Our Day Trip to Anderson Island

My sister wanted to take the kids and I somewhere and she had wanted to take the kids to Anderson Island for a long time, so on Wedneday she took us. It was the record hottest day for us here. In the triple digits and some places 104 degrees. It was HOT!!
We're about to board the fairy. It wsn't too hot at this time and the fairy ride provided a cool breeze which was nice.

Here's my kids

Here's my sis and me.

Once we got to the island we went straight to an espresso stand that my sister knows about. She actually got her cat there a year or so ago.

She had stopped in for a mocha and the owner had some kittens for sale. My sister's cat had died at the age of 13 and she fell in love with these kittens. They were Persians like her deceased cat. She picked one out & took him with her.

Wouldn't you know there was a picture on the wall of some more kittens for sale. No, we did not buy another cat and neither did my sister.

We bought some drinks for all of us and sat there to finish them while these fellas played music outside in the 90 degree weather. They were good.

The kids had Root Beer Floats and we had our mochas.

Then we went next door to the General Store and bought some sandwiches for lunch. This store had everything. There were even nice sheds out back with all the hardware supplies in them. It's a small town Home Depot!

This is Lake Florence. As you can see, there weren't too many people there when we arrived around noon. We got right in.

Here's my sister relaxing on the float she brought. She brought two so we all took turns sitting or laying on them all day long. They were perfect.

Here's my sis with my kids.

Here I am with my kids. I don't know what my son is doing. I must have poked him or something.

My daughter.

My sister.

Now look at the dock. Lot's of people showed up to swim and jump in the water. The splash is my son's.

My son is going to jump in again. I never got him in the air. He had a good time. We all had a good time. It was very refreshing to be in the water all day. When we got home it was HOT, HOT, HOT in our car, outdoors, in our house. Whew!

We got back on the fairy and said good-bye to Anderson Island. What a beautiful day.

Hello mainland!

My Dad's 88th Birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated dad's 88th birthday. It is amazing to me that we've been blessed to have our parents with us for so long. God knew some of us needed more time to appreciate them for all they've done for us.

I think that since I wasn't a believer until I was thirty, it took me longer to appreciate my folks. I'm glad God gave me these years to grow up and learn to love and appreciate my dear parents. I digress, but for good reason.

We went to an Asian restaurant that my parents like and go to often called Wendy's Two. We ordered several types of food. It seems like I was eating for a long time. I like the food there too.


We have our food and are passing things on the lazy susan thing in the middle.

This is part of us. From the left are:
my daughter, my sister, my mom, my dad.



This is my son and my hubs.




This is the birthday boy! There is the dessert in front of him, Mmmmm!

Dad opened some gifts. He has some books to read and look at now. He loves reading, but his vision is bad so he uses a magnifier now.




We gave him a book about the places in the Bible. There are a lot of pictures which should make the reading easier.




This is what is left of the fruit tart. It was so good. It was very good!

The last piece was shared by my son & my sister.





And here's the family. I do have two brothers, but they live in other states.

I'm on the right if you don't know me yet.

Happy Birthday, dear daddy, happy birthday to you!!

A Walk Down Memory Lane July 29, 2009

Come for a walk with me down Memory Lane!
And if you have a "Memory Lane" post, head on over to Scottsville to join in on the fun!


Thanks, Erica for hosting this. I enjoy walks down memeory lane.

As a kid, our family used to go camping every summer. We had some favorite places we went every year. The ocean, a friends' cabin on a lake, and this mountain campground.

I think I'm nine or ten years old here. I loved walking on the big fallen logs. I played in the woods and the creeks at this very primitive campground near the mountain.

There were only very old outhouses with four holes. I hated that more than anything especially in the dark when mom made us go use the restroom before we went to bed. Oooooh icky!

What a beautiful, green place this was. The creek was so cold it made any body part hurt that met with it's mountain chill. Oh so refreshing when it did get hot up there though.

Good times camping. My folks did a lot of hard work so we could go camping. A whole other story.

