2nd weekend of camping

Well, we had another wonderful weekend of camping along with some special guests. I got off work at 11:30 Friday, I took a 1/2 day and let me tell you, it was great walking out at 11:30, because starting in August, no vacation for anyone! It's our busiest time of the year, so they say, and I'm just waiting for it..

After work, I came home and woke Tom up, the kids were all ready to go. I didn't think Micayla was going because she's still using crutches, but she decided she would give it a try. Her friend camps and she wanted to "hang out" with her. So she hobbled around pretty good, but her knee was kind of bothering her, so she took some pain pills and watched a movie in the camper.

So our guest...we brought mom with us! We mentioned something to her last weekend about her and dad coming up, since Andy, Bill, Nikki and Lexi and one of her friends, it was awesome to have mom there. We picked mom up on our way up to Whitetail, because dad couldn't make it Friday night because of a Moose meeting, so he was going to come down Saturday. Friday night, was a relaxing one, well they both were pretty relaxing, but we made brats and sweet corn for dinner. We hung out by the fire until about midnight and went to bed. Mom slept in Andy's camper on the couch, since dad wasn't there, it was just easier for her to sleep in there, especially since Micayla and Brandon were with us.

Saturday we got up and we all ate breakfast together, we made, or I should say mom and Andy made scrabbled eggs with ham, bacon, mushrooms, onions, I'm sure I'm missing something, but it was so good. That afternoon, we went to the pool, it was super hot outside and we loaded up on the sunscreen. They had there Saturday pool party from 2:00 to 4:00 and we were up there about noon and stayed until after the pool party. The owners son has music equipment and he plays his music outside, it brings most of the campers up to the pool, however the pool gets super crowded, but it's always a lot of fun. After the pool, we came home and had a few snacks before getting ready for dinner. Everyone brought there own steaks! My mouths watering just thinking about them. I put the famous Kalmes seasoning on ours and wow, the steak just melted in my mouth. We good the steak over charcoal. Bill had tripod thing that fit over the firepit, so we got the charcoal ready just like we would if we had the webber grill. They cooked nice and slow. I made cheesy hashbrowns in the crock pot, used a crockpot liner, and it worked slick as a whistle, no clean up or anything. Oh, I also made some asparagus and fresh mushrooms on the grill. Needless to say, we were stuffed and exhausted! Oh I forgot to mention Dad made it up just in time for snacks. After dinner, mom and dad decided they were going to go home and sleep in there own bed, I don't blame them, but I was just excited they were up with us. Micayla ended up going home, her friend came to get her, because she was kind of miserable since she couldn't go swimming or anything and it was really hot!

So today, we got home about noon again, Brandon had a baseball game, his last one, yippee... his game was at 2:00 unfortunately they didn't win, but it was a good game, Brandon had an awesome catch in left field and a base hit tonight, it was a good way to end the season. After that, we stop and got a six pack and a pound from Taco Johns, ate that, they Tom went to lay down and I took Brandon to his friends house, they were going to go biking. I stopped up at moms, because she said she "had something" for me. She's so silly, anyway, she bought me a beach bag, it's super cute and has little purses all over it. Thanks Mom, you didn't have to do that, it was our pleasure having you join us up at Whitetail, we decided we are going to do this together more often.

So it's almost time for Tom to leave for work, so I'm going to go talk to him for a few minutes, then I'm off to bed. I sure hope there are no flies in our house, because I was about to so insane in the camper, they are such a pest when you are trying to sleep. I think I slept with the flyswatter but it didn't seem to help. Anyway, I'm glad to be in my own bed, sheets were washed and hung outside today, so they are going to smell so good. Good night!

