Babysitting --- the undiscovered workout....

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sore! I took care of a 2 yr old and 3m old last night for 7 hours. The 2 yr old only spoke French, (the 3m old spoke "grin"). They were VERY adorable. The 2y old was a preemie so she is VERY tiny and sweet, the 3m old was cute too w/ the longest eyelashes! However you can't put the 3m old down for more than a few minutes or she starts crying. They did warn me but oh well. I kept them so their parents could play in the golf tournament at work. It was their parents first time out here in a YEAR!! They were very appreciative. But holy cow, my shoulders, arms, back, legs etc are so sore it's unreal.
My sister is going skydiving today - she has got to call me immediately afterward. My husband seems sure that she'll have a heart attack. We'll see :-).

If someone could find a candle

that smelled as good as my house right now I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I dearly love my biscotti candle and cranberry candle but apple pie fresh out of the oven beats all! It smells sooooo good! I think I've sniffed about everything in the regular candle stores and I've never sniffed anything that matches it.

Look!!!! I had a visitor this afternoon!! His name is "Herman". He wasn't interested in the raspberries I threw him (I don't blame him, I didn't want them either since a few were molding, even tho the ones I threw him weren't.) He just came down for a drink of water in a puddle next to the tree. He was so cute!!! Just had to share. Herman said to tell you all hi - this is the best pic I had - he kept moving so most of them were blurry. :-)

Because you might be sick of me...

And even if he won't let me put his name in my blog he's still interesting....

1. He’s sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? One of his movies or his new Cabella's hunting Wii game.
2. You’re out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Salad?? No salad - no rabbit food at all!
3. What’s one food he doesn’t like? Veggies, almond pastry, most pasta, calzones (oh you said one, sorry).
4. You go out to the bar. What does he order? rum and coke....for me. Water for him.
5. Where did he go to high school? CJ
6. What size shoe does he wear? hold on, I have to go look....10
7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Odd golf pictures
8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? plain turkey and bread
9. What would he eat every day if he could? regular Lay's chips or ice cream/choc chip cookies
10. What is his favorite cereal? Frosted Flakes
11. What would he never wear? the heavy sweaters he looks so good in, I'm hoping for a VERY cold winter.......
12. What is his favorite sports team? St Louis Cardinals
13. Who is his best friend? ???
14. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn’t do? Collect "stuff"
15. How many states has he lived in? 3
16. What is his heritage? Polish
17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake? No cake, apple pie!
18. Did he play sports in high school? Ha, what DIDN'T he play, soccer, golf, baseball etc.
19. What could he spend hours doing? Working out, complicated lego designs, playing Wii

Sorry to those I already emailed this to...

1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:45 am the first time, 7:30 the second time
2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds of course
3. What was the last show you saw at the cinema? House Bunny (again, don't blame me I didn't choose it)
4. What is your favorite TV show? Anything on Animal Planet/Discovery Health, NCIS, Criminal Minds
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Cereal (which I ran out of this morning so I treated myself to an orange roll - thank you mom!)
6. What is your middle name? Kay
7. What food do you dislike? Rasians (sneaky little pipsqueaks look like choc chips!!)
8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Chris Rice piano music when scrapping/Sugarland when driving
9. What kind of car do you drive? 07 Hyundai Tiburon
10. Favorite sandwich? Peanut butter!
11. What characteristic do you despise? snobbiness
12. Favorite item of clothing? "cuddle clothes"
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Somewhere skiing, England
14. Where would you retire? NY maybe?
15. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Not a clue
16. Furthest place you are sending this questionnaire? depends on who reads it!
17. Person you expect to send it back first? Got me...
18. When is your birthday? July
19. Morning person or a night person? Morning
20. What is your shoe size? 6.5
22. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? Nope, except that my hair is driving me batty - oh wait, there's nothing new OR exciting about that. nope not a thing.
23. What did you want to be when you were little? a teacher, which just goes to show that children are idiots.
24. How are you today? better than yesterday!
25. What is your favorite flower? Gerber daisies I suppose
26. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? the next day someone comes to visit me!
27. What are you listening to right now? dishwasher, my "barking", washing machine
28. What was the last thing you ate? lunch
29. Do you wish on stars? nope, usually not awake to see them :-)
30. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? dark blue
31. How is the weather right now? Sunny and about 63
32. Last person you spoke to on the phone? dr's office
33. Favorite soft drink? Dr. Pepper and it's SO RARE HERE!
34. Favorite restaurant? something I don't have in lewiston (downside of having company, I hit every resteraunt in town....)
35. Hair color? A shade of brown
36. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Little Pony
37. Summer or winter? whatever I'm not in at the moment.
38. Chocolate or Vanilla? depends
39. Coffee or tea? Coffee!
40. When was the last time you cried? yesterday
41.What is under your bed? baskets of clothes, some of josh's school books, small tote bags and who knows what else. MAYBE MY MISSING BLANKETS!! Nope, looked there already.
42. What did you do last night? Argued with anyone and everyone including the TV.
43. What are you afraid of? spiders, bugs of any sort really that don't understand to STAY OUT of my house, feeling psychotically moody
44. Salty or sweet? sweet.
45. How many keys on your key ring? 3
47. How many years at your current job? job? what's a job?? (Sorry ladies, couldn't resist)
48. Favorite day of the week? Sunday - one predictible day of the week my husband is around.
49. Do you make friends easily? Depends on if they're the type of person to appreciate me or if I have to fake being someone else....
50. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? Yes, I may need to use it against them later in life…hahahaha……Just kidding.

I love that small things make me happy...

