Project 365 - Week 31

Week 31

What a fantastic week I have had!!!  My summer is flying by, but if I could have all my weeks be as fun as this one, it would be awesome.  I spent the first part of the week with my parents.  My dad got home on Sunday and so I was able to spend some time with him too.  I flew home on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Darla, her daughter and 2 friends came to stay with me from Texas.  It makes me smile just thinking of how much fun we had!!

Here's my week:

Sunday

mom and I took my nephew to breakfast this morning..

...what a goof! :)

It was great to spend time with him and we had an awesome breakfast!

Monday

This is my last day in Tucson..
So, I had to have my favorite treat one last time...
....a pina colada eegee's!!
And also pick up 4 doz of my favorite homemade tortillas to take home...they were still warm when I bought them!

Tuesday
What happens when you leave 3 boys home by themselves for 7 days?

Ugh! those would be peaches...they were on my counter.
It would probably be why there were over a doz FLIES in my house when I walked in!!!

Wednesday

my friend, Darla, came in tonight so I made a blueberry cake for them!!
Go here for the recipe.

Thursday

The girls heading to the Justin B. concert.
they enjoyed sleeping in, shopping and hanging out today!

This is what I made for dinner....Carne Asada!!!
Sooo good, especially with the homemade tortillas I brought home!!!
Go here for the recipe!

Friday

today was SO FUN!
The girls slept in and I took Darla up to see our church
Then I took them sightseeing around LR.

here the girls are at the top of the Peabody.....
....a little heart stopping to look down!
We then did a bit of shopping...just a bit.

It was incredibly hot out, so we came home, BBQ'd burgers and swam for a while.
We finished off the day with a hysterical game of Apples to Apples

this was a great day!

Saturday

I can't tell you how much fun I have had getting to know Darla and the girls or just how comfortable I felt with them from the moment they got here. What a blessing to not only have a great "blogging" friend, but a sister in Christ and a true friend.

Are they cute or what?
truly beautiful inside and out!

Jason was at work and didn't get in the picture.
Jared is enjoying the odds! ha!

saying "goodbye"...till next time!

I hope your week was as fun as mine!!!

Exciting news and some funnies...

First of all, I am so excited....
this lady is coming to stay with me tonight!!!
We will have 2 days to hang out....so fun!


Last week was actually pretty tough some times...

seeing faces in pictures that we miss so much,

seeing faces we can't remember,

cleaning out and throwing away things we need to, but don't want to,

...there were a few tears shed a long the way.

But one day, in one of the files we went through, we found the following item. It said "You CAN"T read this and stay in a bad/sad mood!"

And it was right!!!

maybe because we were already emotional,
but as we read this, mom and I laughed till we cried!!

I Hope it brings you a smile too...

1. How do you catch a unique rabbit?
Unique up on it

2. How do you catch a tame rabbit?
tame way.

3. How do crazy people go through the forest?
they take the psycho path

4. How do you get Holy water?
you boil the hell out of it.

5. What do fish say when they hit a concrete wall?
dam!

6. What do eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?
polaroids!

7. What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
a stick.

8. What do you call cheese that isn't yours?
nacho cheese.

9. What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand?
quatro sink o.

10. What do you get from a pampered cow?
spoiled milk.

11. What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
frostbite.

12. What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches?
a nervous wreck.

13. Where do you find a dog with no legs?
right where you left him.

14. What don't blind people like to sky dive?
because it scares the dog.

15. What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver?
a bad golfer goes..Whack...Dang!
a bad skydiver goes..Dang!...Whack.

brothers are the best....most of the time!

First off, in this picture....

my grandfather is the older one!!!

hard to tell in those dresses!!! ha!

As for that other pair?

Our relationship started early!!

Little did he know what was coming!

Though he wasn't so sure about this new arrival,

He loved her very much....

....she wasn't so crazy about him though.

Her mom says that she did all she could to get him in trouble as a toddler.

Yes, she did look up to him..

..and loved playing with him....

...but behind that cute smile,

...she was plotting revenge on how to get even with someone bigger than her!!

...she finally got big enough to realize that he was really ok.

...and that they shared an ugly stage together..

...really mom, a moo-moo?

And the two of them hit HS and became good friends.

...even better once in college.

and now, I don't know what I would do with out such a great brother.

I love him!

...though I still plot some revenge.

:)

pictures...

So many of you talked about how much you loved old pictures on yesterday's post.  So I decided to show you some of my favorites that we have found.  I had to take pictures of the pictures, so the quality is not that great, but you can still enjoy them!!

This is my father when he was a boy!!  Is he cute or what?!

This is my dad's mom.  

I never got to meet her.  She died when he was just a young adult.  I am so glad that we have some photos of her!!

This is my beloved Aunt pulling the hat down on her sister, my mom!!!

I think this is hysterical and sooo typical of their relationship!!! :)

I love this picture!!

But sadly we do not know who she is.

This is my grandfather, my mom's dad.

I love how he is dressed and the hat!!!

If he were alive, I would be teasing him! 

This is a picture of my other grandfather, my dad's dad, and his sister.....

.....can you tell which is the boy and which is the girl?

I'll let you guess, and tell you tomorrow!

This is my great grandmother on my dad's side.

This is my grandfather and his 3 sisters.

It was so fun to see this picture because I knew them all in their elder years, but these pictures look just like them!!!!

Then I found a photo of this pair....any guesses who it is?

...more on them tomorrow!!!

