So many pictures ... not enough time to get them on my xanga!  Just wanted to share some pics of our hard work!

My friend Melissa & I did a tea party for our "Girl's Night" in August.  She already had a lot of tea party stuff since she is going to try to "do" tea parties with my cousin Tiffany for little girls b'day parties, etc.  Plus, I have my Grandma Cole's china so we were covered!  I baked and baked and baked those cookies - I was sick of cookies!  I felt like Jennifer!  LOL!  It was fun to try to "pep up" my back yard and put some new bark down!  : )  That always makes your plants/flowers stand out that much more. 

So here's our table - didn't really plan to set it HERE but that is just where the shade was at, at the time!

The Oakdale women chatting underneath the tents before we ate

 
My sister Rachel and Melissa getting some yummies!

The very pretty fruit that Mel put together.

My Russian Tea cakes that my cousin Tiffany made look even better with some sprigs of mint

Some of the MANY sugar and shortbread cookies I made


Egg/chicken sandwiches

Regular and cranberry scones

Cucumber-mint creamcheese sandwiches

Even though I labeled stuff - people still asked "What is this?"  LOL!  I would just smile and POINT to the label!  : )  I was not to excited about the Ginger spread - but it was fun to try new things...

The Lemon Curd was YUMMMMM!!  Like eating lemon meringue pie on your scone!

Melissa, Megan & Cheryl

(Starting at Cheryl & going around) Cheryl, Ruby, Megan, Pam, Rachel, Nan, Candace, Brenda


Me and the winners of our tea party games: Megan, Rachel & Nan

OK - I've been watching WAY too much HGTV while doing this entry so it's now 2:30 am so I'd better close this out . . . but I've really got to see the rest of this "Secrets To Sell" episode!!  They're so brutally honest!!    What's your favorite HGTV show?  -------I know it's not the same channel, but recently Ainsley has been telling me "I want to watch MOVE THAT BUS!!"  LOL!!  : )

It's RAINING outside!!!  : )

My 3 year old daughter

Ainsely - asked if she could use my camera.

So I let her . . .

Here's Ainsley's photo collection:

And the best for last . . .

I'm thinking  . . . a confused horse?  What are your thoughts???????????!?!?  :

OK, so I finally got my pics on here so here we go.

I drove our Expedition with Ainsley and 6 of the cross country girls.  Monte drove a school van with 7 other girls and we were off for our 6-hour trip to Disneyland!
One of the girls had a dvd player that had 2 screens and could play 2 different movies so it was PERFECT for them and Ainsley to watch!

So the next morning we walked from our hotel to Disneyland!

We get there to take a picture in front of all the nice flowers that say DISNEYLAND . . . but it's under construction while they are changing it over to the Halloween theme 

Ainsley was now over 40 " so we thought - WHY NOT take her on Space Mountain!!!!???  Monte was like, "Are you sure we should do this?"
Me: " Well, we'll never know how she'll do until we take her on it!!"  So how'd she do?  Well, she didn't cry, but she was pretty quiet - but she said she had fun!  I, on the other hand, felt quite sick in my head! 
 
The Matterhorn!!!

So we had a hankering for corn dogs so I asked where we might find one - I had never noticed this corn dog truck before - we had to wait in line for a bit and then bought a $5 corn dog . . .

... they were quite large, as you can see!!!

In line for THUDER MOUNTAIN RAILROAD

SPLASH MOUNTAIN VIDEO!! 

Yes, I got my camera wet - but I think it was worth it!  : )
And, NO, I'm not related to the Wicked Witch even though I CACKLE like her!
I think maybe I hear a little bit of Aunt Cynthia in me - what do you think Jess, Lyd/Jul???

Ainsley playing at Mickey's House!!

LOOK!  A first aid kit for the nurse! 

Look who just came home!!!!


We had fun without the girls, but they were calling Monte and wanting to know why they weren't all meeting up for lunch!  ha!  Go have fun girls!!!

