade. I managed to erase the good picture of her facing me, she's the witch with the pink funky hat. funny girl. Then we went to the church to go trunk-or-treating. I love our ward, even the adults dress up, as you see. My friend Diane was scaring all the kids with this one :) That's her daughter next to her as the mariachi. Here is one of the girls Sean and Ihad in nursery. She's a trip. Dressed as Sleeping Beauty, of course. And here are some more princesses. I think it's Belle, and Aurora.Here's a few other's from the ward. The first is our friend Jon, he was the half man, half lady. His wife came as the bearded lady.

This is Abby and her good friend Sammy. Here's a few of some extremely cute kids :) I tried to get them to go next to each other, but couldn't. Don't know how I did the one's on top. Accident, I guess!

This little pirate was eating chips off the pavement. Crazy boy!

And this is trip #3!! Our neighborhood. Sabrina wasn't planning on dressing up, but Sammy came over and she wasn't about to be left out, so she made something up. She wanted to go icognito, so no one would know who she was. This is what she came up with :)

Last stop, our door, Sean shut it in their faces. hahahha

New blog

2009-11-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I have been ranting on Facebook for a few days and then realized some of you might not be on there and you might want to hear what I've been complaining about. And then again, maybe not :) So I started a new blog. Like I don't have enough to do. Yeah, that 20 page paper is getting done real fast. oh, yeah. Anyway, here is the link to the new blog and it's down on the list of faves. Let me know what you think. http://ravingsenvfreak.blogspot.com/ Oh, and eventually I'll post some pics of our new cat. she's a pain. :)

Abby's 10th Birthday

2009-10-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Abby is finally in double digits. 10 years old. Jeez! She it pretty happy about it, she has been counting the days since she has turned 10. Usually kids count down, she is not the usual :)Her favorite meal is Chinese, so we went and she wanted 2 egg rolls, of which Sean got one of them.

Blowing out some candles. She wanted a cookie cake for her birthday this year, so I obliged. Nothing like chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese frosting. yum!

And then the gifts. Her favorite saying was "niiiiiiice!" funny girl

Trial and error photography!

2009-10-11T08:58:00.001-07:00

Hmmm, do you think that title would inspire confidence in my photography skills if I was ever to try and do this as a job? LOL (for all of those nontexters, that's laughing out loud) Anyway. I was walking through the neighborhood this morning and saw this really cute setting This great chair in the trees, and the trees turning colors. Lovely, right?

However, you notice that my focus was the chair, although I really wanted to get the large trees in front, because they told part of the "story."

But as you can see, they were just getting in the way. Actually they kept bouncing the light funny and you don't even notice the chair. not what I wanted at all!. So I took the big trees in front out of the pictures. First I tried to just use them to frame, not too bad. But they were still bouncing the light the wrong way.

So this is what I finally got. The flag in the middle kinda ruins it, but if I had photoshop, I'm sure I could fix that. ha. What d'ya think? Professional photographer, I'll never be, but at least I want them to look good.

I got my camera back!!

2009-10-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Blasted thing must have had a LOT of sand in it from our last day at the beach. The camera shop had it for 6 weeks. I had to relearn EVERYTHING when I got it back. I couldn't even remember how to get the thing to focus on the right spot. That is just way to long to go without something :)The first day I got it back I noticed the girls had hung the bug catcher out. Thought it was kinda cute, so I started trying to figure out how to get a good picture of it. Eh, I guess this is alright. Today I walked the neighborhood admiring all the cute fall decorations. I haven't had time to put up a single thing. So, therefore, I'm jealous. My house is usually covered in Halloween. Not this year, I have bigger things to worry about. This one didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, it's a little fuzzy, not sure why. Oh, wait, maybe it was because I was walking with the dog and he jerked his leash right as I pushed the button on the shutter. He is not a good photography helper!There were a few of these scarecrows. Cute, I guess. Oh, I guess I do have one decoration up, this is the flag in our front yard. sigh, what a party pooper this year :)And don't forget the seasonal handbag! I just had to make one once I realized I had nothing for the fall. So when the girls got done making their skirts, I whipped this up. I think I have 3 bags now that have the Peanuts characters on them. Love it! Although this picture is fuzzy too, must be the operator, I'm gonna have to talk to her :)

The girls sewing projects

2009-10-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

Sabrina and Abby have been curious about how to sew. Sabrina more than Abby. Sabrina got a sewing machine last year for Christmas, and hasn't been able to get it to work. Mainly because she had it threaded wrong. So once we fixed that we were good to go. Both girls did the entire project by themselves, from cutting out to ironing the finished product. They did a really good job. We used a simple first learning to sew skirt pattern. We went to JoAnns and they picked out the material themselves.

Sabrina was way more into sewing than Abby was. After putting the two sides together and then finding out she had to sew a casing for the elastic and then the hem, her comment was, "I have to sew more?!" said in a whiney voice :) Yeah, I'm thinking we won't be making much with her.
Both girls got a better handle on the ironing too. Although they both were afraid of burning their fingers. It seems so weird to me that they have no idea how to iron anything, because at that their age, I know I had been taught how to iron. Such is life nowadays. Maybe I should have them practice on the cloths I need ironed, so they can get some practice. hmmm, there's a thought!!
Here's the finished product. We were able to find a shirt that matched Abby's and she wore it to church on Sunday. Rightfully proud of herself :) I think Sabrina wore hers as well. I'm sure I'll be helping Sabrina with some more of her projects, Abby, well, not so much :)

I'm just busy :)

