Five on Friday!

Since I've been so neglectful of the blog,

 I thought I better get a quick "5 on Friday" post!

1.   Garden Shoes.   I LOVE these so-called garden shoes -- I also wear them when it's rainy as I don't want my shoes to get soaked.  From Target in the garden area on discount shelves!

2.  Trader Joe's Serum.  I'm not into a lot of face creams, anti-aging lotions (although I probably should be), but I found this serum from Trader Joe's that is reportedly the exact same as a $75+ serum!  I'll take the $10 Trader Joe's stuff.  It does make your face feel amazing! 

 But sadly, the wrinkles are still there! 

3.  Panera's Strawberry Poppyseed Salad with Chicken.   Just YUM!  I'm not a salad eater, but this salad is divine!  I would eat it every day if Panera was closer!

Getting my daily dose of fruit and vegetables - go me!

4.  Instax Camera.   These little Instax cameras are so fun and remind me of the good old days when Polaroid cameras were around.  Did you know Polaroids are back??  We love having one of these little bitty cameras to get a photo of the littles sometimes!

5.  Pink Lemonade.  Miss M couldn't believe that I could actually make some pink lemonade from a can of  frozen pulp and water!  Who knew???  Of course I knew.  We used to always make lemonade and orange juice from the frozen cans and then I'd use the cleaned out cans as 

rollers to attempt to straighten my hair!  :) 

Dual purpose back in the day!  

Would love to hear about your favorite 5!

  Please share!

Happy Birthday Mr. Tennis!

Last week we went out for a birthday dinner for

Mr. Tennis . . . also known as

The Rickster

Ricardo

Ricky!
How does he do it???
He gets better looking every year!

My sweet Dad and he had special names for each other!

Rickster called Al  -- Alberto and in return
Al called him Ricardo!
Perfecto names for those two!

Besides playing tennis (hence the name Mr. Tennis),

he likes to ride his horse and do a bit of

golfing too.

Somewhere he fits in working! :)

We had a fabulous meal and shared

a delicious birthday dessert

Chocolate Excess!

What is Chocolate Excess you ask???
We have it every chance we get!
It's a triple fudge brownie covered in walnuts and
shards of chocolate.  It's served warm
with the finest French vanilla ice cream,
ribbons of hot fudge and a splash of Kahlua!
It is divine!

A Friend at Disney!

One of the many fun things about our

trip to Disney was that Maddie was

able to meet up with a friend

from school who was there at the

same time!

We had so much fun seeing Danielle and her Mom

there at Magic Kingdom one day!

The girls went on one of their favorite rides - 

Splash Mountain -

hoping to get wet!

Somehow, they were in the seat that did not get

wet at all.

That never happens to me and you know how

that goes . . . 

my hair suffers the entire day!

Catching Up a Little!

It's about time for me to attempt to do 

some catch up! 

So . . . . . ..

I figured I better start back at the beginning of

summer vacation and our trip to Disney World.

Our trip was over Memorial Day - so I'm only about six weeks behind!

Better late than never, right! :)

Time lapse photo above - if you look carefully, you can see

me and Maddie in the big photo above and close-up below!

The view of the castle never gets old!

And here we were again after Connor joined us!

Can you see us in the lower right-hand area?

Although they say it never happens, Disney screwed up

our reservations that I made a year in advance and

informed me a week before departure that our

room was no longer available!!

GRRRR -- it's a long story and so annoying,

but we didn't let it ruin our trip!

As you all know, we LOVE Disney World,

so I'll be updating our trip and photos in the next couple posts.

It was beastly hot there with temps in the high 90s and heat index 106!

In an attempt to feel cooler and be cooler, I opted for dresses

 -- how do you like my polka dots???

Stay tuned!

KaBoom - Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day!

The forecast is for hot, sunny and LOUD!

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating

our Nation's independence.

This flower - the famous Bee Balm or is it Bee Bomb (?)

always blooms around this time and no wonder -- it kind

of looks like an explosion of color!

Taking a quick look back at some prior 4th of July photo ops!

From 2011!

Jumping into the 4th!

Try as I might, I have never been

able to come even close to a jump like this!

Happy 4th Y'all!

Be safe and kind to your dogs  -- 

Muffy just got her doggie valium prescription refilled!!

Hello Summer!

Hello Summer!

Bye Bye endless Spring -

in true Nebraska form, it's poured rain on the first day, first weekend of summer
and entire first week of summer!
We've had enough rain already!

But, no matter - we're welcoming summer!

Splash pool teapot at Disney GF

Looking forward to more pool time!

I was super-adventurous [for me] at Disney, got in line with the 4-12 year olds
and went down a slide that went thru this amazing rock configuration!
I didn't even care [much] about my hair or wear a life jacket!
Go Me!

Looking forward to more summer favorites  --
not sure about more water slides -- but definitely

Root Beer Floats!

Quick Update

Greetings all!

How in the world did it already get to be the middle of June???

I want the summer to slow down already and

let me get some blog posts done!

Yes, I am always behind lately  :)

So, when I last left you . . . Maddie had just

finished school for the summer!

Since the upcoming seniors have to complete

36 hours of volunteer/senior hours  - she's been

focused on getting those completed during the summer!

Yay Maddie!

She's working at the uniform shop at school!

Oh my word, it's a huge undertaking and I have

no idea how the woman doing it gets it done

every year!
Try folding and fitting 5,000 polo shirts in a very small space!!

That doesn't even include the sweatshirts, shorts, pants or skirts.

In other news, we took a quick trip to our favorite place . . .

the happiest place on earth!

We were greeted there with 98 degree temps

and the heat index of 106 nearly every day!

Oh my Lord - that is hot!

BUT . . . it didn't stop us from

getting to the parks, going on rides,

meeting characters and even some swim time.

It was fabulous. 

I will try to update with some photos!

So, that's my short update.

What's happening with you?