Day 6

So today I spent the day helping my friend Barb go through her attic and sort, purge and organize. It's so much easier to do someone else's stuff than your own! LOL. But I have to say she was a good sport about it. She also has a nice attic space (better than my basement) for storing stuff, I ended up quite jealous of it! At any rate, we worked hard all day! However, when I planned my menu for the month, obviously days that you plan stuff last minute are not taken into account. So I was not able to fix the "planned" meal of grilled basil chicken. However I improvised with a meal I did have on the menu, just for a different day....Grandad's chilli. The bad thing is, no matter how I try or do exactly what he does, mine never tastes the same. It didn't help that I had no macaroni, so I had to substitute broken pieces of spaghetti. At any rate, I have watched him make it. I have tried to copy what he does, but it never comes out like his. But we made do with what I made. It was better than eating our or grabbing a pizza like we usually do when I have been super busy all day.......

Day 5

So today, I took my friend Barb, to her therapy. She recently had surgery and could not drive. I was happy to get to spend some time with her, and happy that the kids are old enough, that at times I can leave them here while I go run errands. Anyway, after her therapy, we did lunch and some Sam's Club shopping. When I took her home, she showed me she had some long stuffed animal like things that were dog toys. She got a really good deal on them, but her dogs were not interested. So I bought them off her and brought them home to miss. chews alot! She LOVED them. Hunter even got in on the action. At one point it was a tug of war with one dog on each end. Tried to get a picture of THAT but they quit when I moved! So at the end of the day, I was quite exhausted. Evidently so was my baby girl, however she was NOT going to give up her new favorite toy, nor risk someone taking it while she slept. This was how she slept for the next few nights, with whichever one she had with her before bed. Meanwhile, I am constantly walking through the house picking up the "guts" of fluff she keeps ripping out of the them!

Day 4

AHHH! The memories! Today, my brother called and said he had a box of stuff for me. He's been cleaning out his house and whenever people do that, I some how get offered the cast offs! LOL. Hey, one man's trash is another man's treasure! In this case, it really was a treasure. He had been given a big box of games from my grandmother's house after she had passed away. Games and toys that we played with while growing up there. As I went through the box with my daughter (at 9 o'clock at night!), a flood of memories came back to me! These were the games we grew up on! And while yes, some are still around, such as Aggravation, they no longer look the same.....

I mean do you remember when the checker pieces were WOOD and not plastic!

Still not sure what the piece below is. I have put a picture out on facebook hoping someone might recognize it and help me out.

It was funny to see the games like "Easy Money" which is like either a predicessor or generic version of Pay Day! lol Or "Careers" which is an awful lot like Life!

 I also found an old 1978 Tonka Toy Gas Station, that I can remember spending more time trying to remember how to assemble it, than actually playing with it! But for me, that was the fun part! It's missing some pieces now, but I actually found one on ebay that's also missing some pieces. Debating on buying it and seeing if two "parts" can make one whole! At any rate, it sure was fun going down memory lane with a bunch of old games/toys........

Day 3

The Christmas tree is finally down, which means back to some normalcy. It also means a bit more room. The dog crate can go back in it's spot, and out of my bedroom! This is it's usualy home and obviously the dogs are missing it! HA! HA!

It's also time to get the Valentines decorations out and up. I don't like to wait until February to put them up because then there isn't much time left to enjoy it. Plus my daughter's birthday is at the beginning of Feb so that ends up taking precidence at that time. So, I must say, as much as I enjoy Christmas, I really enjoy the house getting back to normal!

Day 2 Working on more resolutions

It's a good thing Frank does not read my blog, I doubt he would be pleased with this picture as he said I as annoying him by taking pictures! Today I got most of my CHRISTmas decorations down, except, as seen in this picture, the tree. And putting the Valentines Decorations up, which as of this post are not done either, so I have a half Christmas and half Valentines Day house. And I think it will stay that way until tomorrow as I am pooped! Amid the mess of this massive project, the kids had to also start on their "new adventure" that is known as the new chore charts. One of those items is 30 mins of excersise, which is what Frank is doing here. He chose Wii Fit, and is doing some karate game on there. Today, I have also accomplished getting their school stuff all caught up, entering some more of my grandmother's diary (that's a forever ongoing project to get over 40 years worth typed and saved on the computer), making healthy meals (let me tell you we were def. eating to live and not living to eat today, cuz it sure was not so tasty), then after lunch is when I starte taking down the Christmas stuff and here it is after 6PM and I am over it for the night! Ready to go soak in nice wonderful warm bath (it snowed today and is very cold) and read a good book and then crawl in to bed for the night!

365 days Day 1

So I have seen several people doing the 365 pictures a year where you document every day of the year with atleast one picture and journal just a bit with it. I tried to start that last year....didn't get very far. But being one to never quit anything for good, I decided to give it a try again. Maybe doing it on my blog, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can keep up on the blog and hopefully on my 365 pictures. Here's to hoping 2012 will be the first year I actually KEEP some of my resolutions!

