I love this photo. This was taken last weekend after all my attempts at getting "proper" photos failed. It was cold outside, the boys were not cooperating and dad was acting crazy at an event being held at the Central West End. We had not planned on attending and the boys were not interested in sitting on Santa's lap or at the very least next to him in his sled. So, this was my attempt at the next best thing and I liked the result. This was a spontaneous photo taken of the boys reacting to their dad's silly antics. It's honest and fun.

Had to share this beauty. Chad made this for a school project out of clay. Go figure a big block of clay could turn into this:

Yeah Chad!

The lobsters have arrived. That's what Alex told me earlier today. Actually he said something along the lines of, "Come home and eat all your lobsters!" If he only knew. See, DH and I are taking a BIG step and are trying Nutrisystem. So unlike us. So crazy. But necessary. Our lives are too busy and our waist lines keep growing, significantly, so we are going to try this. Both of us, at the same time. The boys, although happy about us trying this and supportive, are worried they will never eat again. When first told what we were going to do Alex made the comment about how they were going to get nothing while we ate nothing but lobsters all the time. LOL! Today, dh's box came but mine has yet to arrive. I peeled open his box and started reading all the food. What was obvious was the portion sizes. DH couldn't wait and tried a bag of honey pretzels. LOL. I had to remind him that we have a lot to learn about portion sizes. A LOT TO LEARN obviously by the size of these portions. But, we (I'm) open minded about this whole new direction. I did have to make the disclaimer that if he ate all of his 28 days of food in 15 days that he was going to starve for the remaining 13 days. And I'm serious about that! We have nothing to lose but weight so we are going for it. I'll post pictures of the boxes soon. Keep your fingers crossed that we become healthy and small!

First there was this:




And let me tell you, there has been a lot of that over the last few days! My baby is now 15 and driving with a permit. He is offering to go everywhere he knows I like to go, as long as he gets to drive of course. lol. Despite gas prices, we are getting in the car a lot and taking back roads (which means longer drives) so he can get experience. I'm already anxious for him to get good enough to be able to drive on more traveled on roads. He's doing really good, although at times he forgets it's not the same as driving his old kart.

No Alex. You do not accelerate at the apex of a turn! I know you had to do that in your kart so you could get the most from the turn but you do not do it now! It took me several turns to figure out what the heck was happening. LOL.

Alex's hat in the first picture is actually Oscar's birthday hat. We celebrated his birthday a couple days earlier so it was already out. Later that evening Alex had some friends over for a movie on the deck. I think they had a really good time.

And to wrap things up, fireworks just for him.

Ok, not just for him but we like to think so. These are my horrible attempt at photographing fireworks. I need to figure out how to master this skill. Kind of hard when you really only get to practice once a year.

This truck makes me happy. Someday I will have something like this. Although I'd love to have the wooden rails on the back. So who's truck is this? No idea. I did meet the man that restored it but we didn't swap names. He came out of Lowes when my family was admiring it. From his reaction I don't think it was the first time something like this had happened. I like this truck because it has character, it has history... it's simple.

The past couple of weeks I've been spending a lot of time with my grandfather-in-law. I have learned a lot from him. Do you know how to cook soft-boiled eggs? I do now, thanks to him. (And they are good!) And, did you know that you can buy from the post office envelopes that have your return address already printed on them with pre-printed postage? And, did you know you can buy "forever" stamps that can always be used no matter if the postage changes? I've also learned a lot about organization and have a solid understanding of the phrase - a place for everything, and everything in it's place. Grandpa's house is amazing. Grandpa has character. Grandpa has history. Grandpa is simply amazing.

Bloggers, meet Annabelle. Annabelle, meet bloggers.

Photo courtesy of Alex (14)

Photo courtesy of Chad (13)

You see those white circles? Look hard, move your monitor around so you can get a clear shot. Yep those. Well that's Annabelle, or rather the orb of Annabelle, or Annabelle's orb. You get the picture. I hope you can see them. I didn't want to lighten up the pictures at all at the risk of messing with the Orb, so this is sooc (straight out of the camera).

This is a picture of the back courtyard of the Crescent Hotel, taken from the Lounge balcony (about 4 stories up) around 11:00 pm the second night we were there. You can see the walking (white) path and the green grass. Our family was on the lounge balcony hanging out talking, laughing, enjoying each others company and my boys were shooting away. (Incase the Crescent Hotel is reading this, food was still being served so it was ok our boys were hanging out with us!). Out of about 500+ photos that we took [of the wedding, the hotel and the entire weekend], these are the only two photos that have an orb in them. We were so excited! This is really the only *experience* we had the entire time we were there.