2009-09-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

So, you may ask, where the heck has Trixie been? Well, let's see... what have I been doing. oh, joy, thesis writing. Yes, the fun part of every grad students career. Someone shoot me now and put me outta my misery. I have no idea how long it will end up being, but I have 2 months to complete and i have 1, yes i said ONE, paragraph written. And that paragraph is pretty useless, but at least I can say one is done. oy. Classes started at the end of August and I've been running like the headless chicken ever since. Jeez, these professors seem to think I have nothing better to do than to do the work for their class. HELLO-O-O-O (think Mushu from Mulan), huge paper that needs to be written!! And then I have a prof who seems to think we need to write a 20 page paper, ON TOP of the stuff we already have to do. ugh. And that's just school. My camera is in the shop. Has been since we returned from Assateque, hasn't really been anything to thrilling to take pictures of anyway. I got sand in the lens the last day were were there, of course, so had to take it in to get it cleaned. Luckily we got the extended warranty, etc. so I got to get it cleaned for free. I'm hoping it comes back soon, I'm going through withdrawal. There are so many things that I'd like to photograph, nothing interesting, just the leaves, and the single rose that's blooming and the nasty lake that i run around. They're draining it to dredge it and it's really picturesque, in a gross kinda way :) I'm training for a half marathon that is coming up in 2 weeks. Started out with a bunch of people going to run with me, now there is only me. at least as far as I know. Anyone want to come to the 'burgh and run 13.1 miles with me? So I guess that about covers life here. Nothing like chaos and procrastination. love it. Hopefully before too long I'll have some pic's to post. The girls brithdays are coming up quick, so there will at least be that!

Assateque Island & Ocean City, MD

2009-08-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we headed out of town at 3:30 am, Friday, to Maryland, to go camping on Assateque Island. Not a big deal to head out that early, as that is the time I have to be to work some mornings, so I drove most of the way. It was a nice drive, no problems, no traffic and we made excellent time while EVERYONE slept. It was so peaceful!. Our lovely campsite. When Sean suggested this trip, we had NO idea how hard it was to get a campsite. We found out that if you want to camp on the beach, you have to reserve your spot a YEAR in advance. If I remember right, this was the last spot left for the weekend we wanted for the amount of time we were planning on spending there. Notice the bathrooms in the background. Not cool. They toilets were glorified port-a-potties. Most of the time it wasn't a problem, but when the wind blew the wrong way. oooh, did it stink. yuck.

We arrived at 10:30 am, early enough to set up our tents and enjoy the rest of the day. As soon as we got out of the car the mosquito's attacked. vicious little buggers!! We had to put "Off," with DEET in it, on as soon as we left the car. once we got the tents up, we headed to the beach 2 miles from the tent. Since it was Friday, it wasn't too busy. The girls had a blast on the boogy board and helping Sean dig for sand crabs. After we had our fill of the sand and surf, we headed to Ocean City, MD for dinner. it was only 10 miles down the road. The crappy part was finding a place to park on Friday night. We ended up having to walk a few blocks to get there, but it was fun. The Kite Loft had a bunch of flags flying in the sand near their store. This is the largest kite I've ever seen. It was amazing, a huge sting ray. It was only out on Friday, we didn't see it on Sunday when we were down there. There was no one flying it. The wind was blowing enough off the water that it stayed in the air without any help. At the place we ate dinner there was a souvenir shop right next to it. They had hermit crabs in a cage right next to our table. The girls were fascinated, or something.
After dinner we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream. Nothing tastes as good as ice cream when it's so darn hot!

One of the cool things about the island is that it is a National Seashore and the wildlife on it are all protected. Including the ponies. So there are ponies that wander all over the place, including into your campsite. People, including us, stop and take pictures all the time. pretty cool.

On Saturday we went back to the beach. We got there at 10am, I think. We were lucky that we did, because when we left at 3-ish, there were people parked all over the place to get to the beach. We went to Carrabba's for dinner. Sean wanted to go since there isn't one around here and we haven't been in over 2 years. So we took advantage of the proximity to us. After dinner we went out to find some crabs. The girls thought it was a great idea. We went to the place where they rent canoe's first, but weren't having much luck. Not sure why, maybe the water was too shallow, or maybe too many people in it, the crabs stayed away. This is Sabrina working on getting some crabs.

Here's Abby trying her hand at it. I think she spent more time pouting than anything, because Sabrina was getting more than she was. After we didn't get much we went to the old ferry landing and had more success. Both girls were able to catch a few.

On Sunday we headed to Ocean City early. I'm talking 9am early. We got a parking spot 2 blocks from the head of the boardwalk. Nice. It was already hot enough that we didn't have to worry about being chilly. We were more worried about parking in the wrong spot and getting a ticket than being cold. Sean convinced Abby to let him bury her in the sand. Then he made her into a mermaid. A pretty fat mermaid, but a mermaid nonetheless. The girls were getting some pretty good waves on the boogy board.

By Sunday Sabrina had is mastered and could ride it on her own. Someone actually loaned her theirs because they weren't using it. So both girls were able to ride their own.

Abby still needed a little help from her dad, but she did great once she got going. They kept begging for us to buy another one, but I kept saying, "when are we going to be back at the ocean so we can use it?" Uh, yeah, not anytime soon, since Sean will be starting school in the spring.

Horses in the parking lot, just after walking up from the beach. I think these were the 2 I saw on my morning run.

A horse that was in the middle of the road when we returned from dinner. Her foal was behind her and he didn't know what to do. We had stopped so that they could get off the road.

A couple of dead things I saw on my run on Saturday morning. I ran 3 or so miles, then went back to the car to get the camera. The horseshoe crab was dead, i thought he was alive, until I came back with the camera and he was upside down. nope, not a good thing.

A lovely jellyfish. not sure if it was a man of war or not, but it was pretty big. We saw a bunch of jellyfish (not Porteguese man of wars) in the water when were were at Ocean City. I actually got out of the water because I didn't want to get stung by one. We were sitting next to a girl that got stung, it looked like it hurt pretty bad.

