Weekend Activities AKA I need a nap

Friday night, I went to Maddy's town to attend one of their free summer concerts with her!  They try to go every week but Matthew was out of town and Maddy didn't want to go alone.  She got more knitting in and we got a lot of chit chatting in.

The Death Stranding birthday party for Ryan and Jen, on Saturday night was a lot of fun!  

SO much pizza and goodies!  Leon had even made a cake.  I made the buttercream frosting for it.  Thank goodness Maddy brought a veggie platter.  I made a salad using lettuce and the toppings of a couple slices of pizza & said vegetables.  

mmm  and snuck a few boneless bbq chicken wings.  I need to knock THAT off!

Meri and Josh were there too and even Aggie joined in on the living room fun as Ryan forged his way into the sequel for the game.  Even though Matthew was several states away at a conference, he was able to connect via Twitch and watch the action too.  He texted several times about events going on in the game.

Sunday, after church, some church friends stopped by and helped me work on my rider mower to fix the bent wheel.  They ended up using the two parts I'd purchased after all and identified another crutial piece that got bent also. The front axle.  I asked a neighbor for a tool I didn't have and he came over and fussed over the mower along with Seth.  So much grease!  I felt so bad for getting them into the nitty gritty of it all.  I thought it was going to be a quick fix.

Seth will be back later this week with a pipe wrench to see if he can bend the axle back into place.  

In the meanwhile, I mowed the front yard afterwards and it handled SO much better than it had been doing!  Instead of a ten point turn at every corner, it was only 3!  PROGRESS!!!

Oh, plus they tightened the steering wheel!  So it's not so jiggly! Whew.

While Aggie and Jen played in the kiddie pool, I pulled thistle weeds out of my hostas and cement hill and finally planted my hydrangea plant that Meri gave me for Mother's Day.  It actually broke apart into two plants! So winner winner!

I opened a bag of mulch that had been sitting there all last winter to spread around it and low and behold there was a mass colony of ants living inside and they spilled out all over my tennis shoes and gloves!  Yikes!  and they were biters! 

That was about when I decided I'd had enough for one day.  Besides sweat was dripping off my face like a faucet was on.  I left my shoes on the porch so the ants could go find another home.  yuck.  

OH and I sprayed the air conditioner with the hose a lot!  I'm guessing that's why it's not keeping up very well with the heat.  It was pretty dirty.  So now we wait again to see if it made a difference.

Got a lot of weeding in this morning before work.  If I can get 30 minutes of weeding in a day, I think the yard will be good by Christmas.  You know.  Under a foot of snow.

above: dressing up with Mom
below: reading to herself.

I cried at church yesterday. Widows being given back their sons.  I'm not jealous but well, maybe.  It's a widow thing.  Always rehashing the actual day, wondering if I missed something or didn't pray at the right time or not do the right things.  And wouldn't you just know it?  The first service I hadn't brought tissues to the pew with me.  Even though I didn't get Robb back, God has been taking good care of us and Robb is having a beautiful time while he waits for me to catch up.

Well...

Back to work Mr Zook!  Thanks Dave!  * Robb always rolled his eyes at me for quoting that old Sioux City car dealership commercial!! * :)

Death Stranding, concerts and birthdays

 I'm looking forward to a great weekend!

I'm heading to Maddy's tonight to attend a concert in a park.

Then hanging with Aggie over lunch tomorrow so Ryan and Jen can go on a birthday date.

Probably mow my house that afternoon.

THEN the sequel to the Death Stranding video game came out on Ryan's birthday and we watched/played it as a family 3 years ago.  Love me some Norman Reedus!!  AND Mads Mikkelson although I know he won't be in it much this time.  Ryan usually runs the controller and the rest of us watch.  Restarting that tradition tomorrow night!  We'll probably play once a week until we're through it. * 6 months later *

Sounds boring huh?!  Not really!  It's exciting to see where Norman's character goes and where the story line goes.  And I KNOW who that child is and am anxious to see what becomes of her!

And we'll have food to celebrate both Ryan and Jen's birthdays this past week.

Did you know that the official Leon's Day was on Wednesday?  It's halfway between here and Christmas so it's NOEL backwards!  But who actually gets their own day and it's not their birthday? 

My grandson!

I'm starting Christmas shopping now!

And will start lobbying for a Valerie's Day.

Have a beautiful weekend!

We're going to the Zoo! Zoo! Zoo!

 How about You, You, You?

You can come too, too, too!

We're going to the Zoo! Zoo! Zoo!

That song gets in my head and I can't shake it!

On Wednesday of last week, I heard that my sister and some of her kids and grandkids were in Des Moines and going to the zoo that morning!  I'm not THAT far away and talked to my boss about taking the morning off to see her.  He said SHURRE!

So after attempting to wake up Leon unsuccessfully (he literally grumbled, "I don't WANT to go the zoo!", off I went!  and had a wonderful time with Ruth Ann and company!

