Kiev, Ukraine journal - 11-5-94 and 11-6-94

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 12! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

11-5-94

Today we went with C and F to the Bizzare (market). What they call it is exactly what it is, bizzare. We bought neck scarves because it's SO cold. We went home and cooked this delicious smoked ham we bought. Then dad told us that CC asked us if we wanted to play Saturday night basketball. I got one basket. Then we went home and had a big argument about why dad didn't get to drink hot chocolate when he wasn't here. We weren't yelling or anything we were just discussing it.

11-6-94

Today we went to Left Back Church of Christ. We met Bogdan, Solova, Natasha, Sevetta, Ruesalem, Sasha, and Seargae. Sevetta asked us if we wanted to go siteseeing on Monday and we said yes. The we went and heard Olga talk in russian really fast. After that we stayed around and had dinner. We had our meal first and then had our drink. Our meal was bread, smocked cheese, ham, a candy tasting roll covered with powdered sugar and hot tea. Then we went home and did nothing the rest of the day.

Come on Fall...any time now.

So I started putting out some Fall decor a few days ago to try to entice the weather to turn more fall-ish.

Yeah...that didn't work.

The highs for the past few days have been 104, 107, and 98.

At least 98 is cooler than the day before. :)

Funny thing: I gave my rag wreath a blowout with my hair dryer before hanging it. Worked perfectly!

Party! Party! Party!

Our Housewarming/30th Birthday Bash went off great last Saturday!

We had a great crowd and we really enjoyed getting to visit and to celebrate this new chapter that is opening in our lives.

Good fellowship!

Good food!

Good fun!

We finally took a family picture in front of our house. I've been meaning to do that since we bought the place!

I planned the party menu several weeks ago so I could start buying everything early. I think everything was yummy and we had just enough. There was enough food for everybody with little leftover.

I made tea, lemonade and my favorite red slush punch to drink.

And the food table. It doesn't look like much, but my table is pretty good and there was plenty!
In fact, we are still eating cupcakes.

 I made strawberry and funfetti cupcakes. I decided not to decorate them because I had enough to worry about without adding that to the list! Hey, they taste the same either way. We also had a veggie tray with ranch dip and cherry cheesecake dip with graham crackers.

My sister brought the apples and tofee dip (YUM!). I made the cheese ball and we had Ritz and Club crackers to go with that and the summer sausage and cheese.

I'm so grateful to my Mom who helped me prepare the food!

I'm also thankful that my parents were able to come

As well as Russ' parents

And niece, Alli.

It was HOT out, but the girls were able to play outside for a while.

Brenson Bug was content to stay inside where it was somewhat cool.

I think Russ' favorite part of the day was showing off his new helicopter.
Sigh.
Boys and their toys.

Our First House!

This is a video walk through of our house!

Hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for coming by!

Alzheimer's Memory Walk 2012

For the past 5 years my family has been participating in the Alzheimer's Memory Walk. My Grand Pappy has been dealing with Alzheimer's for 12 years so this is a disease close to my heart.

Our team has been Team Gray Wolf since we first started walking. Gray Wolf was my Grand Pappy's handle when he was boating so we are called that in honor of him.

This year Team Gray Wolf raised $1458!!!! That is amazing since our team was small!

When we left our house for the walk it was raining. I was disappointed but we have been praying for rain so we can't complain when it comes! It didn't really matter, though. The walk goes on rain or shine.

Here is our family getting ready to walk for my Grand Pappy!

Brenson was very confused about why we were outside in the rain.

This was the first year that the girls were team members. We have brought them along in the past, but they weren't team members so they didn't raise anything.

This is our whole team. I still am shocked we were able to raise so much with so few members! It just goes to show what can happen even with a small group!

But, alas, the walk was not meant to be. We didn't even get to the starting line when it was called. It started thundering and lightening pretty bad. That's okay, though, because the walk isn't what helps fund research. Our donations do that and we were able to turn them in before going home!

I look forward to doing this again next year!

Date Night!

Last week Russ surprised me with a date night! We don't go on many dates. I can probably count on one hand how many we have been on without Chloe Jo since she was born. I know some think that is crazy, but it works for us and we don't mind.

We dropped Chloe Jo off at Aunt Chelle's and we went to Big City to celebrate our birthdays and our upcoming anniversary. While we were at Aunt Chelle's she took a couple of pictures for us.

I love this picture!

Chloe Jo (and her pony) got in this one!

We went to eat at Red Lobster (my favorite!) and then did a little bit of shopping before we headed back to get Chloe Jo.

We had a great time and I'm sure we'll do it again in the future!

Happy Birthday to Us!

Well, Russ and I are still alive...

Even though we have embarked upon an age that starts with a 3.

Ha! I'm just being silly. I've decided the 30's are going to be the best decade of my life!

Until I hit the 40's.

On second thought, let's not think about that!

We are having a big housewarming/30th birthday bash this Saturday so Russ and I decided not to do very much in the way of gifts.

I found this great helicopter for Russ. He has been wanting one of these forever and Amazon had an amazing sale that I just couldn't pass up. He was thrilled!

Russ and I were shopping together about a week ago and I picked out a few things for my birthday. I love hats during the fall and winter and I've been wanting to try the skinny belt trend. We'll see if I can pull it off.

