~Hometown carnival

Duane and the boys had to setup the army simulator at the lil carnivaly-thingy that was in 'town'. I say that loosely because it's a wee small town, we're talking 1 stop light literally . The vermits and I stayed for a little while (until the rain started) to watch them tear down the tent and long enough for Cody and sgt Downy to play cornhole (who named that game btw?!) and long enough for nort to win some stuff. Me, I was sittin in the hummer. I pointed to the building and said "that's where I used to go back in '84" like I do EVERY single time we pass it and I was a little surprised to hear Cort ask "18 or 19 mom?" and I thought "18 or 19 what?!" and she oh so innocently said "1884 or 1984". (gulp!) The problem was she wasn't being sarcastic at all, she was quite serious. The old brick part of the building was built in 1870 pretty dern old, so I guess I see where she was coming from. She has no interest what so ever in history, unlike me, who was infatuated with Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables and Nancy Drew books. I knew and understood the different era's and decades even tho they were WELL before my time. And to further complicate things she's seen pics of a younger me sitting in my Dad's antique cars or in old log buildings and I still have a dress from when I was about 6, a prairie dress complete with apron that looks like it came straight from a trunk of the lost Donner party. So I understand her confusion, but still......did she just call me old?!?!?! She later redeemed herself by interupting a song I was singing in the car to ask me how someone could audition for American Idol. To which she promptly said I should definately try out because I'm such a good singer. What a tone-deaf little sweet heart of a daughter I have :-)

~Anniversary #15 6~26~1993

Yesterday I was soooo busy having fun celebrating my 15th anniversary.................I think I had about as much fun as Andrea. (no, i'm pretty sure she had more fun since she has 3 lil ones LOL) Sarge took the day off to ......... golf......with Cody. And I was here with Courtney, Cora (who was spending the night) and Mariah. They may call it "having a friend over to play" I call it "babysitting" :-) Lets face it, when ya have kids and your Anniversary is on a weekday it sorta cancels out the romance. But hey, we're still just as married and in love weather we go on a hot date or not. This just happened to be a NOT year. Next year it'll be on a Friday and we WILL go out. Maybe Andrea & Mark can go with us :-) hahahaha

~Birthday #33 6~24~1975

33rd time doing this and it never gets boring.

~RRRanch

click to enlarge

We were suppose to go to Cleveland last weekend for my B-day, but the gay pride parade downtown hindered our plans. Cody was like "there are gay people in OHIO!???" See I told you we are stuck in the boondocks. LOL So we went to a ranch down in amish country instead. One of those that you ride thru on the wagon and stop and feed the animals. Mini-me's favorite part was at the end when we got to the petting zoo area, where there were baby cows from India, peacocks, monkeys, porcupines, etc. Personally I kinda felt like I was at Anne's house :-) (you don't have an ostrich yet do ya anne?)

~Summertime :-)

yes, cora is a ham!

home at last (they wore me out!)

~The nicest Mom on the block Mwahahahaha!

My kids think I'm the bestest mom in the world (not likely) I bought them loads of workbooks the other day. The sprouts have to study every morning before noon if they want to play on anything like the PS3, gamecube, computer, phone, DS, PSP, you know, all that electric junk. They also have to be showered and ready, have beds made and rooms picked up before they are allowed to even think about having any friends over after lunch. Look Alisha we're even studying FL since we weren't able to come down there :-) We got a boatload of library books the other day, we are going to try to study different cultures and we even got cookbooks to go along with the different states/countries. And since the election is upon us I have them studying that too so that they know what is going on when it's being talked about. Cody is very anti-obama, like moi, so I got him a book about B.O. to study - just to torture him :-) Actually I just wanted him to be informed about who he does and doesn't like. Courtney had to write in her journal about why we SHOULD have a woman president and next she has to write why we should NOT have a woman president. She came up with some cute answers. Anyways, I hope this keeps them from leaking braincells all over the place this summer :-)

~Gremlin hunting

Hee hee hee

Cora watched Gremlins for the 1st time the other day, so of course the scary topic of the day was.......gremlins. The girls always have a scary topic to keep them awake every weekend. Makes for some long nights for Me. So yesterday they were running thru the woods looking for gremlins. Cody and I made some pics of Gizmo and he went and hid them in the trees to scare the girls LOL When I took the pic the girls had just heard something and yelled "did you hear that"?! Notice how they girls have their sticks ready? LOL And notice the lil chuckle forming on Cody's face? (click the pic to make it bigger) LOL He Looooves scary those two!!!!

