Another "new" addition to our house.

This weekend Mom and I drove down to drop Angela and a friend off with Grandma Sally at the half way point.  I decided that all these places that I had always wanted to see were going to be SEEN this weekend!  So, kiddo's dropped off safely with Grandma and off we went.  First stop was in a tiny town that has TONS of murals all over the place and of all things, a craft sale in the town square - yes, they have true squares here with the courthouse in the middle.  Cute place.  We stopped and walked through the square and a LOT of folks were doing vinyl on plastic ware, glasses and mason jars.  I did like the look of the mason jars with matching or coordinating ribbons to the dots or whatever they had on them - very cute.
That was fun.  We then went down a side road looking for a boat ramp that I had always wondered about on this cute little "creek" that is more impressive than most.  We drove and drove and drove on a dirt road and NOTHING - we kept going to a cross road and looking at Google maps - we were half way there.  Wow - long road for a boat ramp!!

Stopped off at the local antique and pottery place and discovered she imports them from Vietnam - and pays a HIGH price for them too - wow!  $750 for a pot - large pot, but - hello??  No, thanks!!  BUT I did find THIS:

I had been looking for some sort of hutch/display, but most of them are HUGE.   I like this one it's art deco and just right for that corner.  Not according to the 15 year old, but it's growing on Butch and I rather like it there... I'm still looking at everything I can display in there and get it out of my other cupboards.

We stopped off at a used furniture place and when I asked how long they had been there - 8 YEARS.  Hum.. not sure why in all the 10 years we have made that trip I never noticed them until this trip.  Different mind set, maybe?  Hum.  Hard to tell.  We looked through there and then headed north again. 

stopped at the farmers market for a watermelon and a cantaloupe.  Then stopped in a town that has a rocket.  I kept thinking there would be this GREAT history behind it.  It's almost funny.  The bottom line?  It's a Titan missile that some member of the community wanted, purchased and put on display.  End of story.  How funny.  I think I should ramp the girls up to read the history behind it and look at them when they read about it - ha! 

So, the 2.75 hour drive took us about 4 hours to make home, but boy was it fun!

Sunday Morning visit with the "new" neighbor

My Bird house that I had taken off the tree last year and I just placed it up on the wood pile while I debated how to fix it and where I would place it once fixed...

 Only to discover that in it's placement - someone found that it still made a GREAT home.

 With the flash so you can see one of the three eggs who are being hatched.

 Why a picture of this pot?  Well, it's the natural fiber ones to hold water... and the little bluebird mom LOVES it for her nest.  As I was sitting there reading the paper she was in the edge just digging away to get fibers out of it.  By the time I went to get the camera, take pictures of the egg, she decided it was too much for her and didn't come back for more fibers that morning :o)

Water Play

Water Play on the3rd and on the 8th with Liz, Cullen and Keaton

 What happend when you have PROOF you pushed the ring out of the way!

 Do you think Liz finds this funny?  ha!

And now the "right way" without someone shoving the ring out of the way...

 it's a ringer!

Lizzie's turn and note that Cullen is MUCH nicer than Liz was :o)

On the 14th with Keaton too - Liz wasn't swimming this day

I QUIT!

Well, I finally did something I had been thinking of doing for quite some time.  I quit!
Quit what?  One of my outside jobs.  I had been saying for quite a while I wanted to do just that and an incident over the weekend was pretty much the clincher to let me know it was time.  Time to quit getting upset, time to quit stressing and time to move on. 
So... I took a deep breath and did it - I quit.  I did it as nicely as I could.  I hate conflict which is why I guess I had avoided the inevitable for as long as I did.  There had been incidents in the past that had me flustered, enough so to get mom to asking why didn't I just quit.  The weekend incident was the kicker.  I don't typically work on Saturday's at all, however due to a snafu on Friday, I left my folder at the house and knew I wouldn't get a chance to get to that shop becuase of their hours until Wednesday or Thursday the next week and I was the one that didn't want to do that. 
In hind sight I should have just stuck to my original working hours and acknowledged that there was a snafu on the delivery and arrange for a later delivery - everyone is told to not tell their customers of delivery because it is ALWAYS "if the rivers don't rise and the kids don't have issues" and in this case I didn't have the luxury of backtracking that day due to kid obligations. 
So.  All in all, I had some guilty feelings due to a pending order, however, in my defense it was a partial order.  Two of the three part had been submitted, however not the third part.  I just wasn't comfortable prolonging the inevitable and I'm not comfortable with shifting orders/partial orders. 
And today?  Well, today was the day I went by to pick up the book and the posters from the shop.  It was uncomfortable.  The owners car was in front of the store, however she was nowhere to be seen.  I gave them the refund and thanked her for the poster and book and sample and left. 

All done.

Ear update....

Last visit I said no more updates, but really, you HAVE to see this.  No more need to warn those with weak stomach's - the ear is looking quite healed.  I know it's not quite there, but I "wear" it and know how tender it still is, but the results on the front are outstanding.

 The back looks bad, but in all reality it is 1,000% better than it's been.  There are still little "lesions" but nothing horrible, and not really notice unless you are morbid and zooming WAY in like I do to see how well it's healing.  To my defense I had a VERY hard time staying out of the pool this weekend, and last weekend as well, staying out of the ocean.  Looking at this now let's me know that every time I have NOT gotten in the water it's been a good choice.

