Shh! We're hunting apples!

Yesterday we went and did some apple picking. (Or hunting as Tiger was calling it.) It was a great day for it. Though a little hot actually. The place was PACKED! I couldn't believe how many people were there. We've been to this farm many times and have never seen it like this. Must have been the summer like weather in the middle of October.

Here are the kids climbing trees for that perfect apple:

The whole family, showing off some of what we picked. My mom took this one:


We went into the store afterward and needed to get some candy corn:



Ginormous Halloween cookies:



And of course we couldn't leave without their famous apple pie in a bag!

Yummmmmmmm!!!

Happy Saturday!

Sorry, I forgot to post a Flashback Friday yesterday. Well, ok, I didn't forget. I just didn't feel like it. I worked all morning and part of the afternoon and when I got home I just didn't feel like doing anything. Also had a bit of a headache.

Ended up laying on the couch for a while, dosed off a few times. Luckily Skowt went home with a friend from school for a sleepover and Tiger spent a couple hours after school at a neighbor friend's house so I had some quiet time. Didn't even eat dinner until 7:30, which in our house is pretty late.

So far it's been a really nice weekend weather wise. The temperature at the bank we drove by said 81 degrees. Not bad for fall in Wisconsin! Too bad hubby had to work all day! May take the kids to go play tennis later and we plan to get to a pumpkin farm or something tomorrow. Tiger wants to go apple "hunting". LOL Don't know why she called it that, she meant apple picking. They had fun doing it last year.

Later,

Professionally Speaking

Friday night was movie night with the premiere of the Jonas Brother's movie Camp Rock on the Disney channel. Had to watch the Jo Bros! It was a cute little movie. Only two more weeks until we see them in concert. I think I'm looking forward to it more than the girls. Yup, I'm a dork.

Saturday was tennis. While waiting for Tiger's class to finish and hers to start Skowt demanded I become a professional photographer. She knows how much I love photography and sometimes gets sick of the camera in her face. I told her it was a deal as long as she becomes a professional tennis player! She is doing great. She just needs to be a little more aggressive. Then she says I need to get rich so we can get a bigger house and she can design her own bedroom. Yeah, I'll get right on that!

Oh, before tennis we decided to take Tiger in to see the pediatrician. On Thursday she started getting a rash on her face and then it was spreading to her arms and legs. Turns out she has Fifths disease, I had never heard of it before. It's a rash caused by a virus, luckily it's nothing serious but there is really nothing we can do for it. We just have to let it run it's course. He's having her take some allergy medicine to help with the inflammation and itching.


Last night both the kids had sleepovers at friend's houses. Hubby and I didn't know what to do with ourselves! We went out to dinner then walked around at the park. We got home, checked the pool and added the chemicals it needed. Then we sat around for about a half hour going "Now what?" LOL We ended up watching some boring movie he had from netflix and went to bed.



Aren't we exciting??

Dells Adventure, Days 2 & 3

Day 2


Day two started out cloudy and cool. We went to the breakfast buffet at our resort and were planning to do one of the boat tours of the Dells. We weren't sure if it was going to rain but decided to go anyway. We could just sit in the lower part of the boat so as not to get wet. Here is what the boats looked like. (click on the pics to enlarge them, I posted them smaller because a had a bunch.)




Here is a shot of some of the sandstone formations.

We made a couple stops on the tour. One was at Stand Rock pictured below. This is where H. H. Bennett took one of the first "stop action" photos of his son jumping across to the rock.

Lunch this day was at the Moose Jaw another favorite of Tiger's. We've eaten there before and she always asks to go back. It is very similar to the place we ate the first day. Pretty sure it's the same owners.

After lunch was mini golf time and then just a walk through some shops in town. Skowt had to have some cheesecake on a stick. The rain finally looked like it was on it's way so we decided it was time to head back and dad hit the water park again with the kids while I relaxed in the room.

Day 3

On our last day we took another walk around the resort before we checked out. We realized on our boat tour the other day that there was another area to walk out on the cliffs and get a closer view of the river. Here is one of the boats taking the tour we were on.

There were 2 stairways built along the cliff for you to walk down to water level. Unfortunately they were both closed when we came by :( I had really wanted to climb down there. After we checked out we took another walk along the water in town. Saw this jet boat and the passengers getting soaked and decided that's what we'd do on our next visit.

We stopped for lunch and ate out on the patio overlooking the water. Skowt and I had our backs to the wind so had a fun time trying not to eat our hair. After lunch we took a wagon ride through some of the sandstone canyons. Here are our leaders for that ride, Sonny and Kenny.

Our last stop before heading home was at another resort that my mom had been at the weekend before. They had a local wildlife park set up inside the front entrance with a white tiger cub that you could get a photo with. So Tiger got to get her photo with her favorite animal......the tiger! She was quite excited. I do have a copy of it, but I still need to scan it. Sorry I can't share it yet.

