Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Happy 53rd Anniversary Mom and Dad!

We love you very much and hope you enjoyed yourselves during our little party tonight.

Katie and Anya


Aww, how sweet!

I had some errands to run this morning, plus Allison and I scheduled a play date this afternoon. I made the mistake in telling Katie this morning that we were going to Anya's house to play today. She was standing by the door at 9:30 a.m. ready to leave. She was so upset with me because I wasn't ready to go. I kept trying to explain to her that it was much too early to go. She was so excited that she grabbed a bunch of her toys to show Anya. I told her that we needed to leave them here and that Anya would come over one day and see all the toys. Nope, it wasn't acceptable in her eyes. She took her Tinkerbell tote, filled it full and at the last minute she decided to take a couple of Barbie Dolls and Barbie car. Of course, I had to load the toys into the truck because they were too heavy for her to carry. Needless to say, she forgot the toys in the back seat of the truck. Ha! Ha!

We won't mention, me getting lost trying to find Allison's house. Oops! It's my fault. I think I wrote down too many right turns. Lol. Anya and Katie had so much fun playing. They play so well together. One time Katie announced that Anya was her sister. Tehe! I thought that was so sweet. They played for 3 hours straight without a break. While the girls were playing, Allison and I got to know each other a little more. There's just so much information and not enough time. Ha! Ha! She enjoys photography, which is one of my enjoyments as well. I also found out that she has some interest in genealogy. I didn't tell her that I can trace my ancestors as far back as 1500 or 1600s. Ha! Ha! She is of the Irish decent and well most of my family are from the Ireland and England areas. What a coincidence? They have the sweetest dog, he is a German Shepard mix. He was my buddy while we were there. We had to go because Katie needed a nap before we went to the Nursing Home to celebrate Mom and Dad's 53rd Anniversary. Would you believe I had to practically pull her away from playing with Anya? Anya wasn't too pleased with me either, but Allison understood that we had to go. I just knew that if Katie didn't have a nap in this afternoon, she would be a nightmare by tonight. Ugh! Who wants that on their hands? Not me! It was so sweet. On the way home, Katie and I were talking about our fun play date with Anya and Allison. Katie told me, "Anya is my friend. I love her." Then she asked me, "do you like Anya?" When I told her that I did and how she was a good friend to Katie. She responded, "yeah, I love her. I love her so much. I think I'm going to see her again tomorrow." I believe that is the first time she has ever said anything like that, but (aww) it melted my heart. I hated taking Katie away from her friend. I told her that we will have to have Anya and Allison over at our house one day. Well, she loved that idea because then she started talking about all the toys her and Anya were going to share together. Too funny! Thanks again Allison for inviting us over. We had a good time.

As soon as we got home, a pretty loud T-storm blew right over us. Ugh! You talk about cringe when the thunder was cracking and rumbling around. Shoo! I believe I'm going through shell shock with all these lightning storms and killing all of our electronics. My word, we just got our TV back and I turned in the claim forms this morning. Ugh! Anyway, our power went off just for a moment. Poor Katie thought our TV was broke again. Ha! Ha!

Katie was able to take a 30-45 minute nap before we left, I was so relieved. I called Doug before we left and he was on his way, he was going to meet us at the Nursing Home. Quite a few people showed up. You've got Maryann and Kevin's clan (Whitney, Zayne, Natalie & Primetime), June, Pat, Nicholas, Susan, Tim, Leslie, Jon, Doug, Katie and myself. I think Mom and Dad appreciated us coming and making a special event for them, like we always do. We had cake, cheesecake, ice cream, chips, apple wedges with dip and cheese cubes. Yum Yum! Katie was absolutely useless because her favorite people were around, June, Whitney and Leslie. At one point, she was telling everyone that June was her Mommy. The nieces and nephew were looking at me and ahhing. I think Nicholas even said that I would be jealous. I told Katie that she could go home with June and let June be her Mommy. I would take Nicholas home with me and he would be my little boy. She just grinned the little stink. Nicholas even came over to me and started hugging on me, to aggravate her. Nope, she didn't care. All she did was giggle. Some how there ended up being a "make the silliest face contest" between Katie and the teenagers. Too cute! She loved it! She had to show them all the silly faces that she knew of. They were nice enough to show her a few more to add to her collection. Thanks guys (Nicholas, Leslie, Natalie & Primetime)! I told how Katie has been saying, "I not love you anymore". This past week she's been saying it to me. She's using it as a game because she'll laugh about it. We don't know where she's heard this, but I'm nipping that bad sentence right out of her vocabulary. We took lots of pictures at the party, they will be on our photosite for your viewing.
Sandy, the flowers you and Wade sent were beautiful. They were sitting pretty close to me, I tried taking a quick picture of them before it got too crazy. Mom and Dad seemed so happy and looked so good. The pictures we took, Mom looks real tired, but she held on as long as she could. She was so happy to see everyone. We had our little anniversary party in one of the dining halls, so there would be plenty of room.

