Kelly's Kwips

Gracie’s 6th Birthday Party

2011-09-25T21:01:00.001-05:00

Gracie is our friend’s daughter who turned 6 this weekend. She and Kasey have spent a lot of birthdays together. So this year’s birthday was at the Artsy Café, downtown.

The first thing they did was color a butterfly necklace, made a frog wall hanging and then made a bead bracelet.

Kasey always makes the funniest faces. Anna, next to Kasey, is another one of Kasey’s good friends, she goes to the babysitter with Kasey.

Here is Gracie, the birthday girl!

Here are all the kids together, making funny faces. Have you noticed that Kasey is the only little boy at the party? Yes, he is. He loved it! I think I am in for years of trouble with this little boy of mine. Everywhere he goes, he always goes right for the girls! And, they go right for him too.

Gracie likes frogs, so she had a really cute frog birthday cake. Yummm!

And noise makers, I made sure to send the noise maker to Grandma’s house. Kasey was spending the night with Grandma after this party. I hope he drove them crazy with the noisy thing!

Grace blowing out the candle. We had a lot of fun at the party and Kasey said it was the FUNNEST party he had ever been to.

Kasey’s First Day of Pre-K

2011-09-13T20:14:00.001-05:00

Kasey started Pre-Kindergarten about a month ago, August 17. I’m such a bad blogger since I’m just now getting this posted. Pre-K is preschool before Kindergarten and it’s 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday. The kids that live in the country go to Pre-K in the morning and the town kids go to Pre-K in the afternoon. It was also Mark’s first week back to school teaching after being off for the summer. Both of them were apprehensive about going back, so I had them pose for an “I don’t want summer to be over” picture.

Both of them making the funny face.

Don’t you feel sad for both of them?

Here is Kasey with his happy face on ready for school!

Kasey goes to the babysitter in the morning, Miss Margo, we love her so much. He gets on the bus from Miss Margo’s and rides to school which is about 1/2 a mile. The first day, the bus didn’t pick him up. I didn’t go to Margo’s to see him on the bus, because I was afraid he might have a problem with it, like he wouldn’t want to let go of me. So I called Margo after he should have been on the bus and she told me that the bus didn’t make it. She called the bus barn and talked to them, but it had been over a 1/2 hour, so I told her I would come and get him and take him. He was pretty upset.

On my way over I called my mom, but she wasn’t home. So I called her cell phone":

Me: “Are you at the school?”

Mom: “Yes, I wanted to see him walk into the school!” Silly mom, she just couldn’t help herself.

So we both walked him into school into his classroom. I took a quick picture of him as I was leaving!

He really loves school, seems to love everything about it. He talks about it a lot. He went to preschool last year and he wouldn’t even tell me what he did, he’s say, “I don’t want to talk about my day” But now, he says he has a great day and he just loves it! I’m so glad, I think his teacher is really good too. Her name is Miss B.

My little boy is growing up. Sweet but sad….

DaVinci Exhibit in St. Louis

2011-09-12T21:18:00.001-05:00

Mark and I went to St. Louis this weekend to a Cardinals game (they won against the Atlanta Braves 4-3!). Before we went to the game, we stopped off at the DaVinci Exhibit at the Bank of America building, which was about 2 blocks from the stadium.

Course, with Mark being an engineer, he really enjoyed it. Were allowed to take pictures in the exhibit. The exhibit was about Leonardo’s drawings that were made into replica models. Some were interactive and you could make them do things, others had signs that said “Do Not Touch”. Those were the ones Mark would always go for and I’d say “You Can’t Touch Those!”. I think everyone did that because they didn’t really have them protected.

This was a car idea.

This had a handle on it that you turned and it would pull the wheel in toward the device and push the pole up for an easy way to lift long things.

This was a hammer, you turned the handle, the hammer would lift up then fall down and hit the anvil.

This was a paddle boat.

You would turn the handle on this, there was water in the bottom, it would be picked up through the spiral tube at the bottom, then deposited in the top.

A bridge that could be easily assembled.

This was a model of a underwater breathing apparatus. Like a modern day dive helmet.

This was a water life preserver.

These was a pulley system. The first one you couldn’t hardly lift the bag of sand, the second one with the 2 pulleys was pretty easy, the 3rd one was much easier and the 4th one on the far right was the easiest to lift.

This was a bike.

A parachute!

A helicopter.

This was a tank idea. The cannons would shoot out from all directions, the lid would close down to protect those inside the tank.

This was a war device, there are metal cutters, an animal or something would pull the device and the choppers would chop down anyone or anything that got in its way.

It was a really neat exhibit. I always knew about DaVinci’s famous paintings, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but I didn’t realize all the engineering ideas he came up with and all the drawings. It was a really neat exhibit and well worth the $14 to visit it.

Grilling a Brush

2011-07-25T18:54:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you grilled a brush on your BBQ Grill? Well, I have the answer for you, right here…

Not just one but TWO brushes!

Mark put the grill brushes in the grill, moved them off the back porch so we could clean the porch off. Then went to heat up the grill today for some hot dogs.

Kasey ran in from the porch, yelling “Dad, the grill is smoking!”.

Mark said, “Yes, I know Kasey, grills smoke.”

So Kasey went back outside and the grill was still smoking, a lot, Kasey ran back in and said “Dad, you better come out here, you have to see this!”

I called Mark and Kasey from work to see how they were doing and Kasey immediately told me what Dad did. He was sure HE would get in trouble for that one!

I think it might be time for a new grill.

Balloons, Balloons, Balloons

2011-07-17T20:58:00.001-05:00

Saturday, we went to the California, MO first ever Balloon Invitational. We had heard about it from a friend on facebook (don’t you LOVE facebook!) anyway, we decided it sounded like a fun thing to do. I really like seeing the pictures of the balloons in Albuquerque, NM and would like to go to that someday.

It started at 7, we got into town early, but it was so hot, we didn’t want to sit around in the field waiting for 7. Killed some time in McDonald’s because they had a play place. Sure is funny the places you go when you have kids huh? It was cool and kept Kasey occupied for a while, so that’s what is important.

The first balloon to air up was the Missouri Lottery one.

There it goes!

The rest of them getting ready for flight.

Kasey wanted to go play games, but the games were all done. He sat down here

…. and then did his grumpy I’m mad at you pout!

The balloons were really cool in the sky.

I think there were 20 or 22 total. I am not sure I heard the total count and didn’t count them.

Kasey’s Bedroom

2011-07-17T20:39:00.001-05:00

I painted Kasey’s bedroom over July 4th. His room was just a plain off white. I thought I had taken some pictures of it “before” but couldn’t find them. I let him pick the color, he picked a yellow that was off a light switch wall plate he had. I was a little worried about it, but I was really happy with it after it was all done.

We have some work to do putting up some wall decorations. We found a really cool St. Louis Cardinals Stadium picture that shows the Arch and then the field with the Arch showing up where they mowed the field, it’s a really cool picture and will look good against the background yellow.

This picture is too dark, sorry about that.

There is the wall switch by the door that we pulled the yellow out from. It’s got a baseball, catcher’s mitt, etc in it.

Day 10 – Driving and Rocky Mountain National Park

2011-06-19T14:22:00.001-05:00

After we left Salt Lake City, we drove to Junction City on Highway 80 and spent the night at Wal-Mart. It was a little town next to Park City and was really cute. We then headed toward home, taking Highway 40 toward Colorado. The road was one of the scenic highways, much like all the others we had been on. ;)

We sure did this a lot, filling up with gas. Most of the time we had to do 2 fill ups, because the pumps would stop at $100.

Here are all the bugs that were on the front of the camper from our trip to Antelope Island. They were a mess!

We stopped at Dinosaur National Monument, there is one park on the Utah side and one on the Colorado side. We stopped at both of them. The only dinosaur bones were on the Utah side in a quarry, but they had the quarry closed, so we didn’t get to see anything.

These petroglyphics were on the walls of a rock in the park. We told Kasey these were aliens.

There was a lot of flooding in the area.

This is Steamboat Springs.

We then drove through Rabbit Ears Pass. There was a lot of snow on the ground.

This is the rabbit ears, up on the top of the mountain. Sorry the picture isn’t very good.

The other side of the pass was really pretty, the grass was green, no snow, lots of water.

This is Grand Lake in Colorado.

We headed into Rocky Mountain National Park, I really didn’t want to go, I figured it was going to be like all the other National Parks we had been to, more of the same, lots of mountains. But it was quite an adventure, we saw probably 6 moose including a mother and baby. We saw lots of elk. But the big thing was heading up toward the top of the peak, it started snowing, there was tons of snow all over. It really snowed hard, the roads weren’t really slick, but they were narrow with really steep hills on the sides. We weren’t really sure we were going to make it out of there. The high point was 12,000 feet high. We crossed the continental divide. As we were leaving the park, the park ranger was closing the road going up to the mountain. I’ll have to look up how much snow they ended up getting.

To say the least, it was quite an adventure, we started in about 6:30 and made it out by 9:00. It was a pretty fun adventure, after we got through it!

These pictures didn’t really turn out well, but notice all the snow on the windshield!

After we left the park, we went to Estes Park to spend the night, couldn’t find a campground or a Wal-mart, so we spent the night at the local hospital parking lot. No one bothered us.

I had a great time on vacation but will be really happy to get home. I got to see a lot of things, not sure what I liked the best. The drive through Rocky Mountain was pretty cool and Salt Lake City was neat.

