Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would have been Dad's 72nd birthday.

I think of Dad often.  Multiple times each day, truth be told.  I've gotten to the point, though, where my thoughts of Dad are sweet memories.  I no longer feel weepy or sad when I think of him.  Except today.

I can't help but wonder what we would have planned to celebrate Dad's birthday if he were still here today.  Of course there'd be cake involved.  And ice cream.  Dad's favorite was "Heavenly Hash" ice cream, but I never ate it -- I don't like nuts & "Heavenly Hash" is full of 'em!

Camping Pics, 7/15 - 7/20 trip

A few pics from our latest camping trip:

Nora now has the "balance buddy" on her bike.  She is still working on learning to balance.  With a bit more practice, I bet we'll have FOUR kids riding without training wheels!

Grace found this butterfly and took a picture of it with my camera.

Random pics from around the campsite:

  

And one self-portrait.  ;D



parade pics

The day before we went camping last, I took the four kids to my old hometown.  The town was having it's annual celebration.  It's a three-day event every year, with a carnival, a 5K race (I raced it two years ago), and a big parade.  Here are a few pictures I took from the sidelines at the parade:

Drive-thru

Yesterday evening, the neighbor's daughter called the Crazy House, asking for Grace.  She wanted to invite Grace to go with them to see a movie and then spend the night over.  When Grace asked me if she could go, I asked what movie they'd be going to. 

She responded with, "they're going to the drive-thru to see Ice Age: Continental Divide."

She quickly realized her mistake and corrected herself, but not before I got a good chuckle out of it.

Birthday Parties Galore!

On Sunday, we had both Grace and Eleanor's birthday parties.  First was Nora's birthday party.  Grace's party was scheduled to begin just a half hour after Nora's ended.  The day was a long one, but we couldn't have asked for better weather to celebrate the girls' birthdays. 

Twelve Years Old

It seems like our baby suddenly went from this:

to this:



WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR BABY?!?!  Who told Grace she could grow into a twelve year old girl?

It has been such an awesome ride, thus far.  I have enjoyed watching her bloom and grow all these years.  She inspires me with her kindness.  I'm proud of all of her accomplishments.  I love this girl -- she's the one who made me a MOM.

Four Year Old

Today Eleanor turns four years old.  Happy Happy Happy Birthday to our Littlest Princess!  Our family wouldn't be complete without you, Honeygirl.

Changed Plans = Successful Shopping

Tiffany ended up not being able to bring Breanna and Brandon over today.  I seized the change in plans as an opportunity to get some errands run.  The best part?  I have got almost all of the kids' Back To School supplies purchased!  I just need to pick up one last thing (a flash drive for Grace) and I will be breathing easy for the rest of the summer!

Best Friends

My nephew, Zac's girlfriend is coming over today with their kids.  We'll be swimming and just having fun in eachother's company.  Fun will be had by all!

Yesterday, when I mentioned that Tiffany was bringing Breanna and Brandon over to play and swim, Eleanor announced that, "oooohhh!!  I LOVE Breanna!  She's my BEST girl friend!!"

I still smile, just replaying that scene in my head.  I love that my kids enjoy spending times with their cousins.  Close familial relationships are important to me.

William-ism

William:  Hey, we have a truck that's called a 'Chev-toilet'!
Me:  a what??
William:  a 'Chev-toilet'.
Me:  (scratches head)
William:  You know, Daddy's blue truck.
Me:  OH...the ChevROLET.  Daddy's '72 ChevROLET.
William:  Hunh.  I thought it was 'Chev-toilet'.

Broken Tractor

I like mowing the lawn.  Sitting on the John Deere, making pass after pass, I get to have time to think.  UNINTERRUPTED time.  Add the fact that I can be productive and actually SEE the results when I'm done, and I'm one happy gal.

This past Sunday, I went out to go mow.  Gordon had brought the tractor up from the garden shed down back and parked it in front of the shop.  Everything was all set for me to beautify the yard.

Except the tractor wouldn't start.

I called Gordon outside so he could get it started for me.  He had no luck either.  It was broke!  The official diagnosis?  A broken crank shaft and a broken waterpump gear.

Determined to get at least the front yard mowed, I walked back to the garden shed and grabbed one of our push mowers.  We filled it with gas and I got started mowing.  Over an hour later, I had barely put a dent in the front yard, but the heat was really getting to me.  I came in, cooled off, ate lunch, and went back outside to try to finish.

I hadn't gone more than two passes around when Ron, one of our neighbors, came down the road -- on his tractor!  Ron generously finished mowing the front yard for me, saying it was waaaaaay too hot to be push mowing. 

Moments like these remind me just how awesome our friends and neighbors are.

Gordon has all the necessary parts on order.  Hopefully they'll arrive in time for him to fix the John Deere before our backyard officially turns into a jungle!

Photo albums

Remember back in the days of film cartridges and needing to get them processed?  Do you remember how a lot of people would get the photos developed, leaf through them once or twice, and then drop the packet of photos into a box to be forgotten about?

