Never Fails. . .

Why is it that you always find one dirty fork or spoon AFTER you've started the dishwasher? Or you get the electric knife or mixer all put away neatly in its little case just to remember that the blades/beaters are still in the dish drainer and you have to start all over??

Just a random thought. Please tell me I'm not the only one that does this! (Guess you can't tell I'm cleaning my kitchen today!)

Lucrative Business!

Just had to share. This is almost FIVE times last week's profits! If it gets any more lucrative, I won't be able to post these updates without my husband wondering where I'm stashing all my profits! :D Unfortunately, it's money we've already earned from one of our jobs and NOT really extra income we don't have to work for. . . Someday! :-)

Money Laundering. . .

Unfortunately, my profits haven't been too lucrative yet! :-) LOL!! (I thought it was funny!)

Anniversary Dinner

It's kind of hard to really celebrate a special occasion when it takes place early in the week. Jon worked today, and I did homework all day, but we DID manage to get out for a nice dinner this evening. After thinking all day and trying to come up with someplace good and unusual, yet not TOO expensive, Jon and I finally decided on Mama Lucia's in Potsdam. Jon had been before, but it was my first time. Just think Olive Garden. . . The atmosphere was amazing and the food was great!! It's an old train station which is absolutely beautiful inside and it has a nice patio area outside (which is where we ate and just barely missed a HUGE thunder storm). Here are just a few pictures. I brought my camera and then left it in the car. I realized before we walked away from the car, but was just going to forget it because I get tired or fussing with Jon to let us get pictures. HE surprisingly enough asked if I was going to bring my camera in and didn't argue at all about getting pictures! He's learning! :-)

Two Years Ago Today. . .

I Leah Take you Jonathan To be my wedded husband Today I pledge all my love to you and only you for the rest of our lives. Today, I promise to stand beside you through life’s ups and downs. I promise to listen to your heart when you need to talk. I promise to be faithful. I promise to honor and respect you as is God’s perfect plan. This covenant I make Before God and these witnesses From this day forward Until death do us part.

Dinner for my Wife!

I've been trying to lose some weight, and shrimp is one of the acceptable things that I can eat on my diet. I decided to make some Shrimp Scampi. I was not allowed to have the pasta due to the diet rules, but my wife was. Anyway, when we got done putting it on her plate we decided that it was worthy of a picture. So we just thought that we would share. If you think that it looks good, you should have had some. We both agreed that it was quite tasty.

New. . .er Wheels!

We have actually had the new "car" since the middle of August, but didn't post pictures because we wanted some people to see it "in person" first. Now, however, everyone has seen it and for lack of something better to post, here is a picture of the new wheels. We cristened it with a trip up Whiteface Mt. the day after we got it (back when we posted all the other Whiteface pix).

It's a 2002 Mazda Tribute. Features include: sun roof, cassette player AND 6 CD changer, power locks and windows, remote key-less entry, both automatic and push button 4-wheel drive, etc. It's quite an upgrade, and we're excited to have something a little more dependable and suited to our location!

Saturday

A lot of the day Saturday was spent in Plattsburgh again doing some shopping. We hadn't planned to go back after just being up there Friday night, but. . . We went to Wal-Mart, Had a late lunch/early dinner at a Chinese place, then went to the mall for a bit. When we got home, we had to finish up laundry, type up and print bulletins, do homework, pick up a few groceries, and straighten the house a little. This made for a late evening followed by an early morning Sunday. Here is my freebie for the day. We haven't come up with a name yet, but you wouldn't believe the laughs we got out of this crazy, good for nothin', stuffed lamb!

It turns out that I spent over $15 at Bath and Body Works so I got this little guy for free. I really don't know why anyone would pay the original $8 for him, but we have gotten quite a kick out of him for free!

Dinner and Roses

So here I am finally! I've been pretty busy lately with school, work, and now the holiday weekend. The weekend started early, and still isn't over. We had company for a short time Saturday afternoon, then a cook out with some friends and family Saturday night. Church, of course, Sunday, then Sunday night snacks with different friends and of course family. That lasted until pretty late Sunday night, and now here I am trying to catch up a bit before the next event this afternoon. It's been a busy week and now long weekend!

But now on to my title topic.