Day 9 – Wyland Wall, Temple Square and the Great Salt Lake

2011-06-17T10:21:00.001-05:00

We stayed at Walmart last night in Richfield, Utah. I thought they were going to have a tornado, there was a storm brewing above the mountains and the wind was whipping around like crazy. The wind really blew the camper, but it didn’t last very long and everything was good.

We took a scenic route to Salt Lake City and our first stop was the Wyland Wall that was on the side of a furniture store building.

We then went to Temple Square. It was a little hard to find a parking spot for the camper, but found one about 8 blocks away and then walked to the square. It was a pretty amazing place. We couldn’t go in the temple, they reserve that for weddings and baptisms. They told us that they can have up to 100 weddings a day in the temple during June.

There was a lady that stopped and talked to us outside the temple, she gave us a brochure of the square and told us about all the neat things to see. There were two visitor’s center that they had at the square. Each one had different things in it.

This is the second visitor center we went in, which focused more on the building of the temple. They had a replica of the temple in there, along with interactive monitors that told you more about each section of the temple.

This is what the inside of the temple looks like.

This was the baptism area. We at first thought it was a milking parlor or something (I know, don’t laugh) but the cows actually held up the baptism tank. I am sure there was some symbolism there, but I didn’t really catch it.

We then went up in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which was celebrating its 100 year anniversary of being built. It was a beautiful building also. We ate lunch on the top floor.

We then toured the Beehive house, where Brigham Young lived with his wife, Lucy. There were tour guide who took us through the house.

I really liked the woodwork in the house. The beehive is the state symbol.

We then went to the Church Office building, which was 26 stories tall. We went up to the 26^th floor where they have an observation tower. My pictures didn’t turn out so great from that.

We also had a tour guide that took us up to the elevator and pointed out all the sites to us on the observation deck. There were two decks on the observation tower on each side of the building. The lady told us about some guys that they had left on the observation deck “who said they were taking pictures” and they parachuted off the top of the building. I want to look that up, can’t imagine doing that.

From there we went to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake. We drove 7 miles on a causeway that they had built to get to Antelope Island. There wasn’t really a lot to see and they said the gnats were really bad and biting so we didn’t even bother to get out. We saw a lot of buffalos.

Day 8 – Zion National Park and Bryce National Park

2011-06-17T10:17:00.001-05:00

Zion National Park in Utah.

Bryce Canyon in Utah

Day 7 Our Lazy Day in Vegas and a few Ants!

2011-06-17T10:04:00.001-05:00

We didn’t do anything in Vegas today, just stayed at our campsite, swam in the pool, played some golf and did laundry! Course you know who did the laundry. :) Me! But Mark kept Kasey occupied so that was good.

We also got ants in the camper. They crawled up through the electric cord. We’ve been trying to kill them ever since we left Vegas. Yuck!

Day 6 – Hoover Dam and Las Vegas

2011-06-15T23:52:00.001-05:00

We headed out from our campsite toward Hoover Dam. Lots of hills on the way. Hoover Dam was really hot and busy. We went across the Tillman bypass bridge that they built after 9/11, took almost 10 years to build and just opened up in 2010. It was really amazing, totally bypassed Hoover Dam which must have been a nightmare to cross without the bypass. The bridge was really high up.

This is the view of the bridge from Hoover Dam. We walked across it.

Hoover Dam from the bridge.

This is the bridge from the visitor center, it’s really BIG!!!

I like how the electric poles are slanted on the hill. I can’t imagine how they built this place.

We had to park quite a ways from the visitor center at Hoover and walk in, it was really hot. We went on a tour $11.00 of the power plant. Watched a 10 minute video and then went down into the power plant by elevator which went 500 some feet down in the hill. It was really nice and cool down there. When they built Hoover Dam, they had to divert the Colorado River in order to build the dam. They built two tunnels through the hills (took 2 years). We got to see the tunnels they built and the big water pipes in them, then we headed to where the generators were at. It was a really neat tour.

The floor inside the generator section was really cool. It was put in originally in 1935 or so and has held up amazing for having over 30 million visitors at the dam. Kasey really liked the exhibits, especially the ones that had touch screens or anything interactive.

I thought this bronze guy on the side of the building was really cool.

This is the view as we left Hoover Dam and how far up we had to park in the camper!

I will say, I was really impressed with this place. I’m glad we went inside too and learned more about it. Quite an engineering feat.

When then headed out toward Las Vegas. We drove down the strip and managed to find a campground. It wasn’t just a campground, it was an RV Resort, had a nice pool area, with 2 pools, one for families and one for adults. An 18 hole put-put golf course. It was a really nice place, but VERY HOT. I don’t know how anyone survives living out here. I guess the winter months might make up for it, but I don’t know that I could stand it, give me winter anytime over this heat.

We took a nap, Kasey cried and fussed about it, but went right to sleep and then headed out later in the evening for Las Vegas walking around. Mark didn’t like all the guys down town that handed out cards to get him to go see the women. Everywhere your turned they were trying to lure you. Mark quickly figured out that he needed to walk with us instead of getting ahead of us. A single walking guy was a quick target for them. They also offered him “male” services too, I don’t think he left my side after that. :) We walked a long ways, I bet over 6 miles. Walked through a couple of casino’s, but I couldn’t stand the cigarette smoke. Yuck! We got to see the last bit of the fountain show at the Bellaguia (spelling) when they were doing the song “Proud to be an American”. It was really neat.

We found this alien guy in a gift shop, Kasey was scared of him. Mark had told him on the trip about aliens and that they come out at night.

Day 5 – Grand Canyon

2011-06-15T23:32:00.001-05:00

Got up on Day 5 and looked for a tire place at the Canyon, there was a garage, but they couldn’t fix our camper and directed us to Williams, AZ, which was about 60 miles from us. We decided to look around the canyon before we went there since we knew we wouldn’t be going back once we got to Williams. We found a parking spot and walked out to the place where everyone goes on the hikes and mule rides. We walked down a little ways, it was really amazing, would be a lot of fun to ride the mule down or to hike down, but we would really have to be prepared.

If you look really close, you can see where the trail goes all the way out to the point.

This lady died in the Grand Canyon and the family allowed this to be posted on the bulletin boards to show people that you really have to be careful when you hike down into the canyon. Here’s a link to the article I found on her death.

We then got on a free bus that they have there and went to the red route, which took you along side the canyon. We could see really well, and mostly just looked out the bus, then we got off at the next to the last site and walked to the end of the bus route, it was about a mile and really neat hike with a nice paved path. Lots of plants, trees and flowers, and Kasey’s favorites, lizards! If we had more time, we probably would have walked a lot more of it. We then rode the bus all the way back and headed out in the camper with our bad tires.

Here we are on the bus!

Colorado River was a long ways down!

Kasey thought this was really a cool flower, but I wouldn’t let him blow it out!

As we headed out of the park, we spotted these elk. Can you find both of them?

Luckily we were able to make it to the town and to the tire store. We bought 2 new tires and put them on the front and moved the two front tires to the back. They were shocked that we made it as far as we did on those tires, but we drove really slow, like 45-50 mph the whole way down there. The guys also said they had never heard of the brand of tires that we had on the camper, probably some foreign tire.

The cool thing about this shop was that this was the inspiration for the Luigi car in the Disney Cars movie. The guy told us that the shop was going to be replicated at Disney when they build the Cars amusement rides at Disney. So maybe we’ll see it if we go there.

This was in the town, a store had all these statues out front, I got Kasey’s picture in all of them.

And of course, Kasey found a little girl to play with, he always gravitates toward them. :)

We ate pizza at a little pizza place and Kasey stayed in the back for probably 20 minutes playing video games. We didn’t tell him that he was only watching demo mode and wasn’t really playing anything. At least it kept him occupied!

More of these guys in front of the store on the way back to the camper.

The Luigi car.

This was one of the bad tires.

This was the other bad tire.

Kasey in the car.

The outside of the tire store.

We then headed out on I-40 toward Kingman, AZ. The wind was blowing like crazy, so we decided to take old Route 66 to Kingman from Seligman, hoping that the wind wouldn’t be quite so bad since the big trucks wouldn’t be blowing us over. We drove right through Peach Springs, which was the inspiration for the Car’s movie town of Radiator Springs. Sure wasn’t much there, was a pretty destitute area.

We found a campsite on the way to Hoover Dam, it was at Willow Beach, there was just a little line on the map and we saw a campsite sign so drove down to it. The road was narrow and really windy, with canyons and hills on each side of the road, it wasn’t a scary road though, just long and windy and steep in some places. We finally made it to the bottom and there was a river at the bottom. It was the runoff of the Colorado River from the dam. The campsite was only 2 weeks old, and cost us $20. I think they were supposed to charge us $35, not really sure what happened there. It was a full hook up. It was really hot outside. We unhooked the scooter and drove down to the lake, the water was 52 degrees they said all year. It was really pretty.

The first thing Kasey did was to climb to the top of this hill and slide all the way down. Yikes!

Kasey thought the light was cool and he liked turning the water on and getting all muddy, much to my dismay! He’s all boy.

This was after we left, on the road looking down at where we were.

Day 4 – Mesa Verde

2011-06-15T23:07:00.001-05:00

We got up on Day 4 of our trip and headed out to Mesa Verde which was about a half an hour from where we were at the campground. It cost $15.00 to get into the park and you had to drive 15 miles up a twisty canyon mountain road to get to the visitor center. It was really something, how they had built the road on the mountain. In this picture you can see the road going up the right side of the mountain.