The Tent - I Am So Done With It!!

I know some of you have seen these tent pictures, or most of them anyway, but I just want you to know I am not going to mess with it anymore. The kids haven't taken to the idea of sleeping out there or even playing out there. Hey, I gave it a whirl!

Thanks, Hope for the great idea. It really was a good thing for me to do. My kids will remember the summer mom and dad made them a tent. We will keep it and try again next year. Hop over to Hope's blog and see her Summer Club posts. They are so fun!

The kids can take it from here if they're interested. H has ventured into it a time or two and JB and his friend ran through it several times the other night, but other than that, no interest. The poor thing blew over or fell over today. I don't know why, it's not really windy. HOT, but not windy! I'll go out there later and survey the scene.

This is the tent in it's beginning stage. Draping it over the clothes line did not work. Duh!!

So my hubs got involved. This was good! And two or three weeks later we had a frame, LOL! I'm LOL at the time lapse. Then the poor thing fell all to pieces one day.

The frame couldn't hold the weight of the sheets. So a week or so later more pieces were added and we kept looking at it to see what else it needed. We glued all the PVC pieces together (except for the top center piece), added some clamps and some twine to hold that puppy down.

It stayed like this for a week or so. H layed down there for thirty seconds and said "Ahhhh!"

(Look at the grass...it is sooooo dry. I can't believe it was this dry so early in the summer. It usually rains until well after the 4th of July. This year the grass was dry by the 4th.)

Then she saw a little spider and it was all over. As I said, "I am so done with it", but it was fun and it kept me busy. My creative juices were flowing and it was not in vain because I needed the action in my life.

I can say I made a tent this summer and my hubby helped. I can say it was fun and the cat layed in it a few times too. So kids don't always take to our idea of what's fun, but I learned that this summer too. Oh, Lord you are magnificent and funny. I love you!

Kreativ Blogger Award 2009

It seems that Hope over at My Hope is in the Lord has selected me to receive the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thank you, sweet Hope. It is an honor to get this award from someone who is so creative. It is also an honor to be selected along with these other very creative bloggers.

This award is given to bloggers whose blogs are interesting and have a lot of creativity. Thank you Hope!

It has been fun blogging these past three months. I never knew that I would enjoy it so much. The creativity has actually been awakened from years of slumber. Reading all of your blogs inspires me and gives me ideas. I feel like I can be creative or go and do creative things again.

I think I put myself on hold to be the boss-mom. I set aside things because they weren't convenient or controllable. I felt I couldn't complete anything so I just wouldn't start anything. Call me crazy, but I guess that is how I cope.

Now that my kids are older I feel like we can go do crazy, fun things. Many mom's don't miss a beat when they have kids. They take their kids everywhere and do everything. I am not so adventurous and I like control and order (oh there's that word again).

So now I will get started on fulfilling the award expectations. I am going to tell seven things about myself that most of you do not know. I did this once with another award, but I think I can come up with seven more thanks to Kat at Art's Chili. She thought she was fresh out of things to tell about herself, but her creative mind helped her to come up with an idea. Her love for coffee helped her out.

1) My love for gardening, as limited as it may be, came from the last job I had at
a nursing home as an Activity Assistant. My Director gave me the job to begin a
raised garden program for the residents in their courtyard. I learned a lot and
have enjoyed planting and tending small gardens ever since. There is much, much
more to learn.

2) As a child, my dream was to grow up, get married and have five kids. Well I
didn't follow that dream. It was a good dream, but I chose to do things without
God's help. Thank God He patiently watched and protected me as I made my way.
I got married to a guy who wanted to wait. Then I had a miscarriage, then I got
divorced. At age 34 I was introduced to the real husband. We got married. At
that age two kids sounded more sensible. I'd like one boy and then one girl. I
wasn't asking for much. At age 37 I had a boy and twenty months later I had
a girl. Isn't God creative and loving and smart? I know He is.

3) I always thought my kids would be athletes. I have one techy and one actress/
artist/ singer. God knows best.

