Day 31 ~ A heroic ending....

...to my first completed month of picture blogging!  Today's theme was a hero in your life!

Gilmore Girls....

The whole show is the hero of my life!  End of story!  Now on to September :)

Day 30 ~ Lovely little ladies!

Kateri and I went to babysit today for a family that I've babysat a few times a year since I was 14!  When I started, Joy (on the right) was just 2 years old and Lucy wasn't even in the picture yet.  I can't believe she is already 4 and has a 2 year old sister who is the spitting image of her! Joy wanted a picture with Kateri and then Lucy got in.  Kateri actually smiled in a group picture this time!  Aren't they lovely <3

Day 29 ~ Clothes and Hermits!

Today's theme was your favorite article of clothing and I kind of wanted to do it, but I also wanted to introduce my crabbies :)  So I shall do both!

The checkered dress in the middle is what we call my "Housewife" dress :)  I feel all wifey like in it! The gray shirt is my best friend in the winter... I wear it if I'm in a bad mood or just can't find anything better to wear, makes me feel better!  And my Applebees t-shirt, I wear it to sleep, my dad has worked at Applebees for many years now and he brought one home for me and my sister a few years ago!  I adopted it as my favorite sleep shirt!  I like a lot of my clothes but I think these are my favorites!

Now, to introduce the newest memebers of our family!

This is Shelby!  We think she will change shells soon and she seems bigger than the other and I'm a little scared of her still, but when we get them something bigger to live in I think I will try to get more used to her!

And this is Sylvia!  I like her :)  I took a leap of faith today and let her walk from hand to hand!  I kept chanting "I must be brave, please don't pinch me!" lol She was so fast!

Hermit crabs are apparently nocturnal so she has been climbing the cage all night!  I actually know for a fact that Sylvia is a girl because I looked up online how to tell and when she climbs the cage I can see she is a lady!  I haven't been able to tell with Shelby though!

They seem to be adjusting well and so far the cats don't know they are there, yay!  What have I gotten myself into!!!!

Day 28 ~ "The sweetest place on Earth!"

Hershey Park! Today was Nate's company summer picnic and we got an all expenses paid day!

And what do I find the best part of the entire day spent there???

This goose!  I can't say I've ever seen a goose dive before... but this one was so hilarious! He stayed that way for many seconds and waddled his little feet to turn himself around!  The things that I find amusing astound me sometimes! I watched him do it for ages and laughed like a child every time!

Ok and I found this to be wonderful too...

Kisses are my favorite part of the Chocolate World tour :)

And last but not least...

Why I let myself cave and buy them, I will never know.... but I am now the proud parent of two creepy little Hermit crabs... hey I did say I heart them right?  On the two hour trip home, they were ever so thoughtfully named Shelby and Sylvia!  Sylvia has a green and silver shell and Shelby has a yellow one... for now, that is, Shelby is already checking out the extra shell we got her! 

Day 27 ~ Attention please...

On this day, at exactly 23 years and 7 months of age... I finally have achieved a life transition

My very first tissue paper "wrapped" present that was NOT put together by my mommy!!!

Thank you,thank you very much!

My college roommate, Lauren, is having her bridal shower tonight, which I have to get going for... she and Joe are getting married in a month!

Normally when it comes to tissue paper and gift bags I totally suck at it and I go running to my mom for help... this time, I knew I had to be a big girl and jump and fly out of the nest on my own!  Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it! 

This is a picture from the shower, which was great!  all of us girls went to Villa Julie College/Stevenson University (changed from VJC to stevenson in 2009) Lauren is the bride-to-be in the middle to the right of me, and to the right of her is Nicole.  Lauren, Nicole and I were all roommates our first year at school :)  The other two ladies are family to Lauren I believe!  I've never met them before tonight but it was fun to take a Villa Julie/ Stevenson girls picture!

Next stop... Lauren and Joe's wedding... just 28 days away!

Day 26 ~ OMG I'm Flying!!!

