Getting closer.....

3 day weekend coming up. Mom is having surgery on Friday, I took the day off. Terrible way to get an extra day off, but you do what you have to do.

Little brother celebrated 1 year of sobriety yesterday, go RON!!!!!

My BFF's Mom had her surgery today and sailed thru it, her name is GAY!
Way to go, Gay!

I am so glad she did well, it's a relief. I worry about her with her asthma, but she did good! A few days in the hospital and she'll go home, sandy will stay with her for a few days, I'll have to go see them.

Massage? I won't do this one...........

Snake massage

Strange:

Some people like the feel of non-poisonous reptiles slithering across their bodies in spa-like settings, with larger, heavier snakes providing a deeper kneading as they crawl across flesh. But how effective are these creatures at reducing stress? Even snakes’ general pressure on the body can be relaxing, says Kriota Willberg, a licensed massage therapist and an instructor at Swedish Institute, in New York. But what’s missing is a snake’s ability to systematically and selectively apply pressure, and to respond to the body’s feedback.

But True:

When a patient is stressed out, the neck, shoulders, lower back and lower extremities are often especially tense, says Willberg. Within these areas of tension, multiple layers of muscles are often involved. By incorporating different muscle-relaxing techniques, such as tempo, expertise at palpating, and varying the pressure—skills that are not part of a snake’s repertoire—massage therapists customize their work to patients’ needs. The result is a modality that’s both stress-reducing and therapeutic.

Hot Hamburger from Tasty Kitchen Site

I tried the Hot Hamburger from Ree Drummond's website tonight. It was pretty good.

Had to stop at Bass Pro in CB and get the french fry cutter. ($20) The whole thing was pretty simple to throw together. We won't be making it in the summer. Running the oven at 450 warmed the house up pretty good.

Eye Exam and New Glasses

I hate to step out of my comfort zone and change. I had to get new eyeglasses. My eyes are definitely giving me issues due to my astigmatism. It's a real nuisance. My eye has tilted, making it hard for me to see any fine print at all. My eye muscles are continually trying to compensate and adjust so I can focus. It leaves me with headaches and fatigue.

I had to get 3 new pair of glasses. 1 pair for work so I can wear them while working on the computer. 1 pair for the torch so I can melt glass and make beads. The other pair is my every day pair.

I had to go to a new eye Dr. because my old one didn't take my insurance. What a difference insurance makes. I just got it in January. It was going to be $10 for all of it, exam, glasses and everything else. I have such a bad prescription they said I needed some special something lens wise, so I got them. It would have been $221, but I only paid $50.......SCORE! I have not paid $60 for eyeglasses ever! It is generally $300+.

So with the money I saved.......I got Isaac a new comorter, shams, decorative pillows, etc. for his room. He didn't really like the girlie things I had in there.

If you are new here, be sure to search for recipe, I have about 80 of them on this blog.

Build a Bear Mall of America

Build a bear was something Olivia wanted to do long before the trip. She saved all her pennies and dollars to get enough money to buy a bear. The set up was pretty neat. There were bins full of animals for the kids to choose form.

To work here you really have to love kids and have a sense of playfulness about you. The girl helping Noah and Olivia did a great job. She stayed with them thru the entire experience, helping them to dress the creations and make their birth certificates at the end.

The cutest part was the box of hearts laying next to the 'stuffing' machine. Since they laid in the box the kids needed to shake them all around to wake them up. They rubbed them on their ears so they would be listening hearts, rubbed them on their elbows (funny bones) so they would be light hearted. She had them dance all around so they would be gleeful. It was so cute. When all done she had the kids drop them inside the animal.

At the very end before dressing them they have a 'bath' tub set up with air overhead. The kids step on the pedal and air comes out to fluff the animal. They have brushes there to comb the particles out of their hair after being 'born'. It was a ton of fun for the kids. We enjoyed being a part of that whole process.

They put each one in an easter basket with grass, then put them in a box. They also got some bows for Olivia's cat's ears.

Lego Land was a hit

The venture to Mall of America landed us at Lego Land for several hours both days. The kids enjoyed their time there. Uncle Isaac has boat loads of legos when he was a kid, they enjoyed playing with them in the hotel while we all visited.

the kids could make cars to race down a little race track, Olivia enjoyed that quite a bit. she's not really into playing with toys much, so we were all surprised to see her digging right in and playing with the legos.

Noah isn't into getting his photo taken until I found the storm trooper, he stood there and let me take his picture, thought that was funny.

You can see we were all pretty pooped at times and took breaks outside Lego Land while Noah and Bryan continued to shop.

Priceline.com for Hotels

On our recent trip to Mall of America we decided to see what kind of a deal we could get on rooms around the mall. I have gotten rooms on priceline before. You need to plug in your credit card information, pick an area of the city you are going to, pick a star level for the hotel, and how much you are willing to pay for the room. It's a blind transaction. You don't know what hotel you are going to get, the computer picks one for you. We lucked out and got Sofitel. It's a hotel that is pretty swank, no pool, no shuttle to the mall, caters more to the business person, but it was great! The staff are very customer focused and could not have been nicer. They enjoyed having kids in the hotel and went out of their way to make us comfortable.

The one thing we loved the most was the early morning wake up calls. They bring a complimentary cup of coffee for every adult in the room 15 minutes after the wake up call. This was heaven! we did it every morning while we were there.

Steve got us all a margarita at the bar and brought it to our room one night. That was fun, we sat around and had a drink and visited while Noah and Olivia played with the buckets of legos that Uncle Isaac bought them.

The bathrooms had live bamboo in them, the rooms had art hanging on the wall, and Steve's favorite part was the settee in the corner, he spent the whole weekend sitting in it while we were there.

There is an area below the walkway that had a large bar, tables, 2 grand pianos, big enough to accommodate a huge party. I told Steve it would be great to have a wedding reception there. When leaving on Saturday morning to go to the Mall, there was a fair amount of activity down there with a huge amount of alcohol being brought in, etc. I told them we were going to come back to a huge party that night. Sure enough, it was hopping when we got back. There were people everywhere, both pianos were playing, people all over the place. When we shut the door to our room you could have heard a pin drop. We didn't hear a sound! At any time we were there we never heard another person in the hall, next door, etc. It was perfectly quiet.

Gorilla Stool at Rain Forest Cafe Mall of America

Olivia really got into the gorilla stool. When we took her over to sit on it, she pulled it sideways, underneath was a little stream of water that made it look as if the gorilla had urinated on the floor. She wrinkled up her nose and pointed, whispering to me that she couldn't believe the gorilla had done that, they needed to teach him to NOT DO THAT!!!!!!!!












The gorilla stool was REALLY heavy for a 5 year old, she struggled to push him back around facing the counter, as she did,I leaned over to help her when I heard her say to the gorilla, "you better not P**p here!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was so funny, the look on her face and the way that she said it. I thought at that moment how she looked like her mom when Karen tells them not to do something. It was priceless!!!!

Passwords and their Rules

During a company’s recent password audit, it was found that a blonde employee was using the following password:

“MickeyMinniePlutHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento”

When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and at least one capital.

Home!!!!!!!

It was so much fun to go visit the grand babies, but it is good to be home!

Here are some random shots of the trip. Isaac had to lift both kids to be under the snake, they are huge snake fans, it cracks me up! The tree Karen and Olivia are standing in front of started talking to Olivia.

It was a little work getting them to sit on the stools with the animal tails. There's a whole story about the gorilla stool, but that will be a separate story.

We did Priceline.com for hotels. I'll do a separate story about the hotel, it was beautiful!!!