I am still alive

I bet you thought I dropped off the face of the earth. I am still alive and kicking, barely sometimes. Life has changed for us since my last blog attempt back in August. We have moved into a new house and I am loving it. We hadn't really been talking or thinking about moving because we had just relandscaped the front yard last year. But my sister gave us a opportunity that we couldn't pass up. I don't know if you know it but we bought the house that we were living in from my mom after my dad died so that is the house that I grew up in. I loved that house and at the same time I wanted a new house but with all the memories I had a hard time parting with it. But since my sister and brother in law wanted to buy it I jumped on it because it would still be in the family. So we took their offer and thought we had lots of time because they had to sell their house and with the way the market was we thought that it would be at least 6 months or more before we would have to move. In the mean time school started which meant I had to go back to work which was a good thing because it was a long summer and it was just time to get back into a routine. Well my sister sold her house in 11 days and they had a closing date for the beginning of Nov. which meant we had 29 days to get of the house and since we hadn't even been looking I went into a panic. Well not really but what were we going to do, be homeless. Ugh!!! So into house hunting we went along with looking at rentals because I didn't want to just buy a house to have a roof over our heads. Anyways for some reason this the 1st house we looked at and I fell in love. So did the rest of the family. We did look at 6 others so don't think we bought the one and only one we looked at. I could go on and on but I will stop. The photo above is our new home. The photo below is our Xmas photo taken in our back yard. Hopefully things have slowed down some and I can get back into my once a month update. I mean to blog more but for some reason I just never do.

The last days of summer

Well the summer is almost over and all I can say is that we started out just enjoying the lazy days. Not really doing much of anything. Going to the pool, the mall, bike rides, walking the dog, whatever we wanted. Then 3 weeks ago I decided that all summer long my goal was to clean out the closest and attics that have been accumulating junk for years. So I dug in and one thing lead to another and I was having a garage sale and let me say I will not be doing that for a long long time. That was work and I am suppose to be relaxing but I am happy that it is done and my closest are clean.



As we (or I should say I because I really didn't get any help from my family-haha) were cleaning out crap my husband brought up that we might want to consider moving. What the heck, we just did major landscaping and we were getting the house looking pretty good. But after long talks we decided it just might be the right time for us. As I was talking to my sister one day I mentioned that we might be selling our house she said "No your not because we want to buy it". I had no idea that she would be interested. So we started talking more and more and they gave us offer last night that we accepted. Now the fun begins. They have to sell their house first and I am house hunting. School starts in 2 days, talk about timing. Why didn't we think of this early in the summer when I would have more time. Oh well if it is meant to be it will all work out.





Now on to the many photos that I have posted.


This is my Brother in law Ed. We went to the zoo last week and had a fantastic time. The weather was perfect and the zoo was empty. What more could you ask for. And then you have my sister. What a hoot they both are.

This is Maggi (in the middle) with her cousins Ellie and Emma.

My sister in law and I took Hayley out to the local nature center to get some outdoor shoots for her senior pictures. She took her best friend Amanda and as you can see they had a great time. Take a look at the rainbow behind them. It was another perfect day.
I just love this shot of Maggi as she is running through the field.
Kay don't kill me for this but I thought I better get a picture of the photographer. I kind of like it.
Check out the reflection, pretty cool. Although you should have seen her face as she was wading out in the river. I have to admit I don't think I would have done it. Kind of on the slimmy side for me.
Another photo of the zoo.

Tomorrow I start back to work and the girls start school. I don't know if I am ready or not but at this point it is not a option. HAHA. Oh and it is suppose to be 90 degrees and the schools don't have air conditioning. Wish us luck.

OK Yeah it has been awhile

I don't even know why I started this blog. I should be fired because I just can't seem to update our life on a regular basis. That being said I will try to give a glimps of our summer.

Nope you didn't miss a thing. It has been very low keyed. Not much of anything has been going on. Maggi and I try to do something everyday like go for a bike ride, take Jack for a walk, go to the pool or water park and sometimes we just chill. Hayley has a job every other week babysitting her cousins which works out perfect because on her weeks off she can enjoy her summer.

We are planning a trip to the zoo and hopefully we will go and visit my niece at college for a mini vacation and school shopping.

Here are few photos of what we or I have done recently.

We went Blueberry picking and did we have a awesome time. Believe it or not Maggi and I even made a pie with the fresh berries and it was yummy. If you really knew me you would know that I must have had a outer body experience because I normally don't do pies.

This is the look that I got from Maggi when I was singing a song (I can't remember what it was now) while picking berries.

The last 2 pictures were taken while Kay, Alison and I decided to take a road trip down some back roads to find old things to practice taking pictures. We had a great time but it made Kay nervious to park on the side of the road so we could get out to take pictures. Maybe it was the no trespessing signs. HAHA. We are going to have to do it again, it was a great time.

