This Girl's "Best Friend"

I know, I'm supposed to have diamonds for a best friend.

Trust me, I love the diamonds I have, but they are not my "best friend".

I have my flips. Flip Flops that is. I LOVE wearing them.

I love that they are easy, comfortable, but still are considered "real" shoes.

They are also one of the cheapest kind of shoe to buy.

Which is why Bill should love them too! ;)

p.s.

For the record, that's one black, two navy blues, three browns, two tans, one white, one gold, one orange, pink slippers, and my latest purchase, purple leather (but they have a strap in the back... does that count?)

grand total: 13 glorious pairs of flips!

Signs of Spring

Blue Skies

Flowering trees lining Main Street in Hanover

Easter Egg Wreath

Eggs on our tree in the front yard

My collection of painted eggs displayed in the living room

Bill doing yard work - and I did some too!!

Birdfeeder is now up and outside the kitchen window!

The weather this week was incredible - shorts, tank tops, and flip flops were all dug out of the summer clothes storage - we hit 86 degrees at least Wednesday and Thursday. :)

Happy Birthday Dad H.!

Bill's dad's 60th birthday was on the 31st of March. We celebrated on the 27th with a party for family and friends. Here are some pictures of the evening. There was a Soda Shop theme to the party complete with hats, decorations, and snacks. The invitation invited party attenders to have a "scoop" to share, and Bill incorporated a science demo in his Scoop.

Happy Birthday Dad! We Love You!

Quilt

This year at my school we were asked to submit a "priceless item" for the silent auction. I decided to make a quilt with my student's art work on the squares.



Here is how it turned out!

I'm going to post more pictures soon - this is just the first one I took :)

Visitors :)

Justin and Randi came to visit us for the weekend - the 12th through the 14th.

Friday night we visited and caught up on what has been going on with them in the TWO years since we've visited last! It honestly didn't feel like that long...but we figured out it was...

Saturday we ventured out to a Hanover hot dog shop for lunch and enjoyed the local favorite "Famous Weiner Lunch" (I kid you not, that's actually what it is called), after being brave around the "regulars" we fit right in. :) We enjoyed a day of Wii games and chatting.

Sunday we went to church and then Justin and Bill went to play football with some of our Hanover friends... in the mud and rain. Randi and I stayed at the house and stamped cards to our heart's content, all afternoon long, it was lovely.

Group shot - right before they headed home.

Randi made some very nice looking cards. :)

Notice the mud.

Smiles always follow a good football game.

Newest fish are up next...

Fish Update

New Fish!

Bill brought home some fish from the aquarium at school.

I told him when we got the tank that I didn't care what kind of fish we got as long as at some point we could get a Molly.

One of few things I remember about the fish tank we had growing up was the black Molly fish, and the Tetras, and the snails.

I also like to name our fish, so here are more details on that part too!

Anyway...

So far we have Black Tail, Minnie, and Blue.

I named the two big Mollys the other day - Spots and Dots. Spots is the lighter one, Dots is the darker one. The medium and small ones don't have names yet...

Do you see the little baby?

It has a dark tail and it's under the yellow plant.

We have three babies - two lighter ones and a darker one.

We have six Mollys in all now - the small ones, the medium speckled one in the background, the black one in the front (Dots)...and...
(also in this picture is Blue, the Mickey Mouse fish)

a big speckled one (Spots) too.
(Dots is tagging along, and Black Tail is in the background)


Other then the fish, I've been busy making a quilt to auction off at our school carnival raffle. I had all the students design a quilt square, and I went out and bought fabric to finish it last night. When it's all sewn together, I hope to have a picture to post and share with you!

Curtains

I've been working since we moved in to add curtains in every room. Here's what we have so far!

Living RoomI bought this one at the store - the flowers on it match with the paint color almost perfectly!

Kitchen door (that goes onto the deck)I made this one on my machine, after copying my mother-in-law's design. :)

Dinning Room

I bought this "scarf" at the store.



Office
I made these when we first moved to Maryland.
They used to be in the living room of our first apartment.
I cut off the bottom half to make sure the light was still able to get in.



Bedroom
These I got at the store ~ they are supposed to block the light and the sound...
not sure they block sound, but it's really not that noisy... so it doesn't matter.
They are kind of boring, but they coordinate with our bedding set.


Craft Room
I made these ones!!!!

I love the fabric ~ here is a close up!

I need to make another one for the other window above the kitchen sink and I need to buy one for the other window in our bedroom... but other then that I'm finished!!

Okay.... so getting all those picture in order took way too long!

I'll post about the fish tomorrow!

Look What We Got!

We are the proud new owners of some fish... and a fish tank!

On Monday we went and bought the tank, and the plants, rocks, filter, heater, bubbler, and water conditioner.

On Wednesday Bill brought home the first round of fish. I say that because some of them died... so we have replaced them ~ gotta love that 14 day guarantee!

The man at the store told Bill that with a brand new tank, especially one our size, it takes a while for the fish to thrive based on the fact that it is so clean and the fish need a certain level of bacteria/algae to live.

Over the next few weeks we will be adding to our tank. We hope to get more fish and also a 'bottom dweller' to help with the cleaning. Right now we have two sword tails and a blue Mickey Mouse fish. :)

Blue Mickey Mouse on the left, sword tail on the right... the other one was hiding.

The first night we had the tank - finally filled with water!

We put it in the living room on the wall across from the chair and couch.

The middle door pops out and there is storage space behind it.

That's it for now ~ when we get more fish I'll post more pictures. :)

Year of the Tiger

This past Saturday, Bill and I attended a Chinese New Year party. Our friends Theresa and Chris Moy invited us to come and we really had a good time. We made egg rolls and wontons ~ from scratch! There were a lot of people there and it was a fun day of visiting and meeting new people.

adding the mixture to the egg roll dough

the dough is sealed using egg whites "painted on" the edge with a finger

egg rolls wrapped up and ready for the fryer

the finished product - fried in oil until golden brown!

date and time "stamp" is not working..

those last two posts, as well as this one I'm typing right now, were done on Saturday. Not Wednesday like it says.

Obviously I'm still trying to figure out Blogger...

Out and About... Finally!

Cabin Fever had set in. We were sick of being inside. It was time to get out. So we went to the store, and I brought the camera along. Here are some shots of Friday's trip.

This is a shot of our house from the street.

Lots of icicles everywhere we went!

Look at the huge snow piles in the parking lots!

Will the shoveling ever end?

This post is all about Bill. :)

All his hard work, all his time out in the snow, he did a great job keeping our driveway cleared. :)

This was Thursday morning (I think)... Our driveway was clear,

but Bill had to go back out to shovel away what the plow left at the end.

He was out there for a good hour and a half, pushing two hours...

and then look what ten dollars can get you...

and in less then five minutes, the job was done.

Thanks for all your hard work Bill! Love you!

Loving the Snow

Hi... again... I'm loving the snow, and I also love having this fast way to share the newest information about it! :) Here is the most recent video clip of Bill out in the snow, and me, standing inside the door!

More Snow!!!

Okay... this is crazy! We have more SNOW! It's hard to believe - we just read online that the county our schools are in is under a Blizzard watch - upgraded from a Winter Weather Watch. Yikes! Here are some pictures of "before and now".

Our Grill/Deck ~ Tuesday evening, and Wednesday mid-morning

Out the dinning room window towards the end of the driveway...

Check out the snow on the neighbor's windows!
Tuesday evening to Wednesday mid-morning

I'm hoping to upload the "house tour" video later today to share with those of you who haven't seen it yet. :)