Silver-ific

Another great year of bowling! Seth received a silver medal today at Regionals, here he is sporting his medal. He bowled a 101 and 79.
Seth and Noah receiving gold and silver respectively.

After Regionals we went to Halloween bowling party and Seth bowled a 123 and a 107. What a day. He reminded Grandpa that he owes him $3. = ) A few weeks ago, Grandpa promised him $1 for every game over 100. I told him that if Seth keeps up this pace Grandpa will go broke. Grandpa said that is OK because he would be happy to be broke for that reason. Way to go Seth!

My Daughter, the Vampire!

We spent a large part of today bowling. Seth had Regionals earlier in the day and then we were invited to a Halloween bowling party. Lacey had the most fun sporting her new vampire teeth.

Breakfast Pizza

At school, Seth's class incorporates a lot of cooking for the kids. Food is the way to Seth's heart so, needless to say, he loves this part of school. He brought home one of the latest recipes for breakfast pizzas and they sounded really good. So, this weekend, we decided to try them out on Grandma and Grandpa at the beach. Lacey and friend Isabel were there too and loved them so much they ate two.

Here are the pictures pre-baking.

And, below, is a picture of them after 10 minutes in the oven. If you would like to try these at home, the recipe is posted at the bottom.

Breakfast Pizzas

1 can of refrigerated biscuits (we used buttery Grands - no calories here!)

Make scrambled eggs as usual

Fry bacon - we used one slice cut in two for each biscuit

Shredded cheddar cheese.

Flatten each biscuit into a circle about 4-5 inches across, spoon a portion of scrambled eggs on top, place the two half strips of bacon on top of that and cover each with a little shredded cheddar cheese. Bake in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes. Yummy!

Jason Aldean!

I totally surprised Lacey on Friday and took her out of school for a Jason Aldean concert! She was so excited! Every few minutes on the way to the concert she would just blurt out JASONALDEAN! = )

It was a "standing in the dirt" (rodeo dirt) concert, so I was a little concerned about getting her up front where she could see. We met some really nice girls who had been to the venue before and they helped get her where she needed to be. She was close all right -- hands on the stage! Here she is before the concert got started.

This is the view behind us. That is about 5,000 people pushing us into the stage. It meant being way too chummy with way too many, but I pushed back against the crowd to keep Lacey from getting the brunt of it.

In case you aren't familiar with Jason Aldean, his song "Big Green Tractor" is currently #1 on the country charts. He also sings "She's Country" and "Amarillo Sky".

This is the video of the handshake. Lacey is at the very end of the video with her little hand sticking up in the air. I get bumped from the crowd when he first grabs her hand, but I did catch him letting it go. The very last seconds of the video, you can hear it finally hit Lacey and she gives a little high pitch scream.

After the handshake -- the "I'm never going to wash my hand" picture.

All Smiles

Apparently, Lily thought she needed a bigger smile! Cheese!

OH NO! NOT IN MY HOUSE!

Last night I was sitting, innocently working on my computer in the living room while the rest of the household was asleep and I kept hearing this "schck, schck" sound. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it seemed like it was happening at regular intervals of about 10 minutes. My best description was that it sounded almost like a cricket. I started watching the clock and went and stood in the family room when I thought it was going to make the sound. I had to wait a bit but then realized it wasn't coming from there, it was in the kitchen area. 10 minutes later I was standing by the island waiting and I heard it near the door and/or table. So, thinking it was coming from the timer light switch (the one that controls the lights on the porch), I stood right by it for the next interval. It happened again and I realized it was not from the timer, but it was coming from up above me in that same area. I thought the window must be slightly ajar and I was indeed hearing a bug from outside, so I lifted the blinds and seeing that the window was not ajar, I looked up. At the top of the window casing was the biggest cricket I have ever seen!! He was three inches long at least. This is not him, but the closest picture I could find:


Now, you have to understand, that I HATE grasshoppers/crickets (not a little dislike kind of hate, but a VEHEMENT, NOT-FUNNY, GET-AWAY-FROM-ME kind of hate). I cannot even write about this without squirming. It's a good thing that he decided to stay put because if he had jumped, the entire neighborhood would have known it. So, I had a dilemma -- what to do about him? Believe it or not, it took a while, but I actually convinced myself that he would not go upstairs with me and probably wouldn't venture very far from the window so I had to just leave him. He was too big for me to squish without having him jump and I couldn't risk having him do anything like that. So, I closed the blinds and prayed that a cover of small plastic blinds would keep the vermin somewhat caged so he could be dealt with in the morning. Morning comes and, not wanting to open the blinds and risk a leaping lizard, I stepped outside to see where the caged intruder was and he was not there! Yikes! I told Lacey about him and asked her to keep an eye out (she loves grasshoppers). Luckily, Seth found him lurking above the kitchen window. Lacey crawled up and got him and then took him outside. I told her the porch was not good enough, he needed to be much further away from me, so she took him towards the tall grass by the pasture. She played with him a while, letting him crawl on her, **glaaaagh** and then carefully, lovingly, set him in the grass. Where.........Lily, watching this whole ordeal, promptly went over and ate him. = O Lacey was mortified! She came in a told me what had happened and even though I was slightly grossed out watching Lily smacking her lips, I was secretly relieved. One less disgusting, spiny trespasser. I don't know what good things grasshoppers/crickets might do in this world, but Lily and I have a message -- NOT IN MY HOUSE!

