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Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts

March 17, 2010

Weekend Wrap Up Part Deux - The Scrap Gatherers

What do you get when you take this group of ladies....


and mix it with this lovely scenery?

You get a three day scrapbook retreat!

Here's a highlight of what we did for three days.





The entire weekend was soooo much fun!  A relaxing time was had by all.  ENJOY!

March 9, 2010

Java After Jammies

Last night the ladies of OFA had a very intimate little late night coffee/dessert gathering at the local Cracker Barrel.  It was a very laid back relaxed gathering and we laughed and laughed and laughed!!  Thanks Deb!!

We forgot to bring a camera so I took a few pics with my phone.  They're not the best quality but they're still fun to look at.

We all enjoyed a wonderful dessert!!

Fun, Food, and Fellowship!!

Kerry's dessert was the hit of the evening.  IT WAS HUGE!!!!!

It was such a wonderful evening.  I enjoyed being with you lovely ladies of OFA.  Can't wait to see what we'll be doing next month!!

February 23, 2010

The Amazing Race: Valentine's Edition 2010

Here we go....I want to fill you in on what the girls put together for our husbands last Friday.  My real life and bloggy friend Nicole found a great idea on another blog:  My Insanity.  When she asked me and two other of our girlfriends to be a part of this (six weeks ago), I was immediately on board!! Soooo, here's how it went:

We all met at the Breese's home. We told our husbands we were all going to go out together for supper and we were meeting there to decide where we all wanted to go. Hee-Hee The girls disappeared back into a bedroom to change into our matching T-shirts.

Nicole, Berry, Deidra and Tamara

It was so funny when we came out because we had to track down one husband that was on the phone with a restaurant making reservations for us to eat.  ha-ha-ha!!!  They were all so shocked when we came out with matching shirts on and handed each of them their "uniform".  The mood of the room immediately went to an "oh no....what are they doing to us".  It was sooo funny!!


Jeff, Nick, Rick and Jace

The Breeses, The Olinghouses, The Taulmans and The Conners

After putting on the "uniforms", we read them the rules of the race:
1. They had to wear their uniform at all times.
2. They had to follow the clues and complete all Roadblocks.
3. They had to video each Roadblock being completed.
4. They had to use the pouch of money to buy each of us a gift.
5. They had to get each of us a bouquet of flowers without spending any money.

Then we took away everyone's wallet & cell phones.  The person driving got to keep his drivers license and cell phone.  We also gave them a PINK pouch full of $1.10 in pennies. 

Their first clue read: 
It's time to make those cards, but in order to do it right, you'll need to go to the store, where Nicole makes memories on a Friday night.

They were to go to the local scrapbook store and make a card for each one of us.  Unbelievable (hee-hee) there was an actual crop going on that night.  The guys had to go sit in the crop room with all of the other women and make a card for us.  Here's a peek at what that looked like: 

I wish I could repeat the stories these guys had to tell.  The most memorable one was the stories of the other women in the crop room texting their husbands about what our men were doing there.....LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
After making each of us a card they were given their second clue:
Now you're heading to an Island, where you'll have a Funtastic time. You'll be swinging and sliding, and finding a clue when you climb.

We have a huge new play area (Funtastic Island) where we had hidden their clue earlier.  One of the guys had to climb up in all of the slides and ramps to find the clue.  My hubby was the lucky one that decided to do that task.

Here he is looking for the clue.

And here he is after finding the clue.

The third clue (found in the slides) read: 
Next drive across town, to a Firestone who is a delight. One of you will perform a Roadblock, that's sweet and spicy and such a fright.
Firestone is the last name of a lady in our church.  She had a treat of worms and chocolate covered crickets ready for someone to eat.  I don't have a picture of that for some reason. 
 
After that roadblock, they were given their fourth clue:
Your next stop is a pizza place, near Uptown not down. Hopefully they'll be love in the air with your tune, and not (A)more frowns.
This was a local Italian pizzeria in town called Andolini's.  Here they were supposed to sing "That's Amore" to the patrons in the shop.  The two left in the group that had not done a roadblock were to do this portion. 
 
 
When they completed that, they were to pick up the food that we had ordered and they also got their fifth clue:
Now go (b)o(w)ling, not to the alley but the house. There you'll find your prize: not a million, but your spouse.

This lead them to their ultimate prize - US!!  We were at the Olinghouse residence.  Cute huh??  We had created a great tablescape for all of us to sit and eat our dinner and enjoy the stories.

After eating a dinner and listening to the guys tell stories of the evening, we all went into the living room and anxiously waited for our cards, gifts and flowers.  I could not wait to see what they came up with.

Nick gave Deidre a package of bulbs for his flowers and a kneeling mat he purchased from the dollar tree.


Jace gave Berry a flower arrangement he got from the Firestone residence (when he ate the bugs).

Rick gave Nicole a flower made out of paper from the scrapbook store and a Valentine wood block decoration that he also got from the Firestone residence.  It's funny they were asking for things when they went places!!



Jeff got me a bouquet of roses from the Dollar Tree and Andolini's (the pizzeria where they sang) let him have the bear I am holdingin my hand.  The bear sings "That's A'more"...how cute is that!!  His card was the highlight...Here's what it said inside:
HAHAHAHAHA!!!  I got the biggest laugh out of this!!

After everything was over and we sat and chatted and laughed some more, we gave our hubbies candy bars with this note attached:


After a wonderful evening of laughs, fun, food and fellowship, we all left with our sides hurting.  What an evening!!  Our husbands were such great sports to do this with us.  I can't wait to see what we plan next!!  Thanks guys!!

