PAD 5/27/12-5/28/12

Warning! This is going to be a long post. A lot has happened in the last two days and I have lots of photos to show.

5/27/12

Sunday our church had a High School Graduation Ceremony for the home school students in our church. It was a very touching ceremony and a little bittersweet. Angel was a senior this year, but chose to graduate early so she could begin her schooling as a cosmetologist in January. Because December is already such a crazy month, we didn't do anything special for her then. She was just done with school here and then went off to school in the cities. She was asked to be a part of yesterday's ceremony, but since she'd already been out of school for a while, she felt a little odd about it and then we weren't sure that Mike would make it home in time, so we decided not to. Part way through the ceremony I think we both realized what we were missing. As our Pastor's wife mentioned to me today, it's good to have that closure and to celebrate her accomplishments. We were already planning on having an open house in October when she finishes her cosmetology schooling, but now I think we will have to plan some sort of a presentation for her during it as well. It will be a good time for Mike and I to really express to Angel how proud we are of her. And then, silly me, I didn't get a picture of the cake I did for the open house afterward. I'm sure I can get a copy from one of the 50 or so people there that were taking pictures though.

After the ceremony, we came home to find Daddy home! YAY!!! Boy did we miss him while he was gone. I was exhausted from the day so he took off to pick up some Subway for dinner for us. While he was gone a storm started up. He made it home just before the hail began. That was just the beginning. It hailed for close to 30 minutes. We got 5 inches of rain here in less than 2 hours! There was a total of 8 inches for the night. Needless to say, our sleepy little creek wasn't so sleepy last night. In fact she climbed right out of her bed and tried to climb into ours. :o) I am SO grateful that Mike was home during this storm. I would not have known what to do. First, he realized how quickly the water was rising and moved the swing set up out of the way so it wouldn't be swept into the culvert and cause more flooding. Then he realized we needed to move the vehicles to the other side of the creek or we may have found ourselves stranded. He was right. Quite a bit of our driveway was washed away and definitely not safe to drive on. The creek was about 8 feet from our patio at its highest point. So glad it decided to start going down at that point!

Yes, I was crazy enough to be out there with my camera taking pictures. It was hard to get good pictures while trying to keep the camera dry, but here's some of the better ones I got.

Hail sounds funny on our metal roof. Can you see the creek way at the top?

This was about 3 hours later. That is too close to my house!

We could hear the rocks as they tumbled through the culvert or bounced off the sides of it.

This would have looked really neat if it wasn't our driveway washing away.

5/29/12

Mike and I were up at 5 am to go see the damage done. Not too bad considering what it could have been.

This is the neighbor's driveway and yard. His is gone all the way across, but I couldn't get a picture through the bushes.

Here's the exposed part of our culvert. That's a lot of soil and gravel gone.

The creek has re-diverted itself. It used to run directly under Michelle's feet in this photo. All that sand came from upstream.

Michael also took part in the Memorial Day Presentation, so we took off for that in the morning, headed to Mike's Mom's afterwards for a bit, and then into town to get some shopping done. Completely forgot until our way home that we were going to have to haul the groceries from across the creek. My smart hubby thought about grabbing the wheel barrel. Much easier.

That's my Marine!

Michelle always stops in to say hi to Cody when we visit Grandma.

We got to meet Robin and Willie, Carole's new pets.

That's about it for our exciting adventures this weekend. I'm going on about 5 hours of sleep right now and we did a lot of walking today, so I am about to collapse.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/26/12

5/26/12

Today was another rainy day here, but between showers, I took a break from the kitchen and Michelle and I took a walk outside. I tried to get a picture of the bird nest. The mommy was out and we counted 5 tiny eggs in there. Unfortunately, the opening is too tight to get my camera in. Maybe I need a flashlight to help lighten the inside so the camera can focus better. I will try that later.

I am going to make this a short post. Since I have all the urgent cake projects done, and I'm sick of being in my kitchen right now, I'm going to go help Michelle in her room. If you don't hear from me in a couple of days, you might want to send help. :o)

 

And this is why I have to go help...too easily distracted!

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/24/12-5/25/12

I was on a roll, and now I missed a day, but I really do have a good excuse this time. I was working on some cake projects just before I was going to log on and post my update when my daughter called, a couple minutes after that my hubby called! By the time we got off the phone, it was time for bed. Sorry journal, family definitely comes before posting. So, without further ado, here's my post for yesterday and today.

