Up and Down Weekend and MMMM

This weekend truly had it's ups adn downs.  Downs first.  Last week I did something to my back adn it hated me.  Much pain and discomfort, not able to move well and generally not a good time.  I saw the chiropractor and was on the road to mending by Friday.  And then Friday evening, while trying to keep the back from hurting I felt an entirely different type of pain beginning.  A kidney stone chose Friday night to decide to exit the building.  Commence excruciating, relentless pain.  For the record, far worse than labor pains. It finally stopped hurting about 3:30am.  Not the best way to spend a Friday night.
Saturday was a day  to rest and recuperate and do laundry.  Fun times.  But the up part of the weekend was that a friend was in town so we got together and had a fun evening drinking mojitos and exchanging stories.  Definitely the up side to the weekend.  Sunday was another lazy day.  Laundry was done and we did make dinner, but not much else happened.

Now for Monday's Music Moves Me:  It's the 200th week celebration so the theme is one song of celebration and then songs that describe you.  Let's see celebration:
To start the party off:  Brad Paisley with American Saturday Night.

Now for ones that describe me:
Redneck Yacht Club Craig Morgan, This one always reminds me of going camping--we don't have the lake but a bunch of campers, four wheelers and good times.

Another Brad Paisley song with Mud on the Tires.  An anthem of sorts for Nick and I. We love going out to get mud on the tires

So there are my picks for this week's MMMM.

Friday 5--Road Trip Edition

Time once again for the Friday 5.
Confessions/thoughts:

1. My back is really out.  I twisted and my back said nope, not happening.  At least it happened after the road trip was over.  This would ahve been a nightmare to ahve to sit in the car with for hours.
2. The boys were really great on this road trip.  Only minorly annoying.  They got to see some really cool country and I finished the book we have been reading on road trips.  Turbo is excited to start the next series about these characters. The miles do fly by when mom is the book on tape.
3.  Nick's birthday went off without a hitch.  The food and the company was fantastic!
4. We have been having some interesting weather around our parts.  Thunderstorms, the occasional tornado, hail, downpours.  Far more normal weather for this time of year. We will take all the water from the sky we can get.
5. Laundry this weekend again.  I try to tackle it every two weeks, but that puts me doing laundry while we are camping and that just doesn't work, so small, quick loads this weekend and next weekend I don't have to worry about it.

Now for some pics:

Fun at the dinosaur museum

Rawr!

Run!!!

Spidey crashed the birthday party.

The smoke master readying the feast!

 So do you ahve a Friday 5?  Link it up with Emmy Mom!

Spin Cycle--Summer Kick Off

We kicked off summer in grand style this week with a flash road trip around our great state. Nick had a presentation to give up north and so we took advantage of it and traveled with the whole family and got a chance to show the boys some new country.
First stop the dinosaur fossil cabin.  A cabin made entirely out of dinosaur fossil bones.

Believe it or not...

Crashing in the hotel after much swimming.

Highest point on highway 16 over the Big Horn mountains.

Powder River Pass selfie

Dinosaur museum

Thermopolis Hot Springs.

And finally, Hells Half Acre--the last scenic stop.

THe final stop on our trip was Dan Speas fish hatchery.

The kids liked feeding the little fish and seeing newly hatched fish.
We really kicked off summer the right way.  And for the Fourth of July, we will be camping.  Everything this year points to the ability to have a campfire which makes camping so much fun.
How are you kicking off summer?
Spin it up and link up with Gretchen and Ginny Marie, they would love to have you!

Birthday Weekend and MMMM

Nick had his birthday this weekend.  Technically it was Saturday. His celebration started Friday afternoon.  The big get together was Saturday.  The star of the show was the brisket that Nick smoked.  It turned out pretty great for our first effort. We were going to garden but the urge never hit, so Nick babied his brisket, smoked a couple chickens to go with it and relaxed.  Turbo and I cleaned house and tried to make sure that things were ready for company.
The evening was wonderful.  Nick's dad even had a conversation with some family he wouldn't speak to for the longest time.  Quite the breakthrough.  Everyone who came had a great time.
Sunday, Nick went for a mountain bike ride first thing.  It's a really good thing none of us got really stupid celebrating the night before.
Later in the afternoon, Nick went with another friend out to try out the boat T had bought.  They had a blast.  Nick caught fish, they had weather, hail, and sunshine and the boat ran great. They came home with three large fish. Not bad for a day's fishing.
I spent Sunday finishing laundry, detailing the car and doing dishes.  It was a busy day and I missed my naptime.  I totally could have used naptime. But, I have a clean car, clean clothes, a dish free sink, so there's that.
Bruiser had an exciting weekend.  He got to go to his first movie in the theater with a friend of his.  He went to see How To Train Your Dragon 2.  He loved the whole experience. I got a rather garbled retelling of the entire movie and he can't wait to go to the theater again.
So that's a wrap for the weekend.  Off on vacation now, so have a great week everyone!