A couple of sandpipers I saw on my run. They were all over the the beach. I actually sat and watched them for a while. They were cracking me up because of the way they would run in after the waves had retreated then run out as the waves came in. And this one didn't like anyone encroaching on his territory. They are vicious little birds too. They spend the entire time looking for sand crabs. When they find one, they dig it out and then pull it limb from limb to get at the meat in the middle. I saw crab legs littering the beach. felt sorry for the little guys.
More crabbing with the girls. This was at the ferry landing. Much more success there. Although Sabrina seemed to have a better spot than Abby. They actually caught several keepers, which they gave to a family that was going to cook them up for dinner. We would have just thrown them back otherwise.
A beautiful sunset on the bay side of the island.

Camping 2009

2009-08-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here we are yet again, at our favorite camping grounds. This year my sister Candy, her husband Gregg and their 2 kids Josh & Bobby joined us for our weekend. On Friday it rained before we left. yuck. By the time we got there the sun had come out. However, our site was shaded and it hadn't dried up. Candy's had. We picked the wrong one. So we put up our tents on the muddy ground and hoped the tarp underneath would keep out most of the wet. Bobby and Abby were having fun with Eeyore. I think the Bobster was dancing, not positive though. Friday night Gregg & the boys came out early since Candy had to work. Sean cooked dinner of fish & zucchini. It was really good. Josh hates fish & zucchini so he had a hot dog. Saturday Sean had to go back to get Sabrina, since she was on a mission trip and didn't get home until late Friday night. While he was doing that we all headed to the beach. It ended up being a great day for the beach, sunny and hot!! Bobby didn't like the water unless someone was holding him. He kept telling his mom & dad to come out of the water. Ha.

After swimming, lunch and a nap we headed to the spillway. of course. Can't go camping without the nasty fish. Here's Candy, Gregg, Josh & Bobby. The girls and Sean didn't want to go, I guess they've had enough of feeding the fish.

They went fishing instead. The girls didn't catch much, just a few small perch and a blue gill. Not as successful as last year.

Funny kids

2009-07-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

These are some pics of some of my cousins kids and my nephew. I love taking pictures of kids. At least when they aren't paying attention. My girl Stella and her cell phone.

Bobby learning the workings of the tractor, and not looking to confindent in Raymonds driving abilities.

Kate was trying to eat the cookie without using her hands to pick it up. Ha, gotta love it

What can I say? she's a cutey

Bobby got Peggy to blow up the ball for him and was rolling it, and himself all over the place.

Bobby trying to blow bubbles.

Jonathon

Bobby on cupcake #2

Stella was getting the hang of the bubble thing

Bobby was on such a sugar high that it took him forever to come down! here he is trying to get more cake from Peggy.

Contemplative Bobby

Stella trying to find something in her purse

Wedding # 3 AKA Martha & Jason

2009-07-23T12:41:00.001-07:00

My cousin Martha got married on July 4th. I love that she doesn't like the whole dress up, formal thing. She likes things simple :) Guests came in their jeans, shorts, whatever they wanted, nothing formal necessary here.

The wedding party.

Exchanging rings
You may kiss the brideWhew :) Complete with hay wagon

Dessert first! My kinda party. My uncle Joe made the cake topper.

They were nice to each other.

The typical photo of Titus.

Gram made it to the wedding.

The frosting on the cupcakes was really good. Just ask Bobby, he had 2 :)
Ernie, Amy and Lloyd.

After the photos were taken and Martha was done with her responsiblities, she put on her shirt :) looks great with the dress don't you think?

Raspberry picking

2009-07-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday the field trip group went raspberry picking. We went to a farm about an hour from home that had black and red raspberries. The black were almost gone, way to much work to get a little. Aliess and her kids came, Amelia came with her 2 kids and her niece & nephew, and then I had Sabrina & Abby.

We went to the black raspberry bushes first. As I said, they were pretty picked over. Kurt, Aliess's youngest had the best view. He was low enough that he saw all the ones people hadn't bent over to get. He wouldn't pick them though cause he was scared of the bushes and everything in them.

Bea was eating away :) She loved the berries and had berries everywhere.

Kaitlin was dressed so cute and didn't want to change, but Amelia convinced her that it would be better to change.

Most of the crew.

Lunch time in the shade. I got a redneck from standing out in the sun. Imagine that. We had a great time. Now I have to make some jam. yum

Random day of fun

2009-07-19T19:13:00.001-07:00

I have lots of pictures from my cousins wedding and need to get them posted, but I decided to put the quick fun ones on first. I need a little more time to put on those pictures. Last Monday Sean calls me while on the way home from swim lessons. "We're going to the State Park." Me: "Huh, what?! " Sean: " I have everything ready to go, pick up Sabrina and we're going to the beach." Me: "Uh, Okay. But I have the truck and already have one kid in it." Sean: "Well, get Sabrina anyway, they can sit in the same seat." Okay, so I'm really glad no cops were out to stop us, cause we were sooooo totally illegal on the way home.

So when we got home, we went to the park and went swimming. Had a great time. Love it when the husband comes up with great ideas. It was so warm that even I went into the water and swam for a while.

The girls spent more than an hour in the water. Sean brought the little grill and we had hot dogs and baked beans for lunch.

After lunch the girls spent the entire rest of the time building this huge system of "rivers" and "ponds." It was pretty cool, although it made them get extremely dirty. But luckily the lake was right there to wash off :) Oh. yeah, and I got burned. again.

