Merry Christmas!

From my family to yours....

Disqualified

Once again, I was disqualified from my neighborhood’s "Best Decorated House" contest due to my bad attitude!

(Hat tip to my oldest sister)

Way Overdue

I've been a slacker posting photos to this blog. Here is a photo taken in October at the U2 concert. I needn't mention that it was phenomenal show, do I?

Childhood Memories

A trip to the old Indianapolis zoo with my family, circa 1964. Daddy took the picture. Front row, left to right: me, sister #4, Mommy, Sister #1. Back row: Sister #3, Sister #2.

Venturing Forth

Some photos from our adventure this past weekend.

June Birthday Boy

The Apple of His Eye

Even though we give her more independence every day, we still keep a sharp eye on her.

Before and After

Just before we left for our California trip and the day after school let out, my daughter decided to go from this:






















to this:






She is a second-time donor to Locks of Love.

Birdie, Birdie in the Sky...Er...Tree

There is a very large palo verde tree next to the parking space where I usually park when volunteering at school. While leaving the school on Monday, my pal Karen and I were chatting and watching this little guy flitting around the tree. I kept trying to get the perfect shot of him; finally, I captured this. I think I did pretty well, don't you?

Sounds From a Spring Festival

Sounds from a spring festival this past weekend at my parish.

Easter 2009

Okay, okay, so I'm slow to post over here. Anyway, here are some photos from Easter. Hope you all have a blessed Easter season!

Us with the grandparents (hubby's parents) after church

Goofing off after mass with my choir buds Irish Lass (left) and MyOSHA (center)

Family History

Rummaging around my photos, I came across this piece of family history. I think this must have been taken about two years after my parents came to this country, because I'm about one year old, and I was born 10 months after my parents arrived. The man shaking my father's hand is the minister of the church that sponsored my family to this country. Left to right starting in the back is the minister, my mother (stunning, isn't she?), my father, sister 1, sister 2. In the front row left to right is sister 4, me, and sister 3. My oldest sister is now 61, and I just turned 47, so that means this photo was taken circa 1964.

Present to Self

Sixth of the Sixth

Sanni of My Life Through a Lens tagged me for a photo meme. The rules are as follows:

1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture.
3. Post it on your bloggy and tell the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 other glorious peoples to do the same thing and leave a comment on their bloggy tellin’ them ’bout it.

Well, being one who likes to bend and twist rules a bit, I decided to go to the bottom of the list of photo files and choose the sixth one from the last. There I found this photo:



This was taken in August 2002 on the first day of preschool for Little Man. Bonnie Lass was entering first grade, and we were just getting to leave for the morning. As you can see, by this time (the fifth in a series of photos) the kids were getting a bit...unfocused, so we left for school shortly after this. Little Man's backpack was a Bob the Builder pack, and it was HUGE on a three-year-old; it held large construction paper art projects really well.

Normally I don't tag, but since I know these people are photo takers, I'll tag the following:

1. Stacy at Exceedingly Mundane
2. Amazing Gracie at Echoes of Grace
3. Karmyn at Dreaming What Ifs...
4. Marianne at Lil Bits of Me
5. Jay at Cynical Bastard

Reality Sets In

A sad reality of the school budget cuts, the cabinets that used to be filled with colored copy paper are now nearly bare. Teachers are now allotted reams of white copy paper to last them a certain period of time, and if they want colored paper, they must trade in their white paper. Not an ideal situation, but it has forced the school's staff to be more creative when it comes to developing lessons for the kids and distributing news. School communiques are now distributed exclusively via e-mail, the web site, and telephone. The upper grades are taking tests online, and teachers are rethinking the amount of homework that needs to be sent home (which thrills my son!).

Undercover?

Waiting for Little Man while he's at a tae kwon do leadership class

We're Just a Bunch of Fun Lovin', Hard Drinkin' Churchgoers

My choir buddies will find any excuse to go out after choir practice and have a few. Sometimes we go out to sing karaoke; this particular night, we were celebrating my birthday at Chili's. Left to right, here are Connie, Dan (with his tall cold draft one), Christina (with her Long Island Iced Tea), and Cissy (with her margaritas).

Rainy Day, Long Lines

Here I am, trying to pick up my kids at school at 3:30. When it rains, desert parents typically don't want their precious sugar children to attempt a walk home in the precipitation. You'll notice, it's not even raining yet, and most of the kids who attend this school live within a mile of school. I pick up my kids every day, rain or shine, because they lug so much JUNK to school, walking to school would take forever, and riding their bikes is not a feasible option. We don't have lockers on campus, so the kids are required to tote all of the notebooks and textbooks in their backpacks. Ouch!

Nosy Neighbors

Back in May 2004, my sister in New Mexico had some pretty interesting and very curious neighbors. There were others (like a llama) who resided in the corral, but these were the most inquisitive. Sadly, I'm not sure if these neighbors still reside there. I haven't been able to visit my sister since my diagnosis, and I keep forgetting to ask her about these guys. I remember that I came down with a horrendous case of altitude sickness on this trip, and I also had a double ear infection.

A year later, I was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension, so, sadly, no more visits to my sister's abode which sits at around 8,000 in south central New Mexico.

Highlights from the Final Week of Christmas Vacation

I know Christmas vacation was completed awhile back, but I'm just now getting around to posting some photos from then. (Have I mentioned that I love not being confined by Project 365?) We took another ride on the new Metro Light Rail system, this time to experience some big college band sounds. The weather for the middle of the week was cold and rainy; hey, it's winter! That's not unusual around here. So first, here's the view from my front window, peeking out through the blinds:


And, the reason for the trip - the pep rally for The Ohio State University Buckeyes football team, prior to the Fiesta Bowl (yes, I know they eventually lost, but it was a very close game, and they played hard):

And the view looking up while waiting for the train to go home:


We had fun, and it was a nice way to get out of the house, even if we spent more time traveling than we should have. If you're not in a hurry, the light rail train is the way to go.

Jaunary 2, 2009

One of the nice things about not being confined by a Project 365 is being able to share photos from my archive. I've been sorting through lots and lots of film and digital photos; sadly, I have about two and a half years' worth of digital photos on an external hard drive that decided to die on me about nine months ago. We're still working on retrieving those.

Anyway, this photo is from August 2002, which means my daughter was six-years-old and my son was a young three-year-old. This is one of my favorite photos of the two of them because they're both very relaxed, and it was an ordinary day.