May I be the first to admit that I have fallen upon a day where I need to cheat and put up a picture that I *did not* actually take today! Which is going against the vow of this self project, but I had an exhaustingly busy day with the kids, plus I didn't know the theme (darn it if I had because Lucas was jumping of the roof of the shed today, the dare devil of a 7 year old that he is and it would have been good for the theme if I hadn't stopped him before he broke something!)  And then we went straight from work to a very lovely dinner at a couple's house who has a one year old that I am going to be taking some babysitting days for coming up soon!  Annyways, so thus, I cheat.
The theme for today was someone jumping in the air.... while my picture may not be of someone jumping, I think it comes in for a pretty funny alternative!  Brought to you by the issues of Jessica and Suzanne and having been left alone at the Elk Lodge for too long... we present our "OMG I'm flying" drawing!

Nothing was said for about a half hour, only lots of laughing, during this nonsensical written conversation and eventual drawing!  And while I was trying to think of a picture I could put up that was really good but didn't make the cut for a certain day, I just had to use this one!

Day 25 ~ Back in the day...

Though I can't say I remember which day... you used to be able to buy these in the store :)

Otter Pops!!!  My brother's girlfriend made her facebook status that she wanted to find them and an instant memory flood came in!  My mom saw the status, and just a few short days later we had found them and ordered a whole box!

I swear they are the most huge popsicles ever!  I had a red one tonight and it took me like a half hour to eat it!  Man I can't evenimagine what it must have been like when I was little... my mom says she seems to remember cutting them in half because they were so big!  So worth spending random money on :)

Day 24 ~ Who says you need a crib or a teddy bear?

One second she's walking around carrying these things, the next second I hear complete silence and I come around the corner and she's completely out! And yes, I picked her up right after running for my camera and put her on the couch with me :)

Day 23 ~ Another's Treasure...

This is the kitcken wall in the family's house that I work for on Monday and Thursdays... My family has known theirs for many years!  Today, John (the dad) took the youngest boy, Joel, to the thrift store to toy hunt and they came back also with this.  Mandy (the mom and my cousin's friend) really likes mother and child things like this.  I thought it was very thoughtful of him to see that and think of her and it fit right into the house! Just goes to show ya that one person's trash can be easily turned into another's treasure!

Day 22 ~ To Furnish a Lifetime

Todays theme is "our favorite piece of furniture"  I will admit to having caved to follow the theme more often than I had originally planned.  The first week was easy because everything seemed exciting and creative.  Now, it's all become routine so pictures are harder to come by... I am thankful to have the theme to fall back on and this one I just happened to have my three favorite pieces of furniture all withing one camera angle :)

From Left to Right: My little gold stand, my folding chair, and my dresser set!

The little gold stand, my dad found it for me when I was little and I somehow latched onto it!  It has gone with me to every room I've ever had and had many purposes.  A bed stand, a fish tank stand, text books and shoes underneath, a radio stand... and most currently as you can see, where I keep my pants! The box underneath has the dried flowers from day 1's picture in it :)  I'm sure I will keep it forever!

Seemingly pointless folding chair, historically the chair I would sit in to talk on the phone throughout those years when my mom had to limit my phone time because I was always on it!  I would sit in the chair and put my feet up on my dresser, and it was the only place I ever felt comfortable talking.  Since my wild phone days are long gone, it has served many other purposes as well.  A desk chair during college, a place to keep my clothes draped over the back until i felt like hanging them, our first dining room table chair until we got official ones from my parents, and now serving as one of many claimed cat perches, Ramona conveniently decided to pose on her possession while I was taking the picture!

And finally, the dresser... that dresser is my "long dresser", it has a twin who is the "tall dresser"  They were first my cousin Amy's, then the set (that also has a matching captain's bed which my sister is now usuing) went to me.  I love these dressers so much, the long one with it's mirror and little cabinet that has since lost its latch and is being held together with a ribbon... and the tall one with it's "random/sentimental" drawers in which I keep, yep you got it, random and sentimental things in!