Friday 5--I'm Co-Hosting!

So EmmyMom asked if I wanted to co-host this week.  I wouldn't turn down an opportunity like that, so here I am Co-Host!
You can go check out her Friday 5 post for some questions she asked to get to know me just a bit better.
Now for My 5 thoughts/confessions:

1. I'm so excited for next week.  We get a mini vacation.  Nick has a talk to give and we are taking one more day and visiting some hot springs on a circuitous route home.  Road trip!
2. Nick's birthday is tomorrow.  He hits the big 4-0. He is planning on smoking a brisket and maybe doing some gardening.  We will have friends over in the evening to share the bounty of the brisket and a TAB or two. Not as big as my birthday last year, but still not a bad way to spend the day.
3. There were areas this week that got snowed on in our state.  Yes snow.  In June. Thankfully not our town, but still, snow. 
4. Wee will be doing swim lessons with the boys next month.  Bruiser absolutely loves swimming and Turbo does too.  We also like it because we can swim laps while they are in lessons and that's really good for us.  So, yay! swim lessons!
5. Does anyone else play hidden object/point and click games?  I really like them, even if the stories are kind of creepy most of the time.  They are fun to play and replay on them is high for me--but only after a period of time. I have to let my mind forget the ins and outs of the game, but then I can replay them with no trouble.

Ok now for the Friday 5 Pics:

Who remembers this?

Happy Birthday Nick!!!

Totally how I feel today--come on going home time...

Plans are in the making to use this this weekend to make some fantastic food!

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Spin Cycle--Neighbors, the Good and the Bad

Neighbors is the Spin Cycle topic this week.   We are mostly lucky with our neighbors.  But there are some that we wish would move away.
We live on a corner lot and have only two direct neighbors. The one between the alley and us is an older gentleman and he has been a pretty good neighbor.  He's got cancer now and we will be sad to see him go. The house next to us is a large house that has been divided up into several apartments.  We have had a succession of renters living there since we moved into our house, with varying levels of compatibility. Living in a college town renters cycle through there with regularity.
Across the street from us in one direction is the firefighter.  He's a good neighbor, no trouble and not loud.  Next to him is one of gardener neighbors.  We have contact with this neighbor frequently.  He's quirky, but harmless.
 Across the street in the other direction is the other gardener neighbors.  They have a fantastic yard filled with flowers and plants.  No grass, but a multitude of abundant greenery and blossoms.  Living near these stellar examples of garden prowess makes our gardens look all the worse, hence the garden efforts we will be putting in this summer.
Just down the street is the crazy lady.  Well not exactly crazy, but annoying.  We used to be friends, but she has a vastly different parenting style to us and her daughters and our sons don't really get on well any more.  After her girls let the dog out and it bit Turbo, and they blamed Turbo for the whole thing and she believed them, we cut ties to them and don't really have much to do with them.  We need to make the line clearer though.  She insists one of the neighborhood boys walk her daughter home.  She asked Turbo to do it the same day we had a wedding to attend.  The daughter stopped at the park, and Turbo, being the good boy stopped with her because he needed to "walk her home" and they weren't home yet. We were not amused, as we didn't know where Turbo was.  And it's not his responsibility to walk her daughter home.  Ugh, I still get irked at the whole thing.
We really don't know most of the other neighbors, we are kind of keep to ourselves.  As I am far more introverted than Nick, this doesn't really bother me that much.
I like the area of town we live in  and it's proximity to both a park and downtown. When the farmer's markets start up, there is one in the park a block from our house and one downtown.  We are close enough to walk downtown for farmer's market and for the summer downtown activities.

A peek out our front door.

What is your neighborhood like?  Spin it up and link up with Gretchen and Ginny Marie, they would love to have you!

