This just makes me happy

Something to Crow About...

I've recently started doing some part time work for my friend Susan at Black-eyed Susan...

I'm one of her floral designers and when there's not a custom project to work on, I've been helping with sales....

The only downside to working here is that it's giving me a HUGE case of the greeds!

I'm surrounded by utter cuteness...

Take this guy for example?!  I mean, seriously, who wouldn't want a crow that wears a party hat?!

I bought 6 of these little boogers!

He's one of those things that just makes me plain happy to see...

I love how Susan has such a knack with arranging things...

Her pumpkin colored walls really pop this mantle!

Isn't it clever how she arranged this "spooky" toppled over scene complete with crows...

Her signature "painted pumpkins" was something I learned how to do this year!

It was so neat learning her tricks of the trade...(top secret recipe!)

they look almost candied...

super cute...

and glamourous...

I love working in her shop especially on gloomy days...

The atmosphere is so cozy and inviting...



Thelma and Louise...part two

After we left the island of Chincoteage, we headed down route 13 (which, by the way, is the most obscure highway ever!).
 We stopped at a few towns along the way...

One of them was the town of Parksley...

Right smack dab in the middle of town was an old fashioned five and dime store called Jaxon's...

You can't see it, but my mom is tearing up in this picture...

The minute she walked in, she said it was like being a little girl again at Kresky's--her local five and dime in Fredonia, Ny...

The way the place smelled, and the way everything was displayed on cabinets was just as she remembered as a child.

It truly was a blast from the past...just look at these old hair nets...(are there other people wearing these other than lunch ladies?)

We continued down the road until we reached Williamsburg, Va.

It was Friday afternoon when we arrived.

Kudos to my mom for safely getting us over the Chesapeaque Bay Bridge Tunnel (a 30 minute ride over a bridge completely surrounded by water). My mom has a great phobia for bridges and tunnels, so this was quite an accomplishment for her...

There was so much information to cover in just the short time we were there that we decided to focus on the slavery aspect of things...(We went on a plantation tour and began to regret it about 10 minutes into it)

The guy leading it treated us all like we were personally responsible for slavery.  He actually made us go out in a cotton field and PICK COTTON (it was 98 degrees that day, no lie!)  We left feeling ashamed of our whiteness...

This was a slave woman's handbook on how to care for her mistress...

This was so interesting...It's actually the menu that the staff used as a guide for what to cook.

I would love to have a copy of this...

It's hard to imagine cooking like this during a time when there weren't any modern appliances...

Oh...to have a "well paled" garden...

We met up with Lynne and Ken (aunt and uncle) who live in Williamsburg.  They treated us to a delicious lunch at the Trellis...It was so blazing hot that day that we lingered a bit longer in the a/c building...

After our lunch with them, we did a bit more site seeing in Williamsburg and went back on the road to our final destination....Monticello-- (Thomas Jefferson's home)...

Look at this garden!  It's a mile long and absolutely, positively beyond words!!!

The story about Thomas Jefferson being in love with his slave Sally Hemmings was very interesting to learn about...She was actually his first wife's half sister...

When we got home and told Brian all about what we learned, he likened it to the SNL skit where they were able to bring our founding fathers back from the dead and a press conference was held.  The reporters could ask any question they wanted, and of course, every question asked was about how these guys slept with their slaves...

slave kitchen...(If ONLY mine were half as nice as this!)

 

Here we are right before going on the house tour...

This was such a lovely trip...I know I'm forgetting a million things...

I can't believe how long it's taken me to actually post about this...

It's always hard to recap the adventure...

As always, these trips with my mom leave me feeling rejuvenated and relaxed...

We have so many great memories to look back on of our time together...

Thanks for a fabulous trip, mom!

Five for Friday--mostly feather edition

1. Ahhhhh....Fall!


2. This just sucks...

I just switched our sheets over to flannel and added another duvet.

Apparently, there was a tiny rip in the duvet that I didn't notice, so when I went to pull the covers up in the middle of the night, the rip got bigger and with that, created the biggest FEATHER FEST in the world.

I didn't realize what had happened until I choked on some feathers and kept feeling them on my eyelashes. I got up to get some cough medicine and glanced at myself in the mirror.

Feathers were completely embedded in my hair and clothes.


When I got up in the morning, I looked around the room and it was like a huge cottonwood tree had shed it's entire self in the night...


Every crevice and corner looked like this! And not just in our bedroom...

When I went to vacuum, the feathers just started blowing around the room...


ARgggrrrrrrrrgggg!



3. I found this young morning dove by our front step the other day. I'm not sure why it was just sitting there. My cats were all inside, so I know it wasn't any of them that injured it...


I was concerned, so I put it in a shoe box with my fleece jacket and Ellie and I took it to Aark Wildlife.


I called 2 days ago to check the status, and apparently it didn't make it...

I feel guilty that I feel more sympathy for animals than most humans...

What's the deal with that?



4. While at Aark, I had to do a double take when I saw this guy...

Yes, indeed...he is a vulture.

His name is Frick.

His brother Frack was sitting on top of one of the cars...



I'm not sure if I find this slightly enchanting or disturbing...



5. I planted the urns for the front of Susan's store...

I was totally in my element...

Planting is soothing to my soul...

I was very happy with how they turned out...

**What soothes your soul?

**Any thoughts on the vulture?

What The?! Wednesday

Dear Squirrel or Bold Deer,

Have you no respect for porch displays?

