Christmas Lights

We made our own Christmas Trees for outside this year. We stopped at Lowes and saw that they used a totmato cage turned upside down to be a Christmas tree.

We wrapped net lights around the cages.

They turned out really nice. A lot cheaper then buying the already made trees.

Crayons

We decided it would be a great learning experience for our Girl Scout (not to mention a ton of fun). To do some activities with Crayons. We did melting them with a hair dryer, Painting with melted crayons and of course making our own crayons from old crayons.

The girls had an amazing time, and were so excited they got to take a crayon home with them.

Crayon Crafts

During out last Girl Scout Meeting we did some crayon crafts. The first one was to melt crayons with a hair dryer. The girls had a great time.

WINDOW! September 20, 2011

Before

During

After

New Windows Today!

The day has finally arrived... I am getting new windows!

Great Kids

I have the pleasure of working with some great kids in my Girl Scout troop. Unfortunately two of the girls that make it all worth while will be leaving our troop and moving several hours away. I hope they are able to find troops in their new towns and continue on with the program. I am going to miss their enthusiasm, their curiosity, and their ability to make every one feel welcome.



Weekend get away day 2

I have been to Mackinac Island many times; I love exploring all the different trails, and just enjoy the outdoors. Both of my younger sisters were Mackinac Island Honor Scouts so when they would come for their week of guide duty my mom and I would come up and stay on the island. I have been many places which after talking with Al I realized how much I take what I have seen for granted.

During dinner Friday night Al pointed out that she had never been to Crack-in-the-island or Cave of the woods. So J said lets do it. After watching the weather and seeing it was going to be another hot one we left the hotel at 8:00am to go to Crack-in-the-island and Cave of the woods.

We left the hotel and headed up Fort St. then took Huron to Garrison Road. We had to do a quick view of the cemeteries, and then off down Garrison to British Landing Road, down State Road to Crack-in-the-island and Cave of the woods. We did some exploring in this area then headed back to State Road and back to British Landing Road to Annex Road we viewed the front of the airport then headed down Annex to Stonecliff Road. Took a look at The Inn at Stonecliff (http://theinnatstonecliffe-px.trvlclick.com/) . Since Al had never seen these places either. Then we headed back down Stonecliff Road to Annex Road to Cadotte Avenue to Market Street in the back door of the hotel. I had 10,000 steps by 10:30am.

Map via this web site

After lunch and a short rest we were off we went to the new art museum. The museum was very nice I highly recommend it. Buying at ticket at the museum gave us passes to the down town houses  so we did a quick tour of them.


After visiting the down town houses we headed to the Grand Hotel outlet store to buy a table cloth or something of that nature to site on at the Baseball game. Visited some of the other stores along the way, and then went back to the hotel. Rested for a bit, then it was time to head up to the Scout Barracks for the Vintage Baseball game. 

Map from this web site

Ending the day with 23,000 steps.

Weekend get away day 1

Picture via Amazon

Let me start off with the fact that I would be the first to say I could lose a little weight. Recently my insurance company has come up with this plan that is you weight X or more you have to join weight watchers or a walking club. Since I am already doing weight watchers and I am losing. I chose the walking club. In this club you receive a pedometer that you hook up to the computer to show how many steps you walk a day. You must average 5,000 a day for a quarter.




I missed one day the first week I had the pedometer, so I have been working hard to get caught up. This brings me to the weekend. My sisters and I drove up to Mackinac Island for the weekend. I love this place and there isn’t a more perfect place to get caught up on my steps. My goal was 10,000 every day we were there. Once there we got off the boat, checked into the Hotel, ate lunch and started walking.



We packed up our books and took off for the picnic table by Devils Kitchen. Once there we sat for a while reading and it was just too HOT. We thought it would be nice to go sit on the west bluff stairs, they were all nicely shaded. We sat there for a while when Al asked where do the stairs go she had never been up them before. So we headed up for her to see.



We spent some time admiring the spectacular view from Pontiac’s Lookout. Thinking we should start heading back we decided to be adventures and head back a different way then we came. Below is a map of where we walked the first day. Needless to say I hit 10,000 with out a problem.

Map via this site

Do I know how to have a good time or what.....



My Great Grandfather on my mom's side.

