Photo Op at Betsy's

Betsy was getting desperate for updated photos of her parents so she took things (camera, lens, lights, etc.) in hand, and as much as we tried her patience...

...she took lots of nice ones. LOL Poor girl!

Ya know, that fella of mine is downright photogenic! She got lots of good ones of him.



I think he looks great in this one, too!




Here's my favorite of the two of us together:


I am definitely not photogenic! My skin kinda takes on a life of its own (read Twilight Zone here). I think Betsy must have done some serious photoshopping on mine.


Thanks a million, Betsy! We really appreciate it!

More Smile-Makers

Fourth of July Parade...

My birthday cake, made by Kate (notice the spelling of birthday, Betsy?...Just keeping up tradition :-))

Finally got the flower bed cleaned up and mulched!!! You have no idea how good it feels to have that done!

My Jungles

First, let me remind you that there is siding work being done on the house, so it's looking a bit ramshackle in these pictures. Also, after getting half the yard mowed, the mower developed a problem again, so the yard is also looking kinda scrufty. Hopefully, it will be finished today.

Now, on to the gardens...

This was taken after I had already scalped the rhubarb, so they don't look like shrubs anymore. The jungle on the right is raspberry; the jungle on the left is horseradish.



The squash plants are just getting going. I wonder if our temps have anything to do with the slow growth?



Can you see the plants among the weeds?


And, of course, the ole horseradish...



The peas after I had cleaned them out. Tried a different kind this year; they put their growing energy into peas and not so much into foliage.



These are some raspberry plants I had to clear out so I could get to the peas. The berry plants are growing into everything.



Half of the peas I picked yesterday. This basket was full. Yummy!



Lotsa rhubarb



Now what's wrong with this picture? Dale is helping me get this jungle cleaned up--but he's wearing a winter jacket and it's July 2.



Another of my jungles...looking pitiful, isn't it?



Made big-time progress! (but still have a long way to go)

New salad garden--after it's been cleaned out.

Herb garden

Gross Post--Ignore if Squeamish

Tonight's CERT was about moulage--ways of making up wounds for trauma practice. Some of these are pretty gross.

In this picture, I'm supposed to be like a person who has an injury that is causing internal bleeding in the head, creating racoon eyes, and shock.

This gross owie has blackened dead skin and maggots. It had been left untreated for a long time.

My Week

Last week at CERT, we practiced again putting up and taking down the mass casualty tent. This picture makes us look like a bunch of aliens :-)




Saturday I took some cookies fresh from the oven outside for those working on the parsonage. If you look closely, you'll see how those on the scaffolding got theirs (the rope runs along the leg of the scaffolding so it doesn't show well).



Josh and Kate came for dinner today to celebrate Father's Day with us. When Kate was doing dishes I sneaked our little buddy into her purse, hoping she wouldn't open it until after they left. No such luck. But at least I had the fun of seeing--and hearing--her reaction when she saw
The Snake!

Couponing!

Today was a fun shopping day! Here are a few deals I got:

This one is from Rite-Aid. The Listerine (1l) was on sale for $3.99, and the floss and double package of toothbrushes were each on sale for 2.99. Rounded off, that makes it about $10, plus tax. I had a coupon for $3 off if you buy all three, bringing it down to about $7. Now, they are having a rebate, buy all three and get a $5 rebate. Basically, all this for about $2.

Well, that was good, but the deals at Walgreens were much better!

You see the five bottles of body wash in the background? They were on sale for $2.99, and you also get a $3 register reward. Well, I had 5 coupons for this product, each for $1.50 off. I paid for them in 5 separate transactions, costing $1.67 each, including tax, which yielded me 5 $3. register rewards. So far, I've spent $8.35, and have 5 bottles of body wash and a total of $15 in register rewards. :-) Soooo....

Walgreens had a store coupon for anti-perspirant (Right Guard and/or Dry Idea, limit 3) for $.99. I had a 75 cent coupon for one Right Guard and 2 $2 coupons for Dry Idea. Cha-ching! Walgreens had a coupon for aluminum foil 2/$1. Also had a coupon for envelopes and pad of paper, 3 for $2. They had another Walgreen coupon for Hefty zip bags, buy one get one. I also had a $1 manufacturer coupon and took a 20 cent coupon off one package. The cottonelle wet wipes had a Walgreen coupon so they were charging $1.99 for them. I had a manufacturer coupon for $1 off, also. But the real biggie was the Dr. Scholl's orthotics shoe inserts. I had two $10 coupons for those, plus if you buy between $20-$25.99 worth of Dr. Scholl's inserts, you get a $10 register reward. So when I checked out, after she had taken all my coupons off, I owed her about $11.42. I gave her 3 of my $3 register rewards and $2.42 in cash. (They don't give cash back from register rewards and I didn't want to waste part of another $3 one) I paid a total of $10.77 for all this stuff, plus I still have $16 in register rewards to use on my next purchase! So basically, I am richer by more than $5 and all these products just for walking through Walgreens' door! Cha-Ching!!!

Out-of-Sequence Post

Recently some of us CERT members were able to have some more practice setting up the Mass Casualty Tent. This this is fascinating to watch. It's all bundled into something totable. We stretch it out...

start filling with air...

scramble to get the lights hung before the air fills to the point that the ceiling can't be reached...


pound in the stakes...

then deflate it and roll it up into a comparatively small bundle and store again.

Weekend Happenings

Quite a nice time it's been :-) Last week, Ben's family arrived on Wednesday (wish I could post pictures of the little cuties, but will refrain as this blog is public). We had a short, but great visit. Friday, their family and I headed downstate in our separate cars to the western Michigan area to visit Betsy's family, my folks, and attend the 25 year LBA reunion. I wish there would have been many more that were able to attend, but it was great seeing those that were there. Ben put his memories to a poem. It was so funny!


Betsy's and Jeff's families spent Saturday at an outdoor event that is geared to getting kids into outdoor sports. The kids each won a nice prize, and had a lot of fun. Jeff had to work, but stopped in for a bit. I pirated these pictures of him in his uniform from Betsy's blog.

Here's another pirated picture--this time from Dale. Seems while I was downstate, he had a hankerin' for some cold cereal to munch. He about fell into the sink when he opened what he thought was a box that had never been opened--THE SNAKE had made his appearance, thanks to Ben's assistance!

We're going to have a hard time topping that hiding place!

The Work's Begun!

Setting up scaffolding

Not going to look like this for long...

Shall we go with the 'retro' look?

At Last!

I know you've all been wondering about the family mascot; it's been quite a while since he surfaced. Well, here is The Snake crawling out of Ben's computer bag. He decided to go south to Indiana because Michigan is just too cold this spring.

Newest Smile-Causers

Mulch!!!

Filled my new flower pot with pretties!

A step-stool for my Memory Dollhouse. My Grandma Robbins had a yellow one like this that I used to sit on. I couldn't find a yellow one, so settled for red. Cute, eh?

How's this picture for throwing all perspective out the window? Is it a teeny-tiny stool near a regular-sized cup? Is it a regular-sized stool next to one gigantic cup? Is it a little stool next to a large cup? If you hadn't already seen them separately, you might have trouble figuring them out!

Here's the kitchen the step-stool is for.

The is the air-stream oven I found at a thrift shop. The new belt just arrived and needs to be installed so we can use it. This was one fantastic find that I had only dreamed of locating.

And of course, this little sweetheart makes me smile every day!