Wednesday, January 28, 2009

To Infinity and Beyond......

***update - I just received a call from my sister Robin, that yesterday, the day I actually wrote this post was the day of the 23rd anniversary of the loss of the Challenger Space Shuttle. ***

I live near a really neat and educational tourist attraction. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Where the actual movie "Space Camp" was filmed.

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Do you want to know when the last time I went there was? I think I was in 7th grade. THAT was a long long long time ago. I don't even know if my kids have gone. Really its a shame. I need to take them.

We did go one time when my cousins were in from Michigan. I am thinking it was probably at Christmas time, cause from the looks of these pictures it was cold!

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Don't ask me which rocket that is in the background. I really should know, but I don't. Sad to, since I only drive by it about once a week. Robin, Lisa, Holly, Lorie, Kristen, anybody want to help me out here??

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Here we are in front of a space suit. Oooooooooo

It was real and I bet you its still there in the museum, if I ever went there to see it.

I remember one of my favorite things about going to the Space and Rocket Center was getting Dehydrated Ice Cream. That stuff was awesome. :)

Update #2 - My sister works out at NASA and just ate some dehydrated ice cream the other day, and is going to go get me some. :)

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So if your ever up in North Alabama and want to go, let me know. I'd like to go there myself. Maybe we could go together. :)

***This has not been brought to you by the U.S. Space & Rocket Center or the National Board of Tourism***

For more Fro' Me to You's fly on over to We are THAT Family

fro1

ValSig1

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

This is just wrong!

 

This morning I was getting ready, and heard a commercial on TV for a CD with Alvin and the Chipmunks singing the latest hits.  You have got to be kidding me right?  So I went to trusty ole YouTube to find the commercial.  No luck :(

Instead I found something even worse.  Something that you just might need therapy for after listening to.  Brace yourself's.........

I know, I know, I am so sorry I had to subject you to that.  I mean Simon does have a pretty good guitar solo in there, but I mean come on, can anyone compare to this......

 

Ahhhh Bon Jovi  :)  Oh this so takes me back to High School....

And just in case you need a little more to get over that awful cover by Alvin.....

 

Your Welcome  :)

ValSig1

Monday, January 26, 2009

Joy

 

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I am loving the themes over at "I Love Faces" or "I Heart Faces"  however you want to say it.

This weeks theme is "JOY".

It was a hard hard hard hard decision.  I still really don't know if I picked the right one.

This is the one I decided on......

 

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I just love the fun colors, the look on the girls faces.  It brings me lots of joy to see Syd and her friends having so much fun together.  It also brought me joy that out of all the hundreds of pictures I took of them on the "Rock and Roll" ride, that I got this shot.  I mean they were going fast, and somehow it looks like I planned it for Autumn to be looking straight at me.  There is no way that could have happened if I planned it.

Because this is what they looked like one of the next times around.  I think they were about to fly out.

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And this one is my favorite its not my entry, but it would be if the theme were scared, fear, or OH MY GOSH!!!!  Look at the face on that little boy back there!! Oh that face is precious!!

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So anyway that first one is my entry.  Let me know what you think. 

If you have some joyful pictures, go over and enter it in to ......

kids

ValSig1

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Knock on Wood

 

Jennifer? Do you remember the other day we were talking on the phone and I said "Thank goodness none us have gotten the stomach bug that has been going around.  Knock on Wood."   

Well we didn't get the stomach bug, but I did get a cold that knocked me out for a couple of days.  Maybe I should have knocked on wood a little harder.  :[

So normally I can work through a cold.  I mean its just a little cold.  Well not this time.  They sent me home from work Wednesday at 1:00 and I was out cold (no pun intended) until the next morning.  Got up, got ready, and took Syd to school, went in to work (still looking like death warmed over) and they sent me home again.  Back to bed I went.  Finally Friday I was well enough to work.  Even if I hadn't been I had to go in, way to much to do. 

Now here I am with really nothing to blog about, because I have been sick.  Things will be better next week. 

