The Fifth Time Is A Charm -- I Hope

This year I decided to close the pool before Labor Day since the last 2 years we haven't used the pool much after the holiday. The kids are in school full time now, so I figured it probably wouldn't get used at all so we might as well just close it.

Well.......the pool had different ideas.

Cover came off 4 times. The first two times we determined it was the winch (sounds like a bad word but that's what it is called). Then I decided I had the water level too low. The fourth time, I'm not sure what the problem was.

But we put the cover on for the fifth time. I bought another new winch and I decided to try the water in milk carton thing. Must have done the trick because it has now been a week and the cover is still on.  Hoping this is it because if it comes off again, there will be no pool cover this year.

Glad that frustration is over. Now I get to enjoy watching the leaves from the neighbors trees fall all over the cover.

My Girls

A couple weeks ago, I grabbed my girls and my camera and we headed out to the park for the sole purpose of practicing and experimenting. I had a lot that I trashed but here are a few that I liked.

Crazy Hair, Face Tattoos, and more Teeth Gone

The Annual Fall Fest was this past Friday at the school that my kids attend. As I was getting a few things done in the afternoon I noticed a message on our answering machine. It was from a friend of Joshua's asking what time he was going to be there. I had Joshua call his friend back and I listened to their conversation about where they were going to meet up that night.

Really?

My kids are too little for this. Calling friends. Making plans.

I guess just another one of those things that happens as they grow.

To make things worse, as I was brushing Alex's hair before we left she asked my if she could get her hair dyed. After I had a minor heart attack, she explained that she just wanted it sprayed a color at the Fall Fest. OK, I can handle that.

We went there, ate food and then I headed to go to my assignment of working at the Basketball game. Apparently I didn't mess it up too much last year, so they put me there again.

An hour and a half later my shift was done and I found my family. I found colorful hair and face paintings. Isaac calls them tattoos. The remnants of his got scrubbed off before church on Sunday morning.

If you look closely there is a lot of dried cotton candy on their face as well.

We had all had about enough soon after I found them so we decided to cash in all our extra tickets on some health food.

 

I also pulled another tooth out of Amanda's mouth on Friday. Unfortunately, our very unreliable Tooth Fairy messed up again and forgot to come.

But I realized the next night it was a good thing because while we were out the babysitter (my friend Marci) pulled another tooth. So really in the end it was a good thing, the Tooth Fairy only had to come once  for 2 teeth. So in hindsight, that is one smart Tooth Fairy!

Delicious Donuts

Sometimes Facebook is a very useful tool. Like the fact that without Facebook I would have never learned about the most delicious donuts.

I admit, I was skeptical. I love donuts and all, but are they that great that everyone is talking about them?

So when my friend Eva posted on Saturday a picture of her recently purchased donuts, I had to ask her where my donut was. And the good friend that Eva is, she snuck one past her family just so that I could try one.

I took one bite and I was sold.

A small piece was shared with my husband and each child was given a small bite. They were sold on them as well. I thought a lot about that donut that day.

Well, it just so happened that Isaac was asked to go to this same apple orchard with a friend on Tuesday. Ahhhh, my chance to get a whole dozen of these delicious donuts. Even Joshua said when he found out Isaac was going, "Mom, have Isaac get donuts."

Now, if you know anything about me, I am quite frugal when it comes to my spending money on food. I paid $8 for a dozen of these donuts and they were worth every penny!

They are a pumpkin donut but the best I can explain it is that it is more like a cinnamon spice donut with a pumpkin glaze.  I want to know how to make this glaze. If anyone knows.....please share. I'm thinking if I could make this glaze I could add it to a variety of different things like maybe different kinds of cakes.

I even bought a Groupon recently to this orchard, so I plan to go there myself. Maybe I can figure out the mystery of the pumpkin glaze!

So if you head out to the apple orchard and you buy a donut. Think of me and if you feel so moved to do so, feel free to bring me back a pumpkin donut!

Gymnastics, Cleaning, and Other Stuff

Ever since the kids headed off to school I feel like there just isn't too many exciting things going on around here to blog about. Basically, they head off to school each day. I run around trying to get something done. Occasionally I get to enjoy lunch with a friend or one of my sisters. Then the kids come home, we do the normal stuff that people do at night and then the next day we start all over.

The few things that we do and I have taken pictures of just never seem actually seem to make it to my computer.

But that is all about to change.

Here are a few things that have been going on.

Back in August the girls finished up their gymnastics and got medals. Since I didn't have my camera that day, I had to use my phone. That is why the quality is terrible!

They are now back in gymnastics at a different place. They are loving it! Brad took them tonight and got video of them climbing up a rope. If I can figure out how to get the video off his phone I will share it soon.

Isaac, Alex, and Amanda all learned how to ride their bikes with no training wheels right before Labor Day. I'm a bad mom and still have not gotten a picture.

Since we live on a busy road there isn't really anywhere to teach them. I had been meaning to take them to the park and try to teach them but apparently they got impatient and finally taught themselves. I'm very proud of them and they are loving riding their bikes again!

I've also been doing a little canning this fall. So far I've canned peaches, salsa, spaghetti sauce, strawberry jelly, and I froze some corn and beans. I thought I took pictures of some of this but something happened to them. Not sure what but I'm sure you don't really care all that much anyway so we'll just keep moving on.

