Last post for today

So, now that school's out for a while, I have no excuses not to update everyone on the going's on in Casa V. So far, we are almost done Christmas shopping. Lightning DID pull the tree over, for anyone who may have thought he wouldn't/couldn't. He thought about it for at least a day though. He did it about 2:30 am on the second night we had it up.

He also destroyed the remainder of the peanut-butter and Hershey kiss cookies I made. Dan had some and forgot to put the container in the microwave when he was done. He left them on the counter where Lightning pulled the lid off, then pushed the container off the counter and onto the floor so he had better access. He's a monster! He's learning though. We miss Lucky lots :) and are learning to cope with a "kitten" as mom calls him when she is sticking up for him.

You might be a redneck if...

I think Jeff Foxworthy wrote some jokes about our household.......







Anyone else have car parts in the freezer???

Didn't think so..

On that parts-related note, kudos to Tim, Doug & Jeff for recently beating the Dan-expected time for putting brakes on an F-150! :) You guys are awesome- Miss you!

Cheat- O's

So, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I have a special fondness for junk food. You can imagine why I like Cheetos. Not too long ago at Kroger's, they had a special where if you buy something I needed anyways (other chips maybe??), you get a bag of Cheetos free. The only Cheetos left were called Giant Cheetos. I figured, "You can't go wrong with big Cheetos, right?" Well, they weren't bad, but they were definitely giant. They were hard to fit in your mouth, then they cut your mouth as you chewed. So, I still love my Cheetos, but I give Giant Cheetos two enthusiastic, orange, cheese-covered thumbs down.




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Just in case you were wondering :)

** A Christmas Miracle :) **

Ok, that might be a bit dramatic, but I have to say it was definitely FUN watching the Dallas Cowboys beat the undefeated Saints last night (Yes, even in DECEMBER!). GO COWBOYS!!!

Vacay details, part III (the end!)

Dan and I had both taken Tuesday off, so we tried to get some things caught up around the house. I had lots of laundry with the new clothes I bought on the trip (plus what I hadn’t gotten done before we left). I also cleaned up the house. We had lunch at the Upper with Dan’s dad. That was nice. Mom’s cat, Hemi, had been boarded at the vet because he had been sick. He can be a little scrappy when he doesn’t want to take his medicine, so she decided leaving him with around the clock care until she gets home was the best. I went to pick Hemi up and he was happy to go home and see his mom when she got home. He enjoyed his “ vacation ” at the vet’s office and even brought home some hilarious souvenirs.

On Wednesday, it was back to work *sigh). I need another vacation already :)

Let the Christmas season begin...

Vacay details, part II

On Saturday, we went shopping again and stopped at a yummy restaurant called Braum’s. We need those in Illinois too! Tim had previously told us about their yummy goodness, but that was the first time I experienced it for myself. Tim and Nadyne treated us to some delicious ice cream. Yum!!! Later that evening, we went to La Hacienda, the local Mexican restaurant. It was nice and the food was good. And the margarita made me happy pretty fast :)

Sunday was Randy’s birthday. We had celebrated it on Thursday, but there was some leftover cake, so it got eaten. We had some Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks for dinner. Yum again!

On Monday, we set out a little after 7 for the return home. We had really nice weather and the ride went fast for the long trip it was. We got home about 7:30. Lightning was ecstatic to see us.

We had a great vacation and were thrilled to spend lots of time with some of our favorite people. Randy and Pat have a great home and we are thankful that we were able to stay with them. Much better than a hotel :)

As promised..vacay details...

On Wednesday, we embarked on the long journey to Texas. We left home at about 7:30am. On the almost twelve hour journey, we saw lots of traffic, a huge Indian statue, and the never-ending highways of Oklahoma (among other things). We arrived there a little before 8pm and were greeted by Randy & Pat, Tim & Nadyne, and Mike (Pat ’ s brother) & Anne (his wife). We ended the evening by going to Sonic and enjoying our first-ever Sonic meal. We always see the commercials, but don’t have any Sonics near us. Not bad!!