A few nights after these photos were taken, Alex and I went on the Ghost Tour and this is when we learned that Annabelle was one of the many ghosts that stay there and she insisits that she been *pushed* off her balcony to her death in this courtyard around 10:30 pm one evening. And yes I did say *insists*. Apparently some ghosts are very picky about the stories that are being told about them! This is the reason we believe this is Annabelle. Now whether it's her spirit or an energy transfer of some sort that is to be debated. Some believe orbs are not actual spirits, instead they believe they are the energy that is being transferred from a source (ie: power lines, people, batteries...) to the spirit so they can manifest. Since no one was down there at this time, I *believe* (if I were to believe) it is Annabelle. Plus, it made it a whole lot more fun!

We do have two more photos that have significant streaks in them and a shadow in one of them, which as our tour guide told us could be something. I'm not convinced it is anything more than Alex moving the camera on a slower shutter speed with the shadow of the guy standing next to the door he was shooting. But, then again it could be! Alex was taking photos of a door to the room where a lot of activity happens. Two out of the three photos he took, while standing right next to me, were streaky. Very interesting! There is a definately shadow of someone there.

The boys acted tough but I'm not sure they got much sleep while we were there. Today they slept until 11:00, which is rare for them! I let them sleep late since I'm the one that made them stay in a haunted place for the last three nights. They are such troopers. Plus, they let me take some more photos of them. Check this one out!:

Notice Chad isn't especially happy here. He had a rough night. He wasn't too happy after hearing all the ghost stories Alex and I had to share when we returned after the tour. No matter, I love the photo and them there boys. This was the last photo taken as we left out of town. Once we got to the outskirts of town we said, "If there are any ghosts with us we want to thank them for the fun time but they are not to travel home with us. So, go home ghosts, go home." Our tour guide told us to do this because they can travel with us, and that would be something we wouldn't want. Whether one believes or not, it sure doesn't hurt to be on the safe side!

We are getting ready for bed, our first night at the haunted Crescent Hotel. We have not yet had any experiences with ghosts and the boys (13 and almost 15) are not too happy this evening. Not because they haven't had an experience yet but rather because they are worried they will! They found out the room right across the hall from us is one of the two rooms that gets haunted frequently, apparently. They are afraid something, which they do not necessarily believe in, will make a wrong turn into our room. I on the other hand am taking picture after picture hoping to see an orb but nothing so far. Will keep you posted and will add pictures soon.

First, Happy Mothers Day to all mothers out there. And, here is my pick of flowers for each and every one of you. These are from Martha Stewart, the Martha Stewart Lotus Pod Bouquet. Very unique and special if you do ask me!


I have had a very good day. First, opened wonderful, heart felt cards from my boys and enjoyed the most beautiful flower arrangement from them. Then we went to church. We haven't been in a couple of weeks (broke our record for attending!) and was happy to be back. We are learning about Song of Soloman and I'm sure you have never experienced anything like this in church before! It's amazing and quite educational. The boys are hearing everything with us. Quite interesting conversations on the way home and I'm expecting this upcoming week as well.


Then, lunch. I love lunch. I love eating. It makes me happy. Our great friend joined us for both church and lunch. Happy times. After dropping him off my boys all took me to Creve Coeur Camera to give me hands on look at their digial SLR's. I have the itch and that's going to be a problem! We were *supposed* to do my Mothers Day shoot today but it rained all day (or most of the day) so this was postphoned. So, if I wasn't using a camera today I decide I would look at new cameras. I've had a 35mm Canon Rebel S since maybe 1991 which I've loved. It's been on the shelf since digital came out and I have to say I'm totally in love with digital. I have close to 8000 photos on my hard drive just over the last few years. I started with Kodak Point & Shoot. Quickly realized I needed more. I upgraded to my current Sony DSC-H1 which has been great. Have gotten great photos out of it. But, I need more. I find I need (and want) much more control of my photos in the editting process. I also, need to learn more about, and have more control, over my lens. Since I'm a Canon girl at heart (and have a couple Canon lens already) I'm looking at the Canon Xsi or the Canon 40D. I'm really leaning towards the Xsi because from what I read it's brand new (only two weeks old) and is giving the 40D a run for it's money. It's less expensive than the 40D too. Hmmmm. I'm processing...


