RIGHT in the middle...

of a BUSY fair week:

the alarm goes off at 6:10 a.m.

the toaster comes out of hibernation

I smell Hollister and AE cologne/perfume coming from the basement

tags are removed from those new school clothes

cups of milk are poured

reminders are spoken

and -

the big yellow bus stops out front!


Wow - it's going to be a tough 'rest' of the week but these two were up, bright eyed and bushy tailed heading off to school.

I know today is the beginning of another GREAT school year - Good Luck Cierra & Chase!

Cheap fun!

Believe me, that's what Friday night was ALL about. We always search for 'live entertainment' for our Friday 'night out' which typically means we will be hitting a winery. LOVE wine and LOVE free concerts.



We headed over to Sunset Hills where David Davol was playing. Once inside, we spotted a group of women that were absolutely having a blast! Quickly we figured out it was somewhat of a bachlorette party.....wild girls, lots of laughing, limo parked out front....it was too much =)

We purchased our bottle and headed to the deck. We had two extra chairs so shared our table with a great couple from Lovettsville. They talked about their favorite winery which we hope to head to next month. Not long after we got settled, here comes "the bride" -



Of course, I just had to know what this was all about, ha! So I headed over to her table. It was her night out, she was from Winchester, getting married 9/6 and her 'party of girls' surprised her by having an 'ugly dress' party. Each of them had purchased their dresses from a thrift store (except for one - she had this one since 1987 - lol!)



This pink Cinderella dress was a total of $3.69



and one lady purchased her dress and shoes for $10! Don't they look georgeous?!


We noticed an older couple that were enjoying the evening as well and by the end of the night they were definitely into the party...



Needless to say, we had a blast with them. It ends up that their white limo broke down so they were waiting on another. It did finally come but not sure how many bottles were emptied prior to it's arrival.

David put on a nice show, being very patient and flexible with this group. Once things calmed down we chatted with him for a while and will certainly look for his upcoming performances.


So it was definitely one of those evenings where your cheeks hurt. It seemed like 2 hours of non-stop laughing =) What a better way to 'wine down' on Friday and jump into the weekend?!

It WAS a HAPPY Day!

Our weekend was great! Friday evening was definitely a memorable one, moving right into the weekend. On Saturday morning we slept in and were pretty lazy for the first half of the day (nope, no mimosas!) but did get ourselves together for a shopping event with Cierra to celebrate her birthday. And we were off -


we headed to Fair Oaks instead of where we had intended since there is an actual Aerie store there (plus all the others she wanted)! And what started out as her birthday shopping, ended up our annual 'back to school' day. It was actually very nice and a little different this year.....Ronnie participated! It was truly a 'family affair', ha!

Chase pretty much had in his mind set as to what he wanted....one pair of jeans, 5 shirts and one pair of shoes...so once we hit Hollister and he got one pair of jeans and about 10 shirts (they were on sale), he said he was DONE! Well, Cierra wasn't so while he and Ronnie sat in the mall, Cierra hit Aerie -


This was her first time visiting the store so let's just say 'it took a while' =)! But she LOVED it!

We headed upstairs and Chase was in 'shoe heaven' -


Ronnie really struggles when he wants a new pair of shoes that typically range from $100 - $140. BUT.....his foot appears to have stopped growing AND all in all, he only has 5 pair of shoes. Cierra on the other hand, has about 50! So once reminded, Ronnie was on-board. Needless to say I was really happy when Chase found a pair that he liked for $39! Wow, I think that is a FIRST!

The next stop was AE. At this point, 'school shopping' is over and Cierra is now on her own. Birthday money is required, lol. She was very disturbed with the prices and how few items she could get with her cash =( Chase on the other hand decided to take a break -



Seriously though, the best thing they ever did was put chairs/couches in Hollister and AE! Ronnie was in his glory, too.

Our last stop was Victoria's Secret and I must say that I am very proud. Cierra had printed some coupons from the internet and also had some savings from the mail so....she got a jacket and sweat pants, underwear and small mist for less than $20 bucks. GO Cierra!



