Remodeling

Look at the transition of our front door, what a long way we have come... I love our new front door... it took ALOT of work, and we still are not 100% done, but we are getting there, just a little more trip and we will have it. What a difference.

School Pictures

Alysha's school pictures came in, and they sent me a wonderful CD with her pictures on it... I am sure it wont be long before this is how we get our pictures... so here you go...


Alysha's 8th grade fall picture, she is growing up too fast...










Tom & Sarah's School pictures were yesterday, here is their outfits of choice...










I told Sarah to smile pretty for the camera, and she struck this pose. She was pretty excited, I let her wear my favorite necklace to school, and she got to wear dangly earings, which is why she opted for an up doo...










And here is Tom sportin his cub scout sign , he is currently trying to grow out his hair for the new shaggy look... LOL.. we shall see how that goes, now he actually has to brush it in the morning...

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, me and the girls stayed home while Joe & Tom went on a guys weekend. to surprise Joe, Me and ALysha decided (well more me, but she helped A LOT) to paint the Family Room (which is now the dining room) and the kitchen

We had planned to do the dining room (which is now the den) as well, but ran out of steam while doing the kitchen... LOL... here are our before and after pictures....

Went to See Poison

So when we got there, as we were standing in line, it started to pour on us.. .Thank God Jay suggested we get pavilion seats...


First up, Sebastian Bach, formerly from Skid Row. He put on a pretty good show,

Next up was Dokken, I didnt really care for their show, no energy in it.. .and I didnt know any of the songs... :(

Finally, Poison took the stage... Brett against doctors orders was doing the show, so there were a couple of times when the band would do solo's so he could rest a little.. .but all in all... .AWSOME SHOW






And I met a new friend, Leslie... She drove all the way from Marquette to see Laura, and to attend the concert.. .It was a pleasure meeting you!!

And I saw a few other friends there... April, Charlene & Stacy... was really nice to see you guys...

Going to Stoney Creek Beach

So, I promised the kids since we didnt get to do too much swimming while we were camping cause the beach was so far away, that I would take them to a local beach, Alysha had her friend Sarah tag along.... As you can see, we had a bit of bad weather...

But that didnt stop the kids from having a great time...

There was swimming and sandcastles... the makings of a great time on any beach...

We left when we saw the rain coming across the lake... but, I will bring the kids back... was a nice beach, with a lifeguard, and beautiful water.

Slip - n - slide

When we got home from vacation, our pool was green :( so until it could be treated and vacuumed, the kids wanted to play in water, so I set up my slip-n-slide

They had a great time... and only tore up the yard a little bit...

Camping trip

This year, me and the kids took a trip up to Bay City State park to go camping.... We didnt do tons of things, as we were only there friday night through Sunday. But I do believe the kids enjoyed themselves, I know I did...

Here is how our site looked... our tent looks a little crooked, but I assure you, it kept out the rain... LOL and it seemed pretty straight while you were inside.

So here are some snapshots of Friday. I have include pictures of our trip up as it shows what we were driving through. Poor Baxter didnt fare too well... Every time we got in the van, with the exception of going home, he got ill... literally. As we were setting up our site, Alysha made 2.5 gallons of lemonade for our weekend. The kids immediately got out the games and started playing catch, I think Baxter was just glad to be out of the van... For dinner that nite, we roasted our hot dogs over the fire, We would have roasted marshmallows on Friday, but it started to rain, so we turned in early for the night... only 9 pm... we had strung christmas lights inside of the tent for a "nite lite' but once Tom and sarah were sleeping, I unplugged that... We had also taken along an extra sleeping bag, which baxter quickly claimed as his own...

On Saturday, Alysha decided to be our smoke magnet. Taking over for uncle dan it would seem... Every time she moved, the smoke moved with her... .After breakfast and some cocoa, we decided to head over to the park to check it out... VERY NICE... there was quite a hike to the beach, (I dont remember it being so long before), in route, we walked past the lagoon, where they were having a water foul demonstration... they kept handing out those damn duck callers, and that is all you would hear through the night. In fact Saturday night, three sites down, the damn kids kept yelling "you say Hillshire, I'll say farm"... "Hillshire".... "Farm"... you get the idea. that inconjunction with the duck callers... .UGH

Once at the beach, Tom and Sarah made friends quick.. .you will notice in the beach pictures, that initially, Tom is being chased by a group of girls, then by the end, he is doing the chasing... Alysha was a great big sister and watched over them all.

Once we were back to our site, the kids had races, blew bubbles, Sarah decided to go swimming in a tote, and we roasted marshmallows for smores of course. We had also hit the local dollar store for some more entertainment... We had a good day on Saturday... and, we all got to shower in the parks newly renovated bathrooms...

These pictures are kind of in order, but the beach and park are grouped at the end of the slideshow... sorry...

Sunday... we moved rather slowly... we got up, had some breakfast, cocoa and coffee, and around 10 or 11 we began to get things ready to go home... all the fun stuff... we decided to hit the park one more time... then we were off for home.. .I treated the kids to McDonalds on the way, and we were home by 330. Where the kids told their dad all about their trip... then hit the slip n slide...

Before leaving to go Camping

After work on Friday ( I got out early so we could leave earlier) I had to hit the store for our last minute supplies... While in Kroger, somebody hit my van... they left no number, no name, they just left... Here is what I found as I was walking up on my van...

Beleive it or not, I actually looked at the van, and said, oops wrong van... went to walk buy and noticed it was in fact MY VAN... what the hell....

Have you ever done that... look at it.. say it looks like mine, but that wasnt there... must not be mine...

GRRRR.... Was not a great start to my vacation

and I dont think the damage will cost more than my deductible... GRRRRR.... this sucks...