Wordless Wednesday~Homecoming Oct 2011

Leftover Stromboli

I thought with the holiday season in full swing I would share a really easy recipe with you. I had seen this recipe on line before and a few weeks ago I decided to make it. My kids and Hubby loved it. I call it leftovers your family will actually eat. You can basically clean out your fridge with this one. I decided to make a pepperoni Stromboli. The first thing to do is put foil in a baking sheet and spray it with Pam or any non stick cooking spray.

I used French bread for my crust. It might be the one ingredient you will have to buy. We hardly ever have any of this left over. Take the French bread out of the tube and unroll it. Stretch the dough so it fits the whole pan.

Fill in any umm..holes. I confess I had a heck of a time not tearing the dough. HA! Next step fill it with whatever you want. Since I was doing a pepperoni Stromboli my next step was sauce. In our house we always have left over sauce in the fridge.

I then layered shredded cheese. We eat an insane amount of cheese.

I followed the cheese with Pepperoni. I grew up in an Italian family,can you tell? HA!

This is what it looks like put together.

Now start jelly rolling one end until it reaches other end and fold side ends under roll.

I brushed mine with melted butter and sprinkled it with this. Bake at 400. 20-25 minutes. I would check it after 20 minutes. That's it. I told you it was easy.  I made it a second time and omitted the sauce. Pepperoni bread. You could do lunch meat and cheese in one. Maybe a taco themed one. You are only limited by your imagination.
Enjoy......
P.S. Does anyone happen to have a really good Red Velvet cake recipe? I'm looking for a southern based one.

Day 28.....

My kids finally went back to school today after having 9 days off! I'm wondering why we get 9 days for Thanksgiving and only 3 days off for Easter break. It really doesn't make sense to me. I would think Easter would be the bigger holiday that people would travel on. We sent yesterday bringing down Christmas containers from the attic. Today we spent most of the day putting the stuff up. We put a Christmas tree in every room in the house. Our bathrooms get a small tabletop tree. We started doing that when our girls were little. I'm allergic to pine as well as Cinnamon and I wanted to make up for the fact we can't have a real one. This year I'm really rethinking all of those trees. My son can't wait for his tree in his room. I can't find the darn thing. He was almost in tears yesterday because I didn't know where it was. Today wasn't much better. When hubby brought down 3 of the trees he forgot things that go with them. The first tree we tried to put up was missing the pole that all the branches go in. I'm thinking that's kind of important to have. HA! The second tree was missing the tree stand. Ugh. I thought the little guy was going to break down crying AGAIN. I ended up putting the dining room tree up. I really didn't want to put that one up because that's where I have all the Christmas containers stored. I wasn't even half way done and Bubby decided he had enough of tree decorating. Sigh. They are calling for rain tomorrow so I'm hoping to get the rest of the stuff put up.

Oh,the starbucks ornament was a gift from my Mom. Think she knows me too well? I could have used the real drink(s) today. HA!

Letter to my Brother in Law~4 years

Dear Big guy,
It's been 4 years since we have seen your smile, heard your laugh, or felt one of your bear hugs. There are days when it seems like yesterday you were here and then there are days when it seems like an eternity since we last saw you. They are the harder days to deal with. The hole you left in the family is one that is not easily filled. Nor do we want it to be. The toughest thing for me to come to terms with is how I wasn't always the nicest person to you. Years ago we both said some hurtful things. Things that never should have been said. Unfortunately once words are spoken you can not take them back. You can pretend you never said them but they are still there. I wish now when I said I forgave you, I meant it. We have to learn and move on. I know in my heart that you had forgiven me because that was the kind of guy you were. I always considered you a throwback from an old generation. You would "sign" contracts with nothing more than a handshake. We were stunned when you did a handshake deal to buy the land to build your farmhouse on. You taught me how to not only trust but to have Faith in people. Who does that anymore? You could have your last 10 dollars in your wallet and still give it to someone who needs it. We watched as you drove truck to support your family and any spare time was spent building your farmhouse. We watched as your second wife divorced you and took everything you owned. You never complained. You just picked yourself up and started over. We all cried with joy when you married your 3rd wife and finally had the children you always dreamed of having. After all your hardships your dreams finally came true. That's what made your passing so hard to accept. Everything was finally falling into place for you when you left this earth. I know things happen for reasons and we may never know what they are. I trust that you are in a place where you are happy and not in any pain. That's what keeps us going.
Until we meet again......