Stinkhorns

Has anyone heard of them? Not us until tonight. Tom and I were out pulling weeds in the front of our house and let me tell you, with all the rain and humidity, the weeds just kind of took over! Wow and we didn't even get them all. Tom is down by the driveway pulling weeds by the front steps and he saw something..white, slimy balls. I should go take pictures, but I don't feel like getting up. Anyway, there are a TON of them, they look like an egg or something. The neighbor was over and we asked her and she said it looked like snake eggs, I about died, there better not be any "snake" eggs in the front of our house. So we, Tom, kept raking these things and we filled the bottom of a bucket because I wanted to call my Pest Control guy and see if he had a clue. Not only are these little things slimy, they STINK, big time. We thought it smelled like cat piss or something like that. We only smelled it down by the garage when you walk in front of the steps. Every once in a while with the windows open, sitting on our couch, I would get a whiff of something stinky. So anyway, I called the Pest dude and asked him about it and he's going to come out on Thursday, however Tom was googling mulch or something and came up with stinkhorns. That's what they're called, check them out. They are a fungus that grows off wet mulch and there's not much you can do to get rid of them. Even if you did them up and get rid of the mulch, they are probably still going to come back. They grow slimy and like a mushroom, their just gross, that's all I can say about them.

So off to other things, now that I just grossed everyone out. I even called mom and she hadn't heard of them, that's the first!

Micayla had her knee surgery yesterday and everything went good. They found some "stuff" inside her knee that they scraped out, some fluid behind her knee cap. So they scrapped it out and it should take care of the pain she's been having. Today she went to therapy and she said they bent her knee like 30 degrees or something and tomorrow they are going to go a little farther. Tonight she said she was bored and asked to go to Walmart with her friend Megan, oh hello we don't think so! She couldn't understand. She's on crutches and all! Sorry K... She did have a few friends come over and her friend Megan, who had this same surger a a couple months ago, were sitting outside in the back and as we were out front enjoying the beautiful night, other than the stinkhorns, she asked for a warm washcloth. Tom and I are both like why? Well, Megan decided to take off Micayla's knee wrap, the one the doctor told her to leave on until the therapist take off. Well, since Megan had surgery and "her" doctor told her to not leave the wrap on decided to take it off Micayla. Then Megan said she's supposed to take it off and put a warm wash cloth on her knee. Needless to say Tom was not too happy and Megan wrapped it back up. Tom's like "you're not her doctor" LOL Tomorrow she thinks the wrap will "officially" come off, she said it's really itching but she hasn't complained of any pain so either the pain pills are doing there job or it doesn't hurt too bad. Or she just wanted to say it was fine to be able to go with Megan to Walmart. Who knows, you know how these kids try and play us.

1st of 5 weeks

This weekend was the first weekend, at Whitetail Bluff, of five! We get to leave our camper up there for 5 weeks in a row. We love it, it makes camping so much better because then we don't have to set up and take down every weekend. Well, we still have to put things away, put the awning up and clean up a little, but we don't have to pull the camper for 5 weeks. This is one way to find out if we want to go permanent up at Whitetail. We are on the list but it probably wont be until next year, so we just wait and see.

It was a great weekend, Micayla and I drove up Friday night about 6:00, after stopping at Hy-vee and Van's. Tom left earlier with the camper to get things set up. If he would have waiting for me, we wouldn't have gotten up there until 6:00 or so at the earliest and that time of night there's lots of people running around trying to get everything set up, so we decided that Tom will go up earlier, plus the Malibu needed a good "highway" driving and Micayla was wanting to drive, so it worked out good. She's doing a great job!

Andy and Bill were camping right next to us, which is always fun and entertaining. Friday night, we just sat by the camper and drank a few beers, nothing too exciting, we cooked brats for dinner and just relaxed by the fire. Saturday, we slept in, got up and cooked breakfast and then went to hang out by the pool. It was a beautiful day and very refreshing to have a pool available. Andy and Bill went into town, Cassville, to there farmer's market and they came back with some sweet corn. And it was only $2.75! Fincels is $5.00! And let me tell you, the $2.75 corn was just as good. I know we pay for the "fincels" name, but come on... Oh well, so Saturday night, we good chicken breast sandwiches. This is something my sister-in-law, Kristi got up hooked on. On our trip to Hy-vee before camping Friday night, I thought about what to cook.. so we got a fresh tomato here at home, from fincels, oh and the tomato from Cassville's farmer market was only a quarter, we didn't get one of those, but it's crazy the difference in prices. I'm not sure what Tom paid for his tomato, but I'm sure it was much more than a quarter. So we cooked up some chicken breast and made sandwiches out of them. I brought some buns, lettuce, tomato and mayo. And we made the sweetcorn Andy and Bill picked up for us. Oh and it was SO good! The rest of night was again, pretty relaxing. We played a couple games of bean bags but it was another relaxing night. This is why we love camping so much, for the relaxation. Sunday, we got up made breakfast and started cleaning up and drove home about noon. Again, we got to leave the camper up there for the next few weeks.

