What up, Weekend? 7/26/19

Woohoo!  It's the weekend!

I am linking up with the lovely ladies Lindsay, Beth & Charlotte at the Peaceful Posse. There's too much crap & negativity in the world, so these are all positive / happy / grateful posts in this linkup.

So there was a change of theme with the gender reveal party - I was going with "Twinkle Little Star, how we wonder what you are", etc. because that was one of the few songs I knew to sing to Angel when she was a baby.  It was cute, but I wasn't too into it.  

Then I found this....

   FUNNY!   She loved the idea, so I ran with it.  

A taco pinata!  

HOW PERFECT?!?!?!?!?  

I'll fill it with candy and appropriately colored confetti.

Since her party is at noon, we'll have taco salad & donuts & fruit / veggie trays & cupcakes also with appropriately colored filling. 

I've had one minor glitch so far.   I made the mistake of trying to save a few $ and ordering cute baby themed pink & blue M&Ms from Oriental Trading Co.

 I'm pretty sure someone sat on the bag in a warm room for a few hours.  

 Needless to say - I got a refund and I ordered them from the actual M&MS website.  Which arrived today in a heavy box, filled with thick insulating foam and 2 gel ice packs. 

So other than cleaning my darn house and grocery shopping - I think we're ready!

I'm getting pretty excited.  She had a monthly checkup today and sent me the video of the heartbeat on the Doppler.  The midwife commented that it's got a girls' heartbeat (faster than 140 bpm) but then hurried and said we'd find out for sure next Friday at the ultrasound.   

We (me, Randy, Angel, both sisters, niece & brother in law) took Mom out to dinner for her birthday Monday - and we all sat in the restaurant for a good 2 hours & just chatted.    My sister offered some hand-me-downs like a bouncy chair, etc that her grandson has outgrown.  Angel was like "I'll be happy to take anything you want to pass on!"  Smart cookie. 

 This is apparently THE big thing in Halloween decorations this year.  And yes - I got one!  So far, it's the only thing I've seen that I really wanted.  Took advantage of a 50% coupon and while they had just started stocking the shelves at Michael's - they did have these out!

OMG - I saw the most disgusting thing!  I finally got around to putting the mulch around the tree out front.  I had bought 3 bags of mulch 2 weeks or so ago and they were stacked neatly on one of the benches in the backyard.  The first bag went in without a hitch, but when I grabbed the second bag, I discovered an earwig nest!  I have not researched these nasty things, but I get the impression they're a little bit like bees in where they have a queen?  I don't know / wanna know.  So besides 1000 or so critters, there was a huge (imagine a chapstick tube!) slug-type creature and 2 smaller ones that were attached to the mulch bag.   I grabbed my garden bug spray & went to town.  

Then I moved the last bag and there was yet another big slug thing and 2 smaller ones between the slats in the seat of the bench!  By then Angel had come out to see (she thought I was exaggerating!) and she helped me get out the fire pit and burn those nasty things. 

EW ew EW ew EW ew EW.

So a quick (non-positive / grateful) update from last weekend.  That search we were called out onto, then quickly told to stand down?

Yeah....glad I didn't go!  

I feel so bad for the family, the 6 year old who saw it happen and for the trooper who found him. 

Just awful. 

So.

Speaking of the SAR team.  I'll be out patrolling the Eastern Michigan State Fair parking lot again tomorrow night.  Hopefully this year will be less eventful (from me!)  Last year, Kisses spooked as I was mounting and took off with me hanging upside down by my left arm.  In front of Lt and 3 deputies. At our first event with the horses. I had a lump & a crazy colorful bruise for a long time. And then later used the bumper of a truck as a mounting block and rolled my ankle and almost fell off the truck - with Lt right there keeping Kisses close to the truck (who didn't like the sound of the cars in the grandstand and was dancing around)  I made one hell of a first impression with a horse!  I'm feeling this year will be better, since I've been spending a lot more time with her and I'm more confident (I've always been around horses, but when you go a long time without riding and suddenly throw yourself into an unfamiliar situation?  Yeah.  Recipe for disaster.) so we should be good. 

Sunday, my niece & her fiance are having a BBQ so we'll be doing that.  It should be nice.  It's at a lake so we'll go swimming and who know what other shenanigans will happen. 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

What up, Weekend? 7/20/19

I'm a little late to the What's Up, Weekend Party!

