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.

Update

Well, I'm not really in the mood to blog. I just got done learning a new song for Jazzercise in the morning and I'm hoping to put one more in but I'm waiting for Brenda to send me the song. I can't find it on Itunes so since it's an older one, she usually just emails me. It works out pretty good, but I always seem to learn the songs that I don't have the music for. It really pisses me off sometimes especially when I want to put a new one it. I think that's what I was most of my time on when I'm downstairs doing Jazzercise stuff. I usually can learn a song in 10 - 15 minutes, but if I don't have the music, its not worth learning until I have it. Oh well, enough about Jazzercise. I'm just hoping with the new owners we get some new instructors! I'm definitely ready to give up one of my early mornings. I'm getting tired of doing 3 early mornings. Once we get some new instructors I'm hoping to cut it down to 2 classes or at least 2 morning classes. I wouldn't mind doing a 4:30 in the afternoon, but we will just have to wait and see.

Brandon's off to camp this week up at Camp Ewalu so its pretty quiet around here. Micayla's been staying either with her friend or at her grandma's. I don't think she's been home since the last day of school. I keep thinking back to when I was 17 and if I was gone as much as she is. LOL Wow, that seems so long ago, but I'm sure I was just as busy as she is today. We hope she's out looking for a job!

Today at work my manager called and said she blew out a tire coming to work and she lives about 45 minutes away. She was coming down windey highway 52 and I guess the brakes and everything came off the tire. She was told that she was lucky the truck didn't roll. So needless to say I was alone today, well not really alone, but we had 4 new temps start today. So it was a busy day but I don't mind it at all. Wednesday is our company picnic up at Eagle Point Park if it's not raining and of course, it's calling for it, so if it rains the picnic will move to Thursday.

Well, Tom's getting ready for work. The bug man called and said he is coming tomorrow so I warned him that he might hear someone snoring. LOL

Picture night

Tonight, Tom and I had our monthly Chiropractor appointment, unfortunately we found out that the place we go, out in Key West, is not our "in network" with our insurance so the bills are not getting paid by our insurance. Everything we pay has to go to our deductible first since it "out of network" so we told them this is probably our last time. We really enjoyed doing this once a month and it felt really good. So we might have to switch chiropractor's. We will see how we feel next month.

After the chiro, we went and ate at Neighbor's tap. We ordered a pizza and ate it there. It was really good, lots of cheese! We got sausage, mushroom and green olives. Yummy. It was such a nice night out we decided to go for a drive. We saw an add or pictures of the Arboretum so we decided to grab the camera and go out and walk around out there. It's been so long since I have been out there and it's such a beautiful place. Here are a few pictures we took.

Here's a picture of one of the waterfalls. They are all over out there.

A couple fish in the pond.

Me by some pretty purple flowers, yeah they're hard to see.

Tom by the pond


Me again by something, not sure what it is, but there were a few of these all over the place.

Here's a picture of the big pond they have out there. Their was a family taking pictures. Great place for pictures and weddings.

Picture of Tom and the pond in the background
Another pic of me by a different pond. See the orange spot? Kind of cool, huh? Must have been from the sun's rays.

A couple of pictures of Tom and I by the big waterfall. We found someone who could take our picture. There were not a lot of people out there so when we found someone we snagged her up. She took 2 really good ones.

A close up of the waterfall that was behind us.
Here are a few of the beautiful flowers that we took pictures of.
This one was cool, it was called something Banana - I wonder why?


One of my favorites - daisies.



Alright, enough with the flowers huh?

OK, here's on e of me, not sure what I'm looking at, but it must be all the beautiful flowers. Can you tell who was in control of the camera tonight? It looks like I'm pregnant here - wouldn't that be nice?

Here's one of a frog statue, the way we were walking and looking at it from the side, it looked like the frog was doing something he shouldn't be doing. At least that's what Tom thought.

and last one of Tom and I. We managed to get one with each of us having a part in it. Tom held and I pushed the button.

As we were leaving the park, in the garden at Ace Hardware, they had the coolest flowers. Look to the left of the picture, there are colored balls. We saw these at the arboretum but they were not this color. Ace must have used the special stuff to get them to turn pretty colors. Hopefully our hydrangeas turn pretty colors once they bloom we used the special stuff on ours as well. It's call Aluminum Sulfate - or something like that.

Well, that's about it for tonight, I lost half of my pics, I must have hit a button and it didn't save so I had to redo most of this. I think I had more captions before. Oh well, we had a great night and Tom just left for work a little while ago. I'm going to go snuggle up in bed and sleep. I'm tired and ready for the weekend!

