Thursday, October 30, 2008

Halloween Eve

Duner and I are invited to a Halloween Party on Saturday night. We are welcome to wear a costume, in fact, I was at this very same party last year and wore my 'triathalon' gear as my costume and I felt a bit under dressed.

This year Duner will be able to come with me, and I wanted to do something fun. I asked a co-worker of mine about costumes and she brings over a neat ghost, cave man, 60's chick and a nun. Complete with jewelry, accessories and make up!!! Thanks K!

I absolutely LOVE the pink wig. I talked Brock and Reece into modeling for the camera.
I would have no problem being either. In fact, it would be kind of funny to have Duner dress up as the girl!! ha. ha.
Do you think he would go for it?








Wednesday night we carved pumpkins. I had a template I printed for me and Zeb, but Reece came up with his own pumpkin.
He did a AWESOME job! He made it 2 sided. We have a Welcome side that says Night, and a back side with a wizard on it.

He was really proud of himself...




Brock's ADHD was in effect that night so he accidentally did his upside down. But he did his best. He decided to make it in his likeness and added glasses.

Zeb emptied his out and he helped me staple the pattern on, but I pretty much did the rest.


Tommorrow night we will have a Ninja, Brainwashed Child and Arrow Boy out begging for candy.
Happy Halloweenie Everyone!!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Whatcha' ma call it....

Saturday my Mom called to tell me they got a new puppy. A few weeks ago my parents dog had to be put to sleep.

She had told me 'They weren't going to have any dogs for a while'. Apparently, a while is about 2 weeks time.


This is Zeb with the new border collie pup.






Reece fell in love with her. She is a 39 days old.
Apparently, she was a puppy mill product.


We went to Grandmas to check her out last night instead of going out to High Cliff and the first thing Zeb said to me this am was 'Can we go to Grandmas and see the puppy today?'

I told them is they hurry up and got ready for Church, we can make it there before and if they behave, we can stop by after.

I have NEVER seen them get ready so fast!!!







They took the girl out to go potty twice.













She doesn't have a name as of yet. Some suggestions were BROWNIE, MARSHMALLOW, PENELOPE (PENNY), FRISKY, HONEY, SUGAR. The lady at the puppy mill called her 'Red'.

She has one blue eye and one green eye.
She was a bit unsteady yet, but she is still pretty young yet.

Grandma said she picked her was because she kind of sat away from the rest of the crowd. Almost to say "Let them go first'.

Grandma figured that would mean that she had a good temperament.






She looks a little pissed off in this pic but reallly she is a sweetheart.

And seeing how we just found an AWESOME home for our two dogs, NO WE WILL NOT BE GETTING ONE ANYTIME SOON!

We will just puppy sit once in a while and be good.

Fast Freaky Day

Saturday was an extremely busy day in our house. First thing, bright and early at 7am Zeb and I headed out to the freaky 5k. He was doing the 1/4 mile fun run, and the 5k with me.
Reece was supposed to join us be ended up with Strep on Friday,so he stayed home and slept.
I was looking forward to this because of the costumes that were involved.
This wild couple is only one of the many costumes that were displayed. I work with one of them but I won't tell you which one. I didn't get to stay for the judging, Zeb wanted to play at Brock and Reece's old playground. (A school near the park we were at.)
We saw a irish dancing girls, Oreo Double stuff cookie, M&M's, Witches, a lil' Chicken pushed in a stroller by a bunny, walking with a Cat. Zeb said to me "Mom they are all animals". Yep, he was right.


Zeb just liked to walk through and sometimes stop to 'rest' on our walk. He did really well considering we did run a little bit in the beginning.
















I thought these were a fun costume. It was part of a group of Teachers (I think they also did the half marathon too) that poked fun at the WLUK situation that I blogged about not to long ago that is still not resolved. You can't see it but it says 'NO SERVICE' on top of the walking sticks that they have and they had tv antenna's on there heads.