Thursday was Thanksgiving. We started the day by going to Wally World for groceries for the meal. They had lots of Dallas Cowboys stuff- that was nice. I made my famous Buffalo Chicken Wing dip. I learned the hard way that Wal-Mart does not carry mild sauce, so we went with buffalo. It was much hotter than when I normally make it. We had a nice dinner with lots of nice people. We joked that we had to sit at the “kid’s table” because there were so many people, we had to set up a card table in the living room. It was nice. And Dallas won! :)

Friday was nice too. We usually go “ Black Friday ” shopping at home, but decided not to as there was limited room on the ride home. We did end up at a mall and Old Navy in the afternoon. The only things I really bought were for myself. I haven’t started my official Christmas shopping yet. On the way home from the busy mall, we stopped at a little restaurant called Golden Chick. They don’t have those in Illinois. They should! Yum! Later that night, we went to a place called the Beer Barn. Randy & Pat live in a dry county, so we drove to the Beer Barn and bought some goodies. We also found out that Lexington lost the 1A class State Football game earlier in the day. Boo! Poor Pat had to work 10 hours that day. I used to work retail, so I know that day can be brutal.

Rockin' Turkey Day in the Lone Star State!!

We just returned from spending Thanksgiving in Texas. We had a wonderful time. I am SO glad we went! I promise more details to follow!

Hope everyone else had as great of a Thanksgiving as we did :)

What the pumpkins look like now

as of a few weeks ago....


This is how the pumpkins looked before they became compost in Dan's parent's field. The one looked like an alien and the other one looked like it needed dentures. Funny!!

Happy Halloween!!!!

We had a little pumpkin (and index finger if you're me!) carving party last night, and here's what we ended up with.




Not too bad!!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween! Eat lots of candy!!

Love,
D, B, & L

Where is your favorite place to chill?

Mine's at the beach, Dan's is in the garage , and Lightning's is....

in the sink!

For some reason, he thinks kickin' it in the sink is the bee's knees!







Where's your favorite place to chill?

Fall is here

Not too much new to report with us. School's back in session, papers I should be working on, Dan's been working on his truck (and washing those annoying green aphids off the front of the Mustang!) Fall is definitely here. It was cooler this morning than it's been in a while. Lightning's doing well. He's jumping and fetching like a mad-man. Other than that, things have been pretty much status quo...

The Price is Wrong!!!

So, I've been watching The Price is Right since I was a little girl. It comes on everyday right before my favorite soap opera, Y&R. I haven't felt the same about it since Bob Barker left.

Apparently, neither has this guy....the one sleeping in the corner!! Our DVR caught this and needless to say, Dan and I spent many minutes laughing about it today. Hope he remembers to have his pets spayed & neutered!!

May your day be more exciting than his ;)

GOT IT!!!

For those of you who I tell how funny it is to watch the cat jump at the fish tank, Dan was finally able to get a picture. Lightning usually runs away when the camera comes out, but this weekend, he was really hamming it up!

Here he is performing a mid-air slap to the front of the fish tank. Funny schtuff!




Here he is taking a nap and blocking the light from his face. He's such a ham!

Another Busy Weekend!

We have been quite busy this summer and it's been a great one so far. Last Friday, Grandma B turned 80. We spent the entire weekend celebrating and we are now recovering! On Thursday night, Randy & Pat flew home. Friday morning, we picked Tim & Nadyne up at the airport. We later went to Monical's (a family fave plus, they don't have them in Florida), then to Rocky Mt. Chocolate- yum!! Connie had a cookout that night.

Saturday night, the entire fam went to Bernardi's (another family fave!) and celebrated Grandma's big day. Sunday, we had an open house at the Community Center for her. We had a great turn out and it was a nice day. We followed it up by a pizza dinner. Later, they fired up mom's firepit and we had a fire, complete with s'mores. Yum!!

On Monday, we toured the local windmill farm, it was cool (see pics). They were working on some of the windmills, so they weren't turning. I wouldn't want that job!!! We then had lunch at Green Gables- Mmm..

On Tuesday, everyone headed back home. It was one of those sad days when you realize you've been looking forward to something for a long time, and now the time is over. Between all the celebrating and running around, it went by way too fast!! We had a lot of fun while everyone was here. We're looking forward to next tme already!!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th! It's raining here, so not too many outdoor festivities taking place in this area. We are planning to go to Bloomington, then to our friend Gerard's for margaritas & a cookout (or maybe a cook-in??)

