Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Wordless Wednesday: A Pirate Says "Arrrrr...."




Wordless Wednesday

Spooky




The theme this week is spooky and I looked back a couple of years and found this one. I couldn't find one that looked any spookier to me than this one! I enjoy the lighter version of costumes like clowns and princesses but I realize teenagers are drawn to the Dark Side. Happily (for me anyway) this costume lasted one year.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Weekend Snapshot Memory #8



My son, AKA Will The Thrill, dressed and ready to do a magic show!

Weekend Snapshot Memory

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pink

Photo Scavenger Hunt



Oh, what are you, pretty little fluffy thing?




Are you something good to eat?



Are you a toy?



Mom Bean thinks you might be a hat for me.



I don't think so, I don't like hats! Pink thing, I guess you will remain a mystery!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Scary!


Photo Challenge

Today's theme is scary and I went back to last year's Halloween pictures to retrieve a shot of my daughter in costume. She looked very scary to me! I think she was supposed to be Alice Cooper!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wordless Wednesday: Nana's Boy



More Wordless Wednesdays here

Monday, October 15, 2007

Weekend Snapshot #6

Weekend Snapshot

One of my favorite things to do in the fall is to visit a family farm open to the public for picking pumpkins, hayrides and what have you. We finally had a perfect autumn like weekend and so on Sunday, we piled into the van and went to Johnson's Farm, about 40 minutes south of us.



Johnson's is a large farm and they have a lot of different activities, I was pleased to see ... at first. You could go on a hayride and either pick your own pumpkins or take the easy way out and just pick them at their market.



Here's the thing...they have a real racket going on and I bet they make plenty of money. The place was packed! However, instead of charging one admission price, you had to buy tickets to any of the activities you wanted to go to. They were selling 5 tickets for $13.75. There were 7 of us all together and we didn't want to do all five activities if for no other reason that they were for little kids, not adults--like the moonbounce. It cost us almost $21 just to get into the feeding zoo and would cost another $21 for all of us to ride the hayride, another $21 for the corn maze, another $21 for ...well, you get the idea.



We decided to go for the feeding zoo because we figured T would enjoy that the most. I think we were right--he loved feeding the animals!



This baby goat was standing on a big concrete sewer pipe that was in its pen. It wasn't being used for sewage or anything...I think it was there to act as a mountain? Goats like to climb!



The girls enjoyed visiting "the three little pigs"...they were not little!



Here Tomas was watching the ducks swimming around in a murky pond. I heard him say "water" and I wonder what he was thinking?



Cows slept in a shed in the same pen with the goats. They sure looked comfortable!



Tomas seems to be saying, hey, we need more food here for these animals!

Even though we didn't get to do everything I'd hoped we still had a great time! I'm still in the process of weeding through the pictures and labelling them on our photo gallery. If you're interested in seeing more of them, just click on this next picture!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Real Life


Friday Challenge

Today's photo challenge is real life and right away, I thought of babies. I hunted around until I found a picture of the first, real and new life I'd ever held--my son, born on Mother's Day in 1987. He is the best Mother's Day present I ever got and although waiting was hard the last week or so the whole experience was beautiful and we did it again, twice. I have pictures of me with my newly born girls and will post them another time. In addition to my beautiful son, I remember the kitchen sent up a lovely rose with each of my meals that day. Since Bill was born around 4 in the morning, I got 3 roses--plus some from my first husband, Bill's doting dad!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Orange

Orange is just beginning to appear in the trees around here but mostly it seems to be the color of the sun. It's been in the high 80s the last several days, more like summer than fall and it just ain't natural. I went back to last October to find some pictures of orange but that's what photo ferreting is all about then, right?



Last year, on a glorious October Saturday or Sunday, we went to the Emmons Farm to pick pumpkins. Little T seemed to get right into it and enjoyed walking up and down the rutted paths looking for the perfect pumpkins. We wanted more than one to bring home, one for each of the girls and one for Tomas.



Tomas follows his Aunt Heidi down one path. He might have been to a pumpkin patch the previous year with his daddy. He seemed to be a pro at it.



We got the wagon loaded up with our bounty and it was a little too heavy for just one person drag. As the song goes in The Wonder Pets (one of T's favorites): "What's it going to take? Teamwork! What's it going to take? Teamwork!"



After we paid for our pumpkins, we decided to go on a hayride. I had a little trouble climbing up because of my ankle. We weren't sure at first Tomas would go for it and he hung back, clearly afraid. But his pop-pop carried him onto the wagon and he sat between his mommy and me. He still seemed unsure as we got underway but by the time we got back, he was having fun again.

Hopefully the weather will get seasonable enough for us to go pumpkin picking this year...soon!

Foto Pherrets

Wordless Wednesday: I Dun Like It!






Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Then and Now



Today John Lennon would have been 67. Sixty seven!!!

This song is ageless. There's always been a war. There always will be. I remember when this song came out at the height of the Vietnam War. I was so sick of all the killing and seeing soldiers' bodies being carried off the screen. Maybe that's why coverage of the Iraq war seems so limited? We're not allowed to see bodies in bags or in coffins as they come off the planes anymore ... why? So we don't get as sick of it now as we did then?

If only...

Imagine....

Scouting

I was never a Brownie or Camp Fire Girl so it's a little ironic to me that scouting became such a big part of our lives for almost 10 years. Maybe I wanted to be a scout at some point but I don't really remember. I do remember that when my son was in school and a flyer came home about Tiger Cubs, I thought it would be a great thing for him to try!

At the time, my first husband was still working the night shift and so I would take our son to the meetings. I was so embarrassed that first night! I was the only mom there and we were to make bows and arrows. I struggled to make a notch in the bow for the string and struggled to bend it, feeling the wood jump out of my hands every time. Finally one of the dads moved over to help me, reassuring me I was not a complete fool. My son, luckily, didn't seem to notice the difference.

The following year, Rich switched to the day shift and since he enjoyed the activities the boys did, he took over and went to the meetings while I focused on the girls.



My son just bridged from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Right behind him is my older daughter's best friend Emma and my youngest, Kristin


Both daughters started out as Daisy scouts and I quickly became involved in assisting their troops. I actually led my older daughter's troop for a few months but it became too difficult and so I stepped back and just assisted instead.

I am so glad my kids were involved in scouting. They got to do lots of fun activities and went camping and on trips to places like Washington D.C. I'm sorry that we fell away from it. It was lovely while it lasted!



My daughter Kristin becomes a Daisy Scout




This is my older daughter Heidi. There was a tremendous jamboree of Girl Scouts in Washington DC. We gathered on the grounds around the Washington Mounument and girls exchanged pins and badges with each other. We enjoyed meeting troops from around the country and of all age groups, too!



One of the nicest benefits of scouting was the socialization and friendships that developed amongst the kids. I miss scouting.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Weekend Snapshot

I found a photo meme today called Weekend Snapshot and one thing that I like about it is that there is no theme. I felt it was a great way to start off my new blog.



This is me and


this is my hubby, TB, with our sweet little grandson, Tomas. Tomas is very dear to our hearts, a joy and a blessing. He is 3 and last year was diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, which is on the autistic spectrum. In these pictures, T is in his own little world. He has so many different expressions and sometimes they come one right after the other.

On other days, like this one, he doesn't seem to notice the camera.

A Slice of Life

About Me

My photo
happily remarried widow with 3 kids from my first marriage, 2 from my new marriage, 8 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. I have been blessed to have had 2 great loves in my life. I have had another blessing too: I had bariatric surgery (a duodenal switch) and that has saved my life!