A wedding….

I’m not sure if any of you know about Mr.. Rabbit, Mr.. Monkey, Space Monkey and baby monkey. A long time ago I made a daycare friend from New York when I really needed someone that knew something about my new adventure. Her name is Sally and she has become such a sweet dear friend. This is the same lady who flew from New York to Minnesota to watch my son graduate from high school and spend a week here helping with a grad party, meeting my great friends here and just plain being ms. wonderful. Anyways, she had a stuffed animal named Mr.. Rabbit that they would take on trips and have people take pictures with him and hear of the great adventure he’s been on. Well he came to visit us a couple of years ago and he brought along Mr.. Space Monkey. While here they meet Mr.. Monkey and his baby brother. Well this past spring there was a horrible accident with a puppy and a thunderstorm and baby brother monkey went to the north side of those thunderstorms.

The original picture April 2010:

But the story goes on….the story I am sending with the animals to Sally this week:

And the friendship continues…2012…

So we all know that life has lots of twist and turns and sometimes it’s not quite what we expect. Well this past summer Mr.. Monkey lost his brother to an accident and all the pals have been very sad. But like all sadness we learn to move forward and though it takes time sometimes great things come from that and so……the story continues…..

Mr.. Monkey has been sad, very sad so he decided one day to go and spend some time at the local artesian museum. He loves all the colors and different medians that are used there. As he’s walking along he comes up to this beautiful lady drawing a family. He sits and watches her all afternoon work on this portrait and is just amazed that a person can draw that wonderfully. As she’s drawing they begin to chat a bit. He asks her, her name and she says in the most musical way “I’m Kat”. Oh my you should of felt his stomach flutter, her name is as beautiful as she is. They get to know each other a bit and she finished up the portrait she was working on and asks if he would like her to draw him. Oh course, it’s another way to spend some more time with her.

They spend a few days together checking out the other artesian in the area and on their walk home late one night Mr.. Monkey pop the questions. He just couldn’t wait any longer you know. “Kat,” he says, “I love you so much will you marry me?” Kat is quiet for just a little bit, Mr.. Monkey’s heart is just holding it’s breath and she says …. You know in that musical way she talks, “Of course I will, I love you too!!!”

So today, it’s July 9^th just before noon, we have a wedding. It’s a beautiful wedding and Mr.. Monkey and Kat have asked all their favorite kids to help them plan and prepare and at 10:00 they got married.

Please enjoy our wedding with us. We are sorry you live so far away but am so happy to be spending our first part of life with you. Mr.. Rabbit is healing and enjoying all the attention Kat is giving him and Mr.. Space Monkey, well he’s just so excited to have another monkey in the group.

So without further a due, please let me introduce Mr.. Monkey and Kat and their wedding.

Mr.. Monkey and his best man

Kat and her matron of honor getting ready

The Rings

Dearly beloved….

You may kiss the bride….

We are please to announce

MR. MONKEY and KAT

Grandma catching tth bride’s bouquet…

Me???

And the picture that started it all.

I hope you enjoyed our story. We have had a great time in Minnesota, even with the sad times that sometimes comes along with great times. We are excited to be heading to New York to spend time with our friends out there.

Goodbye Rachel, Abby, Anton, Alex, Ron, Aiden and Joss, and also goodbye grandpa and grandma apes.

Hello Ms. Sally and everyone, were here to have fun and see what life has happening in your part of the county.

See what a little imagination and a bunch of kids and one daycare mama can come up with. Pretty darn cool if you ask me and just so you know, I cried at this wedding too. Heck who wouldn’t?

Blessings my friends!

To lie or not to lie… Week 5 of SSDC…

Really I have no intentions of lying. That’s not me but I will also say that this week was not tip top for me. I did get in 10 miles of walking/jogging. I did do some new to me stretches (not the ball yet Deanna), I did drink over 100 oz every single day. I did eat more veggies then fruit but I did eat a bit more bread and homemade chicken strips. I did not track even one single day. I did eat way over my allotment of calories just about every single day and I know very well I did not lose any weight even if I was standing on the scale.

We are about 1/2 way done with this challenge and I haven’t been giving it a fair shake. I always start out so well and then it seems with each passing challenge I peter out. I don’t mean too, it just seems that life gets in the way. Try as I may I can not get enough exercise in to lose any more weight. Try as I may I can’t fix a decent meal except for daycare type meals and we all know they get to eat lots more calories then I do. Try as I may I am just not doing this right.  But I’m not a quitter and I plan on seeing this challenge to the end and in better shape then I started. So that means I have 7 weeks to get my act together. Our challenge this week is no meat, be a vegetarian. Well since I had no $$ for meat this week except a chicken breast to make Jim a cold salad I don’t think that will be to hard. I will do dairy however and also eggs but the rest of the meat, well I should be able to rock this week.

