Aaaahhh to sleep like this.....

When I got home late yesterday this is how I found Miss Bailey sleeping...her toys tucked safely right under her front paws....just snoring away! To be so lucky!

If I Could (3)

Yesterday found me in the heart of South Minneapolis proper...looking for a little shop I've heard of since I moved here, but never gotten to. The antique shop was called Hunt and Gather, located right at 50th & Xerses...adjacent to all the fun boutiques at 50th and France. The shop was so-so...not as great as I anticipated..BUT the houses in the area certainly caught my eye. I had to grab my camera as I stopped and spent time dreaming about what type of life I'd have inside this one. I particularly loved the pool area with the "grandma" residence in the back of the house --- it'd be perfect for my kids, G-kids and me!

New Fav's

Not driving school bus this week due to spring break has left me a speck of free-time to do one of my favorite things....thrift-store shop! Always keeping my eye out for a treasure I can take up to my booth at the Nickel Antique Barn and make a dime on, I had quite the luck this week...all the way from these dandelion plants I adore to the old, stained, carved, small glass bowl on the left for 49cents and just had to have the little white pitcher shown on the shelf which I got for a whopping 99cents. The best thing I got though were 8 of the green glasses shown on my hutch...each for 49cents... when I got them to the cash counter 2 other people came running to ask me where I found them...can't believe how cute they were and of course, realized after I got them they'd be perfect for Ria's new kitchen with her green accents... so she'll be taking them home I'd guess. Problem now is, I don't want to sell any of them --- uff-dah.

Must Be Nice....

Richie thinks Bailey isn't feeling the best...she shivers alot...so this is how I often find her in the house. I think it's just cuz we keep it cooler in our home than she's used to with her usual family :-) He sure spoils that doggie! I think tommorrow he's off to buy her a matching sweater and hat....

Speaking of Disneyworld....

Today would have been my Dad's 78th birthday. Were I closer to home, I'd be going out for Lemon Meringue Pie, his favorite, with my Mom, Sis and Bro to honor his birthday. I would skip the pancakes smeared with peanut butter and then lathered with maple syrup that he used to eat though! Was thinking the other day of how the twins are going to turn 9 this year and remembering his tradition to take his G-kids to Disneyworld when they turned "9". Realizing how much fun that would have been for him to do and certainly wishing that could have been reality.... I bet he would have still gone on the rides with them :-)

Do you know how you get your phonebook?

Richie's got a new gig...dangle a delivery in front of that man and he just can't say no. So I took a page out of my good friend Mary's book "how to happily be married to a Richard for 40 yrs." and helped him out before we headed to Mystic Lake on Easter. He says there are lots of families doing it with their kids and using the money for DisneyWorld trips...I could totally picture Tim, Ria their Suburban full of phone books and 4 kids heading into a neighborhood everyone running up to a different front door to drop off a phone book....lol.... OK probably not, but I could totally picture my dad having us kids do it as a family...and really it's a good way to get kids involved in setting a goal for something fun and working together to reach that goal. Easter at Mystic Lake certainly was different...but certainly full of alot of people who thought it was a good way to spend the day..there were LOTS of Grandma Beans there...shoulda had her along with us. Richie hungered for Prime Rib, I felt ham was my choice so we hit the Buffet.....WOW...we even won some money before we headed home.

Happy Easter!

Here's Miss Bailey this morning...the only little one we have around us today to hide any Easter eggs for....she's posing next to Miss Bunny - the one and only Easter decoration we have out in the entire house...and the 3 mini-hockey sticks we got at the Gopher Hockey game last night for Carter, Cooper and Sweet Lou! I tried to take a pic at the game and then the batteries went dead... of course! It definitely was a sea of maroon and gold at the Excel and with sitting right behind the Denver bench we were close enough to reach out and touch that yucky #14 May's long curly hair! The fans around us sure were giving him a hard time about his long locks..."hockey hair"! I was also lucky enough to be within 10 feet of my former post "hottie" Anthony LaPanta!!!!!! He did an on-air interview right in front of us... C&C called this morning to say they saw me on TV......whoo-hoooo! We're off to Mystic Lake...going to play some penny slots and see if we can win enuff $$$ to pay for those tickets from last night :-)

Change of Plans....