We were really worried about the camper and the brakes overheating, but it did really good.

We bought tickets to do a guided tour of the Cliff Palace Dwellings at $3 each. The tour lasted about an hour and a half. We had to walk down these tiny tiny steps that were between big huge boulders. We didn’t really get to go into any of the dwellings, just walked on the outside of the dwelling and listened to the tour guide. The dwellings were built about 800 years ago and they think had about 150 rooms in it. It was really cool. We rode the scooter around the park instead of taking the camper from the visitor center. It was cool when we got there, but warmed up pretty quick, but the weather was still nice, very comfortable.

This is one of the views from the road we drove in on.

They had a big fire in the park, can’t remember what year they said this one was, you can see some of the burned up trees in this picture.

We could see for miles.

More of the trees burned up.

This was a dwelling that we could see while we were waiting for our tour to start.

We then headed out toward the Grand Canyon. I took quite a few pictures of the monuments in the distance. It’s pretty country. The camper has done really good in all this traveling. We’ve put one quart of oil in it so far and it’s been getting about 7 or 8 miles to the gallon in gas. We’ve been fighting a lot of wind though which probably hasn’t helped and been on a lot of two lane roads.

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon right at dusk, we got to see the sun set on the canyon, which was really pretty. It was $25 to get into the park for a 7 day pass. We drove toward the main visitor center and pulled over at some places to look at the canyon until it got really dark and we couldn’t see. Kasey fell asleep during the drive.

We got lost inside of the park trying for find our way out, it was pretty crazy place. We finally found a campsite outside of the Grand Canyon that we could park at, cost $45, with a full hook up and it was really just a gravel parking lot, all the campers were squished in the site. We found out when we were hooking up the camper that night that our two back rear tires were bad. So we had to get that fixed the next day. I didn’t take a picture of this campsite because it was so cruddy. :)

Day 3 Campsite

2011-06-15T23:01:00.001-05:00

This was the campsite we stayed at on Day 3. It was really nice. Here’s Kasey getting attacked by a bear!

Here’s the little stream next to the campsite. It sounded so neat, made for great sleeping last night.

Day 3 – Colorado, Sand Dunes

2011-06-10T23:42:00.001-05:00

Day 3 - Friday, June 10, 2011

We spent the night at Wal-Mart in Trinidad, Colorado. It was pretty noisy, because it was right by the highway, but I slept good anyway. It was really COLD in the morning! Really appreciated the furnace in the camper. We headed off toward the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The sand dunes have formed at the base of the mountain and are really really tall. There is a little creek that runs through the park and you can wade around in it.

The Sand Dunes, notice the pile of sand at the base of the mountain.

It didn’t take Kasey long to get to be a sandy mess!

Kasey ran down this huge sand dune, then had to come back up, it was really steep, but he made it to the top.

Running down another one!

Finally made it back down to the creek!

Why sit in it when you can just lay in it?

Clean up time! He was covered in sand.

We hiked a long way toward the top of the sand dunes. We didn’t make it all the way, but we did get pretty far. Kasey did really good, I was impressed. He really liked running down the hills.

We then drove out of there and headed toward Durango, Colorado. It was a long drive, we went up Wolf Creek Pass and had to go really slow down because the brakes on the camper were getting hot. One section of the road was really tight switch back curves, it was crazy! There was also snow on top of the mountain, we pulled off at the continental divide and walked out on the snow in our flip flops. Unfortunately, Kasey and I both stepped in a snow pile that wasn’t very hard and our feet sunk down in the snow and wet icy water, it was freezing! Kasey started crying, we had to get his Crocs off him and dry his feet off, then Mark carried him back to the camper.

We went through Durango and drove down town, there really wasn’t any place to park the camper. They have a really nice train ride there, that goes from Durango to Silverton, but we didn’t want to go on it. Tomorrow, we are heading to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon.

We found a campsite outside of Durango that is the coolest campsite I’ve been to. It’s got this little creek that runs through it. I opened the window so I could hear the water flowing. So peaceful. It was really nice to take a shower tonight too. I was happy they had wireless here so I could get a couple of things posted on my blog.

Day 1 and Day 2 Wild West Trip, Joplin & New Mexico Volcano

2011-06-10T23:19:00.001-05:00

Well, we’re on Day 2 of our Wild West Trip! Yesterday we started our trip and ate dinner in Joplin, MO. Words cannot describe the tornado damage we saw there. There were piles of building materials all over the place.

We spent the night at Wal-mart in Arkansas City, Kansas.

Day 2 was mostly driving. We did make it to the Volcano in Capulin. Unfortunately, we got there around 5:00 and they close at 5:30. It’s about a 10 minute drive to the top of the volcano. The park staff were really nice though and let us go on up, so we had a little bit of time to look around and take some pictures. The view was amazing from the top.

This is at the bottom of the volcano.

Our Camper Remodel

2011-06-07T22:34:00.001-05:00

Here’s some pictures of the camper after the remodel.

New carpets in the front. We also put a trim board on the wood, but I took the picture before we put that board down.

This shelf was original in the camper, we moved it by the sink though. It has a pull out table (not shown). We put 2 oak shelves to the right of this table after this picture was taken, I need to take a picture of that and post.

This is the new sink, it’s HUGE! I love it. We also put a new faucet, new tile counter tops and then the little oak board that acts as a stop for anything the might slide off the counter.

We took the stove out (who really ever uses those anyway!) And then we just left it open. I have a laundry basket that I put snacks and stuff in and just keep it in this spot.

New bathroom sink and faucet.

Didn’t do anything to the bedroom except to buy a new Queen bed.

Here’s another pic of the kitchen.

We bought this couch, it folds into a bed, and has a center console that lays down to put drinks on or use it as a little table. We got it at Southerlands. Camper furniture is so expensive and this was a really good solution. It’s bolted to the floor and we put seat belts on it, so 3 people can sit there. When we want to lay it down for a bed, we just pull a handle on each side and it unhooks the couch and we slide it out and lay the back down, it’s really pretty nice. The chair was original to the camper. New hardwood floors throughout.

I bought new handles on ebay and replaced all of them (there were 37!) I’m really happy with them and the way they are made, I can hang stuff on them.

I’ll have some posts during the next week, we’re headed on a camping trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Salt Lake City. Stay tuned.

Where have I been?

2011-03-11T22:21:00.001-06:00

Well, I have just been lazy about blogging lately. There has been a lot going on in my life right now, most of it with work. We sold off 3 locations of our company and one of the locations was the one that provided all of our IT services to our remaining 3 companies.

So, that meant I had to get busy getting our email setup for 120 employees or so, a new Internet site built, a new Intranet site built, our new Internet lines installed for 3 locations. Setting up a new server and several new applications. Overall, everything has gone really well and I think everyone has been happy with the results. The funny thing about working in IT is that if you’ve done your job right, you hardly ever hear from anyone to say that you did a good job. I’m sure some of you understand that. I probably had 2 or 3 people tell me thanks for all the work I did.

Other than work, I’ve just been busy with Kasey and Mark. Kasey is going to 4 day a week preschool in the afternoons. I think he enjoys it.

Our big project now is that we bought another camper! Last year, we fixed up my mom and dad’s old camper, here’s a picture of it at Johnson Shut-ins.

Ours is a 24’ 1984 Rockwood. We really like it and did a lot of work to it, but 24 foot just wasn’t big enough for us and Mark didn’t like the engine on this one, had the old style carburetor on it.

So my dad found a 32 foot RV on eBay and called me up and said, you HAVE to get this one, it’s a steal and the auction ends in 20 minutes, hurry up and make up your mind! Well, we bought it, went and picked it up. It’s a 1998 model and has a really good motor in it.

I need to take a picture of the outside of it, here are some of the original pictures of the inside from the guy we bought it from.

Here’s a list of what we’ve done to it so far:

Took all the blinds down to clean
Took all the living room furniture out (won’t be putting the old back in)
Ripped all the carpet and linoleum out
Took all the drawers out of the cabinets to clean
Replaced the latches that hold all the outside storage doors open
Tightened up the mirrors
Took out all the light covers, vent covers and any cover that I could figure out how to get off the camper in order to clean them

My dad has done a bunch of work to it also:

Fixed the turn signal that didn’t work (it had a wire corroded in the middle of the camper somewhere)
Installed a new radio that he bought Mark for Christmas for the original camper
Fixed the automatic step that didn’t work (it also had a bad wire)
Working on straightening the back bumper that is bent

Today we bought wood flooring for it, a new kitchen faucet, bathroom faucet, shower faucet and a bathroom sink.

So it’s Spring Break week, I’m on vacation all week, Mark is on Spring Break and Kasey is hanging out with us all week. We’re going to work on the camper. I decided it was time for me to get back into blogging, it would be fun to show our progress.

2 More Quilts Done

2010-12-05T18:22:00.001-06:00

This was a quilt I made with the leftovers from the Jelly Roll Quilt, I’m going to give it to Mark’s Nanny. She’s in her 90’s and is in a wheelchair. It is just the right size to put over her legs.

This quilt I made for Mark’s mom. I made is 3 or 4 years ago and at the time I thought it would go well with her couch.

I made labels for the back of all the quilts. You can tell it on the Jelly Roll Quilt, they are all like that.