Next week, Andy and Bill are going to be up there too, they left there camper as well. Nikki and Lexi are camping too, so we talked to mom and dad and they are going to come camping with us. They will probably crash with Nikki, since Chuck wont be there, he's got some union meeting, so hopefully it's a nice weekend. We are already planning on the food. We hope to have steaks and everyone will bring something to share. We hope Tom and Linda come down too. It will be so much fun, hopefully! LOL - you never know about my family..

Well, Tom's about ready to go to work and I have to listen to my Jazzercise songs that I put in for tomorrow.

4th of July Weekend

It was a wonderful weekend. The weather was perfect up until Sunday night, but we couldn't have asked for better weather. Friday after work, I got off at 2, we packed up, Tom took the camper down once he got off work and had everything set up, all we had to do was pack our bags and off we went. Friday night was a lazy one, we order chicken for supper and had a few beers or two.

Saturday was gorgeous, we started the afternoon out with a dip in the pool at the yacht basin. It really cooled us down and got us all ready for the air show and fireworks. Here are a few pictures. This one scared the beegeesus out of us. I screamed really loud once because it snuck up on me and it just let out a huge boom once it was passed us.




Here are some parachuters, they were awesome!


Few more air show shots.


It's amazing how they can control themselves and not land somewhere crazy. I guess there is a target marked for them to land and they all land within that spot, amazing.

Here are few random pictures, can you see all boats lined up by the bridge? They shut a big part of the river off during the air show, it's amazing all the boats, once the air show is over, they are free to go up river to watch the fireworks.








Tom's uncle Bob and his friend Sparky! They camped next to us. Nice hats huh?



OK, you're probably sick of airplane pictures, but our camera was awesome when it came to these pictures. After the air show, our flash does not work, hopefully it's not broke, Tom will have to figure it out. But these planes were cool. I can't believe how close they get to one another, I'm sure they look closer than they really are, but we had the best seats in the house for the air show. The fireworks were a different story, but they were good, the ones that got up over the trees anyway!





Here's Boner with his friend Pam.

So the rest of the weekend was just as nice although the fish flies came out, we could have done without them.

Well, Tom's asking me to rub his feet so I think I will pamper my hubby for a little bit before he has to go to work.

Ready for the weekend

OK, so I'm sitting here at work, blogging! I know, I shouldn't be doing this, but there is not much else to do. I have been reading the 4th book of the Twilight series-Red Dawn and let me tell you, it's hard to put down but I decided since I have not had time at home to blog, I would just do it at work because right, we have lots of time. People are standing around talking, waiting for their phone to ring. In the next couple of weeks, I doubt I will be saying that because starting the 2nd week or so in July we will be getting really busy, so they say. I'm ready for it. You can only surf the net and email so much you know. Right now, we are all waiting for an email from the head guys saying we can leave at 2:00 this afternoon because of the holiday weekend. This happened on Memorial Day weekend, it was awesome and by the look of the vacant parking lot it's a pretty good chance it might happen. Keep your fingers crossed!

This week has been a pretty busy one, first of all, Monday, me Mom and Kristi were supposed to go out for dinner for Kristi's birthday that was on the 20th but we all just got too busy and decided it wasn't a good night for dinner. I had a headache, Kristi had tons of laundry to do since she was traveling for work all last week and mom was packing for Nashville, which they left yesterday. So we decided maybe next week or the week after. We took mom out for supper on her birthday in June and it was such a good time with just the girls we decided to do it once a month, not just our birthdays. I really enjoy the time with mom and Kristi!

