My Dad turns 75 today.   Happy Birthday Daddy!  

Isn't our little high school graduate just the cutest?  Here's one of my favorite pictures of the two of us: 

Fast forward a few years and here we are again...

Maybe I should add a picture of my brother. 

Look how sharply dressed they were.  Mom looks like Donna Reed.  BTW, there are many more baby pictures of my brother than me; I was a product of that second child syndrome.  Here's one more of Dad and Kevin:

Dad is rocking those socks isn't he?   

Today I took the day off from work and rode to Salisbury with Mom and Dad to visit my Aunt Jean and Uncle Dick.  Aunt Jean is one of Dad's sisters.  Here is a picture of Dad and Aunt Jean. 

Isn't she beautiful?

Here he is with Uncle Dick

Mom and Aunt Jean

Finally, here's a picture of Dad and all of his brothers and sisters.  This picture was taken in 1991.  

Oh and Grandma is in the middle. 

I'll post more about them and their wonderful spouses later.  I have the best Aunts and Uncles in the world!  Well, this is going to be a busy blogging weekend. Tonight we are going to Rana's to celebrate Dad's birthday. Then, tomorrow is Rana's birthday.
See you soon! 

Daniel's First Birthday

Happy Birthday to my nephew, Daniel.  Today he turned 1 year old.  Warning - this post is a little picture heavy - Daniel has family on several continents that will be seeing these photos.  Here's a picture of Laura, Rana and the birthday boy!

Here's Dad (aka Papaw) wearing his party hat.

Laura didn't like his hat very much.  Just after I took this picture she took it off of his head.  Actually, she snapped it off of his head.  Poor Dad - OUCH! 

Here's our birthday boy...

Nana and Papa, or as I like to call them, Mom and Dad. 

 Daniel was starting to get hungry here...

Daniel got a toy dog for his birthday.  He loved it.

Rana is teaching Laura how to play with one of Daniel's new toys.  

Daniel also got a new refrigerator toy

Laura didn't like the "big" light on.  She kept turning it off all night.  That made it a little difficult for those of us trying to take pictures!

Here's a picture of a birthday bear that Daniel's Aunt Yolla and cousins Christel, Richard and Carol sent him all the way from their home in Marseille, France.  This bear sings the "Happy Birthday" song.  Daniel loved it so much.  He even sang along! 

We are all singing Happy Birthday here...

I think Daniel is wishing that mom would hurry up with the cake. 

His first taste of birthday cake!

 Laura is kissing Aunt Julie. 

 Aunt Julie is spinning Laura.  Laura LOVES to spin. 

Daddy and Laura.  Or, as I like to call him, Kevin. 

 Daddy and Daniel. 

 Uncle Scott is holding the happy birthday boy. 

 The men folk: 

 The End. 

Well, this is actually the end of the first out of three family birthdays this week.  Dad's birthday is Friday and Rana's birthday is Sunday.  That's a lot of cake. 

Three Dog Night

Scott and I had a really great evening last night.  We went to Ken's house (Scott's uncle) to visit with our friends, Michael and Jill, who were in town from Cincinnati.  Michael and Jill brought their three "babies":  Steely Dan, Bailey and Saraya.  As usual, I have pictures.  Here is a picture of Michael and Jill.

Poor Michael.  His vision is so bad that I don't think he realized that he was wearing his glasses in the wrong place! (wink, wink)  Here's a picture of Saraya.  Saraya is a Great Pyrenees just like our dog Sadie was.

Next we have a picture of Saraya's brothers.  Steely Dan is on the couch and Bailey is on the floor. Steely and Bailey are Golden Retrievers.

Here I am playing with Saraya and Steely.  It is always a good idea to wear gloves when rough-housing with Saraya.  She doesn't know her own strength.  Oh, and I'd like to send a shout out to Aveda Smooth Infusion Shampoo and Conditioner for providing me with such shiny, manageable hair.  (Note to Aveda: I am open to receiving free samples for shameless plugs.)

Here's a picture of Jill strangling Saraya while I point and laugh.  (Not really)

Ken is petting Saraya in this picture; note the gloves...

Steely Dan and Bailey playing...

I really enjoyed getting to visit with Michael and Jill; not to mention Ken, Eric, and Scott's brother Will (not pictured - I was too busy visiting). I look forward to seeing everyone again.  Hopefully very soon. 

Dog tired.

Wordless Wednesday

Why I never had a date in high school....

Check out the Camaro hair & the pastel green Chuck Taylors.  I know mom, you think I look cute.  (9th grade-1988)

Silent Night

Julie is taking it easy today...still trying to get rid of the cold that won't go away.  Around 4:00 this afternoon, my voice decided to show up again.  Unfortunately, I sound like a cross between Fran Drescher and "Flo" from Alice.  Going against everything my doctor and a psychologist have told me, I googled "why your cold won't go away".  This is what WebMD suggested: 

#1 Lack of Rest.  Hmmm....I get a lot of rest.
#2 Lack of Fluids.  Maybe...does chocolate milk count?
#3 Taking too much drying medicine.  No, I'm not aloud to take decongestants.
#4 Treating the wrong illness.  ?I don't know?
#5 Relying on herbal medicine.  No.
#6 Exercising too hard.  HA!  THAT'S IT!  No, not really.  I consider any type of illness as an excuse to stop exercising altoghter and to eat everything and anything that you want. 

