Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Cupcakes on Display

Zoe has been invited to another Sweet 16 party.

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She and her friend decided that they were going to make this lucky girl something special…something super sweet. So, they made her rainbow frosted funfetti cupcakes and peanut butter brownies.

(Landon helped somehow, but I can’t remember exactly how. Maybe moral support or taste testing?)

After they put everything in the oven to bake they made this super awesome display stand, using cardboard, aluminum foil, pink cellophane, tape, sprinkles and pink cups. It took them hours to complete this masterpiece and their friend should feel pretty special…I mean, it was an all day affair!

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The whole thing turned out really cute but my favorite part had to be the little sprinkles they added under the taped down cups…and the rainbow frostings.

The only bad thing about the idea: the drive to the party and the delivery.

There were a few oh crap moments, but we did manage!

Does ironing sheets…

count as nesting?

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Or, have I just lost my freakin’ mind?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

After

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There’s her eyes! Now you can see how cute she is…right?

No?

Well, I agree that she’s cuter with all her fur, but it’s been hitting 100 degrees around here lately and that’s just too hot for a fur coat. Besides, it’ll all be back in about 3 months, just in time for some cooler weather!

Before

Ginger needed a haircut something awful, so today is the day. This is how she looked this morning before we left:

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She melts me with those big ol’ puppy eyes. She looks like she’s in big trouble, but I was just trying to get her to be still so I could get a quick picture before we ran out the door. I’ll post the after photo once she gets back.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Creationary by Lego

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Lego has put out several new games, and when we were at Target the other day, Landon just had to get one.

The one he chose is called Creationary, and we’ve already played it several times. Basically, you roll a die which tells you which category you’ll be building from (nature, vehicles, buildings, or things) and then you draw a card that tells you exactly what to build, but not how to build it.

For example you could roll the nature picture and then have to build a tree, or a bird, or a rhino…without any help! If you can build it good enough that someone can guess what it is, you get a point as does the guesser, and the first player to 5 wins.

Easy concept, and each game lasts about 30 minutes. Unless you build things the way I do…and then the games could last hours.

And hours.

Backyard Clean-Up

It is way too hot to be outside doing this:

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But, after a week of vacationing, he was ready to get out there and get some of that crap out of the way…whether it was 100 degrees or not.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Water Park Photo’s

These first two photo’s are ones I took from the bar upstairs. They turned out pretty good despite being behind glass.  

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Tony took control of the camera when I left, and took the next 3. The first one is when the kids were floating down the lazy river…don’t thy look like they’re enjoying themselves? I love their expressions!

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In the next photo they are just coming off of one of the slides. It sure looks like they had fun!

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I like this next picture of Zoe but I think the wall behind her is kind of weird looking for some reason. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that looks strange though…maybe the color?

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Once I got back to the park I took the camera back. Here’s what I got:

Tony relaxing outside while watching Landon jump around in the wave pool. He makes this face a lot when the camera is pointed in his direction.

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Zoe decided she had had enough of the water by the time I got back, so she also sat on the side watching Landon jump around in the waves. I think she is so photogenic and I always love to get photo’s of her without makeup on. She’s beautiful with or without makeup, it just isn’t too often that we see her without it now that she’s 15…and even rarer that I get a picture while she’s without.

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Tony really wanted to go down the big water slide before we left for the day even though it wasn’t quite as warm out as he would have liked. Landon decided he wanted to go at the last second so up they went. I know these next two aren’t the best photo’s but Landon’s on the green slide and Tony is right next to him on the blue slide.

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After the racing down the slide, Landon ran back to the wave pool. That boy could jump waves for hours without getting bored! 

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As we were leaving the outdoor section of the park I noticed these beautiful flowers. I felt the need to stop and give my macro setting a try…this is what I got:

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Beautiful, isn’t it?

A Rough Start to a Great Day

Today was the day the kids had been looking forward to all week.

Today we got up, got on our bathing suits (everyone except me, that is) and headed down to the water park.