I hope these things last a very very long time in my life!

Day 21 ~ A Lovely Trick

A while ago Nate told me that he found a good desktop background for my useron the desktop computer.  Since I almost always use the laptop I hadn't seen it yet.  Tonight he told me to log in and I didn't want to, but did anyway and then walked into the kitchen, when I came back, this is what I saw :)  Pretty huh?

Day 20 ~ David and Kateri go to College!

Today we took my brother up to the local community college to buy his books and see where his classrooms will be.  He is 16 and this is his first semester going to AACC!

 Kateri and I went with him and my mom just for something to do!  As we were finding David's last classroom, kateri was walking down the hall and I then decided to follow the theme "Kids playing dress up", but I twisted the theme a little ;)

This is David and Kateri checking out classrooms!

Behold, her future!

Day 19 ~ Outward signs....

... of inward promises <3 The following are not only my favorite, and essentially the only, pieces of jewelry I wear... but they also signify the love I have for my best friends!

My engagement and wedding rings, I wear them both always, one is no longer complete without the other! Enough said <3

The necklaces that my sister and I have the same of... the heart one says "Big Sis" and she has "Little Sis"  Somehow, we manage to wear them at the same time, unplanned, quite often!  This picture frame has been used for years solely for a picture of me and her, because she is my best friend and I keep our necklaces on it when I'm not wearing them :)

And last but not least...

The Mobius Loop that says "I love you, I love you more"  Nate gave it to me and his parents gave us the statue!

Day 18 ~ The street that built me...

Greenwood Rd. is where I consider myself to have grown up, to have become who I am!  I may have lived another place or two during my time as my paren't child, but when I consider all the puzzle pieces that have fit together to make me the adult I am today, Greenwood Rd. is one of the most important pieces.  And it still holds a very strong piece of me seeing as that is where I left my first family when I became my husband's wife.  I may consider Lynn Hill Dr. my home now, but I will always have a longing for Greenwood.

Day 17 ~ A bug of a different color!

These little guys are usually brown, pesky and EVERYWHERE!  I don't know what there actual names are, but my family has always called them stink bugs.  They are one of the many tell tale signs of all around nice whether!  Usually them come in what seems like families when the whether isn't too hot.  How they get inside I shall never know, but boy do they ever.  This one kindo f scared me because I turned around and there he was, big bright green!  I've never seen a green one before in my life!  He went outside to the rose bush because I told him the kitties woudl be very attracted to his beautiful color if he stayed :)

Day 16 ~ I heart Hermit Crabs!

Ok well I didn't always, they still kinda creep me out, but I have made this one my best friend :)

Isn't he funny looking?  He belongs to the kids that I nanny for twice a week!  He needs a name though.  Apparently they likebeing sprayed with water and will come out and act all excited any everything.  It makes me laugh so I like to do it a few times during the day and I had to get a picture of him!  I'm always afraid he's going to pop out of his shell or something!  They're so long when they come all the way out like that!

I love when he is all tucked into his shell! 

There used to be a white one, but unfortunately he didn't make it!  I thought this one had passed as well, but last minute before telling the parents I thought I should try spraying him with water because his shell still felt heavy, after a few sprays he leaped out of the shell and scared me half to death... after that we became friends!

This is how he greeted me this morning :)  I've never seen a hermit do that before.... oh oh oh I have a name.... he is Harrold! I just thought of it when I said Hermit! LOL  I need a life!

This is right before he tried to pinch me!  I don't think he was trying to be mean though... but their little legs still creep me out a little so I was putting him back in the tank and I sort of dropped him an inch off the floor of it :/  I hope he will still like me on Thursday!  Maybe Harrold doesn't like his picture being taken!

Day 15 (Sunday August 15th, 2010) Falling Water!

On our way home from Portage we decided to take a side trip to Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright house!  It was much more amazing than I thought it was going to be!  The nature he intended to build into the house was breathtaking!  We weren't allowed to take too many picture in or around the house so I just took this one from the "best point of view" point :)

And then there is this....

A sight also breathtaking LOL  The trip back up through the woods to the visitors center was quite a hike and this is my cousin Amy, who started a train to help everyone up the hill lol  We laughed too hard and it made getting up the hill even harder!

Day 14 (Saturday August 14th 2010) ~ The Pinos Family Reunion

That beautiful, spunky old lady in white, in the middle front row... she was the reason for this whole reunion.  That is Aunt Marge!  My great grandfather, Steven Pinos, was one of 11 children.  I never knew him, but I knew my great grandmotehr, Agnes Pinos, very well until she passed away when I was 16.  Aunt Marge is the sole surviving sibling of the 11!  I loved meeting her!  Surrounding her are the 1st cousins... the surviving children of the 11.  The two in black, in the back row, are my grandmother and her twin sister, my aunt. And to the left of them is their other sister (my other aunt)  I have so many other pictures from the day, but I thought this picture captured it effortlessly!

After the reunion, we spent a few hours at the Portage Fest...  the big deal twon fair they have their every year!  The population of Portage is just short of 3,000 people!  My grandmother recalls going to this every year as a little girl with her mother, who was born and raised in Portage before moving to Baltimore at the young age of 17 after having lost her mother.

It may look a little different now then it did back then, but this was the house that my great grandmother was born in! She was raised in the house accross the street that her father built!  If anyone had let me, I probably would have sat there with those sunflowers for hours just imagining her life!

And this is me and my sister with Earl WAY WAY in the back ground in between us... we know he's there by zoom, but you cant really see him!  This is the moment before we left the Elk Lodge and a weekend full of memories!

Day 13 (Friday August 13th 2010) ~ Portage Pennsylvania

This past weekend, family way back in my mom's side had their family reunion.  We stayed at the Elk lodge, technically called the Majestic retreat and lodge, but there are Elk there! Our whole family rented out the pavillion and every room for the weekend... it was so amazing!  These are pictures from Friday!

This was in the car on the 4 hour drive there from Baltimore... my aunt bought me and my sister silly bands and it turned us silly because we now finally own our own instead of just wearing them because kids hand them to us!

The Elk Lodge :)

My sister being a Giant... we were left alone at the lodge, what can we say?

This..... is Earl :)  We named him that because he was in a field all by himself!  It is mating season for the Elk and so the women weren't allowed to go close to the fences or the male elk may charge us!  We loved Earl!  We learned that he is by himself because they consider his antlers special and they don't want him to fight with the other males over the females so that his antlers don't get damaged!  Elk sound really awesome at midnight by the way, when the only other sound you can hear in the chilly night air is the wind!

They also had Bison there... this is George!

And finally this is the pretty view from the lodge!

Day 12 ~ Wild Child

Ok so I didn't realize this but for the past week on ABC Family they have been having commercials for Wild Child, what I didn't know was that it had already been out for some two years now.  Well, I'm a sucker for silly teenaged movies as such and I decided that Iwould get it off netflix.  When I read the synopsis I realized Natasha Richardson was in it :/  I was super sad when she died because of her accident!  Anyways... the movie was good and as I was opening the DVD player I remembered that the theme for day 11 was movies :) Having forgotten my memory card for my camera before I went to work today, I had little else to go on for the day so I took the opportunity lol 

I also took the opportunity to pose our DVD spot up for a picture :)

We switch back and forth between my Gilmore Girls and the 2 Stargate series and whichever movie we have out on Netflix at the time!

Day 11 ~ Finally getting to the Finale

Tonight we FINALLY got to watching the last three episodes of season 5 of Dr. Who!  Our friend Jon and my sister come over to watchit with me and Nate and we have all been so busy that it's been about a month and a half delay on getting to the finale!

Amy Pond has been my favorite companion for the Doctor so far!

This is my sister, Suzanne and our friend Jon :) Two of my favorite people!

It's been a great season and we can't wait for the Christmas episode!

Day 10 ~ All tangled up!