P.S. Your hat is still in the same place it was 4 years ago.

The rainy day DMV blues......

Have you ever had a day you wish you could start over? That was my day on Tuesday. Hubby left for work at 5:30 am. 5:32 My dogs started wining to go out. Why they didn't need to go out 5 minutes before is beyond me. You know when my Hubby was still home. My little dog can't just go out, do his job and come right back. It takes him forever to go. 20 minutes later I get the dogs back in and settled down. I climb back in bed. And wait. For sleep to happen. Nope. After an hour I realize I am not going to fall back asleep. I get up and get some coffee. I thought I would just work on my blog while Bubby was still sleeping. 10 minutes later I hear the patter of little feet. So much for working on my blog. We eat breakfast while waiting for the other two teens to wake up. Today was the day Foo was going for her permit.

I finished her paper work and wrote the check for the permit and off we were. 30 minutes later we arrive at a packed DMV. I'm already thinking great. It's poring outside and I'm stuck in the DMV with a four year old. Heaven help us. HA! After 20 minutes they call her number as we are walking up to the desk I hear a little voice "mommy,I have to pee". My son is the kind of kid who holds his bladder forever so when he says he has to go,he means it. I luck out the bathroom is near the desk my daughter has to go to. I hand her the paper work and run Bubby to the bathroom. Bubby reaches the bathroom before I do and can't open the door. That's when I realize it's LOCKED and it's the only bathroom in the building. UGH. He's jumping up and down yelling he has to pee. Meanwhile my daughter is yelling they need my license. I'm running back and forth in this little hallway handing her stuff and watching my little guy. Finally the door opens and we run in. The little guy goes and I realize I have to pee too. I'm yelling at him to wash his hands while I pee. I knew my daughter can't take the test without the paperwork done. We finish up and get her paperwork done. She takes the test and passes. (Yea. Another teenage driver. So excited!) Anyhoo as we are getting her permit,the worker notices that our doctor's office never put down their state license number. What?! You didn't notice that before she took the test? Really? They won't give her the permit without that number. I call our Dr office. They are out of the office until 1:30. It's 12:00 now. There is no way to leave a message either. We decided to go out to the car(in the rain) and think what we were going to do. That's when Foo had a meltdown. In typical teen fashion I got blamed for not checking the paperwork. Teens. Gotta love them. Luckly there was a pizza shop near by and we eat lunch there to pass time. Bubby has to pee again. Find another awful bathroom. Finished Eating and went back to the car(still Raining) and waited until it was time to call. I called got the state number and Foo ran the number back in. She wasn't gone 5 minutes when Bubby says he has to pee again. What? The boy never goes that much. As we are running back in Foo comes running over. She wants the check. Umm. I gave that to the guy. You know how our luck as been so far. We checked everywhere for it. I dumped out my purse and Foo searched the car. I just didn't have it. The guy who originally helped us is on lunch break. The new guy can't find our check anywhere. We would just have to wait for the other guy to get back from lunch. I can't write a new one because I never carry a checkbook. I can't make this stuff up if I tried. My daughter and I just sat down. I honestly didn't know if I should laugh or cry at this point. 15 minutes later our guy walks back in. I'm not sure if he felt sorry for us or just wanted to get rid of us but he took us right away. Turns out the check was on his desk the WHOLE time. The new guy looks over at me and says "It was on the desk and I didn't see it". Not once did he say he was sorry. WTheck?!

Four hours after we left home we finally arrive home. Thank goodness I don't have to go back there for a permit again for 12 years!

Aloha Friday.....

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Email or Snail mail? Which one do you find yourself doing more of when communicating with your family and friends?

I hate to admit this but I email more than I should. I am so bad at remembering birthdays. Let me rephrase that. I do remember birthdays. On their actual birthday. Way too late to send a card then. Ha! I'm going to try next year to send more snail mail than emails.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day

Thankful.....

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
I hope you have a great day of Family,Football,and Food.

Wordless Wednesday.....Oldest and youngest

Tired......

I am too tired to blog today. My dogs decided that 5:30am was the perfect time to get up today. I totally disagreed. Later in the morning I took my daughter to the DMV for her permit. Due to some paperwork issues I didn't get home until 4 hour later. I will be blogging about that later in the week.