Last night, we went to Roanoke to our friends, Jeremy's & Sonya's, for a cookout. We saw lots of people we hadn't seen for awhile and had a great time. We all went to the Roanoke car show after dinner, then watched Elvis perform, then watched a very colorful and nice fireworks display.

After the fireworks display ended, an older lady in an old car that had been parked a few spaces away from where we were sitting, pulled out to leave. She must have gotten her foot stuck between the gas and the accelerator as the car "stalled up", then sped straight into the crowd right across the street from us. She hit several people, one of them was stuck under her car and she was still on the gas. Someone shut her key off and several of the men from our group ran over and helped to lift the car up while others pulled the man out. Several other people were hurt as well. We just found out the man passed away on the LifeFlight helicopter to the hospital. It seems pretty surreal, like something you watch on tv, but never expect to happen "for real". Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured, their families and the others who saw it happen.

Stay safe everyone!

One crazy weekend

My cousin and her son & daughter were home from Virginia this past week/weekend. There was lots of cooking out, shopping, and unfortunately for the little ones, kickball with Dan & Bevans :) No one was seriously injured tho, except maybe Dan and Chris who aren't used to keeping up with lots of kids! I think they have both recovered and getting ready for another "round" in a few weeks. Danyl and the kids left Monday morning after lots of sad goodbyes. We miss them already! My cousin Sarah's daughter, Brandi (yes, she is named after the coolest person ever-haha!! :) came home with them and will be staying all summer. It will be nice to spend some time with her as I haven't seen her in several years (since Tim's college graduation- what a trip that was!! ;).

At about 10:30 am Monday morning, our phone rang. It was my uncle Randy who drives a veterinary clinic around the country to horse shows for a group of veterinarians. He was passing back through, so we all met for lunch. He had been in town a few weeks ago and we got to hang out with him for a few days then, too. This is Randy on his first trip through with the clinic. It is pretty cool! He has to have some mad driving skills, too, as this truck is ginormous!!

Hope everyone has a great night, I'm taking my tired self to bed!

Fun weekend

So, we decided to finally get away for a night and go to Grand Bear Lodge. It is an indoor water park with an indoor amusement park, mini golf, and a little pizza/bar area. I just finished school for the summer and we have had several really busy weekends and have several more coming up, so we decided Sunday was a good time to go. I'm glad we did, we had a great time!

Here are some pics. The one of the pool was taken through glass, so it's a little foggy. There are two waterslides in the very back (the "hole" in the middle of the wall). There are four flights of stairs you have to go up to get to the top (not easy for a fat girl! ;) but well worth it. You go really fast down the slide and really get tossed around. Dan thought they were pretty cool too (imagine that, Dan thinking speed is fun!) He was also pretty taken with the architecture and how they used these gigantic tree logs everywhere. The pictures don't really do them justice, they are enormous!

A big thanks to Gammy for looking after Lightning Bug while we were gone!

Talk to you soon!!

School's out for the summer!!!

I dropped my last paper off at school today (in the rain, of course). All my other papers are done and I have taken my final in this class. I am officially done with school until sometime in mid-August. Allright!! Now what am I going to do with all my spare time- haha.

Happy Memorial Day!

Hope everyone is enjoying a nice day off work or school (or both - bonus!), taking it easy, and being thankful for all of those who have made this day possible for people like me to enjoy.

Not much going on around here today.

Mom and I (ok...mom) replanted some of my flowers yesterday as they have gotten too big for the containers they have been in.

Dan discovered there were some bad things going on with the rear axle of the old truck (imagine that, after all he's been through with that thing!!), so he has been working on replacing that.

I started my 4-week summer class last Monday, so with working all the time, I haven't been home much. I have to keep telling myself "it's only 4 weeks...." We'll see.

Lightning has been up to being his funny self, minus the trip to the vet last Monday to "express his glands." I'm not sure exactly what happened in there, but I know he didn't enjoy it, not even a little bit, and we have been told not to feed him any "people food", not even milk. Here is a picture of him annoying the fish. I am still going to get a video of him doing this one of these days, he's just so fast, it's hard to capture him jumping. He cracks me up!!