5/24/12

It started raining Wednesday night, and didn't quit until late Thursday evening. My rain gauge measured 5 inches! We watched the creek throughout the day as it started rising. Here it is at it's highest point. It overflowed its banks, but not too bad. Michelle and I pretty much stayed inside working on school work, house work, and cupcakes for the recital. It stopped raining just before we had to leave. :o)

Michelle did a great job at her recital. I would try and post the video I got, but blogger wouldn't let me last time, and I'm too tired to try it now. Maybe later.

5/25/12

Here's the creek this morning. Back in its own bed again. :o) Michelle played in it for a bit, but she spent most of the day cleaning up her room. We're hoping to go through and put some things in a yard sale so we can better organize her room. She has WAY too much stuff! I don't know that I will have time to go through it with her this week, but she can clean it up, put things away, and go through some of it without me. I'm hoping to go through my craft stuff too and get rid of some of the stamp sets I never use.

I spent the majority of the day on a graduation cake. I can't wait to post pictures! It's for a young man who is going on to attend college in the hopes of being a missionary. I hope he enjoys the cake. He wanted a mocha-espresso cake. Now, I don't like coffee. Ever since I was seven and was burned by a pot of it that fell on me, I've never liked the stuff, however, that dark chocolate mocha buttercream smells (and tastes) DELICIOUS! I'm thinking that is one recipe I should never have discovered. Not good for my waistline, not good at all.

I did get to take a nice break this afternoon and chat with Angel on the porch after she got home for the weekend. :o) I love hearing about her time at school, and it was such a nice day to sit outside and chat.

I will leave you with this photo. Michelle learned how to make jello yesterday, and this was a shot of got of her sneaking some before lunch. Love that she's wearing my grandmother's frames.

Well, tomorrow will be a long day in the kitchen for me so I am going to close here and go get some sleep. 

PAD 5/23/12

5/23/12

We didn't get any more done on the deck today since we worked on school work and went to piano lessons. Today was the last day of lessons for this school year. Tomorrow night will be her end-of-year recital. She's been doing a great job at playing. She still thinks it's fun--that's a good thing. :o)

 
I almost didn't get a photo for today, then I remembered this little guy. Actually, I shouldn't call him little. For a moth, he's huge. Our Pastor is quite the bug expert, and was given a female luna moth a couple of days ago. He had her in a special cage and said that within a few minutes of putting the cage out at night, 2 males came along. While he was putting them into the cage, another one dive bombed him. Unfortunately, moths don't live very long, so after doing his fatherly job, this one passed on. Pastor has the female in a jar and she's already laid a hundred eggs or so. It should be pretty cool to see them develop. He gave this moth to Michelle and tomorrow we're going to do some research on how to mount it. I laughed 'cause when I went to take the picture of it, I found the cool whip container she has him in on the end table next to my bed where she's sleeping. She kept taking him out and petting him all afternoon. I have to say he is pretty soft, but is it weird that my daughter is playing with a dead critter?

Well, it is late and I need to get into bed. I haven't heard much from Mike, but I assume he's having a good time. I know their itinerary was pretty full, with late nights and early mornings, so I'm sure there will be lots to talk about when he gets home.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

5/22/12

Woo hoo! I can't believe I've posted 3 days in a row! Today was a windy, but gorgeous day so Michelle and I started the morning trying to get as much of the deck painted as possible. We still need to do the stairs, the outside of the railing, and the underside, but it looks better already. I'm thinking we may have to invest in a paint sprayer to finish out this job, though. My arm is killing me!

After lunch, Michelle finished up her school work for the day and I worked on cake projects in the kitchen. The next two weekends will be crazy busy with cakes so I'm trying to get some of the decorations done ahead of time.

