Our trip to Old Orchard Beach.....

Well I am blogging a little early from our trip. We had a FANTASTIC time, but I re-affirmed for myself and everyone else that I am an INDOOR GIRL...lol!! I could NOT sleep at all in that tent last night. First it was the very under-inflated air mattress (and unable to find the air pump in the dark... and little assistance or cooperation from a sleeping husband), so I tried the ground between our mattress and the kid's mattress... that was ok for a couple hours, but then it got chilly and I had no blanket because I was on top of my sleeping bag as a cushion from the ground (not to mention the loud partying campers nearby and the VERY loud choo choo train.... and of course there were fireworks as icing on the noise cake)... THEN I decided that the car was my only option and that is where I spent the rest of a looooooooooong night.

We had a BLAST though!!! This morning we did funtown/splashtown and were lucky enough to have thunderstorms wait until we were pretty much ready to leave anyway! ...and the rainstorms only helped my "I think we should just drive home tonight" case ;-)

Turned out I had good instincts! We stopped at the pier because I had promised Jessi a frozen banana (a purchase I quickly regretted as those things are just REALLY wrong for preteen girls to be walking around enjoying. Seriously.) As we walked up the hill the pier we noticed that the horizon was completely black and it was coming closer!! We ran to the car and by the time we got to the car it was over us and people were running everywhere trying to find cover! It was a CRAZY storm and from what I heard on the radio, it did a lot of damage! SO glad we were not in a TENT for that!!!

A REALLY REALLY lot of pictures from camp :-)

Felt like snappin'

I haven't dug out the camera just for the sake of it much lately, but the weather was SO nice tonight, I couldn't resist! Nothin' amazin' ...just foolin' around. NEXT WEEK will be a PHOTO BONANZA!!!!!!!!

Even BETTER!!

So we were all pretty excited about going to East Grand Lake next week and having a nice quiet vacation.

But then Rick had an even BETTER idea!!

The NEW plan is spend a few days at East Grand, come home on Tuesday, hang out at home on Wednesday, and then bright and early Thursday morning... head down to Old Orchard Beach and Funtown/Splashtown... and Cabela's (of course)!!! Now we are UBER excited about our vacation. The kids and I have never been there before... not sure about Rick. I decided to go cheap and we are going to tent out at a campground for 2 nights. I found a GREAT place right by the beach and I think it's going to be hard to pry the kids away from there!!

Can't WAIT!!!

A great time was had by all... I think.....

For GAME CAM photos... you'll have to head on over to Rick's Blog... which I'm sure he'll get to once he's done makin' our breakfast!!!!

Mr. Melon is ready to party.

Fireworks

All I have to say is... bring on Children's Day and the REAL, GOOD, Fireworks!!!!!

Way too many photos of our 4th of July

What a great day!!! Rick and I got a TON done around the house, and then we went out to Hermon for a family softball game and BBQ. I learned that I can't hit... but I didn't give up (ok... I did give up my first time at bat... but I went back for more when I was up again! ...Fortunately I don't embarrass easily...lol!!) and I hit one and made it all the way home :)

Off to the fireworks! I am excited to try photographing them and doing that whole 'slow shutter speed thing!'

It's party time!!!! .....almost!

Saturday night is the big party and I have SO MUCH TO DO!! So... naturally I am sitting in a chair blogging and watching General Hospital.

I am pretty excited about having a kid-free evening and it's looking like it's gonna be a full house here!! Lots of new peeps... in addition to the super fun collection of whackos that we usually have ;) ;)

Fortunately I have all day Friday and Saturday to get stuff done around here and and do some shopping. I work much better under pressure anyway!!

Woo HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Nicole and I are SO there!!! And everyone else should be there too!! Even if you don't like Cowboy Mouth (or know who they are) now.... I 100% GUARANTEE you will LOVE them when you leave!!!! SO excited!!

Ahh... Peace and Quiet

There hasn't been much of that around here lately, but tonight Chris and Butters have gone over to Tim's house, Rick is gone to camp for the night, and the kids are all snuggled up in my bed watching a movie. They'll be asleep in no time since they went swimming today. They went with B and Grampa today and "found" a new fantastic (free!) beach on Alamoosook Lake. They said it was great because it was nice and sandy and you could walk out really, really far and it stayed shallow. Before we learned of Jessi's impending arrival I was planning my dream wedding and wanted so badly to have it at the Lodge, but it was way out of our price range. (I never actually went and looked at it, only drooled over brochures.) I googled it just now (Alamoosook Lakeside Inn)... and I don't really know what I was thinking because it's kinda on the cheesy side. Maybe that's not the same place--I could have sworn it had "lodge" in the name, but how many can there be on one little lake?