  How do you spend your Friday Nights? I personally spend my Friday nights in the cemetery. My cousin was in town from Hawaii, and we started talking about the cemetery. Who was putting flowers on what graves. Where in the cemetery is everyone buried and with who. After a lot of talk we decided to get in the car and go see. We walked all over looking at the family plots. I took lots of pictures one to update the family tree with some correct dates, two to scrapbook them... Yes scrapbook them…



My Grandfathers sister.



After our adventure in the cemetery it really got me thinking I know a lot about my Mom’s side of the family. All of which is buried in the cemetery we visited. I really don’t know much about my Dad’s side of the family and there is only one person to ask. I don’t even really know where they are all buried.

I have since come up with a list of questions I would love to have answered about my Dad’s family. I am going to have my Mom answer then too, just so I know I have the information.



Statue Uncle Ivan designed.



Some examples:

- Where did grandma and grandpa meet?

- How many years of education have you completed?

- What cities did grandma and grandpa live in? (I know they moved a lot)

- What branch of the military was grandpa in?

- What were grandpa’s jobs?



I do know some of the answers to these questions but no real detail. I have always been interested in my family’s history, and really want to get it put together in a nice way to be able to share with the next generation. 

Girl Scout and Crafting

My plan for 2011 was to blog more about the exciting things my Girl Scout troop is doing and the crafts I have been working on. As you can see that is not what my blog has been. It has been more of a tally of the books I have completed this year and other random things.

Random shot from Bingo Night

One of the things I am struggling with is that I love having pictures to go with my blog. When working with my troop I am so worried about getting good shots of the girls doing the events that I forget to try to get shots with out their faces in the picture. Seeing as how they are not my children I am not comfortable posting their pictures on line.

I love the way Quilted Turtle documents the active and does a great job of not showing faces. Her cousins post is a great example.

We have done some great actives. We played Bingo with the elderly, cleaned at the new cat shelter, made butterflies for a project in remembrance of children that died in the holocaust (more info here), Day camp where we worked on four different patches. I would love to do more posting of this great stuff…
  
As a end of the year project we are going to be doing scrapbooks. All the pictures I have with their faces will come in handy for this active. Hoping to get some great shots of the girls working on their own books that I can share.

I am just going to have to work harder at getting some good shots that I can use.

Curtain from iKea

I bought a curtain from iKea last weekend to use as a new room divider. I was not in love with the folding screen I currently had. My office opens up right into my living room. I have been looking for something a little different, and the iKea curtain really fit the bill.



I really like how it turned out.

Grandma

I have been wanting to write something about the passing of my grandma, but have found it hard to put into words how much she is going to be missed. Not to mention every time I think about it I start to cry.


April 16, 2011 my grandmother passed away. It all happened so sudden. We were over at her house April 13 when she started having chest pains. We called an ambulance and she went into the hospital. Things started to look up for a while. Friday April 15 she had a small procedure done to have a device put in to catch blood clots. After that procedure we were all able to go in and talk to her.

She was doing really well we all said that we loved her and we would see her in the morning. Then about 11 o’clock Friday night my mom got a call that grandma wasn’t doing well she was struggling a lot and was trying to get out of bed. Things when down hill from there (and right now that is all the detail I can add with out completely sitting here balling). They were able it get her calmed down, and we all went home. At 4:00 Saturday April 16 we got the call that is was only minutes and we needed to get back.

By the time we got there she was gone.

I love you grandma and you will be greatly missed.

8 Years…..

I have owned my house for 8 years already.
I have been out of college for 8 years now.
I have been in my current position at work for 8 years now.

Even more time …..
I have worked for the same company for 12 years now.
I have been out of High School for 14 years now.

Oh how time flies!

Cookie pick up



Car #1



Yesterday was cookie pick up. Let me set the stage for you. It was a cold, windy, rainy, snowing pretty much a nasty day. We had to pick up 181 cases of cookies. With nothing more then my Vibe, a CRV and a Malibu, my sister and I were off to get all of our cookies. The whole cookie picking up process is not as easy as one would think. You have to unload the semi, break it down by troop, load your car, unload your car, and then break it out by girl.



 

We lucked out and were able to 70 cases in the Vibe and 70 cases in the CRV so the reminders fit into the Malibu nicely. Not to mention we were able to get home and unload the cookies before the raining really started.



Car #2



We have 15 girls in your troop and out of that 15 we only had 2 that did not sell a hundred or more. The whole troop did a great job selling this year. The pick up process went pretty smooth. We had 10 of our parents show up and get their cookies no problem. There were of course 5 that we had to call and remind them. Which a little note on that we have not heard a word from any of them.



