CONGRATS to Laura and her family on the arrival of the babies!!! Glad to hear that everyone is doing well and I can't believe she has TWO little ones!!! LOL

I CAN'T wait to see the pictures.......and maybe a trip to visit my brother next week, who lives in Denver, might suddenly have to fit in my schedule, LOL

So, we had a big cry fest here last night as we talked to all of our children about growing up. We want them to be the best they can be......be liked by everyone.....be leaders.... and still be our little snuggly babies. Sometimes life is hard :-)

I am so excited for them all, for the new school year ahead. They mature so much from September - June.

I got a lot of stuff straightened out around here yesterday. I have been learning to throw SOME things away, LOL.

Today seems to be a beautiful day, so we'll be hitting some kind of street fair......either in my hometown, or in NY (10 min. from here).

I think we also might be closing the pool :-( It's hovering about 70 degrees and the lack of heat is pretty much keeping the kids from wanting to go in.......another summer comes to a close :-)

We decided to go Mars hunting tonight. I tried to think of all the areas in town where there was big, wide, open spaces and hardly any light and we were striking out everywhere. We even got chased by the police from behind the PAL building, LOL.

I turn into my development to come home and see a reddish light......that, wait.......it's not moving.......we found it.......so after driving around for 25 minutes, we finally hit Marsgold. If I made a quick little left turn off of my street to the top of this tiny crest, we would have found the planet, right under our noses, LOL, in the beginning!!

However, in the last hour it has risen quite a bit in the sky, so maybe when we set out, we couldn't see it, even if I did make that left.

John took out the telescope and all I see is a reddish dot, LOL. I know he has a super-duper scope but I don't think we have it set up right, and now is not the time to find the manual. Maybe, since we now know where Mars is, I can look tomorrow and try and get it super high-powered.

When my inlaws' neighbor passed away earlier this month, I inherited her 1955 Singer sewing machine. I have been procrastinating sewing MUCHO badges and stuff onto the kids scout uniforms and yesterday I conquered my first sewing attempt.

I've tried to sew things with my mom's machine, but it is so easy when she says, do you just want me to do it?? LOL

So after looking online for a manual, I decided to open up the sewing box with the different spools and threads, and whaddya know, the manual was in there, LOL

I spent 2.5 hours sewing on at least 20 things. The basic square patches were easy-cheesy, but there were A LOT more circular ones that took time when I had to try and position the overload of material between the needle area and the machine. But......now I'm done for a while and I have a working machine!!

That is how I wasted my day yesterday, LOL

Get your groove on.....

I've been jammin' for a little bit now.....wicky wicky wicky

We just came back from an exciting weekend in Hershey, PA. The Boy Scout Wildlife Weekend was sponsored by Hershey, and we packed up our tent, 5 sleeping bags and set off on Friday morning. After a 3 hour drive and a stop for lunch, we arrived about 2pm. We check in and the site they give us is for 1 tent......and hardly even enough space for that!! So we go back and tell them we have about 10 tents coming and they told us to go find a spot in the meadow. John drives up and picks a big corner so that there will be room to expand. The spot itself would have been PERFECT if not for the active freight train tracks that were about 50 feet away, LOL Actually, you could hear this train throughout the tent area, so it really didn't matter when you parked your home...

At 7:30 we were allowed to go into a sneak preview of the park. We hit the chocolate factory tour first and then off to some rides. There was about 96% humidity according to the Weather Channel and we decided that this was just disgusting weather to walk around in. After a rollercoaster and some other smaller rides, we hit a log flume, and then decided to call it a night. It was about 9:30 anyway.

That night......the tent was UNbearable. I really wanted to lie there naked, and that is something I hate doing!! LOL The kids slept wonderfully, the husband slept pretty good......I lie away all night. First being all kinds of grumpy towards those who don't obey an 11pm lights out rule (especially scouts) and then the train that seemed to come every 20 minutes, then I had to pee but didn't want to get up and get the blood flowing, or else I KNEW I couldn't sleep, which I didn't do anyway........so you get the picture, LOL.

At 5:45 I went to the real bathroom (as opposed to the port-a-potty) and noticed that there was only 1 person in the shower. I figured I wasn't going to sleep anyway, so by the time I walked back to the tent and got my stuff, I had a 20 minute wait until I could take a shower.

Most of us woke up and just grumbled to each other. Apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't sleep and it was fun to see the rest of our friends in the same boat, LOL.

We hit the park at 9am and stayed until about 2:30. We took a trolley ride through Hershey, which was really neat and a much needed break to walking. We went back to the campground and the kids hit the pool with John, and I drank, LOL. Then about 5pm we went back to the park for our catered dinner and stayed until 9:45. The kids participated in a flashlight scavenger hunt through the Zoo and that was really wild to go into a zoo at dark and see all the eyes of the animals glowing when they were struck by the flashlights.

We got back to the campground, and I think I passed out. I heard one train all night and woke up the next morning feeling very refreshed. Again, it looks like the rest of the campers had a good sleep as we now had smiles on Sunday morning.

Breakfast both days was provided by the campground. It was actually a pretty good deal. A bagel, Sara Lee danish, package of Lucky Charms or Cheerios, choc. milk, reg. milk and OJ.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed 3 miles west to Indian Echo Caverns. It was just what we needed to feel like we did a little more than Hershey, and short enough that we were on the road home by 11am. The caverns were spectacular and I would love to go visit the ones that are in NC.....Linville Caverns. Of course the pictures I took inside don't show the depth, height, or complexity of the walls and ceilings.

Now that we are back home, I have one week to spend with the kids before they go off to school :-(

Everything is fine here.......it's just summer and days of laziness mixed with running around days.....not much to say :-)