So my personal goals for the week.

1. Walk/run 20 miles, do Week 2, Days 2,3,4 of C25K.

2. Stretch after each walk/run. And do the ball so I can tell Deanna what it was like for me.

3. Track every single thing I eat and stay under 1500 calories a day (preferable 1300 though myfitnesspal says more).

4. Drink 100 plus oz of water a week.

5. Skip all meats. Also tried grill fruit for a different challenge I’m part of.

6. Stop by and see everyone that checks in this week and also my regulars who keep track of me too.

7. Make this a tip top week!

Monday evening is a big scout meeting, Tuesday is working at my parents, Wednesday I need to mow, Thursday I need to till the garden, Friday back at my parents again, Saturday AM maybe if lucky can move some furniture around to get more work done at my parents and back to Sunday, a day to rest, relax and get my shopping and house work done. And in-between all of this, 50 hours of daycare with 6 kids each day. I’m no slacker in the move my butt department just not to good in the move my butt lose the weight and tone up the flab departments. I’ll try, I’ll keep working at it.

I hope you all had a great week, had an awesome weekend and now a blessed week to come. Take care.

Do you know what a dryer sheet is….and….

Nope not the kind you put into the dryer. It’s what you put a cookie on when you take it out of the oven. Mike was telling me he made a huge cookie but he didn’t have a dryer sheet to put it on. Me, WHAT? What do you want to put your cookie on a dryer sheet for? Mike, NO!! Not the kind for the dryer, you know, to dry out the cookie when you take it out of the over. Me scratching my head, just not getting it until….

You mean cooling rack. Oh I get it. Now that was my laugh for the day. I’ll never call it a cooling rack again, it’s a dryer sheet now.

I am home for 7 hours of working in the basement. UGH!!! How water can cause so much damage is just beyond me. It’s only water, not even dirty water, just water the came in around all the corners of the house and was even filtered through the bricks. Well we have all the rooms empty, all carpets and trim work gone, lots of stuff went to the dump today and lots is being burned and there’s a pile still waiting to dry and be burned and then I bleached everything and now fans are going and hopefully it’ll all dry out and we can get to using some Kilz and painting (not that that’s going to be happening for a month or more). I will go over again on Tuesday and bleach the bad spots if there are any left and move the fans around and just hope and prayer it all works out without having to renovate the basement which is not in anyone’s budget.

Oh well, it’s one day at a time. I’ll still think about the dryer sheet and chuckle. It’s time for me to go out and help Jim pull wires in the trailer. It’s not a one person task and I am sure he’s just puttering waiting for me but he knew I needed just a little time to just be before a new task was ask of me.

I hope you all are having an awesome weekend. Blessings to you all!!

Recipe challenge….

Week 2 of Me and You Getting Fit at Home recipe challenge is to Grill Fruit. My first thought were YUCK!!! Hot fruit, it sounds horrible but I am always game for a challenge and fruit is one of my most favorite foods and it’s summer time and that grill is just sitting out there waiting for me to light it up again this week so I have found three recipes I’m going to try. Cinnamon Apples, Grilled Brown Sugar Bananas and Honey Basted Nectarines. I’ll tell you how each one turns out and also if they end up being kid friendly or not. I’d love to take pictures to but won’t promise that.
Deanna, I’m sorry my 1st comment said YUCK!!! because I just was ignorant and didn’t look into it first. I think this is an excellent idea and I’ll give each of these a try and hopefully add a new food to my like list.
Now because this is something I have never done I had to do some research on it. I found the most awesome site that teaches everything there is to know about grilling fruit and it’s easy to understand, right up my alley. Want to check it out, just in case you’re new to grilling fruit…. click here and check it out.
Shopping day is Sunday so I’ll get what I need and get to grilling. Maybe I can find a steak to add too. Oh I wonder how venison steak grills up, never done that before. Maybe need to talk to my daddy.
I will be spending tomorrow at my parents moving stuff in the basement so that I can bleach and dry another room or two. I am hoping to get my daddy’s gun room done and the bathroom. That will just leave under the stairs and the furnace room (which I think will be fine without to much work but need to move things to find out for sure).
Have a blessed weekend my friends.