So my first picture is my first attempt of the new year to get organized AND one of my other resolutions, to actually try to put to the test some of the things I discover on Pinterest. I actually have tried several recipes and tried a few tips already, but this year I want to start documenting for my tested and reviewed pins! I saw this idea and thought it perfect, so when purging stuff the other day, I came upon this shoe organizer we had originally bought for my daughter for her Barbies. Well she doesn't really play with them any more and wanted to take it down. Thankfully I had seen the idea on Pinterest to use it in your pantry for things like mix packets, fruit snacks etc.... So while starting to put my groceries away, I remembered that and got to it. I also got out my handy dandy label maker (it always makes things APPEAR organized if you stick a label on it!) and labeled the ones we buy frequently and left the misc ones blank. But now that I have done this and no longer have them shoved in a ziplock bag in the pantry, I can see I need not to buy taco seasoning again for a while! HA HA!  I also like the whole repurpose/reuse thing as well......Here's to hoping to become more organized and less STUFF in 2012! Oh! AND to keeping our resolutions!

Great Wolf Lodge

Well, we had talked about it for a long time.....and finally this year we made the trip to Great Wolf Lodge for Frankie's 13th birthday! He got to invite his best friend Blake (who has never missed a birthday since they were in kindergarten!) and we also invited some good family friends to go as well. The only problem, at 13 and 10 the kids are getting a little too old to fit comfortably in the back of the car for an extended  trip! lol It's pretty bad when one of the boys suggests the quiet game!

 

So you can imagine their joy when finally they saw the sign for GWL!!!

We got the room that had the KIDS CABIN..... so they had their own space and their own tv! I thought it was very cute!

The boys took the bunk beds.....

And Gracie took the daybed.....

The lobby was all decked out for Halloween! Very fun, but we were one week too early for the Halloween activities.....Not that there isn't plenty to do any other time. It is definetly designed with kids in mind. A mystery game, an arcade, a kids spa, etc.....

The views from the lobby windows, but unfortunetly, it did not capture the full enormity of the place!  There were so many different pool areas, and several places for little bity kids and it was just so big, you could not see the whole place unless you were up on the stairs waiting in line for a slide.

The wave pool is where the boys spent most of their time. Every 10 minutes a wolf woud howl and the waves would start up like you were in the ocean! Then there would be a brief lull in the water where it was calm and the pool would clear out for the most part, and then the wolf would howl and they would all came a runnin again! 

When one kid would be in there, you would send another kid in to retrieve the first one and neither one would come out! It was more like the Bermuda Triangle than the Wave Pool, for once they went in, you never saw them come out!!

 

What made for very comical action was if you fell trying to get out. Every time you would try to stand up, another wave would come and knock you down! The boys actually liked this effect and would attempt to crawl out and therefor get the effect!

Frankie finally emerging! He used the ladder instead of tring to walk out the other side! lol

Then there was the Lazy River! Now THAT was more my speed! You could sit or lay on a tube and let the current take you around! The only problem, it was so shallow, unless you sat in the tube, you risked scraping your toes or knees! Ha! Ha!

The Rollercoaster Slide! It's the long blue tunnel! It also always had the longest line. It went so fast, Chris and Gracie caught a little air on it! It litteraly lifted them off the slide for a few seconds!! There twords the bottom is a big ol' bowl like slide....we nicknamed it the toilet bowl! It was very much like being flushed down a toilet! I allowed Gracie to talk me into going on it! Frankie was right in his description of it....FAST! Let's just say as we were going down I think the whole waterpark learned Gracie's full name!!!  

One of the very few things I can complain about the place (which is NOT very many) is how many stairs you have to climb to get up to the slides. And if you are afraid of heights, and you have to stand in line for any length of time....not pretty! And if you DON'T have to stand in line, you don't get a chance to stop and catch your breathe before being plunged down the slide!!! It all makes for a very light headed experience!  

So Chris and the kids convinced me to go on "The Family Slide". Such an innocent DECIEVING name!!! The kids went on one raft before us, then Chris and I in the second. He was supposed to make it so I went down facing front, however his insistance that I get in first, along with some probable conspiring with the guy who gave us the heave ho down the slide, put me going down backwards!!! I still get a headache thinking about it! No I did NOT enjoy the ride, in fact I felt motion sick for much of the rest of the day! However Chris and the kids loved it all day, so that is what counted!

Chris and the kids coming down "The Family Slide"....... above and emerging from it below......

Gracie in all her glory!!!

The "Toilet Bowl" to the right of this picture, and where you emerge from it in the middle  of the picture. Then, I guess as a consolation as to how your gonna feel afterwards (literally hard to walk) it takes you right into the lazy river!

 Finally, on the way home, it was a much more quiet ride ! Except for the time we sat still in traffic due to an accident, the trip home went much faster than the trip there! Doesn't that always seem to be how it is. I wonder if part is due to the anticipation of where your going!