Hope everyone has a great day!

Happy birthday to Dan!!

Yesterday was Dan's birthday. He turned 21. :) We both took the day off work. I have a huge paper due on Monday, so I worked on that a little bit. Yesterday must have been "Take off work to go out for lunch" day because the Upper here in town had NO parking spaces available at lunchtime, so we went to Kick's in Towanda and waited for a table. We had lunch with our friend Gerard. It was nice, I'm always up for some good fried food.

Dan got lots of happy b-day wishes (sidebar message to Mama J- You're forgiven, Love you ;) and it was a good day. We went to dinner at Chili's and learned an important lesson about call-ahead seating. If I hadn't called ahead, we would have been waiting forever. We waited about 5 minutes and got lots of dirty looks from people who had been waiting forever. Our fajtas were awesome then we came home and had cake and ice cream. Yum!

Dan got a PS3. As those of you who know me can attest to, once I have a surprise for someone I have a hard time keeping it. I gave the PS3 to Dan on Thursday night and he hooked it up immediately. Here are some pics of him and his umm.. helper? installing it. We watched Hancock on it once it was installed (I got 2 Blu-Ray movies with it- Casino Royale and Hancock). The picture was great!

Tomorrow is the first car show of the year. We are planning to take the truck as long as the weather is nice.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Spring's here!!

Today was a gorgeous day! It was around 80 and sunny. It was a little windy, but I can easily overlook that in exchange for the sun!! It was probably a curse to do so, but I washed some of the winter coats and hung them up in the closet, hopefully until fall. I didn't put my flowers out yet tho, just in case.

We had a baby shower today for my cousin and his wife's new little man, Lucas. He's a doll. He's so content, he just looks around at everyone, then sleeps. It was great to see everyone again and just hang out and talk over a tasty brunch.

Also... Happy Birthday to Nadyne!! We hope you had an awesome golden birthday today!! ;)

Later all!

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter everyone! We hope everyone has a great Easter. Hope the Easter Bunny left everyone lots of Reese's Peanut Butter eggs ;)

Eat lots of candy today and have a great day!!

Same old story!

It's been a while since I've blogged. Nothing too eventful here lately. We are still waiting for spring. It is still snowing here just about every Monday- I'm beginning to think it's a conspiracy to ruin my day off :) The last 2 or 3 Mondays it has snowed quite a bit then it has all melted by the end of the day.

Saturday was a joyous, long-awaited day in the ol' V-household. While I was at work, Dan was able to get the truck's brakes fixed! He's been working on it occasionally since at least last fall. The truck has been, well, monkeyed with, and it's hard to tell sometimes what has replaced what since the truck was built 50-some years ago. But, hey, it stops now and that's important. He also got new rims for it. I'll have to post a pic of them at some point.

I am trying to convince him now that his next purchase should be power steering. Have you ever rode in a vehicle that doesn't have power steering?!? I hadn't. Let me sum it up for anyone who hasn't been unlucky enough to experience it for him or herself. Put a big cardboard box on top of a skateboard (don't secure it in any way, oh, yeah, and no seatbelts allowed- they apparently didn't put them in all vehicles at that time!) Now find the tallest hill you can find and climb it. Once at the top, get into the box and try to "drive" down the hill using a steering wheel that is attached to absolutely nothing. That's pretty much it. You have to fight the wheel to turn or go straight and it may or may not decide to follow your command. It's really a lot of work. I'm not sure how so many people survived in the 1950's if everyone's vehicles drove like that!!

Lightning is doing well. I recently learned that apparently some cats like bread. After his third offense of getting on top of the refrigerator and dragging the bread down, then eating it through the bag, we decided to start keeping the bread in the refrigerator. He's something. He keeps us on our toes!!

Hope everyone has a good night!

Part V- This is it- I promise!!

So on Monday, we all hung out again. In the evening, we went to Doug's for a cookout. Here is a random pic of Doug walking back into his house. Doug has a really nice house - and he is quite the chef!

We then watched a movie with Nadyne and Tim, who had to work the next morning :(

We had to be at the airport early on Tuesday morning. Tim & Nadyne dropped us off and Tim went to work. Nadyne headed home, hopefully to catch up on some rest from the crazy week!