Trip to the zoo

2009-07-09T12:56:00.001-07:00

Last week we tried to go to the zoo o Thursday. We looked at the weather, was supposed to be okay. Clouds, but no rain. HAHAHAHAHHA. Never believe the weather people in the 'Burgh. Never. We were supposed to go with friends from church and were hoping it would stop raining by the time Abby got done with swim lessons. It didn't. So we couldn't go. On Friday there were no swim lessons. I called Natalie early to see if she wanted to try her luck, but she is going out of town for a month and had too much to do, so she passed. Meanwhile, it started raining. again. sigh. So I asked Abby if she still wanted to go, she said yeah, so I said "let's go!!" She said, it's still raining, I replied, "that's what they make umbrellas for!" So we went, and so did way too many other people. Jeez, what are people doing out in the rain. :)

The first pic, obviously, is an elephant. They have 4, one of which was born within the last year. Cutey. He was rolling around in the mud the entire time. The next one is of Abby in the Meerkat exhibit. They had a tunnel where you could pop up in the middle of the exhibit, right next to the meerkats. pretty cool. And the 3rd is the lion. He started roaring right after we left and we could hear him.

This is the termite mound outside the rhino exhibit. As you can see, it had stopped raining at this point. We each had our own umbrella, but Abby's was busted and I didn't know it when I grabbed it and brought it with us. Needless to say, it ended up in a trash can somewhere in the zoo. I don't think it actually stopped raining completely until after 4pm. We got home at 1. oy.

This poor guy paced the entire time. Not sure what he was wanting, but he didn't seem happy. I'd say he wanted in outta the rain, but I don't think that was the case :) On our way there we went right to the zoo, didn't get lost, had no problems. When we left, I immediately took a wrong turn and got us lost. I hate this place and their roads! What a pain. So we drove around for 15-20 minutes before I got us headed in the right direction. After I got the map out of the trunk so I knew which way to go.

More boys & their toys

2009-07-09T12:50:00.001-07:00

Sean will kill me for posting this, but I thought it was a great idea, so I thought I'd share :) We have a little box smoker for the grill. Nothing fancy, and it works, for the most part. However... when you want to smoke something correctly, it takes the ENTIRE tank of propane. Which means all grilling is done for a while. not fun.

So Sean got this idea that he could make a smoker out of an aluminum trash can that we had at the house. We don't use it for trash it was sitting around. He drilled some holes is the bottom for ventilation, then holes in the middle to put screws in to hold the grate. Worked pretty well, although the coals went out. He says because there wasn't enough ventilation, I say because he didn't let all of them get lit before he tried to spread them out.
After his experiment we used the coals to roast marshmallows for FHE. :) Sean seemed to think that you couldn't roast marshmellows over coals. I changed his mind.

Boys and their toys

2009-06-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

After Memorial Day and having to boil our hot dogs on a propane burner, Sean has been making noises about a table top grill. So I thought, "great! a gift for Father's Day." Luckily he didn't buy one for himself, as he's been known to do with presents I want to get for him. As you can see int he background, we have a rather large, nice gas grill. But, nope, he wanted to cook on the little charcoal one.

He was impatient, so the coals weren't ready when he put the food on and he had to maneuver stuff around. I have to say, it tastes better than the stuff off the gas grill, although grilling period is better than cooking in the house! And we even had coals left over for s'mores when we were done. Yum. Nothing like a good roasted marshmallow over charcoal. tasty!

Fairie houses & imaginary friends

2009-06-14T16:00:00.001-07:00

Abby's grammy gave her a book about fairies and has her convinced that the little people are real :) So when she came over Abby wanted to build a fairie house. And me, being who I am (some have seen my tattoo and understand what I'm talking about) was all for it :) Sean is kinda worried, he thinks she is a little old to be believing in fairies. I say, why not? There are worse things to believe in, right?

So we took a piece of fabric and glues sticks to it, so it was like the fairies would have cool wall paper. I have about 20 rubber stamps of fairies and Abby stamped most of them and sat and colored them.

When she was done with them she cut them out and put 2 in the house so that they could have paintings :)

Melanie & Kenny's wedding AKA Wedding #2

2009-06-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

For some reason, people in my family like to get their pictures taken with their tongues sticking out. Hmmm.

Stella waiting for her turn to walk down the aisle. The 3 flower girls, such cuties :)Bridesmaids Groomsmen & Groom

Melanie & her father walking down the aisle

Bobby wanted to run around during the ceremony. Candy has to slow him down. Ernie read a scripture after Melanie came down the aisle Exchanging ringsThe girls were getting a little bored standing up front. Melanie and Ken filled a jar full of 2 different colors of sand. Pretty cool. I guess it's kind of like the unity candle that is lit in other weddings.
Mr & Mrs. Kenneth Wolf
Afterwards we were given bubbles to blow. Slight problem though, no idea when to blow them. So we all stood around wondering when we were going to shower the bride & groom with bubbles. Uh, we didn't.
The kids loved the bubbles even though they weren't very good at getting the bubbles out. Bobby & Aunt Edie

Sewing projects

2009-06-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

I made a dress for Abby for the wedding we are going to on Saturday. I actually had it cut out last summer for her, just never got it made. Luckily for me, she grew up and not out :) It fits pretty well, I think.After I got done I had some fabric left over. Sabrina wanted to make something so I used my handbag pattern and had her read the directions to make it. I figured if the home-ec teacher can use it for her beginning sewers it's a good place to start.

She hates the iron.

Finished product. Looks lovely for a first attempt doesn't it? Although the picture isn't that great. The only thing I'd do different is not help so much. I've made the bag so many times that I just told her how to do some of it, without having her read the next part. I should have let her go and then when she had questions she could come ask me. o well. live and learn, right? I'm hoping that she will bring her sewing machine over this summer so that i can help both of them with a project at the same time. Abby was getting upset that she didn't get to work on something.

The next day I helped Abby make an even simpler purse. Just a little draw string bag that matches her dress. I never realized how hard it was to sew a straight line. I'll have to ask my mom how bad I was when I first started out. I can't imagine that I was any better. :)

Here is the final product. Not bad, eh? I'm hoping the iron hasn't scared her off. I think the novelty is still high enough that she will be back for more even though she will have to use the iron again. Sometimes she is such a scaredy cat!