Though even as cheesy as it is... it's a hellava more classy than what we ended up with ;)

This was a really random ramble. Can you believe I haven't even had any wine? Off to change that ;)

One more trip tidbit....

No matter WHERE you are in New England... or maybe even the WORLD... there is a Daughtry song playing on the radio. I smell a conspiracy.

The trip

Jessi and I had a very nice mother/daughter trip down to NH to get Sampson. We left on Friday and spent the night at my Nana’s house. That was an event in itself as Nana was in RARE form ...not going to go into all that here, but let’s just say the Fox News agenda is working ;) I also learned that I am just like my Aunt because we both have great talents and foolishly choose to keep them as hobbies and not turn them into careers, and that is very sad because we both have so much to offer and it is just getting squandered. Oh yeah… and this new trend of nobody wearing stockings anymore is just terrible because most people have ugly feet and have no business showing them off with those awful dark painted toes ;) ;)

Saturday we got right up and hit the road to Windham to pick up Sampson. We stopped in Manchester and went to the mall and had lunch at Boston Market, which was my FAVORITE when I lived in Boston... not-so-much anymore. There was a Cold Stone Creamery there too but I was still not feeling all that great from my stomach flu and couldn't even finish the chicken. The whole trip was a total bummer to have to pass by my favorites and have my stomach turn at the thought of them... but I am not complaining about the 10 pounds I lost this month ;)

We found the place in Windham without any issues. Jessi is a GREAT little navigator! The "place" turned out to be (and I had read all of this on the website, but it didn't really sink in at all til I got there) a park n' ride by near the highway. You know... those parking lots were people leave their cars to commute together to work. The lot was about 1/2 full when we got there and as we looked around we noticed that they were all kind of standing around holding leashes. Pretty much everyone there was there to pick up a dog. Within 1/2 hour the lot was darn near FULL of people standing around with leashes. It was like a football tailgate minus the BBQ! Then someone said, "He's HERE!" and a pick-up truck with a reallllllly long RV/Camper thingy pulled into the lot. As he came to a stop the dogs ALL started barking inside as people rushed to get into line to pick up their dogs. Because of Sampson's sad tale and large size, he was kind of a celebrity dog there (SO many came up to me while we are waiting to say "You are the ones who adopted Sampson!!? I am so happy for him!! I read his story and it was so sad!!") and Jessi and I got ushered right to the front of the line. At first we thought he was a big dog that was in the entryway who looked just like the photo of him on the net, then they ushered him out and he was TWICE as big as the dog that we THOUGHT he was! Jessi's jaw dropped and she said, "Umm... wow. He's um... REALLY huge!" As we walked him away down the looooong line of people waiting for their dogs, everyone was saying "awwwwwww.... look at the old guy..." and "Holy crap... that dog is HUGE!" When we got over to the car we had all the doors open to let it air out (it was HOT!!) and Sampson got right into the backseat without a second thought. It was a good thing Sean didn't come along because Sampson takes up the WHOLE backseat!

The ride home was fairly uneventful. One minor glitch when we stopped at the NH Liquor and Lottery Store to let Sampson have a pee break (ok... so we didn't ONLY stop there so Sampson could have a pee break, but you can't go to NH and NOT get some liquor!! That's just crazy talk!!!) and he laid down in the grass and didn't want to get up. That was when I learned that if a 100lb dog doesn't want to do something... he ain't gonna do it!! After a lot of coaxing and a little pushing from behind on my part (the pulling on the leash wasn't working at all... he just looked at me like "Bitch please."), and we were back on the road. We were home just in time to decline Rick's very nice offer to BBQ chicken (as my stomach was still trying to decide if it was happy with the Boston Market lunch) ;)

Meet Sampson

Sooo… remember how I fell in love with that dog a few weeks ago? Well after I found that webpage, I checked it every day to see if someone had adopted him yet. A couple Sundays ago I noticed that his status had changed to “URGENT” which means…

“sometimes we will list Urgent dogs, when that is the case it is usually listed as Urgent because it is on the euthansia list and both the shelter and Almost Home Rescue does not have space for the dog OR a foster home must release the dog, and there is nowhere for it to go and it has to go back to the shelter where it will be euthanized (because it has already used up it's allotted shelter time by law)”

After I read that I went and pouted to Rick that they were going to kill Sampson and Rick said, “Well… you better go e-mail them.” I said, “Seriously!?” and he said, “Well you don’t want him to DIE do you??”