Sealed with a kiss!!!!
I hope you enjoyed your Valentine as much as we did!!

January 5, 2010

Weight Watchers - Day 1 and Lunch with a Great Friend!

It has begun!!!  The big WW is swimming around in my head, stomach, legs, arms...YES, I've started Weight Watchers.  I did it not to lose tons of weight (I need to lose some) but to make this a lifestyle change.  My late 30's has not been very nice to me...not to mention no thyroid!  YIKES!

Last night was my first meeting and I learned quite a bit.  I had never truly known how Weight Watchers worked.  Very eye opening.  Today has been like a game for me.  Stay under my points, how can I get all of my points in a day and still stay satisfied.  Just like a puzzle!  I've done pretty well so far.  I have 21 pts a day I can eat and I've eaten only 9 of them.  I have 12 that I can have tonight.  Pretty good for my first day.

There was one little "snag" today!  I didn't know if I would be able to do it, but I made it work!!  A Bible College friend was in town and wanted to have lunch with me and another blog friend of mine - well, ours.  I mentioned this in my blog yesterday.  Well, we all decided Olive Garden - OH NO!!!!!  The pasta was calling my name...but I stayed calm and did the soup and salad thing.  Not too shabby!!  We had soooo much fun!!! It was great to catch up with Lori and Loren!


Here's a few pics from the day!

Mister Indigo - Can you say ADORABLE????  Oh my this little guy is soooo cute!


Miss Greley - What a beautifully poised young lady this is!  So talented and sweet!!


Even Honey got in on the action!!  Love this lady!!  AND LORI TOO!!


The BLOG Crew that enjoyed a lunch today...
Loren (themagoosnews), Lori (girlymuse) and me (catchingupwiththeconners)

Oh what fun it is to catch up on old times!!  Lori, you're still such a jewel!  Best of luck in your new adventures for 2010!!!  Loren, a friend that I live by and don't get to see enough of!!  Peace in the year 2010! 

What a start to a great new year!  **Running around giddy with excitement**

January 4, 2010

2010



It's Official!!!!  It's 2010!! 
I was reading one of my friends blogs this morning, Girly Muse, and she was saying how 2010 (back when we were young) was one of those sci-fi sounding years that seemed forever away and we would all be flying around in Jetson cars.  I too thought that when I was small.  Look at us now!!!  We're not flying around at all.  Sometimes the technology that we have makes me wonder how much closer we are to flying ourselves around.

Speaking of Girly Muse, Lori and I went to college together.  I haven't seen her since we returned from our 1993 Choir Tour.  It has been 16 years (WOAH)!!  I recently caught up with her via facebook and blogging.  She's still the same Lori that I knew in college - Funny, Quirky, Cute as a button, talented and So Super Sweet!!  I am soooo excited to say that I will be having lunch with her tomorrow (on my turf!!).  Don't even have to travel to Minnesota in January!  She emailed myself and Loren, another blogger and real life friend of mine, to let us know she would be in our area. We are going to have a fabulous lunch at Olive Garden and catch up on old times and new times!!  I CAN'T WAIT!!!  Can you say excited????  She doesn't even know how great this timing is for me to have something like this happen.

Moving on - 2010 is here and the resolutions are flying out of people's mouths left and right.  I'm not a great resolution person.  Reading other blogs this morning, I find myself not an unusual one conerning resolutions.  I have made many over the years and have yet to stick to one.  This year I am not doing the typical cliche resolution of weight loss or anything like that.  I am, however, joining a weight watchers group (TONIGHT) with a few other girls from my church.  We have decided to make this a group effort so we can be accountable to each other and also becaue it's just more fun that way!!!  I am needing to lose some wieght but refuse to call it my resolution.  I want my resolution to show a healthier lifestyle with my eating and exercise.  I don't want to put limits on myself.  I don't want to say I want to lose this much weight as my resolution and then fail.  It really kind of gets me down when I can't do things I want to do.  Soooo, I figured that Maybe, Just Maybe, this would be the way to do it!!

Another Improvement I pray to make this year is with my blogging, meal planning, tv time, spending habits, family time and home.  As I'm sitting here typing this I'm realizing that I want to change a lot of things.  Is this going to overwhelm me and I will come screaming out of January with hands pulling frazzled hair hollering, "I GIVE UP!!!!"?  Surely not!  That, my friend, is how I have actually felt though over the past 3 months.  I feel like there are millions of things floating through my head  all day long!  Too much to do....too many places to be...too much, too much, too much!!!!  I could probably add on to that list that I want to read more this year and that I want to simplify how we live.  To tell you the truth, I could sit here for hours and add to the list...there I go getting overwhelmed again!!  I'd best stop right there!!

On to other things:  We had a wonderful New Year's Eve.  It was actually pretty uneventful.  We were invited to join another family at Osaka's for dinner.  That turned out to be quite entertaining.  They overbooked the place and we had to wait for an hour and a half (even though we had reservations).  There was a lot of mad, screaming people and at one point a fight was about to break out.  Interesting night!  All in all an uneventful new year's eve.  Jeff and I were home by 11 and in bed by 11:30 watching the NYC festivities.  We left the next morning for a fast and furious trip to Kansas.  We had to deliver a smoker to his uncle and decided to make a short weekend vacation out of it.  It was just okay for me.  Sure missed my bed, my chair, my recliner and just being home.  I'm such a home body at times.  It's rather sad!! 

I have added something new to my schedule this year.  I am going to be reviewing books on my blog.  I am so excited about being a part of 3 different programs.  Stay tuned - more to come on that!!

I pray that everyone has a blessed 2010!!  Cheers!