Night all.......

Who knew a shoebox could mean so much......

Yesterday morning we were so late for church but we had a really good reason. Our church participates in the Samaritans Purse OCC. Otherwise know as Operation shoebox. They collect shoeboxes stuffed with items for children. They send them all over the country to children. I wanted something to teach my son how its better to give than receive. Our church did it last year but by the time I found out it was too late to bring a shoebox. The first thing you do is pick boy or girl. You can pick an age range. 2-4,5-9, or 10-14. We choose boy 2-4 so Bubby could choose the stuff to put in it. It's not as hard or expensive as it sounds. We choose toothpaste,toothbrushes, stuffed animal,coloring book and of course candy.

My 16 year old chose to do one for a girl 2-4. She choose chap sticks and stuffed animals and sticker books and candy.

My 20 year old saw us putting our boxes together on Sunday morning and decided she wanted to do one too. She and our 17 year old ran out to the store that sells everything and bought stuff to do two more boxes. That's why we were late. I think it was a pretty good reason to be late,right?

Imagine our surprise when we got to church and saw this. Excuse the quality of the pictures. I only had my camera phone with me. I actually had to take three pictures because I couldn't fit all the tables in one photo.

 Isn't God awesome? Planting the seed of giving to others who have nothing. Most of the items are things you and I take for granted. Some of the items are just basic things. Toothbrushes, soap, and washclothes. Imagine the smiling faces on Christmas morning. This year you can track your box on line and see what country it goes to. My kids are excited about that. I realize it's too late to do it this year but please consider it next year. Here is a link to the site with all the details. I would also like to say they do so much more then shoeboxes. They help provide clean water to villages. They also work with hospitals to help children get operations they otherwise would not receive in their on country. They are currently helping rebuild Haiti. Samaritans Purse is a Christian based organization that spreads the word of Jesus as they help people.

We also are thinking of giving to foster children. Does anyone have any ideas? Places that take donations? I can't seem to find anything on line.

Falling.......

Is there anything better than

raking leaves with a shovel

or playing in leaves

with Daddy?

3 years and 1 month ago......

National Adoption Day. Every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving is set aside for finalizing adoptions. It is a day families have dreamed about for a long time. The feelings and emotions you feel this day is so hard to describe. A few years ago we finalized a month before National adoption day.

This is the little guy who changed our lives

Three years ago we got up just like we do every morning. Today was different. We got dressed and brushed our teeth. Only today was different. We ate breakfast and got in the car. But today was different. Instead of driving everyone to school we drove to a courthouse. We were meet there by our social worker, Hubby's parents,and sister. We sat down next to another family and waited for them to call our names. I couldn't help but look around at the other families. You could see nervous,excited and happy all at the same time.  Our social worker couldn't tell us what to expect because this was her first finalization too. We passed the time by taking photographs. (I discovered this later but I had the wrong setting on my camera. I can't enlarge my pictures any bigger than 4x6. I can't tell you how upset I was when I found that out. Grr.)

Finally what seemed like an eternity they called our name. We were sworn in. I have to admit the court room was a lot smaller than I expected. The Judge told us that finalizing was his favorite part of being a Judge. I was the first one to take the stand. He asked us the names and ages of our kids. What we were changing our son's name to. Hubby took the stand and we both promised to love and care for Bubby as if he was a naturally born to us.(Can I just say,I hate that word. Naturally? Really as apposed to what? Time to update words. Geesh.) We of course said yes. Judge hit the gavel and Bubby became legally ours. We took some pictures with the Judge and some more outside the courthouse. We said our byes to my in laws and spent the day as a family.

Forever Family~Trust me. We really do not look like this anymore. HA!

We kept it simple. We went to a huge mall and had lunch. Shopped. We made Bubby a build a bear dog. We wanted him to have something to remember the day with. When you are 17 months you don't remember a lot. HA! We had a huge party that weekend. I can't tell you enough how thankful I am to our friends and family who celebrated the day with us. They have never looked at him as anything but our son. Not foster. Not adopted. But our son.

He just thought it was a day to get balloons,to us it was so much more.

As I think about the families celebrating today a big smile comes across my face. I know the feelings they are having. The excitement. The happiness. The I can't believe it's finally happening. I wish them luck. Most of all, I hope they have the day they always dreamed of.