Pedicure night

Tom and I went and got pedicures tonight. We thought we deserved it and our feet were pretty rough so a pedicure it was. It felt so good. After we went for dinner to The Mining Company and as always it was very good. I had a mushroom swiss burger and Tom had an International burger he said that was just as good. Oh and of course, we had to split an order for cheese balls. They have the best! Now we are back home relaxing, watching General Hospital. Yeah, this is Tom's relaxation.

The kids went to Davenport with their Grandparents to go shopping at Gordman's. They go there because they have such good deals and we don't have one here in Dubuque. I'm sure the kids made out great just like they always do. Tom and Linda are awesome and take such good care of them.

Again it rained all day and now it's super nice out, finally. I can't remember the last time I seen the sun. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day and then more rain in the forcast for the remainder of the week. I'm not sure what the weekend weather is but hopefully it's nice! We're do for a nice weekend. I would love to turn the air off, but it's so much nicer sleeping, especially for Tom since he has to sleep during the day, so we decided to to keep it on.

Tomorrow night - Los Aztecez with the Jazzercise girls!

Nap time

Tom's in taking a nap before he has to go to work tonight so I thought I would blog a little.

We had a good weekend, although it was a rainy one, it was still good. Friday night, we stayed home and cooked a Tri-tip on the Weber. I was so good. We made sandwiches out of it and it just melted in your mouth. After supper we decided to go down in the basement and clean it up. We had totes down there from when we moved so we decided to go through totes. We got a lot done. We took a load to Goodwill and then out to Menards to look at some lights for the basement. It's so gloomy down there, we only had some small track lighting so we got a few more lights and Tom wired them up and now it's so much better down there. I should be down there now learning some new Jazzercise songs, but I'm lazy tonight.

Yesterday, Saturday, we worked/volunteered at the River Festival. We had to work in the pop/food ticket tent. It was pretty boring, but we put in our 3 hours and then got to leave. It wasn't to busy because the rain kept people away, but there were still some die hards who came out and watched the dock dogs and brought their kids. After the festival, we went up to mom and dads for a drink and we decided to go to Platteville to eat. Tom and I had a gift card for a new restaurant up there at Take Two. It was really good. Tom had Surf and Turf, mom had the prime rib special, dad had shrimp, he didn't know it when he ordered it, but it was peel and eat shrimp. The menu did not specify, but he said it was still good. And I had Seafood Canniloni or something like that. It was a pasta dish and it was good. We also had the salad bar and that was very good. After dinner, we took mom and dad home and then Tom and I went up to Chris and Kristi's for a while.

Today, we didn't do a dang thing, we laid in bed until about 10 and then on the couch until around 5. I know lazy huh? Tom and I took Brandon to his friends house so that is the only reason we left the house, but on our way home, we stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up some wings. And now, here I am.. Tom just woke up and I think he's dreading going in to work. Sundays are definitely the worst night for him.

The weekends just go way too fast!

Lonely nights

Tom just left for work, it's about 10:00 Thursday night and here I lay in my bed all alone :( It's been a long week and I'm so thankful tomorrow is Friday! Tom's excited because when he gets off tomorrow at 7am, he will be done until Sunday night at 10:30. He's not sure what kind of sleep pattern he should continue all weekend. Sunday's will always be hard, but I guess he's going to have to get used to it. Next week he's on 3rd all by himself!

The good thing about him being on 3rd is, we get to eat dinner together and do other things, like last night, we went grocery shopping. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's something that we like to do together and we end up doing it on the weekend when it's super busy, so doing it during the week is not as hectic. Tonight, Brandon had a makeup baseball game and he got to go to that as well, so 3rd really isn't that bad. When he leaves for work, I crawl into bed, patches next to me, on the floor, watch a little TV then off to sleep. It's pretty relaxing, but still lonely. Tonight the kids are staying at there Grandma's so I don't even have them here to keep me company. Oh well, I'm just glad I'm tired and it doesn't take me long to get to sleep.

This weekend in DBQ is the America's River Festival down in the McGraw-Hill parking lot, so all day today, we were watching them set up. We had to give up our parking lot, since it's city owned, for this event. There's lots of off street parking, so it's not too bad. The festivities start tomorrow night at 5, it would be nice to get out early, but I'm not holding my breath. Tom and I are working in one of the tents Saturday from noon to 3. I volunteered us, this way, we don't have to pay to get in. Saturday is $10 to get in and Friday and Sunday is free. Saturday is the night they have some big names bands - Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat and Tears. I can't think of what they sing, but I do know a few songs. The only thing that sucks it it's calling for rain on Saturday and it going to be pretty humid. I'm watching the news know as I'm blogging.