Then we came home and I took a very long, deep, not waking up kind of nap. It was wonderful! When I finally did wake up (3 hours later!) I ate a bunch of junk, watched movies and TV with my family and played on my laptop - surfing the internet. It has been a total no responsibilities kind of day, which I love and doesn't happen all that much.

So, what's on my mind besides cameras. Basically in a nut shell, living life the way you want, finding out what you are passionate about and finding your way into it. We have had a death in the family recently and that has helped be a catalist for going forward on some things I continue to put on the back burner. Will share more details later but some things are in the works. Happy.

I know, I know. My bad. Been busy living life, working and hockey. Here's a few photos I like from last weekends out of town tournament: I like the balance on this photo and everyone watching. This has not been edited with any photo software which it badly needs. Actually none of these have been tweaked at all. It's extremely hard shooting hockey; horrible, horrible lighting, plexiglass between you that either has a reflection of someone watching or you pick up the many scratches from the pucks. Plus, again, the boys are so darn fast. The picture I want is gone by the time the shutter releases. I basically find a good place to capture a photo, when I see someone start to come in the frame I press the button, holding my breathe and closing my eyes hopoing it was a good shot. lol.

This needs to be lightened up but I like it just as well. Unfortunately this is not our team and is a picture of one of our strong rival teams goalie. But the fact that it turned out pretty neat outweighs the fact that I normally wouldn't want to show it. I was testing settings again on my camera.

I ended up taking about 70 photos all together and they are not where I want them to be. I am really struggling with the settings. Makes me think of Tammy and her new baby. I told dh someday I want a new baby with classes that go along with it. I really feel restrained with my current camera because I haven't had any instruction with is specifically and the owners manual is one of the worse I've ever seen. Hmmmm. My birthday is coming up. Maybe I'll just ask for money to save for a new baby like Tammy. See Tammy what you did!

Spring Break is over and so is our trip to Florida. I quit providing updates because I didn't think Dad was viewing what I had already published but turned out he finally was. Anyway, we had a great time. I'm sunburnt and missing the warm weather but other than that it went very well. I have lots that I could share but to prioritize this is the most special. Chad's birthday was while we were in Florida so Dad missed it. It was sad but in the way JB always does things he did something really fun and special for him. Attached is the eCard Chad received the morning of his birthday:



This was thanks to JB spending lots of time creating the "words" and bluemountain.com for providing the card. Prior to leaving I had just re-established my account with bluemountain.com and for some reason shared that news with JB. He decided to take advantage of it and ended up sending us 4 of these beauties! It was so fun. We laughed so hard!!!

I don't believe there is a way to save it to my computer, it's saved in our account with bluemountain.com. But, I wanted to share and to keep it for us to remember always so I taped it with our handy dandy flip. I guess I'll find out if this was a no no or not. Until then, enjoy it!

Day 2 consisted mostly of driving thru Georgia. Not my favoriate day. I thought St. Louis was bad right now with all the highway improvements it was doing but it's basically the entire state of Georgia ungoing it's improvements. This added on at least 1 hour of travel time. Sitting in traffic going 3 miles per hour is not fun. Then once we got going the speed limit kept changing - 70 miles per hour, 50 miles per hour, 60 miles per hour, 70 miles per hour... It was crazy! Note to Georgia, decide what the speed limit is going to be and keep it consisitant. 70 miles per hour is my vote! Although while undergoing this torture I did come up with a new idea, cars should have programmable buttons on the steering column (similar to radio buttons) where one can program several different cruise control speeds. That way I would have just had to hit the appropriate button insteading of fiddling with the current cruise control set-up. Do you think I could make a million with this idea?

Ok, so we are now in Lake City, FL. I believe I previously said we were stopping in Gainesville, FL but it's actually Lake City. Here we are crossing over into Florida:



Our hotel is better then last night, although I do have a question about something in the bathroom. Will discuss in a seperate post with a photo if I remember to take it. The boys have their playstation plugged in and we are watching Blades of Glory with Will Ferrill (a family favorite actor). Everyone has showered and we are happy. We have already eaten at a lovely little place down the road. Chad wanted seafood and the town isn't too big so there wasn't much choice. Below is a video of the boys eating a favorite:



Did you hear the music? How could you miss it right?! Although they were good, they were way too loud. It was very challenging holding a conversation. Crab legs in Florida is much more reasonable cost wise and tasty then in St. Louis - imagine that!

