Moonlight Becomes Us

Well, here we are, it's been a long time since my last post. At least this time I have a new sunset picture.



These next photos are from a "moonlight boating cruise." Poppy & I took the boat out with Cissy & Loverboy just before sunset and met some other boaters. we went to a beach and watched the sunset and then gabbed & had a picnic. I hiked up the hills around us & got these photos of the city. Unfortunately, since I'm not the photographer of the family, I didn't get any shots could give any indication of how beautiful the night was. The ride back to the launch was incredible -- the lake was like glass.

Maestro made it to Seattle safe & sound, and he's not homeless. He is jobless. He stayed in a hotel for a few days while looking for an apartment, then went up to Bwin's Mom's house for a week before moving into the new place. When I asked him if he had any kitchen utensils, he said that he has a plastic fork. That's okay, he can eat mac & cheese with it. Oops, but no pan to make it in. No problem, how about Easy Mac? Oops, no microwave. Oh, there's an oven, so he'll be able to make frozen pizza & corn dogs. Problem solved. I don't have any photos of him in Seattle, so I'll post this one in his honor. He has had a couple of classes and he loved them. They've met or exceeded all of his expectations. Yay!!

Juju's friend came for a visit. They've been friends since college. It was great to see her.

I have lots more to post, but I will get this published before Blogger boots me for lack of posting.

Pretty soon I'll be blogging about our new grandbabies!!

Quilts, Showers & Wieners

Get your head out of the gutter! Now you can keep reading...

I co-hosted a coffee on Monday morning for my quilt guild. I am really enjoying being a part of this group. They are so fun and willing to share their talent with you. When Susie & I decided to host a coffee (held once a month in someone's home) in September, we figured on an apple theme. I found a cute apple wallhanging pattern on a web site and it took a lot of 3" squares of different red fabrics, so everyone who came to the coffee brought some red fabric & we cut them into squares during the coffee. Everyone left with enough squares to make the wallhanging and they really seemed to enjoy themselves. I've started on mine, so I'll post a pic when it's done.

On Tuesday, Juju's former coworkers gave her a surprise baby shower. You can tell from the photos that she was actually surprised, since there is NO MAKEUP on her face. I got her to my house and she was "kidnapped" by one of the teachers and brought to the shower. It's ridiculous how much stuff she has.

I love this t-shirt. It says, "No autographs, please!"

Wednesday, I finally finished the quilt tops for the grandbabies. There's still a lot to do, but I was so happy to get this far! T~, do you see which one Tuck is????

The next photo shows how crazy you can get when the unborn child sucks out your brain cells. Juju left home with this "pair" of shoes on.

Yeah, not even close. She was wondering why she was limping, and looked down to see why.

One more funny picture: This is in Disneyland ---

Well, I'm going to my local quilt shop for their annual Quilt Pink for a Cure day. People bought fabric & a pattern for a quilt block, and the finished blocks will be made into quilts which will be sold on ebay for breast cancer research. Some of us will be sewing our blocks at the store and most others bought theirs, sewed them at home & brought them to the store in advance.

Random Acts of Craziness

Wow, has it really been that long? Well, I've been a bit busy... I know other people find the time to do fantastic blogs among all the other things they do...

Here's a sneak peek of what I've been working on the last few days. This is EO's Baby's quilt in progress. t really does NO justice to the fabrics, but I wanted to get it on the blog. I've also been working on Juju's son's quilt.

Before that, I was in Anaheim at a Women of Faith convention. It was great. The timing was either really good or really bad, b/c Babs & I left the same day Maestro left for K-Town and then on to Seattle. It was very emotional for all of us to say "see ya later." It turned out to be a great weekend and I made a new friend, too. Here's a picture at Disneyland's California Adventure. Nathan and Babs have a tradition of taking a picture in front of the "California" letter that goes with their name. There are a couple of snaps of the Lego store at Downtown Disney that Herc would like :)

A couple of days before Maestro left, we had a 40th birthday party for Babs. We decided to combine the "over the hill" blackness with a fabulous, glamorous vibe, and came up with a goth idea. We all (Poppy, me, Cissy, Rosebud, Juju, Bwin, and Nathan) met early at my house and put on black makeup & nail polish. Juju did Babs' with the notion that they were going out (Babs didn't see what Juju was doing till the end). Juju got Babs to our house under false pretenses and we had a great time eating & playing Apples to Apples. Then Babs wanted to show off her glam goth look so we went to a local bar for Karaoke. Some of you may need to pick yourselves up off the floor now. That's okay, I'll give you some time.