Dells Adventure, Day 1

This weekend worked out great because it was the first Saturday in a long time that Hubby didn't have to work. We were able to leave in the morning rather than waiting until he got off work. He wanted to be on the road by 10 am........I think we pulled out of the driveway at 10:05. Hey, I had to do one last check to make sure we had everything!

It's about and hour and 15 minute drive from our house to the Dells. It turned out to be a great day for a drive, warm and sunny. We'd been watching the weather and were concerned about rain for the whole weekend.

Our first stop when we got there was for lunch at a fairly new place called Buffalo Phil's Grille. Tiger just loves the delivery vehicle..

After lunch we went to the adjoining Bowling and Entertainment center called Knuckleheads. You can connect to their website through the Phil's link above. We got in a game of bowling and played a bunch of the arcade games. Here's daddy and the kids goofing around between frames.

And yes, we even snuck in a pic of me, Skowt took this one.

After we were done there it was time to go check out our resort. We stayed at the Chula Vista for the first time. It was nice, I'd go back again. It was kind of off the beaten path, not right in the busy area of the Dells, right along upper part of the Dells and the Wisconsin River. This is the building our room was in.

There was one other like ours, basically with just hotel rooms. There was a building of bigger condos and across the street there were some golf condos/villas around the golf course. After our tour of the place it was water park time. Tiger had been dying to go all day. Here is the outdoor part as seen from our room.

We actually spent our time in the indoor park. After our fill of that we headed out for dinner. We ate at a place called Paul Bunyans. It's set up like a cook shanty for loggers and it's an all you can eat dinner. Not a buffet, but they bring the items to your table and you serve yourself and you can request as many refills as you'd like. The menu for the evening was BBQ ribs and fried chicken, yum.

The people who sat at the table next to ours were from another country, not sure where but they had accents. Anyway, it was just interesting to observe. Here we are (and most others in the place) eating our ribs and chicken with our fingers.......right? They used a knife and fork to cut up their fried chicken. I kind of felt like a slob! lol

By the time we were done it was getting late. We got a few things in the gift shop and headed back to the hotel, got settled in and watched a bit of tv. We were tired after a long day. Ready to get some rest, so why is it that no one else in the hotel can understand that? That is one of the big things that bothers me about hotels, people seem to have no courtesy for other guests. It's 11pm and people are walking through the halls talking at the top of their lungs and letting their doors slam. The family next door is goofing around with their kids, laughing and yelling. Then they decide the kids need a bath and of course can't go to bed with wet hair so start running the hair dryer!

Then Tiger is up wandering around the room at 6 freakin 30 in the morning. That kid does not know how to sleep in!!

Back Home

We're back from our long weekend in the Wisconsin Dells. Got back late yesterday afternoon. Had a good time (for the most part). Spending that many continuous hours with your family can lead to some friction here and there. Especially this family!

I will share some pics when I get to editing them. I'm so glad I didn't have to work today, the weekend kind of wore me out! So far today I've been kind of lazy. Just don't feel like getting back to "real" life and the laundry and dishes! I do need to get moving to the grocery store, was barely able to make sandwiches for the kids lunch today.

Weekend Recap

Friday Night Concert

Friday night I got together with some friends to go see the Nelson Brothers perform. They did a tribute to their father Ricky Nelson and mixed in a few of their own tunes. I had a nice time. I'd love to share a bunch of pics but I only got this not so good one from my cell phone.

I decided I would just take my small digital that fits in my purse. Well, I didn't plan ahead at all. I haven't used it in a while so I picked it up when the show started, composed the shot and ..........oops, dead battery. So then I dig around in the pouch and..........oops, no extras. Some photographer I am!

They hang around after the show so anyone interest can say hi, get something signed and get a pic with them, so we got in line for that. I bought their CD and got that signed and a friend took the picture. I have to wait for her to send a print otherwise I'd share that too........well, if I look halfway decent.

Tennis anyone?

My kids participated in a tennis Rapid Rally tennis competition on Saturday morning. It's a skills competition where they hit the ball against the wall as many times as they can in 30 seconds. I'm proud to say that Tiger got 3rd place in her age group. WooHoo!

Skowt scored 1st in her age group and will advance to the regional competition in June! She was just beaming. I think she has found something she really enjoys. She had a lesson later that morning and then we had to go practice again in the afternoon.

Sad news

Tiger was bumming this weekend. Her Beta fish died sometime overnight on Friday. I think that affected her performance in the tennis competition, she didn't hit the ball nearly as many times as she had in the past. Not only that but we also lost her hermit crab on Sunday. Hubby noticed on Sunday morning he was out of his shell, which is not a good sign. By the afternoon he was dead. She wasn't as upset about that though. Now she is asking for everything under the sun as far as pets go. Unfortunately, she won't be getting anything. Hubby and I are just not pet people and I know whatever we got we'd end up having to take care of.