I'm enjoying witting at home alone in the peace & quiet.  The Spouse is in Lansing doing radio comms for the Mid-Michigan MS150 bike event for Multiple Sclerosis and Spawn is at work. 

I am linking up with the lovely ladies Lindsay, Beth & Charlotte at the Peaceful Posse. There's too much crap & negativity in the world, so these are all positive / happy / grateful posts in this linkup (which usually happens on Fridays)

So let's see.  Last week, for our search & rescue team meeting, we got to get into our trailer and practiced setting up the radio antenna, and making a tarp into an awning for shade on the side of the trailer and learning where stuff is and what we have so far.  

Those of us who didn't know how to drive a 4 wheeler got to learn. 

That was a hoot!  And it came in handy less than a week later - but more on that in a minute.  

I've been working on a new "headstone" for my Halloween display.  I had this flat plastic skeleton and I used liquid nails to glue him to some plywood (it's 5 feet tall by 2 feet wide).  Next I have to seal the whole thing with DryLok and put a coat of paint on.   

Last weekend Angel & I went Kayaking with my niece Lisa (aka Lulu), her boyfriend and a bunch of their friends for her birthday.  She said it was OK to take Chuck along!  And after a little initial surprise by the ladies at the kayak rental place, they loaned me a lifejacket for him!

Safety first, ya know. 

The Clinton River was somewhat low and moving slow so we had to paddle a lot.  And at one point there was a log across the river just under the surface and we all got stuck on it and crashed into each other - LOL!  

 What was supposed to be a 3 hour trip took 5 hours.  Me, Angel and another girl were the first ones back to the dock with Lulu not far behind.  No idea where everyone else got held up!  It was pretty fun, tho. 

 We are missing 2 here - the girl taking the pic and the one who went off ahead on her own. 

I'm the one on the left looking all awkward by myself.  The guy in the Hawaiian shirt had been in that empty spot and moved over at the last second. 

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Woo - there was a small delay in finishing my post!  I just got a missing kid call out for SAR! I had my gear handy and only got about 3 1/2 miles down the road when we got the stand down message.  Whew!  Plus we finally have a storm rolling thru our area - they probably would have called us in due to lightning anyway. 

So this was the 3rd call out in the last 2 weeks.  I had Monday the 8th off work and there was an activation at around 0430 Tuesday morning.  I missed out on this one, since I had to go into work.  It turned out well, the state police helicopter picked her up a couple hours later with thermal imaging and was able to direct our people to where she was.  Minor injuries, but safe. 

Last Tuesday we got another call out about a missing teen.  I responded to this one (the call came in right as Randy was pulling out the grill to cook up some bacon cheddar burgers - sob!) and didn't get home until 0130.  There were still others from the team out looking with the K9 units when I left.  MSP helo showed up around dusk and swept the area but could only pick up deer.  

There were a lot of reg flags with this whole situation (parents waiting 33 hours to contact police / refusing to let Lt search a certain room in their house / this was her 5th time taking off, to name a few) and the search was put on standby the next morning, then called off altogether.  Thankfully, we got a notification Friday that she was found safe walking down a dirt road near their house. 

This is where I was glad I'd learned how to drive the 4 wheeler.  After going out *in the rain* for a couple hours on foot (we were out in "hunt country" where there are a lot of big horse farms and wooded areas), they decided to send out 3 teams on 4 wheelers.  I hopped on back of one, but the guy I was with didn't know how to start it and once I coached him to start it, couldn't get it to go.  I finally asked if he just wanted me to drive and he said yes, since he wanted to have hands free to use this huge spotlight he brought along anyway.   It was pretty fun to tool around at high speeds in hay fields and trails at midnight.  Until I got us stuck on a log.  Ooops!  I didn't learn how to back it up!  And of course we'd just talked to a police officer who was waiting for us up on the road.  I don't know if he could see us (physically lifting the 4 wheeler over this log), but we could definitely see his damn spot light flashing our way!