There are a very few spots that are in need of more healing time.  It's almost "normal" on the back now.  I figure in about two or three more weeks it will look as good as the front as it seems to be healing that direction - front to back.  The front looked horrible for a while, and it healed, so there is hope for the back as well.  Now if I could just not SLEEP on it.  There's the million dollar investment - someone needs to invent a way to get a molded ear protector for those having ear surgery to allow them to sleep at night and not crush their poor ears.

A Party here, A party there

Well, this was the party weekend.  I’ll add pictures when I get home tonight (if all goes well).  Sally was able to come up and share in all the festivities and I think we pure wore her out, she’s going to have to go home just to rest up from all the activity!

Friday started at 3pm with a party for Liz’s really good friend “C”.  She’s going to be moving overseas after this summer and is quite sad as they had been looking at a house in our neighborhood that was PERFECT for their family.  However, jobs and opportunity for the parents was much better overseas, so off they go at the end of the summer.  We’ll be sad to see them go!

Her birthday wish this year was to have a party at the house they had been looking at in our neighborhood. I told her mom “D” that, although she couldn’t have a party at HER house in the neighborhood, she COULD have on at mine :o) And so the party was born. We had a GREAT time and a pool full of teenagers. They are a great bunch of kids. We started out at 3pm and I finally had to call it at 10pm – they had a GREAT time!

 Lizzie and little sister M with the cake they made for C - they did an awesome job!

 Are you counting?  Yes, that is SEVENTEEN in the pool - there were two more on the sidelines (kids that is) and one of them finally made it into the pool :o)  Talk about a FULL house!!

 The grandma's hanging in the shade, or what's left of it.  We finally had to bring out the easy up and sit it over the hot tub so we could dip our feet in the cool water and enjoy the rest of the evening.

They're in school mode lining up for hot dogs and burgers :o)

I had to chase them out of the yard at 10pm.  I think that's enough since we stared at 3pm, don't you?

Saturday was Butch’s 50^th birthday party.  We had a good time and a lot of folks from the scuba club were able to make it.  The roll call was Mike, Jane and Grady, Theresa, Adam and Natalie, John and Mary Jo, Richard and Patty.  Butch’s coworker Dave and his wife.  From my work we had: Dave and Marie, Karen and Chris.  From kids and schools we had Amy and Kevin and their two kids, Debbie and George, their two kids and her mother Sue.  Neighbors Eve and Pat and their three boys and we had a whole patio full and a good time was had by all.  We started out at 7pm and the timing really couldn’t have been better as there was a good breeze coming up by that time.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and the last folks trickled out at close to midnight. 

Before - 16 years ago!

After - 2010

The horrible thing?  I brought my camera out with me to the deck, but didn’t take a picture one.  How very sad is that?  I was having way too much fun going from group to group, chatting and catching up and enjoying the night.  Bad wife, bad wife!

Sunday – we all went into napping/recuperate mode!

House Guests

Well, they are more of an interloper than a house guest!  If it weren't for the "poop on the stoop", they would be welcome to stick around for a bit! 

The first night that Butch and Liz saw these cute barn swallows was last night just about sunset and there were 8 to 10 of them hunkered down.  Liz threw open the door and growled at them.  You heard a thump, thump, thump as one or two of them hit the window in their effort to escape - poor little things!

This time I was trying to be more "gentle" with them, because as I said, I find the little critters delightful - we don't use the front door that much!

Nifty, Nifty, look who's Fifty!!

Yes, those are Rabbits in the yard... 50 in all. 

 The sign reads as follows:

That's OLD (and a lot of rabbits!)

Memorial Day Weekend

Never, never, never tell your MIL to "go fly a kite" ha!  She and I set up the kites and rather enjoyed them - they flew quite well!

 Butch and Liz went WAY out and watched for critters in the water.  He saw two sharks - one about a 4' and one about 3' - then two HUGE Southern Rays out there.  Maybe I'm glad I was stuck on shore?  Yeah, my doctors appointment on Thursday landed me stuck high and "dry" for two more weeks - drat them!!  I almost didn't even go to the beach I was so bummed I couldn't get in the water... it was too tempting to wade.  I would want to fall in ;o)

This is the first time one of ours wanted to take a friend with her to grandma's.  Lucky girl got to take Ms. S. with her on the trip - they had a BLAST!  Little girls body surfing!

 Yes, that IS Butch in there with them surfing in the shallows!

 Lizzie called in from the outer edges :o)  She enjoyed going WAY out there this time

 No, it won't say what you think when she's done... she's in LOVE with a band called SHINee (Korean Band of all things)

 For someone that got to bring a friend, she's really showing her "good" side right now, eh? 

Sigh.... 11 going on dead!

 I saw this little guy poke his head up from a distance... so I got up and went to track down his hole, just as someone went walking RIGHT through this area.  They buried his hole.  So I was standing and looking quietly when the man behind me came up and asked what I had lost... um, my mind?  I want a picture of this crab :o)  I sat down and he finally came out!

What is going to G-ma's if not Goofy Golf!  A tradition :o)  We had a good time - even if quite a few balls went OFF the course and into parking lots and neighboring holes :o)

 Grandma and Liz wanted in on the paparazzi act too!