Mold control….

Hope everyone has a blessed day. I hope it rains where it needs it, quits raining here (another 1.5” this morning on top of 3.5” yesterday, 2” the day before that 12” the week before that, 10” the week before that and …. well I’m sure you see the pattern, it’s wet here). They cancelled our county fair. It hasn’t been cancelled since 1946 and that was due to a polio outbreak. I hope it cools down where it’s really hot and the people without power out east, I hope it comes back on soon. 2012 has really been a different type of year when it comes to weather.

Okay, gotta go. Take care. Blessings!!

Recipe for ….

Me and You {getting fit at home}: Recipe Challenge: The goal for this week was a red, white and blue recipe but I just didn’t come up with something new. I made the usual raspberry, blue berry and yogurt dessert but the kids ate it before I could even take a picture. It’s a cup of both fruits and yogurt. It’s an awesome, fast and great tasting.

What I did try different was a rhubarb jam. I am blessed with rhubarb and a friend (thank you Mary) had given me a super easy recipe to make some so that is what we did. I’m sorry, again no pictures but the recipe is so easy to make you don’t need pictures. Enjoy!!

So here it is:

This is a great tasting and easy jam to make with all the rhubarb popping up! 

5 cups rhubarb, diced

1/2 cup water

cook together until rhubarb tender

Add 5 cups sugar, cook until sugar dissolved

Add 1 can wilderness blueberry pie filling & cook for 5 minutes...keep stirring

Add 2 small boxes raspberry jello, cook until jello dissolved

put in jars & freeze!

Ideas for our Crayola party…

Kim has me hooked on Pinterest. I haven’t a clue how to start pinning or anything like that but I just send me the idea and keep it in an idea folder. It works for now or at least until I take the time to learn to pin.

Anyways, if anyone has ideas for our party I would love some ideas. So far we are going to make this but in smaller forms…

Melted RAINBOW Crayon Canvas!

If you like this too just click on the picture (on all the crafts I’ve added today) and it’ll take you to the how too.

Yard Gazing Balls

We are also going to do some tie dying and making crayons in molds.

Here’s for another day….maybe….

Fairy Dust…

This is so cool, it’s made with a glow stick and glitter.

Cool snack idea…for happy faces at the end of our day…

So the ideas are starting. I have until the 24th it get it together and ready and then we’ll have a great day creating.

Here’s something I have to share with you.

 

What better reason to do something special for my wee ones.

Okay, I have lots more pictures to share but I need to get outside (even though it’s 93* with a heat index of 110*. Got some garbage to take care of, chickens to water and feed, cooler to put away and I’m sure other stuff too.

Hope you all are having a super 4th. It’s really quiet here without Mike taking me places. I missed the parade and pretty sure the fireworks tonight unless I go alone and really…….what fun is that?

Anyways, take care and have a blessed evening.

P.S. Went for a quick drive this morning to check out neighbors, well they still have to take their boats home. Here’s just a couple pictures I took.

Keep praying people. Have you been listening to the new from the west and east? WOW, our country needs our prayers. They have mine, daily and sometimes hourly.

Remember this?

And my partners?

• Melanie at upinthecosmos.
• Angela at adayinthelifeof ang.
• Debby at debsdailylife.
• Pam at Emptynest 
• Corey Loree at cupcakestocardio 

Ladies, I wanted to see how you were doing. Remember running wasn’t the main goal, it’s just getting out there and moving your butts.

We are officially past the 6 way point and you should have about 325 miles under your belt. I have 553.6 miles did and done and am happy about that. Not as happy as I could of been if it was all running like I truly wanted but I have just over 300 miles of running/jogging/trotting and the rest is walking. I am now working again on the C25K program and today finished Week 1 Day 2 and all went pretty good. My leg still gives me fits but I have found on the walk parts of the program if I walk backwards for a bit and then do some major lunges it seems to help some. I don’t understand the pain but for now am just going to push a little bit and see if I can get these muscles and whatever it is that screams to just relax and enjoy this.

I have a 5K that I want to run/jog/trot in October. Last year I blew it by pushing and screwing things up and hurting for the whole winter. This year I will train longer, take better care of my body and hopefully be ready to really run a 5K. It’s time. It’s also time to be able to do more, I’ve been working on this for 2 years and I am sure it hasn’t taken anyone this long to learn to run. There can not be anyone as slow as me, there just can’t be. But I’m not anyone and I am going to do it, but the right way with proper form, proper shoes, proper stretching and listening to my body all the say.