Monte and 2 of his athletes . . . Taylor & Sulema

Ainsley & I had ice cream while we waited for the parade to start

After the parade, @ 7:40, we were trying to figure out what to do.  Leave, since they close at 8 and we were right there at the entrance - or go do ONE more thing!
Well, we hadn't been on the new Nemo ride yet since the line was over 2 hours - so we ran (flip-flops are NOT great to RUN in!!) to Nemo to wait in line.  They were letting people in line until 7:45 - we waited 40 minutes to ride it ... Ainsley loved it - but as for me - NOT worth a 40 minute wait!!!  Much less a 5 hour wait!!!!  Oh well, it was cute and we didn't have anything else to do.

Gemma, Coach, Vanessa, Ruth  & Griselda (Greasy) waiting in line for Nemo

Us in the Nemo submarine--and I didn't even get claustrophobic!

After Disneyland, we hit Downtown Disney and then waited a bit to eat - here's the coach and some of the team waiting . . .

Vanessa being Cindy Lou Who at IHOP the next morning

Ainsley trying to copy!!!  LOL!!!

"Kotty" LOVES bacon! She had never had it until their trip to the mountains when my mom made it for them for breakfast!

Gemma was soo sweet to be Ainsley's "babysitter" while I was busy driving, etc.


LOOK!  It's Hollywood Blvd!  We were going 1 - 5 mph through this area so it was no problem to snap a pic!

We finally made it to Pepperdine!

The girls right before their run Saturday morning (BEFORE the RAIN!!)

We walked a long ways down to the starting line and the college girls were getting ready to run first.

It started sprinkling pretty good @ 9:15 so I decided to head back to the truck w/Ainsley.  By the time we got to the truck it was pouring - just in time for the JV race to begin!
Then the Varsity ran at 10:30 and it was still raining!!!  This is them AFTER!! YUCK!

When I asked how they did - the reply was "It was just for fun I guess"

Oh well, it was a fun trip.  We hit Starbucks and Baskin Robins on the way back home so all was good -- I guess!

Driving over the grape vine wasn't as bad as it was the last time I drove it - not as windy this time and all in all I think I did a great job in all of that yucky LA traffic!!

 Been busy working, making money . . .

to go to DISNEYLAND in three days!!

We will only get to be there for ONE day since Ainsley and I are going as "chaperons" for Monte's track team!    His girls cross country team (12 of them) will be running at a meet at Pepperdine University in Malibu on Saturday . . .  

so we just HAD to drop by Disneyland on the way there!  It is COOLING OFF!  Supposed to be a high of 71 when we're going to be there on Thursday!  BRRRR!

I'm excited that Ainsley is now 41 inches, so I think she'll be able to ride some different rides from when we went last October - either way, we're going to have a ball trying to fit all of this into ONE day since we have the pass for CA Adventure too!!

Since I've been working a little more here lately I've been staying up even later on my days off to get things done in the study - it's now 4:30 am - I went to bed at 5:45 the other morning on my day OFF!  I worked 16 hours on Friday night - came home Saturday morning @ 8:30 and Monte was waking up and in a talkative mood so we talked until 9:15!  To say the least, I didn't have a whole lot of energy when I got up at 2!  Just enough to do some cleaning and make food for our potluck we had at church today.

I tried making some of lilmansmum's "cake truffles", but MAN!  That was annoying!!  I'll have to ask her for some help on the details.  I did yellow cake with a berry cobbler coffee creamer - it wasn't really too great of a combo . . . but everyone was really nice and said they liked them.  I was glad, since I didn't want to take them home with me!  ha!  I should have taken a picture of them so you could compare them to Jen's!  Mine were BIG and UGLY!  ha!  Oh well, I tried.

OK - better get to bed, my eyes are blurring and I REALLY need to brush my teeth!  I feel a THIRD layer coming on!  YUCK! 

Below is my recent conversation with Ainsley as I was showing her Malwisister's pictures of Africa and telling her that this is where Papa is right now!!

Me:  "OOOO, what is this Ainsley?"