It was late but Cierra was determined to share her birthday dinner with J, Ash and Kayden....luckily they were very flexible =) Across the mountain we went and this is how she was greeted....


Kayden was SO excited to give Cierra her Princess balloon -



And at the end of a wonderful day, a yummy meal!


And Kayden was so funny.....she 'hid' from the fire and then squinted when she wateched -



And clapped at the cook's presentation, haha!


But the grand finale' of the night was that she was totally in the mood to have her picture taken with every one of us! LOVE her!






I think Cierra would agree - she had a GREAT day!

Plan B

Ya'all know that we LOVE baseball so it seemed like a great idea to head over to Winchester



which is where the Cal Ripken 10 Year Old World Series is being held!

On the way there, the sky started to look pretty dark and once in the parking lot, the thunder was rolling. We were honestly very surprised to hear the game actually begin. Then came the lightning. The game was still underway amazingly enough but we decided to stand back and just wait......I failed because I just couldn't capture the lightning but the skies were pretty wicked looking -



and this was still during daylight....geez!

We ended up just having dinner and discussed Plan B. Looks like we're lucky that the event is all week so we'll try to catch Thursday's games.

Amazing Grace -

So - on Friday we had the honor of celebrating our friend, OJ's birthday with him and his wife, Kim. As anticipated, it was a late afternoon/evening full of laughs, spirits and travels.

Even before we knew we would be with them though, Ronnie and I had already decided to check out Bogati . Bogati was our newest 'find' with live music on Friday nights and it was pretty close to us to beat it all!

When I called to inquire about the 'type' of music, I was informed that we didn't need reservations and the live music happened to be a 14 year old boy named Adam who had never played there but from what they had heard was phenomonal. I was immediately excited and once I shared this with Ronnie, he was as well.

We found the place very quaint (OJ and Kim had been there before) and I spotted this young man -



I completely skipped the wine bar and headed to find a seat. I was in aw. He was singing a christian song that I wasn't familiar with but immediately loved. After a few songs, I did catch up with the 'rest' for our wine tasting. Of course, that's always very fun =)

We settled at a small table and just listened. Intently. And were very impressed.

I'm not sure you could say that "I've never met a stranger" but I'm not typically shy in introducing myself. During a break, we figured out who Adam's parents were. Once I made my way to them, I introduced myself and was very quick to say that we have a 14 (soon to be 15 year old daughter) that would love him, wink, wink! I learned that this was

1) Adam's first performance

2) he was playing his guitar in Winchester (on the street) and the lady from Bogati just happened to be walking by so threw a card at him and said she was going to get him 'off the street', haha! And, she did JUST that.

3) he has never taken guitar lessons and later learned

4) he does NOT have a girl friend

5)that he was saving money to replace his cellphone that was either lost or damaged which meant he was using his dad's antique cell in the interim. See....I can learn quickly, lol!

We stayed for a while and truly witnessed him singing his heart out -


he even sang "Amazing Grace", wow. I think we may have been the only ones there that new the words but we sang along, proud.

finally convinced OJ to contribute to the 'fund' (just kidding)...

but only after he had tried to share some of his bad habits, ha!

We eventually headed out but promised to keep in touch with Adam and his family. He has so much potential and was even 'tagged' in FB on my page as our potential future son-in-law, haha!

And here's one last birthday wish to OJ! We had a blast =)

But.....I can't end the post without mentioning that this morning at church I was very excited to see "Amazing Grace" in the bulletin =) sometimes it's just the smallest things that make me smile.

Fifteen- 15!?

Say it isn't so...

We will not be making a trip to the DMV for your permit.

We will not be searching for a 'car'.

You will not be scoping out all the 'places' that hire 15 year olds.

PLEASE....can't you stay the little girl we know?!

I guess not.

We will be going to the DMV, taking you back and forth to work AND buying a car that is 'just' right for you. It's inevitable, ha!

But regardless, we LOVE you and wish you the best birthday yet! We love you when you're serious..


we love you when you are being silly =)|

and we love you when you're just being you.....


Happy Birthday Cinderella... we LOVE you very much!

