Memorial Day Anecdotes

We started out the weekend Saturday with Mike replacing the tub fixtures in preparation for use when we start working in the downstairs bathroom. Everything went great. In fact, the funny thing is that Mike fixed a leak that we had in the tub faucet for the past three years. All he did was to realign the hot/cold ball joint. We laughed so hard about that because all this time Mike didn't fix the leak because he thought it was complicated. Then it turns out to be such a simple thing. Oh well! The only complication is that now we have a nasty stain where the water dripped all that time.

Sunday we went to a Sunday School party in the evening. The kids had a lot of fun playing there.

Monday we wanted to go out but those plans were dampened (ha, ha) by the downpours that we had all day long. We spent the day cooped up inside with an occasional jaunt outside for Mike so that he could scoop water out of the window well. I moped up the water in the basement corner where the water poured through the window with the full window well. Not exactly what I had in mind for my Memorial Day plans. I think that we received over 5" of rain. We did have some b-b-q pork chops with Mike's parents.

Hopefully it will not rain next weekend because we are going to go to Mike's work's annual family day event at his work. They are supposed to have blow up jumpers for the kids and a cookout for the family. Also on Friday night we are going to have date night where we plan on going to Forest Park for the Shakespeare in the Park festival. We have been to this event every year except the very first year which we missed Romeo and Juliet. If you live in the area and want to enjoy an enjoyable free evening I would advise this event. You bring your lawn chairs and enjoy a well acted performance. As I said Mike and I have enjoyed it every year. It is something that we can look forward to. It is from Memorial Day to Father's Day usually.

In only two weeks we leave for our vacation to Branson. I can't believe it is here already. This year is flying. The boys are looking forward to the pool and Silver Dollar City. My parents had planned on going with us but now they have to go to Florida to clean out Grandma's estate. Bummer! We were looking forward to having them with us. It will be a fun time. I just need to start preparing myself. Last year I was counting down until Colorado and this year the trip has just snuck up on me. Speaking of that I had better go so that I can exercise and then buy tickets from AAA for the trip.

Remembering Grandma

On Thursday May 21, 2009 my Grandma Snider passed away. I am glad that we made it to see her one last time. I am now left with all of the many memories of our time together. Here are some pictures of Grandma when Garrett was a baby. She only had three Great-Grandchildren at this time. At the time of her death she was up to six because my cousin just had a baby girl (named Kiera) on May 20th. I thought that it was interesting that my Grandma had two Great Granddaughters named Keira in the same year.

We have so many memories with Grandma because my family lived with her two different times and I moved in with her again after I moved out of my parents house. She also went on several of our vacations with us. There were good times to be had. Mike and I went to Florida to visit her in 2002, 2003, and 2004. It was Grandma's Bed and Breakfast and it was wonderful. She showed us all of the interesting sights to see in northern Florida. There is so much more than just Orlando.

We will miss her greatly!

A Whirlwind Weekend

This weekend was pretty crazy. It all started on Friday night when we took a trip up to Indiana. That was the night on the wild thunderstorms. We made it almost all the way to our destination while avoiding the storm, but at the last half hour we drove directly into it. That was pretty scary because it was dark and the huge thunderbolts were coming down all around us. Fortunately all of the kids were sleeping right through it. Mike and I were praying as hard as we could. We made it to Mom and Dad's house and we had a decision to make, either stay there or drive into more storm to get to Pam's house (our original destination). We stayed there. The whole point of the trip was to see my Grandma who is at my parents house. My Grandma is very, very sick. She had a kidney infection and surgery for that. Then while she was in the hospital for that she had a stroke and quit eating.

Saturday we spent the day at my parents watching nurses come in and out to take care of Grandma. My Mom and Dad and Mom's brother spend the day coaxing Grandma to eat. They finally had a doctor come in and approve an IV. Hopefully this will help her in getting the fluids she needs to flush out her system. After only one day there we started back home. We had to be home for Sunday.

We had to go to church on Sunday because Keira was to be dedicated this Sunday in the 9:30 service. A dedication is a pledge that we will as a family and church family raise our child in a Godly environment. We are given a letter and a small New Testament that the child is to open on the day that the child accepts Jesus as their personal Savior. It will let her know about this ceremony. All three of the kids have been dedicated. Then there was a big catered lunch afterward for the families and extended families.

Following the luncheon our family and Mike's parents went to a strawberry festival in a small town nearby. It was a crazy, busy weekend and we were all exhausted.

Another Layout Test

Another Layout Test

New Layout

I am just testing this new scrap blogging site that I found. Guess it doesn't work yet.

Cameron's Birthday and Mother's Day

I tried to get all of the kids to look at the camera at the same time, but that did not work. Here is the best of all the pictures I took. I'll have to get them outside and try to take a good family picture. Maybe that can happen on vacation. We will be going in about a month to Branson. We can't believe it is almost time. Where has this year gone?

I have not been very good at keeping this page updated lately. Sorry. Life has been pretty busy around here lately. The weekend before last we had a garage sale and sold some of the boys old clothes and toys. It was a pretty good sale and a nice day. We still have tons of clothes left to store. I was hoping to get rid of a few boxes worth to make room for more clothes.

This past week I was getting ready for a Discovery Toy party that I had and Cameron's birthday which was on Saturday. He is 5 already! He will be starting school at Maryville Christian School (the school at our church) in 3 months. He is very excited about this and I think that he will have great fun learning. He is already a pretty smart boy.



Here is a picture of the rocket cake that I made for Cameron's 5th birthday party. I really like the puzzle cakes. They are not to difficult and time consuming to make. After we had a nice sub sandwich dinner it was time to open presents. Unfortunately, Mike and I didn't have much for him because we are getting stuff from the party that I had and they haven't come in yet. I will wrap them for next week I guess. Memaw and Pop and Bonnie took care of the gifts though.




Here is Cameron's favorite present that he got. It is the Batman legos video game for the XBOX. Look at the excitement in his eyes. Then there is the baby picture of little Cameron 5 years ago in the hospital. He has really changed since then.





Then Sunday was Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mom's reading this. Cameron was actually born on my very first Mother's Day. He was the best present that I could ever get. I guess that next year his birthday will be on Mother's Day again. For this day we got up and went to church and then went over to Mike's parents house for the rest of the day. The kids and Mike bought me some Impatiens for the garden and a software program that will help me plan out a my garden and it will also help us plan out our house remodel and addition. Cool! The first thing we can use it for is to look at the bathroom remodel.

Well that is all that I have to report for today. I had better go eat breakfast and get ready to exercise. That is something that I have been trying to do at least 3-4 times a week. I think that it is working.