Since the deck was dry, we decided we needed to grill some hot dogs for dinner and eat out on the deck again. The coals were still hot, so we had to try roasting some marshmallows. Yum! We didn't have any hershey bars in the house, but we did have a package of rolos. Our new Smores were a hit. :o)

After dinner we cleaned up the upstairs a bit and then snuggled on the couch to watch a bit of TV. Tomorrow we will need to get the downstairs clean. ;o)

I will close here and go get some sleep. All this sunshine has worn me out.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/21/12

Michelle and I had quite a fun and productive day. We spent the morning doing chores and running errands, then did some school work outside. It was too pretty to be inside. We had some fun visitors while we did our school work, but unfortunately, I didn't have the camera ready to capture them. First, we heard a group of crows cawing over head. We looked to see about 15 of them trying to chase a hawk away. They did not sound happy. Then, a hummingbird came along to drink some nectar from our columbine flowers. Really wishing I had my camera out at this time. A bit later, as I was doing some cleaning on the deck I heard noise coming from the driveway. I looked over to see Layla come around the garage chasing a wild turkey up the hill and into the woods. Really, REALLY wishing I had the camera at that point! Michelle then saw an owl fly across the pasture into the woods. What a fun afternoon outside. I'm so glad God allowed us to live here. Totally awesome!

We were going to come in and get some house cleaning done, but decided it was still too pretty to be in so we started to paint the deck. It was built with treated lumber, but the wood is definitely starting to show some wear and tear. Since it is the main entrance to the house, and it is on the second floor, we figured it's probably a good idea to get the wood sealed so it can last as long as possible. We bought the supplies a while ago, we've just never gotten around to doing the work. So, since the weather is supposed to be nice for a couple of days, we decided we'd start on it today. Michelle was a SUPER helper for me. She did lots of painting, and even made dinner for us. :o)

Working hard.

My little chef made pizza and chips for dinner. Yum!

Mike called and said their first stop today was at the Brookefield zoo near Chicago. Here's one of the pictures he took there. Hopefully he'll remember to get a couple of pictures with him in them this week. ;o)

Well, I'm going to get off of here. I have an 8 year old in my bed waiting for some snuggle time.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings

PAD 5/19/12-5/20/12

It's 11:30 Sunday night and I am on alarm clock duty. Mike is leaving tonight for Washington DC as one of the chaperones for the 8th grade trip. He's all packed and ready to go and thought it would be a good idea to get a little nap in before he has to leave at 12:30 a.m. My job is to make sure he gets up on time. Michelle wanted to stay up till daddy left, but that didn't happen. They're both upstairs sleeping, the house is quiet, so this is the perfect time to update the journal.

5/19/12

Saturday turned out to be our hottest day so far (yes, we turned the AC on), so Mike spent most of the day getting some of the many outdoor "honey-do" projects checked off his list. One of them was to install this...

This is next to the garage and right in the flower bed. Our area went through several very dry years recently, so every time I water the flowers I find myself worrying about the well going dry. Digging a new well is expensive, and not something we want to do any time soon. This way, we can save the rain water and use it when it's needed. We had no idea how much water actually comes off a roof. We got the rain barrel in about 2 hours before a thunderstorm hit. My rain gauge said we got an inch of rain. We checked the barrel this morning, it was full, and it was quite obvious that the overflow valve had overflowed quite a bit, and this was just off the garage! Can you imagine if we had one off the house roof? Unfortunately, my veggie garden is quite a ways from the house, and uphill, so I don't think we will be able to use this water up there, but Mike is thinking about building me a tool/potting shed up there and setting one up next to it. If we used lots of old windows it could double as a green house for me. :o)

Speaking of the thunderstorm. It was a good one! Our power went out long before the storm got to us, so we played a little charades and then Michelle and I sat on the floor in front of the storm door and watched the night sky light up while singing Bible songs and enjoying the dropping temperature. That was a fun way to spend the evening and I think it may have helped Michelle not to be too scared of the thunder. She looks forward to storms now, anyway, in the hopes that the power will go out and we can play charades. When Nick and Angel were little, we used to play hide-n-seek in the dark when the power went out 'cause that's what my family did when we were little. That was so much fun, but it's not so much fun when there's only 3 people playing and one of them is scared to hide on her own still, so, we play charades by candlelight.

I also wanted to share these pictures I took Saturday, actually, this first one was taken last year. You may remember this garden we put in the first summer we were here. Mike built it from fallen branches on our property.

Well, this spring the top cross piece on the right broke in half. While we were working outside, I noticed that the notch Mike had put in the upright was quite a bit larger than he made it so I took a closer look.

Look what was inside! It's hard to tell, but I believe that is a chickadee. If you click on the picture you can see it a bit larger. You can make out her eye and beak. I don't think her eggs are hatched yet, but I promise to keep checking on them and try and get pictures if I can. Next time I'll try and manual focus a little better and not use the flash, if possible.