Saturday morning my wonderful children decided they were going to go through their stuff and get rid of things.  This would have been a great idea if in the process my house didn't look like a huge tornado went through it.

When I inspected a bag of what I thought was garbage, I found this baseball mitt along with 2 cameras, 2 pairs of shoes, and a few other things that were clearly NOT garbage!

Saturday night I went out with a friend for dinner. Before I headed there I stopped at Children's Place because I needed a couple things and I had a coupon. While standing in line someone handed me a $20 off a $40 purchase. Do you know how happy this made me?

Then when I went out for dinner, my friend and I were chatting and didn't really even notice that our food was taking so long. (If you knew both of us and knew how much we both like to talk, this would not surprise you.) Before we knew it the manager was at our table with our food, apologizing and telling us they took our sandwich off the bill. AWESOME!

I'm sure you don't really care but you know how I love a good deal, so I just had to share just in case one other person is excited for me!

I feel like I should have numbered these just so you know when I'm switching to something new. That is my way of telling you I'm switching gears.....did you get it?

Anyway, I was on the way to Isaac's Opthamologist appointment this morning and we were pulling in the parking garage and Isaac says to me, "Mom....oh never mind. I was going to ask if this is the hospital that Grandma is at but she already died. She's in heaven now, right?"

Me, "Yep, she's been in heaven for over 5 years now."

Isaac, "Wow, 5 years! That's Awesome!"

That brought a smile to my face, so I just wanted to share.

And that's all I got until something exciting happens again.

Our Jobs, Pitching In, and A Man That Irons

I am guessing that by the title of my blog post, this might be a post that gets a lot of hits. All my Facebook friends are thinking 'What!? A Man that irons? I must hear about this. I must see this.'

Ladies, It is true. This is Dan and he irons.

On my 6 day trip to the DR, I think I actually witnessed him ironing 3 times. One time he ironed a polo shirt for about 5 minutes.

I mean, really, who irons polo shirts?

Yep, Dan does.

But before you get too excited, I'm sorry ladies, but he is taken. My cousin Ellie will be marrying him next year. She sure did pick a good one. Maybe she'll be really lucky and maybe he does laundry and vacuums too. If he cleans toilets, then I think she may just have found THE. PERFECT. MAN.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's move on.

When you go to a different country for a wedding and the whole bride's family is from out of town it is important that everyone just pitches in and does their part. That is exactly what happened at Carrie's wedding. Thankfully a lot of us have talents that pertain to things that need to be done at a wedding.

In case you didn't know, I was the photographer. If you didn't know, then this must be your first time here because everyone else is sick of hearing about it.

Katie C. was the Wedding Planner/Coordinator. She did an awesome job! She looks a little stressed here but she did a great job of making sure everything was done so Carrie didn't have to worry about it. She was really the perfect person to do it because she can speak both English and Spanish. She also lived there for a short time so she knows all about American time and Dominican time.

My Aunt Karen took care of the decorating and flowers. Being the mother of the bride she did a lot more but this is one major thing she took care of. She was not in charge of doing the bouquets though but here she is making some up because the flowers were late and we weren't sure if they would actually come or not.

Marci got a brand new job that she had never done before. She was the videographer. I can't wait to see her work.

Marci was also the make-up artist. She was also in charge of making everyone laugh.

The night before and the morning of there were lots of things to get done which most everyone pitched in and helped.

Here is George the morning of the wedding pulling rose petals off for the the isle.

And here is "Ironing Dan" helping make 'Reserved' signs for the seats at the ceremony and tables at the reception.

And lastly, their was Katie H. She was in charge of hair and she did a beautiful job! If you've seen other pictures from the wedding, I'm sure you can agree.

I think part of the fun of this wedding was just the bonding and fun we all had as we all came together to bring all of Carrie and Eddy's hard work and planning together.

This was not an American wedding, it was not a Dominican wedding. It was a unique wedding pulling two cultures together and uniting two people from different cultures together. Two beautiful people who love the Lord. It was an amazing weekend!

May God bless Eddy and Carrie in their marriage and in their ministry.

Pictures That Make Me Happy

These pictures remind me of one day that I had nothing to do.

No Agenda, no lists, no where to be, nobody needing me (well they may have needed me but I was very far away from them).

Just a day to relax.

But did I?

Nope.

I walked a mile along the beach to go shopping.....then walked a mile back.

I snorkeled. (For the first time ever in my life)

I played beach volleyball. (Not sure how I got suckered into that one, must have been a real moment of weakness.)

I kayaked. My aunt and I went together and it was really windy. We lasted about 10 minutes. If that.

But other than all that, I did relax and I enjoyed meals that I didn't have to cook. The food wasn't the greatest but I did not have to make it and that was AWESOME!

I did not get to lay on these big beds on the beach (they probably have some fancy name but I'm not fancy so I would have no idea what that name is) but I think it would be cool if I could have, so I just took a picture of them.

There were a few pictures of taken of me on this trip.

Isn't this just beautiful?

Our whole group. Of course, minus me.

This is Christine. We did not have the luxury of each having our own bed, so she was my sleeping mate for 4 nights.

This is Marci. Since Brad wasn't there, she was my date. Lucky her.