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I had planned on sitting on the side watching everyone and taking pictures but when we got inside I immediately started to melt. They must keep that water park a comfortable 4000 degrees because I was sure I was gonna die in there! Of course all the people wearing bathing suits and playing in the water were fine, but I was slowly withering away. So, after 10 minutes, I headed upstairs to the bar where it was air conditioned.

I didn’t bring anything to do since I thought I’d be watching the kids, but once I was up in the bar I wished I had. I did call my sister  to wish her a happy birthday and check on my nephew and that’s when I noticed Landon come running out of the pool and head straight for a lifeguard. At first I thought that maybe he just wanted to ask them a question, but when more guards started gathering around, I realized something was wrong. I hung up with my sister and ran down the two flights of stairs as fast as my pregnant legs would go.

As I got to the area where Landon was, Tony and Zoe were heading in his direction too. Luckily he was ok, but apparently he hit his face on the side of the slide on the way down and got a cut on the top of his lip and a bloody nose. It wasn’t too bad, but it bled and bled. He was really worried that the cut above his lip was going to hurt when he got back in the chlorinated water so I offered to run back to our unit to get him Motrin. Wouldn’t you know he was fine when I got back (nearly 25 minutes later…this is a big place!). Oh well, I’m just glad it wasn’t anything more serious.

After I dropped off the Motrin and made sure everything was ok, I headed back to the unit where I relaxed for a few hours before going back for dinner. I left the camera with Tony and he took several pictures since I wasn’t there to do it, but since this post is already really long, the next one will be of the best water park photos!

Stay tuned…

Happy Birthday Tish Tosh!

Today is my sister’s birthday!

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Happy Birthday Tish, we all love you very much!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Scenes from the Top

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I’m thinking we should probably go back up to the top of the mountain when it isn’t so overcast. It really is quite beautiful up there, but it looks so dreary in the background…and the gnats were driving us crazy! 

Fun and Games

We didn’t have any plans beyond our jewelry class, so after lunch (and a nap) we ended up going down to Le Club to play ping pong.

 

We aren’t very good, but we had fun anyways!

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Once we had our fill of chasing the ball around and dodging everyone else’s ping pong balls, we went upstairs to the arcade area.

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Zoe and I played Pac Man; we found out that we aren’t very good at that either.

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Tony and Landon played a round of pool. Landon started out using a pool cue, but ended up ditching it midway and just using his hand to push the ball in the general direction he wanted. It didn’t go well, but he had fun anyways.

PS. I just want to add that I love that picture of Zoe up there on the Pac Man game…I think it turned out really good!

Have You Ever

seen a moth like this?

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I’ve never seen a moth as pretty as this one! As I pulled up to the pump at the gas station I saw this guy on the pole…of course I had to get a quick picture!

The people pumping gas in front of us thought I had lost my mind!

Jewelry Making

This morning we all got up early (8:30 is early when you’re on vacation!) and went down to The Market for a jewelry making class. I signed us all up and then told Tony he could make me a bracelet…considerate of me, huh?

Being the sport he is, he went and made me a beautiful bracelet:

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Here is the finished product:

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I think it’s beautiful!

I made myself a watch:

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Landon made himself a bracelet:

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And Zoe made herself a watch:

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I think everyone’s piece came out great! We all really enjoyed the class and it’s always nice that we can all go do these types of activities together…even if it means I sign you up and you end up making something for me! :)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Photography Lessons

Today Tony and the kids and I had to split up. They really wanted to go tubing, but since I’m already in my 33rd week of pregnancy I didn’t really want to go floating down a river for nearly 4 hours in the heat. So, while they were happily making their way down the Shenandoah River, I took a digital photography class.

The instructor was Todd Merica of From My Hand Photography. He was an enthusiastic instructor and was able to help us understand the very basics of photography. He spent the first hour teaching us about the different settings on our camera and then moved on to a little bit more advanced material like explaining what an f-stop is.

