A new Man!

As he typically does around the time of my birthday, Barry shaved off his moustache and goatee. He will be clean shaven for about a week and then grow it all back.

Almost don't know who this guy is! :)

Couple cards for co-workers

This card is for a co-worker who is leaving to become a teacher! I used 5 papers and a super cute sticker of a little girl student. I also added a piece of off-white organdy ribbon.

This card is for a co-worker who is going on a missions trip to Guatemala next week. I used 3 types of papers, several stickers, and some black ribbon.

Inside I made a little pocket and added little slips of paper with Bible verses on them to help encourage her through the week. I used some scallopped scissors to cut the top and wrote with a silver gel pen.

Impromptu Concert

It's not the best picture, but the guy here is Mike Weaver of Big Daddy Weave. He and his family go to the church we've been attending. The church had a family night at a local park and were going to have a worship time with the praise band and Mike Weaver. We decided not to go and eat there, but we went for the concert. It was pretty awesome.

He sang 5 songs -- one of them is a brand-new one. It was great! Then he sang with the praise band a few of the worship songs.

It was a good ending to a fabulous weekend with the family!

Sounds Baseball Game

The Nashville Sounds (a Brewers team) and the Iowa Cubs (a Chicago Cubs team) played a series over the weekend. We went to the game Saturday night because it was Family Faith Night and there was a concert before the game. Plus, with the normal $14 a ticket admission we got a free hot dog and drink! Here's the little buddy all decked out in his Cubbies gear! He was adamant about wearing that hat!
At game time the temperature was 92, but eventually it got down to 88.

The radio station we listen to was one of the sponsors, so the morning co-host was in charge of one of the games.

We sat on the 1st base side this time which was a first for us. It was great though because we were in the shade the whole time.

The Sounds won! The fireworks afterwards were pretty awesome!

Fun at the Wading Pool

My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew came this weekend to hang out and celebrate birthdays. We went to a park in Lebanon in the morning (before it was too hot) and played a little on the playground, but mostly enjoyed the wading pool.

Can you tell that he loooooves the water?!
There were all sorts of things that water came out of and he enjoyed every bit of it. In fact, just after this picture, he did a face plant in the water and didn't even cry!

He was so mad when we left. He could have played all day! We got him home and he went right to bed because he was wiped out! What a cutey pie!

Birthday Dinner

So, after two pieces of cake and a cupcake, I was not hungry at all for dinner. Barry wasn't convinced that we shouldn't go to dinner, but I knew that I wasn't going to enjoy it much since I wasn't hungry. I had been talking about having chips and salsa from Chili's earlier in the week and saying how much I wanted the yummy chips.

So, on the way home, he decided to stop for some chips! I gobbled them up :)! It was a delicious albeit unusual birthday dinner!

It's My Birthday!

Here I am at my desk -- all decorated for my birthday! I got a lot of cards (as you can see on the right of the picture) and a few other things. I was wearing my pin that says birthday girl.

My department took me to lunch and then later on the floor had a birthday party for all the July birthdays. Then I was asked to come back to my desk and there was another cake! Wow! Only on your birthday can you eat so much sweet stuff!

I'm looking forward to this weekend as we go to a Sounds game and Christian concert. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are coming too!

My Grandma

When we were in Canada for the quick visit in June, my aunt gave me a couple things that she had. She had extra copies of pictures from my grandma's 80th birthday and gave them to me.

Since yesterday was my grandma's birthday, I got to thinking about her and how much I miss her. She would have been 89 this year.

This picture was taken on her birthday July 18, 2002. I had just moved to Michigan in the fall of 2001 and my dad came from South Dakota for the event. We had a special family dinner and it was a good time.

Although I didn't get to go to her funeral, I'm so glad for the many memories that I had with her. In fact, it was sort of hard to go back to Canada and realize that she wasn't there to welcome us. She's in a better place, though, and I'm so glad that she's not in pain any longer. I can't wait to be reunited with her again!

Birthday cards for Co-workers, Part 2

I have 4 more cards to make for co-workers' birthdays, but instead of making full-sized cards, I just made 3"x3" cards to set on their desks. I wanted to use the red flower with the cards, and so things sort of just fell together for the colors with this card. I had the cool minty patterned paper and then matched it up with solid green and the pink happy birthday paper. I picked out a green "r" for the friends' first name and added some pink organdy ribbon. I think it came together pretty well.
Here I just used four different pink papers all cut about 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" to make this card. I addend a couple of embellishments and made sure to get the friends' first name initial on the card.

The next two birthdays are next week so I probably won't get those cards made up until next weekend. I still have some family cards to make yet, so there will be a few more coming!

Sunday Afternoon Card Making

July is a big month for birthdays around here as you've seen with the 2 cards I made last week. I have a bunch more to go, but I did get 4 made on Sunday. Below are the two cards I made for our nephews as we have 2 with birthdays this week. The first is for a nephew turning 4 on Wednesday. He's having a Toy Story party and everything we got for him was Toy Story in some way! I decided to make a cowboy hat card since Woody is a cowboy. Inside it says, "Happy 4th Birthday!"
For this nephew, we decided to get 6 things for his 6th birthday. His mom said that he likes Star Wars & Transformers, so we got a plastic blow up light saber, a small Transformer, a really cool bouncy ball, a water gun, a package of Ring Pops, and Mater (from the Cars movie). Hopefully he'll think it's pretty neat to get all the gifts instead of one big one.

Baby Tomatoes

We had been talking about getting a tomato plant for a while because Barry LOVES tomatoes, but hadn't taken the time to get a plant. When we got back from Michigan in June, my co-worker had gotten us a plant! We've put it in a pot and have been watering it faithfully. We were pleasantly surprised to see some fruit showing up this week!