Family Portrait

It's not that often that we have a pic taken of all 4 of us. I'm usually holding the camera and am not in many of them! Saturday we went to the park so the kids could go sledding, then we walked out on the frozen lake. We also drove around to the other side and walked on the bridge going over the waterfall that connects the two lakes in town. The kids had fun throwing snow in the water. It was cold but a nice sunny day so it was good to get outside in the sunshine for a bit.

I only took 113 pics in the hour or so we were out there.

So here we are. From left to right is me, hubby, Tiger and Skowt.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!

Hubby and I had our night out. We had a lot of fun at the Colin and Brad Show. We went out to dinner before the show and of course since it was Saturday we went to T.G.I.Fridays. Makes sense right? We started out at Olive Garden but the parking lot was more packed than it was the night we were told an hour and a half wait so we didn't even attempt going in. Then we headed to the theater.

BTW, did I mention I had to sit in the back seat? Yeah, that's right. I felt kind of lame. My husband uses his jeep to deliver mail so when he bought it he had a conversion kit installed so he could drive on the right. Well, to make things even easier he took out the drivers seat and built a shelf to put the mail on. He had to use it on Monday so didn't want to have to switch it back and forth. Plus his shoulder is still bothering him so he didn't want to lug the heavy seat out to switch it. So it's quite an interesting sight with him driving on the right and me sitting in the back on the left. We get some interesting looks! Especially after the show when we had to pay to get out of the parking garage. Priceless!

Anyway, got to the theater about an hour early. They weren't seating yet so had to kill some time. Luckily we ran into a guy hubby used to work with. He hadn't seen him in about a year so we spent most of that time chatting and catching up with him and his girlfriend.

The show lasted a good 2+ hours. It started a little after 8pm and we didn't get up to leave until about 10:40, I'd say there was about a 15 minute intermission. Not bad at all. I expected maybe 1 1/2 hours. It was hilarious and I'd love to see it again the next time they are near us. I guess Milwaukee is the city they have played the most......sounds like another favorite of mine! I don't know how they come up with some of this stuff so quickly off the top of their heads. Must be from doing it for so long. Most of the games were versions of or combinations of the games on Whose Line. Was our first time seeing the mouse trap game though. I never laughed so hard at people in pain in my life. They have a video on their site in the media section of them playing it (see the link at the beginning of this post) along with a couple others.
Check 'em out.

Half Way There

Well, we went and got our Christmas tree yesterday. It was frozen and had a bunch of snow on it so we left it in the garage overnight to warm up a little and brought it in today. Now it just needs decorating! Not sure when that will happen.

We also got a portion of our outside lights up. We usually put icicle lights all across the front of our house and up on the two peaks we have in the front. But since the snow came before hubby got out there this year looks like we're just doing a partial job above the garage and porch. Looks kind of sad compared to what we usually do. That's it, I told hubby next year he's putting them out on the 4th of July! My daughter is excited though because we have a couple light up penguins on the front porch! Those are new this year. If we just keep adding each year eventually we'll have a Griswold family house! LOL

I'm anxious to get my Christmas cards out but I'm waiting for some prints from snapfish and they are taking forever!! I participate in an exchange with other Rick Springfield fans and I want to get those out but can't yet. This year I also took a cute pic of the kids I want to put in the family/friends cards so those can't go out yet either!

Man am I out of shape. My daughter was the only one of 3 in her tennis lesson to show up yesterday so the coach had me grab a racket to play too. I should do it more often, I couldn't keep up with her (the coach) and she's probably in her 60's. She had taught two lessons before ours and had two more to go later in the afternoon. Now my arm is sore today!

Time to go catch Amazing Race! Later,

All about Rick

Rick Springfield that is. Well, as I mentioned before, my hubby and I went to see RS this past Saturday. What a nice bday present that was!
We left around 1pm to head down to Illinois. Can someone explain to me why I still use mapquest? It sucks. For some reason, unknown to either of us, it took us in a random 10 mile circle. We didn't realize until we were actually driving it that it took us off the highway we knew around in a circle and right back on the the same highway we had just been on. Argh! Other than that it was a nice drive, saw lots of farms along the way and went through some interesting little towns.

We got into town just after 3pm and checked out the venue area, then found our hotel, checked in and called the friends we were meeting for dinner. We went to a local family owned restaurant, it was nice but a little "fancier" and of course pricier that we're used to or feel comfortable in. The hostess was kind of snobby too, so that didn't sit well with me the whole time.