Ruth Ann wouldn't let me pay my own way into the zoo since it was my birthday and when the worker heard that, he said, "We have things for you!" and let me pick out a birthday sticker and gave me a free pass to ride the train!  I'm not going to ride the train alone, so I had some of our party come with me.  A couple of my nephews, grand-nieces and a niece-in-law.

I was headed home around 1ish and got a call from Leon, who had just woken up. "Where ARE you?!"

"Um, I went to the zoo and am on my way back!"

Immediate tears!!  "You went to the zoo withOUT me?!!!"

It took some convincing to explain that  he is a sleep-liar like his dad.  I had asked him 3 times to go and he said NO.  So I promised him that we'd go again on Saturday.

And yes we DID go on Saturday too!  It took some convincing to get him to get out of bed that day too!  Cripes he needs to get to bed sooner in the evenings!!  School is starting in a month.  Might need to wake him up 15 minutes progressively earlier each day until then.

Jen, Ryan, Aggie and a niece and her family joined us and also my mother-in-law.  

I got there early enough to score a free wheelchair loan so she wouldn't have to walk all around it.  So I got a workout! Which I needed anyway.

So MORE fun at the zoo and the kids enjoyed their time immensely.

Leon is only looking like that because he tries to discourage me from taking pics.

I need to be sneakier.

And Aggie got to hang out with a 2nd cousin and the 2nd cousin's cousin!

If you can't tell, Aggie is the smiley one.

Lots of pool time this summer.  Aggs is enjoying the water a lot and Jen is enjoying our family pool pass.  She said they were going to be pool rats this summer and they're making use of it!

And we played Yardzee and with bubbles on the deck one day and I noticed that we were caught on our security camera. Gotta save those memories!

Anyway, that about brings us to current. My life is a rush and here we are.

Weekend Catch Ups - WCU

 I am a solid 30 pounds down now!  Finally!!!  So I'm close!

On Saturday, I went to a niece's baby shower back in my home town.  This is one of my sisters along with her daughter.

I beat 3 or 4 of the stuffed animal diaper changing contests but would have had to beat 15 people to get the grand prize.  sigh.  Lost to a niece, not this one.

Loads of games!  And I have this little baby perched on top of my microwave for the week.

Another sister that I rarely get to see!

Here is the mom to be with her sisters and a couple sisters-in-law. The one on the far right is expecting about a month before Grace.

It was a beautiful morning and she got lots of nice things for the baby.  Got some visiting in with two of my sisters and had lunch with my bro!  

I stopped by a nephew and his wife's new organic food shop and brought home a pound of frozen ground buffalo!  I'm planning on trying it out in meatballs next weekend.  My quarter of cow is done and I'm picking that up today too.  There is no shortage of meat around THIS house!  Whew!  And I can only eat between 5-7 ounces a day while on plan.  It'll last a while.  Meri is taking half of it so my part of it should all fit in my deep freezer.

I got home and took Aggie for a walk and then watched an episode of a show with Leon.  

Wasn't this wagon a SUPER deal for $10 at a garage sale?  It just made me nervous because the straps were broken.  I kept thinking she'd jump out.  Mental note: find new straps for the wagon.

On Sunday, Leon and I picked up the cake for the boy being confirmed.  While I was worried about the cake saying "Congratulations on your Consirmation!" I really didn't need to.  They had written Confirmalion instead.  The confirmand got a kick out it and everyone wished him a happy confirmalion the rest of the morning.  They served walking tacos with the cake and everything was yummy!  I passed on the misspelled cake and had a taco salad instead. 

Then we went shoe shopping and I spent a lot on two pairs for the boy.  Ryan reimbursed me later. Maddy was looking for shoes for an upcoming wedding also.  No luck.

Leon had a good time with Aggie and Jen, blowing bubbles.

Got home and after visiting with all the kids, the girls and their loves came with me out to the cemetery and put some fresh fake flowers out on Robb's stone and his dad's.  They look lovely!  I wish I'd gotten a pic!

I tried to help Leon with some technical stuff on a homework assignment and Maddy was very helpful!  But then we hit a roadblock and hopefully Leon is talking to his teacher about it today.  He's only got 7 days left of school!

Then he and I relaxed a little and we watched another episode before his dad took him back to his mom's.

I pulled out all the rest of my vases for Maddy to peruse virtually this morning. She's doing the centerpieces for one of her sister-in-law's weddings this summer.  and have I got LOADS for her to choose from!  The square vases got sent home with her last weekend.

As usual, I have some drama in my life, which I won't air here.  Suffice it to say, I either may give up my sewing room again OR my schedule for the next couple months is going to be up in the air and a lot more busy.  I sit with bated breath awaiting the outcome.

Who's Laughing Now?

We had Taco Tuesday last night!!!  It was so great to see Maddy and Matthew again!  I haven't seen them in person since before my quarantine about 3.5 weeks ago.

