Is it Christmas?

I find this amusing:

www.isitchristmas.com

Last Week of September!

Dave brought me flowers again! Pretty purple ones this time. This is getting to be a habit!So the other day, I got Dave some new garden gloves, and a while after getting home from work he disappeared outside after mumbling something about painting window frames. Well, he was gone for a good while and I had to find him to see if he wanted to eat some dinner before we had to leave to go look at a house. Well, I checked the garage...no Dave. Looked in the front yard...no Dave. Went out onto the back deck, and this is what I saw:

So much for painting the window frames! Ha ha ha ha! This is what happens when you leave an engineer alone with some wood and nails.... at least he's wearing his new gloves!

New Kitty Toy

We got our cats this little jungle gym thingy. Biggy was into one of the little caves before we even finished putting it together! Here's a picture of Pip on it. I put it near the back door, so they could look out the window and get some sun while they sit on it.

We rode a camel!

What can I say, I talked Rachael into riding the camel and getting a picture of it. Next year is the elephant...

What a Sweetie!

Well, those pretty white flowers Dave brought me a while back lasted a long time, but I finally had to throw them out last week. I guess he thought I shouldn't have an empty vase, because he brought me these when he came home from playing golf last night! Aren't they pretty? And they smell so nice- I love the smell of roses!

Phase III

Phase III complete...this is the last part. Now I just have to get all that "stuff" organized in there.

Phase II Complete!

Here are some pics from Phase II of the Closet Project. I decided to put this one against the side wall of the closet because of all those wires. Those wires, by the way, and the hole in the wall there, are all part of the wall computer.These 2 drawer units were the other part of Phase II. Those will be against the back wall for sure. Phase III will be on top of those two units.
And I re-arranged Phase I so that it is against the other side wall. There is still more than enough room to open the drawers, and it is much more easily accessible when facing this way.

Closet Renovation Project, Phase I

I decided that I would like a place to keep all my craft things together in one place- organized!!
So, I drew up a plan and calculated cost, and after it was approved by the "building manager" (tee hee), I began my project. Now, I didn't think to take a pic of the closet before I took all the stuff out, but here is what used to be haphazardly piled in there, now temporarily covering the floor in the library...
So far, I have completed "Phase 1" of the assembling of organizational units. Here is a picture of it...
The top is for my tiny supply of sewing things, the middle thingy is for yarn, and the bottom for some scrapbooking stuff. Phase II begins...NOW!

ALOHA!

Well, my Dad turned 50 on Saturday. And my sister Sarah turned 24- they share a birthday!
I put together a Luau in honor of the occasion.
Here are Maggie, Dad, me and Sarah in our Hawaiian duds.
Here's the birthday girl and guy...and Delilah too. She helped blow out the candles!
Maggie and Oliver getting a snack. Even Oliver had on a Hawaiian shirt!
Dad and Delilah being goofy.
It was a fun party. We had good food and fun games. And we found out that Greg can hula hoop like a pro! We got quite a few in on the hula-hooping. It was fun to watch. I even tried it myself, but I wasn't any good. Dad liked the scrapbook that Maggie and Sarah and I put together for him. And Dad and Sarah both liked their "birthday stockings", which were made out of some really pretty hawaiian fabric. It was a good day!

For the Trekkie part of me...

Check it out! A signed picture of Levar Burton a.k.a. Geordi Laforge, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise 1701-D. And E, actually. Dad brought this back for me from his stay at the Star Trek Hilton in Las Vegas. It's the coolest! Thanks again, Dad!

More Hiking

This is from a couple weekends ago, but I'm just now getting around to putting it up. Dave and I took Benjamin and Andrew hiking somewhere on or around Pisgah. It was really a nice day- not too hot up at that higher elevation. We carried the food up and had a little picnic on top of the mountain. Beautiful view!!
We got a good pic of Ben trying to keep from falling off the mountain...and Andrew too...


And here is Dave...King of the Mountain! He suggested we just build us a house up there, but somehow I don't think they'd let us! It was a beautiful view though!

We saw it!

Yes, a couple nights ago, we went out on our porch after dark and looked into the night sky, and witnessed the passing over of the International Space Station! And we could see the shuttle following behind it. It was moving fast!

Happy Flowers

Dave brought me these flowers yesterday...aren't they pretty? He made dinner last night too! What a guy!

Tale of a Saturday

Saturday, we went to Mt.Mitchell for a picnic and a hike. Sarah, Greg and Delilah came with us. We got some supplies and drove up the parkway. Here are us 3 girls at our picnic.
Unfortunately, the Observation Tower was closed, so we didn't get to hike to the top of the mountain. Instead we went on one of the lower trails.
But before we hiked, we went into the little museum. There were lots of neat things about the mountains of NC, including this old mountain man that Dave got his picture with (the only time we caught him on camera). Delilah was having fun pushing buttons...but when she pushed the one that made this big guy start talking, it scared her a little!
Here we are by the spring. This was on the first part of the trail. It was a tiny spring- just a trickle of water coming out of the mountain. It was nice and cool, and we all took a taste- refreshing!
Here is Delilah with the trail sign(she wore her safari dress). This is the trail we walked...all the way up to where it met another trail, but it was detoured because of the observation tower being closed, so we had to hike back the way we came. Altogether we hiked a little over a mile and a half! It was a fun day!

