Pinball at the 'Zoo

Pinball at the 'Zoo 2014.  Keaton met us to spend the afternoon playing pinball on Thursday.  Matt's going back on Friday and Saturday.  One day was enough for me.  Don't get me wrong...pinball is fun.  I just can't play for hours and hours and hours.  Plus, I have a hard time not pulling up the pants of some guys...or talking to them about ditching the sweats for some jeans.  They'll never meet a girl to play pinball with if they don't at least try to get dressed.

Keaton and I really liked Pirates of the Caribbean.

Like father, like son.

The Wizard of Oz is still our favorite.

Austin Powers was pretty groovy, baby.

Wedding

Keaton was a groomsman in his childhood friend's wedding over the weekend.  Holy cow...these kids can't be getting married yet.  We're not old enough.  The silver lining was Keaton had his hands in his pocket for the garter toss.  There was NO way he was catching that...and we're grateful (for a few years at least!).  ;-)

Easter Cooking

Cooking Easter breakfast + cooking Easter dinner = a well-deserved cocktail for me.

Monkey bread, scrambled eggs, bacon, & fruit cups.  Yum!

Ham with maple & brown sugar glaze, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole with homemade onion strings (none of that canned fried onion crap), buttered cabbage, glazed carrots, asparagus,  and cheddar biscuits.  Oh, and there was a cherry cheesecake for dessert.  Yum!!

I'm relaxing and saving the dishes for Matt.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from 1973. 

Darling Debbie, Cute Karie, & Lewd Laurie
(Laurie's underwear is usually showing in most pictures of her.)

Taxes

Keaton used to love to copy whatever Matt was doing and/or wearing.  Here's a throwback photo of him "helping" Matt do our taxes back when he was 3 years old.  We weren't audited, so he must have done a good job!

He borrowed Matt's glasses and calculator so he could do HIS taxes.

It's Official

Yay...Keaton has officially been offered and officially accepted a position at the company he interned at over the summer and has been working at part-time this school year.  He'll be 'Applications Developer' at the local branch of the company after he graduates in June.  The company he'll be working for is awesome!  It's young and hip and he's really enjoyed working there so far.  They have a very relaxed work atmosphere complete with a game room with video games and a game console, snack rooms stocked with products from their clients...and an ice cream bar.  He's so excited...and so are we!  It's great to watch him begin the next chapter of his life and see what exciting things are coming next!!

 



Six different flavors of Plainwell ice cream available...yum!
Every. Single. Day.



They actually have an old soda fountain counter...complete with hot fudge continuously heating.

Spring Break

While we're watching it snow here yet again (it's pretty much on an almost-daily basis here), Keaton is soaking up some sun in Florida.  We're totally jealous and should have crashed his spring break getaway.

Matt took Keaton to the airport and they found a pinball machine to help pass the time before Keaton boarded his plane.
(Of course they did.)

Keaton sent this as they were getting ready to land at LaGuardia.
I'm glad he got to see the sun.  It was snowing here (again) when I got his text.

He found a way to help pass the time until his flight to Florida.

Ahhhhh...he finally made it to Florida and headed right to the beach.

Enough!!!!!!!!

Mother Nature, please turn the page on your calendar.  It's MARCH 25...not February 25!  Thank you.

Celebration!!!

Last night, we celebrated Keaton's spring break, the end of basketball, and our last college tuition payment with a seafood feast I made.  We enjoyed some crab legs, shrimp cocktail, coconut shrimp with a pineapple dipping sauce, salad, twice-baked sweet potatoes, and cheddar/garlic biscuits. The best part was we didn't even have to change out of our sweats or Keaton didn't have to comb his hair to go out to a restaurant.  ;-)

Be Nice

I found this sign while out shopping in South Haven one day.  Anyone who knows me understands why this is PERFECT for me!  I now have it hanging by my back door. 

Fabulous!

Thank you, Sex and the City slot machine! You are fabulous!!

Outlet Mall Shopping Trip

Whoo hoo...outlet mall shopping!  This is only a fraction of what we could have done if only we had more time. 

Keaton got some stuff for his spring break trip to Florida.
I couldn't resist some new shoes and lotion.  I don't think I've ever gone shopping without getting new shoes.  I may have a slight shoe problem.

Souvenirs

Cyrus brought me home some souvenirs from his walk with Matt this morning...little pine tree sprigs stuck in his beard.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back!  Holy cow...I think I forgot I even had a blog.  I won't go into too much detail as to how we've spent the past few months because I don't want to cause the site to crash by posting a gazillion pages.  So, here's a quick and simple overview of some fun we've had:

November:  Thanksgiving and the beginning of basketball season.

First bball game of the 2013-2014 season.

Cute little peanut butter pumpkins I made for Thanksgiving dinner with the families...and got left behind at our house.  I think Matt finally finished eating them last week.  ;-)
 

December:  More basketball, Christmas, shoveling snow, & pinball.

We enjoyed Christmas day in our jammies and didn't feel like getting dressed, so we ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched Christmas movies.  It was AWESOME!

 

Matt added two more pinball machines to his collection:  Dr. Who & Demolition Man.
They're now spilling out into the family room.

 

January:  Even more basketball, even more snow to shovel, and a trip to the E.R.



The pile of snow along our driveway was up over Matt's head at nearly 7 feet back in January.  I stopped measuring after it was at 12 feet.  That's a lot of snow we've shoveled...and by 'we' I mean I've personally shoveled 80% of it, including the neighbor's driveway. Whew!