Just a recap of the last couple of weeks

Well it looks like blogger isn't going to cooperate today so I hope this isn't going to look to funny. If it does oh well, I am sorry but at least I am updating right?





I am also sorry for the Xrated photo above. It is just a photo of our idiot dog. This is actually the way he sleeps. We swear that he isn't all together there. He definitely is missing some brain cells, but we love him all the more for that. He starts obedience school next week. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he passes. It's going to take a miracle.






This is a photo of Hayley at her Honors Program. Yes we are proud of her. She is already planning her graduation party for next spring. UGH!!! I can't even think about that yet.


This is Maggi and her teacher Ms. Thomson. Maggi has loved her from the first day of school. She is wonderful and has such a fun way of teaching. I know Maggi is going to miss her but with her moving on to Middle school I am sure she will be just fine. Plus she lives only l block away and we see her out walking all the time that we will be able to keep up on her life.

We have had a very busy and stressful couple of weeks. It all started on Mother's Day weekend. Hayley had a all day tennis tournament Saturday and I was suppose to be cleaning because I was having my family over for a cookout on Sunday to celebrate Mothers Day and 2 birthday's. But I wanted to suport her so I was at the courts most of the day and then when I got home I had to do the laundry and clean the house plus try to get as much of the food prepared as I could. That is food for the dinner I was making and then a couple of dishes that I had to make to take to my mother in laws at noon Sunday. When I went to bed I was exhausted. Got up on Sunday and vacuumed and dusted, got the rest of my food ready then went to my MIL for lunch which was fun. I ended up having to take Scott home because his back was hurting him so much he just couldn't get comfortable. He hurt so bad that I had to call my sister to make emergency arrangements to have everyone come over to her house for dinnner. I had all the food so she was ok with it, thank goodness. So I had to do all the grilling (which Scott was going to do as my Mother's Day present) and then haul it all over to my sisters house. Needless to say she liked the idea because she didn't have to do a thing. I even had all the paper plates and everything.

Well Tuesday came around and I was at Hayley's honors program and it was 8:30 am. My phones rings and it is my sister telling me that my mother had another stroke. Thank goodness the program was over so off to the hospital trying to get a sub for work while driving. I know not safe but it was a emergency. Oh I had to stop by the house and pick up Maggi and get her to school also. After spending all morning in ER and getting mom all settled I went into work. I came home that evening got dinner, went to the hospital to see my only to have my phone ring
again. Scott's back starting hurting so bad that he wanted me to take him to ER. So off to pick him up and we spent the rest of the evening in ER to find out that he has kidney stones. We leave at 11:15 (oh I forgot one of the same nurses that was with my mom was still there working double shift so we were getting a laugh about me being there 2 times in one day with 2 different people) drop Scott off at home and off I went to the 24 hr. drug stores to get his drugs. Then I couldn't get to sleep.

A couple of days later someone hits my side mirror on my car while it was parked and didn't even leave a note. My battery in my car also died 2 days after that.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that things will get better. I am not going to let it get to me because it won't do any good. One day at a time.

I will end this with my Mom and Scott and both fully recovered and we only have 8 more days of school. Watch out summer vacation here I come.

I shouldn't be a blogger

I just can't seem to update this thing on a regular basis. Please don't give up on me. But as you can see by the pictures we have had a busy week and weekend. All I can say is that I am very proud of Hayley and that the weekend is over. It was dance dance and more dance.

And to top it off the Tuesday before I was in ER with my mother. She had another stroke. She is fine now and you wouldn't even know that she had one. That same evening I was in ER with my husband. I have never seen him in so much pain. They think he had a kidney stone and sent him home with drugs. Ugh!!! Come to find out he went to his Dr. the next day and had more test done and come to find out it wasn't stones or if it was they had passed by the time they took the cat scan. Now he is on the mend. He still is very sore but the worst pain is gone and he has gone to work for the last 2 days thank goodness. He is a very very very bad patient. It was not a good time around here. I was a little stressed from both of them and then the dance recital. I had to alter 3 outfits and they all gave me a hard time. For some reason my sewing machine was not my friend. Thank god for my sister in law, she came to my rescue at the last minute.

Well I will leave you with 2 very blurry photos (don't worry, I am not going to become a photographer). For some reason I can never get the setting right in that auditorium.

More vacation photos

The bird that is with Maggi is Lisa. She is the welcoming committee at the hotel and Maggi sure enjoyed see her everyday. She was a fun bird and we really liked seeing her all over the hotel. She even has her own suite that she lives in.