Jelly Roll Quilt A Long Done!

2010-12-05T18:15:00.001-06:00

Kasey loves to get in the picture. He dressed himself this afternoon and put his jeans on backwards. I didn’t both to fix it.

Lincoln Museum and Tomb

2010-08-12T11:01:00.001-05:00

We stopped in Springfield, IL on Wednesday, August 11, to see the Lincoln Museum and Tomb. We have been by here so many times and never stopped. It’s well worth the time to stop, the museum was really good. There were several sections, you started with his young life, through his political start, then the White House years and his death. There was a theatre presentation called Lincoln’s Eyes. The theatre was really nice and there were laser lights and vibrations on the chair that went off during the movie.

Outside of the museum.

Railroad station across the street from the museum.

Inside the foyer of the museum, the only place they would let you take pictures.

This is Lincoln’s Tomb, the cemetery was about 2 miles from the museum.

I thought this was interesting, that there are no living direct descendants of Lincoln. The last one died in 1985. I guess he didn’t have any children or maybe they died before he did.

This was inside the tomb, the inside was marble and granite and it was in a circle that you walked around. The employee inside the tomb told us that the granite came from St. Genevieve, Missouri. Lincoln’s wife, Mary, and their 3 sons are buried here.

There is also a library, it’s mainly for private research.

This is now the end of the trip. We got home Wednesday evening and picked Kasey up. He was really happy to see us, but had a great time with GaGa and Grandpa. He told them he didn’t want to go on any driving trips unless we took the camper. :)

Port Washington and Pabst Mansion

2010-08-12T10:57:00.001-05:00

On Monday evening, we camped on the shores of Green Bay at a campground. We put up the tent right by the shoreline. It was a quiet campground and we could hear the slapping of the waves from the lake along the shoreline. I actually slept really good this time, probably because I didn’t sleep well the night before.

We stopped at Port Washington, WI to view a light house that they had in the town. We actually stopped to get gas, they had signs up for the light house so we thought we would drive to it.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the town’s care of this light. I know it’s nothing great, but the walk out to the light was littered with trash. Not just trash from the day, but trash from weeks worth.

Here is the view from the light back to the town. It was really foggy, so we couldn’t see too much. This whole walk out was freaky to me. The water was really deep and there were no rails, I could just see myself tripping and falling in. I was glad to get back to the parking lot. There were a lot of really big fish though, you could see them swimming around.

We stopped in Milwaukee and toured the Pabst Museum. It was really neat. Of course, you couldn’t take pictures inside, but here are a few from the outside and from the inside of the gift shop.

Pictured Rock National Park

2010-08-12T10:34:00.001-05:00

We let the campground early Monday morning. The road we took was a sandy drive the whole way. It was gorgeous, with lake views, forest trees hanging over the road. Our first stop was Grand Marias, to get gas, then we headed on to Sable Falls. We hiked about 190 steps down to the lake, there was a series of three waterfalls that took the water down to the lake. Then we hiked to the sand dunes. I thought about my mom the whole time, because she would have had a hard time walking through the sand. Once we were at the beach and mom couldn’t even walk on the sand because it hurt her feet. :)

This is at the sand dune place.

Pretty view from the top. The sand dunes were pretty much covered in trees and plants.

Then we stopped at a park called Log Roll. I was skeptical about what it was, figured we were going to have to hike a couple of miles to see anything, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a huge sand pile going out to the lake, where they used to roll the logs down to the lake to transport to the saw mill. It was a 500 foot drop to the lake, all sand, they said it took only a few minutes to get down to the lake, but about an hour to get back up. Needless to say, we didn’t go down there.

Then we headed to the next lighthouse, Au Sable Pt. But the road was closed so we couldn’t go see it.

The next thing was the Pictured Landscape Cruise.

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Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks

2010-08-12T10:10:00.001-05:00

Sunday, we headed out of Mackinaw Island toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Our first stop was the Mystery Spot. It’s a spot that is 300 feet where nothing seems right, a plumb bob won’t read plumb, a level will show a board is level, but when you stand on it, you are not standing straight. Mark is convinced it was all an elaborate hoax, but I’m not really sure. It all seems plausible to mean, I mean it’s called the Mystery Spot right?

Then we headed up to Sault Ste Marie to see the Soo Locks. Sault Ste Marie is the 2nd oldest settlement in the United States, behind St. Augustine in Florida.

We took the scenic road around Lake Superior, stopped at a light house on the way, Point Iroquois Light Station. We climbed to the top, and saw the big ship that went through the locks.

There were only 72 stairs going up to the light house.

After the lighthouse, we headed toward the Tamquemenoeon Falls, first the lower falls, then the upper. We hiked around for about an hour, then headed to the next lighthouse.

Picture of the next light house at Whitefish Pt.

Then we drove up toward a place called Deer Park. We found a campground and got a tent spot. There was a hiking trail out to Lake Superior and we watched the sunset and walked quite a ways on the beach. We stayed there till about 10:00.

I will say that I am NOT a very good tent camper, I just don’t sleep well. It’s not that it wasn’t comfortable, because really it wasn’t too bad, but I just have a hard time sleeping in a tent. There were a lot of people talking late at night.

We also think we could camp in the car, so the next morning, we put our sleeping bags and stuff in the car and tried it out. I actually think we could do it if we had to. (Course I probably couldn’t sleep!)

Mackinaw Island

2010-08-10T21:52:00.001-05:00

We got up early Saturday morning and took the ferry over to Mackinaw Island. Mackinaw Island doesn’t allow any cars, so the only way to get around the island was by bike, horse or walking.

We rented a tandem bike first and rode all around the island on the outside shoreline. It was hard to get used to the tandem bike. I couldn’t see around Mark when I rode in the back, so we switched and he rode behind me. He kept moving around to mess with me and I would have a hard time steering it. No crashes, so that was good! You couldn’t stand up on it and pedal either, so after we rode all around the flat area (8 miles), we turned in the bike and got 2 mountain bikes. Check out Mark’s goofy hat, I mean who brings a winter stocking cap on vacation? But it was actually cool, so it was a good thing. :)

This was a stop along the shoreline where we walked up to “Arch Rock”. It was amazing how they built the stairs going up on the hill. There were about 180 steps to get to the top (I didn’t count them, someone did that came down ahead of us!)

This is the arch rock, looking at it from the top of the hill that we climbed to.

Someone put a smiley face person in the water below the arch rock.

View from the top of the climb. You can see the road down by the water. It was a black top road.

This is another view from the top, with the road down below. The beach was really rocky, no one really went swimming in the lake.

This is the arch rock from the bottom of the road.

We rode the mountain bikes (we each had our own) up the hills and around the island. There was a couple of old cemeteries on the island, a “skull” cave, a lot of old houses, buildings, etc. We rode around for a couple of hours and then turned in the bikes.

I didn’t get a really good picture of the street when it was really busy, it was wall-to-wall bikes, horses, people. Pretty crazy. There was a guy (actually a lot of different guys) that went around and cleaned up all the horse poop, the main street really smelled bad too. They worked on keeping it clean, but there was just too much.

After we turned the bikes in, we did the horse carriage tour. I wanted to do that mostly because of the narration that the tour guide gave. I thought it would be really neat to hear more about the island that way. The gal that drove our carriage was from Wisconsin and came up to the island for the summer to work and went to college during the rest of the year. She was a forest ecology major, that was really obvious because she told us all about the plants and the trees in the area, which I enjoyed.

Here are some pictures from the ferry back to Mackinaw City where we stayed for the night. The Grand Hotel, and the Mackinaw Bridge are in the bottom two pictures.

Zip Line and Adventure Park

2010-08-10T21:21:00.001-05:00

We went to an adventure park right before Mackinaw City, Michigan and rode a zip line, climbed a rock wall and went over a swinging bridge. It was a really neat place, the zip line was short, wasn’t nearly as expensive as the ones I’ve seen other places (cost us $8 each). It at least gave us an idea of what it was like.

We walked across this swinging bridge before going on the zip line.

This is Mark going across the zip line. I know it’s hard to see him.

Here is the rock wall we climbed up. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Top of the lookout tower, you can see Mackinaw Island in the distance.

This adventure park was an old saw mill, they actually had it working with the water to power the saw. It was neat.

I took a video while I went over the zip line. This was something that was on my list of things I wanted to do. Don’t laugh at my screeching noises, I was just doing that to be funny, it wasn’t scary. I was also swinging my legs around to go in circles.

Drive to Mackinaw

2010-08-10T20:49:00.001-05:00

Friday morning (August 6th), we had a good night at our little hole in the wall motel. It was actually really nice, slept good, it smelled nice and was really clean.

We took the scenic drive to Mackinaw Island on Highway 23 along the coastline of Lake Huron. We found a marina where we could look at the lake. I am sure we will get enough of the lake pictures by the time we are done with the trip! :)

They were having a big walleye fishing tournament too. Lots of trucks with boat trailers.

We stopped at a light house along the way. We climbed to the top, viewed a shipwreck off the light house, then walked to the remains of a shipwreck on the shore.

This was the basement laundry room. The sink to the right was a real old heavy sink.

An old Maytag ringer washer.

This old washer was cool!

On the beach where part of the shipwreck was, all the old boards and nails and steel pegs.

I think the rocks are really cool in Michigan, they are soft and round. There were signs that you couldn’t pick up rocks and taken them off the beach. I didn’t take any of them for Kasey. (That’s my story, I’m sticking to it.)