Getting ready to go to bed because we have our remaining 5 hours of driving tomorrow.

Love you JB - dad. Miss you.

Day 1 of our trecking across the country (ok, only to FL) without dad. We arrived in Chattanooga, TN, which Chad has renamed to Chadanooga. Pretty clever I thought! We used our TomTom the whole way and it was wonderful until it ran out of battery life. Thank goodness we had our mapquest paper directions as back-up. Note to self, always have backup! We had a minor mishap while passing thru Nashville. We blew a fuse and didn't have any power in our electrical outlet. This is why TomTom ran out of juice. Wasn't until this morning that I was able to run over to a local Nissan dealership and had them fix us. Not only are we fixed but now we have three extra fuses, and I know how to change them! Thanks Moutain View Nissan Dealership!

Last night the boys and I ate at Big River Grille and Brewing Works which was great! They said it was an 1 1/2 hour wait for a table. I told them inside or out was fine. We left to walk around downtown Chattanooga and within five minutes we received a phone call that an outside table was available. Five minutes! We ran back, ate and had a great time. The whole time Alex was spying the horse and carriage rides passing by. He was especially fond of the man with the top hat and the dalmation dog that was so calmly sleeping on the seat next to the man. If you haven't guessed, we ended up going for a ride. Did you know dalmations are so soft?!

This morning we ate the City Cafe Diner which was hooked up to our hotel. It was good food, good price. Chad enjoyed the atmosphere. We are getting ready to check-out and head out of town towards Gainesville, FL but we wanted to get this out there first. Following is our first video podcast of our trip - all for you dad! We will get better at taking and posting them. Also, we will work on better backdrops and more energy as we speak. This is all new for us. Enjoy!

Love you dad (JB)!

Spring Break is next week and the boys and I are getting ready to drive to Florida to celebrate! We've never done this before but since my parents are now officially snow birds we are going to join them for a week. We are taking our time getting there, taking three days. Going to stay in Chattanooga, TN for one night, possibly going to see an imax movie that evening. Next night we are staying in Gainesville, FL. The third day we are possibly stopping in Tampa for lunch with a friend of mine. Then after we get to Fort Myers, Florida, will get to see our best friends who will be in Sanibel at the same time. Sanibel is only about 30-40 minutes away from where we are. The boys can't wait! Crazy that our friends have two boys the exact same age. So cool. Last time we saw them was when we went to New York City.

Been creating our game plan, making hotel reservations and pulling out our summer clothes. Hope to have lots of pictures to share.

So, verandah - here we come!

Took this picture this morning - oh how handsome. We are working hard on the smile thing. Captured this one by having him say "cheese", a tried and true method I usually forget to have them do. I think we'll have to use it more often because this turned out well. Love him.

Full blown sick; body chills, aches, fever, sneezing, coughing, runny/stuffy nose. Chad started us off the end of last week and then JB and Alex started coughing over the weekend. I thought I had been spared but no such luck. For the past two days Alex, JB and I have all been laying on the couch. Poor Chad, he's back at school. I think he felt a little left out that he was sick by himself. Does anyone know if St. Louis Bread Company delivers chicken noodle soup?

This is the 3rd time I've been really really sick this year. Never in my life have I had so many bouts of the flu, and I even got the flu shot! In talking with other people, it's looking as if those that got the flu shot this year are the ones getting sick. A lady at church said she had also been sick three times this year. What's up with that? I need to start taking vitamins and continue with my slowing down pace.

Going back to bed!

Lesson learned... medical bag (ie: blood glucose monitor, glucagon, infusion set, batteries and quick sugar juice) do NOT hold up well under car tire. Ironically I was leaving to drive to Walgreens to pick-up his glucose strips. Since the monitor was now crushed, made an executive decision to NOT pick up the strips. Luckily we had a back-up unit (different model and different strips). Happily, ds called Accu-check and said company is sending out a replacement unit free of charge. DS now knows not to place his medical bag near car tire when car doors are locked and he has to run back into the house. I was just happy it wasn't Oscar I ran over. Ouch!

I'm still under the weather. Coughing now with a tad bit of wheezing. Going back to the dr today and when I begin feeling better will post more. Didn't do a lot this weekend due to my condition. Getting tired of this stuff. A week is long enough already! Yuck!

EDITED: I now have Bronchitis, completely unrelated to the other two infections I had earlier in the week. We have now switched anitibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed this one works and nothing else pops up. I think it's time for my immune system to be rebooted.