Happy Birthday to me

Tomorrow is my 48th birthday. That's hard for me to believe, because I certainly don't feel that old inside,

The best part, so far, about being 48, is that I'm 55 pounds lighter this year than I was last year! Hallelujah! What a great birthday present to myself!

Guerilla Goodness Part 2

I realized (after my dad prodded me) that it's been a really long time since I updated my blog!

I never told you about our Guerilla Goodness adventure!

The day before school started, the girls & I went to Reedsport to help our friend Rachel chalk up the sidewalks in her neighborhood and around the schools with phrases of goodness & kindness & cheery little thoughts.
I have more photos on my facebook page if you want to check them out there.
The next day (the first day of school here), Rachel & her boys came here and helped us chalk up our sidewalks. What fun!

A few days later, at the school board meeting, both principals mentioned that "someone" had left some neat sidewalk greetings in front of the school and they wondered who was responsible. All I did was smile. Guerilla Goodness is good.

Guerilla Goodness Part 1

Everytime I see this video it brings tears of joy & happiness to my eyes.

My friend Rachel, posted it on her blog along with this challenge for Guerilla Goodness (think random acts of kindness).

I can't tell you how much I LOVE this idea! I will be helping her with her act of Goodness, and she'll be helping me! If you love this idea too and want to help, call me!

A new face..

Danielle got her braces off yesterday. She's so funny. She keeps smiling and saying "I have a new face...new face..." She stopped by so she could take her first bite of an apple in almost 2 years.

Her first bite.


What a tiny little bite! She worked so hard for it, too!


At long last...a real bite! A bite worth waiting for!

Another visitor

Milca registered for school today. I think she'll do ok with her classes. She's got a good variety of subjects and nothing that she won't be able to do with a little help. She should have a fun year! We went to the beach this afternoon. This was the first time Milca had been to the Pacific Ocean.
The girls took a walk down the beach while I stayed near the jetty and hunted agates. I was having no luck finding agates until they came back, and then I found alot! Both Milca & Megan found several within the first few minutes! The first rock Milca picked up was an agate twice as big as my thumbnail! I was very impressed!



Milca is going white water rafting this weekend with all the Rotary exchange students in Oregon. Lucky girl! Tonight we had Andrea from Switzerland spend the night with us. She's staying with a family in Coos Bay and they asked if she could stay here in order to carpool to their event this weekend. They're going to have a lot of fun. Wish I could go!

She's arrived!

Megan made this sign. Isn't it beautiful? We didn't notice that something was missing from it until the morning we left to pick Milca up from the airport! I guess even though we can speak English, we certainly can't write English! Whoops! Milca also has a blog, where she posted the same picture. One of her Brazilian friends caught the spelling error! We all had a good laugh about it!


Milca arrived on August 21st from Brazil.

We were surprised to find that she speaks very little English! Our first night at home was very interesting. Milca is an exchange student with Rotary International, and Rotary has a list of "first night" questions that we are supposed to discuss the first night she's here. How do you explain curfew or how to turn the shower on or when to go to bed at night & wake up in the morning to someone that speaks little English? We managed, but it took us awhile. Every day, she does a little better, but I'm worried about what classes she will take in school.

Do you know what this means?

It means..... 50 pounds baby!!

That's right. Officially today, I've lost 50 pounds since March, 2009! I'm wearing size 14 clothes (down from an 18/20). One of these days I'll post a pic of something besides my toes, but for now...look at that scale! Whoohooo!!

So here's a bit about what's been going on in my life lately.

Shortly after Bernie's birth of an 8mm kidney stone, we lost our Holly-dog. She was almost 14 years old. We think she had a stroke. The vet thinks she had organ failure that caused the stroke. Either way, our sweet HollyMolly is in heaven playing with Shadow, Cy & PoohBear. We miss her!

Megan's been at Girl Scout camp for several weeks now. She's having a great time. She gets to come home on the weekends, which is just enough time for her to get a few phone calls in to her best friend, check her email, wash some clothes and then get back to camp.


Cory is anxious to get back to school. He's tired of washing dishes at work and just wants to get back to all that hard studying & stuff. Go figure. We'll leave next week to take him back. He's very excited to be driving his "new" car.

Summer is in full swing here. Tuesday, our thermometer marked 90+ in the shade! Daddy & I went to the fair and practically melted while we were there. That's one thing the fair should try & do better - provide some shade on the grounds! As for what I'm doing to occupy "all my free time"... what free time?! Seems like every day off I have, it's filled to the gills with something that needs to get done. I do have some goals for this summer, but I've yet to accomplish any of them. I've been too busy! *lol*

More later...maybe even some pictures!