Audubon Nature Reserve

2009-06-12T12:44:00.001-07:00

The first official day of summer (as the girls kept reminding me) we went to the Nature Reserve that is near us. I was really surprised, cause I had no idea it was even there. And I'm supposed to be the environmental freak. O well. Both girls had a camera and were snap happy :) They were taking pictures of all the flowers. The funniest thing was when we encountered birds or chipmunks or dragon flies, they didn't think to take a picture. ha.

A little area in the forest. I thought it was pretty cool cause it was shady and the sun was coming down in this one area through the trees.
Our first snack break. The girls picked the long trail. Not sure why, but they did. About half way through Abby was ready to be done. They picked this log to sit on and eat their snacks that we brought with us.

The second snack stop was at a part of the trail that's called the tree topper. The reason is because it's in the canopy and you are about 15 or 20 feet off the ground. Pretty cool. The girls decided to do a "spit test." Uh, I have no idea, that's what Sabrina called it and then proceeded to spit over the edge. Never said these 2 were a bunch of sissy's. :)

Abby on the trail. It was a really nice trail, well maintained. We didn't see much, I'm thinking mostly cause the girls were talking. THE ENTIRE TIME! Closer to the end they were more quiet, I'm thinking that was just cause they were tired. The middle part of the trail was uphill for a ways. nice.

At the end there is a nice little pond. The girls stopped and looked at some of their pictures before we left. Abby was grateful for the chance to sit down. She was really tired afterwards.

After the pond we went through a small meadow that had lots of dragon flies in it. They were sitting on this fence. One more reason to be grateful for my new camera. I got these pics right before the dragonflies took off.

Really cool place to go. And it's free. Nothing better :) Next time I'll have better directions to, so it won't take as long to get there and I won't be mad on the way.

Summer has begun

2009-06-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

Abby & Sabrina's last day of school was Tuesday. It was hot, they wanted to cool off, so we set out the snake sprinkler. These girls NEVER use things the way they were intended. Sabrina ususally has the crazy ideas, and Abby follows right along :) They usually use the snakes to hose each other down. They actually take turns and try to "run" away from the other. Or something along those lines. Who knows, really! Well this time the game changed because I gave them a large tub.

First they filled it, then they stood in it. Then they stuck their heads in it. Then they sat in it. I got this picture before they ralized I was out there snapping away :) Once they realized I was taking pic's they ran. ha
Then Sabrina got the bright idea to make "mud puddles." Find an area without grass, point the snakes, and fill with water. The stomp in it to make mud. Then paint legs with mud. Nice, ain't it? The best part is that Sean has told them before not to do this cause it makes nasty holes in the yard. They seemed to have forgotten that part.

What cracks me up about this is when we were young Candy and I were playing in a mud puddle and we were supposed to be going out to the garden with Mom. She told us to get out of the puddle, but it was so hot and the puddle was so cool, and we didn't want to go tot the garden. So we ignored her, one too many times. She said she would send us to bed early. And she did. We missed the Donny & Marie show. We were MAD!! Amy got to watch it and we didn't. How sad :)

Abby's field day

2009-06-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Abby had field day at school today. It is nothing like what we used to have when I was in elementary school. This is a day to get wet and play outside. The very first game they played was a water game where they threw sponges full of water over a tarp covered volleyball net. And got soaked in the process. Then they moved onto kickball. After the water, they went to the field, where they got covered in dirt. That turned to mud. Fun to clean up! The field day was supposed to be on Tuesday, but was postponed because it was supposed to rain, which it didn't. But it was warm on Tuesday. Not the case today. It was cold and it did rain early in the day. I don't think the kids even noticed.

Next was capture the ball. AKA capture the flag. There was no strategy amongst these 3rd graders, none whatsoever. Kinda funny.

The second round the entire red team ended up in the "jail" with no one to get them out. So one of the parents on the side lines jumped in a freed a few.
Then inside for dodgeball. This girl throws like a girl! We'll have to work on that :)

Then the fireman's game or something like that. It was also known as the over under game. They had to fill a gallon jug with water from a bucket at the other end using only a cup that they passed from one end of the line to the other going only over their heads or under their legs. And the cups had holes in the bottom.
The water was cold and Abby's friend Elena sometimes wasn't paying attention. So the water would go down Abby's back. :)

The last competition was tug-o-war. Abby's class won both times. I'm not sure it if was sheer numbers that helped them win or the big kid on the end!

Sun flares

2009-06-05T15:13:00.001-07:00

I was reading the Pioneer Woman to see what cool things I could do with my camera. Actually, I was looking to see what regular, everyday, things I could do with my camera. Since I am still learning how to use it. But don't tell anyone:) She was talking about sun flares and how to get a pic of them. How cool is this?! The crappy part is that you have to actually have the sun in the picture. I tried it without having the sun in the pic and i got washed out photos.

It was also not the clearest sunny day until later, so m-a-y-b-e-e-e-e-e that would make a difference. And you know how many sunny clear days we have here, so it might be a while before I can try this again. I've gotta try again though, cause this is cool!

more playing with my new toy

2009-06-02T16:31:00.001-07:00

If you don't like to look at flower pictures, stop now :) I went out in our yard to try and figure out some more about my camera. I was trying to get the flowers to really "pop." I'm not sure how successful I was. I took the same picture at least 4 times at each flower. I might have gotten a better shot, but cause the thumbnail is so small when posting, these might not be the best one. I had to kinda guess if it was the one I wanted or not. I changed all the settings, some of the settings, turned the flash on, turned it off. had a blast. The neighbors probably think I'm a total freak.

I was also working on getting the background to fade out. The 'bokeh" to be precise. A fancy word for the faded out background that I got from my friends that are a little more serious about photography than me :)

This is my fave, got it after about 6 tries. I got to were I was changing the setting one little notch at a time and taking the picture.

When I got my camera they told me to sign up for classes at the camera place. I'm thinking, "oh yeah, need all the help I can get, especially since they are free!" Called to get into a class. They're full. until July. Just my luck. I guess I'm going to have to figure stuff on my own until I can get into the class.