On Gardening

I have a love hate relationship with gardening.  I love the results, hate the process, dirt and bugs.  Especially the bugs. Things with more than four legs creep me out.
But Nick loves to garden.  He got the gardening bug from his parents, who love planting adn having green stuff growing, blooming and producing.
Our gardens have had cycles.  For a while we were collecting rocks to create some truly lovely rock gardens in the areas between the sidewalks and streets.

We really did well with the gardens for a few years, then life got in the way and they became overgrown jungles of cat mint and grass.  We are just beginning to tackle the jungles and redo the rock gardens:

Behind this garden you can see some of the cat mint jungle.

It's going to be lots of work, but in the long run, they will so pretty to look at.

Randomly Random Tuesday

And here we are for another Tuesday.  One day closer to our minivacation next week.  Well, sort of, Nick has a talk and we are all going.  But hey, time out of town and we will get to show the boys something fun on the way.
Now on to the random:

• I have been totally sucked into Castle.  Having it show on TNT in marathon sessions has been less than good for my productivity.  I am really enjoying it.  And probably will until about the 6th or 7th season.  That seems to be the limit for me with most dramas.  After that, they jump the shark for me and I stop watching.  Sad, but true.
• It has not been hot here at all.  We are barely making the 70s during the day and hitting the 40s at night.  Makes planting gardens a crap shoot.  It could just freeze again. 
• Last night I thrilled and pleased 75% of the family with dinner.  A one-pot spaghetti that turned out pretty darned good. The one displeased member was of course, Bruiser.  Then again, it was all mixed together and had sausage in it.  The horror.
• This:

• Change the dog to our Thullee and this is how we wake up most weekend days.
• Sad to hear that Casey Kasem, Mr. Top 40 and the original voice of Shaggy has passed away.

• Even with the lack of hot weather , we are still dealing with those nasty mosquitoes.  Poor Bruiser looks like he has the chicken pox, he has so many bites. They hover near the doors and look at us all as walking buffets.

Well there's my random fort the day. 
Go link it with  Stacy! She who is now Random Queen, or our fearless leader of the random!

Father's Day and MMMM

So we had a pretty nice weekend, even if we didn't go camping.  The winds kind of killed that one for us.  A pop-up camper and wind don't really play well together. So we stayed home and did garden work.
Nick really didn't have much he wanted to do for Father's Day this year. But Sunday morning inspiration hit and he and I attacked a garden area that needed some serious help.  The results:

The drab, overgrown area it started Sunday as.

One of the weeded and mulched flower beds

Another weeded and mulched flower bed.

The start of a new rock garden.  We need to get some ground cover and flowers for it, but it's a start.

We have sooo much more to do, but we had to start some where.  I really want to work over the vegetable beds we have and get spinach and lettuce planted.  They still have enough time to grow and I have "slave" labor in Turbo for watering purposes.

Now for MMMM.  This week is all about rock legends.  I'm going with some of my favorite rock adn roll hall of famers:
Alice Cooper--the original shock rocker with the timely School's Out:

Aerosmith with they're first number one hit: I Don't Want to Miss a Thing:

And then there's Van Halen with Right Now:

Hope the week is a good one!

Friday Five--The 13th, AHHH

So, today is Friday, also the 13th.  I'm not really superstitious, except for the bad things come in threes. So in honor of Friday the 13th (the day, not the movie), let's do a bit of Friday fun.
First five things:

1. We were going camping this weekend but it's going to be pretty windy--45 mph gusts at least. So instead we are staying home and working on some repairs the camper needs and hanging out with friends. Some meat will be grilled, and some TABs will be enjoyed.  We will get out camping, but not quite yet.
2. My mom finally bit the bullet and got a newer car.  A 2011 Subaru. Still a standard and much fewer miles.  I am so glad she did it.  She also upgraded her phone to a smart phone.  Like me, she is certain that the phone it smarter than she is.
3. We aren't doing a whole bunch for Father's Day.  Weather permitting we may head out to one of the local lakes with the new toys.  Nick would like that.  Take sandwich stuff and just hang out playing in the water and not doing much.
4. My efforts to reduce my food intake are slowly showing results. It's so hard not to snack or over eat at meals--some of the food is just so good.  And carby snacks call my name. 
5. Full moon tonight.  The full moon and my insomnia like to gang up on me.  I did figure out a fix though--2 of my melatonin tablets before bed and I will crash all night long.  I like sleep, but don't think that much melatonin is good for me all the time.

Now 5 pictures:

Goofy dogs...

Mom, really!?!

And that is my Friday the 13th, Friday 5.