My friend Lyndsay has been teaching me how to knit!  Once a week, give or take, we get together and watch Stargate Atlantis while working on various knitting and crocheting endeavors :)  When we first started, she taught me how to knit and I taught her how to crochet.  It's been slow going for me... having grown up on crocheting, working with two needle and perfecting what I consider to be "backwards crocheting" may never be something that will come naturally!  But tonight I achieved the unthinkable!  Cable knitting :)  This is going to be a scarf when I'm done... 7 rows of knitting and pearl stitches and then you need three needles to do the cable row, which is actually that swirly part of the scarf over to the right end!  I get the needles all tangled up sometimes and Steve tries to help by attacking the yarn, little does he know he is so not helping lol  But all in all, this cable stuff is really awesome and I have to repeat just what you see here for the rest of the length of the scarf... crazy huh?  I'm just so excited to be able to do something different after all these years of half finishing crochet baby blankets lol

Day 9 ~ Honor Flights

This is Nate's grandfather, Delbert!  I have only met him once, three years ago, until this week!  He served in WWII - ETO Battle of the Bulge AA against V1.

That's what his badge said, and I had to copy it into a text so I would remember it LOL

Anyways, the past two days were one of the "Honor Flights" to see the D.C memorials... specifically the WWII one!  Nate's grandparents live in Spokane, Washington and this flight was flying veterans from Washington state right here into our hometown!  We had desert with him last night when he got in, and then they went to all the memorials today and tonight was a special dinner in honor of all the veterans on the flight andhe of course invited us, his family to come along!  It was such a blessing that they fly them into BWI, have them stay at our local hotel here in Linthicum and so he was able to see his family!  Nate's mom is the youngest out of his TEN children, and everyone but her live on the West coast still!  He is in his 80's and still rides his bike 20 miles a day!!!  He is the cutest man I have ever met!  This picture was of him and Nate right after they were all presented with medals of honor!

Something interesting about the night... Nate, myself and his sister Mercie were the youngest ones there :)  And it was only because out of all the flight veterans, their grandfather was the only one flown into where family already lived!  I just thought it was really amazing how that just happened to work out!  Oh and if you ask him, his contribution to the war was hardly anything at all!  Oh but it was!

Day 8 ~ We is friends now?

Another day at home!  The theme for today was beauty, something beautiful in our lives.  I didn't think Iwas going to follow that one, but I didn't really have anything better either.  I didn't want to just take a picture of something random so I was waiting for something beautiful to happen :)  And it did!

The most beautiful sight ever... and she even knew he was there too! Can you tell where one cat starts and the other end? :)  I think this "catship" may just work out after all!

Day 7 ~ "And whiskers on kittens"

Well today was totally boring as far as pictures go!  But I guess that's what happens when it's Saturday and you don't have work, your husband gets stuck at work literally ALL day, and your whole family is at a baseball game!  I just had this very very random thought that I wish I could mail my brother my camera at camp and tell him to take me an awesome picture and mail it back for my photo blog!  But i wouldn't trust my camera in th email even if it was a super sealed up box!  So random!  I'm so tired LOL  Anyways.... so I didn't get much action today to take pictures with.  But I have a few to put up to keep up with the days and because I didn't get anything else, I went with the theme! Oh and that's animals by the way!

This is one of Steve's new favorite places to be!

This is Fishes! Well his name is officially Ruffy, which branched into Puffy, then Pufelump, the Puffer Fish, which ended in the name I call him most, FISHES!  He is my family's Maine Coon and my favorite cat second only to Ramona.  When we moved into our apartment, I put this picture here on the corner of my dresser intending to hang it up on the wall, but I never did!  that was over a year ago now and the only time I move it is to dust! But it's probably my favorite "decoration" in the whole place!

Ramona!  She is finally coming around to being out and about with Steve here :)  I love my pretty kitty!

But she still has to look bent out of shape about it now and then just to let us know she still isn't pleased!

   And what the heck kind of animal is this supposed to be???