Summer fun with the family. Swimming and then lunch out by the pool. Jennifer, Jessica and Courtney after swimming, ready to eat.

Barbecue chicken salad and fresh pineapple. Girly lunch

Jaxon and Boston eating their hot dogs.

Sorry Tyler, he was at the pool party also, just didn't have a kodak moment with him. Loved having everyone over to swim and eat. Afterwards I was thinking this is the only way you can eat lunch outside in Mesa, Arizona during the summer. Swim and get cooled off first.

Jennifer made a bench for Kenny for Father's Day. We don't know where she got the talent to build/make things, cause neither Kenny nor I have the patience for it. She sawed, cut, leveled. We don't have many tools for her to use. She borrowed the drill from Jason and sander from neighbor (Darwin Hall).

Sawing each wood piece by hand.

Staining the bench.

It's nice an sturdy! Good job Jen!!!

One of the fun things that I do at work is decorate the bulletin board in the Health Office. I really enjoy doing this. It's probably what I enjoy most at work (that's a secret). April - Spring weather - needed color. "Sky's the Limit" with balloons. Love the color - I think I'll leave it up for May also.

The valentines bulletin board. I love the polka dot wrapping paper for the background. I die cut hearts out of magazine pages for the tree. Traced my hand and arm for the trunk.

St. Patrick's Day

I made my own border. I shredded several shades of green paper, secured them on tape, folded them for double thickness and stapled around the board.

Kitchen Remodel

It has been so long since I have blogged, that I couldn't remember how to log onto my blog - sad I know. We had a pipe break behind our kitchen sink around Christmas. I smelled a musty smell, but I couldn't find the culprit. Early one morning (the end of March) Kenny walked into the kitchen (barefoot) and water squished between his toes in front of the kitchen sink. Water was seeping between the seams of our wood floor. We knew we had a problem. The pipe in the wall had broken. These are the pictures of our remodel journey. They're not in order, but there are so many that I'm leaving it. 1. We put in Pull Out Drawers. Love them. So much easier to retrieve the stuff in the back. Sawmill Cabinets installed them and did a wonderful job.

2. Old kitchen for 26 years. Oak cabinets. I had a hard time breaking down and painting them. I loved them. I was drawn to white cabinets while researching them in magazines and online. So, decided to paint them white - encouraged by my daughters, discouraged by Contractor (Monty Hogle). Red paint served it's purpose but now it's time for a change.

3. Old dishwasher, and windowsill. I didn't always have everything that is pictured in the windowsill there, I had to remove everything off from the corian counter tops because they had to remove the counter tops to replace the damaged cabinets. We were hoping the corian would break so we could get new counter tops, but they didn't.

4. All the cabinet doors removed and in the back yard being painted white. Microwave used to sit on shelf, now it is removed and will be over the stove, and the shelf will be made into 2 cabinets. Paint samples on the wall, trying to choose the color of gray I wanted.

5. Sawmill Cabinets replaced the damaged cabinet where the sink was. Old dishwasher removed, no sink, no running water for 4 weeks. No running water in the kitchen was the hardest part of the kitchen remodel for me. I had a new dishwasher the 2nd week of the remodel, it had to sit not being used for 2 more weeks, we couldn't have running water until we received our new faucet in the mail.

6. Kitchen after remodel. Things that are new: White cabinets w/ hardware. Pull out drawers. New microwave and dishwasher. New faucet. Backsplash. Corian in window seal. Crown molding on top of cabinets. Gray paint. Wood floor replaced in kitchen. New kitchen table (Thanks to Jason and Courtney)

7. Where microwave used to be, now 2 new cabinets.

8. Kitchen taped off for painting. Two days

9. New white cabinets. I love how it brightens my kitchen. It seems more open, even though my kitchen has always been very open.

10. New limestone backsplash. I was going to put in subway tile and Jessica went to Monterrey tile with me and talked me into putting these cute limestone colored stones in. We brought home samples and the family was united in the decision of the limestone backsplash. Love It!!!! The color pops out a little more after Monty sealed them.

11. A closer look of limestone backsplash. Hardware on cabinets. I had to get used to using the handles on the cabinets, but now it's a no-brainer. New corian window seal, matches my countertops. New Price Pfister faucet. Price Pfister replaced the old faucet because the sprayer was broken. (luckily I had saved the paperwork on the old faucet). We had a miscommunication with the company, they told us they didn't make the white faucets anymore (yes!) and that they would send us a sterling silver faucet for free. They sent us a piece of the sterling faucet, not the whole package. We called them and told them that wouldn't work, a piece of stainless steal on a white faucet. They agreed. They said they would send us the whole faucet and we would get it in 5-7 days. We waited patiently - 14 days, I called them. They said they didn't have any faucets in stock, I would have to choose another faucet similar to the old one and they would send it if I paid for the freight. Deal. I let them know that I was unhappy that I had been 1 month without water in my kitchen waiting for a new faucet - which I thought was on it's way. Oh well. Kitchen faucet arrived, but our plumber was out of town - patience being exercised again. Kitchen is pretty much finished, cupboards were cleaned out, Goodwill received boxes of unused kitchen items, and I love my new bright, clean kitchen.