Fast forward to today, where digital cameras and memory cards make it so easy to snap shot after shot.  How many people store their images on extra SD cards?  How many have them taking up space on their computer?  How many people take all kinds of pictures, look through them on their computer (maybe even post them on one of the social networking websites), and then promptly forget about them?

My friend, Margaret, once shared with me what she does.  She's very diligent about getting her pictures printed as soon as her memory card is filled.  As soon as she gets the prints back, Margaret slips them into photo albums.  This way, Margaret's friends and family can leaf through her albums and see all of the pics whenever they want.

Margaret got me thinking about all of the photos I had stored downstairs (in boxes) and on the computer (in files).  WHO would look through them?  I knew I had to make some changes.

First, I bought a whole bunch of photo albums.  I'm anal enough that I want to make sure my photo albums are all the same, so I picked a style that I can purchase again and again.

Second, I went downstairs where I was storing all of our printed photos.  Thankfully they were all in date-order (Gordon and I had tackled that project a few years back)!  I placed all of our old photos in the albums.

Third, I began uploading our photo images to a photo-sharing/printing website.  Every so often, this website offers sales on printing photo images.  I have been taking advantage of these periodic sales and printing out batches of photos.  As each batch got printed, I added them to the empty albums.

Fourth, I have been uploading recent photo images AS I TAKE THEM. 

I'm so excited and proud to say that I just finished placing a few print orders.  I will now have images for all of the pictures I have taken through June 2012.  I can't believe I'll be all caught up, finally!

Now, to go back and note the names/dates/locations of the images....

RIP: Fluffy

I came home from Target yesterday afternoon to be greeted by Grace.  She relayed the bad news that Fluffy, one of our rabbits, had died.  (I'll admit that when she first said, "Fluffy died", it took a bit to realize she meant the rabbit and not one of our other pets....must be my old age, making it slow to process)

I had kind of been expecting Fluffy would be meeting her demise.  Just this past Thursday, I'd realized just HOW SKINNY she'd gotten.  Grace had told me that she wasn't eating her feed, so I told her to get an apple from the fridge to give her.  Fluffy ate that, but not as energetically as she used to.  A quick calculation in my brain and I recognized the fact that Fluffy (and Whiter, too!) is about 7.5yrs old.  They've both lived a very long time.

I wonder how much longer Whiter will be with us.  Do rabbits die from loneliness and/or grief?

Independence Day Festivities

We didn't go anywhere or attend any special barbecue celebrations on Wednesday to celebrate the Fourth of July.  Instead, we had a rather quiet day.  First, Dianna (and I) marched in our neighboring town's annual parade with her karate school.  Later on in the afternoon, we played board games (Will's latest obsession is Connect Four and Nora has really mastered Memory).  Gordon and the kids went swimming in the pool.  Finally, we rounded out the holiday with sparklers and fireworks. 

Watching the kids with the sparklers made me think of the last time we visited Kentucky -- Grandpa had some small fireworks and sparklers for the kids to celebrate the Fourth that year.  We miss both Grandpa and Grandma very much! 

Finally, Camping Pics

By the time we got to the campground, it was already starting to get dark.  Luckily, it wasn't too dark to set up.  It really wasn't as dark as these first few pictures seem.

Everyone took turns cranking the shaft to raise the camper roof.

The next day, we set up the kids' tents.  Grace and Dianna both slept in their own tents, but Will and Nora's tents are merely for playing and toy containment.

The first couple of nights were chilly.  We slept in layers, with lots of blankets.  Even sitting around the fire, we had to wear extra layers to stay warm.

All of the kids got a good jump start on their summer reading.  Grace and Dianna, especially.  Dianna only brought two books with her (dunno why -- she had taken more than that out from the library!).  She ran out of reading material by Sunday afternoon.  She ended up borrowing one of Grace's books to tide her over till we bought a couple of more from the store.

 William mastered riding his two wheeled bike without training wheels!  He was a bike riding fool the whole week we were camping. 

The kids all enjoyed crabbing again this year.  Grace, especially, spent a large amount of time down at the crabbing bridge.

This picture shows one of the many crabs that Grace caught.  We didn't keep any of the crabs.  If they were big enough to keep, and there were other people crabbing, she offered the crabs to them.  Otherwise, Grace tossed the crabs back into the water.  (This gentleman and his son were crabbing most of the week too -- they were the lucky recipients of a few of Grace's catches!)

I didn't take very many pictures to document it, but the kids DID enjoy playing around the campsite too.  By Tuesday, almost all of the sites in our area were deserted.  The kids were running around, playing with water guns, coloring with sidewalk chalk, and creating treasure hunts.

Of course, a camping trip at the beach isn't complete without some beach time! 

Camping pics -- not yet!

I've been trying for almost an hour now to upload pictures from our camping trip.  Unfortunately, Blogger isn't being very helpful or kind.  Seeing as "screen time" is almost over, I'll have to try to upload those pics another time.  Sorry to continue keeping you waiting.

Last Day of School Ice Cream Party

For the kids' last day of school, we hosted our annual Ice Cream Party.  We invited a few friends to come over after school (a few of the kids riding the bus home with Dianna and William, others meeting us here after school).  Everyone always has fun celebrating the start of summer together.

Here are some pictures from that afternoon: