That Time of Year

August is just around the corner and every month seems to go faster then the last. It's amazing how each day can seem like a week and yet each month seems like a day. As I mentioned before I have a lot of reasons to celebrate in August. Birthdays upon birthdays to brighten my days.

My new roommate Melanie (yes she's the same Mel in my previous posts, but now she's a roommate...that changes the situation you know) her birthday is this Friday August 1st and Jessica, my 'old' roommate's birthday is August 4th. However Jess is leaving us for a month...left this morning actually :( and so on Saturday July 26th we had a combined birthday party and we throw Reed into the mix for fun. Our threesome birthday party was a blast...or at least I had a good time :)

The people were kind enough to humor me and we had a pinata (the neighbor kids came over and helped out with that one)

and we played pin the Pirate on the Treasure and Kiss the Frog

I was a mean girl and made Mel, Reed and Jess open their gifts in fromt of everyone. It made me smile. I think they liked them :)

Mel was lucky and got a second birthday bash...her coworker Minnetta made her a cake. We sang and ate cake.

I think we should have birthday parties all the time. So much fun!

Niagara Falls

As un-American as it may seem we went to Niagara Falls for the 4th of July weekend. It was amazing. We ended up camping along the Niagara River a few miles up stream. A perfect location for Firework watching since we could see 5 or 6 shows at the same time.


Thursday - July 3rd

Drive there...a little long, but not bad. I ended up in the car with Reed, Brian and Sundee. Sundee & Reed drove. Some of the hi-lights


Gummie Bears - Gummie bears are apparently vital to Brian's existence. So much so that he makes himself sick by eating too many and Reed had to take them away.






Are we going the right way? There are not major freeways through Pennsylvania and Western New York to get to Niagara and we wandered through many a small towns trying to follow the directions from mapquest. At one point we were sure we were going the wrong way, but turns out that mapquest just gave us the wrong mileage, eventually we figured out its easier to follow the signs for 219 north then to try to understand mapquests directions.


The Canadian Boarder...




O Canada!




We made it a fast job setting up camp. We took responsibility for setting up all the tents and laying out all the sleeping bags since we didn't expect the other car with Darin, Jess, Cat and Annie to arrive until 1 or 2 am. Funny story...the kids across the way from our campsite kept setting off their car alarm and Reed threatened that there would be blood if that thing went off in the middle of the night and so...here comes almost 2 am and the second car is arriving and I have to get something out of Sundee's car and I didn't know that if you unlock the car with the key and not the clicker it would set off the alarm...well...lets just say that a car alarm went off and Reed yelled at me, luckily it was too tired to actually get out of bed and carry out his threat and he doesn't even remember yelling at me, but I have witnesses. :P


Friday - 4th of July (and Reed's birthday)


Pancakes - the perfect 4th of July breakfast...and look the boys are cooking :)

We went to the Falls today. WOW that's all I have to say. They are quite amazing! I can't imagine what it must have been like to come upon them for the first time. The river just drops, disappears.




Most of the group...one of my paparazzi shots :)

The Horse Shoe Falls


American Falls - from a distance.


We went on the Maid of the Mist. That was fun and wet. It's the little boat down there. They actually taking you into the mist of the Falls, probably about as close as you can get without being torn up by the torrents.

Waiting in line - An American Pass Time...

We were all given these handy little ponchos to keep us dry.



On the boat, awaiting the wetness

In the Mist...I took these pictures from inside my poncho so my camera didn't get all wet and die







Exiting the Maid of the Mist they drop you off on a little court yard area and the perfect photo op. I think this is one of the most photographed areas.





Having been among the mist of the Falls we now decided to "fly" over the Falls by going on the Farris Wheel...I'm sure it has a name, just like the Eye of London, but we'll just call it the Wheel.


This is the Wheel

After spending at the Falls we went home and had dinner, played games and sang happy birthday to Reed. We went out to the river banks to watch the fireworks. We had a luck vantage point, sitting where we could see the Buffalo firework show, the Niagara Falls show and several others a long the river.

Necessity is the mother of all invention...and we needed someway to cook the hamburgs we planned for dinner. The only problem was that I didn't bring the grill with me and so...




We only lost one hamburg, not too bad!




Waiting for night to fall and the fireworks to start.




Happy Birthday Reed!!! Sundee provided the cake :)





And of course we made s'mores.

Saturday - July 5th

The next day was spent lazing around. Some played games, or read or slept or swam. We went for walks and just spent the day doing a lot of nothing.

The boys went swimming - showing off their mad skills.

These are the geese we met on of walk along the river.

That night we went back to the Falls to see what they looked like light up. Beautiful, however Jess ended up with better pictures if you would like to see them click here

We were lost and looking for the easiest way to get to the Falls and this is what we found...A Sign

Once we returned we had a bonfire and s'mores and some of us went to bed...apparently the rest of them had a rave...I didn't hear a thing. I must have been really tired.

Sunday - July 6th

The next day we packed up camp and head back to the Ol' USA.

We made a brief side trip to Palmyra, NY to see the old Smith homestead, the Scared Grove, the Temple and Hill Camorah. It was beautiful!

Amazing times and great fun. I would totally do it again!

We are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything!

So it's that time of year again :) Brother Monson, gluten for punishment that he is, invited the sisters to come out to his house for sailing. We have fantastic time. We went crabbing and caught about 25 or so...we're amazing it's true :)



Our Catch -





Part of our catch in my sink at home...my roommate Melissa decided that she wanted to cook some of the crab...to say the least our house smelt funny for a while there after.



Now for those of you who don't know how you go crabbing, I'll tell ya. I'm sure there are many ways to do this, however we used the ol' chicken neck method. Brother Monson provided us we several chicken neck's and we tied string around them, making it long enough that they would touch the river floor with a little extra and then we waited...... When the string went tight, we slowly, ever so slowly pulled it up and grabbed the net to catch the crab once it neared the surface. The first few times we didn't get the net under the crab in time, but eventually we got it down to an art.







Cutting the string




Stringing the chicken necks
As you can see Jess is the brave one :)





In addition to catching crabs, we sailed, swam and paddle boated, play badminton, read and got sun burnt...





And Freda got to climb a mast to remove the beginnings of a birds nest from the top.



It was a wonderful day :)

Memorial Day 2008

Mel and I are still as dorky as ever and made the trek into DC for the Memorial Day festivities, earlier this year since we knew what to expect, for the Memorial Day Concert. We went early, first get a good seat and second to save spaces for our friends who would be following us later, however they apparently don't allow people in after a certain time and Reed, Brian, Bronwyn, Emma and company didn't make it in time. Begging didn't help either. Believe me I tried. But despite our disappointment of separation from our group, Mel and I had a great time.

We brought reading materials to keep us occupied


Sunset just before the concert started.

Some great night shots Mel took after the concert. I was talking to my sister Becky.

Monday - Memorial Day. We decided to go all out this year, like I said we knew what to expect and we got ourselves out early and head to Arlington Cemetery for the wreath laying ceremony. It was beautiful. The day was perfect.

Slade and Freda joined us.



President Bush spoke at the ceremony. I know there are a lot of people who don't like Bush, but even if I don't agree with everything he's done as president I still have a lot of respect for him for the office that he holds.

It was fun to watch all the Secret Service men get set up around the cemetery and the snipers climbing on top of the buildings. Slade asked on of the snipers what he had in a bag and he said...weapons. Duh! Slade was hopping for something a little more specific then that.



Memorial Day Parade


Memorial Day BBQ - After a full day of Memorial Day activities Mel and I hosted a BBQ. It had a great turnout and we had a blast!

I have to say. I love Memorial Day.