This was the top section of an old boat. They mine a lot of calcite in the area, we’ve seen lots of big trucks with at least 16 wheels on the back trailer. (I’m sure Dad can tell me how many wheels total… I will take a picture of one, we don’t have any like that in Missouri)

We did a zip line too, that will be the next post. It was fun!

Generator Delivered and Krabby Patties

2010-08-06T12:15:00.001-05:00

We got the generator delivered this evening and the U-haul trailer returned, that was nice to be done with that! We then headed up toward Mackinaw Island, but took a scenic route out of Detroit.

Not much eventful to report on today. We ate at a restaurant in a small town and I had a crab cake sandwich, so I told Kasey tonight that I ate a Krabby Patty (from SpongeBob). He wasn’t sure what to even say about that. I took a picture just for Kasey…

I tried to take a picture of Mark, but I just couldn’t get a good one of him. He will be mad that I posted these, but they were funny!

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We tried to catch the sunset on Lake Huron, but we didn’t make it in time.

We found a road that we thought might take us to the Lake, but it didn’t take us all the way there, we drove a ways down the field, and then it started getting wet on the ground, so we turned back. We have to be careful, because sometimes we get into predicaments that can get us in trouble… :)

This was the field we went down, the Lake is right over the hill.

We finally found a little beach, but it was too late to catch the sunset. They said the sunsets are really pretty here, the beach had a marina on it called “Sunset Marina”. The water was warm too, we thought it would be really cold but it wasn’t. We talked to a guy that ran the Marina, he said the Lake was really rough tonight, he said it was really smooth today, then the wind picked up. This was near Bay City, Michigan

We had a close call tonight in not being able to find a hotel. In Bay City, we checked with 2 and they were booked, there was a Pig Gig festival in town or something, BBQ and Concerts so they were all booked up. We finally found a little place and the room is really “retro” but nice and clean, so we were pleased. I told Mark we needed to find a Walmart and get a tent and sleeping bags. The beach we found in the picture above had a campground and he guy said we could tent there. I would have done it if we had a tent. It’s so cool up here too, 55-60 at night, would have been good tenting weather!

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On Our Way to Michigan

2010-08-04T21:07:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are on our way to Michigan. We are taking this generator to Livonia, Michigan where the company I work at has a sister company that needs this generator. It was meant to power our computer room in the event of a power outage. We had a company give us a price to hook it all up and we just couldn’t afford to do it. One of the big problems was that we had to put the generator on the roof, which added a lot to the cost.

So instead of sending the generator up there, I volunteered to haul it and coordinate a vacation with it. It saved the company at least $1000 for us to take it up there.

The only downside to the whole thing is that this is a really heavy unit and we are going really slow, but it’s safer that way.

We stopped at Krispy Kreme, we couldn’t help ourselves…..

So Mark and I were going to take Kasey and Mark’s daughter, Annabell. But Kasey said he wanted to go stay with GaGa (my mom). GaGa said she would take him for a week. So we said “Annabell, we’re really sorry, but you can’t go with us.” She was the only one disappointed, because Kasey was happy since he’s staying with GaGa and Mark and I are happy because we’re getting to spend some much needed time together, but Annabell was really sad because she was looking forward to it.

We are heading to Mackinaw Island, Michigan after we drop our generator off in Livonia. Then we’ll venture into the upper peninsula of Michigan. Hopefully, I can keep up with posting on the blog while I’m away. I brought a little netbook with me, it’s really lightweight, so should be easy for me to type while I’m on the road and Mark is driving!

Here’s a neat bridge crossing the Mississippi River.

The St. Louis Arch, from a distance though. We took 270 off I-44 and you don’t get as close to it this way.

The big cross at Effingham IL. I thought the cloud was really pretty.

We made it about 250 miles tonight, but only got about 15 mpg, which probably isn’t too bad since we were pulling the trailer.

Building Stuff & Taking Stuff Apart

2010-08-01T20:16:00.001-05:00

We went to Lowe’s the other day in Lebanon and a lady directed us to the front where they were giving away the kid’s building kits. We got 6 of them and Kasey and Annabell put them all together this weekend. They were really nice kits and fun to do. We were just at the right place at the right time.

Kasey’s also into taking things apart. My dad started him out with some car parts, then gave him a CB radio. I brought an old telephone from work home for him and he had a great time taking it apart. He didn’t care to put it back together. :) That’s another lesson. I also have to teach him that he can only take things apart that we tell him to take apart. I can just see him taking the laptop apart….

Camper Quilt

2010-08-01T19:50:00.001-05:00

Here’s a quilt that I finished recently. I put minkee fabric on the back of it, it’s really soft and cuddly and everyone fights over it in the camper. Kasey likes to get in the picture anytime I take a picture of one of my quilts.

Camping Trip to Johnson Shut-ins, Missouri

2010-07-21T21:14:00.001-05:00

We went on a camping trip a couple of weeks ago and I’m just getting around to posting some pictures.

Here is Annabell and Kasey in the camper, coloring.

Kasey sleeping on the way down to Johnson Shut ins.

At the shut-ins.

This is the visitor center at the Shut-ins.

Here’s our little camper, setup at the campsite. This was a really bad site, because it had lots of sun. As long as I have air conditioning, I’m pretty happy.

This was at the park, we were getting read to go hike. They had this pretty shelter and this was a time line around the center of it, with dates, starting out from the dinosaurs, fossils, first things discovered, etc. Kasey liked running around the circle.

This is a little lake. This area was called the scour. It’s where the Amerun UE dam collapsed about 5 years ago and all the water washed down this area and ruined the park. Amerun UE paid a lot of money to the state and they rebuilt the park and the campground, so it was really nice. The campground had just opened in May of this year.

This is the new water dam that they built (I don’t think it’s called a dam but a reservoir).

This is a better picture, we hiked quite a ways to be able to see this. It was really hot too.

If you look closely, you can see that shelter house and visitor center where we started from.

Back at the campsite, Kasey riding his tricycle. He got some new water shoes too.

Kasey and Annabell liked to go to the store and buy things. Especially since Daddy gave them some money!

This was the second campsite we had at the campground, we stayed at the first one 2 nights and this one a 3rd night. It was a really nicer one, was actually the camp host site.

This is back at the Shut-ins with Annabell playing.

This was part of the Shut-ins. Where that guy is at on the big rock, they would jump down into that water. It doesn’t look deep in the picture, but it was. You just had to maneuver your way through all the rocks and water, it was fun.

Mark went to Johnson Shut-ins when he was in High School when he lived in St. Louis. He said that he would jump off the top of this cliff into the water. They fine you $500 if they catch you doing that now.

I thought this was a neat rock.

Mark and I went on a hiking trip without Annabell and Kasey, we followed the river down for a mile or two. It was really hard to get around because the rocks were so big. It’s really a pretty spot.

Well, that’s our camping trip. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Post a comment if you’re reading this. I don’t know if anyone reads this besides my mom! My mom bugs me all the time that I don’t keep this updated. She enjoys looking at Grandson pics. :)

Jelly Roll #10 and #11

2010-07-21T20:52:00.001-05:00

Here they are, blocks 10 and 11 of the Jelly Roll Quilt a Long. I am really happy with both of these. Only one more to go and then we’ll put them all together. I bought some really cool pink backing fabric, the soft minkee with raised hearts on it. This will be such a snuggly soft quilt!

Jelly Roll Block #9

2010-06-27T15:21:00.001-05:00

Here’s block #9, I can’t believe there are only 3 more left. This has been a lot of fun.

Springfield Park – Doling Park

2010-06-27T15:19:00.001-05:00

This was a really cool park, one of the older ones in Springfield. It had a cave, a nice lake and a trail.

Springfield Parks

2010-06-27T15:11:00.001-05:00

Here’s the second park we went to on Saturday. Valley Mill ~ 4007 N. Farm Road 171. This is another one that we will need to take the bikes back to and ride all around the lake. It’s pretty too.

Springfield Parks

2010-06-27T15:06:00.001-05:00

I am interested in the Springfield Parks, seeing what there is new to offer in Springfield that I haven’t seen before.

Here’s the first one, Lost Hill Park. Here’s the picture from the web site.

4705 N. Farm Road 151, it’s 132 acres. Wasn’t really much there, a trail, that would be fun to ride bikes down (which we didn’t bring ours). I thought the old barn was pretty.

More Jelly Roll Blocks

2010-06-11T08:48:00.001-05:00

Here are blocks 4-8. I just finished 8 last night and was really pleased with how it turned out. I really liked the “Love” fabric in this one.

Jelly Roll Quilt a Long – Konda Luckau - and stuff from Paducah

2010-05-02T16:28:00.002-05:00

I am sorry I haven’t posted anything in the last 2 weeks, I again, have no really good excuse, but life just got in the way. I went to Paducah for two days and had a really good time. One of the really neat things was that I got to meet the writer of the blog that I read Konda Lucau, she writes Moose on the Porch and posts the Jelly Roll Quilt a Long blocks that I have been working on. I talked to her quite a while at the show. I really didn’t even pay attention to her booth and after I left I wished I had bought one of her books, especially since I could have looked at it there and got her to sign it!

I also got to see Eleanor Burns at a show. She was really funny. She was trying to get you to buy the book she wrote Quilt Blocks on American Barns. It was all I could do to not buy the book. I am not sure that I would ever make the quilt, but it looked like a great book to buy and read.