Anyhooo.  That's the excitement around here.   Most of my plans for tomorrow are based on it NOT feeling like Hades outside.  I had planned on mowing the lawn last weekend, but Randy & I trimmed tree branches & cleaned out gutters and I climbed around on the garage roof to blow that down & cut branches out of the power lines and that were rubbing on the shingles. Monday it rained.  Tuesday I went on that search.  Wednesday I ran errands and took a nap.  Thursday was Randy's birthday so I took him out to dinner.  Then Friday & today have been insanely hot.  I guess tomorrow will depend on if it rains or not.  I still have to do the mulch around the tree out front yet, too.  But either way I will be able to get some stuff done here in the house, since it's only 2 weeks until the gender reveal party!

I pulled into a cemetery to get a pic of the rainbow yesterday and noticed this statue watching it, too. 

Here's the 17 week grand-baby burrito bump!  

She took my advice and is using a hair tie to hold her shorts closed. 

Weigh-in Wednesday (and stuff) 7/10

Holy crap, it's the second half of the year!  That whole saying about the days being long and the months or whatever being short - is so true!  

So, what's up ma peeps?   Did you have a good 4th (or Canada Day)?  Wednesday night, Randy & I went to my sisters to fix her satellite dish and hang out for a while.  Thursday we went to Mom's and watched Clawson's parade - they actually have a fairly big parade for such a small town.  Then we had lunch and came back home.  We both had to work on Friday, while Angel went up north to my other sister's place on the lake for the weekend. 

Saturday I got up and finally finished putting the landscape bricks around the base of our second big maple tree out front.  I did the first tree for Angel's grad party in 2015, and it was just time to make them match.  I'm letting the dirt settle for a few days, then I'll put in some red mulch & it will look so nice!

Sunday, I went to the sister's and we met some friends and went horseback riding.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be out on the trails. 

Last Monday was mine & the Spouse's 13 anniversary!  We both took the day off work and just did a whole lotta nothing.  We went & had breakfast, then had his & hers pedicures!  We started that on our 10th anniversary when I jokingly suggested he go with me... and he thought for a minute, then said OK!  And we've had them done together ever year since.  He likes them because it makes him feel like he has new feet. 

 

After our pedis, we stopped in At Home and checked out the Halloween stuff.   We stopped in all 3 local Salvation Army stores.  Had lunch.  Went home & napped.  Went & had dinner.  

Sounds like a pretty lame day, but we enjoyed ourselves muchly.  

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Alrighty.  This is actually supposed to be an off week for Weigh-in Wednesday, but I went to a different 'studio' on Tuesday for last week's meeting and wasn't home until late-ish Wednesday.  So here we are! 
btw - I was up 3.3 lbs last week.  It was ugly.   But 1.6 lbs came off this week, so that's a good thing.  I was expecting the opposite, since I've eaten like a piggy with week (cough, cough Culver's) - but OMG, look at this sandwich I had at the little bistro place we went to for our anniversary!

It had the burger patty, bbq beef brisket, bourbon carmelized onions, lettuce, tomato, pickle chunks & supposedly bbq sauce, but they must have skimped on that.  Plus a side of sweet potato fries.  Randy had turkey & muenster on a pretzel roll. 

I think because I did a lot of yard work out in the heat, I sweated off a lot of the crap I was eating.  Those damn bricks?  I had to make 22 trips from behind the house to the front yard, since they were too heavy to carry more than one at a time.  Then backfilling the ring around the tree with 4- 40lbs bags of topsoil.   Mowing the lawn = a 2 1/2 hour chore.  And I'm sure I wasn't drinking enough water so I'm catching up on that.

Saturday I'm probably going kayaking for my niece for her birthday.  That's actually a really good arm workout!  I've only gone once before, so this will be fun again.

I'm hoping I'll be able to sit down this weekend for a few and do some menu planning - which I absolutely hate doing.  And I need to get busy cleaning this disaster area of a house (that counts as activity, right???!) since we're having a gender reveal brunch on August 3 for Miss Angela's little burrito baby - she's 16 weeks tomorrow!! 

It's going to start getting busy with all of my SAR team events & training.  We're going to be patrolling the Eastern Michigan State Fair parking lot again.  We're supposed to be in a parade next month - I sense disaster.  And "safety days" whatever that is - which I strongly suspect will mean giving pony rides again.  I can't - I'm deceased.  Then I don't even want to think about September. 
Training Every . Single . Weekend.   

Ugh.

Anyhoo.  It's time to turn in - so I'll leave you with this lovely sunset from the other night. 

Wow.  Did I ramble or what???