I'm including a link in case anyone wants more info on adopting.
http://www.davethomasfoundation.org/free-adoption-resources/research-and-awareness/

Aloha Friday.......

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:
 What is your favorite type of "fall" pie? Mine is Apple,Apple,Apple. I know pretty boring.  I don't like anything with pumpkin in it. I can't have anything with cinnimon in it. Allergy. I hate sweet potatoes. It kind of leaves a lot of things out.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day.

National adoption month.....

As you may or may not beware the month of November is National Adoption month. The whole month is set aside to bring awareness to the many children waiting in foster care. This is something near and dear to my heart. Hubby and I adopted our son through foster care. I will be sharing more on our story on National adoption day. Please be sure to stop back on November 19. When we started our journey we had friends and family who either didn't understand or had questions. I can't help but wonder how many other people are interested in adopting but think they can't. I thought I would share some information I learned on our journey.

Truth is most people can adopt. It doesn't matter if you are married,single,LGBT, or if you are older. The ages and amount of available children for adoption vary from state to state. It actually can vary from county to county. There are basically two ways to adopt through foster care. One way is straight adoption or risk free. You would only consider a child who is legally free. Parental rights would already be terminated when the child is placed with you. I know a lot of people prefer this type because there is no wondering if/when the judge will terminate rights. The second type is foster to adopt or legal risk. In this type of adoption you are accepting a child into your home who the parents still have rights. You might not know when/if the judge will terminate rights. Hence legal risk. This is the type we did. I have to admit it's not for the faint of heart but it is doable. I went into the process with an open mind and heart. I gave myself permission to love like crazy and to accept things were out of my control. I'm a total control freak so that was the hardest part of the whole process for me. HA!

The first thing you have to do is look up your state and look for their Adoption/foster link. Here you should find the available agencies in your state. Here is a link. I emailed a bunch of agencies before I made a phone call. Some people recommend calling for faster results.

The next step would be your home study. Now I know what you are thinking. Burgmom, I don't own my house. Or I don't have a room just for the child. Or perhaps it's I don't make a lot of money. Here's the beauty part. You don't have to own your house or be wealthy. The child can share a room with other children as long as they are the same sex. I'm sure your next question is "how do I know how to deal with the child's issues"? That's where your parenting classes come into play. Yes, you will be required to take parenting classes. The classes aren't as hard as they sound. I found them very useful. (I was able to use some of the info for dealing with my one Bio daughter.) During this you will also be asked what type of child would you be willing to accept. BE HONEST. I can't stress this enough. I know of people who would say they would accept a lot of things, just to be placed with a child.

OK,so now you've done your home study and passed. What's next? This is where your social worker comes into play. She or He will look at the available children and try and make matches for you. Read the files. Ask questions. Be open. If you are unsure about a condition, do research. You might be surprised to learn something you never thought you could handle,you can.

Let's say you've now passed your home study and have been matched, now what? That depends on the child's situation. Legally free/not legally free or if the child has adjustment issues. Most of the time you will visit the child for a few weeks before they move the child in with you. Depending if the child is legally free or not determines how long until you finalize your adoption. I have found this varies from county to county.

The one thing to remember is every one's journey will be a different one. Yes, It can be a scary one but it is so rewarding. My journey is a memory I will always treasure. I would love to do it again. I just wanted to add. There are so many children in the system that all they ever wanted was for a family they can trust and love them. If you have room in your heart and home,please consider adopting from foster care.  If you have any questions or just want to talk about the process leave a comment or email. I would love to hear from you.

P.S. If you have made it to the end of my wordy post here is a photo listing of waiting children.

Wordless Wednesday~wagon

Day 15....

There isn't much to blog about today. My sinus infection/migraine have been taking it's toll on me today. I am working on a couple of posts for National adoption month. I haven't been able to get my thoughts together due to my head throbbing.

Anyone have a great method to get rid of migraines or sinus infections? So far my usual methods are not working. I'm counting off the hours until bed. Ugh........

Monday......