I have not forgotten about my give away I had.  I actually have some stuff for the box!!!!  Some cute stuff to.  :)  I just need to get a few more things and then I will announce the winner and show you what is going in the box.

Until then, everybody go take some Airborne or extra vitamin C, cause getting sick is NOT fun.

ValSig1

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Look what I just got!!!!

 

 

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Six pack here I come!!!!!!!  :)

ValSig1

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Freeze Frame!

WARNING!! LOTS OF PICTURES!!

 

This Saturday we had a Birthday dinner for my Daddy, the teller of tall tales.

DADDY 

My lovely niece, who is older than me by a whole year and two months and eighteen days (but who is counting) got to come in from North Carolina.  I just love it when Amanda comes in.  We used to spend lots of time together when we were younger.

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From L to R: Robin, Me, Amanda

So Saturday, I asked Deta to take a picture of me and Amanda together....

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Turned out pretty good. 

Unlike this one.....

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I was afraid that with us both having offwhite on, and being against the light colored curtains, that it would wash us out and we might just be floating heads in the picture.  So I asked Deta to take our picture with a darker background.  That's when it happened, chaos ensued.  Come on I'll show you why its so fun to be in my family......

We got our professional background out (also known as a throw) and a reflector and BAM instant studio  :) .....

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We had fun with the reflector.....

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What?? Doesn't everybody carry a reflector around to take pictures??

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I am so glad I am on this Alternative Eating Plan look at those cheeks and those jowls on my face.  :[

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Here we are trying to relax our cheeks from smiling so much

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Here is the audience that was watching

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Here is Deta taking the pictures

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Here is my Great Niece Courtney acting like a goofball

(Beat y'all didn't know I was a Great Aunt, I really am a Great Aunt)

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Courtney being bored

(actually I think she was saying will they ever stop taking pictures!!)

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Here is a picture of Jess and Courtney that I jumped into.  :)

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And then my nephew Wes saying please hurry up my arms are tired. 

When we were finished he did this....

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Brrrr its cold.....

After all those pictures, Deta and I went to her studio and I was a guinea pig for some ideas she wanted to try out.  Here are those shots.....

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Man its amazing what a talented sister, a leaf blower and photoshop can do. 

I wish my skin looked like that all the time!

(You would never guess that in those photos, I am sitting on a chair holding a leaf blower up toward my head.)

ValSig1

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Quirky?!?!

Do you have weird quirks?  Come on you know you have some kind of weird quirkiness.

Jennifer tagged me for a meme on randomness.  I am very very bad at meme's.  Let me just apologize now for any past, present, or future meme tags.  I am bad at getting them and awards posted, its not that I don't appreciate the thought, its the fact that I am a procrastinator, I have AADD, and as my Daddy says, "My mind is like Teflon, nothing sticks to it". 

My point to all this is,  it got me thinking about some quirks I have....

1.  I do not like peanuts, walnuts, pecans, or anything like that in anything I eat.  For Thanksgiving and Christmas, Lisa makes a special bowl of green stuff just for me without pecans.  Thank you Lisa!

Because of this quirk, I being a Southern girl, will not eat Pecan Pie.  I know its almost a sin to be Southern and not eat Pecan Pie, but I can't help it.

I love carrot cake, but wont eat it if the icing has pecans in it.

Don't mess up a perfectly good brownie or chocolate chip cookie with pecans or walnuts.

Its a whole texture issue.

2.  Same for onions.  If they are so finely chopped up that I can't see them anymore, I will probably eat it.  Now I like onion rings, just not the onion part, I just want the crust.  :)  Again for Thanksgiving and Christmas I got special dishes made for me without onions. 

3.  If I go through the house and lock all the doors and then lay down in the bed and say "did I lock that door?", I can not go to sleep until I get up and check that door.  Even though I know its locked.

4.  I can not drink out of a slim fast can, or drink one of those smoothie things out of the bottle.  The opening smells like soured milk and it really grosses me out.