Well...Carter and Cooper this one's for you.... G'pa Richie decided to treat G'ma tonite... instead of working tonite and if I give up Sunday brunch out after church so he can sleep, he said we could scrounge for tickets to the Gophers WCHA Finals tonite at the Excel... we spent an hr on the internet and guess what we got ?????? ROW FOUR Center Ice in Section 117 tickets.... We'll take pictures for you :-)... wish you were here to come along...can we borrow your jerseys to hold up for the TV cameras?

The View from here.....

Easter or Christmas? Richie left just after midnight last nite to fight this on his paper route and just got back in about 30 mn ago....and grabbed the shovel. Ok, so I know I still have the Merry Christmas flag up...but I didn't expect the back step or the view to the lake to look like this today....instead of hiding Easter eggs today we're shoveling out from over a foot of new snow...we were heading downtown Mpls. to Macy's 8th Floor Annual Flower show but think we better hangout here in the burbs and clean up.

Go GOPHERS!

19,000 fans at the EX to watch the Goph's win in another overtime tonite and I'm just 30 mn and 20 miles away... yet I have to settle for this...TV like everyone else at home... oh well, that Anthony Lapanta is easy on the old eyes.... right? wonder if there's tickets for the final tmr nite...even the announcer said at the end of the post-game show it woulda been a better final with the No Dak's in it!

Can Somebody ?

please buy this beauty a new Easter Dress? Any little girl with a pink hat as cute as this one, deserves a matching Easter dress. Since my trip home was only a few hours long yesterday, Miss Kennedy and I didn't get a chance to partake in our annual event of taking her shopping to pick out a new dress for Easter Sunday. Can someone fill this absent Grandma's shoes? Believe me, there is no one more fun to take shopping for a frilly pink dress than my Dee-Dee.

Future Tony Lucia or Alex Kangas?

It was a nice day for a drive yesterday, so Richie and I took the day and drove to Moorhead to see the G-kids in the Ice Show. When it was time to give our goodbye hugs, this is where I found my Carter.... where one can usually find him most days...in the garage shooting the puck. Cooper usually never misses a hug and a goodbye, but Carter ? Well, ya gotta hunt him down for one. I couldn't help but think of him again last night as I watched the end of the Gopher/Mankato hockey game. Not being a girl that into Gopher Hockey in years of past, for some reason this weekend I decided to watch the best 2 out of 3 series with the winner going to the "Fab 5" or something like that....(ok now I know Carter is laughing cuz old G'ma doesn't even know what it's called) anyway, the series was all the hype on WCCO last week and the sports channels so I watched some of each game all 3 nites... and oh my gosh, did I get treated to some awesome hockey! All 3 of them overtime games and after each game I wanted to call Carter cuz I know how emotional he gets over Gopher Hockey wins and losses. I'm sure hoping that G'ma and G'pa let him stay up extra late down at the lake last night so he could see Tony Lucia score the game winning goal in the middle of another double overtime! Like the announcers said, it's too bad that both teams couldn't win that game... and I kept thinking of little Cooper crying when he played goalie up at his tournament when I looked at the goaltender from Mankato at the end of the game... looking like he didn't have a friend in the world. I'll tell you, if it ever comes to C or C playing goalie in a game like that and losing, I'll be down there in the net crying right along with them! I'm thinking Grandpa Mark should drive them down here for the game against St. Cloud at the Excel on Thursday night... and we'll go get the tickets so we can all go!... that is if the Pelican Rapids Vikings don't play in the Boys State Basketball tournament at the same time on Thursday! Go VIKES ! !

P.S. - look at the pic...appears it's time he learns how to shoot the puck left-handed too!

