Building a Warthog

Ryan saved up his allowance to get the Warthog from Mega Bloks. It is from the Halo series of games - which he is totally crazy about. If you don't know what it is, just ask him and he will be more than happy to talk your ear off about it!

He very quickly put the turret together and then informed me that I needed to build the Warthog because it was difficult to build and keep together at the same time. He has gotten really good at building Lego type creations, but if it will not stay together as you are building, he gets pretty frustrated. Here he is with the turret (I like it for obvious reasons - it's purple!):

The pieces for the Warthog:

Here I am building away, with Cherry Coke within reach for that quick energy. It takes a lot to build these creations!

I even had a casualty - my fingernail. Or more correctly, my thumbnail. While trying to snap on one of the tiniest pieces I've seen, my fingers slipped and off came a section of my thumbnail. I was tough and made it through the rest of the build:
About halfway through:
The finished Warthog complete with gun on the back and driver:
Ready for some action:
The purple, and blue, turret:

School Fundraising The Yummy Way

I love how Ryan's school handles their fundraiser. There is no selling or buying of things. Instead, we eat out at specific restaurants on specific days and they will give 20% of their school sales to the school. A couple days ago, we ate out at Johnny Rockets and 20% of our bill benefits the school. How much more fun could that be?

The ketchup faces, too bad none of us eat ketchup. So, they stayed nice and pretty during our whole meal:

Ryan and his ketchup face - love the hair on his face:

Love the coke glasses, even though we have the same ones at home, it always seems so fun to use them when out to eat. My vanilla coke tasted so much better there:
I have always loved the Jukebox idea! There's something about jukeboxes and coke glasses - I love them!

Fireball - 4 months later

It was four months ago when Fireball came home with us. We brought him home from school at the end of the science section. I felt pretty confident that this fish would be not survive the week, and here we are four months later and he is so big now! I cannot believe how big he has gotten.

Monkeying Around

After a dentist appointment, Ryan rushed out to play on the playground while I set up his next appointment. When I came out the door, he had a huge smile wanting to show me how easy the monkey bars were for him now. Check it out...

Ryan cruising across the monkey bars - notice his feet touch the ground while his hands are on the bars:

A Fun Visit to My Parents

It's been a pretty long month. My dad was admitted to the hospital because they wanted to try him on some new heart medication and since he has some allergies to different medications the doctor decided to have him in the hospital while they tried out this new medication. Well, it was a good thing that they did. He did not react very well to it. After being there for almost 2 days, he was moved up to ICU and was there for over a week. It was a long stay for all of us. Luckily, my work was pretty light and I was able to get to the hospital pretty often to visit. He came home toward the end of last week. I called the house to check on him and he informed me that when I came over I should bring my camera because he had quite the beard going. Many years ago, after one of his surgeries, they were unable to shave him for a while and his beard started growing in. It was the most beautiful white beard. Since then I have told him he should grow it out. Now mind you, my whole life, I have never seen my father with facial hair. He just never grew it, always clean shaven. So, when he was released from the hospital this time with a pretty decent growth of facial hair, he let me know that I should come visit and take a picture.

Here is the only picture that I know of showing my father with facial hair. I'm pretty sure he's going to shave it off just as soon as he can! Thanks for keeping it long enough for me to get a picture, I think it looks good.

When we went over, I suggested to Ryan that he bring the French Horn, since I was pretty sure that my parents would love to see it in person since it has been all fixed up. Ryan played a couple songs for them:

We were getting ready to leave when Warren and his family stopped by. I thought what a great chance to get a picture of the four French Horn players in my family & with the French Horn with us! I figured since Warren is calling me a romantic with this whole French Horn business, I might as well go all out. So, here I am with two of my brothers - Warren & Kelly along with Ryan that have all played the same French Horn.

Twilight Party

I got this email a couple weeks ago, inviting me to a Twilight party. Now, I love the books as much as everyone else seems to - I am on the last few chapters of the fourth book right now for the third time reading through. They get better and better with each read! I was thrilled to get the invite. It was from a very dear friend of mine, from my stampin' days, and one that I do not get to see nearly as much as I would like to. I knew that there would be other friends that I don't get to see as often as I like there as well. I'm glad I went. We munched on some wonderful food. Marlene (the host of the party) created some beautiful cards for us all to stamp using her Twilight stamps! I didn't even know there was such a thing. We played the Twilight game (which didn't really hold the attention of us all, I don't even think we made it halfway through the game) and then put on the movie. We had so much fun chatting and stamping that it was pretty late by the time we got the movie on.

Here is the gang of Twilight gals that night. Some of us really got into it. There were some fangs, some purple "bruises" under eyes & glittery skin. Diana, one of my oldest "vampire" friends (we go way back in our vampire love, as she put it - "before vampires were cool", and yes there is a story that goes along with that. It took place at like 2 in the morning at her house after a stamping class!!!) "bit" several of us with a sharpie for the bite marks and some red nail polish for the blood. The best was Rhonda showing up with like 2 gallons of glitter all over her. I hear it still hasn't come off after like 3 showers!!! That's dedication for you!