5/20/12

Well, today is Sunday, so we went to church, of course. We had to leave a couple minutes early so Mike could get home, change into his uniform and head off to the school to help with the color guard for their graduation ceremony. The minute he walked out the door, it started pouring again. Boy I was wishing we had another rain barrel hooked up. :o) Did I mention the temperature drop? Yesterday we almost hit 90, and today we didn't even make it to 60. I'm learning to be prepared for any kind of weather here at any time of year.

Anyway, I took these photos this evening. Here's his stuff all packed and ready to go. They are going to be touring the DC area. Their itinerary looks pretty impressive, and  I'm sure they're going to have lots of fun. I'm looking forward to mac-n-cheese and pizza for dinner all week. Just kidding...maybe.

And, here's my little sleepy head, and her companion, trying to stay up till daddy leaves. I guess it's time for me to go wake her up to say "good-by" to daddy. She's going to be quite sad. :o( Me too. :o( But, I know he will have a great time, he is in God's hands, (which are far more capable than mine), and we will spend the week trying to get our school work wrapped up for the year, (along with a couple of cake projects).

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/17/12-5/18/12

5/17/12

So, Thursday Michelle and I spent working in the house on school work and crafting projects. It was a little windy and chilly, so we didn't get outside much. After we finished our school work, I worked on some graduation cards and Michelle turned a box into a taxi cab. Too bad there isn't much room in there for passengers.

5/18/12

Yesterday may have been chilly, but today made up for it. We were in the 80s today and almost had to turn the AC on. I love living with all the trees around us. It definitely keeps the temps down in the house, but the upstairs still manages to get a little warm in the late afternoon on hot days. If tomorrow's this warm out we may have to kick the AC on since I have some work to do on cakes and our kitchen, as you may already know, is upstairs. I don't really want the frosting melting off the cake.

It was a beautiful day out, so Michelle and I spent most of the morning working in the veggie garden and trying to get some more pruning done on the blackberry brambles.

Do you see that? Those buds will be blackberries in a couple of weeks, and there's thousands of them in this patch--probably 3 times more than I had last year.

You see that? The arrows are pointing to those buds. I have to get through those old branches to get to the buds.

Do you see those thorns?! Yes, blackberries come with a price...usually some of my blood. I did remember to wear a long-sleeve shirt this time and didn't get cut up too much. I am slowly working my way through the old canes and trying to make paths through the brambles to get to the center. I guess I better hurry up and finish canning the berries I have in the freezer from last year so I will have room for this year's. Guess what I'm sending out for Christmas presents this year?

We are excited to find out that Nick will be out of the Air Force this September. That's a little earlier than expected, but his MOS (job) is over-manned so they are letting some out early. He will be coming home and then probably starting college next spring. Look's like Mike's going to lose his office soon.

Well, I'm hoping to get some more crafting done this evening so I will close here.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/14/12-5/16/12

5/14/12

Monday was another beautiful day. The girls and I had some errands to run in town, so we decided to stop at the lake for a picnic lunch. Yes, she's wearing a tutu.

5/15/12

This is where Michelle and I did our history lessons today. I love spring in Wisconsin. :o) Just wish I had more time in the day to get the gardening done that I'd like to do... and the scrap booking, card making, painting, sewing etc. Oh well, one project at a time. Our school year is almost done, and then there will be a little more free time in the day.

Mike and I had a date night Tuesday. We needed to drop our lawn mower off at his mom's while hers is in the shop. Michelle asked if she could spend the night at Grandma's so after dropping them off, we went out to dinner and then spent a quiet night at home. ;o)

5/16/12

Does anyone know what this flower is called? A friend gave these to me and I think they are beautiful, especially when they are blooming next to my red tulips, but I don't know what they're called.

I spent some time outside this morning working in the gardens. We picked up tomato plants from the store last weekend because Layla dug up the ones I transplanted from seed. Mike, Angel and I worked on getting some chicken wire around the vegetable bed this weekend to keep her and the bunnies out. Since that is up, and there is no frost in our forecast for the next 10 days, I figured it was safe to get them in the garden. I also started pruning some of the old canes from the blackberry brambles. I forgot to put my long sleeve shirt on first. Thankfully we did find some really long garden gloves for me last year, so my arms only look terrible from the elbow up. Blackberries have some serious thorns! :o) I worked for about an hour out there and didn't really make a dent. Oh well, I will work at it a little each morning.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/12/12-5/13/12

5/12/12

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day so Mike and Michelle spent the morning outside while I worked on cupcakes and Angel slept in. :o) We met Mike's Mom and took her out to lunch for Mother's Day. The afternoon was spent pretty much like the morning, enjoying the sunshine and baking, except Michelle spent the afternoon at her Grandma's and Angel had to go to work.