A Better View Today....

This is the view I have at six each morning as I drive the streets of downtown Chaska on my way to either the clinic or the bus garage. They sent me out as far west as the district transports students this morning....my first pick-up being at 6:34 am in the farmlands west of Carver. I just love that area early in the morning as you're driving high on the bluffs up above the river valley. The clear darkened sky with the bright pink tones of the sun rise over on the east was the perfect setting for the sparkly lights of the bluffs and deep valley laying down before me.... almost felt when driving that bus like I was sitting on top of the world looking on down. Even though I drove 26 miles on this first of three routes and picked up only 6 students, it was well worth the early rise and firing up the big orange tin crate to bustle on down the road looking for students standing at the end of their farmyards in the dark. But the best was saved for last..... on the afternoon route over near Chanhassen on the far eastern section of the district I saw what I've been waiting for.... OPEN WATER ! with ripple-like wave action even! It was sheer fabulous and the perfect morale booster....Happy Birthday today to my daughter-in-law Ann ! !

The View....

Today is March 10th. This is the view outside my bedroom window towards the lake... yes, that's a snowbank on the window pane. Last year on this date, it was sunny and 47 degrees outside. Two yrs. ago on Easter I had all the kids here for an Easter egg hunt around the lake. It was 70 degrees out that day. Even I, the one who actually likes winter, am sick of this view.

Finding our way to Finding Nemo!

We just had to have our nails match the T-shirts, the faces had to be painted with Nemo fish, we sprayed sparkles in our hair to match our headbands, we had dinner at the famous Hard Rock Cafe, we shopped long and hard for our Nemo souvenirs, we took our fabulous seats to enjoy the show and when it was over we had enjoyed our usual group hugs as cousins. We all agreed that it was even better than last year and next year we won't be able to leave Elliott behind !! Wonder how he'll like getting his nails and hair done? Oh well, maybe he can tag along with cousins Carter and Cooper to the State Hockey tournament... and go with Dad to the Gopher Hockey Game that he got to enjoy while poor Grandma Charlene got left behind to babysit!

Bag of Cotton Candy - $10...Family Fun - Priceless!

It was the bestest.... tune in later for more!

Getting Excited!

We spent the afternoon getting our outfits ready for the big night tommorrow night watching the Disney on Ice production of "Finding Nemo" at the Target Center. We created our own fish designs and then painted them on the t-shirts we bought at Michaels. We made a pink shirt for Delaney and a green shirt for Jillian too! Tommorrow morning we get our nails done and our hair all fixed up! Once we meet up with the Elton cousins, we'll get our faces painted like fishies! Check back tommorrow for pictures of us at the show!

What's a Grandma To Do?

So.... you're sitting at the last game of the season.... the "championship" game... ya check out the scoreboard with less than 3 minutes to go and it's tied... 5 to 5... hummm you think.... the same as your current age is.... you've got one grandson skating his heart out on the ice... you got another grandson bawlin' his eyes out in the net playin' goalie...he's let five goals get by him...you can't go out and comfort him...so you give him the thumbs up and cheer him on as he looks over at you tears running down his red cheeks... ya think back to the conversation you had with them at the breakfast table that morning --- "So what will you do if you WIN?"..... they say "we want them to play the song "We Are the Champions" on the loudspeaker.... then you ask "So what will you do if you lose?" (thinking they'll take it like men and congratulate their opponent with a handshake) and they say "Well Grandma Sandi, we'll cry"... so you send up a hope and a prayer....cuz face it, you can't lace up and go out there and help them --- you see their mommy standing across the ice taking their pictures, you see their daddy over on the bench in the coaching box tellin' em "this is your last game as mites so get out there and give it your all"... and what do you do ? reach for another blood pressure pill .... realizing you've got 10 more years ahead of you of games like this one...and hoping there's a stronger pill out there to keep your old ticker a tickin'.... by the way, they did end up winning the championship... and then you are the one ending up with a tear in your eye :-)