July's monthly post...

I was kidding about the monthly post but it's kinda turning out that way....

Our July 4th Weekend trip out to Knoebel's was much more pleasant than anticipated. The weather was cool, the campground was quiet and the park wasn't overcrowded. Unfortunately I was exhausted the whole day so I barely even got off my little electric scooter and took very few photos. We got some rain but not until late Thursday and again Friday night. Our tent stayed dry inside but we did have to pack it up wet (ick).

First, some pics from the park:


Shooting at the tanks (two people drive and shoot from inside a tank. The observers can shoot balls back at them. This kept our crew entertained for well over an hour)



Some spinny ride:


Another spinny ride - we call it The Hamster Wheel but I can't remember the actual name. My Boy - the one that gets motion sick if he walks too fast - rode this one at least 4 times.


The Twin Cousins:




Under the rollercoaster


The rain held off til around 7pm and we all put on our classy rain gear:


Next time I'll post some campground pictures, including the infamous London Broil in the Fire and Bacon and Eggs in a paper bag. We have VBS this week (Power Lab) and Friday we're packing the van so we can leave for Maine at 4am Saturday

Monthly Update :o)

Older Daughter is no longer a middle schooler - off to High School in August! I'm feeling particular old because in the store today the cashier (no spring chicken herself...) asked me if I wanted the Senior Discount!! I went directly to Walmart for hair color that claims to cover stubborn gray.

Last weekend we had a graduation picnic for her and her motley crew (the midget on the end is not a student - he's her cousin)


And uncle:

And puppies:

And Younger Daughter's collection of Barbies on display:
Speaking of YD, here she is with her Science Fair Project. She won 4th place for watching ice melt:
The Boy is still playing baseball - they have several rained-out games to make up. Older Daughter is going up to Maine with my sister and her two rugrats this weekend. Younger Daughter can't wait for Soccer season or school to start again. I have a ton of projects to work on, all I need is some motivation. I'm really good at getting the shopping part of projects done, but once the supplies get home they don't actually assemble themselves for some strange reason.

8th Grade Semi-Formal....

Daddy spent the evening cleaning his arsenal.

YD had her 3rd grade Precorder Concert last week during Art Night at school


And afterward she had her face painted with a lovely...skull...Pics of Older Daughter's Semi-Formal are forthcoming (i.e. they're still in the camera).

Garden pics for Bob

I thought these pics were posted before but apparently not. So here they are. In no particular order because Blogger is weird with photos.

Click a photo to enlarge it.

Trellises are eleectrical conduit and wire mesh fencing. This year all of the tomato trellises will be conduit and twine to the ground and only the pumpkins will have the fencing (it's a pain to pick tomaotes through!).

www.squarefootgardening.com

I guess I should check in once in awhile...

Busy. Typical end-of-the-school-year stuff. Lots of school activities on top of baseball, horseback riding and church activities, plus we've "adopted" 4 kids on Saturday mornings and Sundays (including taking them to church with us). So we've just been...busy.

Actually, one reason I'm posting right now is that older daughter was working on a paper earlier on my laptop (which is no longer a laptop since so many things have gone bad on it - it's on life support with a docking station, monitor, keyboard and external hard drive and card reader). Anyhow, OD was typing a paper and hooked up the keyboard so it was sitting here nice and handy-like when I came upstairs. Alas, this computer is not long for this world - my NEW laptop was ordered today!

This week should be reasonably quiet save for baseball so I hope to get the garden ready to plant (the 15th is our last frost date and I've learned not to push it). And I should probably get the grass cut before we start losing dogs and kids in it.

At last!

Spring is starting to spring! I swore that I would plant peas in March but t's been so doggone muddy/icky/depressing/cold that I haven't done anything gardeny. I still have 1 more day of March to build and fill the pea patch...no, I'm not taking bets.

Our washer bit the dust after 25 years (we've had it for 10) and 2 socks extricated from the pump. Our brand new LG front loader was delivered on Friday. I actually enjoy doing laundry now (so do the kids!). It's the cousin to Jenny's gorgeous cherry red washer/dryer but in basic white (boring, but practical in the dark basement where it's only seen by me and the spiders). I was on the phone with her the first time she pulled her son's socks out and exclaimed in shock "they're clean!". I had the same experence :-) And it spins clothes much drier so the dryer takes way less time. Right now it's sanitizing my pillows. I'm such a laundry geek....