Project 365 - Week 30

Week 30.

I am currently still at my mom's house working on her basement.  We have gone through, seriously, over 1000 pictures......and she keeps finding more.  In fact, she just walked up to me and said she found THREE more boxes...ugh!  I am seriously done with pictures....not really! :)  Just tired.  You will get to see some in the next week as I plan on posting a few of them.

Anyway, here is my week:

 Sunday

ya...this would be premature gloating with pretzel "cigars".

directly after this Jason was euchred on a loner!!!

and then Jared and I won the game!!!

..it never pays to gloat!

Monday

On the road again...ugh!

Taking Jared to band camp for the week.

I forgot to take a picture of him...oh well!

Tuesday

Went power walking with my neighbor tonight...

 ..she about killed me.

especially when she took me up "glut hill"!

I am going to need this advil!!!

Wednesday

Happy Anniversary to my Sweet Heart!!!

26 wonderful years!

but I am in Arizona with my mom.

One thing I love about being here is that we have fun together in the kitchen!!

This is our dinner tonight....

Crab Louie!!!

this was soooo good.

go here for the recipe!!

Thursday

Mom and I spent the last 2 days going through probably 1000 photos. We weeded them out, put them in groups and then took them this afternoon to a place that is going to scan them all in (all 500 of them) for us. What fun we have had reminiscing, laughing and crying at old photos! But I am glad it is done, my neck hurts!! Now on to the next project.

Friday

We had lunch today with a friend of my moms. She has the most impressive and beautiful garden in her back yard. What a thrill to explore it and see all she is growing.

She served us lunch that was made completely from her garden!
deelish!!!
My mom, brother and I had dinner tonight. My mom was happy to have her kids to herself for one night...can you tell?

Saturday

Well, we found MORE pictures...
....I'm wondering if it will ever end!
But this one was so cool. It was labeled on the back. This is one of my relatives on my dad's side of the family and this is his very FIRST car. Not only that, but it was the FIRST car EVER in his town in Alabama!!! Pretty amazing!

 I hope your week was a product as mine!!!

Flashback Friday - Food for Thought

Well, I am currently in Arizona with my mom going through her basement. But when I saw the prompt for this week's Flashback Friday, I knew I had to make time to post. Linda at Mocha with Linda hosts this meme and I am so glad to join her this week!!!

PROMPT:

What were meals like when you were growing up? Did your mom (or dad) cook (and was it from scratch or from a box?) or did your family eat out much of the time? Did you eat together as a family or was everyone on a different schedule? What did you call meals? (Dinner vs. supper, lunch, etc.) What were some of your favorite things that your parent fixed? What did you dislike and vow never to fix once you grew up? Did your family have any food traditions, things that were a must on certain occasions (such as Sunday dinners or holiday meals)? Did your parent teach you to cook or did you wing it once you were grown? How similar or different are your family's eating habits today than when you grew up?

Cooking has always been a big deal in my family. I wish I could lay my hands on it right now but I have a picture of my great grandmother in the middle of her HUGE garden. She loved to cook and grow her own food......I have a lot of her DNA!!

The picture below is of my grandmother and great grandmother in the kitchen making our family pound cakes....that's me licking the bowl, my other favorite past time. I was always in the kitchen when they were!!! In fact, my mom tells a story of me sitting on the counter while she was making a cake. While she turned around to get something, I cracked all the eggs into the bowl!!!
Sitting down for dinner was a must in my family. I can't remember but a handful of times that we didn't all eat together around the table. This is a tradition I have carried out with my own family. My mom loved to cook and try new things. I can remember having french food, fondue, homemade chinese, vegetarian to name a few. But our roots are southern and fried was our favorite!!

this is my mom and my grandmother cooking together

I don't remember my mom ever having many "flops", but one thing I hated was collard greens. My dad loved them but I couldn't even stand the smell!!! and it is one thing I have never fixed my family!! I also swore I would never fix lima beans!! One night at dinner, my mom served them for the first time. I sat there forever and ate everything except the lima beans. My mom finally told me she was going back to her room and when she came back she wanted the lima beans gone (she thought she was giving me an out because she didn't say "how" they had to be gone and thought I would throw them away), but little goody (aka dumb) me was still sitting there when she came back and she had to follow through and make me eat them. So I swallowed them each whole like a pill.....and to this day can not eat lima beans!! :)

We do have many family recipes that have been passed down through the generations...and you have to be part of the family to get the recipe: my great grand mother's yeast rolls (she taught me how to make them when I was 12 and I have taught Alyssa how to make them), pound cake (many, many people....like my bff Wendi...have tried to figure this recipe out. It is so good. Wendi gave up and just asked me to make her one every year for her birthday). These are just a few.

My mom and great grandmother me to cook. I also learned a lot in school. However, I was always itching to get in the kitchen. I can remember when I was around 12, I decided to try to make a pecan pie while no one was home. I got out the cookbooks and started with the crust (I had never made one before). When my mom got home, I was standing there trying to figure out how to get the rolled out crust into the pie shell..... the pie turned out great.....so she couldn't get mad! well, except for the HUGE mess I had made in the kitchen!!! I am still a very messy cook!

Mom and I love to cook together whenever we can and made this wonderful crab salad just last night for dinner!


If you've been around my blog for long, you know I love to cook. I am so grateful for the things I learned from my family and how they instilled this love in me!!

Now, head over to Linda's and check out some of the other stories!!