Crazy Cat!

This is Pip's favorite new hang out- in the flower box on the front porch. Today I caught him napping there, so I took his picture. These cats pick the funniest places to sleep sometimes.
We found a new website called Chore Wars (chorewars.com). You can enter in all the chores for the house, and then claim one each time you complete it to earn points and "treasures". And you are "competing" against the other people in your group. It's good for family chores, or really anything that has to be done. We've been having a lot of fun with it....and getting a lot done in the meantime!
Yesterday in the mail, I got a postcard from Warm Up America thanking me for the knitted and crocheted squares I sent....in February. Strange, huh? Yeah, Mom and Aunt Sandy and I all knitted or crocheted squares for the "Knit-In" on DIY during the Superbowl and I sent them in the next week. We need to do that again...
Dave is building us some cabinets and shelves in some of those indents around our fireplace. They are coming along well so far- I'll have to post a picture when he finishes the first one. He is making the doors to match our coffee table that he made before. And we are working toward getting some paint on the walls!!!! The only problem is figuring out where to put it exactly because the living room has all kinds of outcroppings and indents and crazy shaped walls. I've got the colors all picked out though.
Well, I guess that's about all for now.

Harriman Family Reunion

Here are a few of the many pictures we took during the Harriman Family Reunion , which took place last weekend. We all had a great time visiting, eating, swimming, playing games, and just hanging out. We had a big barbecue lunch on Saturday and spent a lot of time in the pool. Saturday night, we all gathered at the Hayes home for pizza and games. A lot of the guys played video games and several girls played an exciting game of *Pink* Yahtzee. Sunday morning we all enjoyed breakfast at Highland Lake Inn, then went to church. Then we gathered at the Hayes home again for more food and fellowship. It was a great weekend!

2007- Half Full or Half Empty?

Well, the year is half over, and ours has certainly been full so far! Dave has taken quite a few trips so far- 2 in Massachussetts, 2 in China, one in Germany and one in Pennsylvania (I got to go for that one) for a grand total of 57 days! The rest of the time he's been working, weeding, fixing computers, and making a computer model of our house.

I've kept busy with painting, knitting, rearranging the furniture, visiting family, playing Yahtzee, helping out at Kolorful Kitchen now and then...and being a member of the Henderson County Grand Jury.

We had that frost, which stunted the growth of our lilies and our Japanese Maple tree. They both ended up coming back, but they look a little worse for wear. Here is a picture of Dave and Delilah looking at a turtle that lives on the side of our house. He wouldn't peek out of his shell for us.Ah yes, and we got a Wii. It's pretty cool. We like playing the games on it- it gets us up off the couch. It does other cool stuff too, like show you your weather, surf the net, communicate with other Wii's, etc. Plus you can get older Nintendo games on it...we have the original Super Mario Brothers now. That sure brings back some memories!

Oh yeah- I added a 3rd contest to the Contests for Fun blog. Check it out! The link is over on the side somewhere ----------------------------->

Greetings from York!

Well, here we are in PA. Right now I am at the hotel catching up on emails. Dave is off working. Soon I will get to my knitting. I got a good bit done yesterday, then ran out of my yarn, so we stopped last night and got some more. After dinner last night we walked around the closest mall. It was big, but not many people were there. Then we went by Dunkin Donuts for dessert/breakfast. Yum!
Tomorrow we hope to go and check out some of the local attractions...maybe Hershey Park, maybe a tour through the Amish country, maybe Gettysburg- we really haven't decided yet. We might get to do more than one if we time it right.
Hopefully we'll have some pictures to post when we get back home.

Off Again, Off Again, Jiggety-Jig

We just had a very nice visit with our parents Carlson...they came and stayed with us for a few days before heading back to St.Louis. We enjoy having our guest room filled, and it was a nice treat to have them as company. We even drove down to GA for a day to visit with the Croteaus too (Dave's sister and family). Kelly (our niece) just finished 6th grade and won all sorts of awards- she's a smart one! This is my new reed diffuser that I got at Pier One. I wanted to try one out to see if they really were as good as they claimed to be. I have to say yes. The scent of this one is "Downpour". It smells very nice, and keeps the living room constantly scented, but it is a nice subtle scent, not overpowering. And I thought it looked really good with the river rocks around it on this candle platform thingy (thanks Sarah!).
Well, Dave's got another trip and this time I get to go with. So tomorrow evening we leave for four days in York, PA. I am going to take some unfinished knitting projects for the 2 days Dave will be working, and Saturday we'll check out some of the local attractions. Then we fly home Sunday morning. I'm sure Dave is sick of traveling, but it will be my first trip in a while, so I'm excited.

Toes Like an Ogre...

Delilah and I went shopping together yesterday, and decided we needed some new toe polish for the summer. Delilah picked out a very nice sparkly pink and a sparkly purple. My choice you see above... Not sure what I was thinking. I guess I just wanted something a little different. The color is called "Go Go Green", but Delilah, having Shrek fresh on the brain, decided that it was "Ogre Green". Well, I went ahead and tried it out (I know toes are ugly, but here they are...)
Yes, here are my Ogre Green toes. Aren't they......swampy? LOL!! Well, if "different" is what I wanted, I got it. I thought it was hideous at first, but it's growing on me.
All right, well that's all for now- I'm supposed to be cleaning! -Rachael