3rd shift :(

It's only Tuesday and I feel like it should be Friday. I have been busy since this weekend. Friday night, Tom and I went on the river with Chris, Kristi, Jenny and Jason Weidemann. We had a blast, it was a beautiful night to be on the river. We got out about 6:00 and didn't get back in until 10:30. We went to a beach for a while then just drove slowly down the river and then back to the dock. It was just a gorgeous night. After the river, we went to Jumpers for a some food. We were starving! We ended up getting home about midnight, I think.

Saturday, we slept in and it felt great! We didn't do much during the day, but about 4:00 we went to my 2nd cousin, Nolan Knabel's, graduation party. He's the 1st "great grandchild" on the Hendricks side to graduate. It's amazing how time flies. The best thing about the party was Angie and Eric White, brought BBQ ribs and wraps straight from Kansas City. They own a BBQ restaurant down in KC and they food it to die for. We couldn't get enough. We just kept going back for more because it's something we don't get enough. After the party, we came home and Tom and I watched a movie and called it an early night.

Sunday, was another lazy day, however we got up for church and then after, we did some running around and then up to mom and dad's for BBQ chicken on the grill. It was very good. It was kind of a birthday party to two very special people in my life. My mother and my mother-in-law. Mom's birthday is the 7th and Linda's birthday is the 8th. We had a great time. The only down fall to Sunday night and the rest of the week is that Tom is now working 3rd shift. So he had to go in to work at 10:30 Sunday night and he will work until Thursday or Friday morning till 7am.

So my first Sunday night in my big lonely bed pretty much sucked. I tossed and turned and kept thinking about my sweetie, knowing he was up working and super tired. But last night, Monday night, was not as bad. I guess it's something I just have to get used to, because he might be on 3rd for a while. The guy who normally works it had a heart attack and will be off until August. So for now, we have our nights together, which tonight and last night I was busy.

Monday night, Kristi asked if we would want to take Mom out for her birthday, just the 3 of us. We went to Houlihan's and we had a great time. It was such a great idea that we decided we need to do it at least once a month. So the next night out, Kristi's birthday, or the week of her birthday, which is in 2 weeks, so we are going to go out maybe the Thursday after her birthday. Then tonight, Tuesday, there was a Jazzercise "fun in the sun" class. They have a promo going on right now and the students can win a pair of Jazzercise flip flops, they are super cute, so we had a class with 5 of us instructing, which makes it so much fun. I remember going to these classes and how much fun they are and it's also so much fun being a part of such a great team.

So now, I'm sitting here relaxing with Tom, he's drinking his coffee before he has to leave. Tomorrow is the kids' last day of school, finally!

weekly update

Well, there's not too much to blog about, but since it's Thursday and I haven't blogged since this past weekend, I guess I will write about something.

Brandon played baseball tonight, but unfortunately they didn't win. It wasn't a pretty game but they got through it. After baseball tonight, we drove up to Beechers for their Frozen Yogurt. They had "very cherry" and "chocolate" we get both flavors in a cup and it was pretty good but it's not our favorite. We like to go there once in a while, but it's now out of our way to go there. Before we could walk, when we lived at the old house. I don't miss that place. Actually, I miss the location because you were really close to everything, now we have at least a 7 minute drive to get anywhere. I know, it's not that bad.

Yesterday at work was a fast day. I sat in on interviews all day. we had 11 of them. We are looking to hire temporary people for the summer, July and August. This is our busy season and I hear it gets just nuts. Right now, we are slow, and I have been reading a book, Eclipse! I think I said this before, but I can't wait to see the movie, June 30th! (Luke and Steph's anniversary) wow, I can't believe it's been 3 years. Anyway, the book is awesome, it's hard to stop reading sometimes, but for now, it's been slow so I will keep reading. We are looking to hire 5 or 6 people to help cover the phones and take the load off some of us. So they will be starting around the end of June so we can get them trained and on their own.

Tom's still on 1st shift this week and he said he hasn't heard anything about next week, but the guys from 2nd keep asking if he's heard anything, so we think it's coming, but right now I'm enjoying our nights together. Right now, he's playing rummy with Micayla and Brandon and I'm blogging and watching General Hospital, what more can I ask for?

Tomorrow is Friday and we don't really have any plans for the weekend, but we do have Nolan, my 2nd cousin's, graduation party on Saturday, so we will stop at that and wish him well. We thought about having steaks or something on Sunday and invite our parents up since Mom's birthday is the 7th and Linda's is the 8th so we thought about having a little get together to celebrate there special day.