Here is the Ketchup and Mustard, and a not so 'hot dog'. Ha. Ha. get it?

If you could feel the temp that morning you would think the guy in shorts was in costume. Burrrrrr.














This was my lil' Ninja as he came running in from the 1/4 kids run that he did. He did great!











Then we had a Halloween Party at Zeb's School, we went home and grabbed Reece (he was feeling better and had been on his meds for over 24 hrs) and we made the rounds at Z's school.

At one point a woman asked Reece to show her son that Reece was really just wearing a mask, so her son would stop freaking out. Poor kid. It was funny to see how most kids were amazed at his mask.
Reece actually got sick of the attention, yes- rare I know, and took it off.
The kids got a free meal from Red Robin, culvers, snacks and stickers. So, We decided to go eat at Red Robin for supper. Brock Loved his burger. He said it was almost as good as FUDDRUCKERS. Wow.
We were on our way out to High Cliff after that but Grandma called to say she got a puppy and the boys wanted to see it immediately. Now they are asking to go see it again.... Maybe I will get a picture of it today.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Fortune...

This is what our Movie room looked like 5 months ago.... and after much sweat, cursing and tons of trips to the 'fix it' store....

It is coming along. We still have to finish the flooring (tile and wood floor), install the doors and finish the window in Brocks Room.

Zeb has been after us to get him lunch box since the 2nd day of school. He has desperately wanted to take cold lunch to school. I found this little cutie online and told Zeb it would be here in 7 days. He made a countdown on a sheet of paper and faithfully crossed off the days each day til it came... exactly as I said it would... And I was just guessing! Whew! Lucked out there!!
The first day we sent him to school with it, I put in a buck for milk at lunch and he accidentally threw it out! Hmmm. I guess we have to do drink boxes instead.

Tuesday we had a dental check up and Brock was terrified that he might have a cavity. Especially after what happened last time. Now, our dentist's office is loaded with TV's!! Every room has one. Zeb got to watch Nickelodeon and the older boys watched Casper the Friendly Ghost, while they hygienist worked. I got to watch HGTV.
Last time Reece was smug because he didn't have any cavities while we all did. Now, he got paid back for saying he didn't 'have to brush'. Now he will be getting 2 teeth pulled instead.
Gotta Love Karma.
One the way to the dentist Reece said to me 'Mom, Zeb's education is much more important than mine so you better bring him back to School first.'
Silly kid.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

So... What have I been doing lately?

The kids newest 'FAVE' game is Spore. They have been saving their pennies to purchase it ($50 bucks) and are half way there, but they lucked out an found a friend that can't use the game on his computer so he lets Brock and Reece play it here. They have had it all week and are LOVING it.

We are going to have a bathroom in the basement within the next two weeks. We picked out some tile call Mocha, with accents of Hazelnut tile. The guy that is going to do it is a professional that has just began doing this on his own. We heard so many good things about him so we are really looking forward to this.

We also just had the plumber come and fix Duners, um, water problem... remember the Brady Bunch post? Yayy!!! It took him like 5 minutes.

I have been feelin' all like an athlete or somethin', since I just signed up for a Half Marathon in Sarasota for February!! Can you believe it?

A girl I work with was tellin' me during the Fox Cities Marathon that she was going to be doing the Sarasota Grouper Half in February, and she was going to be running it. Wow! I thought. That is AWESOME! We haven't even finished this half yet and she already signed up for another one! So.... Fast forward to this past week... I was looking for some motivation to help me with the newest weight loss challenge I signed up for and asked her if she wouldn't mind if I trained with her. I told her I wasn't going to do the half but I wanted to train with her.

She said SURE! I was happy. I needed the encouragment. I like to know someone is waiting for me. We begin the 'training on October 26th. (Today I was quickly getting McDonalds on my way to work and who is in the drive thru behind me? She was!!!) Too Funny. I had a pretty good weigh in so I allowed my self 4 days of fat and bad eating, followed by 10 days of good, lean eating.

