V.B.S. Takes Its Toll on Everyone!

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School at our church. This year's theme is "Studio Go Game Show." It will be every morning this week from 9AM to 12:15. My grandson, CJ is attending with a lot of his friends. I'm helping out with the babies in the nursery, with my good friend Lisa, (QTpies7), and Molly is helping out by leading the worship etc with some other older girls. So far, so good. There were over 100 kids there this morning, not counting the 6th and 7th graders that were there helping out! Everyone is having a great time, despite the rainy start to the week today.

However, ever since school got out last Wednesday, we've been pretty lax about what time anyone goes to bed around here. Hence CJ and Molly...and I were up a bit later than we should have been last night. After we got home this afternoon, I made lunch and sat down to watch one of my favorite shows, and fell asleep on the couch. Molly had been on the computer and CJ was running around playing. I woke up after a few minutes and it seemed rather quiet in the house. I assumed CJ was upstairs with his mom in their bedroom...until I saw a little head lying behind the recliner in the living room...

CJ curled up next to his "trumpet" that he made in VBS

And then I walked into my bedroom and found this...



Molly had decided to take over my bed. I guess I'll call her "Goldilocks" from now on. I tried to get her out, but there was no budging her. It is now after 5:30 and they are both still asleep! I'd better go wake them up, so they don't stay up half the night tonight and repeat this behavior tomorrow!!

Why Yes, It Actually IS Rocket Science!

At least, it's middle school "rocket science". Molly was studying rockets in her 6th grade science class, and they sent home a form for us parents to order rocket kits for them to launch at school. The options were: a) buy a kit that could only be launched once, b) upgrade to the more expensive one that had a launch pad and 3 extra engines, or c) choose not to buy one at all, and have your child paired with another student that has one. I left the decision up to Ray, and being just a big kid at heart...he chose option b, so that he could play with it at home.

The sixth graders did this on Monday morning at school, and so when Molly got home that day, she and her 4 year old nephew were pretty excited to launch it again here. I told them they'd have to wait for Ray to get home, and when he finally did, we walked to the field next to the house and this is what happened:

The rocket went off without a hitch...after Ray took care of a few minor technical difficulties, and I caught it on video! The only thing was, I thought I had stopped recording after it went off..when I couldn't find the rocket in the camera's viewfinder! (That's why you see me aiming the camera it at my feet, because I was looking to see what I had captured.)

But the funniest thing happened AFTER I thought it WASN'T recording... If you listen closely, you can hear Christian say, "Whoa! Molly's rocketship goes that far?!" Jessica tells him, "Yep." If you can't understand his next comment, my grandson says, "That's a little SCARY!" And then I start giggling. It's a good thing I decided to watch it on my computer, because I realized I actually DID get the rocket coming back down with the parachute...and I had also forgotten all about Christian's comment at the end. We get to launch it two more times now...yay!

Book Winners Update!

I just drew the winner for the book "Dear Mom". And it is...Nicole D! I also need to apologize for not getting the last couple of giveaway books out in a timely manner. They are sitting in my entry way, ready to go...but with not having a vehicle for the past five months...it gets difficult to get them to the post office. I'm so, so sorry! I NEED to remember to send them with my dh tomorrow!!! I will send an email out to Nicole, and if I can get her mailing address yet today, I can send her book along with the rest.

Look for my next book giveaway right here, next week! It's called "Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes" by Robin Jones Gunn.

My Seven Year Open-Heart Surgery Anniversary!

Seven years ago today, I was lying on a table in an operating room, with my heart (literally) in the hands of another person. Thankfully, he was a very skilled surgeon, so I got by with a mitral valve REPAIR, instead of a replacement. It was a definitely one of the scariest things I've ever had to go through in my life, but I also put my life in God's hands, and He brought me through it.I was trying to make these pictures as tasteful as possible, while still showing most of my scar. I belong to a wonderful online community, called Valvereplacement.com. A few years ago, someone on there, started a forum entitled "TOOTS", (The Order Of The Tawdry Shirt). They've been passing shirts around the world for everyone to take their scar pictures in, but I didn't want to wait for that. My husband has a few of his own "tawdry" shirts...which is why I took these pics in this one. I have posted them over on my heart valve site too.

You can see that the scar has faded somewhat over the years, but the one thing that's always bothered me, is that it's NOT straight, and it's NOT exactly in the middle of my chest. For that reason, I generally don't go around wearing anything very low-cut, but here it is, in all its glory.

Bart The Wonder Dog just ran out of Lives

Back in January, I posted about my daughter's Corgi, Bart, miraculously surviving being hit by a car on the road. After that accident, we had kept him tied up in the yard for quite some time. But after it got nice out, and people were going in and out of the back door quite frequently, Bart would sneak out from time to time. It seemed like he had learned his lesson about chasing cars...so we kind of let him run around the yard with his buddy, our Chocolate lab/Springer mix, Jake.