~Brrrrrr

I so remember the days of being a kid when hot/cold didn't really bother us. Playing from sun up to sun down, not caring how hot it was out or how sweaty we got. I remember laying out on the deck with my sister in April, well before it was even warm, just to try to get tan before prom. Boy, are those days long gone. I went outside yesterday and saw the kids setting up the slip and slide. It was only 65 degrees out!!! Can you say "knuckleheads"!?!?!? The funny thing was, they were pretending to be penguins :-) smart kiddos

~Hamster playdate

Courtney's friend brought her hamster, Hammy over for a playdate the other day. So I made a Hamster Hotel for them and nort wanted me to put the pics on here for her friends to see. Hmmm the kiddos are slowly taking over my blog.

~S'mores

I dont' want S'more, I want N'more. We've made s'mores every time one of courtney's friends have come to play this week, then again with Grandma on Saturday night - I'm afraid I may turn into one soon!!! LOL

~FL Vacation pictures

Don't be jealous of us cuz we're sooo Hawwwt! Hahahahaha!

Alisha & Lori

Before you even ask, yes I lost a wee bit of weight, so much so that I now resemble a barbie doll!!!!---don't I just look fab!?! I actually look as tan as Alisha in this pic, thanks to my faux tan, like Oh my gawwwsh!!!! We're having a blast in FL with Alisha, Brandon & the kiddos. We're just bumming on the beach every day, soaking up the sun while the guys are fishing. I even let the kids bury me in the sand. Life can't get any better than this!

One day we stumbled upon a nudist beach, it was rather embarrassing since the kiddos were with us. Yikes! I had no idea there were nude beaches here!!!! (apparently these people are from Georgia)

Duane in the FL sunshine :-) He's totally hawt too!!

Well that's all the pics I have for now-hope we get some more later!!!!

**** Ok so maybe that's not entirely true, we're not really having fun in the sun like we originally planned. We are actually still stuck in Ohio. We were SUPPOSE to leave for FL today but Sarge's leave got nixed :-( -thanks alot Uncle Sam I love when you cancel our vacation! No wonder we've only had 2 vacations in the past 15 years. Thank the Lord we didn't buy plane tickets huh?---then I'd be seriously mad.

~Park play

We have a quaint lil park close by that has a creek running thru it. I enjoyed an awesome (but very warm) day at the park with our friends Janine, Angie & Andrea and all 12 of our kiddos on Friday. My camera was acting up a bit so (send me more pics ang!) so i snatched a few pics from someone elses blog :-) I was a major baby hog and totally totally totally enjoyed snuggling with baby Jordyn all afternoon :-) Uh-Oh I've got baby on the brain now - watch out Duane! Check out the links to Angie, Janine & Andrea's blogs for more (much better than mine) pics from our day at the park.

Weston Hot, dirty and oh so Thirsty :-)

Courtney & Caryn. I can't wait to get the 2 sets of cousins together.

Courtney/Cora & Weslea/Caryn :-)

Courtney is still smitten by Nathan, better known around our house since he was 4 months old as Na-Na, and Courtney's own personal live babydoll. 3 years since the move and he took right to her :-) She was so happy! See her 'mothering' him in the pic?

the cousins checking something out

~Cody's new wheels

He's not old enough to drive yet (thank you God!) But he did get some new wheels for the summer. Interesting "ghost" pic.............

~Snow in June?

Ohio has been known to get the occasional freak snow storm in summer, but this wasn't one of them. Try as I might I couldn't get a good pic of the white flurries of 'stuff' (tree sperm?) coming down out of the cottonwood trees at the park - but it did really 'look' like it was snowing. You'll just have to trust me on this one.

~Mwuahahahahahaha!

Hee Hee the photographer became the photographed! Ha she thought she could hide behind the camera rather than being in front of it......well actually she's doing a pretty good job of that isn't she? I hope she got some good piccies :-)