Kitchen Experiments

The cool weather the past few days makes me wanna bake. Mmmmmmmmmm! So we whipped up a batch of one of my childhood favs: Waffle Cookies. They are the sole reason I own a waffle iron.

Then in this month's issue of Family Fun Magazine, they had a recipe for PB cookies you shape into Guinnea Pigs in honor of the new movie G-Force. They are cute, but the dough needs a bit of tweaking.. Tasty nonetheless!

How does your garden grow?

I took a few snap shots of some of my favorite garden lovlies this year. Unfortunately, for some of my plants, it's not been a hot summer here. Particularly so for the tropical trees which have yet to sprout a bud much less bloom. SIGH! I personally do not mind the lack of humidity, but this weekend's temps were in the 60s and that was excessively cool!

I was in Elk River on Thursday to see the Tim Mahoney Band perform at an outdoor venue. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! OMG! But so worth it! I hadn't seen the band (one of my MN favs) in over two yrs. Good times! They still rock!

GS go to Horse Camp!!

Becca and the rest of her GS Troop spent 4 days at Camp Elk River, near the Twin Cities, enjoying Horse Camp. They had a blast! They quickly became attached to their horses. Rebecca's horse is named Sampson. It was very fun and very tiring! I went along as one of the transporters/chaperones. My only complaint was that I got SO SORE sleeping in the bunk beds. OMG! Yup, I'm O.L.D! I took over 300 pics of the girls; there were 15 total. But I thought this one was particularly cute!

They girls are already requesting doing another Horse Camp next summer. OI! They are old enough to attend alone without Leaders now and do resident camp. We'll see how it goes...

Next week Michaela leaves for her annual trip to Marmarth, ND, with Ray where they dig dinos. She'll be gone 2 weeks. The smalls will also spend a week in Spokane with Doug visiting with friends there. Then ..the mad rush of school will begin with visits to dentists, eye doctors and the family physician. School shopping... saying that actually puts a smile on my face. LOL

Down Under 2009

The smalls have just returned from their trip Down Under with Doug. For those of you who aren't up up to speed: Doug is a Kiwi and the kids are "Duelies": citizens of both the US and NZ. So they go there as often as they can manage to visit the relatives and friends and to get to one of the coolest places on Earth.

They stopped first in Australia for a holiday with Aunt Mary-Jane. They had a blast! Then off to NZ for 2 more weeks. They visited the Australia Zoo (of Steve Irwin Fame - he died on Becca's 8th bday BTW), went to Rotorua (NZ's version of Yellowstone), and a lot of other great touristy places. They were spoiled by relatives and the whole lot.

Everyone had a great time! And as luck would have it, they get to go back for 2 weeks in December for Aunt Louise's 50th Bday Bash!! WOOO HOO... nothing better than Christmas in Summer :)

For me, that three weeks went FAST. SO FAST I gotta admit, I didn't get much chance to miss them. I didn't get anything done that I had hoped to get done; i.e. painting Becca's room. Oh well..

Washing the MT off

Actually...not just MT, but the last 8 mos of MN, WY, MN and MT. It was time. It had to be washed and cleaned out a bit. The car was GROSS. Was in Eagan the other day, and even though it's raining today, it still had to be washed. It looks a lot better thanks to the folks at the rockin'-ist carwash: Paradise. Yeah, it's a bit pricey. But the vacuum it, wash the dash, wash the car (with all the coatings), hand dry it, polish rims and tires, wash windows...in ten minutes. Saving me 60+ minutes: priceless!

GHS: 20 Years Later

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=276148&id=818600719&l=dbe1b0cbfb

If you wanna see photos from the reunion, copy and pasts the link to see my Facebook Album of the weekend.

So..20 years. TWENTY YEARS. Where did that go? I tell you, I remember my graduation like it was yesterday. Apparently, there are a few more days in there.

The night before leaving for the reunion, I was in Minneapolis attending the Blue October Concert. FREAKING AMAZING! Got back to Teri's at 2am..we left at 3am-ish. We drove 15.5 hrs to Montana, making it JUST IN TIME for the social hour that night at the K-Bar. We got to bed around..oh say 2am. LONG ASS DAY.

I cannot tell you how great it was to see everyone. Some were total surprise! I was saddened by how many of the local GHSers didn't come when so many of us had traveled across the country to be there. ?? I had a great time, lots of laughs, plenty of tears come Sunday morning.

Oddly, being one voted into the "Most Likely To Succeed" category in HS, I have severly failed that office. I think my most successful thing was getting out of Gardiner and having my kids. Though I love Montana, and my hometown, you all know that, but glad I got out and saw the world and lived it. My life definitely has not gone according to plan. My major pisser of late is that 5 years ago I decide to "grow up" , go back to school and now I sit with a large student loan, no job and a very dark brain cloud. Somehow, I think I am forever screwed. No matter what I do; it just doesn't happen. Maybe in the next 20 years I'll be more impressive.

It was good to see how many people had changed for the better! I may not be one, but I sure noticed the ones that have! Going to school in a very small town is a unique experience. One we all identify with. It's nice being 'close-knit', but sucks equally that EVERYONE knows your business ALL THE TIME. You can't really be yourself in that environment. You're too busy fitting in to keep the chit-chat and ridicule at bay. And if you don't play sports, well, you pretty much don't exist there. Because sports rule. Those things haven't changed. And really, our bond hasn't either. It's just aged to perfection.