#1 tomato showed up Monday or Tuesday (we can't remember!)

And, now, we have #2, 3, & 4!!!

We're going to get a bigger pot and some stakes

so that these baby tomatoes g-r-o-w!

Birthday cards for Co-workers

Did you ever think I'd show some more cards?! I do have to say that I'm behind with my card-making and hope to catch up soon. Maybe I'll have some time this weekend. In any case, I have two co-workers with birthdays coming up. I found this new template at CPS and decided to give it a whirl!

I primarily used purple for this design and was glad to find the matching balloon sticker and little embellishment with the B on it for Beth! Inside I wrote, "wishing you a happy birthday!" I used 4 different papers and some purple organdy ribbon.

This one is pink! I used 4 papers and the party hat embellishment. I also did a similar letter with a j this time for Jamie. Inside it says, "wishing you a fabulous day!"

Walk 100 Miles Celebration

Saturday, July 9, we went to downtown Nashville and attended the mayor's Walk 100 Miles Celebration. There were different vendors and some activities for the kids. Those who had participated were able to get a free t-shirt. I was excited to have met the mark - walking over 260 miles! Here's the courthouse where everything took place. We sat back on some benches and watched through the tents that were up!
The first group up was trying to get us to dance. Um, not me! :0

Here's the mayor, Karl Dean.

There were several different performers - Melinda Doolittle, a guy, and JoDee Messina!

Despite the heat, we had a pretty enjoyable time. There wasn't really anything to eat, so we just waited till afterwards. Thankfully we had brought waters and a couple snacks to tide us over.

Over 4000 people participated in the initiative and 500 of those reached the 100 mile mark. Mayor Dean is now sponsoring a 5K in November that he's encouraging people to start training for.

Last views of St. Louis

When we drove to our friends' house just west of St. Louis, it was very dark as we drove through on Friday night. So I was hoping on our return Monday, that we would be able to see things a bit more clearly. Here are the pictures I was able to snap as we drove thru. It looks like Barry could reach out and touch it! :)
So long for now! Hopefully, we'll be back sometime soon!

More Animals from St. Louis Zoo

Since the day was so hot, we were glad to see that there was an indoor area for penguins! These first three pictures were penguins that were outside with cool air blowing on them. We should have asked where they lived normally but we supposed it might be South America. These penguins in the first picture were so close that we could have touched them. The lady sitting there said that they had been like that all day.

The buddies across the water, hanging out!
Here's your close up!
Inside was a flurry of activity (as well as FREEZING temperatures!). Of the pictures I took inside, the one below is the only one that turned out. The birds inside were much more active. There were actually 3 types of penguins and some puffins. Below are the emperor penguins. Do you see the one on the far right taking a nap?!

One of the last things that we saw before the storms came were the flamingos. Aren't they beautiful? We saw a few open up their wings and could see a black band around the edge of the wings.

I think I had mentioned already that a terrific storm blew through as we were at the zoo. We did see some grizzlies and boy, they were pacing back and forth, very agitated. Then we saw some monkeys suddenly dart for their caves of safety. The last animal we saw was an orangutan. The only reason we saw it was that it had to dart back to pick up his blanket to bring to his home!

All in all, it was a great time and we would go again -- especially since we only saw about 1/2 of the park.

More Animals at the Zoo

We entered the St. Louis Zoo (last Sunday) and came upon the first animal -- an anteater. It was amazing how much hair was on it!

Then we came on a rhino. He was sort of hiding and we couldn't see his whole body.

Then, there were the hippos. It was amazing to see them swimming! There was an area that you could go down and see under the water. There were 4 in the water swimming around and having a good time.

I think I'll have at least one more post with animals... It was a great trip!

Other Animals at Grant's Park

We got to see a variety of different animals at Grant's Farm. In fact, there were a bunch of animals that we didn't see as it was getting hot and we decided to leave. But, here are some of the different ones that we did see:

Turtles! :)

Parrots

Bald eagle. This was a preserve for a couple eagles that had been injured and now are unable to fly.

Flamingos

Crane

We got to ride a tram around a good portion of the perimeter of the land. The operator shared all sorts of facts about the history of the land -- once owned by Ulysses S. Grant a gift from his father-in-law. I can't remember how the Anheuser-Busch family came to own the land, but one of the men loved animals and brought a large number of them to the land. When he realized that his guests liked to see all the animals, he decided to open it to the public. The main house is still on the land and used by the family for parties and such. Then of course there are the Clydesdales which was a gift from a couple of the sons to a dad. It was a great trip and we'd love to go back again!

Grant's Farm

Since I've been so negligent in sharing with you all what's been going on in our lives, I decided to share a whole bunch of pictures. We went to St. Louis over the weekend to visit our friends David & Judy. We had lots of fun plans and it started with visiting Grant's Farm. We got to see a show with an African elephant, Bud.

This was before the show. He stood in front of the set of bars which offered protection to those from the crowd that participated in the program.

One of the participants from the crowd came up and touched his foot. Isn't it amazing how big he is? That's his trainer with him.

Bud is walking on a one foot wide ledge while his feet are 5 foot circumference.

Look at him only standing on 2 feet! He was full of tricks all the time -- bowing when we clapped, shaking his head to answer the announcer's questions, etc.
The real part of the park is the Clydesdale horses. The Anheuser-Busch family delights in having all sorts of animals and so they made the park to share with the public all these animals. We got to see a variety of horses and got to touch a Clydesdale up close & personal.

Here I am standing next to one of the wagons that the Clydesdales would have pulled.

Barry & David by the Clydesdale.