6:30 a.m.

It's going to be a good day! :)

Have a great one!

A week has passed....

YIKES! Sorry!

It hasn't been real exciting but ....

We went to the drive in last weekend - we saw UP (very cute!) and LAND OF THE LOST (2 hours of my life I will never get back). There was a family that came in a '50s convertible - VERY cool! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Father's Day!

The weather has been HOT this week!!!! It looks it should be cooler in the coming week. YEA!!!!

So it was a rough week for Hollywood - Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. May they all rest in peace.

I got a little scrapping done last night and hope to get a couple more layouts done before the weekend ends...

Have a great one! Thanks for stopping by.

Vacation recap

Whew! We survived our 9 day travel extravaganza/whirlwind tour. We had lots of fun, got to catch up with my family and saw lots! I'll try to recap without boring you.

The following takes place between June 5 and June 14 (sorry had to get a little Dragnet in there).

Fri., 6/5: DH & the kids picked me up from work and we drove to Louisville for the night. A lesson learned....if the hotel directions include "behind the Uhaul store" - you probably don't want to stay there!!!!! (Let's just say I'm glad we were only there to catch a few hours of "sleep" - eeeek!)

Sat., 6/6: We continued our trek into Kentucky (have I mentioned I LOVE that state - it's SO pretty!). We stopped at Lincoln's Boyhood Home & Birthplace - both very nice! We went to Mammoth Caves and the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. We also stopped for ice cream at Chaney's Dairy Barn - mmmm!!!!!!!!

Sun., 6/7: We headed for Tennessee. We stopped at The Hermitage (President Andrew Jackson's home) - that is quite a place and I wish we had spent more time there. We also made a quick stop at President Polk's home. (Are you getting the theme here?) We checked into our hotel in very northern Georgia and drove to Atlanta for a few hours - we played at Centennial Park and had dinner at Hard Rock.

Mon., 6/8: We visited Chickamauga Battlefield. We had never visited a battlefield memorial - it was very interesting and there were LOTS of monuments and landmarks that were amazing! We continued on to Chattanooga where we visited Point Park and rode the Incline Railway - both were very nice. We took a tour of the Mayfield Dairy outside of Chattanooga - interesting to see how they package and send out their dairy products. We made it to our cabin outside Pigeon Forge around dinnertime. It was great to see everyone!

Tues., 6/9: We took a drive through Smokey Mountain National Park - VERY pretty but oh are those roads twisty!!!! The WHOLE family went to the minor league baseball game (Tennesse Smokies) that night. It was a hot one but we had great seats and had plenty of fun. DS got to throw out the 1st pitch - he as thrilled. One of my brothers and nephews got on the jumbotron - that was awesome!

Wed., 6/10: My sister, brother in law & baby brother left that day. Seven of those of us left went rafting - what a GREAT time!!!! We had an amazing tour guide (the one in camo) who was very familiar area so we learned some about the area and he got us through unscathed. DH, the kids and I went into town that evening - we rode go karts, had a nasty bbq dinner and avoided the storm that came through.

Thurs., 6/11: We drove up to visit President Andrew Johnson's home and to Cumberland Gap National Park. Unfortunately, as we decided to take a hike - the skies opened and it POURED for almost 2 hours. My FABULOUS husband agreed to let this "crazed" fan drive through Kenny Chesney's hometown. (Did I mention my husband is wonderful?!) It was a twisty ride to pretty much the middle of nowhere but I took pictures of the sign (see previous post). Thanks, honey!

Fri., 6/12: DH, DS & I went back to the Smokies to go to Clingman's Dome. Well....as was with most of our outdoor activities - it was so cloudy we could hardly see 20 feet in front of us, misted and was WINDY!!!!! What are you going to do? :) Then we drove into Gatlinburg to see Hard Rock and get a snack.

Sat., 5/13: We left Pigeon Forge early and started the trek back north. :( We stopped in Cincinnati and toured Great American Ballpark. It's a beautiful park! And why should we miss a presidential home here??? William Howard Taft! DS was thrilled that we found a Big Boy to have dinner at. We used the pool at the hotel that night - DD wore herself out, it was wonderful.

Sun., 5/14: We drove to the Lincoln Boyhood National Historic Site in southern Indiana (near Santa Claus). We visited William Henry Harrison's home aka: Grouseland in Vincennes Indiana - THAT was a painful tour!!!! We ate dinner on the road and made it home by 8 that night.

The whole clan:

We covered 2,859 miles and saw 7 states (plus Illinois).

(You should be able to click on the pictures if you want to see them larger)

A couple of vaca pics

At Point Park in Chattanooga Yes, my WONDERFUL husband drove me to Kenny's hometown - just so I could say I'd been there!
Sunrise at the cabin on our last morning

More pictures to come.....

Greetings!

We have returned from our Tennessee vacation. We had a lot of fun, saw lots and am glad to be back in the flatlands we call home.

I will regale you all with tales and pictures in the coming week!

Favorite photos

Some of my favorite photos from this year

Happy Friday

I hope you all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend!

I lived to tell the tale of paintball. ;) We had a BLAST! I have many bruises to proof the war we were fighting. I am not cut out to be a real soldier. :D The weather was beautiful - perfect, sunny and mid 70s - not too hot or wet.