Tuesday night we went up to mom and dad's to take the GPS up and get that all set for them for their trip to Nashville and of course, she had dinner for us. She made Pork cutlets, fried potatoes and peas, not my favorite, but I did try a spoon full, yuck! But other than the peas, the meal was delicious. After mom and dads, we went out for ice cream, we made the long drive, out of our way to Beechers. They have the best frozen yogurt, they usually have a different flavor every day or every week, not sure, but Tuesday they had vanilla and peach something and it tasted like a dreamsicle. Yummy! We don't get up there as often because it's nowhere near our house anymore where as before it was just up the street, we could walk. So we make it a treat once in a while, plus it's so much better for you than DQ! Since DQ is closer, we tend to go there more often.

Wednesday, the boss, who hired me, and her boss were in DBQ for work, they work in the Chicago office, they wanted to see how we were all doing before the busy season started so Wednesday night, me, my boss, heather, the 2 from Chicago and 2 other people in our department all went for supper at The Star. That place is so nice, we sat out on the patio, it was such a beautiful night, we had to take the opportunity to sit out there overlooking the might Mississippi! I ordered Shrimp Pesto Pasta and it was so good! We split 2 deserts, wedding cake and grasshopper ice cream cake, both were good, but I would have chosen something like cheesecake or something, but I had a slice of each. The pieces were huge, between 6 of us, we couldn't eat it all. I brought leftovers for Tom, not the deserts, but my food and he took them for his supper at work.

Thursday, last night, Tom and I went on a dinner and a movie date. We went to eat a Buffalo Wild Wings, one of our favorite places since we go there at least once a month it seems like, but I just love their traditional wings with honey bbq sauce. My mouths watering now. After dinner, we went to the Twilight movie - Eclipse. It was very good! I think Tom was dozing a little because there was not a lot of action, but lots of "love" scenes between Jacob and Edward. Oh gee, that didn't sound good, not love scenes between Jacob and Edward, but Edward and Bella and Bella and Jacob! Well, you will just have to go see it to get anymore details. Tom thought this was the last movie of the series, but I mentioned to him it wasn't, sorry honey! The 4th one, not sure when it will be out, but the book it awesome!

So now to Friday, Tom went to set up the camper this morning after he got off work at 7am. He wasn't sure if he was going to stay down there and sleep or go home, I'm guessing he went home. I'm just patiently waiting for the email, but no luck yet! Although, I did just receive a great email from a good friend Linda, who has FINALLY decided to become a Jazzercise instructor! We are so pumped, we will have 2 current students go through workshop sometime this fall to become an instructor. I'm so happy for you Linda!

Well, I better get back to work and see if there is anything out there for me to do. If not, back to reading my book, my fingers are tired!

Weekend recap

It was a great weekend, friday night after work, we went grocery shopping at Hy-vee, they had a big sale and we got lots of stuff. We came home and grilled out burgers and then had a fire out on our porch. Tom and Linda came up and sat around with us. It was a very relaxing night, they left around 10:30 and I hit the sack. Friday nights, I'm beat and usually in bed early, plus I had to get up Saturday morning for Jazzercise.

That's right, I taught Jazzercise at 7:30 Saturday morning. Normally we teach one Saturday a month between 4 of us, but since I will be camping the whole month of July, I won't be able to teach, so I offered to teach Saturday. Plus, when I teach Saturday's, mom and I usually go out for breakfast and we meet Jolene. This time we went to Chuck - n - Jo's. They have a great breakfast, I had a ham and cheese omelet with hash browns. After that, Nikki had a candle/tupperware/jewelry party. She didn't have many people showed up, but I bought my fair share of candles/pods, a pair of earrings and a piece of tupperware that I probably don't need, but it was the chip and dip set. It will be nice when we host parties at our house. It serves as a big bowl with a small bowl for dip and then the lid for the bowl can serve as a relish tray. Pretty cool. After Nikki's we had a graduation party up at a friend of ours, they had a pool so Tom, Brandon and Micayla went swimming. I just watched, I didn't feel like getting in. It was a beautiful day. It was very humid, but at least it wasn't raining! Brandon had his last baseball game last night at 8:00 last night, the fish flies were pretty bad and I was glad to get home. Brandon won his game and he had a hit and couple catches in the outfield. I have to admit, he's pretty good in the outfield, we are so proud of him. Once we got home, we decided to sit outside with the neighbors. We drank a few too many beers but it was great sitting outside, it was another gorgeous night. We called it a night about 1:00. It's been a long time since I have stayed up that late.

