Sunday, May 31, 2015

Sunday AM coffee

Good morning.

It's sure chilly out today. Our area had frost/freeze advisory out over night. Thankfully we didn't get that low; however we did manage to get down to 36*. Way too cold for the end of May in my opinion.

It's been a week full of triumphs and heartbreak.

A few highlights were the much anticipated game against the their Wheeler teammates. 
Caden flying by one of them


and getting anther of the boys out at second.




It was a hell of a good game. Great sportsmanship from the players and you know both teams really wanted to win this one.
The Colfax boys won 4 to 3.
They had a great time and are looking forward to playing again as a team in June.
After they got done goofing around I got a picture of them - the guy on the right has got the best poker face lol


Another game up in Clear Lake which they boys handily won 15 to 1.
Caden sliding into home.


It was a beautiful field nestled into a hillside


right next to the local lake.
Still working on figuring out my camera, but I'll get it eventually.
Thanks Nicole for all the camera tips and very helpful info, I sure appreciate it!


A few pic of the big kids taken with my phone because I have been worried about carrying my good camera around. Starting today though I'm only taking my camera because how am I going to learn how to use it unless it's continually hanging around my neck?

Colton and Dozer.
Yes he finally got a hair cut - yay!


Chyann hanging out illegally (without a helmet) with Jenny.
I swear any time recently that she wants to ride I can't.
I'm hoping today we can take a little spin.



School gets out on Wednesday for Chyann and Caden then the chaos of summer will begin.
Chyann will OFFICIALLY be a freaking SENIOR and Caden a 7th grader.
Senior pictures are coming and WTF we need about six new outfits? man o man.
Swim lessons, baseball, basketball camps, wrestling camps.
It's going to be busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm quite grateful for this crazy life we've got going here. 
I think sometimes we get so busy we forget to stop for a moment and take a look around at how fortunate we really are.
A tragic senseless death in my extended family this week makes me realize (once again) how fragile life is.
Never let your loved ones walk out the door or hang up the phone, without telling them you love them; it could be the last time you have that opportunity.
AND
Always wear your damn seat belt - really. There are no excuses for not wearing it.
.......

A close friend of mine had emergency back surgery on Friday.
Started out with just a sore back that kept getting worse. She ended up having a disc and bone fragments removed that were pressing on her nerves creating sciatic pain - which is what the doc thought they were originally treating. Talk about some bad shit.

Take care


  


Monday, May 25, 2015

This and that....

The official start to summer - Memorial day weekend. 
We were planning on attending our local Memorial day parade today, which would have featured Chyann in the high school band for the last time and Caden for the first time marching with the middle school band, but due to the rain it was cancelled. 

From yesterday at 1230p when it started raining till now we've received 2.5 inches of rain.
I managed to get the long garden planted before the rain drove me inside. When the sky clears I'll go plant the small garden - yesterday I noticed that I had a freaking mole trail right through that garden. No idea what to do about that or if he'll be back.

Nice and green here this morning though.


Saturday Caden's Wheeler team played in an all day tournament in a nearby town.
They played three different teams in back to back games and won the tournament!

The boys played wonderfully!
Instead of a team trophy they received Memorial day dog tags with the date and place of the tournament. Kind of a neat idea.

Caden slid into home more often than not.
You know it's a good baseball day when you come home and have to literally dump the dirt/sand from your back pockets of your baseball pants lol
He had some great hits and a ton of RBI's!


The big kids came and supported their brother.

I'm learning a lot about my new camera.
It wasn't my intention to have it focus on Colton and blur Caden a bit but it's kind of a cool picture with that going on.


Favorite picture of the day, my kiddos.


Caden and his best buddies - they've been 6, 7, 8 for all the years they've played together. 

This Wheeler team is made up of kids from three different towns. The boys all play for their home team as well as this team. So tomorrow night they will play the Spring Valley team which includes four of their Wheeler teammates. They knew they'd be up against some of their Wheeler teammates at different times throughout the season and they are excited to play them.
It will be interesting for sure.


Snapped a few pictures driving home.
I like how the foreground is blurry, but the trees are gorgeous and clear.


Caden was singing and practically dancing in his seat on the way home.
Course soon as he saw me taking pictures of him via the mirror he quit.


Have a good one :)

Saturday, May 16, 2015

A heavy finger

is no longer needed when taking pictures with my new camera.
The shutter is so fast in sports/action mode if I were to push the shutter button like I did on my old camera I'd have about 35 pictures instead of just the one. Imagine that.

I've been having fun learning all the tricks to it. Lots know for taking the best pictures possible and video too because this camera also has that function.

Anyhow...
Caden's first game with his school team was on Wednesday.
He was the first up to bat and on the first pitch thrown he gets his first home run of the season!
I even managed to get it on video!
Talk about a thrilling start to the game.

The Hubby got him a new bat that he used for the first time in the game. It's a Mako which I guess in the world of baseball is a good one.
Caden says it makes Mako Magic.


