Smoky Vacation

For now I am gonna let the pictures tell the story!
We are having so much fun.....so relaxing! And as you can see in the second picture Shane is being "Shane"!
Worst part.....we have to drive home tomorrow :(
more vacation pictures to come.......

Where's Waldo?

Ok I promised some pictures from our monthly "Scrappin' the Night Away". (Did any one else get pictures of the night, for some reason my pictures are very dark. Would appreciate you sending your pictures to me.) As you can see we pretty much took over the studio! Mom and Cindy joined us this month. Of course it was fun...fun...fun and very productive! I think Shannon got the award for ringing the bell the most! How many pages did you do, Shannon?


Krista gets the award for staying the longest Friday night....I think it was 1:00 when we locked the door!
Mom, I will give you the earlybird award....and the most hours logged. Let's see she started about 9 am on Friday, and it was 5:00 when she packed up on Saturday! Just think how long she could have went if she wasn't still recovering from major surgery!
Cindy, we vote you the scrapper with the most......most scrappin tools and gadgets.
Laura was real close to Shannon on number of pages scrapped, but I am giving her the award for best contribution to the food table......can't beat a good chewy chocolate brownie!
And I can't stop without giving myself an award, so I am going to get the award for cutest subject on scrapbook pages! Anyone want to guess who that might be? ;) (Krista and Laura sure have cuties too!)
I am already looking forward to next months scrap-a-thon!
Cya on the 19th, girls! :)

MaXmas Eve!

Wow, it really has been awhile since I have posted!

Guess I have just been so busy in preparation for MAXMAS DAY!!

As you all know, and if you don't know, pretend like you do, tomorrow is MAXMAS DAY! A certain someone believes this is celebrated around the world. I will let the founding father tell you how this holiday came about, as I am sure he will be blogging about it in the near future.

I have some great pictures to share from our "Scrappin' the Night Away" last weekend! Hopefully I can get those posted tonight.

Right now I am off to do some last minute MaXmas shopping!

Anticipation.....

When I was a kid there were certain things I couldn't wait for, going to sleep at night was next to impossible.... events that come to mind: Christmas, my birthday, the first day of school, Easter, Cedar Point, summer vacation with Lantz's, Thanksgiving at Gramma Pauline's

Well I still have that feeling of ANTICIPATION when a special event is getting close....and the night before, forget it, I just don't sleep well. (how many adults will admit they get excited, like a kid at Christmas, in anticipation of a special day.)
Right now I am having that feeling of anticipation for a few special "events" coming up.

Next Friday I am gonna have a "Scrappin' Good Time". Our monthly gathering is gonna be at the studio this month. (If you aren't a scrapbooker, don't even try to understand why this is something to look forward to.) I have been eagerly awaiting this since our last get together at Shannon's house. I believe there are going to be 8 of us scrapping that day, until the wee hours! 7 days and counting...Fun Times!!!

Another event that has me singing "Anticipa-a-tion" is our family vacation to the Smoky Mountains! I have had this on my countdown calendar since we made the reservation in April. (Yes, I really do have a countdown calendar on my computer. I put in the date and it keeps me updated on how many days until the "big event") Max and I along with Shannon, Mike, & Jaden, and Shane & Ashley will be spending 4 days in a luxury cabin complete with 3 Jacuzzis, a hot tub, pool table, movie theater room, and a beautiful mountain view. Not hard to understand why I am looking forward to this, is it? 20 days and counting.....Family Fun Time!!!

Of course I still get excited the closer it gets to Christmas....139 days and counting!

We are all kids at heart.....what are you anticipating?

Anniversary Weekend continues

It's nice to have personal holidays fall on a weekend....gives you an excuse to relax, celebrate, and just have fun.

After our big day on Friday, Max and I rested up so we could continue the party on Saturday.

We went to Chain 'O Lakes State Park on Saturday with Shannon and Jaden.

Jaden has never had the chance to go swimming....so we thought it would be fun to show her how to really have fun!!!

We started off with an old-fashioned picnic lunch! YUMMY!

After that we venture into the water....sloooooooowly.....she just wasn't too sure about this whole thing.

She did splash around a bit at the shore, dig a bit in the sand, and even headed for deep waters with gramma J.
I think her favorite part though was just walking...and walking....and walking around the area. Her and Grampa Max took off on a nice little trek, wore her out and she had to be carried back!

It was a lot of fun.....nice and relaxing.....those are the best of days!

We finished off the 2-day celebration with a trip to the mall and dinner at Friday's....Mike joined us for this!

Thanks, kids, for helping us celebrate our anniversary!! And Shane, thanks for giving us a call....next best thing to you being here!

Happy 27th!

We are celebrating our 27th anniversary this weekend!

Friday was our anniversary and we went out on the town....wait until you hear about our exciting celebration!

We started out at Don Hall's Factory.....excellent meal. I had prime rib and Max opted for grilled pork chops with apple topping. Yummy from start to finish.

We walked off our dinner at the bookstore (I told you this was exciting). We used to spend about an hour in the bookstore and then another 10 minutes finding each other when we were ready to go. Now we spend an hour and a half since we added browsing through the children's section!

While there we got the bargain of all bargains.....well not surprising since it was in the bargain section, but we found cloth baby books in the bargain racks. In case you don't know, the cloth books are wonderful for babies, but they can be expensive too at about $15 a book. Kate's Kart is always in need of cloth books, so I make a quick call to Krista, "how many you want me to get, they are 3, 4, and 5 dollars," I told her. "Get them all," she said!

See how exciting a bookstore can be!

You might think that is enough for one night, but nope the night was still young. We made a quick after-hours stop at the studio, loaded up the kiln, and then on to more celebrating!

Last stop was Dunkin Donut! Envious, aren't ya? We toasted our anniversary with an Iced Latte! sluuuuuuuurp! I do have to say we went for the Lite Latte, skim milk and splenda. But splurged with the chocolate and whipped cream, only because we were celebrating!

From there it was time to head home......that is more excitement then anyone should have in one day. But, as I mentioned at the beginning we are celebrating our anniversary this WEEKEND so there is more to come on Saturday....Stay tuned!!