Since we are having our big party on Saturday, I have been trying to get the house ready for it. As soon as I woke up this morning I wrote out a to-do list and after breakfast we got started.

do my daily Bible reading

send my nephew a birthday card

send a donation to the Alzheimer's association

go to the store

start freezing punch ice

clean living room

clean kitchen

hang house numbers

mulch flower beds

plant hanging planters

finish back flower bed

put away pool

put away castle

sweep garage

take clips down from back porch roof

I didn't know if we could get everything marked off today, but we did it!

Our house looks so good now! It is really surprising what new much, house numbers and a beautiful potted plant on the porch will do for curb appeal! I did go ahead and smudge out the new house numbers. :)

I also planted these sweet potato vines in our hanging baskets that have been empty since we moved it. I love the color of them!

This little flower bed was in desperate need of some TLC. The previous home owners left a bunch of the gray brick that they didn't use in the front flower bed so Russ dug out around this flower bed and we gave it a border. Then we put new mulch down. The poor hydrangeas have a little bit of green at the bottom of the plants so I am hoping they are going to survive. This summer was pretty bad for our plants. Also, the stones don't look even in the picture, but I don't think they are like that in person.

I am so happy with how everything has turned out! I think it looks fabulous and I'm glad we finished what we did before the party.

We are planning on planting a couple of trees later in the fall and eventually, in 1, 2, maybe 5 years, we would like to repaint the outside of the house. Little by little, we are marking things off of the list!

Laters, Peeps!

Skylar

Hi all.

The missing poster above is for Russ' cousin from West Virginia. She has been missing since July 6th. It would be greatly appreciated if you helped spread the word so she could be found.

Russ' dad is from West Virginia and has several brothers and sisters (13 or 14, something like that) out that way. I've never met any of them so I don't know the details about this case, but we share a last name so they are family. I've been praying for Skylar since I heard about the case. I can't imagine what her parents, family and friends are going through.

Please help us spread the word and please pray for her and her family as they go through this difficult time.

Thanks!

The last few weeks

Hi Friends!

I know. I know.

My blog has been sorely neglected the last few (um...3!?!?) weeks.

I've been so busy that blogging has been pushed to the bottom of the need-to-do list.

Tonight, though, it is at the top of the list!

Our housewarming/30th birthday party is this weekend and I am so looking forward to it! My Mom and Dad came to stay a couple of weekends ago and my Mom brought me the finished quilt for our guest/craft room. It is so gorgeous! I really is perfect in there!

 My craft room has turned out exactly how I wanted. Unfortunately, I am going to have to do something different with the drapes. We have a streetlamp right outside our house and the light really shines in through the half-round window. It makes it hard to sleep in there for our guests. I went to Wal-Martian today in search of some white black-out curtains to add length to the ones already there. I couldn't find any today, but I think my solution will work if I can find some.

Russ and I took Chloe Jo to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. I'm really glad we have season passes because it was lame the day we went. The temperature got up to 105 and the animals that were out were very lazy.

 I am sad that the zoo was so lame, but I'm glad that we were able to get in the family time.

 Even the otters, who are usually very playful, were just laying there. It was just too hot for them!

 At least the heat couldn't take away our sense of humor!

 The zoo did have 2 baby cheetahs that were out. Isn't it so cute!!! I would have snuggled with it if I could have! And then it probably would have ate me.

 Before leaving, we did Chloe Jo's favorite thing and rode the train.

 Poor girl. She was so sweaty.

After the zoo we went to McD's for some ice cream to help us cool off.

 I think we are about ready to retire the stroller. We took it to the zoo, but Chloe Jo ended up wanting to walk most of the time. I ended up pushing Miriam (the Cabbage Patch Kid) in the stroller. HA!

Last week was another busy one. Russ and I dropped Chloe Jo off at Aunty Chelle's and we went on a much needed date. He took me to Red Lobster (my favorite) and we had a great time. This date was to celebrate both of our birthdays (which are this week) and our anniversary (which is next week).

Then on Saturday was the Alzheimer's Walk. I will be blogging more about this later.

Today was busy with grocery shopping. I have also been hunting fabric to make curtains for our bathroom. I haven't found anything that I like enough to buy 8 yards of. I also haven't found any ready-made curtains. It is so frustrating because our bathroom gets so hot during the day. The search will continue. I'll just have to see if I can find anything I like in the city.

I did get a batch of dishwasher detergent made this evening. It is amazing how much money we save since I make our laundry and dishwasher detergent.

On the same lets-save-money thread, I also made a reusable swiffer duster. I made it out of fleece so it works great and I can just throw it in the washer after each use.

I sent some pictures to Reasor's photo lab to try them out. I hate our Wal-Mart photo labs here. I've tried two different stores and they were both horrible. One store wouldn't print part of my pictures because they were "professional". Some of them were, but they were school pictures of my grandparents from the 40's! How in the world am I supposed to get a release from a school picture that is that old?!? The other store didn't print part of my pictures and then argued with me about it. Needless to say, I had to find another option. Reasor's did a good job and I will probably continue using them. I am so loving the instastrip they do!

I have several projects I need to get done this week including Chloe Jo's Halloween costume. I know it is early, but I like to be prepared and who knows what all is going to come up between now and then??? I still need to add the skirt. I am loving how it is coming out so far, though!

I finally caught up in my Bible reading. I hate that I got behind, but at least I am caught up now! I have been taking my Kindle to church services to use as my Bible. Once I got used to it I really enjoy it. I'm definitely faster with my traditional Bible!

I am so loving this little girl. 3 has been so hard with the fits and tantrums, but also the most fun because her adorable sense of humor has been developing. She is a joy in my life! I thank God for her!