Ainsley: "A GALORATOR! . . . . hmmmmm . . . . that doesn't sound right. . . ." (tapping her index finger to her pursed lips)

Bethany (actually Ty), made a good observation . . . it appeared that Ainsley was being "prompted" by someone on her left side in this last video of her signing her name!
Actually, she has ADD (as I hear MOST 3-year-olds do) and it was just the TV she was distracted by. 

Just so you can see she is not always so perfect in her signing -- I give you the "first take"!  Actually, this video is much more entertaining (in my opinion) since she is sooo dramatic about the whole thing!  She has trouble with "m" and "n" so she looks at me for reassurance when she says it (she always signs it right, just SAYS it wrong sometimes!)

Of course, she kept wanting to SING instead of SIGN . . . so I give you Ainsley singing her favorite song. 

I hope Tim McGraw is not offended by her new ending . . . . "DAY.....!"

OK - I'm off to organize and edit all of my other pics of what I've been doing this summer! 

Now that I think of it, we just got a raise for on-call time, so I am getting $6.50 an hour to sit here and work on this instead of the usual $5.25!!  Thanks Tenet Health Care!  Big whoop!    Anyone else out there have to be on-call?  If you don't mind sharing:  how much do YOU get an hour?  Bart????  : )  I think we're a little behind on the pay scale (9% below the other hospital in town is what I hear..)  Oh well, I'm "content with my wages" - just listening too much to our new Union reps I guess!  ha! 

I made a protected post.  Did anyone out there get it???  It's not very exciting so don't worry - you're not missing anything - just wondering how this protected thing works . . . not very well, I'm guessing!  : (

Here's a video of Ainsley signing her name . . .

Since her writing is still, let's say, in need of a little practice?!?  ha!  But don't worry, Aunt Gina and Kelly, I'm not forcing her to write - thanks to some good advice.    I do need to get her some big fat pencils for her to write with though (per Gina's suggestion).  So for now it's on to learning the next and last 3 verses of Psalms 23!  (Mommy is learning it too!) 

Since a cute little video was circulating today of a little girl reciting the 23rd Psalm - it inspired me to share a video of Ainsley I took a while ago.  She now knows more scriptures - one of them being Psalms 23 - but she only has the first THREE verses memorized, unlike the little girl in the video, reciting the WHOLE thing!  When she gets the whole thing memorized I will definitely share that with you! 

As you will see in this video - she has a problem with reciting the actual book and chapter . . . she is obviously a little confused on this part - check out her answer!  ha!  LOL!

This is our 1st camping trip to Jawbone when we played creek volleyball!  To make this video more effective you need to make note of two things:
1) This water is COLD!!!
2) There are rocks/boulders all underneath that we are tripping and falling over!

OK - so while I'm on here - here are some silly pics for ya!

You can't really see it in this picture - but this tomato had a little "nose" grown on it so we decided to give it some eyes and a mouth as well!
As those of you at Manteca know - Ainsley took it to show G'pa Howard and it ended in tragedy!  What do you expect when you combine a ripe tomato and kids!!!?? ha!

  Well, tonight I told the hospital I would be on-call for them after church so I started call at 9 pm . . . and they called me in a little after midnight!    Oh well!  That's what I signed up for, right?!  Our shifts are only until 3 am so I got in a good 3 hours - admitted a 5 week old who already had his line and antibxs started so I didn't have to do much - so then just sat and chatted with my co-workers!

So NOW . . . . it's after 5 am and I am STILL up!!  Need to get to bed but just thought I'd get a few fun pics on here of our latest camping trip!  You can see MANY more on Ashley's site since a TON of went this time.

I LOVE this picture!!  Ashley Cozby is the one in front and I love how she is just literally FALLING forward!
I, on the other hand, felt the need to jump OUT a little over the rocks below!  (I'm the 2nd one)
Robin Lee is the one behind me also jumping

Jacky Worsham and Leann Nelson are behind us, appearing unimpressed with our great jump!  ha!

Here I am doing a solo jump - trying to earn point for creativity.  Ashley Lee was getting some pretty good jumps
in too - I'd like to see those pics!!  (hint-hint!)
 

Good night everyone and HAPPY CAMPING!!