So I e-mailed my application.. honestly I fully assumed that I would be denied because I was blatantly honest on my application (Do you have a fenced in yard? No. Are you will to install a fenced area? No. Are all of your dogs up to date on their vaccinations? No… and they aren’t going to be because Nicky’s vet agrees that at his stage in life he should be enjoying life and not being dragged to the vet for vaccines other than rabies.) and it has always been a HUGE pet peeve of mine that it sometimes it seems like Human Societies and Rescue Leagues will find any little excuse they can find to deem you unworthy for a dog or a cat …but that’s a blog for another day.

So the next day when I did my daily “Sampson check” I noticed that his status was now “PENDING” I was relieved and happy for him! Then I read down further and it said, “Sampson is currently pending adoption to a family in Hampden, ME.” Ummmm… wait…. WHAT!?? I got an e-mail from them that day, they did a home visit that weekend and the next weekend Jessi and I headed down to NH to pick him up. Our trip to NH and our experience picking him up is a whole blog post in itself, so I'll save that for tomorrow!!

Stomach flu BAD!!!!!!!!!!!

That's about all I've got. :-P

P.S. Don't EVER search "puking gif" on google image search.

TWO THUMBS UP!!

ROTFLAPIMP!! This movie was hysterical. And obviously I would not recommend it to anyone who spends a lot of time thinking... or someone who is not a fan of fun and silliness. BUT for everyone else who can give permission to laugh like crazy at someone requesting 'just one peepeetouch from one of your wives' ...I heartily recommend this movie :-)

....and Adam Sandler is SUPER yummy and totally has the 'arms and chest' thing goin' on in, but I digress......

ETA.... I have one more group that I would NOT recommend this movie for.... CHILDREN!! I could not BELIEVE how many kids were at that movie and It was hard to enjoy the movie and not sit and be consumes with disgust at the parents who didn't take their kids and leave for a movie that was a little more appropriate. Jessi is allowed to watch PG-13 movies and I would have walked out on that one if I had brought her with me. It was Diiiiiiiirty with a capital 'D!!'

Some pics to hold you over til I actually feel like blogging :)

LOL!

Busy Weekend with LOTS of photos!!

Yesterday Uncle Chris and Butters arrived to stay with us while Chris job hunts... and Chris and Nicole apartment hunt.

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Of COURSE Chris' arrival meant we had an excuse to PARTY!! (OK... that was a little silly... like we have ever NEEDED an excuse in the past...lol!)



Today is Sunday. Lowes Day. House/Yard work, Take Photos, Catch snakes, and play day. Rick's new grill has a rotisserie built in so we are going to attempt rotisserie chicken. Jessi invented a marinade (with lemon zest, onion, garlic, brown sugar, and who knows what else she put in there but it smells REALLY GOOD!) and prepared the chickens and they are just hanging out in the fridge waiting to be cooked.

I am a blog slacker. And I have been indulging in a bit of Sangria.

And I just saw a commercial for a salad dressing called "Wishful Bountifuls." It looks like vomit. With CHUNKS, WHO the HELL created this commercial and thought that looked GOOD. And who at the company then screened the commercial and agreed. I must find it on youtube in case you haven't seen it.

OK... not from youtube but here it is... and I gagged even watching it to make sure it was the right ad



Seriously. Gag. Puke. And how gross must that even BE those veggies all locked in the bottle in that dressing all slimy and mushy. BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

LOVING LOWES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK... so I thought it would be like the Home Depot which has never really gotten me all watered up to do stuff. It SO ISN'T!! When Rick and I pulled up it was like the Heaven's opened up and the angels sang!!!! I am SO inspired to do lots of stuff around the house now. I even worked OUTDOORS today, and if you know me.... you know that is SOMETHING!!!!