We got woke up by the neighbors, because they are trying to sell there house and they had an open house today and we told them we would watch their dog for them. They have a little chihuahua and it's so darn cute. Brandon asked, isn't this the kind of dog up at Pat and Ron's that humps the pole? Tom and I about died. Too funny. Here's a few pics of the dog. He seemed to make himself at home.



Her name is Kaylie and she really likes Tom. Even though we will definitely miss the neighbors, the dogs barking we will not miss. This is one of those yippie dogs. LOL We just hope we get as good as neighbors as we do now.

Employee company picnic

Today was the McGraw-Hill employee picnic. All family members were invited and their were over 1000 people at Eagle Point Park. It was a beautiful day. The picnic was actually supposed to be yesterday but the weather was crappy and they always have a backup day so that day was today. And it was super gorgeous. The humidity was low and the sun was shining. The only thing I forgot was my camera. There would have been some great pictures, hopefully I can get some from the others who took some.

Our theme was Hippy Happiness. We had several activities for the kids, starting with the big bounce houses, obstical course and a few other items. We had face painting, tattoos, peace bracelets and painting of pots and rocks, this was my activity, I had to provide the rocks and another girls supplied the pots and paint. Thanks to mom and dad for the rocks, or I should say thanks to dad who got the wrong landscaping rocks we didn't have to go out and buys any and we had plenty. The other activities we played was a bean bag tournament and lucky me, we won. I didn't know who my partner was but he was pretty good. We won a $40 visa gift card, definitely worth it. There was also a game show that was provided by the entertainment, Alexus Entertainment, he was awesome. Unfortunately, we did terrible and it only took like 5 minutes to lose. Alexus Entertainment also had lots of games for kids, one being a hula hoop contest, wow can some of these kids hula hoop, including my cousin, Lexi! She won! I thought forsure she had the coordination that Nikki had and she would be out in the first round, but she did awesome. They had to do several things while hula hooping, such as clapping there hands over there head, getting down on one and both knees all while hula hooping. It was so fun watching them all shake their hips! Speaking of Lexi, I feel so bad for her. Nikki was at the picnic but of course, she had "things" to do and wanted to leave about 2:00, well the picnic was until 4:00, not that everyone stayed or had to stay, but come on, it was a beautiful day and Lexi didn't want to leave, so Lexi asked me if we could take her home. I felt so bad - I swear I want to ring Nikki's neck sometimes. Of course, she had an excuse of needing to clean her house for her party this weekend, come on, your off work! Ok, enough about her, hopefully she doesn't read this! LOL I know mom does, but she knows what I'm talking about. So since Lexi won the hula hoop contest, she got to keep one. All and all it was a great day and we couldn't have asked for better weather. I just hope it stays that way, but it's supposed to get hot and humid again this weekend, I just hope it doesn't rain.

We have a few things going on Saturday, such as I have to teach Jazzercise Saturday morning at 7:30am and then mom and I and Joleen are going to go for breakfast, then Nikki's candle, tupperware and jewelry party at noon and then a graduation party at 2:00 so it will be a busy Saturday so hopefully it will be nice out.

Well, I have to go pick up Micaya from work. I'm going to drive my old car down so she can drive home, in the dark. I don't think she's drove in the dark at least not at 10:00 at night. Tom's snoozing on the couch and I'm watching General Hospital. I feel bad for Tom because I woke him up at 11:00 this morning and he didn't take a nap tonight, other than right now, but it won't be enough. I'm thinking he will be pretty tired tonight, but it's his Friday!

So, off to pick up Micayla.