1st Day of School

We always had a tradition of standing by the door and getting our picture taken on the 1st day of school. I have continued the tradition with my boys.

I was glad to see school come again. Parker does well with a schedule and I am a laid back parent and find it hard to put myself on a schedule. Plus he is a busy boy and school is good to challenge him and fulfill his social needs.

Parker started 1st grade year. His teacher is Miss Muir. She looks quite young, but does an excellent job with the kids. I really like some of the ways that she gets their attention and the ways she handles misbehaving.

We enrolled Preston in Preschool at the Presbyterian Church in Tyrone. He goes Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He has the same teacher that Parker had, Mrs White. It is a small group. There are only 4 of them there, but he seems to be enjoying himself and is learning to write.

I stooped down to his level and he thought he need to squat down too.
This is outside the classroom.

Since both boys are in school this had given Mom some free time. For the first little while I was going to radiation every morning. One of the other moms was great to help out with car pooling. I would drop the kids off and she would pick up.

Now that I have finished with radiation this is how I am spending my extra time. On Monday's I come back home and clean or do other chores around the house. Tuesday's I go to the Humane Society to volunteer. I have been cleaning out kitty cages and I love it! The cats love the attention and interact with you as you are cleaning and giving them fresh food and water. Wednesday's I go to Weight Watchers to weigh in and listen to the meeting. Then I have a very short time to run errands. I am liking my extra time.

I survived Chemo Party!

After finishing 16 rounds of chemo, it called for a celebration. I had wanted to get a cake from the grocery store, the ones with the whipped cream frosting are so yummy. At first I was just going to do it with our little family of 4. I had wanted to invite all those that had helped out or prayed for me, but was not up to the task of having that many people over to my house. The more I thought about it, I realized I wanted to celebrate with my extended family. So I talked to my mom.

We came up with a date. I wanted to be able to enjoy the food, so we waited the standard few days afterwards so that the metallic taste had left. I picked the menu and even invited a good friend from high school, Stacey. My mom had the party at her house. It was a great day! Here are some of our memories from that day.

I was having hot flashes, or maybe just overly warm from getting everything ready for the day. Do you notice my dewy sheen?

This is the type of picture you get, when your 6 year old takes the picture. He usually does well, but it looks like he was being goofy.
We had a pasta bar. Pasta is my favorite food. I can eat it and never get tired of it. And I do eat it at least once a week if not more.
We wanted to take a picture of the cake. It started out with my cute nieces and son and morphed into this.
Thanks again mom! It was a great celebration. The food was yummy and the company great!

Grange Fair

This has turned into an annual event for us. We go to the Grange Fair every year to watch the truck pulls.

For those of you outside of Central PA, here is the website for the fair. People come to the fair and camp out for a week. We go to watch the truck pull. Part of our plan is to get their early so that we have a good parking place. Jim likes to watch from our truck bed;) This allows extra time to kill so we do a little walking around the fair grounds too.

Can you say spooning pigs?

And an oreo cow? There is a more technical name for this breed, but it has escaped me. Plus isn't it more fun to refer to things with the names of yummy foods?

A funky chicken.
I really didn't get any good shots of the actual truck pull. I guess I can try next year.

We usually split up and Parker goes with me to sit close to the action, Preston stays with Jim to watch from the bed of the truck. We take the protective ear gear for the boys to wear for the really loud trucks. We usually leave before everything is done.

Sweet Corn

Growing up we always grew silver queen sweet corn. Now as a consumer who loves corn on the cob and white corn I wanted to try to some silver queen to see if it was what I remembered it to be. Because I buy my sweet corn I am at the mercy of what the farmer has decided to grow. My little garden is very big. I think I planted 12 plants. My corn didn't do so well. I had 1 stalk that was very persistant. It actually produced an ear of corn!

It was around Labor Day when I finally harvested this. It was only 3 inches long and it was a little ripe for my liking. I determined that as long as the corn is tender I don't care what variety it is. So I will probably pass on planting corn next year.
On a side note, I can green beans and have bought them from the Amish the past 2 years. My Mom's crop didn't do too well. I have been displeased with the variety. There again I am at someone else's mercy of what they chose to plant. I am seriously considering planting my whole garden in green beans so that I can produce enough to can. I have to have enough plants that are ripe at the same time to get a cooker full.

Aunt Rebecca

Aunt Rebecca no longer comes home for the entire summer. She is a busy college student taking advantage of all the opportunities that college offers. This is bittersweet. We love her visits, hanging out, talking and her playing with the nieces and nephews. She is still a kid at heart and will run through the sprinklers with them or play tag.

But at the same time I know how she needs to take advantage of a summer job on campus or taking some summer classes. These enrich her life, teach her and allow her to have fun with others her own age. She came home for 2 weeks and we made the most of it. I would have stayed longer, but I had my weekly chemo appointment to keep.

We have discovered this fun restaurant in Bedford. It is actually called the Bedford diner. The food is fresh and all their desserts are baked there. We took a few pictures to remember our trip there.


As I look at this picture, I am quite puffy. Thanks steroids.
We also took some pictures as we were saying our good byes.

A weekend with Grammy Rayburn

As I sit here in my sweat shirt with the heater going and snow on the ground outside, it is kind of fun to be 6 months behind on my blog and remembering those hot and carefree days of summer. Anyway I still want to catch up.

Jim's sister Laura had a baby this past September. We traveled to Morgantown for a day to go to her babyshower and spend some time with Grammy.

This is Preston at the shower. Since all of the women were participating in the shower that left the responsibility to Uncle John to watch his kids and he allowed my 2 boys to tag along too. The refreshments were too tempting to keep the kids away the whole time. Preston is enjoying a balloon and you can see the leftovers from something yummy on his face.
Is Grandpa's corn on steroids? No he planted field corn next to the sweet corn. It sure looks extra tall compared to sweet corn. It was a good year for corn and we got to sample some while we were there.
The Rayburn's had a beautiful garden. I especially liked the pretty flowers.
We piled in Grammy's Subaru to go do chores. I have always enjoyed tagging along with Sue visiting and seeing the animals. Parker loves to throw the ball for the dogs to chase and I helped with Molly, Sue's horse.

These next pictures are of Molly. Molly recently went to run with the ponies in the sky.

It was a fun afternoon. Glad we live to close to family to be able to spend time with them