I finally got around to getting this mailed out. I lost 2 pounds when Angel cut my hair! I guess that's one way to lose weight. :o)

5/13/12

Mike and the girls took me out to lunch after church and we stopped at the home improvement store to pick up some needed items for the house. Michelle has mentioned once or twice (OK, maybe a bazillion times) that she would like a tree house, so we checked out what we would need to build a platform/tree house at the top of her zipline. This way she can have her tree house and not need to climb on a table to reach the zipline. It's going to be done in multiple stages. It may not get a roof until some time next year, we'll see.

I decided I wanted a family photo for Mother's Day, and thanks to modern technology, we were able to.

 Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

5/11/12

I have 200 cupcakes to do this weekend, so I really should be in the kitchen right now, but, we have some errands to run today and there isn't enough time before we leave to bake a full batch before we head out the door. There is enough time for me to update the PAD Journal though. :o)

5/11/12

Michelle and I had a fun "home-ec" day on Friday, making bread, granola, and rice crispy treats. The crispy treats are actually part of a cake design, but we made extra for sampling. :o) Of course, cooking involves lots of math and science. Today we talked about density. This is the mixture of oil, maple syrup, corn syrup and maple flavoring we used to make the granola.

I couldn't resist posting this one. :o)

Well, I suppose I could go straighten up the kitchen and get things ready so I can start baking as soon as we return from our errands.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PAD 5/6/12-5/10/12

I have no excuses as to why I haven't updated this week other than trying to be more diligent with my time and getting house and school work done. Michelle and I are trying to finish up the last few weeks of school so we can take our summer off.

5/6/12

Most of Sunday was spent at church. The first Sunday of the month we have Fellowship Supper and our evening service is moved to the afternoon, so we're there from 9:30 till 3ish usually. Often times Mike and I take the "day of rest" literally and take a nap, this was one of those days. After the nap, I was straightening up the kitchen from the baking frenzy when I spotted this teacup Mike had given me for my birthday last month. I love the colors in it. The deep blues really stand out on my shelves against the lighter colors of most of the other teacups.

5/7/12

Monday turned out to be a beautiful spring day here so Michelle and I spent most of  it outside working in the yard and veggie garden. I pulled out weeds and added compost to the beds. In one corner I spotted this little guy. His green was amazing! Once again I wish I could recapture God's creation in my camera, but I just can't seem to do it justice.

5/8/12

Tuesday was mostly house cleaning and school work for us. I had a lady stopping by in the evening to talk about a wedding cake, so as soon as Mike got home, we headed off to the polls to vote, grabbed some dinner at Subway and headed back home. Just in time! I took these picture that morning when I went in to make my bed. Seems someone likes my pillows. :o)

5/9/12

Here's another comparison of my garden, only this time, the top one was taken on May 9th 2011 and the bottom one was May 9th 2012. Big difference! I think there are two things that contributed to how much fuller the garden is now. First, last year I transplanted several more daisies, columbines, and other plants from around our property, and they are filling in nicely. Secondly, we had such warm weather so early this year. Several of the larger plants you see in the bottom picture are barely out of the ground in the top one. There's still so many plants out in the fields...I foresee another garden plot in the near future. :o)

5/10/12

Do you know what that is? That is the beginning of our new bakery!!! We decided several months ago that it is time for us to turn my hobby into a business and this is one of the first steps. We already have a couple of stainless steel cabinets and a commercial oven, thanks to a good friend of ours in the scrap business, but now we need to start on the building. We are planning on turning the back room of our pole shed into the bakery. Before we can start adding the plumbing, we need to find somewhere to store all the stuff that's being stored in the room right now. That's where this pile of wood comes in. Mikel's going to use it to build shelves in the "garage" side of the building to move all our storage stuff to. Then we will need to frame in a bathroom and get plumbing in. Then there's a bazillion other things to do, but, one step at a time.

That is our update for this week. I'm excited to have Angel coming home tonight. I promised to make her some Japanese cheese bread, so I better get busy on that.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!