Barricaded inside our house for 2 hours while a felon suspect was hiding on our neighbors roof. They didn't know he was hiding on the roof, they were checking our backyards and houses.
Looking out our front window we counted 13 cop cars. There were more but from our view that's all we could see. We had police/swat members in our driveway behind a vehicle with guns aimed, ready to shoot. This tile on our neighbors house moved and the swat members heard it, drawing their attention to the roof and that's how they found the suspect hiding behind this big bush on top of the roof.


The suspect left something behind in the bush.


A little excitement for the night. I wanted to take pictures of the happenings outside, but was afraid that any flash would draw fire. There were a lot of pistols and rifles surrounding our house and our neighbors houses.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
San Diego California - My 50th Birthday Present (trip)
We took a trip to cool San Diego for my 50th birthday present.
Kenny, Tyler and Jen at Sea World.
(The Dolphin Show)




In front of the Shark Tank - we just got drenched on the "Atlantis Ride"




Jen and Tyler boogie boarding at Mission Beach.






Year ago - we used to stay at a little hotel on Mission Beach and behind the hotel was a couple of food/shops we used to visit. We had to visit our little taco shop on the beach. We felt a little Gordo after eating here. I had to take a picture of the bean and cheese burro I ordered. It was huge and tasty. Jennifer didn't like the whole pinto beans, she is used to them being refried. I thought it was tasty.








What is a trip to the beach without some yummy ice cream. The little shop was next to Tacos El Gordo. They make their own ice cream and have different specials each day. Yummy!!!!



We went to Beaumont Park on Mission Bay. The kids had me ride this ride that you spin around, both forwards and backwards as the ride goes in a circle. Fun times. I can still ride the rides at 50!



This ride is a little too scarry for me, but I can say I did it. I'm sitting next to Tyler, my hair is in my face and I'm kind of glad that I couldn't see, because it took you way high in the air, spinning and then like a pendulum it would swing down, and take you high up the other side.




Fantastic Trip for my 50th!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!!

Kenny and I took a very last minute trip to New York to watch the NIT championship basketball game.
We had a fabulous trip.

This is my journal, since I don't journal like I should.

There are sooo many things to do and see in New York. Here are pictures of some of the sites we visited.

Empire State Building. It was raining and the visibility was "0" so we went up at 12:30 at night and saw the beautiful lights of New York City.



Neither picture is very flattering of me - but this is me on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building at 12:30 at night. It was VERY windy and COLD!



Rockefeller Center. Ice Skating in the rain?!

One of our favorite stores was the 3 story M & M store.

We took a harbor tour. This is our little yellow harbor tour boat. We were glad we could be inside because it was cold and rainy. Our tour was about the history of New York.

Time Square. WOW! Tons of people until all hours of the night and lots of lights


NBC Studios


This picture is either Time Square or just a picture of downtown New York. The signs were all lit up.


Kenny and John Hatch waiting for the subway. We took the subway to Chinatown and had some very authentic Chinese food. We were careful of what we ordered. We chose foods that we didn't have to worry about what was in them. We literally couldn't understand our waitress, so John asked to see what she had written down for our order, she showed us what she had written down and it was written in Chinese - no help at all.

The Statue of Liberty. It was alot smaller than I thought it would be. It was neat to see.

The reason we came - the NIT in the Madison Square Garden arena. It was sooo awesome. The feeling you felt when you walked in that arena was overwhelming. They had many pictures of historical events that took place in that arena on the walls as you entered. All I can say is AWESOME.
It also helped that we saw an exciting game in which Wichita won NIT champs.

Madison Square Garden again. We forgot our camera when we went to the game so I don't have pictures of things that we experienced inside.

I had to take a picture of all the cab cars that were whizzing by. We actually took one and it was terrifying. They drive fast and furious.

Outside of Grand Central Station Kenny found a street vendor and got himself a hot dog and some yummy nuts they cook right on the street.



The 3 famous bridges are behind us. I can only remember the name of the Brooklyn bridge which is directly behind us. The initials of the 3 bridges are BMW, but I don't remember what M & W stand for.



Kenny inside Grand Central Station. It was huge. Besides being a train/subway center, it was full of shops, food markets and food courts.

We visited most of the sites on foot - and our feet let un know about it. We did tons of walking in the cold/rain. Luckily they have a Starbucks on every corner where we visited for hot chocolate.
We also saw Central Park. No pictures - it was raining pretty hard so we didn't spend much time at Central Park. It is huge. A big city park in the middle of the city - thus the name Central Park.
We absolutely loved taking this trip. We feel very blessed to be able to go.
The End.