The show was wonderful of course. It was held in the Arcada Theater in St. Charles, IL. Very nice older theater. Only problem was that it was lacking in the restroom dept. lol We had great seats, 3rd row on the aisle on the right side of the stage. The show was scheduled for 8pm, but Rick didn't come out until about 9:10. The Squirts opened for him, then the owner of the entertainment company spoke for a while and they had one of employees sing at Rick's request. A little more stalling and then some technical difficulties and we were finally underway with the video montage just after 9pm. This was the first time I had seen the video and loved it, would like to see that show up on a DVD sometime. Though maybe with a little more detail.

As soon as Rick come out there was a bit of a stage rush from some fans behind us. I ended up with the this huge dude in front of me. I was not happy about that, but with the looks and the size of this guy I wasn't about to say anything!! lol Luckily a couple songs in the owner and some security came down the aisle and made people return to their seats. There wasn't a problem after that. Just a few people here and there coming down for a closer pic or two. That I can handle, but I just hate the stage rushing!!

The show lasted for close to two hours. Rick seemed in a very good mood and was having fun. So were the rest of the guys. Matt and George were wireless and were wandering all over the place! It was hilarious at times. I'd been fighting a cold for a few days prior and by the end of the night I could barely speak. Well worth it though.

Here's a pic from when Rick was out in the crowd just across the aisle from us. Love the pics where he's looking right at you!



We also got treated to hearing "Christmas with You" live! I have the CD and had caught the video a time or two before the show but loved hearing it live. Here's that video..

You can find out more about the CD on http://www.rickspringfield.com/, the proceeds are going to help the families of fallen soldiers. You can also hear any or all of the songs at many clear channel radio stations (Christmas with you list). A few songs from his "Live in Rockford" DVD are also available for viewing (Live in Rockford list).

And that brings us to the end of my Rick rant........for now!

Wax on, wax off

So we watched the Karate Kid over the weekend with the kids. They love to "play karate" with their dad and anytime he'd say some of the lines from the movie they'd look at him weird. So I said that he needed to show them what he was talking about.

Well, I guess the movie didn't really translate well to their generation because although they watched the whole thing, they were sitting there looking bored out of their skulls! Plus there was a lot more swearing than I remember but I think they were a lot more lenient with the ratings back then.

I still don't think the younger one got the point of how he was being taught. She just kept saying "he's not learning karate, he's just doing a bunch of chores". So of course my husband tried to tell her that that's why we have her do chores.......she is learning karate. She didn't buy that!

Casino Night

Well, I was right. No tales of winning big money on Saturday night. But it was still a fun night. Got to spend some time with a couple friends. We went to The Outback for dinner. We were having fun with all the Aussie named menu items and practising our Aussie accents. Trust me me, we weren't very good! Even got to eat dinner outside. It was a beautiful night and they opened a few of the outdoor tables.

Our money didn't last too long at the casino. Imagine that! I did think for a bit that luck was going to be on my side. We were just wandering around looking for the right slot and I spotted one called "Snapshot" with a big camera on it. Of course I couldn't pass that one up. I doubled what I put in plus a few bucks on the third spin. WooHoo! Spun a few more times and cashed out to move on. Of course I wasn't quite so lucky at any of the other machines I tried.

So after only about a half hour we had hit our limits already! Luckily there was a free comedy show going on in the Northern Lights Theater so we plopped ourselves down in there for a little over an hour.

Oh well, not any richer than before I went, but we always still have fun :)

Down on the pumpkin farm

My daughter took this one. Not too bad after she took some crappy ones and got a little instruction from mom :)



Choosing the right one...

Look at the gourds on her! LOL

Interesting spot for an atm machine, notice the boot on the left tire so you can't just pull the entire trailer away.

Calgon, Take me Away!!

I'm going crazy! I'm sitting here trying to organize all our recent medical bills. Yuck. They just keep coming. Just when you think you have them all you get another for some other doctor in some lab who read one test result and wants his share too!

Let's see, we went to the pumpkin farm this weekend. I'll share pics of that shortly in another post. I just needed to get away from the bills for a second.

Hubby has had a couple Netflix movies waiting to be watched for the past week or two. He's been working tons of hours and hasn't been able to get to them. We finally sat and watched Troy last night. Long movie, pretty good but a little too much on the fighting scenes for my taste. Yeah, I know that's what the whole story of Troy is about. It's amazing how much of it I remembered from reading it in college or whenever the heck that was. At least it had Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom in it, both in fine form which made the fighting scenes bearable (how do you spell that? Even with spellcheck that just doesn't look right). Whatever!

Later~

Apple Picking

We took the kids apple picking this weekend. They loved it! Both of them asked why we don't do this more often. They didn't realize there is only a certain time of the year good for picking. Both of them got to climb up in the trees to get their apples. The bottom of many of the trees had been picked but plenty were left in the higher brances of the trees.