We are Home and I already want to go back

Can you tell that we had a AWESOME time. We don't go someplace every year but this year we decided to go south. Yes the cold long Michigan winter was getting to us. I think because it has been a long one more than anything. So We packed our bags and jumped a plane to Sand Key Florida. WOW was it gorgeous. I will be going back. The hardest part of the whole trip was trying to decide if we should go to the beach or the pool.

Can you tell that we had gorgeous weather. These photos have not been touched they are straight out of the camera. I know they could use some touching up and I will when I get more time. We had blue sky and between 80 and 85 degrees. I have been cold ever since we got back. I don't know if I will ever warm up.

Maggi had been trying to get a bird to land on her finger for a long time when all of a sudden one landed on Scott's backpack.

This is Bert. Maggi made a new friend while we were gone. Normally you can't feed the animals but we were talking to the caretaker and she was actually from MI and really like Maggi so she gave Maggi a hand full of food and Bert fell in love.

Can you see the hippo? He was so cute if you can call a hippo cute.

I will post more photos shortly. I just have to decide which ones since I took about 400. Not all good either. I really need to work with my camera more so I can get better photos

I can't believe I haven't blogged since January

Well I guess I will start with a recent photo of our puppy. He isn't a little puppy anymore. Boy do the grow up fast. He is only 4 months old and already 32 pounds of energy. I still love him even though he is full of the dickens.



Next here is a photo that I took today of Maggi holding this butterfly. She was so excited when on landed on her finger. We were at the butterfly house and it was full of gorgeous butterflies. She had been trying to get one to land on her which seemed forever (only about a 1/2 hour) and she was getting ready to throw in the towel when this pretty little thing landed right on her finger. I wish I had got a photo of the look on her face. Well that just means we will have to go again so I can capture that memory.

3rd is a photo of our beloved Boots. We are heart broken. He just hadn't been acting himself for a couple of days so I took him to the vet on Thursday. The poor thing had to go through some test and we got the results yesterday. He has Fatty Liver Disease. If we can't get him to eat a few days his liver is going to start to shut down. We can have a feeding tube inserted and that would be in place for about 8 weeks and that would mean we would have to feed him about 6 times a day through the tube and still the vet couldn't give the odds of survival. We are trying everything to get him to eat.

Lastly my Grandmother died last week. She just turned 90 in January, what a milestone. She had another heart attack a couple of weeks ago and then she came down with pnemonia so I am happy that she is not in pain anymore.

The weekend is almost over and my house looks like war zone so I better get moving to get the laundry started and pick up the house.

Have a great day and if I don't blog in a short while someone remind me.

Our new addition to the family

Meet ___________, well we actually don't have a name for him yet. His mothers name is Jazzmine and his dad is Jackson. If you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know. Well sorry this is short but I have to go play.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Whew, I can't believe that it is over. It seems like I just decorated and stressed out about what to get all my loved ones. And it is done, over, and a New year is here. Make note to self that when writing a check it is now 2008. Well it will be June before I will get that right. But anyways it was a wonderful holiday filled with family and friends. Hayley and Maggi had a great time. Take a look at their faces on the photos. I think they were happy with their new toys. Hayley wanted a Ipod touch and Maggi wanted a Wii (well that didn't happen, Santa had a hard time getting his hands on one of those) and a Ipod nano (which was alot easier to get).

My Grandmother turns 90 years old next week so we had a belated Christmas and early Birthday party last weekend. She is such a wonderful lady and trooper. She has had 3 minor heart attached in last month and we weren't sure if she would want to come. Well you can't keep that lady down. She is so full of energy I wish she would share it with me. HAHA. As you can see from the last photo we had a load of family member present for the occasion. That is only about 1/2 of them. Some couldn't make it but at least all of her 7 kids were there.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I must go and get the laundry done because we start back to school tomorrow and that means I have to go back to work. Ugh. The fun is over.

Oh Happy Day

I woke up this morning with a killer headache, stuff nose and lack of energy. UGH!!! I had some really big plans for the day. Get all the groceries for Christmas Eve dinner (which I am hosting for Scott's side of the family) , pick up and organize the house (the real cleaning is going to be done tomorrow), and the laundry oh and pay the bills. Needless to say, I did go to the store and got the groceries and I did the bills. That is it, I have been a bum ever since. I then thought why not get the whole family involved since they are the ones that will benefit from all of this. So Scott is doing the laundry, Maggi is putting bows on the presents, Hayley is cleaning her room and then will clean the bathroom (well that is when she gets home from shopping with friends). I told them if they didn't pitch in and help then I will hold back all the presents until it is done.