Then Wednesday she said "You should do the Half too!"
Wow. I guess that I never thought about it. REAL Athletes do stuff like that, not me.

Hey. I can be a REAL ATHLETE. Thanks Katie!!

I checked the price of tickets, and the race.... asked if my husband didn't mind me not being around on our golden anniversary (14 years on Valentines Day!) and he said "Go Ahead!"...

So February 12, I leave for Sarasota without my kids... or husband... to RUN! for 13.1 miles!!
in Sunny Florida....ahhhh.

Monday, October 13, 2008

High Cliff Ride

Today I rode my bike out to High Cliff quickly, I got called in to work so I had to squeak it in before Zeb's swim lesson and the impending rain... How can you NOT want to ride out with such great scenery.... If you live in the area... I HIGHLY recommend taking a drive/ ride out there ASAP.

I pass this house a lot on my rides out to High Cliff. I love the bones of it. It has such mystery. I always wonder why it was left to ruin. I bet it used to be a charmer.
This is the top of the hill at High Cliff. Love those Colors!

Yep, I actually stopped on the hill to take this and MANY pics... I know, I need my head tweaked.



This is the area at the bottom of the hill. Not a pretty as the top, but still nice.

It took about an hour to get there from my house, but only 35 minutes to get home... thanks to the wind. My legs are feeling it now. But my mind is thanking me. I had forgotten that I was actually getting exercise. I just got lost in the colors of the season.

Tonight when I asked about the MP3 player that Reece had in his back pack, he said ....
"But then you can't hear the sounds of the wilderness, like 'Get off the road you crazy biker!'. So peaceful."
Always my clown.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Breast Cancer Awareness Run/ Walk

With Thanks to Dez, I am back in another contest for weight loss. This one lasts til December 31st. We have to weigh in every other week, it is nice to have a longer time between weigh ins.
It is also nice to have some races to help motivate my exercise.

Today was the Breast Cancer Awareness Run/ Walk at Greene Isle Park in Green Bay.

It is a 2 mile or 5 mile race. I met some girls from work and we decided to all ride together. My employer gave us all T-shirts for Free to use on that day. So we all had ours on.

It was at a pretty area lots of trails and trees. Lots of people had signs on that said who they were walking/ running for. Over 2500 people took part. It kind of makes you realize just how BIG cancer is. It affects so many people.
Some people had "In memory of..." on there shirts, that made me want to push harder.
I saw lots of "In honor of...", but not a lot of signs saying 'SURVIVOR'.
A few, but not many.
I saw 2.

People die from this everyday, I was so lucky to be able to run it especially on such a nice day!!

There were 5 of us doing this walk/run. One of my co-workers, brought her Daughter that is between Brock and Reece's Age. I'll call her M. She was willing to run with me for parts of the race. On the way to the race her Mom announced to us that she just ran a mile in 9 minutes the other day.
Dang, I thought, Ok she is WAY FASTER than me. Ok Rachel... GOALS HERE... Think BIG.
*sigh*
As we began the race I kept thinking happy thoughts and asking her if M was ready to run yet. for about the first 8 minutes or so we hung together as a group, they kept our path narrow so it was going to be pretty hard to run around people, so I was glad she didn't.

After the first mile we decided to start to run. I think M humored me for the first 50 feet or so and hung by me, but before the next mile I just couldn't keep up to her anymore. She was easily weaving in and out of people. At one time I panicked when I couldn't find her, but she had started to walk. I was so glad...er... able to breathe again. She said her knee had 'popped'. I think she felt bad for me.
: )
I was grateful.

We walked to the next aid station, where they had Water and CHOCOLATE, M was very happy about the chocolate. She even pointed out an unopened chocolate that was abandoned on top of a cone that was marking our way. She was telling me about her cross country practices and meets for most of the rest of our walk, it was interesting. I really want Reece or Brock to do that next year, but we will see. No pressure.

As we finished the race, M picked up the pace just a bit, we finished just over an hour.