Good thing the washer's here - baseball practice started last week.

Go HERE to check out my soon-to-be-posted house rules

National Grammar Day

I'd like to thank the pitifully few grocery stores which have express lanes for orders of "10 Items or Fewer". If it's a number that you can count it's "fewer"; if it is an amount that cannot be enumerated it's "less". There is less snow on the ground today but there are fewer snowflakes.

BIG pet peeve - can you tell?

Today, March 4, 2008 is National Grammar Day. Here are a few relevant blogs for your edification.

Literally: a weblog
Lowercase L
Evolving English
Newswriting.com
Grammar Girl
Doc Durden's Guide to Good Grammar

Ear piercing time

This was supposed to take place in October for her 8th birthday... our calender is a little slow.





She chose NY Yankees earrings!

Nothing much

new here. Just the typical bad week. Root canal on Tuesday after waiting very uncomfortably for our new insurance to be ironed out (and still hurting from the infection). Thursday I was hit in the head with the van's tailgate by a very apologetic supermarket clerk. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings....

It goes to Eleven

"It" being The Boy. At this point I would insert a photo which he painstakingly posed of him blowing out the 3 candles that we could find in the drawer, but since we couldn't find either digital camera the photos are on FILM. That I have to have DEVELOPED. When do you think that might happen?? Anyhow, he chose steak for dinner and homemade chocolate cake with homemade frosting. Both excellent choices I must say....

And why is it always windiest on trash days? We've already lost one trash can to the wind. Today I retrieved one from two doors down and the other from the cornfield down the street. And I keep hearing random things hit the house

The Husband is settling into his new job and apparently enjoying it (despite the commute). Especially the part where he gets to tell them what they've been doing wrong. He is their official "Linux Guy" and is trying to make our home a Windows-free Zone, much to my protestations. I use it on our "Kitchen Laptop" willingly, but mine needs to have XP to run some specialty software.

TOMORROW...9pm...ABC...LOST season premiere!

Still recouperating

...but we survived Christmas. Happily, one of our brothers-in-law made Christmas Dinner and my family came over to my in-law's house, so all we had to do was get there. We were all pretty beat from being at all 3 Christmas Eve services. During the 3rd service Younger Daughter leaned over and whispered, "it's boring to hear the same sermon 3 times!". On our way out the pastor congratulated us for completing "the Moravian Trifecta" :-)

We left the festivities quickly Christmas night when younger daughter presented with a sore throat and fever (it wasn't strep as feared). Then after we got home I was sure we were headed for the ER when Wilma accidentally ripped out one of The Husband's contacts with her paw (he's fine as well).

New Year's Eve was quiet - just hanging out at home with games and movies and favorite holiday snacks. And I was more than ready to have school start today! There was much less sniping and bickering in the house today!

In the days leading up to the Big Day I made dozens of bars of soap, 4 jars of sugar scrub, tub truffles and homemade pepperoni - plus labels for all of them. I neglected to photograph most of them, but here's the soap:
That's the lovely and nicely staged photo that The Boy took for me. Here's the one that I took:





Christmas cards are still not all out. At the 11th hour I ordered 1-hour photo cards from Walmart. About a dozen actually got mailed in time.... Every year I swear that I'll start things sooner and yet every year I don't. Maybe 2008 will be the year I get it together.... Miracles do happen!

We did finally get a Christmas tree the Saturday before Christmas (which was also Jenny's first day as a newlywed! love you, J!). We had to go to 4 tree farms to find one open - and unlike NJ nobody seems to sell cut trees from the Kmart parking lot. When we did find one we put the kids to work:





And a few Christmas Eve photos:
Bell Choir (Older Daughter on far left)


Blurry Jr. Choir photo
Younger Daughter 3rd from left



And a dark Christmas morning photo:

Welcome Schoeneckians!