I just wanted to wish my Grandmother a very Happy Birthday. My Nonny is 83 years young today. If you knew my grandmother you would agree, there is nothing old about her. She is just as Feisty as she was when we were kids. She's the kind of women who commands respect. When my mom married her son she wasn't too thrilled with my mom. Or the 8 year old daughter she came with. In the 70's there were very few Divorcee and even fewer kids who didn't have a father active in their lives. My Mom went against everything Nonny believed in. The two women never did see eye to eye. Think Marie/Debra Barone and that pretty much sums them up. Ha! I wish I was joking. Somehow over the years the granddaughter she never wanted grew closer to her and share a bond. When my Dad died(her son) it tore the family apart. Two women who barely got along before ceased to even talk. My brother got caught in the middle and slowly stopped going to visit my dad's family. Suddenly my grandmother who lost a son also lost his whole family. Only one person kept going to see them. Me. The one who she didn't want. I'm the one she calls. My birthday. Easter. Sometimes just to talk. I still try to see them every Christmas eve. I know my grandmother doesn't have many birthdays left. That thought just brakes my heart. She is the last grandmother I have. Now to make my brother realize that........

Day 13

Sorry there isn't much to blog about today. The Burg house decided to be boring and not do much of anything today. We even missed Church today. I know. That sounds so awful. I'm still trying to get rid of this sinus/head cold thing. I didn't want to pass it on to anyone else for the holidays. I can't tell you how excited I am that we are now in Flu season. Not.

I also wanted to wish my baby brother a very Happy Birthday. He is the only brother I grew up with in the same house. My brother and I have a 9 year age gap between us but still manage to be close. I gave him my love of Star Wars and he gave me the love of all things Mac/Apple. He was a teen when we lost our Dad and I wonder how much that has affected him. We don't talk about my Dad like we should, but somehow always know when the other is thinking of him. My brother and I have different Dads but you would never guess that. Nor have we ever treated each other as such. I can't ever remember a time when he thought of me as anything but his big sister. Happy Birthday Lil Bro, Dad would have been proud of you!

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

Jerseylicious and sales........

My daughter Foo is off for a fun filled day at the Gatsby salon. If you're not familiar with the name Gatsby, it is the salon that is featured on Jerseylicious. Foo's best friend is taking her and another girl there for her 16th birthday. I was trying to figure out a way to hide in the car myself. Ha! These girls are so excited! I think they are secretly hoping to be filmed. They can't wait to see who is working in the salon today. I can't wait to hear about the day either. My good friend took her daughter last month and said they were the nicest people. I will be keeping everyone posted.

The last few days of talking about Black Friday shopping has inspired me to look for bargains. If you know me, you know I have a love obsession of handbags. You can only imagine my joy when I logged on this morning and saw this one.

Vera Bradley is having a 50% off certain fabrics today and tomorrow. The four fabric choices are Twirly Bird Navy(my favorite),Hello Dahlia,Barcelona,and Slate Blooms. We are huge Vera fan's here so I'm sure we will be taking advantage of this sale. As I find more on line sales I will be passing them along. Please feel free to pass along any you find.

Enjoy your Saturday!

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you go out on Black Friday to shop?

When my girls were younger I tried it a couple of times. I hated it. The people. The pushing. The crowds. Once the Internet shopping took off I started doing that. You can't beat some of the Cyber Monday deals. Plus you can sit in your pj's with a cup of coffee and no Make up. Now that's the perfect day.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day. BTW how cool would it be to live in Hawaii? 

Invest in the Vest.......

My four year old has decided that everyday must start wearing his fishing vest. One of the first things he does in the morning is look for that vest. It doesn't matter what he is wearing either. Everyday. Sometimes it's under a sweatshirt too. It drives us nuts. My good friend and neighbor gets the biggest kick out of it. We decided a couple of weeks ago to post everyday on facebook when he wears the darn thing. Three days ago he decided he needed something else to go with the vest. An orange hat. In addition to the vest,it's now an orange hat. Case in point.......

Notice how his marker matches too?

We've had had two days were he didn't wear the vest. I thought great this phase is over. Nope. Yesterday while we were out shopping he found a vest we just had to buy. I thought this vest would push Hubby over the edge. It's a little different.

We asked him why that vest. The penguin has a rocking guitar. How do you argue that?

He looks very umm.....festive, right? No matter what he wears he's still a cutie to me. I would like to point out, I do make him take the vests off before we go out in public. I don't want all the other mom's to make fun of me. HA!

Has anyone else child went through a phase of wanting to wear the same thing over and over again? Advise?