Getting ready to stamp. You can tell we haven't started yet, the table is much too clean!
Marlene and Rhonda:

Rhonda and I getting ready to play the Twilight game. You can tell Rhonda has makeup on, she's paler than me!

Kari looking through a Twilight movie book:

The game pieces showing the Cullen crest:

Let the game begin. I don't know if any of you have played the game or not. I was expecting more trivia and less silliness. There was a lot of "roll the dice to complete this challenge" or "close your eyes and tell what color the walls are in the room that you are sitting in". It was kind of silly. We did laugh a lot while we played it though.

All in all, I had a great time. Thanks again Marlene for hosting such a great time!!!

It's Been 16 years!!!

This past Friday, Doug & I celebrated our 16th anniversary. Our anniversary is on 9-11. although we had already been married several years before it became 9-11. And on that fateful day, we were actually not together, he was across the country for work and had to try to fly home from Florida. It was a very interesting anniversary.

A Meal Fit for a . . . Chicken?

Last night for dinner, we had one of our fall favorites - Spaghetti Squash! It was with some yummy crab stuffed salmon and broccoli. After we enjoyed our dinner, Doug fixed up the spaghetti squash shell with chicken feed and topped it with raspberries and blackberries. So, of course, I had to photograph it.

Check out the presentation for the chickens:

So of course, I had to have a fun time shooting the berries:

Hitting the drive-ins

How can you go wrong - a double feature movie, your own snacks, blankets, pillows all for under $20 for four!!! Not a bad way to spend an evening. And that's just what we decided to do! The weather was perfect & the entertainment around us was just as good if not better than one of the movies we watched. The gates usually open at 6:00pm. We wanted to get there early enough to get a great spot, but not so early that we had to sit and wait for the first movie that started at 8:00pm. So, we rolled into the drive-in about 6:30 and the place was a ghost town! There was one other car there that was driving around trying to figure out where to get in at. We pulled up to the first ticket both, put the car in park, listened to some great music and watched that other minivan driving around. Finally it gave up and pulled in behind us. It's official now - we were the first car in line! Crazy! We went to see the double feature of Shorts and G-Force. After paying, we pulled into the area where our screen was and parked right up front, dead center to the screen! I've never had such a primo location before!!! We pulled out our lawn chairs, our cooler and broke open the KFC bucket! It was yummy. After eating, the boys hopped in the back of our Jeep and set up Yugi-oh cards to battle. The first movie was pretty funny although a little hard to follow. They kept jumping all over the time line a lot. I laughed more than I thought I would and I'm sure somewhere in there there was a lesson to be learned. During that movie, a car decided to wedge itself between us and the minivan to our right. The minivan had all it's doors open, so this new SUV couldn't fit all the way. First of all this new SUV got there much later and was actually interrupting the movie or at least the previews. Then the driver proceeded to get out of her vehicle and demand that the minivan turn off their interior lights or she would have to put a jacket in their window so that it wouldn't bother them. Never mind the fact that she had just pulled up during the beginning of the show with her headlights on all of us that had been there for quite sometime. Whatever. So minivan people turned off all their interior lights and shut their doors. So, SUV took this as a sign to squeeze herself between our two cars. It was a tight fit. I remember looking at Doug and saying there was no way those two cars would be able to open their doors as long as she was there. Well, after the first movie was over, minivan decided to leave. And . . . during the process of packing up she allegedly (I really hate when reporters use this word!!) opened her car door and hit SUV's car. The driver from the SUV immediately got out and made a federal case out of it, complete with reenactment. Well hello, if you hadn't got here late, and insisted on forcing your car into a spot that wasn't big enough for your vehicle, but what do I know? It was crazy. I don't know if insurance information was exchanged or not, but I do believe at one point SUV's teenage daughter wrote down the license plate number of minivan. Good luck with that claim! He said, she said kinda thing. After minivan pulled away, SUV decided she wasn't done getting her anger out and came over to talk to me. Doug & the boys were in the bathroom. Lucky them! I've never wished to be in a public restroom before in my life. I basically told her it was between the two of them. I didn't see her open the car door, I didn't go look for damage and I don't know what happened, I was just here to watch the movie with my family. It took the wind right out of her sails. About 15 minutes into the second movie they left. And another crazy family came and took minivan and SUV's spots. Crazy times at the drive-in. Maybe that's the price you pay for getting such an awesome spot! We did enjoy the movies and all the crazy goings on!

Ryan & his friend setting up Yugi-oh:

Our eats:

Getting ready for the movie:

Really this is the way to watch a movie at the drive-in, blankets and pillows and laying down:
Waiting for the movie to start:

Getting ready to munch on some popcorn as soon as the movie begins:

This was our view of the screen, notice the headlights on the chair? That's from SUV squeezing in to her spot:

We watched the moon come up over the trees beside the movie screen. It was big and beautiful. I tried to capture it as best I could with no tripod. We also watched some lightning off in the distance, it never got close to us!