4) I played basketball for about two years. I lacked the confidence to "go to the
hoop" as a forward which drove my coach nuts. She wanted me to try and do well,
but I gave up and quit. I'm still kicking myself. I loved watching our boys
basketball team play in high school. It helped that they were state champions
or vying for it all three years of high school.

5) I used to love water skiing and jet skiing. As a matter of fact I got pretty good
at both. Can't afford it now and my back couldn't take it either.

6) I learned to scuba dive in October when the bay water was only 40 to 45 degrees.
Now that was invigorating. I thought my heart would stop when I let the water
into my wet suit. WHEW!

7) I actually like doing laundry. I do it everyday as long as I'm home. It's a
mindless time filler while waiting for a Doctor's office to call, kids to finish
homework, a reason to get out of a room or off my behind.

I did laundry for my SIL while we visited them for two weeks last summer. She
had a pile of dirty clothes in the master bedroom that was three feet wide and
up to my thighs.

She was taking summer school working on her Masters in nursing. I knew I could
be of help and I would feel like I was contributing something to their household
while we loafed around at their house for two weeks eating their food, etc.

So there they are, seven things you may not have known about me. Now I have to choose seven bloggers who I would like to give the award to and why.

First will be Barbara at Barbara's Bakin N Bits. She is creative in many ways, but her recipes are awesome. You've got to go over and look at the pictures of the food she prepares. You'll know what I mean. (Sorry I'm having trouble linking to Barbara)Be sure to go over and visit her blog.

Next I'll choose Christine at Vista Woman. Christine wrote a post that caught my attention. It was very creatively written and it made me want to know her more. Go over and read What Hat Are You Wearing? You'll love it. She also gives me advice for getting a job with a school district. Thanks Christine.

Third, I'm awarding Mich, over at Mich the Kreativ Blogger award because Mich is creatively honest about her life and her family. She doesn't pretend to be something she isn't. I love how she shares her stories and thoughts.

FourthI'm choosing my daughter over at Hannah's Faves because she is using her blog to share art in a way I never thought she would. She is a good story teller, but she is writing stories in another venue where she gets immediate feedback from others who are chatting. You go Hannah!!

Fifthis Heather at Want What You Have. Heather is frugal and creative about it. She and her husband have a very cool story about getting out of debt, that we all can learn from. She is a sensible, down to earth mother of some gorgeous kids.

SixthI'm awarding Renee at Glow Academy because she has all kinds of ideas for kids and moms. She also changes her blog look a lot so you can always be surprised and creatively blessed with her creativity.

And seventhwill be Lauren at Walking By Faith. Lauren is a creative writer. She shares God's love and His work in her life so creatively. And she and her husband have a very creative engagement story. So sweet, you have to meet Lauren.

My Daughter Was in a Play

This past week my daughter spent everyday rehearsing for a play, King Arthur's Quest. The parks department partners with the Missoula Children's Theatre (MCT) every year to put on a play with the local kids as the characters. You may have heard of the MCT coming to your town. They travel all over the USA and some other countries as well.

This year my daughter went to the audition. There were 65 kids and they all got parts. There were kids ages five up to 18. They were all there to do some serious acting. And they did a great job in just one week.

Two directors got these kids acting within moments of organizing them by height. I was amazed! By the end of that first day (about two hours) they had all of the actors selected and scripts were handed out.

By the second day most of the kids had most of their lines memorized. H enjoyed an easier role this year. She has been in our church musical theatre for the last four or five years. Last year she had a lot of lines and it was stressful, but she did a fantastic job. She sang and danced by herself too.

Here she is (in the pink) on the second day getting ready for rehearsal in the gym. As you can see she dresses with a little bit more flair than me. I never had the confidence to dress with flair or act in a play when I was her age.

My dad and mom came to the matinee. Mom brought a beautiful bouquet to give to H after the play.

They gave us a photo op after each performance because no flash photography was allowed. So here are the Damsels In Distress. H is the one on the right in dark blue. She loves blue so she was happy.