This was the pavilion where Eleanor Burns had all her stuff for sale.

I bought a lot of stuff at the quilt show, several patterns and kits.

This kit is all flannel, I think it will be fun to make and really warm.

This is a 5 yard quilt kit I bought, I’m going to put it in the camper.

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A couple of fat quarters I bought.

This was a $5 fat quarter bundle I bought. For some reason, I’m really into the fruit and vegetable fabric right now, not sure what quilt I am going to make with it.

Another $5 fat quarter bundle.

This was a bundle of fat quarters I bought from Hancock’s for $14.99. It’s a Moda line but I will have to look up what line it is.

This bundle was the same price for $14.99. One of these was an Aloha Line.

This was a jelly roll from Hancock’s.

I bought this ruler and book for strip tubing. If I ever make something with it, I will post it also.

This is a little binder ruler that makes the end of your binding easier to miter. We’ll see if I can figure it out.

I also bought a crazy ruler, but haven’t got it yet. I took a picture of the block that I can make with the ruler. Plus it uses all that fruit and veggie fabric I have been collecting, but not sure that I will do it with that ruler though.

All for now! Have a great week.

Jelly Roll Quilt Along #4

2010-04-21T21:07:00.001-05:00

Block #4

Heading to Paducah!

2010-04-21T21:05:00.001-05:00

Well, I am leaving tomorrow with my friend Barbara to go to Paducah, KY to the AQS (American Quilters Society) Quilt Show! I am so excited. I went a long time ago with Barbara and some other friends and my mom. I’m excited to be going back and will take LOTS of pictures this year to post on here.

Jelly Roll Quilt a Long Block #3

2010-04-01T10:39:00.002-05:00

Here is my third block in the Jelly Roll Quilt a Long by Moose on the Porch. The Jelly Roll I used is called La’mour by Moda. I am happy with how it turned out! This has been such a fun project. I created a label for Jelly Roll Quilt so that you can click on the label to see all of them that I have complete.

Downy Quilts for Kids are Done!

2010-03-30T19:59:00.001-05:00

We finally got our Downy Kids Quilts done and shipped. My mom asked me about this, she wasn’t sure what we were doing. Here is the information about it, Quilts for Kids. We ordered the kits and we each got something different, all the same pattern. Everything was precut and so quick to sew together. Here is Barbara’s quilt. She had a girl ballerina material quilt. Barbara quilted it herself and did loopy loops.

Here is the one I got, big trucks with a green striped backing. You can see the quilting I did on it, I also did the loopy loops. They are a lot of fun.

Here is Paula’s quilt, not sure how well you can see, but it’s bright colored dinosaurs. I quilted it for her. I guess you could say this was my first “customer” quilt, but I will tell you it made me really nervous. It’s one thing to do a quilt for yourself. On my quilt my loopy loops were really good, on Paula’s I was nervous and I quilted over some of my loops, which then got me all frustrated and nervous. I am sure glad it was a donation quilt. But if I hadn’t done it for her, she would have had a hard time getting it quilted and I bet she would have had a hard time trying to quilt it on her regular machine, I don’t think she has done a lot of that. Anyway, I think she was happy with it. They are all done and shipped, so that makes me happy and hopefully, there will be a child somewhere that enjoys these quilts.

Jelly Roll Quilt a Long Block #2

2010-03-27T20:45:00.001-05:00

Every other Monday there is a new Jelly Roll Quilt a Long block. I finally got #2 done, #3 comes out this Monday, so I was just in time. I love how this one turned out!

Cafe du Monde and Wyland Wall

2010-03-17T13:29:00.001-05:00

Here’s the trolley that we rode down to the Riverwalk

Here’s the fountain at the Riverwalk.

Kasey liked the donuts at Cafe Du Monde. But he really liked the powdered sugar best!

Stole the plate from Daddy and licked the sugar off the plate. He had it all over him!

Then we walked outside of the Riverwalk Mall and right into the parking lot that had the Wyland Wall on it, right outside of the Hilton Hotel! I was pretty happy with being able to see it. It’s sad how faded it is though.

More pictures later….

Popcorn Boy

2010-03-17T13:23:00.001-05:00

We were in City Park and Kasey wanted popcorn, so we bought a big tub so that Mark and Kasey could share it. But Kasey threw a fit! He wanted his own and he didn’t want to share it with Mark. You can see him here crying.

No Dad, no more popcorn for you!

So then he took his popcorn and sat away from us and ate it by himself.

But it would be ok to feed his popcorn to the geese and ducks, but not Daddy.

They were really tame, Kasey liked feeding them.

I bet the park was really pretty when the trees were in full bloom. Notice the moss hanging down?

We rode the trolley back to the City. Kasey thought it was fun to put the popcorn on his head.

City Park in New Orleans

2010-03-16T20:06:00.001-05:00

We started out the morning by walking up to Canal Street to catch the trolley going anywhere, we didn’t really care. The one we got was to City Park, we didn’t really know what to expect.

Kasey getting ready to ride the trolley.

This was on the Carlton Ritz Hotel on Canal Street.

This is the Museum of Art in City Park. We went in and toured the Disney Dreams Come True exhibit. It was neat, lots of the original hand written drawings and prints.

Here is the view from the museum steps out front.

Here’s Kasey playing around! He had a good time.

This was the entrance to StoryLand at the City Park.

Humpty Dumpty and the two egg berts, Mark and Kasey. :)

StoryLand was really cute.

Kasey in the mouth of the whale!

Three Little Piggies!

Mark hanging out. I think he was having fun too.

Kasey sliding down the Dragon’s tongue.

On the fire truck.

Kasey – he was on top of the fire truck so fast I couldn’t believe it. The little sneak!

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

I’ll post some more pictures tomorrow.

Finally Made it to New Orleans!

2010-03-13T19:11:00.001-06:00

Here’s Kasey, watching his DVD in the car. He finally smiled for me, but closed his eyes, the little twerp!

Here’s going into New Orleans, the swampy areas.

Houses on stilts.

Our first traffic jam, going into New Orleans, it was road construction, but didn’t take too long to get through.

New Orleans Stadium.

This was the parking to our hotel, we were on the 8th floor, it was crazy, we would go up a really steep level, then sharp turn. We were lucky to find this spot. Kasey was worried that we wouldn’t make it out of here.

Bourbon Street singers.

This was a wedding party that went through the streets. It was neat.\

They had printed napkins with the couple’s names on it and waving them through the streets.

St. Louis Cathedral.

Cafe du Monde, they were pretty busy, notice everyone waiting outside. This was Saturday night, so we decided to try tomorrow.

Look at this guy, he’s like the tin man!

This is the French Market.

Me and Kasey.

Mark and his Hula Girl Beads.

Mark wanted to take my picture but I wanted to put lipstick on first. Kasey wanted some so I pretended to dab some on his lips.

There we are, all made up in our lipstick!

On that note, we’re all tired. Not sure what we are going to do tomorrow. But resting tonight!

Heading to New Orleans – Spring Break

2010-03-12T21:29:00.001-06:00

Today is the first day of spring break, we are heading to New Orleans. Don’t really have too much of a plan, we’ll just see what enfolds for the events. We left about 4 and made it past Jonesboro, Arkansas. Ate dinner at Ryan’s Steakhouse in West Plains, MO. Kasey loved the ice cream cones. Here he is with his first one.

This is “Mom, don’t take my picture!”

Here he is with his 2nd ice cream cone.

Then I tried to explain to him that when I get the camera out, he should let me take his picture and smile at me. So this is what I got. Cute huh?

We are in our room for the night and Kasey wanted to bring all his toys in from the car and all the snacks in. He was ready to build something here. He took his suitcase, opened it up and was saying, “socks, check, pants, check, shirts, check, yep, it’s all here.”

He is so good in the car, he doesn’t complain any. But does ask, “Are we there yet?” several times. He also said he didn’t want to live here. And he sure hopes that they don’t sell our house while we are gone.

Here’s our hotel, we’re in Truman, AR

Jelly Roll Quilt a Long

2010-03-10T21:28:00.001-06:00

Here is my first block in the Jelly Roll Quilt a Long by Moose on the Porch. The Jelly Roll I used is called La’mour by Moda. I am not 100% happy with the inside blocks. I may redo it, haven’t decided yet. I really wished I had put all red in the squares, or maybe put a brown in the center and all red on the outside. Sometimes you just have to let things go though and move on. I really love this fabric line though.

Kasey and I have been working on recycling. I have been recycling papers for a while. I bought one of those Aldi’s recycle bags and just throw my papers in it, then I can pick it up and take it to the big recycle dumpster. I have been shocked at the amount of paper we generate. One thing I really like about it is that if I need to retrieve something that I previously would have thrown away, it’s right there in the recycle. I received a check the other day from our flexible spending account vendor and then couldn’t find it. I looked all over and then decided to look in recycle and there it was! I think that Kasey thought it was recycle so threw it in there.

After the paper, I thought it would be a good idea to recycle soda cans. We buy too much soda and I decided it was time to recycle those too. So I searched all over town and finally found a can crusher. This is now Kasey’s job and he really likes it. My mom has been saving her cans up too for him to crush. Here’s Kasey crushing the cans.

Then he puts them in this little trash can.

That’s all for tonight! We’re having a really nice thunder rainstorm tonight. I love it when it rains, sounds so relaxing (well, except for the loud thunder and the crashing lightening.)