So my friends, how’s it going?

Want to see my most hated hill in the whole wide world? Well at least on my road that is….

I want to run up this hill, at full speed and be able to breath when I get to the top, be able to keep going when I’m up there. I will do this, it’s in my plans (I know, best laid plans of mice and men don’t always work, out but I’m trying).

Here’s on more picture I had to share. Wilbur and Scout are my walk/jogging partners and Wilbur hates the running part but hate staying home more then not so I took him today and when we got back I had to shower and he had to do this….

Take care my friends and have an awesome day. A day to do something healthy, to eat just one less treat, a day to think just about you. Take a minute and do that, think what you want for the day and always remember this….

Just for today, I will stay on my diet;
Just for today, I will answer the call;
Just for today, I will drink all my water;
Just for today, I will give it my all!!

Blessings!!!!

P.S. We got 2 more inches of rain last night. UGH!!!!

Week 1 Day 1…and flooding…

I did it! I was up at 5:50 (I did hit the snooze once), out the door at 6:00 and completed the first day by 6:30. I didn’t stop there however because I am use to moving my butt for 45-60 minutes when I walk/jog so I traded dogs and went for another 2 miles jaunt but with funny walking. I did backwards, side ways, big steps, bigger steps, more backwards along with some jogging. When I got back you could of wrung me out and got a few quarts of sweat. I LOVE THAT FEELING!!!! To me it’s a sign that I just burned a bunch of calories and got some of those nasty toxins out.

For my stretching I did do about 15 minutes of it. No Deanna I didn’t do the ball yet, I was so sweaty I didn’t want to lay on the floor and spread that around. I’ll do that tonight before I head out for a gentle walk with my dad. Daddy loves to walk with me too but he’s a tad slower then I need for exercise so I do my stuff either first or earlier and then pick him up. Today my am is done so my pm will be a long slow walk. Daddy loves to walk and he’s good for a good 3-4 miles.

I wanted to share a few more flood pictures with you all. According to Michele, no one even knows what happened in our area. Lots heard about Jay Cooke and Hwy 169 disappearing, the Duluth Zoo losing some animals but south of there it’s like we don’t exist. Yesterday Jim and I took a drive and I thought it was bad here but out and about it’s worse. My parents basement is salvageable lots of the homes we saw aren’t. Please pray for all the flood victims up here. One of my bus families can’t even go home, they have 9’ of water around their home. Another one of my bus families have to take a canoe to get to their front door and their basement is a 6’ swimming pool. There will be no first, second or third crops of hay for tons of farmers, there isn’t any corn or soybeans or wheat or barely that survived. Farmers are helping farmers buy sharing grazing land because you can’t keep cattle on wet land without hoof rot or more. I didn’t get many photo’s, just a couple but enough for you to understand.

Lots of roads look like this. The water came across them so fast they took the culverts out. This is our pasture and fence line.

Our neighbors There are two docks in this picture, both are 4-6’ under water.

One of the roads we past over yesterday. My dads cat still very wet.

 

There is a golf cart here, that’s the green seats you see, the yellow on the right, it’s a cub cadet lawnmower. This is our east end of town and across the road is worse but those pictures didn’t turn out.

This is one of the farms. If you look at the second picture, in the background are the cows.

More roads and more pasture under water.

 

And this is my daddy trying to tie down the pontoon, paddle boat and save the ice-fishing house.

So you see, still tons of water. I took pictures of mama and daddy’s house but I’m not sure they want to share that heartache but just imagine 40 years of living in a house and your daughter being mean and making you get rid of so much because she knows you can’t keep it because it’s wet, because it’s going to mold and because it already is molding. It was so hard being mean and making them get rid of so much stuff they cherished but what could I do? I’ll make sure when we make the basement livable again that the stuff they got to keep is out in plain sight and where they can touch and feel and still enjoy. IT WAS HARD!!! I felt terrible.

So a prayer for all people that are dealing with destruction. Heck, we still have all the water and Colorado needs it so much. Pray for them too. Mike is in Laramie and can see the fire each day (well the smoke) and it just keeps getting thicker and thicker. I know we all have our hands full of something or another but today just stop and pray for these people.

I’m off to fix breakfast for my 6 wee ones. It’s already 80* and sunny so I am expecting some time in the pool and water play and then an after craft for the 4th of July. Not sure what yet, I didn’t plan that far ahead (stupid me, I know….I usually have everything ready for them. Oh well).