If nothing else, I came away from the class a more confident user. I’m not so afraid to mess with the settings on my camera and I’m going to start using the manual mode more often. I don’t think I’ve used it more than once or twice since I’ve had it! 

Here are my first attempts at using my new found skills:

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As you can see, I’ve got a long way to go.

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The first photo isn’t terrible, but I needed to zoom in a bit to get more of that little waterfall, there’s just too much going on in that shot. The second photo isn’t awful if you keep it small…but, my cute subjects are seriously blurry.

I think I’m going to have to start carrying a notebook and writing down what settings I’m using and such; not all the time, but when I’m actually trying to get a specific shot. I guess now is as good a time as any to start learning how to use my camera more efficiently!

Sleepy Head

Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this photo?

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How about the fact that my 15 year old isn’t in bed, but my that 8 year old is?

And, it’s after 10am…or only 10am depending on how you look at it!

Spinal Fusion

So yesterday, while we were all sitting around doing a bunch of nothing, my nephew Jaron was undergoing a major surgery to fix his scoliosis. Technically it is called a spinal fusion, and it’s as scary as it sounds.

I didn’t want to blog about his surgery yesterday because I wanted to be sure that everything went well and he was okay. Which it did and he is, and we are all so thankful that the procedure is done and now he can begin his long road to recovery.

My sister is keeping a blog about Jaron’s surgery/recovery here if you’re interested. She’s mainly writing the blog for my dad who is out of country for work, but it’s also a good way to track his progress.

I’m sure that if you have had the surgery, or your child has had the surgery and you’d like to share your experiences/encouragement, they would both greatly appreciate it!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Lazy Monday…

Since we crammed so much into yesterday we decided to take it easy today. We sat around playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 for several hours and then around 1:30pm we finally ventured out so Landon could climb the rock wall.

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He got two chances to climb and he made it to the top both times! I was pretty impressed that he made it all the way to the top both times, and he was pretty proud of himself too!

After the rock wall we walked over to the Wine and Craft fair. I was so hot I forgot to take pictures, but we were mainly just there to eat the meatballs and cheese squares anyways…and pictures of people eating aren’t pretty, so really I did you all a favor!

Since we didn’t have any other big plans for the day (and it was super hot) we decided to take the kids to see Toy Story 3. Surprisingly, Zoe wanted to see the movie more than Landon did! Once we got to the theatre, Landon tried to talk us into seeing The Karate Kid, but he lost that war because Tony and I were both looking forward to seeing Toy Story also!

I’m glad we went because it was awesome! There are few movies that maintain a great story line time and again, but Toy Story and Shrek really do a great job of keeping it funny and new.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Oh Deer!

When we were driving home from our last class of the day we noticed that the deer were back out in full force. As we turned into our parking area there were several grazing right along the street, but since we spent so much time admiring them the night before we didn’t think a whole lot about it.

Until we all got out of the car and one came right up to us! This girl was so close we could have pet her!

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She never moved away, she just kept getting closer…waiting for us to pull out some food is my guess. I don’t think it’s right to feed these deer people food so we didn’t, but it sure was a tempting thought with them being so close!

Soon, one of the other deer noticed us and came running across the street to check out what was going on:

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I promise to quit posting so many photo’s about the deer, but they’re just so darn cute and we don’t see a whole lot of this where we live! Especially so up close and personal! :)

Etching Glass

When we were here last year we all took the glass etching class. We all enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again!

There are so many choices that it’s almost impossible to choose just one etching to make, but after much deliberation we all were able to settle on our design.

Landon chose a Massanutten logo, Tony chose a palm tree, Zoe picked a mermaid and I went with a butterfly. I was so into the project that I didn’t get many photo’s but here are a few of everyone at work:

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These are our 4 designs:

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I realize that I never posted the finished products from last year and I haven’t gotten a photo of this years finished project either…but I fully intend to!

April Fools Pranks

The two little kids made me laugh yesterday morning.  I was upstairs getting things ready for school when I heard them talking about how ...