Another Quilt Done!

2010-02-21T21:50:00.001-06:00

I started this quilt a long time ago. I had it on the quilt machine but had problems with the machine breaking my thread. So Mark took a look at it this weekend and the needle was bent! I can’t believe I didn’t even look at that, so that was a quick fix. I got it all finished yesterday and quilted loopy loops in it.

Downy Quilt for Kids Top Complete

2010-02-21T21:46:00.001-06:00

I got this quilt top done! Isn’t it cute? Now I will just need to get it quilted and it will be ready to ship off.

Downy Quilts for Kids

2010-02-18T21:52:00.001-06:00

I ordered a Quilts for Kids kit last weekend and got it in the mail today!

I think this is such a cool idea. You can order your own quilt kit here. I think their quilt label is so cute. So I started working on the quilt tonight, got all the 4 patches sewn and sewed 2 rows together. I’ll probably get it all done tomorrow. Then will need to get it quilted.

After it’s all done, the label is on it, I wash it and pack it up to send back to the company.

L’amour Fabric – Jelly Roll

2010-02-11T20:11:00.001-06:00

I ordered a Jelly Roll last weekend and it came today! I am really excited about it and love the colors in the line.

I think I am going to try to do this quilt Sampler. The first block comes out March 1st. I am not sure what I am going to do for the wide border or the sashing. I really like the dark browns, maybe the brown with little red hearts as the wide border and maybe the solid red for the sashing. The pattern calls for background fabric and I’m not really sure what that is used for, so will wait and see what the first one looks like before I order anything.

We had a Valentine’s Party at pre-school today. I will try to post the pictures later.

New Block of the Month Quilt

2010-01-24T20:28:00.001-06:00

I know, I have started too many projects, but I talked Barbara into doing this block of the month with me. Burning the Midnight Oil's Fall Fancy.

This is a little more complicated than I normally do, but I think I can do it! Especially if Barbara is helping me. Thanks, Barbara!

So step one is to make the 4 patch and 9 patch blocks. I decided to do mine in lilac and light green. Barbara is going to do reds, blues and tans. We’re both using up the stash we have so we’re being resourceful!

Here’s my step 1 done:

I have to square the blocks up, but that won’t take too long. Step 2 is already out, it’s the middle appliqué blocks. Not really looking forward to that.

These steps come out the 15th of every month. I think it will be fun.

Valentine’s Table Topper

2010-01-23T09:31:00.001-06:00

I made a Valentine’s Topper yesterday. It’s from Debbie Mumm’s Spice of Life free pattern. I really like how it turned out. I didn’t put a border around the edge, I don’t think I am going to do that.

Here’s the one that is on Debbie Mumm’s site

It’s Complicated

2010-01-11T18:40:00.001-06:00

Have you seen It’s Complicated? Oh, my, that is such a funny movie. Maybe it had to do with Mark and I being older parents with an active 3 year old, but we laughed through the whole movie. I just loved Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin was really good in the movie, you couldn’t help but like him. Then Steve Martin? Oh my, he was so sweet, you just wanted to run off with him.

If you haven’t seen that movie, you should run out now and see it! Well worth going to if you need a good laugh.

Windows Live Writer

2010-01-11T18:22:00.001-06:00

I have been using Microsoft’s Live Writer to publish my blog postings. Not sure if you’ve tried it or not, but it’s really easy to use. Easy to post pictures, you just insert the picture and you can size it crop it, etc, just like you would use other Office application. Plus it’s free! What can be better than that?

I haven’t posted for a while, I keep thinking about it, but just don’t seem to find the time. I always want to make the time but just haven’t been doing well at it. I really should have made it a New Year’s Resolution, huh?

Well here’s the sweetest present I received for Christmas, my little guy under the tree!

Christmas Ornaments

2009-12-20T18:34:00.001-06:00

Kasey and I made these Christmas ornaments for the tree and to give away to family. Aren’t they cute? This is Kasey’s pre-school picture. He fell down on the concrete before these were taken and skinned up his chin! He’s my little accident prone boy.

Yo-Yo Christmas Garland

2009-12-20T11:34:00.001-06:00

I think this is so cute! It’s not mine, I stole it off a blog that I read, wouldn’t this be a cute idea for the Christmas tree?

What about this yo-yo tree?

Our babysitter

2009-12-17T08:43:00.001-06:00

I haven’t talked about Kasey’s babysitter experience on my blog. He had a really hard time adjusting to the babysitter and I was worried about what we were going to do. It took him about a month, but he finally would go inside her house without crying and had a good day. Now, he loves it. Doesn’t have any trouble, and she is wonderful! They do crafts and he has a little girlfriend there, Anna. I am so happy with her. She made all the parents a little scrapbook. She took 2 paper sacks that you get from the grocery store and put them together in a book, punched holes in the edge and put cute ribbon on them.

Christmas Candy Jar Quilt

2009-12-12T09:25:00.001-06:00

I got the candy jar quilt done (well it’s not quilted yet) but it’s all pieced together. I have to find backing for it, I want flannel and would be really happy if I could find some red Christmas Candy. Another shopping trip!

I have 20 different Christmas candy fabrics in the quilt. This is one of my favorites.

And this one is! I love the popcorn! I really like the fabric for the lids too. It was just one I had in my stash but it’s gray with flakes in it, like an old style galvanized lid.

Santa 2009 & Cave Restaurant

2009-12-11T21:09:00.001-06:00

We went to see Santa at the bank today. It was really nice because there weren’t that many kids there and we didn’t have to wait in line at all.

Kasey told Santa he wanted a car. Mark bought him a hot wheels set at Wal-mart, while Kasey was with us. Then Mark put it in the closet. So I think that’s why Kasey is saying he wants a car.

After we left Santa, we went to Richland to the Cave Restaurant. It’s about a half hour from Lebanon. We rode a hay wagon to the cave, there were little cabins along the way lit up for Christmas. Here are Mike and Becky.

Me, Mark and Kasey.

Inside the cave restaurant. Kasey was trying to climb up the walls. This is Gracie, Mike and Becky’s daughter.

The kids fed the goldfish in the pond.

The goldfish, they were pretty small.

I really should learn to take better pictures. They had a guy playing the piano. It really made for a nice evening.

Inside the cave.

Leaving the cave, heading back to the cars, it was cold!

My little cutie pie!

When we were in the restaurant, guess who came to eat? Santa Claus! That was funny because the kids were all excited that Santa was there. We told him that he was hungry and needed to eat before he headed back to make more toys. He was a really good looking Santa too, nice white beard.

All in all, it was a fun evening!

Puzzle Salvaged! All is Well!

2009-10-25T10:26:00.001-05:00

The hot chocolate dried on the puzzle and I was able to put it all back together. We thought there was a piece missing but it was underneath the puzzle so it’s all done!

Kasey and the Camera

2009-10-23T11:21:00.002-05:00

Kasey loves to get my camera and take pictures. It’s really funny the pictures he takes too.

This was at our insurance agent’s office, got a picture of the speaker at the ceiling.

Someone’s arm, probably mine.

This was a dish that was outside. Mark and Kasey went to the little store and bought a dog dish that had candy in it shaped like dog food. Didn’t seem very appealing to me.

This is Kasey’s little magnetic holder for nails. He takes the board outside and hammers the nails into the board, into the sidewalk cracks, into the grass, just about whatever he can find to nail, he’ll try it. There’s his foot, finger and the string of the camera.

His little bikes and riding toys.

Green plants.

The sky.

Yellow flowers.

Blue flowers.

His dirty croc and his feet.

This is either his other shoe or he turned the shoe on its side so he could get a side view picture.

His feet on the stairs.

Bathroom drawer door pull.

Messy bathroom sink and faucet.

There were some other pictures that I didn’t put in here, all of me unflattering, like me in my nightgown, my butt, head shots! I deleted all those off the camera.

1000 piece puzzle ends in Hot Chocolate Disaster!

2009-10-23T10:54:00.001-05:00

Well, this was the next puzzle I was working on:

Well, I had probably 3/4 of it done, it was 1000 pieces, the first I had ever attempted. Little sweet Kasey decided he wanted hot chocolate so I had a little crayon thermos and I mixed it in that and let him pour it into the lid (I know, you mothers out there are saying, that was your first mistake). Well, he was at the dining room table where I was working on the puzzle and yes, you know exactly what he did. He spilled it all over my puzzle.

See the hot chocolate how it soaked all under the puzzle.

More of it.

Now what to do with it? I am going to let it dry out and see what happens. I wanted to cry. I know everyone thinks it’s funny out there is blog land, right?

This was one of the puzzles I bought at the flea market for $1 so I guess I can’t complain too much. If I had paid $15, I would have been more upset.

Wyland Puzzle

2009-10-23T10:47:00.001-05:00

I bought this puzzle a long time ago before I ever did puzzles. I started putting it together, but the pieces were really weird shapes and hard to put together. So I conned Mark into finishing it and he got it done!

My 4th Puzzle and a RAT!

2009-09-26T09:14:00.001-05:00

I got another puzzle done! I am really addicted to these things. I need to quit doing them because I won’t have any to do this winter. Does anyone ever do a puzzle again? I would think that would still be fun. I got this one at a swap meet here in town for $1. I was surprised it actually had all the pieces to it, the guy promised me it did, but you know how that goes! I bought another one from him too for $1, it has 750 pieces in it. My next puzzle is going to be a Wyland Wall puzzle, it’s 550 pieces and is round.