Sean's latest calling

2009-06-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of weeks Sean has had the newest calling in our ward of the "garden coordinator." Sounds interesting don't it :) This is the tiny garden that we put in. The bishopric wanted something to work on that we could donate to the welfare system of the church. I guess that was the purpose of this thing. The biggest problem with the location of the garden is that there is no water access for it. At ALL. None. It is about 200 yards from the church and there is no place on the outside of the church to hook up a hose to water anything. Sean had this great idea to use rain barrels. This waya we'd only have to fill the 55 gallon barrels once and then just top them off weekly. ha. That's what we hoped. As you can see by his expression things are not happening the way they were supposed to. The hoses leak even when turned off, so the one barrel is almost empty, and it only took 2 days to all leak out. ouch. so that means we have to take the barrel back up to the church and then back out to the garden. You don't even want me to explain that painful process. sigh, what a pain. hopefully we can get something figured out before the rain stops coming and the plants die.

Funny girls

2009-05-31T13:40:00.000-07:00

The favorite place for the girls to play when we throw them out of the house is the back of my truck. I have no idea what the attraction is, but this is where they always end up. When I went out to start taking some pics, they ran. Like hide behind the bushes and don't come out forever, ran. Silly girls. Don't they know I'm smarter than they are? hehe I went in the house and there is a window on the side where the truck is parked that doesn't have a screen in it. I slowly opened the window and starting shooting :) What cracked me up while I was taking the pictures was that Sabrina went to the front of the house and Abby asked her if I was still there trying to get their picture. little did they know.

Since I'm still learning what settings are best when with the new camera I took a few while changing everything. These are some that came out pretty well. I have no idea what they were concocting in the truck, but they had a bucket, water, a stick and were tearing leaves off of trees. Who knows!

Practice? well, I guess you could call it that.

2009-05-31T13:34:00.001-07:00

I finally got my clarinet fixed and brought it home. It was in the shop for 6 months :) Had to have all the pads replaced cause it had been in storage for 15 years, more or less. I haven't played it since I graduated high school. it's been a long time. Today I got it out to see what I could do, if I could do anything. It wasn't too bad. I used to have some great lung capacity. Don't have squat now. Horrible. And my bottom lip gave out :) If you have ever played a wind intrument, you know exactly what I mean. I'm going to have to work on this. I'd like to at least be at the level I was when I quit playing. I wasn't that bad.

This would be the wise-cracking husband that seems to think he's funny. And Abby who metions Squidward frequently. Nice people I live with, eh?

Also took the pic of the clarinet 3 times with my new camera, this was the best one. I love being able to change the settings and find the one that looks good and deleting all the rest :)

Memorial Day 2009

2009-05-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

Someone in our ward sent out an email that there would be a gathering at Moraine State Park on Monday for Memorial Day. little did they know how big the party would get :)Abby and Sabrina headed to the water as soon as we parked the car. Sabrina thought it was too cold and was out in 10 minutes, sitting on the towel. She did get back in eventually cause it got to be a little too warm and she needed to cool off. Sean was the beach ball blower up dude :) He and our friend Franklin were talking about how it was the dad's job to blow up the toys. Uh, yeah!

These are just a few of the people that showed up. We had a blast hanging out with everyone.

I got some great pictures, even though it was really bright out. This is Matt, a friends little boy. Loving the new camera! I am totally going to have to go to a class or two to figure everything out. I had a great time taking pictures of all the kids. I took over 200 pics after I was done. Deleted a lot of them. It was too bright out to really look at the pics on the back of the camera, so I waited until I got home to delete.

This is Tim and Lizzy. Tim was swinging his son around too, got those pics too. Great thing about this camera, I actually get the pictures I want while I'm looking at the action. Woohoo. love it! Can ya tell how excited I am about the camera? Sean was paranoid the entire time cause he was afraid I was going to drop it in the lake. jeez, what does he think I am? A klutz? Oh, yeah, that's right, I am. HAHA!

My new toy!

2009-05-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

Monday we finally bit the bullet, joined the ranks and bought a new camera. Actually Sean said he just wanted me to stop whining about it :) We got a Nikon D40, thanks for the recommendation Nicole :) So I have been playing with the thing for the last couple of days trying to figure out all the bells and whistles. The lady that helped us out at Ritz was great and didn't sell us a bunch of crap we didn't need. And she was great with the 50 million questions that I asked her. The great part about digital is that I can see how screwed up my pictures are almost immediately :) And it takes pictures when I hit the button!!! WOOHOOO!! I've never been so excited about such a dumb thing. This means I've taken over 100 pic's in the last couple of days. ha. The great thing is, I deleted most of them! I've been pushing buttons and taking pictures to see what works.

Here Abby is helping me plant the garden. She kept asking why I was taking so many pictures. The great part is, I get a picture of what I want, not her looking at me like a dork cause the camera didn't take the picture when I wanted it to!

I found this great feature on the camera where it takes several pics one right after another. A wasp landed on the gate while I was pushing buttons and reading my manual. Yes, I've been reading the manual. There is no way I'll be able to get that thing to work if I don't read! Anyway, I got several pictures of the wasp, they actually go in order as he walks around in a circle. Totally psyched about that. Wish I had had this when i was coaching, then I'd have actually gotten the kids doing their events instead of the track or the board, or whatever wasn't them!

Art Show & Mother's Day

2009-05-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

The school district that Abby and Sabrina are in have this huge art show every year and this year we actually knew what day it was on :) So we were able to go and take pictures of the girls projects that were on display.

