First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for the kids.

Kaila is starting her senior year at one of the county high schools. She is again this year involved in the band as part of the color guard. Yes Kaila is holding her spiderman lunchbox!!

Kelli is starting her freshmen year at a different high school then Kaila. (Our neighborhood was redistricted so that is why Kelli is going to a different school then Kaila). Kelli is playing on the volleyball team.

Eddie is starting this year in 6th grade at one of the countys brand new middle schools. He is still very involved in Boy Scouts. Eddie did put shoes on before he went to school, I just got the picture before he put them on!

The first day of school went well for everyone. I had a ton of papers to sign for each child!

At my school we had a fire alarm that went off because of the new oven in the cafeteria. We evacuated the building in a very timely fashion and everything turned out fine.

It is going to be a great new school year!

Happy 17th Birthday Kaila!

Happy 17th Birthday Kaila! It is hard to believe that she is 17 already! It feels like just yesterday she was born!

She got a new camera for her birthday.








She picked spaghetti for dinner with a yellow 4 layer cake with chocolate icing for her cake.









She also got some 3-D chalk from Grammy and Pop. Her and her friend Katelynn drew a picture. It really does look 3-D when you wear the glasses!









Her camera was wrapped in a Steelers tote bag!

Summer Trip to PA

The girls and I headed to PA in the car the beginning of July and Ed and Eddie hopped on the motorcycle and took several days to get there. The girls and I did the interstates and got there the same day we left. Ed and Eddie took route 19 all the way into PA from GA. They traveled 870 miles in three days.

In PA Mom and I took Kelli and Eddie to Parker Dam State Park for the annual picnic the night before the reunion. Eddie said the water was cold and Kelli didnt want to get in. (Kaila was already on her way home, more on that in a bit)

Ed did some tile work for Mom and Dad in their bathroom. Of course there always has to be a supervisior and Mom filled that position for this job!

On July 3rd, Mom, Kaila, Kelli and I went to watch the fireworks in Clarion. It was a chilly night!

Dad had his own supervisory postion. He supervised the building of the new shed in the back yard.

And here is the shed!

The dogs went with us and for some reason, Roxanne inisted on sleeping in the suitcase each night. Not sure why. Maybe she was afraid we would leave her behind!!

I had lunch one day with two high school friends I have not seen in 26 years. It was a nice lunch and nice to meet up with old friends.

On the way back home, Kaila and Ed took all back roads including the Skyline Parkway and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some mornings it was really foggy and some times they ran into cold weather.

Here is Kaila and Ed getting ready to leave Clarion and head back home on the bike. It took them three days and approximatly 1000 miles.

Kailas dessert

Kaila made dessert for Ed for Fathers Day. She made little hamburgers and french fries!

The hamburgers are made from vanilla cupcakes as buns, a brownie as the burger and ketchup, mustard and lettuce made from icing. The french fries are sugar cookies.

We got the idea from the website called Bakerella. She has alot of interesting recipes.

Kaila with her dessert.

The house painting is done!!

They finished painting the house today! I am very pleased with the way it turned out. They did a great job!








Garage side of the house.










Back of the house. If you look closely you can see Kelli in the window closest to the left side of the picture. She was in that room watching TV when I was taking pictures.

House Paint Job

We are in the process of having the exterior of the house painted. They came last week and pressure washed the house and then painted on day last week and then it rained. They came back again today.

This is a picture of the front of the house before the painting started.


Here is the side of the house before painting began.








Here is the front of the house partially painted.








The side of the house partially painted. They still have two windows to do on this side.









This is a close up of the windows in the garage area. Not sure why they didnt paint the bottom of the one window yet.

You can see the shutters in this picture to the left. They are currently black, but we are going to paint them and even darker shade of brown.

Boy Scout Camp

Eddie left last Sunday morning to spend a week at Boy Scout camp. He was so excited about going.

On Friday it was family night and any family members could come up for dinner. Ed and I drove up on Friday afternoon. Eddie didnt know we were coming because I wasnt sure we would be able too. Finding him was not as hard as we thought it might be. There were 900 scouts there, luckily they were all at the dining hall, unluckily they all wore the same uniform!! However, I spotted a scout with his troop number on his uniform pretty quickly and we were able to find him fast. He was so surprised! This picture is him in front of the archery range. He worked on 3 different merit badges, archery, first aid, and fishing. He completed the first aid and fishing.


We sent him 2 care packages, the first one arrived on Tuesday and the second one he got today. He is opening it with his new knife that we bought him since he now has earned his Totin' Chit (meaning he can carry a knife and knows how to use it safely).








Marty and Dave, this one is for you. Here he is explaining how big his bass fish was that he caught. Typical fisherman! He had to catch 2 fish to complete the merit badge and he had to clean and filet them! So next time you go fishing, he can clean and filet them for you!!




There were 22 different "campsites" for all the boys. Eddies troop got the furthest one away from all the main activites! Eddie took us to show us the campsite and his tent. Each tent is for two boys. He shared with his good friend, Austin.





He is standing in front of the Mountain Man area. This was a program that he went through at the camp for first time campers. He learned lots of new stuff and had a great time. He will be home tomorrow around noon.