Wordless Wednesday~Cutest Chicken Coop

Election Day

We actually have a day off from school today. One of our elementary school is a voting place so it shuts down the whole school district. Day off from school can only mean one thing. Sleepover for someone. Last night Mady had two of her really good friends spend the night. The family jokes that they are our other two daughters. I guess at this point what's two more teenage girls. HAHA! The girls decided to make a cake and some cookies last night. So sweet they cooked me desert. HA! They got their little bodies up at 10:30 and ate breakfast and left by 12. To be a teen again. I'm up at 6. Every morning.

Hubby and Tornado went hunting. It's the last week of hunting and hubby wants to go every chance he gets. Ugh. It makes my day so long with the 4 year old and getting everyone where they need to be. Hubby had to work a little later tonight which meant less hunting time due to the time change. I have to admit this time change really stinks. I hate driving anywhere in the dark. As they were changing out of their hunting clothes Hubby says to me "do I have a tick on me?" Yep. A deer tick from the looks of it. It took forever to get the darn thing off. I'm not sure if we got the head out or not. The doctor said they don't give out antibiotics without symtoms first. We have to wait 2-3 weeks. Ugh.

Hubby picked up Foo from work and now we are watching Home Alone 2. We usually don't watch it until after Thanksgiving. The snow we had the other day made us all want to watch Christmas movies. I really wanted to watch Glee tonight but once I heard the theme I changed my mind. I've been a little annoyed with Glee lately. The adoption storyline really got me mad and now this first time episode. I mean really??! Do we have to keep promoting teenage sex.

Hope everyone got out and voted today.

mixed bag of emotions

This past Friday my bil's widow got remarried. We knew she was going to get married, we just didn't know when. She has been engaged for almost two years and kept changing her mind. She would say she's moving from Alaska to Minnesota and change her mind a week before she was suppose to move. We kind of stopped paying attention after a while. According to my Mil she was suppose to get married last weekend but backed out of it. I knew some day we would get to this point. She would remarry and my nieces Firefly and Ladybug would have a new dad. I guess I just wasn't ready for it yet. Now don't get me wrong, I am so happy that they have someone else to call Dad. It just means (to me)that my bil is really gone. He is not coming back. Ever. It hurts. I know, I know, he's been gone for almost 4 years and Yes I know he's not coming back. The marriage just makes it more final. It hurts to know that the next family portrait will be with the new husband. It hurts to know the girls will be calling the new husband,Dad. I'm afraid my sister in law will no longer view us as family. I'm afraid if any of us speak against her she will cut off contact. I mean what if the new husband doesn't want our family in his life. I'm afraid my nieces will no longer need us. I am angry that my bil died. Angry that the family structure changed. Most of all I feel so guilty for having all of these emotions at the same time. See, I told you it was a mixed bag of emotions.........

Thoughts?

Last camping trip of the season

Every Janurary we sit down with our camping club(5 families that share our love of camping) and we plan out all of our camping trips for the year. We try to plan around Proms,homecoming dances,soccer games, and cheerleading. Trust me when I say it's tough sometimes. Did I mention we have a total of 11 kids not including two girls who are over18? Case in point was our last trip of the season. One by one our friends couldn't make it. It was down to my family and our really good friends. I have to admit both of us were considering canceling the trip too. They were calling for rain for the weekend and we were so tired of camping in the rain. Once my daughters heard their daughter wasn't going my girls really didn't want to go. Foo spent the weekend with Hubby's parents. Our friends had no kids for the weekend and we only had two. It felt so weird to be without all the kids on a Halloween weekend.

I finally got around to taking the pictures from our camping trip off my memory card and thought I would share them. As I'm sorting thru them I realize I took very few pictures of us actually camping. Ugh. It had rained on Friday before we got to the campground so we decided to eat out once we got there. Saturday we decided to go hiking on the  Appalachian Trail. Yep you read that right. and no we weren't planning to hike across several states. The other hikers who were actually prepared to hike on a trail kept telling us that the look out point was ONLY a mile up the trail. They lied! After walking a mile and a half   100 miles another group of hikers informed us the look out point was at least another mile. Did I mention my 4 year old was hiking too? We turned around and called it a day. 

Tornado at the top of a stream. I had no desire to hike to the top of that.