Have a great weekend!

Woo hoo!

Yes, today if our office outing - paintball! :D It should be fun but I would imagine that tomorrow I'll be hurting...but it's so worth the fun!

have a great Thursday!

Welcome home!

It POURED this morning!!!!!

It poured until almost 9:00 when our National Guard unit was escorted into town. It was the most amazing site! Hundreds of people, flags and signs all waiting to meet those brave soldiers as they came back. They were like rock stars - screaming, cheering...it was absolutely awesome!

Gentlemen - welcome home and thank you!

Memorial Day

Now that another weekend has almost passed us by....we had a great weekend last weekend for Memorial Day.

Sat - I worked the in a.m. We went to my sister and brother-in-law's new place in Chicago. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!!!!!!!! Their apartment is very nice! Thanks for inviting us and the yummy food.

Sun - We went to Galena. It was a gorgeous day. A visit to Grant's home and a drive through downtown (there was NO place to park!). We visited some friends who live in the area too. Ironically, we stopped at Apple River Fort and our former neighbors were there....

Mon - DD & I went to the parade, ran some errands and relaxed. DH & DS worked until mid-afternoon. Then we grilled out and relaxed.

It was a great weekend!

Happy Thursday!

I'll do an update soon - just wanted to say hi!

Need to go get my morning beverage (from home today)! Have a super day!

Monday gratitude

All the service people who have or are serving in our armed forces ---

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Bridge over....

Bridge over....
Originally uploaded by scrapperjen1

I took this at Starved Rock a couple of weeks ago (yes, after the wet fall) and edited it. DD picked the pink fade color.

Thanks for taking a look!

Another beautiful day!

Happy Sunday!

It looks like it's going to be another beautiful day today! I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I have gotten a card and 3 scrapbook layouts done....amazing!

Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

A GREAT Friday!!!!!!

Why???
Many reasons....

*It's Friday!
*It's Friday before a 3 day weekend!
*It was sunny and mid-70s - BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!
*A die hard Sox fan co-worker brought me a Cubs cookie
*I got some good news about vacation (snort!)
*Did I mention it's Friday?
*Our supervisor let us ladies in the office leave at 3:00 - is he a great guy, or what????!!!!
*Got groceries and was out of the store before the "after work rush"
*Grilled pork chops for dinner
*Read Olivia at DD's bedtime
*The 3 day weekend is underway
and
*I am off to try to get some scrapping done!

I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

DeKalb, IL - Elwood House

An e-mail I got

and I couldn't stop laughing!


THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!! If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!! When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.
You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, We had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! No where was safe! There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone.'cause that's how we rolled, dig? We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your dr ug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there we re no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel! There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards! And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that! That's exactly what I'm talking about!
You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!
Regards,The over 30 Crowd

Mother's Day 09

You will want to hit pause on the "tunes" along the side. :)

Catch up

WOW!!!! Have I been a bad blogger!!!! I am not sure where the time went, but it did...

DS finished his tennis season this week. It wasn't a great season but the boys all seemed to have fun - that's what counts!!!!

Mother's Day was nice! The weather was perfect! We went hiking with some friends at Starved Rock. Wow - did they have flooding problems a little while back! The trails were pretty clear - a few mucky spots, the waterfalls were flowing (oh - side note, the water was COLD!!!!!). How would I know that, you might ask...well, I (and our friends' daughter) slipped walking up to one of the waterfalls and took a cold bath - WHOO!!!!!!!!! My legs are nothing to be looking at these days - black and blue. Lesson learned....if you fall on rocks - IT HURTS!!!!!!! But we dried off and enjoyed our day.

I had a 2 day work conference this week. It was a good meeting and an enjoyable evening spent with some co-workers I don't usually get to hang out with.

We have had our share of rain. Excuse me, Mother Nature - the farmers are getting VERY cranky! Could you make the lives of those of us who have to deal with them on a daily basis a little easier here? Geez....

We've had a garage sale this week. It hasn't gone bad. The house feels lighter and it feels good to clean some crap out.

DH & I have started walking again. God help us if we go on vacation with my family who is in shape and have to try to keep up with them...eeesh! So we're trying to get there!!!!

Hmmmm.....anything else???? (thinking, thinking.....)

OH! I know! I found out today that my name was drawn in our lottery at work for a ticket to the All Star Game in St. Louis in July. Yes, I know it will be hot and humid. But I may never get to go again. Yes, I know my hubby and kids don't get to go :( but I have their support and plan to go and have fun.

Have a super weekend all!!!! Thanks for stopping by and I'll try to be better about blogging.

Fun & funny books

I have been asked a few times recently for some fun books. Here are a few that I have read recently that I enjoyed...

Anything Jen Lancaster has written
Queen of the Road by Doreen Orion
This Pen for Hire by Laura Levine


I'm still thinking....

Ok - here are a few more :D

A Little Bit Wickedby Kristin Chenoweth
Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks & Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert
Confessions of Super Mom by Melanie Lynne Hauser
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

I hope this helps! Please feel free to add your suggestions in your reply. :)