The weather was so beautiful on Friday (sunny & 84 degrees) that I decided to take the day off from work and spend it with my favorite person other than myself...my mom!  Here's a picture of mom & Sophie:

 

And another one....

 After shopping for a while, we ate lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy. 

Even though we didn't buy a single thing, we had an awesome day!  I can't tell you how good my lunch was.  I had the Rigatoni "D".  I should have taken a picture but I was too hungry to waste any time.....here's a picture from their website:

It was a good day. 

Retro Greta

Here's a picture of the girls from July, 2000.   Greta's favorite place to sleep at the time was curled up with her best pal Sadie. 

Hopefully this wasn't one of those naps where Sadie went for a run in her sleep.  :-) 

Better Late Than Never

On Christmas Eve 2010, my parents celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary.  Scott & I just got around to taking them out to dinner on Thursday night.  We had a great time.  I realized that I had forgotten my camera so I decided to post a picture of them from their engagement party back in 1958. 

Aren't they just perfect?  This is probably obvious, but, from from left to right:  Grandma (yes, the grandma that sang to me), Dad & Mom.  Doesn't mom look like Donna Reed?  I love the pearls.  Here's to many, many more wedding anniversaries!  I love you. 

Can You Spot the Difference?

You may think that these 2 bottles of ordinary laundry detergent are the same.  Look again. 

They're not.  The bottle on the right has the picture of a washing machine with the letters "HE" on it.  That is the one I am supposed to buy.  Apparently, when I walk into Target or Harris Teeter I lose all memory of this fact.  I keep forgetting to look for the "HE" and buy the regular brand.

What?  There's no difference you say?  The last time I bought the regular detergent it took my washing machine 3 hours to wash a load of towels.  The bubbles just kept on coming!  I felt like I was on an episode of LaVerne & Shirley. 

Thankfully, every time this happens, my mom is nice enough to buy an HE bottle for me and then we just switch.   She's a good mom. 

Love Week Part 2

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed being a part of Love Week 2011.  Our church set a goal of 25,000 hours of community service, asked other churches to join in, and as of today we are at over 28,000 hours served and our week isn't quite over. 

Scott signed up to work at an inner city school yesterday so I decided to join him.  Here I am just before we left...

Even though there were 170 projects that you could sign up for this week...we still had 95 people to sign up to work at this particular elementary school.  Amazingly, we had more than 125 people show up to work! 

For the first couple of hours, I worked with the landscaping group.  I met so many wonderful people who all had such a big heart to serve others.  Scott worked very hard building a bench with planters on both sides.  Then, he planted shrubs on both sides of the bench.  I had planned on taking pictures of everything that we did but that didn't work out!  My friend Sarah and I went inside to look at the murals that some of the workers were painting.  When we walked into the gym... a couple of people were leaving, so they stuck paintbrushes in our hands.  We spent the next hour and a half painting murals! 

Here are a couple of murals that we did not work on:

 

Here is the one the I worked on:

And here's a picture of my friend Sarah working on the mural.  Yes, that is Scott standing on the side.

I hope that the kids enjoy all of our hard work.  Sometimes giving seems very selfish.  You end up being blessed twice as much as the receiver! 

Not Easy

Right now...a lot of people that I love are struggling with health problems.  Most urgently, my Aunt Faye is battling cancer and is in a lot of pain.  I can't begin to tell you how precious Aunt Faye is to me.  She now lives in Texas, so I haven't been able to see her in a couple of years, but she is very much a part of who I am.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are when Aunt Faye and Aunt Jean would spend the night with my grandmother.  I loved to visit and listen to them singing along with Grandma.

You'd be weird too if your grandmother used to sing this song to you all of the time.  She always told me that it was a true story.  I can hear the three of them singing it now:

On the Banks of the Ohio

Come my love let's take a walk
Just a little way away
While we walk along we'll talk
Talk about our wedding day

(chorus)
Only say that you'll be mine
And in our home we'll happy be
Down beside where the waters flow
Down on the banks of the Ohio

I drew my knife across her throat
And to my breast she gently pressed
Oh please, oh please, don't murder me!
For I'm unprepared to die you see

I taken her by her lily white hand
I let her down and I made her stand
There I plunged her in to drown
And watched her as she floated down

Returning home 'tween twelve and one
Thinking of the deed I'd done
I murdered the girl I love you see
Because she would not marry me

Next day as I was running home
I met the sheriff standing in the door
He said young man come with me and go
Down to the banks of the Ohio

Apparently there are a lot of versions of this song.  Have any of you ever heard it before?  I'm sure that if there are any Helms' reading this post...they have a smile on their face.

And...if you think about it, please "pray for Faye".  She is a very special lady that I love very much.