2012 Witchie Show

It's Halloween again!

Pumpkins eating pumpkins. Tasty

That means it's time for the ladies to get dressed up in our witchie suits and go to the Gardner Village Witches Night Out, or as I like to call it: The Witchie Show!

Me, niece Kami, Kim

Me, niece Kami, Kim

This year we added 2 extra witchies: niece Kami and new sister-in-law, Sheena.

Me, Stephanie, Kim, Kami, Sheena, mom

Me, Stephanie, Kim, Kami, Sheena, mom

Jason and Sheena got married!

My babiest brother, Jason found the most perfect girl to marry: Her name is Sheena. They are so ideal for each other: they met on a shooting range, they love to hunt, camp, fish and play with their dogs. Sheena is a girl version of Jason, only much cuter.

The wedding ceremony

Officially hitched

Gorgeous setting for wedding pictures

Brother-in-law Neil with Devan and Kami

Me

The happy couple

The wedding cake

The groom's cake

More work on the house

Our yard is huge and overwhelming, but we work on it in small stages. In addition to the fence we recently installed, we added some sod to a small patch in front of the house.              

 Here is what it looked like when we first moved in...

 And here is what it looks like now. Not perfect, but much better.

Remember our kitchen when we first moved in? Well, last year we started to remodel it and only finished one half. This year my goal is to finish it completely before school starts on August 22nd for SLCC and August 27th for Cyprus. It isn't exactly finished, but I'm excited about the progress so I wanted to post some pics.

I decided to hang thin drywall over the old wall paper and random holes in the wall. It was the simplest way to fix this ugly wall.

I had to cover the finished half of the kitchen to protect it from all the dry wall dust.

                      

The refrigerator turned out to be a very handy place to work.

So, this is the cabinets before...

 And this is the cabinets after.

         Before...   

         After    

 Before...

                                                                              After, kind of.  More pics to come once we finish the counters and the back splash.

Camping at Lily Lake

I haven't been camping in y.e.a.r.s. Since hubby doesn't like to camp, my sister invited me to go with her family to Lily Lake. I was so excited, I bought a camping chair and a tent. I know it's bad luck to open an umbrella indoors, but is it bad luck to pitch a tent indoors? Don't care. I was excited!

Niece, Kami, and brother-in-law, Neil, inspecting our handy work.

The original plan was for my nephew, Devan, to sleep in my tent with me but, luckily for me, he backed out. However, he did help me set it up (although I didn't need help, as I had practiced setting it up in my living room).

We couldn't have fires but Devan decided to chop wood anyway.

 This is our camp site. Just behind the trees on the left is the lake. There were no other campers around. It was amazingly quiet (until they all showed up during the day on their ATV's to go fishing and 4-wheeling).

 My tent is on the left and the big family tent is on the right, peaking out from behind the trees.

 Kim and Neil are setting up for dinner. We ate really well, even though we couldn't have a camp fire. We just roasted marshmellows for s'mores on the camp stove. It worked very well.

 The lake is called Lily Lake because of all the lily pads. Evidently we were too late in the season to see actual lily flowers on the lily pads. Still, very pretty.

This should be a pic of me and Ben, but he didn't want to come :(

Kim and her kids: Kami and Devan

 Me and the kids.

 Me and MY Pringles. Yum! Devan kept trying to steal them. Punk.

 Saturday morning we all went fishing. Well, Neil and the kids went fishing while Kim and I relaxed.

At one point the fishermen relocated to a new spot on the lake but Kim didn't want to. 

 

 Neil is helping Kami put a worm on her hook.

Kami was the first to catch a fish, and her dad caught one shortly after. Sadly, Devan never caught one. But he did shoot 2 birds with his bb gun :( Poor birdies.                          
                                     

                

Neil is gutting his fishy. Gross.

Sunday morning we decided to do some more fishing and also swim in the lake.

 That is me, swimming in the lake.

Why am I the only one swimming in the lake?!?

 Neil took the kids out on his little fishing raft.

 

Amazingly I am able to walk on water so I can walk out and rescue the kids in case the fall out of the raft. (Don't I look like I am walking on water?!?!?)

               

 This is how excited I am to be camping.  

This is my tantrum when it was time to go home.