VEGAS!!!

Had a little get-away last week to Las Vegas.  Dave was out there for work for the week, and I flew in and joined him for the weekend.  One of my oldest and dearest friends also lives in Vegas and we got to hook up with her over my stay. 

 

The stars did not align themselves to allow us to bring home more money then we left with, but it was a good time non-the-less!  

How can you really go wrong when you have...

• Your husband
• A good friend
• Warmer weather than you left at home
• Lots of lights and glitz and bling all around
• Good food (that I didn't have to cook - or clean up after)
• Getting your picture taken with an Elvis Impersonator, an Elvis Big Head, and a walking Fabulous Las Vegas Sign
• A great hotel room
• A little gambling (a few wins, but unfortunately we ended up donating it back to the local economy!)
• The kids home safe and sound with Grandma and Grandpa C
• Lots and lots of People Watching (one of my favorite sports)

 And the highlight of the trip was the Cirque Du Soleil - Mystère show we saw.  If you have never seen it and get the chance I highly recommend it.  We even had front row seats... AWESOME!!!  You can check out a You Tube trailer for the show here. 

Busy as a Bee

My summer has been crazy busy as I'm sure everyone else has.

Had my garage sale - which was pretty much a bust - hard to get traffic back in our little cul-de-sac, and when we did, no one was buying. The economy must be worse than I thought if people are not even buying at garage sales!

The spring broke on our garage door with all my garage sale stuff sitting on my driveway - cost me over half of what I made in the entire sale to fix that.

I've "misplaced" the charger to my camera battery, so no pictures of any of my recent creations... I finished my vintage sheet zig zag quilt. Stared on a hammock cover for the new hammock we got Dave for fathers day - it is basically a big quilt that will have gromets in the corners and sides to tie to the new 3 person rope hammock that is to be delivered next week.

Have spent quite a bit of time at the lake - entertaining friends - check out Jenni's blog post about her visit to the lake a few weekends ago. She is an amazing photographer and took some great pictures... Thanks Jenni for all the nice compliments too!!

Have also spent a lot of time up there trying to get the treehouse finished (inside painted, screens installed, etc) so the kids can sleep in it this coming week while we are up there for vacation. I will be glad when it is finished - what was suppose to be a "summer project for Dave", has turned into a 3 year ordeal for the entire family. You can read some of that saga here.

Kids have been doing various camps and sport which means I have spent most of my summer driving here and there.

Well, sorry about the lack of pictures, hopefully I will find my camera charger soon! We will be at the lake from this afternoon though the 4th of July weekend! Hope to post more after that.

A Great Weekend!

This weekend our son P received his First Communion. I took him and his best friend B (along with B's mom) to the park to shoot some pictures in their finnery...

We had so much fun taking pictures of these 2 best friends.

There where the silly ones...

And the serious ones...

The tree in the background was planted in memory of B's Dad who passed away 2 and a half years ago.

Between individual shots of each boy and together shots, I took almost 200 pictures that day alone!!! So I obviously won't bore you with all of them.

The Communion day itself was awesome...

More on that another time though...

A most blessed Easter and Birthday!

In addition to being Easter, today is our son P's 8th birthday!

His "Big" gift was this "grown up" radio control car that his dad picked out.


Dave and P have been playing with it most of the day (during chargings we have been able to spend some time with them).


If you can see who is holding the remote, you can see who I think the "gift" is actually for!!!


In addition to racing cars, we also spent some quality time together as a family - big Easter breakfast, Church, a glorious Easter Dinner of home made pizza (P's birthday dinner request - I think we now have a new Easter tradition on our hands) and watching a movie together... Cheaper by the Dozen 2. It is a good family movie that always makes me look forward to the lake season that I hope is just around the corner.

We also "tackled" a long overdue project. My cousin Lori has a section of her living room wall - oops now her studio - lucky girl - lined with self portraits (view her post here) of their immediate family and various extended family members and friends. She had asked us about 3 years ago to do ours and send them to her. She even gave us the canvases, and they have sat in my linen closet since then (don't even ask why they have been in the linen closet for 3 years). But with no big plans this Easter Sunday, I decided that since we were all together (and I had just spied the canvases when I was getting clean sheets the other day),that today was the day...

So here in all their glory are our self portraits... Well, just a sneak peak, since I am sending them to her in the mail this week and want there to be some surprise...

I don't think we will win any art awards or any of us be considered the next great "master", but we had fun laughing at ourselves and spending time together... "making memories" as Dave always says. I think Dave is the only one who has an actual nose. That part really stumped us!

Hope you and yours had as great a day as we had!

Over the Rainbow

Yesterday we went to the annual "River Greening". The fire department turns the St. Mary's river green in honor of St. Patrick's Day and has an all day family fun fest.

The river was quite swollen and muddy due to the recent flooding in the area, so the green dye disipated quite quickly, but I loved how the sun hitting the green stream formed a rainbow!

The girls did not want to go this year. C our middle child's response was... "I don't want to go watch all those Amish people with their ukuleles". I think she meant Irish people with their bagpipes, but I could be wrong. Maybe there were some rogue Amish people playing ukuleles last year that really frightened her. I must say, I would be frightened if I saw that too!!!

We just took P and a friend of his and we had a great time...The boys participated in the Lucky Charms eating contest
We ate Irish Stew
The boys attempted to pull a firetruck
And we even got to see and hear the "Amish Ukulele" players...

A Weekend Away

My DH and I spent the weekend with his high school (yes, I said high school) buddies. This small group of guys has remained friends for all these years.


We got together at the "farm". One of his friends married into this "farm" that consists of 23 acres, skeet shooting range, a pond, trails, pens for live birds (for hunting), woods, etc... There are actually crops (soy beans and feed corn) that are grown on the property, but that part is leased out to a real farmer.

It was a couples only weekend, and we had lots of fun reminiscing,

playing games,

laughing,

eating,

shooting,

and drinking.

A good time was had by all. We already have the date for next year's get-together planned...