Okay, here are some photos.

This is Bwin singing Baby Got Back. There had been a girl doing her best to impress Bwin with her dancing, so Juju had to show her what's what.

The weekend before was really busy and fun too, with a party at Cissy's. We finished that day with a final visit to Hot Laps.

We returned from Cheeseland the Wednesday before that. What a great trip that was! Thanks to EO for her blogs so we can stay in touch & still "see" them.

Okay, back to the sewing room.

Love, Neenee

What Time is It?

Here it is, the most awaited event since High School Musical 2! My next blog!!

Yes, T~ and I watched HSM2 together (well most of it, parenthood gets in the way sometimes). BDE was at a HSM2 sleepover -- or, in most of the girls' cases, a very late party after which the parents get a phone call for a pickup. We all thought it was a very good movie with fun dance numbers and terrific clothes -- except for the pink tulle seeming to come out of Sharpay's butt in her big dance number outfit.

Okay, on to how our week was. We had a great time (of course). Last Sunday we went to the beach. It's a man-made pond with sand around it and is only a couple blocks from their house. BDE was in beach mode right away ---

Poppy threw the kids around & played motorboat with Baby.

Crumpet's family was there also, to add to the fun. Here's her son jumping off the pier with Dimples.



In case you're worried that we don't get in our pool time, here we are relaxing on one of the nicer days we've had --



Speaking of the weather, maybe it's best if we don't discuss it. Suffice it to say that it's been a mixture of warm & sticky or cool & rainy. About an hour ago, at 6:00pm, it was 56 degrees and raining. August. We have had some really beautiful days, though. 3. I counted. One of them was Friday, so we went to the zoo. What a great day!! It happened to be the weekend they do Zoo à la Carte. Lots of restaurants in the area have booths there and it's good stuff! The kids were so well behaved (even when it was time to go), the weather was perfect, we had fun, AND there was chocolate covered raspberry swirl cheesecake! BDE & I danced to the music from Radio Disney -- including, of course one of the songs from HSM2. Here are some shots from the zoo day.

One of the special events this summer is a place where you can pet the sharks (leopard & nurse) and stingrays.

Well, I'd blog more, but guess what is going to be on in about 2 minutes? Yep, HSM2 again!!!

Here I am, back to edit. I forgot to mention what has taken up a lot of my time this week! Wow! It's T~'s baby's new quilt! It's going to be twins with Juju's baby's quilt. T~, BDE and I went to the local quilt shop to pick out fabrics. It's going to be really cute. But not in a cutesy wootsy way. I have 2 of the turtles done and will be quickly caught up to Juju's. The first turtle's name is Tuck. What's gonna work??? Teamwork!

Okay, back to the movie.

I Know Cheese! I'm a Clownfish!

Sorry, there's no sunset picture tonight! I missed capturing last night's beautiful sunset.

And sorry about the title. I've been using that all day. "I know pretty! I'm a clownfish" etc. I just have to use Finding Nemo quotes as often as I can.

LOL Babs, that's Maestro who loves you for your looks. I love you for your voice, silly. And yes, I'll have to hear your rendition of The Prayer! I was in a little state yesterday when I realized that my Joshie was in Milwaukee the other day!!!! Yikes! Yes, I've seen him this tour, but I could've brought T~! Yes, someday I'll have to post on my little obsession with JG. But now, I just don't really have the time.

Things continue to be busy here in an Extraordinary Ordinary way. It was a really good "food" day. Lunch was at Culver's (sorry to those of you who don't know this chain) and dinner was a fabulous Chicken with a sauce of pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and pine nuts served over penne pasta. Btw, how did my daughters get to be such great cooks?? Skips a generation, I guess. Baby had a fever today, over 102. He didn't really have any other symptoms, so we'll see how he is tomorrow. BDE had her last Rubber Ball game tonight. Her team won!!! Because of TEAMWORK! It was actually their first win (and their last game). I don't have any photos, but she hit a double and scored a run and it was videotaped. The part that wasn't videotaped was when Dimples tried to jump over the little "creek" while looking for toads and didn't quite make it! It was so funny! I did get a photo of how he looked right afterwards.

It occurred to me after the last post that there were no pictures of Baby! Whaaaattttt!!!???? So I put in a few extra of him tonight.

Here's a photo of Poppy & Baby playing with dinosaurs.

