Family Photos

I "forced" the family to take family photos today.

A guy from church who takes great photos said he would do it for us in his backyard so I told everyone that they didn't get any lunch until they smiled for the camera!

Yep, I'm THAT KIND OF GAL.

The guy took 198 photos.

Grandaddy was smiling in exactly ZERO photos.

His response: Well, at least I was holding still. He said to hold still. I'll look the same in every photo so we know I'm not the problem!

Now the task is to go through the 198 photos and find ONE that has the majority of us looking decent. Not an easy task with 8 kids and 6 adults. And me having a bad hair month...

Bring on the Sunshine

Hubby's whole family is here for a summer vacation visit...
His sister and her husband and their 5 kids and his parents.

We are celebrating his parents 50th wedding anniversary. How cool is that?

Thankfully, ever since they arrived, the weather has been cooperating and we've had sunshine rather than nonstop rain. whew! I was imagining all these kids cooped up in the house and that would have been bad. Either that or they would have gone outside anyway and I'd be dealing with wet kids and laundry...almost equally bad.

Yesterday we went to the beach. It was a gorgeous day. I forgot my camera.

I did a bad job with the sunscreen apparently though. And I sat in the sun too long. And I wore my sunglasses all day. And I sat at an angle to the sun.

The result?

I am burned on half my body. My face has that raccoon look but only on half of my face (oh, and my nose is seriously burned and my husband had the nerve to call me Rudolph!).

I was hoping to get a family picture taken while we were all together. But I will be the one to screw it up now.

Photoshop to the rescue?

So tired

It turns out that one of my kids has Mono. Not sure if I told that story or not. Did I?

And I have been soooo TIRED lately. bone tired. exhausted.
whenever people see me they ask if I'm ok because I look so bad.

And it occurs to me that maybe I have Mono too.

But if that's the case, I'm on week two or three anyway and should be on the mend soon.
Plus there's no treatment.

So, I guess I'll just head off to bed.

Wasn't that an exciting update?

The "secret", which I warned you is not a big secret, cannot be revealed until next week.
Don't get too excited. It'll be a let-down when I finally reveal if you do that...

NO INTERNET!

I have had three days with no internet here. I know it is pathetic to say it, but it felt like an eternity. Did you miss me?

Do you know how many times a day I check email?
Do you know how much I enjoy blogs?
Do you know that none of you update your blogs enough? (just thought I'd throw that in while I was at it)

I survived. Barely.

But I am back online!

And life was not boring while I was away:
Yes we (read that to say "our teenage driver") had what would usually be termed a fender bender. No one was hurt and luckily the person who was hit had only minor damage to their bumper. But, alas, our car was totaled.

These pictures were taken after it was towed back to our garage. Frank is attempting to get the hood open to survey the damage. The thing is smooshed inside.

Since it is our "kid car" we only had liability insurance on it. The kids are dismayed to be without a car now. We aren't too thrilled either. Frank is actually going to see if he can fix it with used parts etc. It won't be a pretty car that's for sure (it wasn't that great before the crash, to be honest).

He already banged out the hood and we'll have to use a bolt or something to keep it shut now. Haaaa! I think if we can fix it, it will be a good lesson in humility for our kids to drive it.

Secrets

I have a secret. It's not a big ol' super exciting secret. But it is a secret.
And I'm dying to tell you!
But I can't.
Not yet.

And, no, I'm not pregnant.

Isn't it funny how you can have long distance friends and internet friends that are the first people you want to tell or talk to about something. But then the only way to really do that is to spew it all over the internet where just anyone could see it? And sometimes that just won't do.

I'm reading a good book right now. One that I picked up with no prior knowledge about it whatsoever. I just happened to be at the library with my kids. One wanted to check out "Alice in Wonderland" because he heard it was a really freaky twisted read. And one wanted to check out Dante's Inferno for some light summer reading. Okee dokee. So I went over to the chick lit section (they don't really call it that, but that's what it is) and just picked up a book.

It's called "The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club".

It's a fun read.
Disclaimer: It has quite a few bad words which don't start right away so you are hooked into the story before you realize you might be assaulted with a character who curses frequently. The main character doesn't like it either so that somehow makes me feel better...

Anyway, reading a book about a woman who begins to have this group of friends around her just makes me long for it.
I want a group of people that I get together with every week to chat and eat and do whatever! knit, scrapbook, heck...I'd take up a new hobby if it meant getting a nice group I could connect with.

But we are all busy. So this is not reality.

Well, I think the non-stop rain is affecting my mood. I didn't mean for this post to turn all sulky.

I love you all, internet/long distance friends! (and family) And I'm looking forward to sharing my secret soon.

First day of Summer!

The kids are finally out of school here.
Ahhhh.

Of course it is raining so not exactly a summery sort of feeling.
But we slept in and are lazing around. So that part is good.

I'm spending lots of time on the computer trying to figure out how to be a true money saver and couponer. Man it is hard work!
I did manage to save over 70 bucks on my last shopping trip though.
I used to be a big coupon user and used to get a big kick out of seeing how much I would save each time. Then life got busy and I just didn't have time.
Life is still busy but I have to make time to save money now.
And I have to say that I still got a big kick out of seeing that savings! Fun stuff.

Now if I can figure out how to just truly spend less each week and still feed us all.
I'm not really doing that yet. Somehow. Not sure why.

I'm doing a new thing too.
It's called Swagbucks. We'll see how it works out but some of the other big "couponers" out there like it.
It's basically a search engine that gives you "swagbucks" for using their search engine when you search. Then you can use those bucks to buy Target gift cards and stuff like that. If you check it out (or join) go through my blinky (over on the left side) or this link and I think I get some sort of credit.
Yes, I'm real knowledgeable!

Here is my swagbucks link.

So, that is my update. I'm relaxing and figuring out how to save money.

Am I exciting these days or what?

Not your ordinary Dad

Well, Happy Father's Day to my Dad today!

And

Happy Birthday too!

He's not your ordinary Dad. But I guess we would all say that about our Dads.

My Dad is:

-an organizer extraordinaire
-a poet
-a giver
-still a navigator after all these years
-a nice grandpa
-spiritual
-full of great stories
-a writer
-a record keeper
-a social person
-a church going guy
-the man in a white shirt and tie (he always looks spiffy!)
I had this great picture from my high school years of him mowing the lawn in a suit. Yes, a suit. White shirt, tie, suit coat...the whole shebang. It's been sitting on my desk (waiting to be scanned) for over a week just for this blog post. And now I can't find it! argh.
It used to drive my mom crazy that he'd wear nice clothes to do stuff like that.
I imagine that after all these years she is used to the fact that Dad always dresses nice. It's just how he is.
of course I could go on...
He's a great guy and I love him. He's an example to me of a great attitude.

In High School I attended an early morning class for church called Seminary. It's like Bible Study of sorts. It starts at 6 A.M. so you have to get up really early to get there on time. My Dad drove me for most of the years that I went and he was always up and cheerful. Most morning he would be outside pointing out constellations to us kids as we clambered into or out of the car. He made it fun. Now as I get my kids up and out to Seminary I try to remember this and how much it meant to me that he always seemed happy to be taking me...never acted tired or like he wished he could be back in bed...and I try to do the same. Thanks for that example Dad.


I'm hoping to see you soon, Dad. This fall at the latest I guess...

I love you!