Trip to Lima, OH

We decided to visit my old housing out in Lima, OH again this past August.  Good thing is the boys really enjoy visiting "uncle" Charlie and "aunt" Janice too! Well, it's good food, great company, some fishing and shooting. What's not to like!

And oh, did I mention ice cream too?!

Boys being cuddly.  Ha!

Uncle Charlie made some ribs.  YUM!!

I brought out my dad's bow and we were shooting it in the backyard.  I could not pull this, but Graham could!

Graham made it look good, but in reality - he did miss the target. Ha!

Some backyard fun - I'm glad we didn't need to bring anyone to the Emergency Room!

Aunt Janice bought some cupcakes and a balloon to celebrate Charlie on his actual birthday. So sweet!

After a restful morning in the basement:

Fishing!

Fish on for Graham!

Just Blue Gils for today.  They were trying to get rid of them in the pond:

And then, some more shooting in the backyard.  This time with a luger:

Uncle Charlie is very good about safety first!

Everyone got a chance to shoot, including Bobby:

And during this time, the Olympics was one too.  So I was trying to imitate one of the shooters - hand-in-pocket stance. LOL!

Then, we all got educated on a rifle.  Boys were super excited about this one!

This one was loud!

I can't remember how far our target was now.  But this is one of my favorite photos of all the boys and Bobby with uncle Charlie - walking to check out the targets after shooting off the back deck :-)

We missed our orange target/dots but not by much!

We love Uncle Charlie and Aunt Janice!

Can't believe I've known them since my golfing/touring days.  Since 2006! That's 18 years ago now!!

After a few days, it's was time to head back to IL.  Looks like there's some weather ahead of us. Yikes!

Always such a fun trip being with them.  Love them both like family now!

Happy Birthday, Charlie! (7/31)

This kid is 12!  Where did the time go? And he's starting to get a bit chubby recently - too much sugar! He was a chubby baby to begin with:

Somehow Charlie doesn't look very much like his baby photo. Looks at those cheeks!

I had taken my car for a tire rotation and while waiting, we decided to head over to this clay-painting place next door.  Early birthday present for Charlie. Ya, I guess we do spoil them :-P

I was busy with work, so Charlie had to make his own cake. A bit messy with the icing, but I thought he did a pretty good job making the cake out of the box and baking!

My little stinker!

Some friends came over for some cake and then, on another day, Charlie invited a couple of his buddies for a sleepover.  Ya, dinner at Golden Corral. That's what he really wanted!

Birthday card (and $12 cash!) from Grandma and Pop-pop:

And he really wanted one of these sound "thingy" things for his computer gaming.  Kids these days!

It finally occurred to me that I did not end up buying a shirt that Charlie wanted for his birthday. So we headed out to the mall just a couple of weekends ago.  Not only did we get the shirt, but Crocs were on sale.  Buy 2, get 2 free!

And here's the shirt that he desperately wanted.  It is cute :-)

It did shrink though after one wash and one round in the dryer.  I'm guessing it will only last until the end of this year!

Here's Charlie's painted llama.  Finally remembered to pick that up too! Although, to be fair, we somehow never got the phone call that said it was ready for pick-up:

Charlie is in 7th Grade and right off the bat, there was a test to memorize the 50 States.  He was not happy with the pressure and so that's still something we need him to learn about himself. Hopefully as he matures, he will understand that everything needs to be taken in strides and there's no need to get emotional about it.  Of course, by the end of it all, he did score 100% on this test!  It would have been nice without the tears and moaning and groaning prior.  Ha!  

Still loves fishing although I think he does spend more time playing video games in the basement. Something about if he competes in some gaming tournament, he can win money?! I don't know about this one. Anyway, he should just stick to fishing when it comes to earning money. Hopefully it's something he can start doing (teaching younger kids to fish) next summer!

Happy Birthday, Charlie! We love you!!

Harvesting potatoes (7/14)

I finally got to harvest my potatoes! They had been growing for a while, and once everything started wilting, I guess that was the sign to start harvesting. It was a bit nerve wrecking because the last time I tried to grow potatoes, there weren't really too many! 

Ok, here goes.  Hmm, not looking very promising.  So far, just a lot of dirt!

Oh wait... here we go:

Okay, not too shabby:

But after investing in all that dirt, I was really hoping for a bit more!

We did manage to get one good meal out of all the potatoes :-)

Although, I have to say, I couldn't really taste the difference. It was great to know that they were organic though, compared to who knows what gets put into the potatoes in the ground these days. But it's definitely so much cheaper and so much less effort to buy them in the supermarket. LOL!!

If I can figure out how to plant them in the ground next year, perhaps we will do it again :-)

Random photos

Ok, bear with me here - just random photos that were taken in the month of June :-)

Oh, this one.  I let my homemade yogurt sit in the oven for too long. I didn't have the oven turned on. I just use the heat from the light to "cook" it.  But if it stays too warm for too long, I guess it just starts to separate.  This did not look good at all! But thankfully still able to salvage some.

I may have posted this photo earlier in the month.  We finally bought a wood splitter and it's great because the boys can use this to split all those logs we have sitting in the backyard!

And we have a lot of them!!

Although, we'll need to figure out what to do with the logs that are too long.  We do have a chainsaw. We'll definitely need to figure out how to use that!

Charlie is down to just wearing retainers at night!

Here's a before photo:

And look how straight all his teeth are now!

These devices used to take photos crack me up all the time ;-D

Before I forget, we also had Charlie draw and color in one of the ceiling tiles. I think it looks pretty cool! He can check out his fancy artwork when he looks up to the ceiling while getting his teeth checked next time ;-)

One of many ice-cream trips!

Still learning how to cut those glass bottles. It's so finicky!

Some of my kokedama are dying. I've come to find out that succulents are not the best candidates:

I'm slowly trying to figure out the right combination of soil - be it potting soil, with peat moss, cactus soil, perlite, you name it!

This one started out really well in a glass bottle:

But after gifting it, it started to die too.  Noooo...!! I'll have to eventually fix that for my friend!

Forgot one more photos of Sammy.  She discovered this cushion I had on the bench.  It is advertised as a dog pillow and seems that she definitely knew that.  Ha!

And here's Sammy again, by the stairwell - just checking things out when I'm about the leave the house. She's too cute!

More plants for my kokedama project!

These tropical plants are definitely doing better.

My new hat with the company logo :-D

I was very happy how this hummingbird turned out on the glass container. I used a series of dots:

I did put a kokedama on top of it, but a hybrid version is what I'm calling it. I inserted a self-watering wick and it is inserted into this glass container for watering.  So far, it's been working quite well but no one seems to want to buy the plant. I think it may just end up on my table at some point. It's definitely little to no maintenance!  Oh, here's a photo of it here that I just found:

Maybe it's just looking a tad messy. Ha!

With the extra money I've earned from the business, I finally decided to buy a Monstera plant. It's a bit messy at this moment!

At some point, I will have to learn how to split it and make little ones so I can use them for my kokedama.

Peek-a-boo!!

Okay, having fun when I discovered my "California" sunglasses in the car. LOL!!

One last photo - taking boys to the nursery to buy plants for the garden.  I've discovered that cone-flowers don't just come in purple!

Looking forward to more color-splash in the yard next season.  Love it!!