Jen baked some seasoned fish and I pureed up a can of chipotle peppers for her to add to some mayo, sour cream and other secret ingredients because I don't remember all she threw in there.  Oh my that was good for fish tacos!!  And it went fast.

I also made some spicy refried bean and had beef taco meat in the crockpot and all the fixings, thanks to the rest of my family!  The fish was the winner last night so there is plenty of beef left and that is OK!  Knowing my son, as I do, it will get eaten up fast.  He could eat tacos for every meal and 2nd meals in between.

Dylan, our renter, asked me about Wordle yesterday morning.  He'd seen everyone bragging about their word guessing smarts on FB and wondered what it was.  I explained it to him, because I just discovered it within the last week or so myself.  

There is one puzzle a day and only 6 tries to find the right word.  Example.

guess 1:  F R I E D         < lets say the R turns yellow and the E turns green.  That means the R is in the word somewhere else and the E is in the right position of the word.

guess 2: L A G E R     < E and R are both green. 

guess 3:   A F T E R          < ER is green, F is yellow

guess 4:   R E F E R       < bing bing bing!  You got it in only 4 tries!

So anyway, WORDLE is the puzzle of the day and it is super popular right now.

After dinner, we raced on the historic WORDLE puzzles from a year ago to see who could finish theirs first.  Meri's bf Ryan is very good at it!  As is she.  That must be how they spend all their dates...

Anyway, Dylan gave me a puzzle and said he'd like to see if I could figure it out.  So after I got stuck on the zeros, ones and eights, I made a new rough draft and printed out enough copies for everyone for last night.  

Robb would have loved this.  He was a math wizard!

We all sweated over it before, during and after dinner and actually came up with solutions for all of them!!  I'm so glad Matthew was a MATHLETE in high school!

Aren't we a smart bunch?!  I can't find the word S W E A R in WORDLE but I can certainly find the square root of a number!

The teachers didn't know what they were saying when they said we wouldn't always have a calculator in our hands when we're adults. HA!  Yes ma'am, we will...         

Vacation 2021 and catchup.

Just a quick run through of pics from our summer vacation.

It of course started one day earlier when we got the twins.  We still have them and from the sounds of things, it could be for a much longer time than we anticipated.  Time will tell.  Ryan keeps telling me the mantra of "18 years!" trying to get me in the mindset that we're raising these kids to adulthood so might as well quit looking for the end game until it happens.  

And he's right.  These kids are developing right under our noses so we're going to let them enjoy life and grow.  It's not their fault and we're treating them as if they're our own.

Pay no attention to the state of our house.  We don't! :)

Actually I'm trying lately.  As soon as we heard that they'll be here for probably another month or two, we've shifted into "let's make this work" mode and we're baby proofing everything and just not throwing things behind the couch where they can't reach it.

I don't care if they play on the piano but the Legos HAVE to get put away...

Our vacation was the first full weekend in August.  I rented a cabin in Wisconsin, fairly close to Maddy and Matthew's town.  Ryan and Jen drove our van out with the twins and Meri, Leon and I drove in her car.  We stopped a few times on the way out when we saw activities we thought they'd be interested in.

 

now Luke wants to be a farmer.  Well, just for a second.

We found the cabin and it was right across the street from the lake entrance!  The twins enjoyed that!

Maddy and Matthew arrived and we all settled in.  The cabin was perfect.  It had several kayaks and a canoe as well as a fire pit with enough Adirondack chairs for all of us.

And a closet full of board games and toys for a 9 year to old to approve of.

He wants this toy set for Christmas.

So much fun to just relax and enjoy each other's company.

Meri even brought Reedus!  

Everyone pitched in wherever help was needed.

Each family unit took care of one meal.

And this is my entire family, except for me and the twins, out on the lake. 

With the kayaks and equipment supplied, the kids had a blast learning how to use it all.

Leon really bonded with his child sized kayak and raced Matthew across the lake.

He loves kayaking now and I'm so glad he stepped out of his comfort zone and tried it out.

He and Matthew had lots of bonding time and memory making on this trip.

BTW those are beef sticks.  Those two could eat their weight in those things.

And the last morning before we left, Meri got the timer on her phone set so we could get a group shot.

We'll need to do a trip like this again!

On the way home, Meri, Leon and I stopped at every touristy thing we could find.

Making memories even at a boat dock.  

It had a path into the woods with private beaches.

And mimicking every statue they could find.

Found a place called Ship Rock, somewhere in Wisconsin and it was fab!

Lots of graffiti but also lots of moss and greenery.

And places to climb and wear off some energy.

Those two were like billy goats all over this thing.

There were tearful moments, there were happy moments.

There were moments when we got sick of each other.

There were many trips 10 miles into town for eggs or something else we forgot.

There were moments at a local laundromat due to a baby blowout during the night.

There were tense moments driving in the downpour 20 miles to find diapers.

But I love what family I have left and had a wonderful time.