Here's the video that Jim mentioned in choir practice - Team Lachey on "Clash of the Choirs" singing "Flight of the Bumblebee"

(If the video won't load, click the 'play' triangle and it should come up)

Ice, Ice Baby

Blogger won't let me upload pictures again.Grrr

We're finally melting. Many are churches were closed last Sunday due to ice (some for the 2nd week in a row), and school had a 2-hr delay on Monday. Since our driveway is gravel it doesn't take kindly to ice, so my poor minivan has been frozen in all week. It was so slippery that we took the Jeep 4-wheeling across the lawn and parked right outside the back door. I have to admit that it is quite convenient for unloading groceries!

So my Christmas lights never made it up this year, thanks mainly to weather :o( At least we got the wreath on the garage. Heck, we haven't even gotten a tree yet! We finally headed out on Wednesday afternoon and the two tree farms we went to were closed! A week before Christmas! The kids really want to go cut one down, but I'm thinking that if it's going to get put up before Dec. 26th we just need to go get a pre-cut one asap.

Christmas is creeping in on me. Shopping is done (thanks Amazon.com!) but I still have handmade stuff to complete...and a tree to buy and decorate. The Husband is getting sick again - and is supposed to sing a solo on Christmas Eve. At least all of the kids extra activities are done, except for one more choir practice after church on Sunday.

Gotta go get to work!

12 Days of Christmas

Yes, we made it home

Our trip to Maine was uneventful (fortunately) and the kids actually behaved in the back seat. It helped that we borrowed my sister's dvd system so 2 of the kids had video monitors in front of them and the third sat in the middle reading. We got a really late start going up (as in lunchtime instead of pre-dawn), but we made good time until 5 miles form the house. The traffic on Route 3 ground to a halt (all 3 cars) and we were detoured. The phrase "you can't get there from here" definitely applies. The fireman who was directing "traffic" had us going way out of our way. So dad went out to check on things from his end and found us a shorter way. A car and tractor trailer had collided (no injuries) and the truck's cargo was all over the road.

We got home to a yard full of wet leaves - our two maple trees finally dropped their leaves all at once. So I waited a few days for things to dry out so I could go mulch everything with the lawnmower. Then it snowed again on Sunday (lots of area churches cancelled services) and Monday morning we had ice. I may need to give in and find the rake.

The Husband is sick with a major cold or something. He's been sleeping on the couch so that I don't get it and it's bad enough that he claims that he's actually going to call the doctor tomorrow! Shock and awe!

I've been keeping busy trying to get ready for Christmas and doing some crafty stuff that I've been wanting to try. Yesterday I made my first batch of cold process soap. The hardest part was actually finding pure Lye - since it's used in the manufacture of meth it's difficult to come by locally. You can buy it online but since I didn't know if I'd enjoy soapmaking I didn't want to buy 5 lbs of it (I only needed 4 oz.). I finally tracked some down at a little hardware store. I'd take some pictures of the result but I can't find the camera...and I need it because it has our Christmas Card photo on it. Sighhh.

"Flurries"

Baby's First Snowfall








Can you find the 3 pumpkins in this picture? (Hint: they're on a tree stump)


For two years in a row I have ordered Bittersweet Vine seeds and for two years I have been unsuccessful at getting them to sprout. Plus you need both male and female plants in order to get the berries to set, so I finally decided that next spring I would order a pair of plants ($40 plus shipping). Guess what I just found out in the apple tree while taking pictures?




Going to Maine for Thanksgiving. Three kids and one dog in the Jeep. Pray for my sanity.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Someone...

...says he found this picture in the dictionary under "cute". In my dictionary it's under "whiny wolf in cute sheep's clothing".

Some random photos from my camera card

Younger daughter's 8th b'day party - she chose pumpkin pie as her cake



At a Scranton Yankees game



An August hailstorm gave us golfball-sized hail. This is the view from the livingroom window:




Jeeping with the top down:




The tags I made for the 3rd grade's Halloween treat bags:

Really cool website

I recently discovered that my camera holds pictures dating back to the Middle Ages (ok, that's an exaggeration...back to the Reagan Administration). So until I find my usb doohicky (the rabbit ate my camera dock), go edify yourself at this website

Freerice.com donates 10 grains of rice (via the UN) for every vocabulary word that you get right. My vocab rating hovers around 40.