I've been nominated for a Prestigious Award from Laura. I don't think I understand completely what this is all about. Maybe it's just one of those things in the blogging world that you have to achieve. She may have to explain it to me a little better (I'm a little slow). Tehe! I would like to humbly thank Laura very much for considering me for this gracious award. She is so sweet! She really didn't have to do this because I probably would have never have noticed other wise. Lol. Now, I'm suppose to nominate other bloggers for this award as well. Is this beginning to sound like one of those chain letters? I guess this will be a little easier because the cost of postal stamps will not be involved. Ha! I'm suppose to nominate seven bloggers, but I don't know that many people with a blogger account. So, I'll just have to nominate the people that I do know that has an account.

My first nominee is my precious niece, Liz. She is just adorable and life inspiring. There are not too many Moms out there that enjoy cooking homemade (from scratch) recipes with the help of her 2 year old daughter and 11 month old son, plus she has one on the way. She makes all of Jake's baby foods and still has enough strength to play a little fish game with Maddie. You are my hero!
Kudos to you my dear!

My second nominee is my nephew's wife, Sarah. She is a new Mom and going to school at the same time. Wow! She is interested in the medical field. Bravo!

My third nominee is my new friend, Allison. She loves animals! She volunteers at our local animal shelter, placing dogs and cats with their new companions. Isn't that wonderful? She is also right there continually teaching her daughter, Anya, with this experience. Kudos to you as well!

My three nominees: Liz, Sarah and Allison are officially tagged. You are in no way obligated in filling out this questionnaire. It's just for fun and a way to get to know one another. If you are interested, just copy the questions from my previous post "I've Been Tagged". Paste them on your newly created post. Once you have finished and posted the "tag", Laura suggested that you copy the above website icon onto yours and then you would nominate your seven or however many. Remember, it's just a fun thing.



Bison Advocate Wants To Re-populate the American Buffalo in the West
I bet the ranchers out West loved reading this article the next morning. It was reported yesterday that a Bison lover wants to bring the American Buffalo aka Tatanka back to the West in the large amounts from back in the Native Indian days, before they were almost slaughtered out of existence. They were slaughtered for their skins and being a nuisance for Western Settlers and Cattle Ranchers. I've seen my share of Buffalo and like any wild creature, I respect them very much. They are very big and all I think about are their very large horns. I'm not lying when I say the ground literally shakes when they are running/stampede close to you. I guess that would be the closest I've come to experiencing an earthquake. I wonder how this supporter is going to go about this idea. I know there are some Buffalo Ranches that stretch from South Dakota all the way to New Mexico. Is this supporter planning to just place the buffalo out in the wild? This will be interesting to watch how this movement unfolds.

Louisiana Boy Attacked by an Alligator
Y'all have probably heard about this story on the news. My heart and prayers go out to the little boy and parents. I hope everything turns out alright. How horrible! What I would like to know is who writes the questions for the media interviewers? This morning, I was listening to my favorite morning news channel, Fox News. Discussing the story, they were interviewing a caretaker from "Alligator World". They were wanting his opinion and point of view of the whole situation. I had to ask "What?", after the interviewer asked the guy the following: "Alligators normally hang out around lakes, but this gator attacked this little boy in a pond." If you don't know the story, this little boy and (I think) two other girls were swimming in a pond. The interviewer continues, "so, what are some measures for parents to make sure some ponds are gator safe and others are not." I can't quote word for word, but this is very close to it. Okay, what's wrong with this question? (knocking on the computer screen) Hello people, the boy was attacked by a gator in Louisiana aka "swamp country". What happened? Do they think the alligator saw a body of water and assumed that it was a lake? They don't care. Water is water, no matter if it is a lake or pond. My question would be for the parents. Were they aware the children were playing/swimming in this pond or any pond? We may not have that many gators from where I'm from, but I know Katie wouldn't be playing/swimming in any pond period. We may not be too scare of being attacked by an alligator, but we do have leaches and poisonous snakes. The safest place for those children to have been swimming is at a local water park or pool.