What a Weekend!

We had a great weekend! A busy, fun weekend. Instead of showing everything in one post, I decided to split it into three separate ones. That way I won't have a boring blog this week!

I'm going to start with today and work my way backwards. First off, I have to say that we had the best weather. It was in the 70's both days. This is just unheard of for Missouri in August. It is usually in the 90's and so humid that it feels like you get hit in the face with a wet towel every time you go outside.

Because the weather was so nice we took advantage of it and pretty much played outside all weekend. Today we went bike riding on the Katy Trail. This is something we have been talking about doing for a while now. Today was perfect for it! My pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked because we took the small point & shoot camera instead of the big SLR. Next time I think I will bring the big camera. :)

Chris has been wanting to get a bike and today we found this one for sale on Craig's list. So we picked it up early this afternoon and then hit the bike trail.
I haven't found a bike for myself yet so I rented one. And we rented a tag-along to go on the back for Connor. Oh my! I haven't rode a bike in a long time. And then to top it off, I was pulling an extra 50 lbs. behind me. Although he kept telling me the whole time that he was doing all of the "work" to pedal. Trust me, he wasn't.

We had a lot of fun riding the trail. We only lasted about an hour but I don't think that is too bad since we are just starting out. I think we are going to try and hit the trails a couple of times a month.

After our bike ride, we found a restaurant at a local winery. For all of you folks that aren't from this area or have never visited our part of the country this is probably surprising to hear of a Missouri winery. There are lots of them! We don't go very often because neither Chris or I are wine drinkers, but the part of the trail we were riding today goes right through the wineries.

We sat outside on the patio.

The view is really pretty. I wish I had my SLR with me to really capture how pretty it is.
Here are the boys after dinner walking through the grape vines.
See... they do grow grapes right here in Missouri!

I will post later this week about what we did yesterday.

Thanks again for visiting me!!!!

Rainy Mondays + Stubborn Dogs

Equals a very frustrated Christie!

This morning I could not get Maggie to listen to me at all. It was raining outside, which she normally does not like and you pretty much have to force her to go out. Today I could not get her to come back inside. She would come to the back door, scratch it or whine to be let in, and as soon as I opened the door to let her in, she would run off. This went on for an hour. An Hour!! I know some people will say I should have just left her out there, but if I did that she would just scratch up my back door. I offered her treats to come in, but as soon as I got her to the door she would turn and run back down the stairs. I finally went and got my Flip Video camcorder to record my frustration.

If anyone out there can help me get this dog to listen to me better, I'm willing to take any and all tips! We are doing puppy training at Petsmart right now, but I honestly don't think it is working very well. Somedays she does okay and then other days (like this morning) if she isn't in the mood to listen, she won't. Help!!!!!

Thanks for visiting me.

Hot Air Ballon Sightings and Cards

Last Thursday I woke up, opened the blinds in my bedroom and was greeted with this sight.

It isn't very often that I see a hot air balloon floating by first thing in the morning. Actually I have never seen a hot air balloon first thing in the morning. lol! I thought this has to be a good sign that the rest of my day was going to go okay. I was a little nervous because I was scheduled to get a wisdom tooth pulled later that day.

My appointment went well though. I think it helped that I opted to get sedated while having the tooth pulled. I think it makes it much easier to just go to sleep and then wake up 15 minutes later and have it all done. I was pretty tired all weekend. Just felt like napping a lot. I'm not normally a napper so that was pretty unusual for me. Today I feel pretty good again. My mouth doesn't feel swollen anymore, so I think I'm on the road to recovery!

And since I felt pretty good today I decided to go in my scraproom and get a little creative. It has been awhile since I created anything, so I kept it pretty simple. I got the Everyday Button bits stamp set from PaperTreyInk.com a while ago and have been wanting to use it. It has so many cute images that incorporate buttons. Even though these are pretty simple, I like how they turned out. Hopefully I can get into my room some more this week and really get to some scrapping and card-making! I haven't been on a good creative roll in a long time.

Thanks for visiting me!

The River City Rascals Game

I mentioned in my last post that we went to a minor league baseball game on Sunday night. It was the end of season get together for Connor's baseball team. We have never been before and this place is about 15 minutes from our house. And it was a lot of fun! I think we will need to go back. :)

As you can see from the 1st picture there, they don't have huge crowds. Since this was our first time going, I don't really know for sure if this is normal or not. It was really hot Sunday, so that might have kept people away.

My two boys looking handsome and sweet.

At least for the moment this picture was snapped. lol!

Remember in the last post when I said we saw racing hotdogs and tacquitos? Well I forgot to add that there was also a racing eggroll, the River City Rascals Mascot, and a giant tortoise. I'm still not sure why the giant tortoise was there. I must have missed that part of the introduction. These guys all represented a certain section of the ball park. You have to feel sorry for the section the tortoise was racing for. I mean they had NO chance. The tacquito was racing for us. And he won! We all got coupons for a free energy drink from Quik Trip. I really don't drink those but it was fun to win!

And of course, you have to have some sugar disguised as

sticky Cotton Candy.

Can you see that sugar racing through his veins? :-0

One very cool thing about these games is we can get so close to the field. One of Connor's teammates was given a ball by one of the players. So after Spencer saw that, he decided he had to go hang out down by the field too. He wasn't so lucky.

Remember that sweet picture of my boys looking into the camera at the beginning of this post? Yea, that lasted about 2.1 seconds before it turned into this:

Tomorrow I'm having that wisdom tooth extracted. I just want it to be over with. I think the part I'm dreading the most is not being able to eat or drink anything for 6 hours before I have it done. My appointment is at 1:30. It is going to be a long day.

