Congratulations Brittney and Andrew

My eldest niece Brittney started the year by marrying her best friend, Andrew. The wedding was originally scheduled for summer 2009, but a pending military deployment made the couple decide to move up the date.


Here, my brother, Mike, gets a hug from his daughter before she leaves on her honeymoon.

Annual Independence Day Blast at Jerry's

Bruce and I missed out on kick ball this year. We left the party for a few hours to visit with my family. When we returned Kelly was recovering from a knee-to-the-head injury she sustained while sliding into first base.

Cheese Art. This is a really bad photo of a really great idea. If you fold in the corners of your cheese slices, they don't melt over the edge of your hamburgers and into the charcoal.

It took a few hours for the fire to burn down enough for Jenna to roast marshmallows for s'mores. I had a s'more without the graham cracker and marshmallow. When I was about 10 years old, I was at summer camp and got really sick after eating marshmallows. Turns out I had the flu, but I always associate being sick with marshmallows so I don't eat them.

It's all fun and games until someone shoots an eye out. The guys were shooting off fireworks when Eric handed me a roman candle. I thought it might be fun to shoot it off, but at the last minute had a vision of it exploding in my hand and me trying to type one-handed and I quickly passed it back to him.

Somehow Tabitha got an eye full of ash from shooting off fireworks.

My Family Reunion

My cousin Candy lives way out in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Lafayette and Indianapolis.

We made the cross-county trip from Americus to Middle of Nowhere to visit with my family for a few hours Friday.

She has a beautiful country home with equally beautiful country flowers and a huge vegetable garden.

Her hubby, Dwayne, told me that he starts his tomatoes from seed in February and put them out in early April. He already has red tomatoes.


Here cousins Candy and Jacquie line dance with the disc jockey. Candy is my age and Jacquie is a year younger. Candy and I used to have so much fun terrorizing Jacquie when we were kids. It's amazing that she even talks to us now. Jackie's older brother, Joe (now known as Dan), is a pilot based in Denver and wasn't able to join us today.

The tough guys -- brother Mike and cousin Greg. Greg is a pretty good gardener himself. Last year his tomato plants were nearly 10' high.

Nursing Home Fireworks ROCK!

The Institution put on a great Independence Day celebration this year.

They provided lemonade, popcorn, watermelon and entertainment by Wil Yancy.

Although we're not really into the old-time music, we thought he was an awesome singer. At one point, Bruce wondered aloud if Wil was actually singing or just lip syncing.

And, he really knew how to play the crowd. He even got Grandma to sing a few bars.


The family sitting next to us brought along their kitten. They said he was one of a litter of barn cats, but the only one with six toes. Uuber cute.

The fireworks were donated from many local vendors. And, Tim the maintenance man, who is also Grandma's guardian angel, was the pyrotechnician.

Happy Mother's Day & Happy Birthday Iris

For the past several years, my brother, sister and I have celebrated Mother's day with our Mom by getting together for brunch. This year I made a breakfast egg/sausage casserole and took it down to Lafayette for the festivities.

My sister brought a delicious blueberry breakfast casserole and brother Mike provided fresh fruit and juices.

It was nice to visit with everyone and my three nices even dropped by for a short visit.


Mom actually had the whole day off work so it was a real shame that I couldn't stay in Lafayette longer to visit.

In the late afternoon we had Iris, Judy and her boyfriend Lynn over for dinner back at our house. We celebrated both Mother's Day and Iris' 92nd birthday.


Judy loved her DQ Mother's Day cake while Iris enjoyed her carrot birthday cake.

Dinner was grilled salmon, asparagus, salad and potatoes. We made the same yummy salad and potatoes as Christy and Gretchen prepared while on our St. John vacation -- much more interesting, and delicious than my usual fare.

Birthday Celebration

Happy Birthday to me! I don't get very excited about my birthday, but as far as getting another year older goes, today was a nice transition into the next year of my life.

I enjoyed lunch with the girls, low-fat birthday cake at work, lots of birthday cards and e-cards, and dinner out with my hubby.