The director kept giving them cues to pose accordingly. So there were lot's of opportunities for pictures. Of course I took several, but I'll spare you some of them.

Mom, Dad and H in front of our house after the first performance. She had to keep her make-up on for the second performance. It was hot and H doesn't like it hot. She was trying to be patient with my picture taking.

Here are the main characters. They were very good and funny.

These are the "minis", the miniature version of the main characters. When the giant comes out the minis replace the regular actors. It was so cute. These little kids were quite a hit with the crowd.

These are the Knights and their Squires. Each Knight had a specific behavior that they had to portray, such as depressed, afraid, sarcastic, etc. Their lines and their Squires' lines reflected these behaviors throughout the performance.

A funny pose of the Damsels. They were eating up the photo ops. They all seemed to have a great time this week.

My hubby, my son, my MIL and I all went to the evening performance. Sorry it's a dark picture. I really need to learn all of the great options my camera has. My son tries to show me, but I don't remember them when I need them.

I sure have enjoyed all of the plays my kids have been in. I am used to being a helper, but this year I didn't help. I watched and enjoyed the surprises that a performance brings to the stage.

I Have Microsoft!!

Some of you are probably saying, what else is there? I'll just say I now have Microsoft on my own computer at my own desk and can blog and read blogs without the pressure of my hubby wanting to be at his desk and just do his thing.

You see, my husband builds all of our computers from free computers that people give to him. He also tries to find everything free or cheap to make repairs on our computers. I am grateful for these things.

For some reason he didn't want Microsoft on our computers. He had it as an option on his, however. I dunno! So I have had Linux on mine and it has worked well until I started blogging and it just wasn't working.

When I started blogging my system (Linux) suddenly wasn't compatible with whatever (I'm so computer savvy, not!) So I had to use my hub's computer which has Microsoft and Linux on it. I was fine with it, until my hubs had this week off and he wanted to just use his computer whenever he wanted to. As he should be able to. I was usually sitting there trying to blog at those times.

He decided that he would finally put Microsoft on my computer too. So this week, in addition to all of the other things my hubby did , he installed Microsoft on my computer. I am happy to be blogging to you from my own desk.

I'll post more later today when I get back from my dad's 88th birthday lunch. Have a nice day and evening.

Taking A Night Off

Thank you if you dropped by, but I'm taking tonight off. My daughter was in a play and I went to both productions today so I'm tired.

So I'll leave you with scripture because that's the best thing to do.

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Romans 4:22-24

Thanks be to God for this gift. Have a great night and Sunday.

Painting H's Room

My husband had some vacation time that he had to take before the end of August so he decided to paint our daughter's room. Then he said "We might as well replace the window." That always makes me cringe. The project becomes bigger and bigger, but there was water damage on the wall so what better time than now. Yikes!

This is what the living room has looked like all week. Poor H has been trying to find her stuff in this mess. The deal was, she had to get rid of a lot of stuff and we'll get her a desk.

Right now she is sorting and organizing and putting things away. I'm proud of her because she really dislikes being organized. I think she's excited to have her room painted.

The first thing my hubby did was take out the window. Do we have a new window? No. So this is what it looked like everyday while he was working on it. At night, there was a beautiful piece of plywood in that space.

Here he is working in a very hot room to get it painted. He patched holes and fixed doors and such.

The old color was light gray and it was painted 10 1/2 years ago. I made the curtains back then too. I'll need to make or buy some more. H wanted blue and she picked a really dark blue, but it is very pretty.

My hubs showed H how to paint so she could help a little.

She painted a little and didn't even get any on her clothes. Yay!

She's pleased and thankful. Unfortunately her dad had to paint the room three times and use two cans of paint to get it to look consistently the same shade all over. Some folks didn't mix it well at the store and someone else didn't stir it at home. He is so patient and keeps plugging along to get it right.

Here's the wall with the closet. She picked even darker blue for the trim. We left the doors for now. She has her art on both doors and it'll take some work to get all the tape off.