To put this whole process a little more introspective I broke the day down a little more.



Car #2

181 cases of cookies

1 case holds 12 boxes

2172 boxes of cookies



23892 handled times (this number is just counting our troop not counting all of the service unit cookies we would have touched)

1. Take the cookies off the Semi Truck bring them into the Church and count them.



Car #1

2. Move the cookies into troops and count them.


3. Move the troop cookies to the car.

4. Move the cookies from the car to the garage

5. Break the cases down into each girls order.


6. Recount each girls cookies (This could happen more then once if there is a problem)

7. Move the cookies to the girls cars

------------------- Could be done here but not this year ----------



Car #3

8. Move the cookies in the garage better due to the rain didn’t want any to get wet.

9. Move the cookies from the garage to the house because they were not picked up

10. Move the cookies from the house to the girls car when they come pick them up.



All the cookies safely in the garage



Wonderful Winter Storm

We were one of the lucky cities to have the “Blizzard of 2011” hit us. Schools started closing Tuesday afternoon in preparation of the storm.
State police were asking people to be off the roads by 5:00pm Tuesday night. We got 12 to 14 inches of snow which isn't a ton of snow. It could have been a lot worse.
It sure slowed things down and made travel pretty difficult. I personally worked from home, when the news reporters are saying “If you get stuck do not expect any one
to come help you for hours”, that is when I stay in the house. We dug out and were able to make it into work today. We are starting to run out of places to put the snow.

Here are a few before and after pictures. .

This is my driveway before the storm. Notice the low snow banks.

---

I opened the door to go dig out and the door moved the snow.

---

My driveway after the storm and my dog.

---

This is looking out from the garage. There was no way my little vibe was going to make it through all this snow.

---

The Snow all removed, well at least as good as it was going to get.

Teachers

For the past couple of months I have heard lots of people make mention of that one teacher that touched their lives. I have done a lot of thinking and I can not think of one teacher that I could say that about. Having a mother, grandmother and grandfather that all were/are teachers makes my teachers selection really difficult. Of course all my family members touched my life in one way or another, so I don’t feel like I can count them in the “Teacher” group. And I have had several teachers that were extremely special to me. And of course every teacher changed my life in some way; they taught me something that I didn’t know before being in their class. But I could not nail down that one.

I started to wonder should you be able to name that one person, is it really necessary? Can’t we / shouldn’t we just say teachers change lives? We don’t have to pick just one out of the crowed.

Last night we had to go to a funeral for great friend and wonderful person. As I talked with the family I started to realize that she was one of the people I would be able to say she touched my life. She was the lunch / play ground lady at my elementary school. I had a hard time in First grade I did not want to be there and she really helped me get through those early years. She was a very kind person who cared about all the kids in the school and made the school a better place. She is going to be greatly missed.

I guess I forgot that teachers are not the only people who change lives. Not to down play how great teachers are, but we can all affect each others lives. It’s one of the reasons I love working with the band and being a Girl Scout leader. Maybe someday some one will be able to say I changed their life.
Take a minute to appreciate all the people have touched / changed your life in some way.

2010 Reading

2010 List:
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Pages 528
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich pages 352

Yes I only read two books in 2010, the plan is to do much more reading in 2011. I am not a big fan of reading; it has always been a struggle for me. Once I was done with school and it was my choice whether I wanted to read or not; I pretty much didn’t.

I got hooked on Tony Hillerman in High School we were required to read A Thief in Time; I am a big fan of the Tony Hillerman books. I have read a few of Michael Crichton books Sphere, Congo and Disclosure in High School. Of course there were the normal High School reading material Lord of the Flies, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

I have read all of Dan Browns books, and loved them all. Looking forward to reading more of the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series, the Psych books, and some Kathy Reichs novels.

READING CONTEST RULES

Little friendly family competition for 2011.

READING CONTEST RULES December 31, 2010 (final copy)

1. Must be a chapter book

2. Fiction or non fiction

3. Must complete the whole book

4. Must keep a valid log

5. Must have title and number of pages

6. Stephanie’s books count as five books each

7. Textbooks do not count

8. Logs will be kept individually and publically in google docs.

9. The winner gets the “BELT” and a pipe

10. Books on tape are ok as long as that is not all you do.

11. Only unabridged count

12. You must have the paper copy of the book so you can follow along.