Take care my friends and have an awesome day. Blessings to you all.

Dear Heavenly Father, you know that I am terrible at praying but I am so much better at just talking to you so here I am this morning sharing my prayer with everyone so that they too can either just copy me and you’ll hear and understand or at least give them an idea to just talk to you about all that’s going on. You know about all the flooding and all the heartaches. You know about all the fires and people without homes. You know about out east the heat wave and so many without power. The thing I am asking of you is to just keep them safe. Help them know that even though this has happened that you are there to hold them up, help them along and be there when they need you. Just always do their best and let you do the rest. We just have to trust in you Lord and though it’s hard we know that you will help, you will hold us up and you will take care of us all. Thank you for being such a great source of love. We need that today and always. I’ll be talking to you later on my dear Lord but for now my wee ones need me. I love you and thank you for another day to try and be the best Julie I can be. Amen.

I said I’d be back…

And I am. I said after I got over leaving Mike in Wyoming, over the fact I didn’t get to pick my daycare end date, the flooding in my parents house and all around us, I’d get back to the challenge I started. I do have some catching up to do on the SSSDC

For my 5 miles a day for June the rule was to walk/run/jog/hike 20 out of 30 days. I did awesome and I logged 26 out of the 30 days and each day was 5-7 miles and some days more but never less then 5.  I have logged in more miles in June then I had the rest of the months so far. I want to thank Deanna for this challenge. It really was terrific to be able to share and read and learn and more from everyone that joined this challenge. Now Deanna has another challenge going it’s called Try Something New. You try a new recipe, you post about it and others can try it too and enjoy. This weeks theme is Red White and Blue. Now I have an idea but have to work on the details. You see I’m not to much for following recipes to the “T” and I need to write down what I do so that I can share it with you. I shared some recipes earlier this week of things I most love and hope that some of you were able to try them out or at least drool over them a little.

Now for the I am behind two weeks. One of those week was to try a new exercise and I was going to work on stretching the Deanna told me about. She wrote a full post called for Julie and video on what and how to do it so this will be that weeks exercise. Another week was the water week, 100 oz a day. I don’t have a problem with that but I will make sure by filling up my gallon jug each morning and making sure it’s empty before I go to bed. I did the recipe part of the challenge this week and now next week is to lose 2 pounds. Since I’m not using the scale for the summer I won’t be able to check that out exactly but I do know that I have planned this week well by the groceries I bought today. Want to see a sneak peak into some of them? Well here they are…..

 

This is my new to try snack. Peanut spread with no calories, no fat, no nothing (also I am sure not the most nutritional either but if it tastes half way decent and I can have a couple crackers with the spread on it, all for only 20 calories and 5 grams of fat, well it’s worth a try).

This yogurt is gross. Yep I tried it, it taste like sour cream and I don’t like sour cream so to make it taste better (I hope), I will add some fruit to it. I did just make some Jell-O and added strawberries to it for the kids. It didn’t taste bad in the taste test but we’ll see. I have enough salad for the kids and I at least 4 days worth plus the radishes are almost ready to pick in the garden and there’s more fresh lettuce ready at the neighbors (that we still will need a boat to go and pick).

My fruits for the week. Well there’s corn in that picture too. I know to limit my fruits but with 6 kids here each day I’ll be luck if I get a cup or so from each. And the juice, it’s mine, only mine!!! the kids have milk and Kool-Aid.

And look what I’m putting on the grill for our 4th of July dinner. They are 180 calories, 12 fats and 4 carbs so really if I have them and my fruit and a veggie salad, I think it’ll be an excellent dinner and healthy to boot. I do need some more meat in my week so have some chicken breasts I’ll grill up to eat later on. I so would love a steak but they are just a tad to expensive after buying all the other tasty goodness so maybe later on.

So I’m back to getting up at 5:45, going for a walk and then trying the new stretches when I get home. I’ll have time to do them all and shower as long as I’m up and out of here at 6:00. I would like to get 3-5 miles in the morning done and again in the evening. I have been thinking about starting the C25K program. I think I can start to run again. I’ll just be careful and listen to my body. The program starts out slow and easy so that’s also going to be part of my new exercise for the week I missed.

I am sorry I sorta didn’t do what I promised to do but I’m back and I will give it my all this week to lose some weight, to get some flexibility and to eat well.

Good luck everyone. This is an awesome week to pay tribute for all that week have. It’s always a wonderful time to be with family and friends. We are going to be inviting our friends over for a BBQ.

Take care and God Bless!!