Black and White

Lacey may not be 12 years old, but she has officially hit "tweenager". She no longer wants anything, and I do mean anything, "girlie". No more flowers, no pink, no lavender, no dolls (unless they are animals), nada. She has wanted to change her bedroom and originally her choice was teal and brown. It seems like 6 months ago we could find all kinds of things in the teal/brown combination but when we went looking, nothing really caught her eye. Then, about a week ago, she decided -- black and white. The white was easy to come by - her furniture is white and the walls are still white (never have gotten around to painting it). The room is a long ways from being done, but I thought I would share how it is coming along.

The new bedspread and pillows. Apparently, lime green is not too "girlie". : ) Black dog (leaning over the pillow) is feeling right at home in this new color scheme!

New window coverings. Well, valances anyway, she is tired of having curtains. I like the look, very clean and simple.

This is still not finished. We need black baskets, new knobs on the furniture and small shelves to put the trinkets on. We'll consider this the "before" picture.

Now, the difficult part of the room. Lacey has some ideas for this area, you'll have to tune back at a later date to see what she comes up with.

The best part of the room as far as I'm concerned. The picture does not do this justice. The colors in all of the flower pictures are quite brilliant but with the shadows in this picture they look rather dull. All of the photos were taken by Lacey.

Another picture grouping that is not quite finished. She wanted all of our pets (past and present, if you notice Sugar being there), and all of Grandma DeeDee's horses. She only has the picture of Banker and the other three upright photos will be filled in with the other horse pictures as soon as Lacey takes them.

I actually think the black and white is a really good color choice and it can easily be expanded on. No more little girl. : (

Lacey's Photo Class

Lacey took a Parks and Rec photography class last week. She did a great job even though the weather did not cooperate. What are the chances of having rain the entire week of her class in August! Well, of course, that is exactly what happened. Can't control the weather, but I think Lacey's eye for a photo and her talent show through. She had a lot of fun and hopefully she will keep up this hobby. Here is a sampling of what she took over the week:

What are the chances?

I just blogged about the Vegas trip and the week before that, the kids and I went on a roadtrip which included Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon coast. In the tiny city of Arcata California, we arrived at 8:30 p.m. after driving over a horrendous mountain pass with lightning, copious amounts of enormous rain, rock slides which were providing baseball sized boulders for me to maneuver around. Needless to say, by the time I arrived in Arcata, my nerves were slightly tattered. As I was checking in to the Days Inn, there was a British family in front of me -- mom, dad, two teenage girls and a 12 year old boy. Since the check-in process was tedious with a newbie hotel clerk (two weeks into the job) and a poorly managed hotel at that, I had quite a bit of time to chat with the family checking in ahead of me. They were delightful and were doing a roadtrip of their own after visiting family in California.

Now, fast forward to Vegas 10 days later. Maurice and I are waiting in the Las Vegas airport for our flight to Portland. I look up and see the dad of the Britain family walk by. I'm looking at him and I told Maurice "I know him".....but I couldn't place him for the first few seconds. I looked over at the area he had just walked from and then I saw the whole family and put two and two together. Now, what are the chances that I would meet a family from Britain in Arcata California, see them in Las Vegas 10 days later, be on the same airplane headed for Portland, AND as it turned out, have them sitting in the seats right in front of us on the plane! After talking to them, I found out they had been in Vegas the same days we were and had even had dinner in our hotel the night before (they had stayed at Circus Circus). From Arcata they had gone to San Francisco, the Grand Canyon and then Vegas.

It is a small world!

Vegas!

As the saying goes -- what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! Warning: Some things will not be told. = )
On Thursday night we went to the L.A. Comedy Club for a show, Maurice and I had a slight bit of catching up to do alcohol-wise before we could hang out with the group. We did the best we could in an hour and a half!

After the Comedy Club, we headed to Hogs and Heifers Saloon. This is a wild bar, with the largest bouncers I have ever seen in my life! The bartenders are scantily clad biker girls who yell over megaphones in order to be heard over the music. Dancing on the bar, giving up your bra and acquiring Hogs and Heifers pasties occurs approximately every hour at this bar. SOME people MIGHT HAVE danced on the bar, MIGHT HAVE given a bra to the collection, and MIGHT HAVE received some pasties. I will not name who MIGHT HAVE done this, but I can guarantee it was not me. I did take some pictures though, although I will only share this one which has no faces in it. = ) Here is a small sample of the wall behind the bar filled with brassieres. Very fun place!On a more mature note.......this is a picture of the MGM Grand from our hotel, the Excalibur.

Just down from the MGM is M&M World and Coca-Cola world. M&M World is four floors of anything and everything M&M.

In the MGM, if I remember correctly, was the lion exhibit. Here is one lion sleeping her day away.

And the other enjoying a snooze above our heads. = O

When we arrived "home" at 3:30 in the morning, this was our home away from home, the Excalibur Castle. Beautiful at night.

And, the New York, New York hotel:

The first night, I missed the Fremont Street Experience; but on Friday, for my first one I was awestruck that it was Queen! I cannot even describe how incredibly cool this was! I could have watched it for hours.

I slept a whopping 12 hours in four days time and still didn't get to see all that I wanted to. Of course, the 110 degree weather was a tad bit of a deterrent too. Ugh! It made for a nice time at the pool, but walking down the strip was nearly impossible. We had a great time, and I have a really good idea of what Erik and I want to do when we go someday. I would love to see more of the shows and get to see the hotel evening events like the Bellagio fountains, the Treasure Island pirate show, etc. There's always next time.......