5.  If I dream about a snake, usually someone I know is pregnant.  I can verify this happening twice.  I also can take a needle and thread hold it over your wrist and tell you how many babies you will have and what they will be.  I have about a 95% success rate on this.  My sister Robin is in the 5%, I said Branden was going to be a girl.  :)

So there you have it me in all me weird quirkiness. There are probably other thing, I just can't think of them now.  I am sure my sisters and my Mama will add anything they can think of to the comments section. 

I will completely understand if you no longer think the same of me.   If you do decide to stick around, I cannot promise that some of my quirkiness will not rub off on you.  You have been warned.  :)

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ValSig1

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Awwww aren't we cute!!

 

 

This is my sister Robin and myself.....

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Just look at Robin's cheeks!  I think we were probably 6 and 4.  This would be during the stage of Robin's hair was so curly and fuzzy, you couldn't get a comb through it.  This would also be pre-short hair for me.  This is about the time I wanted to be Donny Osmond and right before Momma cut my hair off, because I would not stop chewing on it.

We are sitting on the bottom bed of our bunk beds.  They were two twin beds, that would stack on top of each other.  Held securely together by sitting one bed atop little 1 inch high knobs on the end of each post of the other bed. 

Robin claims that my nieces Amanda and Lisa and myself (my nieces are older than me) pushed her off the top bunk.  I think she was just sitting to close to the edge and lost her balance.  Because I would never do such a thing, and neither would Amanda or Lisa.

Oh and don't you just love the wallpaper!  That wall paper was there until I was probably about 14.  I can remember there was a stain on the wallpaper from some chocolate ice cream.  I also remember going to bed crying in that bottom bunk, because I had watched the movie King Kong  and he died.  Oh the memories a picture can bring back.  :)

 

For more great memories, go visit Kristin at We are THAT family.

fro1

 

ValSig1

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Wii have a problem!

 

Someone in my house is addicted to the Wii, and its not me.

Its not Syd....

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Its not Jessie.....

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Its this precious one.....

Logan

 

You see last night as he was on his 2nd hour of Lego Star Wars, after an hour of me telling him to get off the thing. I know I should have just shut the thing off, but no I let it go on.

His daddy, walked in and told him, he had until he got out of the shower to be off the Wii.  That didn't happen either, now he is grounded from it and his Nintendo DS.

When I got home from work, I found a sweaty, crying, freaking out little boy.  I asked him, "Logan baby what is wrong".  This is the answer I get......

"I can't live with out it!!! I can't breath, I am shaking all over, I NEED to play the Wii!!! (seriously he said this!)

My 8 year old is having Wii withdrawals. 

I leave the room and a little while later he comes to me and says, "Momma, please go into the living room with Daddy, I need to talk to both of you."

So here I go in the living room, and then here comes Logan....

"I do not think it is fair that I am grounded from the Wii.  How was I supposed to know WHEN Daddy got out of the shower.  I need to be able to play the Wii, please, please, please, let me play the Wii!!!!"

Big Logan, Syd and I are trying not to laugh, ok Big Logan and I are trying not to laugh Syd on the other hand is laughing hysterically.

I tell him to let me and Daddy discuss it and maybe we can come up with a compromise.  He runs out of the room while saying "yeah, you and Daddy compromise!"

He comes back in to get the verdict.  He can play his DS for 1 hour tonight and resume playing the Wii tomorrow.  After several minutes of back and forth negotiations, he finally agreed with the verdict handed down.

I pray we have no more Wiithdrawals tonight.  It could be a long night.......

ValSig1

Monday, January 12, 2009

Right up my alley

 

 

I saw this on Tidymom, Sandy Toes, and Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.  Its a blog call "I Heart Faces", and they are having a contest in two categories, kids and adults.   I love taking pictures of faces and getting interesting looks and expressions.  I love it even more when I capture a certain something in their eyes.  To top it off, The guest judge is Miz Booshay!!  I am a lurker at her site, I look at it everyday, and sometimes I will comment, but most of the time, I just admire her work. 

So this is the shot I chose.  I have many I could have entered, but this one immediately came into my head.

Its a recent favorite I took of Sydney.

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There are some awesome pictures entered, go on over and check them out!

 

ValSig1