What was the point of picking the kernals out of the hull and then just leaving them on the step?

Was it to taunt me? Don't you know I'm super uptight about things of this nature?

Insincerely,
Shannon

Thelma and Louise...(part one)

Last week my mom and I went on our yearly girls get away...

I feel extremely lucky that Brian was willing to take a few days off of work to watch the kids for me so she and I could have some time together...

(I always come home from these trips a better person)

We try to incorporate a little bit of family history into every trip, but this year, we did it a little differently...

We left my house on Wednesday afternoon, and got to Virginia around 10pm...

Our first stop was to Chincoteague Virginia...

Do you remember the Misty of Chincoteague books?

Well...this place really exists! There really was a Misty!

In fact, this little guy is one of Misty's descendants...

He was so irresistibly cute and sweet...(except for the fact that at one point, he seemed to be enjoying the petting a bit too much)...if you know what I mean...




We walked around the cute town of Chincoteague and went into a few shops...
We saw the Misty statue in the center of town. I love that there is a chicken and a duck included with the statue...

I'm totally going through a poultry obsession in my life.....




Then it was on to Bill's Restaurant...
Our lunch was...delicious!
Who wouldn't love a crab cake sandwich?





and a fresh fish taco with mango salsa? Seriously!

Not sure I would choose this color for my house, but it sure works for this place...

We rented bikes and drove across the bridge to the island of Assiteague where the wild ponies live...

The whole Chincoteague story starts off many years ago when there was a fire and the local fire department didn't have the proper equipment to put the fire out. They tried to figure out a way to raise money and so they came up with the idea of having cowboys round up the wild ponies from the nearby island of Assiteague and auction them off.

Every year, around July 4th, hundreds of people come to Chincoteague to see the pony penning...

Here's proof that I can ride a bike, Brian!

(What ever gave you the idea that I couldn't?!)

This was a bird watcher's fantasy trip!

We rode our bikes down to the beach...

It felt good to plop down right on the sand and take a moment to reflect...

and to take a self portrait...

after we turned in our bikes, we had some time to kill until it was time for our dinner reservations at The Village.

Wouldn't you know...these guys caught my eye, and we immediately had to pull over...

I've always loved how ducks look when they're running toward you...

Some may say they were begging...I'd like to think of it as just trying to be social...

Who knew that string cheese would be so popular? At least it was better for them than bread!

When this bevy of seafood delights finally came, we were so hungry that we almost consumed the shells for crying out loud...

The food was great, but the service was mega slow...

I hate that when I'm starving!

We were anxious to try the Smith Island 10 layer cake...

We went to two more restaurants after The Village, and finally scored...

It was quite good, although I'm not sure it was worth the $7.95 per slice...

We went back to our cute little motel pleasantly full and tuckered out from a long day...

The temperatures were in the mid 90's with full on humidity, so we were pretty haggard...

Twas a good ending to day one and two of our trip...

Labor Day Camping Trip

OK...so once again I've fallen behind on my posting

(Didn't Labor Day seem like just yesterday?)

We had our second annual Labor Day weekend camp out with some friends from our ward...

I remembered this year to take a picture as we were leaving...everyone was all smiles but I couldn't get the lighting right...

After about 10 more tries, I finally gave up trying for the perfect shot.

Jake's facial expression speaks volumes...

The weather was perfect!


After we got there, we all went over to the boulder field to hike around...

We booked the same camp site that we had last year at Hickory Run State Park...

We divided up food assignments and our family was responsible for the menu on Saturday night.

I found this recipe for dutch oven cheesy chicken and potatoes...

Cooking on the dutch oven SEEMED like a good idea at the time...

The only problem was that it took FOREVER to cook...

We finally ended up having to transfer the food into pans and cook it on the camp stove...

Here's a good shot of our new tent! No more ghetto camping for us!

We definitely moved on up to the east side on this one!

The kids had such a good time playing together...

Believe it or not, other than the packing aspect of things, this weekend ends up being a nice break for the adults because the kids just kind of go off and do their own thing for a big chunk of the time...

There were lots of chats...

Good food...(I forgot to post a picture of the meal we had on Sunday night which was tortillas stuffed with marinated pork, cheese and a fresh salsa --courtesy of Leisha)

This is my favorite part of camping!

Fresh, hot donuts made from biscuit dough = Heaven!

The kids all got together to play mafia...

The "non-mafia" players...

Here we are the next morning...Me, Ellie and Karen (who looked like she was up drinking whisky all night!) That doll is one hot mess!

This was our view from the campsite...

We held a Sunday "Family Home Evening" of sorts...

The teenagers were put in charge of the talks and music...

I remained in these pajamas until about 1:30pm...(what the?!)

Later that afternoon, we all went down to the lake...

We didn't take our towels or a change of clothes because it started off being chilly...

Jake did not heed our advice to not get in the water. He promised that he would just air dry.

Here he is begging for a towel. Brian (AKA..."Mr. Softie") went back to the campsite to get him some dry clothes and a towel. That'll teach Jake not to listen to us, right?!

( I could really say more here, but I won't.)

Cracking up...

Lilly, my favorite little person...

Why did I think that bringing a huge king size cotton duvet was going to keep me warm?

It felt like I was sleeping under a sheet of ice!

I looked at the car thermostat after I got up and it registered at 43 degrees...

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Next year, it's going to be one big fleece fest!