I fixed her bed up and took a picture. It'll never look like this again believe me so I thought I'd saver the moment.

Do we have window yet? No. Gotta find the best deal. Too bad we didn't research this a long time ago. Oh well, hubby put the old one back in sort of. One piece is broken so there's plywood there until we get a window and hubby has more time off, which will be in a couple weeks again.

Another project almost finished. H has waited a long time for this change. Just in time cuz she'll be off to camp next weekend and then we need to get ready for school.

Oh, we did get a desk today through Craig's List. It was only ten miles away. Now she can draw and do homework on her new desk. Yay!

What Is Letterboxing?

It seems that some of you are curious about Letterboxing (LB).

Your comments have expressed a desire to know more and
Kat over at Art's Chili suggested that I write a post explaining it.

I have only gone three times and am no expert, but I'll do my best. The source I went to to learn specific information first was Letterboxing North America. I looked at the section on getting started. Another Web site that I've mentioned before that has the locations and clues and all the latest of the LB community is Atlas Quest. Be sure to check these two sites out.

Erica over at scottsville is also another source. She has been LB longer than I have and she and her kids enjoy it too. She has some posts and pictures of her LB outings.

I became interested in LB when a friend from church, Ms Jenny, had her notebook with her one day. She tried to explain it then. Her son also tried to explain it one day when some of our Awana kids went on a hike.

I asked Ms Jenny a year or so later about it again and then I asked if she would take us and show us. She and her son were kind enough to do so.

I'm going to quote the Letterboxing North America site in explaining, "Letterboxing is an intriguing 'treasure hunt' style outdoor activity. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes (or baggies) in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites...Individual letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp...Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook."

"To get started, you'll need a 'trail name,' rubber stamp, pencil or pen, small (I have a medium size) sketch book, one or more ink pads or brush markers, a simple compass, and clues." I am finding the ink pad difficult to use so I may get the brush markers some day. They are smaller and easy to use.

From here out I suggest going to the Letterboxing North America Web site which gives seven easy steps to getting started.

This is our LB backpack which we keep everything in and we take it with us each time. I make sure it has it's supplies re-stocked if necessary. I take water bottles, the camera, money, band aids, hand sanitizer, wipes, snacks, whatever I'm in the mood for hauling around. I don't have a compass in there yet. So far I haven't needed one.

Just a note, I am a Finder, I haven't hidden any yet. I'd like to get more familiar with it before I start hiding them. It sure seems like it would be fun, but you do have to make sure your LB is maintained and follow the notes people leave on your site. Responding as necessary for repairs or better clues or whatever.

Here are the items I leave in the backpack at all times. I recommend allergy medicine if you or a family member tends to have outdoor allergy problems.

I also keep a stick in the car or find one when I get there to move bushes and stuff aside as needed. It is expected that LBers will try not to destroy any natural vegetation or move large stones or logs without returning them to the location they were found.

This is our sketch book that we collect stamp imprints on. The spiral type lays flat and is easy to stamp on. I stamp and put the name of the stamp and the date in my book.

The nice thing is it is a free activity for the most part. The clues are free and all the fun community information is free at Atlas Quest. Go there and get started by finding a location that you may want to go. On the upper right side of the Home Page you'll see "Location based search". Type in the Location Box the place you want to go. Select the distance from home in miles that you are willing to go and click search.

You will see locations, LB names, symbols, etc. Click or hover over the symbols and you'll find out information that will be helpful to you.

Once you are ready, register yourself on Atlas Quest. Each time you find a LB you go to the site and record your find and leave any notes for the owner if you want to.

You can create a profile page and read other LBers profile pages. It depends how involved you want to get. You can send e-mails to them, you can find Erica or myself and look at our profiles and finds. It's fun!

I think I'll leave it at that because I don't want to overwhelm anyone. Take your time searching and preparing and then head out to a destination. Be sure to take pictures and post all about your adventures. HAPPY LETTERBOXING!