Especially with christmas coming up (that is my husband's hint for gift cards....) Just kidding. I was just thinking about how much more fun it is to be someone who gets joy out of small things. For instance, the J&J bodywash I bought w/ my hostess giftcard that I never would have bought for myself and smells yummily of lavender, the fact that it is so nice and cool I may leave for my second bike ride of the day, and the NF and DC paper/stickers that I bought at the scrapping store in NF yesterday. It was only a few pages but gave me much joy to find it!!
So, to those of you who are still reading my (very boring) blog lately - what small things make you happiest. (Keep in mind christmas is coming and I need ideas, someone told me we have less than 100 days left to shop in!)

Pics of the recent company :-)

Here are Gpa and Martha on the bridge headed into Canada. Aren't they sweet!!! I picked them up on Thursday and we began a whirlwind 3 day tour of the area. On Thursday I took them to eat at the Silo overlooking the Niagara River. Gpa even avoided the icecream they sell since we were headed to the "Maid of the Mist" boat tour.

This is poor Gpa dealing with the giant blue plastic raincoat on the boat tour. We all agreed they must have made them out of old WalMart bags!! They were huge and the boat wasn't very full so they kept trying to blow up over our heads. Gpa took out his hearing aids and glasses so he could enjoy the trip. He was soooooo excited he could barely stand still (oh wait, maybe that was the rocking boat). Oh well, they had a great time (and so did I since I hadn't been on it before) and Gpa considered it a good excuse to hang onto Martha - have to make sure she doesn't fall! :-P

Later we walked all the way up and around the American falls. I had so much fun watching Gpa and Martha - they were having a wonderful time. Gpa could stand in the same place for 20 mins just watching the water churn and surge in and around the rocks. They were very excited to see the rainbow pictured above. Gpa said that if this was all they got to do on their trip that it would have been worth it.

Those of you who know Gpa can probably guess why we have this lovely picture. He kept seeing change laying in and around the water and insisted that if Martha and I would just "do our part" and hold onto his legs he could reach that and go stick his hand in the falls etc. Apparently we are just "wet blankets" because every time he said something like that Martha would get a tighter grip on his jacket and I'd shoot him dirty looks. For those of us who've heard the funny tape say it with me "Martha -- I'm goin for it!"


Well this was just the first day of pictures. My husband took some video of the fireworks which were so pretty. We saw those on Friday night and then went over to explore the Canadian falls in the daylight on Saturday. We walked ourselves into exhaustion on the three trips I must say. We ate pizza and chocolate until we nearly made ourselves sick (all Gpa's fault --- he was trying to make sure Martha was happy). :-) I took them to all my favorite places in town, Gpa and Martha really seemed to love Lewiston. We went out with some work people Friday night before the fireworks, got to visit the popcorn store and Chip and Dip even made an appearance.
And now I must relate the things we said after the company left. My honey said "I don't know that I've ever seen your Gpa so happy. He was grinning from ear to ear and laughing more than I've ever seen." I told him I have faint memories of years ago when Gma was still healthy and Gpa being that happy. However that was a LONG time ago and it's been years since I've heard him laugh so much. I must say the two of them were the cutest couple ever. They would sit in my backseat and whisper to each other and laugh and held hands all the time. And then of course there were the times where I had to call Gpa's name when going around corners in case they were being a bit more friendly! :-) I have not laughed so much in 3 days time as I did with Gpa and Martha. Despite some confusion on whether doors were open or closed, Gpa forgetting his birth cert. so it had to be overnighted and watching the weather to keep track of the hurricane due to Martha's family being in TX I think all had a great time. And as predicted- I slept almost all day yesterday --- which is of course the sign of a truly satisfying week. :-)

Naming Contest

These are the 2 chipmunks that live outside my apartment. I need names! Any suggestions? They're awfully cute!

Anticipation...

Yay! This week my Gpa and his friend Martha are coming to visit - I'm so excited! I've been making lists of all the places I want to take them. Obviously the falls, then we had breakfast this morning at a little cafe called "Tommy George's Villa". It's open every day till about 1 - been here for 32 years, Tommy George is there every morning, knows all his regulars by name and what they order and in the afternoon he goes golfing. Had the best "bfast bagel" ever!! And... it's next door to this tiny little PIE SHOP!!!! I told the lady I was bringing in my Gpa when he got here, she gave me a menu - said if there was something he wanted that wasn't on the menu to just let her know. I love this town!!!!! I want to take them to the popcorn place, the chocolate house, (have you noticed these are all food places?) Brio's pizza etc. Plus I want to take them down by lake Ontario where we found the beautiful beach last weekend. I promise to post lots of pictures -- I'm sure to take dozens w/ our camera. :-)

Question...

Did anyone else watch "House" last night? I know my dad watches it but when I called him to gripe about the story line he had just then turned it on....therefore he had no idea what I was babbling about with House bouncing in and out of dreams and hallucinations etc. Very strange!!!! Certainly the weirdest episode I've ever seen! I like the show - mostly b/c House reminds me of my dad but that was just a bit much!

Happy Labor Day!

Well we didn't make it to Toronto - the borders were crazy busy and we decided we'd have more fun where there were fewer people. Neither of us are hugely fond of crowds (aka we hate them) and it sounded like a lot of fuss for just an air show. I found out the medieval dinner thing was almost $80 per person - YIKES! I don't think so!

So instead on Saturday we did a 6.5 mile ride down the river road he found - it was soooooo pretty, cool enough to be comfortable and nice smooth road with beautiful houses on one side and the river on the other to admire. Then today we drove further down the same road to Youngstown - we found there was a huge grassy area that runs out to Lake Ontario next to the Ft. Niagara. It was sooooooooo pretty and peaceful. We walked several miles around the park - I'm DEFINTELY going to have to drive Gpa and Martha down there. Of course we forgot the camera --- go figure but it was a nice break anyway.