No, Matt didn't dislocate and fracture his pinky shoveling as most would suspect with all our snowfall so far. His trip to the E.R. was a result of playing basketball.

February:  More shoveling of (insert expletive of your choice here) snow, and the last days of basketball.



Keaton received a Senior Leadership Award from his college.



Senior Day



First basket of the game!



They had big heads of the three seniors on the team that the student section waved during the game.
We put them in his bedroom windows when we got home. ;-)



Pre-game dunking at the final game.

 

 

 

March:  Snowshoeing, basketball banquet, and more shoveling of snow.  If I have to do any shoveling in April or May, I'm moving to the southern hemisphere...or Matt will have to buy a snow blower to keep me in Michigan.  Our seasonal total (so far) is over 112" at this point, so I'm seriously done shoveling for the rest of the year!

South Haven, MI



We visited Lake Michigan via the Saugatuck State Park with some friends.
The beach looks much different in the winter than it does in the summer!
 

So, we ended our last days of basketball with a banquet on Sunday.  I made: 3 jersey frames and 3 scrapbooks for the seniors, 1 photo book for the coach's son, 23 photo collages and 23 slide show DVDs for the players and coaches, 9 centerpieces, and 2 balloon bouquets (well, Matt made them).   

I'm going to miss basketball and taking all my pictures of the team.  I'm even going to miss making protein bars.  I made 896 of them this year.  That's a lot of mixing, pressing into the pans, and cutting.  You should see my right bicep!



About 45 jars of peanut butter + 45 canisters of oatmeal + 68 bags of chocolate chips + 16 jars of honey + 12 protein powder canisters + 6 bags of flax seed = 896 protein bars!!



Happy Birthday, Matt!

Pinball. 
PF Chang's. 
$200 profit at the casino. 
Happy Halfway-to-90 Birthday, Matt!

Merry Christmas to Me!

Merry Christmas!  I guess it's time to get in the Christmas spirit since it seems every time I turn on the TV, there's a Christmas movie playing.  Don't get me wrong - I love Christmas, but I love celebrating Christmas AFTER celebrating Thanksgiving.  So, I guess I'll just have to get into the Christmas spirit early with an early Christmas present for myself:  a new camera and a new zoom lens!  Merry Christmas to me!! 

It's definitely quite an upgrade from my old Canon Rebel.  It's faster, sharper, has a flip-out LCD monitor, and even has wi-fi!  Now I just have to figure out how to use it!  Oh, just imagine how many Christmas pictures I'll be taking this year!  (My bit of advice:  you may want to wear sunglasses if you're in the frame of my camera lens this Christmas.  I'll be doing a lot of practicing and you'll probably feel like the paparazzi is stalking you!)

October's Blur

 

Either life gets too hectic at times...or I'm becoming a huge procrastinator.  Honestly, it's probably both.  October flew by and here are some highs and lows of the last month:

 

We went camping with friends the first weekend of October.  It was a chilly and wet weekend...but it could have been much worse.  It could have snowed.

 





 



 

The second week of October, my sisters and I headed down to Nashville to visit my dad in the hospital. He's totally into drama and giving us gray hair. I got a phone call during their trip out east that he was having trouble breathing and they flew into Nashville so he could be admitted to the hospital. He arrived with heart failure, lung failure, and kidney failure.  I arrived with six bags full of food and snacks and two-fully packed suitcases.  As much as my sisters teased me about over packing they were happy with all the food and extra clothes since we ended up spending six days in the ICU. Thankfully my dad improved enough to be released after two long weeks in a germ-infested hospital. He's still on the road to recovery, but hopefully he continues to get a little better each day.





We had to wear masks while they tested my dad for TB.
I gladly wore mine so I wouldn't get the plague anywhere else in the hospital. (Did I ever admit to being a total germaphobe?)
 





 

We got our first snowfall on Oct. 24th.  Luckily it didn't last for long because I hadn't switched my closets around yet and didn't have any long underwear or flannel pajamas upstairs.



This is after most of the snow had already melted.  I was too comfy wrapped up in a blanket on the couch to wander outside to take a picture of the snow on the grass earlier.

 

 

 On October 27th, Keaton turned 22...and I remained 29.
 

 

 

 



Matt & I went on a little fall color tour last Sunday.  We stopped by the lake that we're thinking of moving to in the near future.  Matt propped the camera on the back of the car to get a picture of us...and forgot that he also put his cell phone on the back of the car.  He remembered when he tried to use it a few minutes later...after we drove away.  Luckily, someone found it down the road...a little more beat up and missing the back, but surprisingly still working.

 

 

 

We dressed as Cinderella and Prince Charming for our Halloween party at home (Cyrus was a king and Keaton was a gladiator) and again to pass out candy on Halloween night.  Matt dressed as a short scientist on stilts at work for Halloween and earned 'The Wackiest Costume' award.  I think he should have earned the most creative...or 'The Best Mad Scientist' award!





 

     



 

 

 

Basketball season is upon us again for our last trip around the college basketball circuit.  Holy cow, it sure doesn't seem like it's been four years since Keaton started college.  We're hoping he's able to play more this season and doesn't have to battle health issues like last season.  We'll keep our fingers crossed that his last year is his best year!  Go Hornets!!



K @ WMU