Sunday, October 15, 2006

Puppies & Balloons

THIS is what happens when you give a Lab puppy a balloon to play with!


And here's one to show just how big she's gotten!


More Marching Band

Bet you all will be glad when Marching Band season is over, hun??? :) Here are two pics from yesterday's afternoon game. Naturally, there is one of Billy...and one of Nicole. It was sunny and about 45 degrees at the school when we loaded the buses...25 minutes into the trip it started raining...ten minutes later it was snowing...and ten minutes farther down the road there was an inch of snow! But, we drove through that snow storm...and to Port Allegheney. It was 35 degrees, windy as heck and spitting snow! Naturally we were all dressed for 45 and sunny! By the time the game was over it was a beautiful fall afternoon. Weird weather! During halftime it was still windy with occasional sunshine vs. snow flakes...so if Nicole looks frozen, she probably is...and they all were holding on to the flags for all they are worth!


And, as always...a great big THANKYOU to Gretchen for taking the wonderful photos!

Saturday, October 07, 2006

RHS Homecoming Game & Dance

Photo Taken By Gretchen Rokosky

Oh how the kids grow! Billy will be 17 in another month...his gf of two years will be 15 in the spring. Last night was their High School Homecoming football game. It was freezing out...literally at 31 degrees...clear as a bell with a beautiful full moon. Nothing specatular; with the exception that our team won by two points and the skin of their teeth (the opposing team was on the 2 yard line with posession with 15 seconds on the clock!). Billy suffered through the cold and left Nicole wear his letter jacket all night. His new drums finally came in (they've been on backorder since July)...so here he is marching with his brand new Quints! BTW, he is playing his solo in the song Crazy Train in this pic. And, as usual, this wonderful, perfectly clear pic was taken be fellow band mom and reporter Gretchen. I was at the fb game...helped the kids get their uniforms and everything and never noticed until Gretchen sent me this photo that Billy's new drum carrier goes UNDERNEATH his uniform jacket! So cool to see the whole uniform! OK, so after rereading this post, maybe the night/weekend was pretty specatular! :)


This picture is my doing...with my plane-jane digital camera.

Tonight is the Homecoming dance... Nicole really is beautiful when she isn't making snoots at the camera! ;) Her parents won't let her ride with Billy; so her mom took them to a later afternoon movie (Jackass2), out to dinner and to the Homecoming dance. I took them to Walmart & Eat and Park last night after the game and will be picking them up after the dance.

Billy was a little depressed because he sooooo wanted to take the Mustang to the dance...he's holding out hope for the Prom! So here they are posing with *my* car!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Just A Few More Lake Erie Pictures...

Just making you suffer through a few more pictures of our vacation. :) And besides, I don't wanna erase them from the memory card until I can get it to Walmart and make some *real* prints from them.

Just the pretty lake...a bit rough from an incoming storm...but it was much rougher later in the afternoon when I took the pics from the bay I posted the other day. Even in the bay, the waves were white-capped.


Here's that ravine I climbed down and stood in... In my younger days I'm afraid I would have been down on the beach via this stack of natural shale steps.


And...here's Bill! Yup, he crawled into the ravine and walked out to the edge just for me!!!

Monday, October 02, 2006

Lake Erie

These pictures were taken in New York State. We drove from Erie, PA to North East, PA on Route 5 and then kept going for a ways...Bill spoted a road sign that read Rippley Beach Road. Sooo, down the road we went. At the end of this narrow dirt road was a grassy parking spot. The view of the lake was specatular...these pictures do not do the view justice. Of course, I bailed out of the car and headed to the lake...only to find myself on a clif 50 feet ABOVE the beach!


This is the first picture I took...I like the look of the trees in the forground...


But...Bill didn't...so here's the same pic, I took this one, leaning out around the trees that were on the cliff ledge with me.


Cool-looking berries on one of the trees.


I loved the determination of this tree; hanging on for dear life.


This was a little tiny ravine, with a trickling stream (I'm talking a few inches wide) down the center. naturally, me and my Crocs waded down the center and took a picture!


This one was taken standing that the opening of that ravine!


Ahhh, leaning waaaay out over the ledge, taking the picture, straight down!


Hmmm, what's that over there? A path? OK, I'm going over... You can see another small stream off to the bottom right of this picture...this one made a beautiful waterfall down the second (I didn't wade down this one!) ravine.

In this pic, I'm standing right beside the tree in the above pic. Leaning out over the edge...you can't see the waterfall very well, so, I leaned out farther and took the pic below!

Ahhh, there's the pretty waterfall!

OK...I'm running late...I'll post the last few pics (one of Bill) later... ;)


Sunday, October 01, 2006

Lake Erie Teaser Pix

OK...couldn't help myself...here are two pictures taken of the bay in Erie, PA. For both of the pictures, I'm standing on the dock of a very cool bar/restaurant called "Rum Runners".


The tower is an observation tower...notice the cute Gull on the white post? When I started fumbling with the camera every post had a gull sitting on the top of them. We've been up in this tower several times, it's pretty cool. You can actually feel it sway in the wind...which is *not* cool!

This other picture...well, Commodore Perry's monument is out there somewhere (about dead center in the pic, on the Peninsula) but, right now, all I'm seeing is the ducks and geese on the water! LOL This is taken out towards the lake, where the tower is deep inland in the bay.

Weeds & Vacation


OK...I've offically ingored the gardens since starting to work full time. And...by the looks of this picture, it's really starting to show! :( I guess I need to do some serious garden/landscaping work in the next week or so. BTW, this is suppose to be a blue rug juniper...apparently it got infested with thissel seeds! I didn't know thissels got this big around!

I'm just back from a mini vacation. Bill and I went to Erie, PA for our 21st anniversary. I have a few great pictures of Lake Erie I took from a private beach in New York state. Hey, we were driving around, going from winery to winery (in North East, PA) and ended up in NY...what can I say???!!! :) I'm downloading those now...and will try to post them in a day or two.

We had a blast...and only spent $50 on wine...and another $30 on locally made beer at a microbrewery. I managed to have enough patiences for Bill to stop at two different antique places....and he had patiences for me to go to the mall AND two knitting stores! :) He stayed in the car but won't admit to this part...but he took at nap at both knitting stores! We had some great food and fantastic desserts. Hmmm, I think I'm too tired to go to work tomorrow! :))