This us Abby's earth day flag. The yellow thing is a cheetah, they didn't have any black for her to make spots :)

This is Sabrina's mask. It's an Egyptian.. I think. It was made out of plaster of paris, and she had to use toilet paper rolls for the edging stuff. So you can imagine the nasty mess that came out of that before it dried.
And here are the beautiful flowers I got for Mother's day. Sean said to be sure and note that he remembered to get me my favorite flower after I only mentioned it to him once. And that i didn't gush over them when I came in the house. He didn't let me forget it the rest of the day. Actually he still hasn't let me forget it. jeez

May Wedding. AKA Wedding #1 of the summer

2009-05-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

My cousin Julie was was married yesterday to Mark Hancock. The ceremony was beautiful. Long, but beautiful.
We found out that they have known each other for 7 years. 7 YEARS!! holy hannah! That's a long time :)

The ceremony was an about hour long, then we had to wait until after the wedding party took pictures before we could go into the reception. Abby brought her book with her to finish and spent the waiting time reading about "Stink."Sharing of the cake :) They did this twice, not sure why, one for the camera maybe. I think Julie escaped frosting on the face. They had cupcakes for everyone, no full cake. It was kinda nice, they had white and chocolate.
And this would be the Bobster after the crash :) He was running, runnin, runnin, didn't stop the entire time we were waiting for the reception. His running coach Ray had him doing laps. The boy never slows down...ever! He sat on his dad's lap to eat something and was down for the count!

Home-made pizza and a cutey pie :)

2009-05-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

My friend Natalie came over the other night with her kids so we could all enjoy some homemade pizza. yum. Afterwards we were hanging out talking and Natalies little boy Josh found the box of beads. And decided he needed to put them all on :)

I tried to take a picture of him taking them all off the first time, but the camera was too slow. He is quite the camera ham, so he loaded himself back up with beads and then handed me the camera that I had set on the table. he loves getting his picture taken!While trying to remove them, he got tangled up and had to have help getting out. Isn't he the cutest!

Where have I been?!

2009-04-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

I noticed that i haven't posted in a while, and when i do, the postings are few and far between. hate to say it folks, but my life is BOR-ING!!! I mean boring. I get up, go to work, go to class, come home, go to bed :) That about covers it. I don't have any new pictures, cause well, my kids are boring :) Actually, Sabrina went on a cruise to Mexico with her mom and family, we're hoping they don't get sick. We're not even sure if they actually got to go. When both of them are here, they stay in their room and play on their nintendo DS's. Yeah, they both have them. So they don't even make any cool robots anymore. sigh, I guess that means they are getting older. Although there is a funny story about the DS's. They were doing "picto-chat" where they can talk to each other on the DS, one was in the bathroom and the other was in their bedroom and they were talking while one or the other of them was going to the bathroom. oy. The fact that my camera sucks is another reason I fail to post. Yes, i am blaming my lack of posts on a crappy camera. Everyone says how great digital cameras are, I have to agree to some extent. However, the point and shoot ones, well, they just suck! When you try to take pictures of your cat attacking the dog, and all you get is a picture of the carpet, yeah, it's frustrating. I was sitting here the other night and the cat, all 10 lbs or less of him, was attacking the 130 lb dog. I was trying to get some pictures, but as I said, my camera sucks. Can't wait to get a real one. And then there is facebook. Oh, what a wonderful thing :) Maybe not so wonderful for some, but for me, yes. I can check and see what my friends are doing in minutes and then post 1 sentence about what I'm doing. Doesn't take very long. And I don't have very long. I thought about it the other day and I only watch 2 hours of TV a WEEK people!!! A week, I tell ya, it's no wonder I'm stressed out. Anyway, that justs goes to show what the end of the semester is doing to me. I might be back after next week, when finals are done and I have a life again. hmmm, maybe not, since I have a thesis to research and do. Oooo, maybe I'll tell you all about my research, wouldn't that be exciting. HAHAHA! There is one funny story I forgot to mention. Sean and I, being the good mormons that we are, :) went to the temple last weekend. Since we live in the 'burgh it's at least a 4 hour drive, either way to get to a temple. And we haven't been since Christmas. bad, I know. Anyway. We left at 9 am, got to Columbus, grabbed our temple bags outta the car and headed in. Then we took our recommends out of the bags. OH NO!!! They were expired. sigh. There was nothing they could do, so we were turned away at the door. So we went to our friend Heidi's and went to dinner with them. So it wasn't a wasted trip! And on our way home we made an appointment with the bishop to have them renewed. ha. lol.

Ice Cream Cake

2009-04-08T14:46:00.001-07:00

I wake up on my birthday and this is what I get. Yes, folks, my brithday is in April. That's what I get for living in the 'Burgh!! Sean, being the wonderful husband that he is, got me my fave cake, DQ ice cream cake.

Which I proceeded to almost dump onto the floor. That would be frosting on my hand since i caught it before it went to far.

New bikes are a good thing!

2009-03-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Our girls are getting too tall for their own good. Abby finally mastered riding a 2 wheel bike even though the one that she road was WAY too small for her. After falling off twice the other day we decided it was time to move on up in the world of bikes.

We only got one bike, for Sabrina. Sabrina's old bike was big enough for Abby to ride comfortably, and it didn't put us in the poor house. This would be the new bike, she should be good for a long time. We'll be buying Abby a new one next year probably cause she grows faster than we can buy her pants!

Along with new bikes came new helmets since they can now ride on the road safely. They loved the helmets and didn't want to take them off when they came in the house. It was all we could do to get them to take them off for lunch.
The best part was that they rode all day. We didn't see them for a couple of hours. They rode around and around the neighborhood. Sean had mapped out that 3 laps is a mile, and the last little bit of the lap is uphill to the house. The girls went around at least 6 times, so for them, that was serious long distance.

I'm all about spring

2009-03-22T11:57:00.001-07:00

Since I live in a place that has a LONG crappy winter, I'm always excited to see the first signs of spring. The last week we have actually had lots of sunshine and warmer weather. WOOHOO! So the crocuses are out. Yay. Yet again, I have a crappy camera and couldn't get the pictures I really wanted. :( One of these days, I'll get a real camera :)

And of course, other than the crocuses, we have the stems from the daffodils. no flowers yet, but they can't be far behind.