Caden booking from second to third base.


When I down loaded my pictures I had over a hundred.
Lot's of fun sequential shots of him running and batting.
Love this one of him mid air.


Hard to know which pictures are keepers when you have sooooo many that are similar.
I've decided to take a photography class, might as well learn to take better pictures with this camera. Use it to it's potential.

In other news. 
This will be our only free weekend for a while. 
Not a lot planned other than mowing and riding horses.

Have a good one!




Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Dozer and other stories

 As sweet as he is, he is the very definition of a


Shit eater.


The horses doing a bit of mowing for me.


So.. I finally decided to get rid of my gray hair.
Dithered in the hair product isle for about 30 minutes and narrowed it down to two colors.
Had the Hubby make the final decision because both were very similar to what I naturally have. 
Which is what I was looking for. He picked color 63 - brown sugar a light golden brown. 
Okey dokey.
Let's do this. 
It's been years since I've done a box color and yes I was a bit apprehensive.
Color in, wash out and see whats what.
Caden says it looks purplish brown to him. Say it isn't so.
 I think it has more of a red hue, but definitely a browish color.
It hasn't even been a week and my grays are already showing again. Almost like the color didn't take well. Not sure what is up with that. 
Sigh.. 
Four weeks until I can do it again?
Guess we'll see about that because I have a hankering to be blonde lol


I got a new camera for Mother's Day.
A fancy dancy one that has a super fast shutter speed!
Has all kinds of cool technology like transferring pictures to a smart phone by just touching the phone to the camera? That doesn't seem possible and right now it's not because the instruction book is huge and I've barely figured out the first chapter. 
I'd better get hot though because Caden has a game tomorrow and I wanna try it out.

Have a good one :)




Sunday, May 10, 2015

Sunday AM coffee


Another week done. 
We sure had some nice weather this last week - warm to hot and humid which sparked some rain producing thunderstorms.
I bet we are no longer in the dry range with as much rain as we've had. 
Thursday night a whopper of a storm came through from which we got 2.5 inches of rain in about an hour. That amount of rain in such a short period of time of course washed out parts of the driveway leaving behind 4 inch deep ruts and flooded the barn. The Hubby spent a good chunk of Friday filling ruts and getting it fixed up.

Yesterday Caden played in the first all day tourney of the season. 
It was literally an alll day affair - we left the house at 730a and didn't get home until after 8p.

They took second in the tourney so did not get the big trophy in the below picture, but they'll get one yet this season I'm sure.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day!
Low humidity, mid 70's and blue skies.
Was a good thing I worked the concession stand off and on throughout the day otherwise I'd be as sunburned as the Hubby is - lobster red is not a good color on him. Caden is quite red today too, but definitely not as bad as his Dad is. Both of them liberally used sunblock all day even.

A few of my favorite pictures:
Caden and his two best friends

Caden sliding into home plate SAFE! 


Huge strides to fly down the base line.


I'm freaking irritated that I either accidentally deleting or not recorded when I thought I was recording Cadens best hit of the day - a monster freaking hit to the orange fence - was damn near a home run. UGH. damn it. 
He had an amazing day! Great hits, great runs, great catches to make great plays. 
Damn I love baseball - when he plays!


And today is Mothers Day.
It's cool out, almost cold even. No big plans. Might mow as the yard which seems mostly weeds all the sudden is getting tall.

Enjoy :)

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Sunday AM coffee



First things first - my beloved son made it home on Friday night!

Friday was about the longest day ever.
 I absolutely could not concentrate at work - did you know airlines have this super cool flight tracking thing now? You put in the flight number and can watch the aircraft's progress? I refreshed that screen every 10 minutes as they crossed the Atlantic. About had a small heart-attack when I found out their flight from Newark to MSP had been cancelled due to no flight crew. Imagine that right? Must have been some kind of weird karma for all the times I cancelled a flight due to no crew lol Anyhow they were rescheduled and made it to MSP within an hour of of their originally scheduled arrival. He took the shuttle from there to Menomonie where we picked him up.

He has a bit of a foreign accent going on, needs a haircut super bad, suffering from jet lag and happy to be home.

I went to bed Friday night feeling at peace because all the kids were here safe and sound. 


Yesterday we spent the day as a family and it was wonderful.
Missed the Derby festivities with my friends, but there is always next year.

We got our delivery of trees on Wednesday. 
Instead of  50 trees, it turned out we had actually ordered 70.
60 red pines and 10 red maples. 

All were one and two year bare root stock, so pretty small.
We got 50 in the ground that night and the other 20 yesterday afternoon.
From all that I've read, our goal this year is to keep them adequately watered to establish a good root system and then next year they will really start growing. 

Picture from my office window last week.
Some days its sure hard to look out and not go out and do something. 



Today I'm planning on getting the gardens re-tilled and ready for planting this coming weekend. 
I figure with the weather being as nice as it has been that I'm going to risk that we wont be getting another frost this season. Fingers crossed :)

later