We had a rat in the house last night, our cat Jenny brought it in. I was sleeping really good about 3 in the morning and I heard this little squeal squeaky noise. I got up and Jenny was running our a piece of furniture trying to find her catch. I moved the furniture away from the wall and this big RAT ran under the bed. So then I saw it run from the back wall to another piece of furniture. Jenny ran under the bed, then tried to run out of the room. I shut the door on her, but she wasn’t interested in catching it at all. She stayed under the bed and went to sleep. So Mark got a tennis show and the rat was under a big pillow laying on the floor, he got it cornered and it moved out from under the pillow and he slammed it with the tennis shoe.

I had to take a picture of it so I could post on my blog. Isn’t that nasty?

The problem is that Jenny is really an outside cat, but we have this really nice cat door and she can come and go. So she goes outside and hunts and brings animals in. I am really tired of it and not sure what to do. I could leave her outside all the time, but then I would have to remember to keep her food out and make sure the other animals don’t get it. Or we could make her an inside cat, the problem with that is she likes to go outside, so she would howl and cry all the time at night and drive me crazy. So I don’t really know what to do with her.

Anyone need a cat that is a good RAT killer?

A Third Puzzle – Complete

2009-09-25T21:41:00.001-05:00

I got another puzzle at Wal-mart! This was pretty easy to do. I am really getting into these puzzles. Anyone else like them out there? Hello, anyone out there?

Another Puzzle!

2009-09-13T16:51:00.002-05:00

I decided to buy a puzzle at Wal-mart, so I got one that looked fairly easy, with lots of things I could pick out, instead of just one big landscape or all blue sea or sky. I started on it last night and finished it today. It was fun, I think these puzzles are becoming an obsession with me!

It’s Puzzle Time!

2009-09-12T16:42:00.001-05:00

I have decided I like puzzles. I have never done puzzles before and I just started buying some for Kasey. But they are really big puzzle pieces, 26 pieces, floor size, or I even have a 100 piece puzzle for him. He’s doing pretty good with them and will keep the puzzle out on the table until he finishes it. We’ve bought a couple of puzzles at garages sales and they’ve had a few pieces missing. It’s actually kinda funny because you do all the work and then have pieces missing. Oh, well!

So I borrowed a puzzle from a friend, I thought it was really pretty, a quilt with flowers and a wicker chair. Well, it had a few pieces missing too. I can’t take credit for finishing the puzzle though because Mark did a bunch of it.

I think puzzles is going to become my new obsession, and I’ll post each one I complete here on my blog. It’ll make it feel like an accomplishment.

“Julie & Julia”

2009-08-29T21:31:00.001-05:00

Mark and I went to the movies today in Springfield and watched “Julie and Julia”. What a great movie! It was so funny and Meryl Streep was really good as Julia Child. But unlike many reviewers, I liked Julie’s part. On the way home, Mark and I were trying to think about things we could blog about, but not much came to mind. I wish I was a better blogger, I really like reading other people’s blogs, especially the ones that blog almost every day. Pioneer Woman and Kelly’s Korner are my favorites. On the quilting side, I like Moda Bake Shop and Cre8tive Quilter.

It really made me want to cook and I thought about it all the way home. Especially the beouf bourguignon recipe. Unfortunately, thinking about it is probably all I’ll do. I don’t really feel like cooking now.

Are you addicted to Facebook?

2009-08-14T20:52:00.001-05:00

I started out blogging and like it, but then I got hooked on Facebook. I thought it was pretty stupid at first. I mean you just collect friends and then post silly things out there. But then the more friends you get, the more things you like to read about your friends, so you start posting things and posting pictures. Then you get addicted to these stupid games and things that they have on facebook.

So here’s my farm that I have in FarmVille. Do you know what I’m talking about? I have these fields planted, every day or couple of days, you have to go in and harvest the fields, then you have to plow them, then plant them again. Each one of the squares takes a click to harvest, another click to plow and another click to plant. Then the cycle starts over again the next day. You can buy trees, animals, fences, etc. The more levels you get to, the more things you can buy. Like now I planted green peppers. I’ve planted cotton, soybeans, strawberries, wheat, etc.

I keep saying that I’m not going to play it anymore, but I keep doing it. Harvest, Plow, Plant, it’s a vicious cycle.

Then you can add neighbors, see I have a few down there at the bottom, actually I think I’m at 10-12 now. Your friends send you gifts, trees, rabbits, goats, etc. You harvest those too, for their eggs, their milk, their wool, the cherries off the trees, the plums, apples etc. See how crazy it is?

We got a new Trailer!

2009-08-08T20:47:00.001-05:00

We had a big covered trailer that Mark’s brother Alan was using. Ever time we wanted to use it, he had to clean all his stuff out of it so we could take it. We decided to just sell it to him and buy a new trailer. Mark picked up the trailer tonight. It’s just a little one that we can use to haul scooters around or our bikes and haul furniture or whatever with.

The first thing Kasey did was run and get all his toys and put on the trailer.

Isn’t that the cutest thing? I think he might have a few too many ride on toys, what do you think?

Sissy Came to Visit

2009-08-08T20:41:00.001-05:00

Nicky came over to see us today. She is now living in Springfield with one of her friends and will start school at Ozarks Technical College on the 20th of August. She and Kasey played outside while I tried to get pictures. It’s almost impossible to get a good picture out of Kasey, he just doesn’t want me to take his picture. He’s in for years of me taking his picture, so he better get used to it, don’t you think?

I think she was pretty happy when she left, I sent her with my old cookware set, 3 skillets, 2 pans and a big pan with a strainer and glass lids. She said her room mate only had a couple of skillets and the handles were falling off. These pans should last her for years.

I’m such a good stepmom! It will probably take her years to realize it. HA!! Oh well.

A UFO Completed #1

2009-08-02T20:07:00.001-05:00

I have to complete 3 un-finished objects (a quilting term to you non- quilters – not an unidentified flying object). It’s not like I really HAVE to do it, but Barbara and I are planning a trip soon and she thought we should finish 3 UFO’s before we go on the trip. That way we feel better about buying more fabric to start a new project. Well, not that we really need a reason to buy more fabric, right?

So I finally got this table runner done!

My mom, Barbara and I all went to Paducah KY one year and I bought this Eleanor Burns pattern. I started it that year, I don’t know when it was, maybe 2002? Anyway, I finally finished it last year and decided I better get it quilted so I could get it off my list. It’s probably the oldest project I have left to finish! Woohoo.

Here’s a few other pictures of quilts I have been working on. This is a Moda Enchanted Holiday pattern. I started quilting it and had trouble with the machine and just haven’t gone back to it. So this will end up being my UFO #2.

I got the borders added on this It’s Snowing! Quilt. Do you think it looks better with the borders?

Here’s one I’ve been working on for Mark. I made it with 2 Charm Packs from Moda’s Northern Flight by Holly Taylor. I bought some more fabric to add additional borders.

So #3 will be quilting one of these 2 quilts I think.

Well, that’s it for tonight.

Branson Day 3

2009-07-31T21:56:00.001-05:00

We got up this morning (very early, thanks to Kasey!) and Mark and I decided we would take Kasey on our own so we could each have some time to ourselves. So Kasey and I started out first, but then somehow, Mark didn’t really end up taking Kasey for the afternoon like we had planned.

Kasey and I headed out to Branson landing and went to Ride the Ducks. Mark had done that before and he didn’t really want to go. I really had a good time. We left the Branson landing and rode to College of the Ozarks, where I went to school the summer of 1984 and Mark graduated in May 1984. The campus is really pretty. Here’s a picture of the lake at the college.

Kasey on the boat and Kasey and I at the Captain’s Chair of the boat. Kasey got a little certificate that he drove the boat. But he wouldn’t sit in the seat until I sat with him.

They offered a picture at the end of the trip, along with a picture of the duck out in the water. I had to pay $20 for that, but I couldn’t turn it down! Kasey had a big duck call in his mouth it was really cute. They gave everyone these duck cluckers that were really annoying, but cute too.

After we got off the duck, we got an Auntie Annie’s Pretzel and Hot Dog. Kasey dropped the hot dog on the ground and right after I took the picture of him drinking my LARGE soda, he spilled it all over the ground!

Here is Kasey sacked out in the car seat. He woke up crying, which is how I would wake up if I slept like that too!

We came back to the campground and Mark wanted to go swimming in the pool. So we did that in the afternoon until about 4:30. There was a little girl in the pool that was playing with Kasey. They played after they got out of the pool too, she rode Kasey’s trike around. The family was really sad that we weren’t staying for the whole week. They just showed up today from Kansas City. The little girl said Kasey was her best friend.

After swimming, we decided to go back into Branson. We rode go carts and rode the bumper cars. Then had some Andy’s Frozen Custard. I usually get my favorite, Caramel Pretzel Crunch, but they had Key Lime Pie on the board and that sounded good. After I got it, I wished I had gotten my favorite instead. You should always stick with what you like at a place like that!

So that was how I didn’t get my time alone, I went swimming, when I could have stayed in the cabin and read my book. Then I went into Branson to ride go carts instead of staying in the cabin. But I had a good time so that’s all that matters. Plus I can read on my book on the way home.

We are going to head back home tomorrow sometime. Vacations make me tired.

So if anyone is reading this, and you read all the way through, post a comment for me!