Monster Truck

Drive quicker, he's going to get us, yikes!

Not the best photo but Ashlyn and I noticed this truck following us the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. Ashlyn was responsible for the photo while I drove!

Welcome Home Amir!

Fellow City Daily Photo blogger Amir of Tehran 24 was missing for a little over a week. He had been covering the elections in Iran when his blog was blocked and no one heard from him. Some CDP bloggers found out he was detained in Evin prison. JM from Oeiras Daily Photo did a wonderful job keeping us all updated. The City Daily Photo group did a special theme day over the weekend hoping for Amir's safe return. Since I do very little blogging over the weekend I was set to participate in the Theme Day this morning when I read about Amir being back home! So I just wanted to dedicate my post today to a very brave blogger, Amir and welcome him home!

Visit Amir on his blog to see his amazing work and welcome him home, Tehran 24

Pet Pride Sunday-Crockett

My first entry on Pet Pride Sunday! This is Crockett. He's a 7 year old Rottweiler. This is such a wonderful, loyal breed of dog. We've owned Rotti's for over 20 years and have never been disappointed.


Please visit Pet Prideand enter YOUR pet!

FCCLA Pride

This vehicle was parked in the parking lot of Moomaw Hall on the campus where I dropped Ashlyn off on Monday. Something tells me the driver of this vehicle was there for the seminar too! Most of you probably already know that FCCLA stands for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America.
Ashlyn comes back home tomorrow!

Bridgewater Town

After arriving at Bridgewater College yesterday and getting Ashlyn settled into her dorm, we had a bit of time before her meetings started so we ventured into town and ended up at Hardee's for a sweet tea. I was waiting at the light and noticed the water tower, which I had to get a photo of since I just love the way a water tower looks!

Bridgewater College

This morning the boys and I drove Ashlyn to Bridgewater College. She has a training seminar there this week for FCCLA. You might remember a couple months back when she successfully ran for a State Officer position. Anyways, it was a nice, scenic drive, about 90 miles from our house. The town of Bridgewater is fairly small and quaint with beautiful landscapes. She will be staying in a dorm room with a couple of other girls and an adviser. Dropping her off in her own dorm room gave me a slight glimpse into the too near future when I'll be dropping her off for college.

Bridgewater College was founded in 1880 as the first coed college in Virginia.

SkyWatch Friday

The afternoon sun, taken from my back porch yesterday afternoon. For views of the skies from all over the world, visit SKYLEY!

Happy SkyWatching!

Sunny Days

After a few days of nothing but rain and gray skies, we finally have sunshine!

Bella

Bella says, "Good morning"!

Last night we took a family vote and it was between the names Shelby and Bella. Ashlyn and I wanted Shelby but all the boys wanted Bella so since we are outnumbered, Bella won. I like Bella but Ashlyn and I think she really looks like a Shelby but I'm sure in a couple of weeks she'll look and act just like a Bella!

Bella has really settled in nicely and feels very comfortable roaming the house now. She sleeps with Ashlyn at night and I get her up when I wake up and take her outside for a potty break then we come in and I make her breakfast. She loves milk and won't really drink water yet and enjoys a good game of tug-o-war with a sock!

Maybe today I'll introduce her to Crockett :)

Introducing....??

Well she has no name yet but this is our new puppy. Ashlyn and Nick went and picked her up last night. A friend of Ashlyn's had puppies and wanted her to have one since we lost Daisy last month, isn't that so nice? This little girl is a Treeing Walker Coon Hound.
She has already won us over :)

Summer Time

and the livin's easy....

Today is the first official day of summer break! The kid's last day of school was on Friday!

I didn't mean to go missing but got so busy with last week of school things and baseball games and parties that I barely had time to even sit at the computer but things have finally slowed down so here I am :)

SkyWatch Friday

Happy SkyWatch Friday! This picture was taken on Tuesday if I remember correctly. Right before all the rain moved into our area and still hasn't left. More baseball game rain-outs, gah! Doesn't that cloud look like a dinosaur head? I thought the colors in the sky were so pretty that afternoon so I grabbed the camera then I noticed the dino head when I was flipping through the photos :)

In other news, Ashlyn got to go to school with Braden and Dalton today. Their school is having an "International Day" where all the classes have been learning about different countries/cultures and have decorated the school accordingly. The first grade hall's theme is Japan so Ashlyn is in Braden and Dalton's class teaching them how to make fans and big paper lanterns. Braden and Dalton are so excited to have their big high school sister there with them. A bunch of kids from the high school are there helping out today. I'm going to head over a little later and see how it's going, sounds like a lot of fun!

Back on topic of SkyWatch Friday, to view more skies from all over the world, see SKYLEY

Barn Swallow Nest

This is a Barn Swallow nest which is made of mud. It's in our run-in. I don't hear the babies yet but I'm watching for them.

Cricket

When I took this picture yesterday I had no idea how this was going to play out. I noticed all these turkey vultures over in my neighbors yard so I went out to investigate with my camera in hand. I wanted to get a photo of the vultures to use on the blog and also wanted to see what the vultures were doing, if there happened to be a dead animal. It appeared they were just drinking from the puddle of water that our week of rain left behind. See the horse standing there? That's my neighbor's horse Cricket. She's the sweetest horse and loves to have attention. While I was over there, she walked up to me and I talked to her for a bit and petted her. I didn't notice anything wrong. A few hours later, I noticed my neighbor, her mom and her brother all out in the pasture, then I heard a gunshot. I ran out to see what was wrong and sadly learned that they had to put Cricket down. Apparently she was pregnant and gave birth overnight. Nobody knew because she was such a small horse. My neighbor just started a new job and didn't find her till she returned home from a full day's work. She noticed something laying out in the pasture, and it was the foal. It must have died shortly after birth. Cricket was unable to deliver the placenta and by the time my neighbor noticed, it was too late. When I saw her, only a couple hours before, I had no idea that she was so gravely ill. If only I had known :(


(a closer view of the birds)

Greenfield Braves

This is Christian's team, he's the one to the right. Tonight is his banquet at the Red Sox game. That's a coach pitch game going on in the background, ages 6-7 (Braden and Dalton's league).

Well it finally happened. It was bound to one of these days. I had one of those crazy days, getting kids here and there. Christian had his first school football practice after school yesterday. It ended at 5, which gave me plenty of time to get home and pick up Braden and Dalton for their 6:00 game. I knew where their game was, I even told my brother where it was so he could follow us or meet us there. Well, somewhere in the day I forgot that their game was in Buchanan and started thinking it was at their school. Buchanan is about a half hour away, vs. their school less than 10 minutes. So I brought Christian home and hung around a little bit since it was still "early" and double checked the calendar for the game location, yep, Greenfield, check! So the boys and I head out to Greenfield for their game but notice we are the only ones from their team that is there. There's other teams but no Cardinals. I called the one phone number I have in the car, one of the moms from their team. No answer, I call over and over, no answer...so we head home. I'm feeling so upset with myself wondering how I messed this up. Look at the calendar when I walked in the door and right there in black and white it says "Braden and Dalton 6:00 Buchanan". Then I noticed the next week is scheduled for Greenfield. I totally screwed that one up! By then it was too late to even try to get to the game. Well, I've always been scared this would happen eventually, but I've done pretty good till now considering all the games we've had over the years,lol.