Thanks again for visiting me.

Yea, I am a bad blogger.

I'm still here. I just keep forgetting to update this blog. We are starting to get into our busy season again with school going and both boys starting soccer. Spencer started practices last week and Connor starts this week. So I am once again a Soccer Mom. :)

I do have some exciting news. I got me a Mac! A Macbook Pro laptop that is. I have been wanting one of these for years, and last weekend it was the Tax Free weekend here in MO for back to school shopping. One of the perks of this weekend is that computers up to $3500 are tax free. So we decided to go ahead and get one. It is so pretty!!! Here I am right after we made our purchase. I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not, but there was a huge line to get into the Apple store. Chris waited in the line for us and it took about 45 minutes to an hour just to get in the store.


I signed up for the one-on-one tutoring they offer in their stores. My first class is this Saturday. I hope I feel well enough to go. I forgot that I'm getting a wisdom tooth pulled on Thursday. Ouch! I'm not looking forward to that. But it has to be done. So I'm not sure if I will get on here again this week. I hope too. We went to a minor league baseball game last night and I have some pictures to share. We have never been to a minor league game before. It was a lot of fun. And I felt like I was sitting in a scene from the movie Bull Durham. LOL! There were cowbells being rung and racing hotdogs & taquitos. Good Times! I will try and get the pictures posted before I go under the dental knife later this week. After Thursday, I plan on being sedated on some good pain killers. I hope!

Thanks again for visiting!

Some Project 365 Pictures

I'm still going strong on my Project 365. I will admit that I have missed a few days of taking a picture, but I'm going to go back and fill in those gaps with some generic shots. You know, things like the kind of shampoo we use, groceries, etc.

I said I was going "strong", but now that I think that over, "strong" might have been the incorrect word choice. I have been taking the pictures, but getting the pictures printed and journaling about the pictures has not been done for months. I did just order 100 prints from Shutterfly, so as soon as I get those, I plan on sitting down and getting caught up on my book. It will probably take me a week to get caught up.

Anyways, here are a few of my recent favorites.

Spencer blowing bubbles at Maggie in the backyard. Maggie wasn't sure if she should be afraid of the bubbles or play with them.

This is cabbage plant that Spencer brought home from school last year.
It was for a contest to see who could grow it the biggest over the summer months. Let's just say Spencer isn't going to win this one. I'm just really happy that it is still alive! I saw this butterfly flying around it one morning and grabbed the camera to get some pictures. I was pleased with how this one turned out. I do wish the butterfly had more color so you could see it better against our house, but it is still a nice pic.

I love these next shots!
I went to take Maggie for a walk one evening and saw this huge storm cloud in front of us.

And then I noticed lightening in the cloud.
So I said, "Sorry" to Maggie and I ran her back to the house, dropped her off and got my camera. :-)

The lightening in that cloud was so cool!
I took about a hundred pics and got some really neat shots.
My favorite is the one below.

Thanks again for visiting me!

Spencer's 9th Birthday and Other Goings On

So last week, Spencer celebrated his 9th birthday. I had all of these good intentions of scanning in baby pics of him (I didn't have a digital camera when he was born) to compare him as a baby to last Friday, but as usual, I wait until the last minute to get things done and I ran out of time. So I will just share the pics of him enjoying his day!
His birthday was last Friday and right after school he got to open his presents. Grandma Linda (my mom) came into town for the weekend to help him celebrate.

Here he is getting a roll of quarters. A few months ago the boys decided they wanted to collect all of the state quarters, so we have been searching for them. We got a roll of quarters from the bank for him to look through, but it didn't have any that they needed. But Grandma Linda also gave him some quarters and there was one in her card that they needed. So Spencer was very happy about that! I think it was Alabama.

This next present is Spongebob Squarepants Season 3. Spencer has decided that he "needs" to collect all of the seasons. He gots lots more presents from every one including a Ghostbusters Wii game, some ds games, tech decks, and some gift cards.
And of course, the CAKE! He wanted white cake with vanilla icing. A little boring to me, but that is what the birthday boy wanted, so he got it!
We don't throw big birthday parties every year for the boys. They alternate years. It ends up being on their even number year birthdays that they get to have a big party. So this year is Connor's year to have a big blowout. On the years they don't have a big party, they can pick where ever they want to go out to dinner that night. Spencer chose Chuck E Cheese.
He had a good time playing the games and we had pizza for his birthday dinner. I think he had a great birthday and enjoyed having Grandma come for a visit!
Yesterday, I decided to go up to Old St. Charles and enjoy the nice weather. For those unfamiliar with this area, it is this really neat place by the Missouri River. It has this row of old buildings turned into shops and restaurants. I forgot to bring my nice camera, so all of these pictures were taken with my Iphone. It does a pretty good job, but next time I need to remember my nice camera to get some really good pictures.
The streets are all cobblestone and brick. I thought this Open sign by one of the stores was neat.
And I have lived in this area for 10 years now and just found out there was a scrapbook store here. It is a cute litte store!
It has lots and lots of stamps and these huge sheets of paper! I didn't get any pictures of the paper, but I'm not sure what I would use those for. I think the owner does a lot of altered art here.
And I couldn't leave out Maggie from a post! This is her favorite spot to relax. Under the desk in the kitchen. Last week was a rough week with her (probably why I didn't post on the blog!). There were a few days when I wanted to evict her! But we are trying to work through our differences. I don't want to jinx myself, but the last two days have been pretty good! She even rang the bell on the back door a couple of times last night to go out and potty.

Thanks again for visiting me!