Unfortunately, her mom wasn't feeling so well when we finished. I began to think how lucky we were when we did the 13.1 mile walk, no one got sick, all did great.

Not today. Her poor mom spent the rest of the time dizzy and nauseous, I ended up driving her big truck home. I hope she is feeling better. We were all just happy to be no longer pelted by BITING ASIAN BEETLES. They were all over! And they were HUNGRY!!

Thursday, October 09, 2008

TV Drama...

Up here in Northeastern WI we have a local cable company called Time Warner. Then there is Direct TV or Dish Network.
Or nothing.

When I was growing up, there was many times my Mom would shut off the cable due to the price increasing too much. There was not much say we had in that situation. Then somehow magically we would get it back again for a while.

Last week Friday Time Warner Failed to 'negotiate' a contract with our FOX Channel know as Channel 11. Meaning they can no longer broadcast their signal. They are the ONLY station in the area that I watched at 9pm to get my fill of nightly news, I do miss that.

Which also means no more PACKER GAMES.... um... without an antenna. Which does kind of suck. Yep in the Heart of PACKER COUNTRY, they can not see the games in HD PERFECTION!!

I usually only watch the last 15 minutes or so, but still. I have been told that Antenna's are hard to come by these days and Time Warner gave away a bunch of them to people so they could get the signal (aka: watch the game).

Currently they are airing some kids movie channel on that station 'until they can resolve the situation'. It is beginning to sound like an election campaign with both sides airing 'commercials explaining their side of the situation.

Channel 11 would like to receive 'fair market value' for the broadcast of the signal.

On one hand I understand Time Warner's stance and appreciate them standing up for us, by not wanting to pass on the bill to us... the consumer. Time Warners statement says that we should not pay for something they can recieve for free. True?

On the other hand IF, the other stations receive payment for broadcasting of signals, then I can understand FOX's view too. Apparently they were able to reach an agreement with Dish and Direct TV.

I wonder if WBAY, or WFRV or NBC26 get payments for the signals like Fox is asking for. I really don't want my bill to go up, but seeing how many Packer Games are left and How FOX is the ONLY station with the nice early newscast... I wonder how many complaints they Negoiators are able to put up with.... Then again, they are maning the phones or customer complaints.

It will be interesting to find out the results. Hope fully soon. I hate conflict.

I need Zen and Harmony, ok, and the Packer Game or early new would be nice again, too.
I just kinda feels like my Mom just cancelled cable again. Only time will tell.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Catch Up Time

There is nothing that reminds you of how long ago school was, then trying to help kids at school figure out how to spell words for the first time. Arrggh. It is so frustrating to work with different kids, they don't know what you are saying or how you say things. Your kids understand you. They know you. It's weird.
Today I helped out at Zeb's classroom then I got to make sure Zeb's picture turned out for picture day. Yay! I will have at least one kid that is not sun burned...


I have not fallen off the face of the earth, but have been busy moving a TON OF FURNITURE. Getting all kinds of dust up my nose, and baking my butt um..... off? (more like baking my but on.. yummmmmm.) Any way, We got carpet in the basement now... (All together now... Yaaayyy!) we still need laminate (for the game area) and tile (bathroom). Currently I have been staining the doors.
Our living room furniture is now in our basement. Brock's Room is in the basement and he loves it. I put molding in Brocks New room and cable tv. He was so excited I hardly saw him the rest of the night! (But if grades begin to slip that is the first to go)
Last week I baked 2 different kinds of banana bread (gone in 24 hrs) and angel food cake that didn't last 12 hours.
This week I made triple chocolate cookies and devils food cake. I am going to make a German Chocolate frosting for that.
Brock and Reece had a contest this week who can cook a better burger. Brock smashed a bug into his , so I wasn't about to try any of his, neither was Reece so no one knows who won.


























We were Treated to a 'performance' by Reece as he practiced his cello tonight. Zeb and Brock helped him out by setting up the chairs and some stuffed animals to occupy those seats.