Another photo of the stream

Loved this little pond

That bench kept calling my name

The View looking down the trail                                                                      

We left the trail and headed back to the campground. They had a Halloween parade and campsite trick or treating for the kids. My son was so excited for the candy begging giving that he wanted to stop after 5 campsites. Most kids want to go to every site. Not mine. HAHA! All the poor boy wanted to do was eat his candy. I can't say I blame him. I was pretty much thinking the same thing. HA! I love Halloween theme weekends. They usually have so much for the kids to do.  After Trick or treat they had a costume contest/dance. Crafts for the little kids. Bonfire and hot cider. Does it get any better? How many more days until our next camping trip?

Birthday Princess......

When my oldest daughter was 6 we celebrated her birthday with a friends and family party. As I was serving her a piece of cake I called her by name. She looked over at me with her one tooth grin and in her lisp voice says "call me the birthday princess". My aunt who was standing next to her, burst out laughing. We called her the birthday princess for the rest of the day.

2009

Well,Birthday Princess today you turn 20 years old. How that is even possible is beyond me. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was bringing a 8lb 13 oz wrapped in a blanket baby girl home. I remember thinking that day she has an old soul. Very mellow and wise behind her years. The changes in the last 20 years have been amazing. I watched a blond hair blue/gray eyed girl go from being quiet to being a shelf assured confident adult. I watched as she did plays and talent shows in front of hundreds of people to cheering in front of thousands of people. I've watched her fall in love and I've watched as her heart was broken. I cried just as hard on her first day of college as I did on her first day of kindergarten. Did I mention she is working her way through college while maintaining an A average? *Proud Mommy moment* I can't wait to see what the next 20 years hold for her as she continues to grow and become a wife and Mother. I know whatever she does it will continue to make her Mama proud.

2010

Happy Birthday Princess!

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so that can only mean one thing, it's time for Island's life question. My question to you this week is:

Do you have several drafts/unfinished blog posts in your blog folder? I hate to admit this but I do. I umm...actually have several. I'm working on finally cleaning them out.
So head over to Island's life and answer her question too. Since I am Linky challenged just leave a comment with your link and I will visit your site too.

About me....

I figured if you were reading my blog that I would tell you a little about me. I started blogging 3 years ago. The one year anniversary of my brother in law's death was coming up and I wanted a place to write down some thoughts. Our whole family was still grieving his loss and I wanted to just vent. Big time.

I am a stay at home Mom to four kids and two really crazy dogs. I think I could start a blog just on those two dogs. I have one very understanding husband who has to deal with all of us. Poor guy. Some most days I don't know how he does it. Hubby is also a cancer survivor. He was diagnosed with non- Hodgkin's 7 years ago.

The daughters:
Cheerleader is 19. She started her second year in collage. Dating a really nice guy, Copper.
Tornado is 17. She is a senior in high school this year and dreams of being a nurse.
Foo Foo is 16. She is in her second year of high school and thinking of being in the peace corp.
Son:
Bubby is now 4. He is a spitfire most of the time and I wouldn't have it any other way. We also deal with his food issues and processing disorders.

We camp as much as time allows us. Weekend trips you find us local. Our week trip is spent traveling farther away. I think so far my favorite trip has been to Tennessee. When the girls were younger we went more often. We've learned the older they get, the less they want to go. All three of them work. I think this coming spring we might take a break from camping due to their schedules. I will really miss it but it too crazy with all the different work schedules.

In addition to camping and my crazy family my other loves are photography, Sewing, anything mac/apple and anything Vera bradley or coach.

I would really love to hear about everyone else so feel free to leave a comment about yourself too.
*The pumpkin photo is to remind me that it really is fall despite the white stuff on the ground.*

Wordless Wednesday~Hiking in the fall

Nov 1 Day 1

I am finally going to take the challenge. After years of hearing fellow bloggers talk about NaBloPoMo I am going to do it. This month's challenge is to write on your blog every day for the month of November. I realize for some people that is not hard to do but for me it's almost impossible. I guess I also feel a little guilty when I spend time writing on my blog instead of cleaning or cooking. Whenever I take a little Mommy time,the mommy quilt hits me full force. This time I am determined to finish this. For me.

If anyone else is interested in taking the challenge with me visit Blog Her. You only have until Nov 5th to join the blog roll. Please join and help kick my butt to post everyday motivate me. I will also do the same for you. Did I mention they will also being giving out prizes too?