Today, I was supposed to eat with lunch with Christy and our friend Sandra.  Due to my misery, I canceled.  I hear that they had a wonderful time without me BUT I look forward to eating out with them real soon.  You have already "met" Christy but you don't know Sandra yet.  I met Sandra when we were babies in the nursery at church.  We grew up together.  Sandra was always a lot "cooler" than I was but she was nice enough to let me hang around.

I did take some pictures today.  One of the rhododendrons that Scott planted last fall started to bloom today!  I'm so excited. 

Greta isn't normally allowed outside but I did let her walk out for a couple of minutes today and eat some grass.  (She loves grass!)

Here's another picture of our Queen.  She runs our house...

I hope everyone has a great night.  I've opened up some windows to let the germs fly out of my house.  It's not easy being a germaphobe when you are the one with the germs! I've yet to figure out how I can get away from myself.

That's So Julie - Part Deux

Julie is still sick with this blame Spring cold!  I was hoping that tonight I would be telling you how much I had learned in the beginner photography class that I was signed up for last night.  Due to my misery, I had to contact the instructor and see if I could change my registration to the next beginner class.  He was happy to do so BUT that class isn't for a couple of months.  The good news is that my friends Michael and Jill sent me a couple of really great photography books to read.  Thank you Michael and Jill.  I am so loving these books! 

(Hey the picture of the books disappeared.  It was Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Boxed Set) 

Let me just tell you what happened to me today.  First of all, my voice has gone on a temporary vacation.  Seeing as how I answer the phone at work, I really appreciated every caller telling me how TERRIBLE I sound.  NEWS FLASH:  This cold has not affected my hearing...I can hear myself.  But thanks for letting me know.  (This cold has also made me crabby if you hadn't noticed.)

Today, around 10:00 am, I decided to take a Coricidin for my misery. 

Here is where my story turns well, "Julie".  I was already drinking hot chocolate to soothe my throat so I figured that I'd just use that to swallow my pill.  Bad idea.  Somehow, I gagged on my pill and started coughing violently.  There was a very strange feeling and then everything felt ok.  Soon after, I started coughing up what I thought was blood.  Then it was coming out of my nose.  This went on for about 25 minutes.  I sat at my desk fearing the absolute worst until I finally went back to Jim's office and told him what was going on.  He managed to calm my fears and I went back to my desk.  Soon after, I blew my nose and realized that it wasn't blood coming out after all.  It was red dye from the pill.  I realized that the pill must have gone up into my sinus cavity somehow.  It was stuck...but where? 

About 30 minutes later I had the most painful burning sensation in my nose and the back of my throat.  Then the red dye started coming out of my mouth again.  I knew this couldn't be good.  I went into my boss' office and he grabbed his keys and said we were going to the Urgent Care Center.  I told him I didn't want to pay $500.00 to have them laugh at me.  So...he took me into the kitchen and held my hair back while he and I poured cup after cup of water up my nose.  After about 20 minutes of pouring water in and blowing drugs out of my nose, I felt better.

As of 6:00 tonight, I was still blowing red dye and white powder out of my nose.  Still no sign of my voice.  Only the coughing....

Great

I was trying to think of a great title for this post but couldn't come up with one.  So...I figured out a way to make it great anyway.  For anyone who may be remotely interested in seeing a picture of me at work, you're in luck:

Look how professional I am.  I guess I shouldn't have cleaned off my desk before we took the picture.  I look like I don't have any work to do.  If you enlarge the picture, you will notice that there are a lot of golf clubs in the office behind me.  My boss has over 500 sets of golf clubs.  There are 20 bags in his office; those are the overflow clubs from his house.  Luckily for all of us, (especially his wife), he has stopped collecting golf clubs.  He moved on to collecting pipes and has now settled on collecting guitars.

Today Rana and I took the kids to Sensory Story Time at the library.  Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned and we had to leave early.  Rana had a great idea and suggested we take them to the lake at the Arboretum.  Here are some pictures...

This was a big week for Daniel.  He started walking on his own.

I spent the rest of the afternoon planting flowers.  Here is a picture of a flower I did not plant.  It is from an azalea shrub in my brother's yard.  My grandmother planted it many years ago.

 As you can see the trees and flowers are in full bloom here.  I am so thankful for the rain that came on Thursday and helped to wash away the pollen.  Unfortunately, it didn't help my screened-in porch.  Here is a look at how bad the pollen is.  I swept part of the porch before I took this picture.

I guess I really should go do some housework.  For some reason my mom doesn't want to clean it for me.  ???  I'll close with a picture of Greta.  If she looks a little spooked, that is because she heard Scott turn on the lawn mower as I was taking this picture.

Well, the post may not have been great but you can't say that the title wasn't.