I've Been Tagged

First of all, I run like the wind to flee from these meme things, but for Tink...well, I can't tell Tink no.

10 Simple Pleasures

In NO particular order

1. Hearing my granddaughter, Madelyn, giving our secret message to me
2. Hearing my youngest son laugh.
3. Hearing my mother say real words...matters not what words they are, anyword will do for me.
4. Real snail mail....just for ME.
5. Pedicures
6. A walk on the beach with my grandchildren...heck...doing anything with my grandkids is a pleasure to me!!
7. A quiet summer evening sitting on the deck with my hubby.
8. Having Macaroni call us Uncle Eddie and Annie Pam.
9. Early Saturday morning conversations with my sister, she's the smart and pretty one.
10. My cat, well...ok, he is not MY cat, he is my son's cat...but he brings me much joy.

Now, having said all that, I also need to say...pleasures and blessings tend to get a little muddied in my mind...I take nothing for granted, I am a blessed person.

OK, I did it! Now I tag Mandy and anyone else who might be interested.

A Day or Two Late....

...and a dollar or two short...

Happy Belated Bloggerversary to ME!!

I totally missed my one year Bloggerversary! How did that happen?

Too Cute, Two Cutie Patooties!

It's tulip season in Northern Washington. I am not sure where exactly this tulip farm is, but our kids met up with their best friends from college (in each others weddings, babies the same age, etc.) and had a day out walking through the tulip fields, taking pictures and catching up with each other. They had a blast and we are winners too, they sent us a CD with over 300 pictures! They said the fields were so full of color and they were able to spread out a blanket and have a picnic amongst the flowers. If I could figure out how to get a short video posted I would do so...something for me to explore.
Madelyn is such a tender little girl, her heart has shaped towards service to others, even at the young age of 4. One picture sent is of her sharing a bite of her lunch with her pal Abigail, precious...you can just see the heart desire to bless Abigail. Maddie, gma loves you I do, I do, I do, I love you!

Here is a current picture of Jason. What a card! He is the apple of my eye! I call him Monster Boy...but he is anything but. See those dimples? Monsters don't have dimples like that! See that grin... Monsters don't grin like that either. See that sparkle in his eyes? Yep! That is the sparkle of the Monster. The LOVE BUG MONSTER. JJ is so cuddley, if he were a puppy you would call him a lap dog...well he isn't a puppy but will sit for hours while you read to him, chat with him, or just enjoy a movie with him. It doesn't happen very often anymore, but at 3 yrs old JJ is still willing to crawl up on your lap for quiet time. When he crawls up on my lap and allows me to rock him, that is my favorite time to pray over him.

While their daddy was home off the ship they did all kinds of wonderful things, camping, site seeing, working on their new home, a trip to Leavenworth Washington, and just spending time together as a family. Our son has returned to the ship and will be gone until September. He takes with him a heart full of wonderful memories to keep him going. We are looking forward to a visit from the babies and their mom in July.

Weekend of Blessings

Three darling children (no bias here!!) greeted me when I walked in the door on Friday evening. All three of them chanting "36 MORE DAYS!, 36 MORE DAYS!". Yep, just over a month until we board a plane and head to Mickey's house.

Friday night was grandkid/grandparents night, giving their parents a parent night!!! Not sure how much fun their parents had but I do know the rest of us had a blast. While Rex helped Gpa put oil in my jeep, Tristan and Kaitlyn helped fix dinner. Gpa had the potatoes in the oven before I left the office, so it was an easy finish to prepare a potato bar complete with their favorite toppings.
Kaitlyn wrote out menu's, and made place cards for everyone then decided we needed candles as well. Tristan decided the motto for our meal should be "the best food for the best people" I whole heartily agree! (BLogger will not let me load a picture of our dinner table, grrrr)

After dinner we played Skipbo, Tristan was crowned the new "Skipbo King" title, but gpa will not let that stand for long!

Saturday Angela and I started putting the rock face on their house....We are women, hear us roar!!! What a job! Oh my goodness, that is a job and a half. There is nothing, NOTHING these two kids will not attempt! Albert needed to get the garage door down and seal off that hole so he did that while Angela and I worked on the rock. Oh my aching body...bending, lifting, thinking...after 10 hrs I was so glad when it was too dark to work outside, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow ~ a good days work. They have a lot more rock to put up but we got a good start, I will only be able to help after work on Monday and Wednesday this wk.

This morning we awoke to another beautiful blue sky day, the 3rd in a row! Worship was wonderful, the sermon gave Ed and I a jump start on a great afternoon conversation. Dinner with momma, it is always a good day when she is emotionally up and alert. BLESSING! A quick trip to Wally World and back home by 3 p.m.
This is a picture of how we spent the rest of our Sunday. Saturday Ed got the deck washed and the patio furniture out of storage and back in place (I'll get the cushions out next wknd)...so after getting home from church and having dinner with momma we walked in the front door and straight through the house to the back door. We each grabbed the books we have been reading and I set up the foot spa. After giving myself a mini pedicure (complete with a wonderful seasalt scrub) I fixed Ed a non-fru-fru spa, poured him a glass of wine and there he sat until the sun went down. Happy feet, sunshine on our skin and the gentle sound of the water running in the Koi pond....ah...wonderful!

We Did It!

Yes, we did gut our kitchen...infact we have been working on this since early February. Keeping this a secret has been so hard! After 22 years and raising our family in a teeny tiny kitchen we now have a kitchen that is twice the size. We took out walls, expanding in 2 different directions.

In February we gutted the kitchen:

In March new cabinets arrived, but they were the WRONG cabinets, not the ones we ordered.

In April the RIGHT cabinets arrived, so the WRONG ones were removed and the RIGHT ones installed. On Friday, April 14th they finished the electrical and plumbing....YEEHAW!!! So we worked hard getting the kitchen boxes out of the livingroom, bedroom, guest room and various other places around the house.
Blessings:
there was no needed structural repairs (no dryrot, not bug damage)

we don't eat an evening meal so quick meals were easy for almost 9 wks

the company we worked with took full responsibility for the wrong cabinets

we didn't loose our minds, we still have what little we started with

What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong with this picture?