We had a great time and hope to be back soon (or see everyone here if they want to "come home.") We definitely miss our Florida Family and can't wait to see everyone again. So to Tim, Nadyne, Doug, Jeff, Mama J & fam, Blue, and anyone I missed, thanks for the BEST spring break ever!! :) Love you guys!!!

Vacation Part IV - Yes, there's more!!

So, on Sunday, we all slept in, attempting to recover from Saturday night. Later in he evening, we joined Nadyne's family (many of her relatives were also "home" that weekend, including her brother from Texas and her Dad from Iraq!). We had dinner at a really nice place called Shepard's, which was right on the beach. We had a great time! I tried crab legs for the first time (I normally don't like the taste of fish). They tasted sweet, so I liked them. They are pretty good, but a lot of work. However, they were no match for the dessert bar ;)

After dinner, we all went outside to the beach. We were able to get some really good pics! Here's one of Nadyne's family..they are a pretty cool bunch!




Here is one of Tim & Nadyne. This is my favorite picture of them!! Don't they look great!






Later that night, we went to visit Mama J. It was great to see her again. We also got to see her the next week when she came to IL to see her new grand baby, Evan. He's a cutie!

Part III - It's never-ending!!

On Saturday, we met up with one of Dan's best friends, also named Tim, at Gators for lunch. Tim now lives in St. Pete with his wife, Holli. (Do all "Tims" from L-town move to Florida?? Maybe!) Dan and I both worked with Tim at Main Street Pizza in high school (that's a whole 'nother blog!! :) It was great to see Tim and I know Dan enjoyed spending time with him.

We then went to Candy Kitchen by the beach and bought candy and ice cream (are you seeing a theme here?!? :) Eating ice cream on the beach is fun, yet difficult. I failed miserbly and ended up getting more on my clothes and in the sand than in my mouth (as anyone who knows me well will tell you, it isn't uncommon for me to share food with my clothes!).

We went to a club called Howl at the Moon on Saturday night. There are dualing-piano guys who sing and play. If you've never been and like music, go! You'll have a blast! Everyone from our group agreed their favorite song of the night was when one of the guys played and sang the Soulja Boy song "Crank That" (I think that is the name of it, it's the one where they say "youuu" a lot). They played everything from Snoop Dog to Neil Diamond to Vanilla Ice. It was incredible and fun. Vianney, Nadyne's sister-in-law, got up on stage at one point. She's the one closest on the left in the purple shirt. She rocks!

(A HUGE "Thank you" to Doug, who not only let me borrow his camera since I forgot mine, but also sent us the pictures. Doug, you're awesome!! :)

We then went back to Tim & Nadyne's where we all crashed. But not before a 1:57am run to Burger King. I say 1:57am because they close at 2:00am. I'm sure they were not happy with us, but no one found any strange things in our food, so I guess it was all good!!

Vacation - Part II

On Friday, we met Nadyne's brother, sister-in-law, nephew and mom at the Florida aquarium. They have lots of neat stuff there. Here we are (thanks to Tim for sharing the pics!) and here are some other random shots..

Gators!!

On Friday night, we went to the Tampa Bay Lightning/St. Louis Blues game. We had a blast! The Blues were leading up until the last few minutes, then a rookie for the Lightning tied the game with less than 20 seconds to go, so the game went into overtime. Unfortunately, the Blues scored in just a few seconds, so the game was over and the Lightning lost. We will get to a game where the Lightning win one of these times!!

Vacation - Part I

I know, it took me long enough :) So here are some details from our vacation. I'm probably going to have to use multiple posts as I have a ton to share.

We arrived on Tuesday. Tim picked us up at the airport, then we went to Biff Burger, one of our favorite St. Pete hangouts. Yum! They have the best burgers ever and serve tater tots instead of fries. Pretty cool! That night, we picked up wings and had them for dinner. We also met Nadyne, She rocks!! Our L-town friend Doug, who also lives in Florida now, came over to see us that night too. Doug also rocks! We then met up with another friend, Jeff, and we all went bowling that night and had a great time!