That was all well and good for a while, with just one problem. You see, Welsh Corgis were originally bred to herd cows. Bart was a bit confused, and had recently taken to herding CARS instead. It was like he never wanted anyone to leave, and instead of just barking when someone came, he would bark when anyone left as well. And if he was outside when anyone was coming or going, he would run as fast as he could in circles around their vehicle. Well, on Tuesday, Ray had just come home from town, and Bart was running around the truck, as usual...but this time, unfortunately, he didn't get out of the way of the wheel. Ray felt sickened as he realized he'd just run over our grandson's dog, but Bart was still very much alive. He was limping, and not moving very well, but he wasn't bleeding or anything. We were hoping it was just the one paw. Later on that night though, he started looking worse and worse, and his breathing became very labored. Jessica gave him some pain meds that he had left over from his other accident, and sat with him in her lap. Bart's injuries were apparently much more serious than any of us realized, because within an hour or so, Bart breathed his last breath...right there on Jessica's lap.

In all honesty, I can't say as I've always been fond of Bart. Yes, he was a cute little thing, but he could be rather annoying at times. When they arrived in December, he wasn't completely house trained. And then, he was just getting pretty good at that when the first accident happened. Either it was brain damage, or the drugs he was on, but we basically had to start all over in that department, and he was once again, pottty trained. He also had some other weird little quirks...he hated the vacuum cleaner and would attack it whenever we used it, not just that, but pretty much anything used for cleaning, the broom, spray bottles, mops whatever. Anyway, he was finally starting to be a pretty good dog again, just a short time ago. My grandson CJ and my daughters, Jessica and Molly loved him very much, and Ray and I were just beginning to at least tolerate him living with us.

We had a "funeral" for Bart after Molly got home from school on Wednesday. Molly dressed in a black dress and read the eulogy she had prepared. Everyone said their goodbyes to him, including his 4 year old master, CJ. He seems to be taking it very well, even though he didn't believe that Bart was dead at first. Can you blame him? He'd been told just a few months ago that his dog was dead, (we all thought he was until Ray went out to get him), and then he was all of a sudden NOT dead again. Yesterday, CJ told me that maybe he would name his next dog "SpongeBob". We'll see. RIP Bart.

Memorial Weekend Happenings

Our Holiday weekend started out nice. Sarah called on Saturday morning, to ask if it was alright for them to come down for a visit for the weekend. They had planned on camping in Northern Minnesota, but the weather up there was not cooperating. We told her that would be just fine, we had planned on grilling and having our first campfire of the season that night anyway, so it would be great to have company for it. We invited my son Joel and Ray's other daughter, Ruth and her husband too, but unfortunately, Joel had to work and we never heard back from Ruth.

Meanwhile, while Sarah and Brad were on their way, I got Ray working on my "Honey-do" list. They were just minor little things that I wanted done, like hanging the American flag out on the front porch, putting a lock on the bathroom door, fixing my chair and attaching our bed to the headboard, so it wasn't always trying to fall on us in our sleep. He did end up getting most of that accomplished. I have one more project for him to do, but he said that one was a little more "involved" than he thought it would be. Of course, this is the same project that was left over from th last time I gave him a list of things I wanted done.

After Sarah and Brad arrived, we took them with us to the first grad party of the season. It was a beautiful day for an outdoor party, and CJ had lots of fun playing with his friends, Caleb, DJ and Charlie, who all happened to be there at the same time we were. When we got home, we made brats and hot dogs on the grill and got ready for our campfire.

Here are Jake, Molly (with Bart in her lap), Sarah, Brad, Buster, and Jess with CJ in her lap.

Here we are, enjoying the fire and roasting marshmallows for S'mores. You gotta have S'mores to make it an official holiday weekend, don't ya think?

Here is Molly, posing with Jake, Bart and Buster. We had ourselves a real "Three Dog Night"

On Sunday afternoon, we all headed out to my mom and dad's house for another "work day". Most of my siblings were there, and some of the grandkids. They were all doing odd jobs around the place that needed doing. Some of us were painting Mom and Dad's bedroom, while others were doing some painting outside. They even painted the basketball/flag pole! That's my brother Bob in the orange shirt, and the other one is my BIL, Steve. I believe my brother Mike is operating the equipment here:

While they were doing that, my sister Kathy was busy painting the old basketball backboard, too. She did a very nice job on it, but we were thinking it needed the script, "Don't even think about parking here", along with a painting of Felix the Cat playing basketball...or something like that. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if actually did that. She's one talented lady.

Monday morning, we all got up and Ray made his famous omelets for everyone. Sarah and Brad packed up and headed North around noon or so. Ray, CJ and I took a ride out to the campground that our church is going to for a weekend in July. It looks like a nice place, and is only about 20 miles from town, so even if some people didn't want to stay, they could still come out to visit for a day. The lady from the campground told Ray that he had to show me the "outhouses". I thought that was interesting. I'll post more about the campground later.

Wordless Wednesday #27 ~ "Apple Blossom Time"