Yesterday he took a nap on Poppy's lap.

One day T~ had a photo shoot and was a bit disappointed with the results. BDE & I gave her a foot rub which turned into a full afternoon of toenails, hair, makeup, and clothes. BDE loves shows like "What Not to Wear" and "How Do I Look?" and spent a long time picking out 4 complete outfits (jewelry included). T~ didn't like her makeup too much but we had fun anyway. Poppy said that we should go out to eat since T~ & BDE wore matching outfits and looked so great. Unfortunately, he suggested someplace with a playland. The last photo in this group is of Baby jumping up and high-fiving Poppy before landing and rolling on the ground.

The next day, the baby from the photo shoot came over here and cooperated by sleeping on Rosebud's new baby afghan. The shot turned out beautifully and I've seen some of the pix from the day before. Genius, I tell you!

We are having a great time (did I say that already?). Baby still asks me where Poppy is when I come upstairs every morning. He is getting the hang of it, though, and he really does know the answer to that question before he asks it. Last time I visited here, Dimples would ask every 5 minutes or so, "will you play cars with me?" This time it's, "will you play war with me?" You know, the card game. And it's more like every 1-2 minutes. Today he beat me twice in War and twice in Go Fish. Honestly. Without me letting him. Yes, I do look away when he's careless with showing his cards. I could look and cheat but I don't. But that's the extent of the niceness. BDE has beaten me in Rummy an unbelievable amount of times. I'm glad we don't play for money.

In the Merry Olde Land of Cheese

Well, here we are in Cheeseland! We spent a couple days in Vegas before flying here. The weather has been pretty typical Wisconsin weather. In other words, if you don't like it, wait a few minutes, it'll change. I ran this morning and it was only in the 70s. I haven't seen temperatures like that since March, I think. However, it was pretty humid. Some of our highlights so far:

Dimples and BDE had ball games at the same time on Thursday night. Dimples' T-ball team was on the opposite side of the park from BDE's rubberball game. T~ did her best to see each one at bat but it got ridiculous after awhile. At least they both always had someone watching them.

Here are a few shots of Dimples playing t-ball. They start out being pitched to and then go with the tee.

He's on his way to 1st --

Rounding 1st base --

Rounding 3rd and on his way home after hitting a grand slam!

(He was the last batter of the inning and they get to all run home when the last batter hits.)

I love this part of the game --

It was the last game of the season and here's Dimples with his trophy!

BDE had a great time playing too! She got a hit (Mommy saw her, but I missed it). I did manage to get a couple pics of her at bat and in the outfield.

I'm not sure, but I think their favorite part of the evening was catching frogs in the park afterwards.

Dimples is on the left with the black visor and BDE has a black tshirt on.

BDE going to extremes to catch a frog---

Friday was a very busy day. The 2 older kids had vacation bible school and since it was the last day, they did a program and sang couple songs. Yes, these songs are ALWAYS in my head now. One is Great Adventure by Steven Curtis Chapman. Good thing I like that song! The photos all turned out with satanic-looking red eyes and I thought that was inappropriate so I only have one shot of Dimples.

After that, Poppy and I went to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned. Except Poppy came home empty handed (no toothbrush for him!) because of a scheduling mishap. They said the next appointment was September 7th and he said, yeah, only too bad for me, cause I'm only here till the 29th of August. Wow, was he mad. He also needs a crown (which is why we had the insurance and kept our dentist here) and they don't know if they'll be able to work that out before we go back.

After going back home, Poppy and I met up with T~ and BDE, who were at a birthday party, to go to Happy's baby shower! It was great to see everyone. BFF's grands were there and they are SO CUTE! And I know cute grandkids! Poppy got to visit for a little while with Chief after they arrived home from a Cubbies game. Here's a photo of Happy with the quilt I made. After I left, I realized that this is the only photo I have of it. Oops. I often forget to photograph my quilts before they leave me.

BDE had a great time with BDile's daughter. What a cutie!

Here's BDE with Ra-chigga.

And BFF and me---

The sunset photo at the top was taken from here. Here's another one I took at the same time. I wanted some pretty Wisconsin sunsets too!

Tomorrow should be fun too. Their friends' church is having a pig roast and the kids are singing their VBS songs. However, it may rain, spoiling the "pig"nic.

We're having a great time here and we miss our AZ (or is it cra-z) friends & fam. We're looking forward to hearing more stories from the China trip, too.

Love, Neenee & Poppy