Signs that the weather is finally warming up!

2009-03-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

The cat begs to get out of the house. Constantly. The girls are outside. Without coats. Picking the berries off the bush to make some sort of "potion"

Shoes are missing!

There are buds on the trees. That are going to fall off and make a mess of our deck. sigh.

But I'm not complaining! I'll take the messy porch any day. As long as it doesn't SNOW again! hmmm, maybe I should check the weather report before I say that too loud!

Why I hate washing the girl's cloths!

2009-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Last week I washed Abby's coat. After washing, I put them in the dryer. This is what I was treated to when I opened the dryer. As you can see, there are black streaks EVERYWHERE! We still don't know what it was. Luckily a little 409 and some elbow grease and it came right off. At first I was scared that it was a crayon. But since there were no marks on the coats, I'm guessing it wasn't.

And I did check the pockets. Cause I have forgotten before and regretted it. Whatever this was, escaped my search. I must be more thorough next time.

Way to busy

2009-02-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

We had a small computer breakdown a few weeks ago. We were outta commision for at least a week. Which was NOT a good thing, since Sean and I both depend upon the computer for classes. So we had to suck it up and get a new one. UGH. But it's a desktop and has more space for all the crap. Classes have been keeping me busy. Any professor that I tell that I am planning on being done by December, with a thesis, think's I'm insane. Ha, they have no idea! Before the computer went berserk, I was able to get a really cool picture of a red-tailed hawk in our back yard. I got home from subbing and he swooped down in front of the car and parked in the tree. I was able to get into the house and get this picture before he took off. I tried to get one with my telophoto lens on the "real" camera, but he was gone before I could get a picture. I was bummed. Cause I'm sure I would have been able to see his tail feathers with that lens. Life is pretty busy with classes and work. I'm subbing, it gives me lots of time to study, since all I do is babysit, and I'm still working at Target 2 days a week. Sean is working while taking Anatomy & Physiology, so he does nothing but study when he is home. He loves the subject, but not the professor, and that's not a good combo. Since we are so busy, we are really boring. We don't have time to do anything fun :)

How the kitty got his name

2009-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

I have a really smart cat. No one believes me, but I do. His name is Einstein, and he deserves all that that means! Within the first month of owning him I had to secure the kitchen cupboards cause he had figured out how to get into them. Now he has figured out where the kitty snacks are "hidden." I have NO idea how he figured out they were up there. not cool. This is him on the trash compactor, where the kitty treats were hidden. Not hidden anymore.

This is the hole he chewed in the bottom of the bag to get the treats out. For Christmas we had 2 bags of treats in his stocking. He managed to get one of the bags out and chew it open as well. There are teeth marks all over it. See, I told you my cat was smart. little bugger. now I have to hide the treats in a cupboard instead of in plane sight.

Losing the last few teeth

2009-01-25T14:09:00.001-08:00

Abby is not one for pain. She slowly pulls the band-aid off, hoping it won't hurt the longer she takes. She's not for getting things over quick. oy. She has had a loose tooth for weeks now. The other night she actually agreed to have Sean tie a string around the loose tooth and attach it to the door. Here is Sean leading her to the door.

Once he got it attached to the door he didn't close the door fast enough. So then Abby started whining that it hurt. Sean then took it upon himself to pull up on the string. And with a sucking 'pop the tooth was out. Here is Abby after the tooth was out. She actually still believes in the tooth fairy and was expecting money in the morning. She got a whole dollar:)

Here we Go!

2009-01-25T14:03:00.001-08:00

Steelers are going to the Super Bowl! Like my tape dispensers? :) Found them in the computer room. Imagine finding them when our boys are going to play the Cardinals next weekend. Ha, funny things you find in your in-laws house :)

Because it freezing outside!!

2009-01-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Don't know if anyone is paying attention to the weather in the 'Burgh, except for those of us that live here, but it's FREEZING here. It only got up to 8 today. brrrrrr. When I took the dog out for a walk this mornin' he did NOT want to go.He only went cause he had to, poor guy. While we were walking I noticed that he was pretty cold, and not happy to be out at all. And if you know anything about Great Dane's they really aren't cold weather dogs. They don't have a lot of fur, nor do they have a lot of fat. This means that they don't stay very warm. So I decided to make Riddick a coat. Sean was all worried that it was going to be a sissy coat and that he (the dog) would be embarrassed to wear it :) uh, yeah. Sean said it would be okay if it was a Steeler's coat. He had no idea what material I had brought home, and I didn't tell him. So I tried to make the coat without Sean seeing until I was almost done. He thought it was pretty cool, and he was glad I wouldn't embarrass the dog. Good grief! I had to make the pattern myself since the ones that they sell don't come nearly big enough for a 130 lb dog! And since it was so cold outside, and I wasn't about to go out either, I sewed up a bed cover for the dog bed. I put a zipper in one end so when it gets dirty I can take it off and throw it in the washing machine. Did that without a pattern too, would have taken too much time :) I don't have a picture of it because as soon as I got done the dog laid down on it. I guess he likes it.

Finally! Snow!

2009-01-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

We finally got enough snow overnight that we could take the sleds out for a test run. Sean took the girls out to the same hill we went to last year. I didn't go since I didn't feel like getting more sick than I already was. When they got home the girls wanted to make a snow fort, so Sabrina started rolling balls for the base of the fort.

Abby was filling the bucket for the top of the fort.
The girls begged Sean to come out and help them and he resisted for a while, but then finally caved, and went out to help. The entire time they were out there it was misting. As in raining, not snowing. Gotta love this place. They used so much of the snow that the ground was visible. And this is Abby's version of the Statue of Liberty. Gotta love her hair in this :)