My brain gets a lot of down time while I'm working. I guess I spend a large percentage of my time at work either vacuuming or mopping, neither of which require a great deal of thought. Some of this time is spent praying, some singing with the radio or CD, some just enjoying the blissfulness of not thinking of much of anything, and SOME (especially lately) thinking about how blessed I am to have the husband I do. I don't really know why, but the other day at work I just got to thinking about Jon. I won't bore you with a huge long list of the MANY good things about him, but I will just say, I have been amazed time and again by his unconditional love and support! I gotta admit life has been a little crazy with school and everything lately, but he never gets bent out of shape if the house suffers from my being too busy. He never whines about when or what we're going to have for supper when I'm busy with homework. He'll even sit up late (well late for us) with me just to give me the moral support I need to finish a tough homework assignment! So my thought the other day was just how happy I was with him. Not only did he allow me to go back to school to follow a dream, but he encourages me in everything I do - from help and moral support with a tough assignment, to trying to get me to calm down and relax when I get me weekly grades! : /

With all this in mind, let me tell you about Friday night's dinner and roses. I had Friday off, so I spent the day working on homework. Jon got home from work and just started rummaging around in the kitchen. I ask him if he was ready for supper, and was going to go get something ready, but was right in the middle of something, so he volunteered to run to the grocery store and just pick up a rotisserie chicken. (he doesn't enjoy going to ANY store by himself.) So he went to the store and I worked on finishing up my project. Upon his return, he opened the door, poked his head in, and told me to close my eyes. (I LOVE surprises by the way!) And you ALMOST know the rest of the story. He came and insisted I hold out BOTH hands. The surprise was not a bouquet of roses, but a mini rose bush! I've wanted one for a while, but. . . Now I am the proud owner of a beautiful little rose bush with the prettiest little dark pink roses on it! Here are some pictures.

AND the Ride Back Down the Mt.

We took the elevator up from where we parked to the summit, but wanted to hike back down. This is the trail we hiked down - over slippery rocks and dizzying heights! (Oh yeah, and I didn't even come close to having on slip resistant footwear!)

And the drive begins!

Anybody hungry? How's a picnic on the side of the Mt. sound? Or are you too car sick?

That's about it - you get the idea. I think I missed a couple signs, but the sequence is for real. So who's coming next time?

Whiteface Mountain Cont.

Jon posted some landscape photos, but here are a few of us.

That's Lake Placid behind us to the left.

It was really cold up there. (and a little windy!) Luckily I thought to grab a jacket! The very top! (that rock was sooooo slippery!) I don't even have a caption for this one!

Or this one! (passers by were asking about his life insurance policy!)

I was trying to decide if I wanted to try to go out any further on the slippery rocks with my flip-flops on. Jon was already out there taking pictures from a distance.

I did go out further. It wasn't as bad as I thought.

DUH! He stopped to take some pictures. I beat him to the bottom!

Whiteface Mountain

I just wanted to put some pictures up quickly for you. Leah and I drove up Whiteface yesteraday, and it was absolutely breath taking. It was slightly cloudy, but it was very clear at the summit. I will be posting some other pictures later, but I wanted to get these up for those who might be checking our blog. Leah will probably post some from her camera too. Keep checking, and enjoy what's up now.

Home Again Home Again

. . .Jiggity jig. . .

Just wanted to let you all know that we are home and planning to stay here for a while now! The trip home was long, but it seemed much faster with our newly installed cruise control and TWO 6 hr. books on CD! We decided not to get a hotel on the way back, because we both just wanted to get home and we were making really good time. Then the sleepiness hit. We stopped to nap a couple times and finally made it home around 4:30 A.M. Sunday morning!

Most of the days we spent at Lynette and Aaron's house, Jon entertained himself with working on the car or working on little projects around the house for Aaron. I walked outside in time to see this project in progress. . . I'm not sure who offered and who asked, but they all seemed plenty happy with the arrangement!

So, in case some of you didn't know, we came to Indiana for the Anniversary. In case some of you didn't know, we did not have cruise control on the way out here. Lemme tell ya something... that'll put a whoopin' on you leg in no time. But I wanted to thank two individuals for the fact that we now have Cruise for the ride home. (A) I would like to thank the GOOD Lord above for helping me get a cruise control module for 37.00 and change at a scrap yard instead of paying around 200.00, and installing the module for approximately 50.00 total (including the price of the module). (B) I would like to thank my brother-in-law Aaron for getting me the wiring schematic sheet to install, and then taking the time to run all the wires and connect them to the correct wires to make sure it ran correctly, and trouble shooting the first two test-drives trying to figure out why it was not working. It works now, and I ran the wire for my switches to run it, and installed my switches on my own while Aaron was at work. He very much liked my placement and how clean they looked. But what good are good looking switches if they serve no purpose. In the first picture you will see the engine. In the upper left hand corner of the picture you will see the module. The second picture is a close up of the module just so you can see what it looks like. It’s about the size of a half of a regular red building brick. The third picture shows my switches installed just behind my ignition. You should have seen the wire hanging every which direction before the switches were given a home. Lastly is a close up of the switches. The big toggle switch turns the cruise on and off. The red switch (which is a momentary switch) is the “set/decelerate” and the black switch (also a momentary) is the “resume/accelerate”. All of which work very well and are going to save me a bum leg on our way home.