Wednesday, we went fishing. We fished with shrimp!! ALIVE ONES!! Someone had to split mine in half for me. Yuck! I think Tim was the only one who caught a fish, but we all had a great time and the weather was gorgeous. I also got to see a dolphin swimming pretty close to where we were. That was cool! Later that night, we went to a really good pizza place for dinner, then stopped by Wal-Mart to grab some stuff I needed. In the process, we noticed they were putting Easter candy out on the shelves. You can probably guess what happened next. We bought a ton of candy, ice cream and junk food, then stayed up late eating candy and playing cards.

Thursday, we slept in, trying to recover from the candy-and-cards bender the night before. Tim and Nadyne cooked us chili (yum!) that day. Tim had his pool league that night, so we hung out with Blue and Nadyne. Here's a pic of Blue. He is my favorite dog-nephew!

Vacation!!

We just got back from spending a week in Florida. It was so nice to see the Florida fam and the sun again. It's been a pretty brutal winter here. It's been a long time since we have been on vacation. With Lucky's medical needs and everything else, it had been tough to get away even overnight. It was a much needed vacation!!

We had a great time, hung out with some of our favorite peeps and met lots of cool new people as well.

Since I'm exhausted right now, I promise to write all about it next time. Hopefully, I will have some pics to share with everyone.

Goodnight ;)

In other news..

I've been a bad blogger lately! It's been almost a month since I've posted.

What's been going on with us? Not much, things are pretty much status quo around here and that's just fine with me.

As you can see, Lightning has been settling in just fine. He has a lot of energy and speed, so that is new for us. Among his favorite things to do are to chase anything that moves, run under our feet, snuggle up to anyone who will pay attention to him, bite while he's playing (I'm not so fond of that one!), and sit in the laundry room and meow at the top of his lungs because it's tiled and quiet in there, so it echoes like nobody's business. He's a character!

A few weekends ago, we took a girl's shopping trip to Tuscola for the day. It was fun and it was a gorgeous, warm day.

Dan and I went to Capponi's in Toluca for Valentine's Day. Yum!! He loves the chicken tetrazzini and that is the only restaurant that has it. Other than the power going out while we were there, we had a great time.

We are looking forward to warmer weather. If you look at the ground outside the house, you can actually see grass (although it's dead) instead of snow. I'm so sick of snow and cold weather and am so ready for Spring!

Well, there you have it. I think you're all caught up on everything now :) Hope everyone is doing well!

My new 2010 Mustang!!

We went to the Auto Show in Chicago on Saturday and I realized this is the closest I am going to get to a new car this year. They gave these away at the Ford display every few hours. They had some pretty cool stuff there!

New little man

We decided our house was too quiet, so we searched around and found the perfect new little man. He was at the local Humane Society. He has a sad story of being left, see here http://www.hscipets.org/tragictail06.htm. (He is the one on the far left although this isn't a very flattering pic as he looks mad!)

They estimated him to be about 1 1/2 years old, so he is still very young. He has a ton of energy, so he keeps us on our toes. His HSCI name was Koala, but Dan insisted it was a "girly name," so we named him Lightning, because he is super-fast (and I want another Lightning truck, but for now, he will do :)

In this picture, he looks like he's making a pirate face, but he just really hates the flash. I don't blame him, it is kind-of like staring directly at the sun.


More annoyance with the flash...














He is really fast and has some pretty sharp claws. He would make one heck of a tug-of-war player!












Demonstrating his stretching skills














Reverse stretch to reach the toys in the corner.















We think he is all right!

Brrrr...

Not too much new to report today, just that it is still cold here. Technically, it's in the teens, so after the -30 windchills off an on for the past month, maybe I shouldn't complain too much. Now I understand why people move to Florida!! :)

RIP Sweet Little Man!!

As many of you already know, December was a bittersweet month for us. We had a great Christmas with our family and friends, but also had to have Lucky, our 13-year-old cat put to sleep after he became ill. Luck was our baby, we have had him since about 3 months after we got married, so needless to say, our house is not the same without him. Here are a few of my favorite pics. He was quite the little guy!!

New Year's Resolution

Hi, everyone! Happy New Year (a few weeks late)! Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and warm!

My new year's resolution for this year is to be better about staying in touch with everyone, so I decided to create a blog to share our adventures through the year with everyone.


Hope everyone has a great new year!