My BFFHS and Our Mini-Me's

Amy was my best friend from High School.


She came out to visit us this week.

B and A look like mini versions of us.

(For goodness sake, I hope they behave better!)

Pssst! I think there's gonna be a wedding!

Melissa and Matt

Poor Uncle Matty took a lot of abuse from the kids the other day.

Wednesday in Grand Haven

My goodness - such gorgeous kids



Miss S- Mr. J -

Passion Fruits

I have no idea why - but today, Sean called everyone and everything "Passion Fruit".

Saturday the wind was from the south and the waves were big; Sunday the wind was from the north and the waves wer HUGE. Today - no wind. That made swimming easier - but we think we like the big waves better.

One for Mattyfoo.

Egads! Someone else picked up a camera and snapped one of me - this won't happen again soon.

Miss M

xoxoxo

Sneak Peek for Rara

Nice looking family Rara!

The whole fam dam'ly was out today

Hello from Grand Haven

The kids are loving the waves and beach.
Phil is loving relaxing

And I'm loving playing with my camera

So I guess all's well.

I am loading these pics from un uncalibrated laptop with blazing sun at my back - so I'm not even sure if the images are clear .

More tomorrow.....

I REALLY Did Not Want To Be Right This Time

I had totally neglected my garden this summer. The weeds had taken over and were prepared to defend their new territory. I knew I had to get in there and reclaim the beds or they'd be lost forever.
I spent >2 hours weeding and weeding and weeding. I had weeded all the back garden except one area by the deck - I knew when I started, I didn't wanted to go back there. I had a sense ... there was "something" in there.
I asked Phil if he would weed that area because I was afraid of what might be hiding in there. "Like what?" he asked
"Snakes! Spiders! Creatures!" I wailed

So in he went, past the pumpkin vine ..



...back behind the variegated hosta ...




And what did he find?
A FREAKIN' SNAKE SKIN!
I so totally knew there was a snake in there!

ahhh!

(click on the images to see all the skin crawling detail)

.

Rainy Day Toy Closet

I keep my eye out for inexpensive toys to stash away in a closet for rainy days (For. The. kids! I keep my toys elsewhere ... oops, no I don't).

My kids are both novelty junkies - anything "NEW" has got to be better than the million other toys we don't play with.

Yesterday was a prime example of why I keep an emergency stock pile - it began raining at 10 ish and kept on rainy (on and off) all day.

At 4:00 PM I had to break the proverbial glass on my toy stash and give the kids something to keep them busy for 30 seconds.

Much to my delight, the Super Miracle Bubble ACTUALLY worked and they played with it for quite some time.

Oh Hail!

Today was not a sunny day in Glen Mills - in fact, it was pretty lousy. It started with thunder and lightening around 10 AM and then was followed by more than one bout of hail. This was the first time the kids have seen hail - so of course, I send their father out into the thunder and lightening to catch "raining ice cubes" in a Tupperware dish. The "ice cubes" are now in the freezer, and I am happy to say DH was not injured in any way.

The bad weather gave me a few moments to play with some more of the cloud images from yesterday. I wanted to share the first one of the Glen Mills School - I think it looks super cool. The others are just me foolin' 'round - pushin' pixels

(Click images to see larger)

The Glen Mills School

(sometimes, it pays to be bad)

Ahhh! It was A Sunny f16 Day In Glen Mills

There is a rule of thumb photography called the Sunny f16 Rule - it is a method to estimate the right exposure for sunny days.


If you love big blue skys and big white puffy clouds - set your camera to f/16, 200 ss and have fun.

(click images to see larger)

This image was likely also taken at approx f/16 ...

...

The Tooth Fairy Is A Wiseguy

Last night, we placed our first tooth under a pillow excitedly hoping the Tooth Fairy would come (Bridget almost didn't want to go to skating lessons last night because she wanted to be sure to get to sleep in time).

As expected, T. Fairy did come - she left the certificate, the tooth, and $2.83.

Imagine Bridget's surprise - $2.83!
Either T. Fairy is a cheapo, she forgot to got to the ATM, or she is quite the comedian.

Yesterday, a colleague of mine told me how her kids got such a giggle from their tradition of having the tooth fairy leave strange/random amounts of money. I suppose anyone can get $5.00 for a tooth, but who else gets $2.83? (Bonnie - thanks fo rthe idea!)

O.k., one tooth down ... how many left to go?
Two heads of teeth x how many baby teeth?

We Will Be Receiving Our First Visit From T. Fairy Tonight!

Click image below to see larger