Summer Nights....

I LOVE summer nights. I have options.....sitting in the gazebo, swimming in the pool or just hanging out on our front porch. All of the options are perfect to me. Ronnie on the other hand, isn't quite as fond of summer nights. The temperature has to be just right and the humidity relatively low before he enjoys the evening as much as me. I have to say though that there have been many nights that didn't fall into his 'perfect' category but he suffered through, lol!

It's been really hot, dry and humid here which means we haven't been spending many evenings outside. BUT the past three nights have been GREAT! Tonight it's even cool enough for a campfire, yay!

Campfires used to be something we mostly did while camping but since we haven't been camping quite as much lately we started having them in our backyard. This is how it started -



And last month it turned into this -



So we're ready! Bring on the cool nights....SMORES are a perfect bedtime snack, ha!

Wordless Wednesday?!

NO!!! I just couldn't do it. This is too funny not to share AND comment.

Wanna guess what this is?


This is my dishwasher....full of suds! And, here's the story =)

Just before we were ready to leave on vacation, we were all on a mission to make sure all the dishes were clean, laundry was done and the house was clean. Cierra was in charge of the dishes. Hmmmm mistake? Not typically. She is very mature and takes charge of the house quite often. I thought about running the dishwasher before I went to bed but for some reason didn't. The next morning Cierra decided she would take over. Not sure what possessed her to decide to put regular dish washer detergent in the slot but she did (and evidently didn't think anything about it). Later that day they told me the dishwasher was leaking. Ugh! We were too busy to check it out and somewhat 'left it alone'. (sometimes if you ignore the problem it fixes itself, haha).

Once back from Ohio, we decided it was time to figure out the issue. Oh my......it took 4 cycles and several beach towels on the floor to even begin to make a difference. Finally the suds cleared out and all returned to normal. Whew! But I have to add that Ronnie was honestly ok with the whole thing! WHAT?! He even laughed..... Definitely a keeper for future reference when I do something this crazy, lol!

Wow – I have gotten WAY behind in updating our ‘happenings’ so let me start by apologizing. As you can imagine, from the 22nd of July through August 6th, time flew; fun was had; the weather was beautiful; life was good! And with that said, there really wasn’t much time to update during our vacation. Not to mention that SPRINT service absolutely sucks on the bay =(. Oh well…I’m back and I’ll do my best to keep this active for all my dedicated readers…..promise!

One of the important events that occurred was “MA’s” birthday. On Saturday, she was 86! Wow. So….happy Belated Birthday Ma! Mom made her a caramel cake (her favorite aside from Lemon pie of course, ha!)


My birthday also came and went. I was pleasantly surprised on my birthday ‘eve’ to come home and find this in my kitchen!


This old stove was removed from my childhood home many years ago and kinda placed out by the garage. During the winter, I noticed it and thought it would look really good in my country kitchen. (Of course I eluded that to my Dad…..) I honestly had no idea he would remember or even be willing to give it up but he did and I love it.

Then of course my favorite, beautiful, smart granddaughter and ‘DIL’ came to visit me. I would now be flaunting a bangle bracelet that is just my style “follow your dreams” “reach for the stars” “sing with all your heart” and “dance like nobody’s watching” is written around it and I absolutely LOVE it!

Then we headed off to Akron, Ohio (it was just a little warm)


but it was all good....by the time we arrived at the hotel, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees without a 'severe' storm! We actually went for the weekend to share in the excitement of Karra, Ally and Trevor's 'run down the giant hill' as part of the All American Soap Box Derby Race. Fear not though, my birthday was not overshadowed by any means. Ronnie, Cierra and Chase took me to Maize Winery for the evening.


We enjoyed some ‘snacks’, live music and sodas/wine.

Another perfect birthday thanks to all those that ‘love’ me =) Not to mention ALL the Facebook comments/wishes! I was honestly overwhelmed. Very nice!


I think that does it for the birthday’s last month but we DO have one coming up next Saturday, lol! Special privileges will also be part of this one….everyone in our area should be aware… a rookie driver will soon be on the roads!