I am a happy camper, while doing the bills I was able to payoff all of the credit cards, and Scotts truck. We paid off the house in June. It is such a wonderful feeling. I know it won't last long because we are looking at new cars already. Mine is 8 years old, I still like it and is very reliable but we need something that is such a tank and gas hog. But actually when we started looking we found out that my Expedition is better on gas than some of the newer smaller cars. Oh well I already have my heart set on a new one. What kind I am not sure yet but I am leaning heavy on the Honda CRV's. After Christmas we will get to work and hopefully be driving a new car or truck or suv or crossover.

I hope everyone has a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

I bet you thought I drop off the planet

Nope just been busy busy busy. I should be in a routine by now since school started in Sept. but for the life of me I just can't do it. Now that the Christmas is so near I am crazy busy trying to buy present, get the house ready, along with the every day chores that I just never seem to catch up with. Today was shopping for Xmas and groceries and then it was home to do the laundry. Yesterday was cleaning and getting ready for 22 teenages that were coming over for dinner. No I didn't have to cook because it was a progressive dinner, some of the kids made the dinner and I must add it was FABULOUS. We just had to give them a place to eat. It was a fun time.

Here is the photo that I finally decided on for our Christmas cards. Not my fav but it was the only one that both girls were looking at me and that Hayley approved of. Ugh. For some reason I had a hard time getting them together to even try to take a picture. What the heck, last year they were begging me to get the camera out.



I hope everyone is enjoying this time of year and not getting too stressed. I do get alittle stressed but I try to tell myself that it will all get done and what doesn't is not a big deal. We have a few parties coming up and the girls are getting excited (OK so am I}. I am hosting my dh family Xmas eve and I love doing it. It is very relaxed and I love watching the kids open there presents. It is a magical time. Let the counting begin - 16 days. HAHA.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

THE MOM SONG

I ran across this on another site and just had to share it here. I laughed my butt off because it is so true. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Photo Shoot Cont.

My sister called the other day to ask if I could come over with my camera to take FUN photos of her step kids. The only pictures that they have of the girls were JC Penney type which does not show the girls personalities. So off I went with camera in hand thinking to myself, what the heck am I doing? I am still trying to learn my camera and I am going to take photos of cute little girls to hang on their living room walls. UGH!!! Then I thought, this is my sister not like it was a complete stranger and I am not chargering her so if they turn out like crap, not a big deal.

Actually I was very pleased with alot of them. I know I need more help but heck I am just a beginner and I am proud of some of the photos. Well when you have 2 little girls that love to ham it up in front of the lens, how could I not get at least one good. Here are just a few that I took with a couple of my girls because they seem to want to get in the pictures. Thanks for looking and any advise will be helpful.

Photo Shoot

Happy Labor Day

And let me say that I really didn't do much today. You know with it being Labor Day and all. I woke up this morning and wanted to get alot done but after being up and drinking a pot of coffee I had changed my mind. It is a womans right to change her mind right? So we did a little last minute school shopping and I did finish the laundry. I still need to put that away but it might just wait until tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow it is our first day of school. Part of me is looking forward to it and the other part is dreading it. The first week I come home totally drained. Physically and mentally. Phew!!! Just thinking about it poops me out. It is time to get back into a routine if you can call our life routine. We have had a awesome summer and it is going to be hard to get up in the morning. But it has to be done and give me a week and everything will be fine.

Here are some pics of my girls that I took a couple of weeks ago when I went out to our local Nature Center with my SIL Kay and friend Alison. I can't wait to do it again.

One of the worst days of my life

I had to take our little kitty Lucy (well she was about 5 years old) to be put to sleep today. I didn't think it would affect me as much as it is. A friend of ours found her in a drainage ditch when she was about 6 weeks old so we took her in. She never really got very big, she was a petite little thing. But anyways she has also had a mental problem lets say. She was not a social cat and we only saw her occasionally. She camped out under my bed most of the time. We still loved her. The last year she has taken it upon herself to use anything in the house to use as her litter box. We have taken her to the vet to make sure that she didn't have a medical problem and she didn't. So we put up with it long enough. Something had to be done. I just need to vent and thought this would be the best place. My girls are not taking it any better than I am. I told my dh that the next time a pet needs to be put to sleep he is taking it. It just hurt so much.

ROCK ON!!!!

Well I have gone to a few concerts in the last couple of days. And I am going to another next week. WOW I feel like a party animal LOL. It all started when my SIL called and had extra tickets to Sugarland. I listen to their music but never thought about going to see them until she called. It was a awesome concert and would see them again. Here is the only photo that is half way decent (not good but you can see Jennifer Nettles, where all my others are blurry) I need to learn how to use my camera or at least remember to put it on auto.



Here is a photo of the warm up band Emerson Drive.



Yesterday I took Maggi to the Corbin Bleu/Drake Bell concert and we rocked out. It was her first concert and she was so cute. I think she sang to all of the songs and had a great time. So did I, LOL. Corbin put on a awesome show. He is a fantastic dancer.