Whoa

You guys, we had a really busy weekend. And I totally left my camera's memory card in my laptop here at the apartment. So I have NO PHOTOS.

:(

But, I can tell you that the granny square baby blanket is about 3 feet of double crochet away from being done, so look for that post tomorrow or Tuesday.

We started off this weekend learning that we got to house-sit at the Rohrer homestead while Tim's parents were visiting his Mom's family in western PA for the weekend. So our first stop when we got in town was to take care of the cows. We got to Mom's house around 11pm, then sat up until after midnight chatting.

I got up at 6:30 am on Saturday. And I did laundry, walked the dog, exercised, and cut flowers from the yard for the table before Tim got up at 7:30. I won't lie. I woke him up so I could have some company. I don't know why I got out of bed that early, since I usually don't even get up for work until 7.

We met up with some high school friends for breakfast at the Lincoln Diner in Gettysburg. Which was full of loud tourists visiting for the Gettysburg Festival. There was also a community day going on in Biglerville, but there wasn't too much congestion surrounding that.
After breakfast, we went to WalMart, then back to Tim's parents' house, where I decorated the kitchen with balloons and streamers while Tim fed and watered the animals. Since Tim's parents wouldn't be back until after we'd left on Sunday, we left the kitchen decorated and Dave's father's day card on the counter for them to come back to:)
We then went back to Mom's and had lunch. She left to go to my cousin's dance recital, and I went and visited a friend from a previous job who recently had her first baby. It was really nice to catch up for a few hours.
Afterwards, I rounded up Tim and my brother, and we met my Dad and Step-Mom at the Texas Roadhouse in Hanover for dinner. It was 80's night, and they played the same 10 songs over and over, but we got to visit, so that was nice.
While we were chatting in the parking lot, we witnessed a car accident on what's known as the Golden Mile (a stretch of car dealers and shopping centers on the outskirts of town). A little black car slammed into the side of an SUV and went off the side of the road. The car was totaled- the front wheel fell off and they left behind a few important-looking pieces of their car on the road. Both people in the car were fine. They jumped out and looked like they were going to argue with the other driver, but instead, they RAN AWAY. They fled the scene of an accident. Hit-and-run. And when my Step-mom called 911, the line was busy. An off-duty fireman had to call it in. And the police didn't show up for 10 minutes. And no one chased after the two guys who ran away for about 20 minutes.
Anyway, we gave Dad his gifts (a new dress shirt made for hot weather- it was really light and breathable-and some books-the history of the warrior and untold stories from Easy Company). We had to get my brother home so he could get to work, so we said goodbye and found a different way to leave the area, since there was now traffic surrounding the accident, blocking our preferred exit.

On Sunday, we went to visit my family outside of Baltimore for Father's Day/uncle Bob's birthday/Brother & Cousin's graduation party. We were late, so as soon as we got there, everyone dug into the food, which was great. I <3 cookout food. We chatted with everyone for awhile, and after most of the people left, Tim and I went swimming with my cousins and one of the neighborhood kids. It felt good to go swimming...we've been sweltering all month and it's not officially summer until tomorrow.
And after 2 hours of Marco-Polo, we took our leftovers and hit the road. I like going home from Baltimore, since we drive through 2 cities and approach a third in the course of 2 hours. We go through the harbor tunnel and Baltimore, then through Wilmington in Delaware, and finally exit 95 just short of hitting Philadelphia.

It's good to be back home:) I have a light work load this week, and I'm taking Wednesday off to have a girl's day with Susie before her wedding in 3 weeks:) Next weekend, we're back in Biglerville to visit Tim's family and see a baseball game with my Mom, Grandma, and cousin Frank:)

Hope everyone has had a great Spring! Bring on Summer!

"Garden" update

Our strawberries are loving this hot, muggy weather:)

The plants at the top of the basket seem to do the best, since they get the most direct sunlight. The ones at the bottom are a little smaller, but they're still doing pretty good:) We get to pick a handful of berries at a time (just enough to put in a batch of pancakes or over some shortcake) and there are a ton of buds still popping up.

They aren't terribly sweet, but they aren't too tangy, either. I did find out, though, that they are a little too strong to put in cereal.

The little ones pack a stronger punch:)

I also have been babying a couple of rose bush cuttings Mom sent me home with after Memorial Day. They still have leaves, which means I haven't killed them yet.

They seem to like it on the windowsill or under the table on the patio, as long as they get some water every couple of days. (Don't mind the dirty window...it POURED the other day, and the raindrops left marks on the outside of the window, which I don't know how to clean, seeing as we're on the third floor and all).

Even my plant at work is doing well!

Oooh! Shiny!

If you hadn't noticed, Blogger made it easier to re-design and re-do layouts. I just spent 40 minutes playing with all of the new settings:)

As a reward for you patience in my constant re-designs, here's a photo of Tim and Jack:)

Good night!

Attempt at a Decent Self-portrait

I enjoy photography, and my equipment is limited. If I need a photo right away, it's up to my Canon Powershot SD790 IS, which is the best point and shoot I've owned. (I had a little Nikon, but it took FOR.EV.ER to take the photo, which annoyed me because I have to be a ninja to get pictures of Tim).

Anyway, I took a few photos using the brick wall on our patio as a backdrop. It's fairly cloudy out today, which gave me some soft light. Which is what I wanted, since I was planning on a black and white photo.

Here's the result:

I actually played with layers in Photoshop for the first time to fix some lighting issues. I think it turned out well.
And maybe I AM just a little proud of my little Canon and it's table-top tri-pod :)

Memorial Day Weekend

Here are some of our photos from travels over the last weekend. We went home to my Mom's house on Friday night, then carpooled down to my grandparents to help paint their shed on Saturday. It was threatening to storm, so we just had a cookout instead.
On Sunday, we went to "church" (good ole COOP). Afterward, we helped Tim's parents take Jeremy's car to him in Lebanon, which was eventful. Jeremy has been restoring a '67 Firebird convertible for the last couple of years and his parents stored it over the winter while he, Jill, and little Zach were moving around over the winter.
The first time Dave and Fran tried to return it, the hood unlatched and flipped up about a mile down the road. So Dave made some repairs and Tim and I were on hand for the second attempt. I rode in the Firebird with Dave while Tim and Fran followed in my little Mouse (a 2003 Ford Focus 5-door). We made it to Lebanon with only 4 engine stalls due to a loose cable under the battery and hinky turn signals.
Jeremy looked happy to see it in one piece.
We hung around for a few hours and had lunch with Grandpa, Jer, Jill, Zach, Dave, and Fran. Tim's aunt and uncle stopped by before we left. Once we were back from Lebanon, we headed to the theatre with Dave and Fran to see Shreck 4 in 3-D. Which was OK. We had initially made plans with Wayne, but he had a family emergency and had to cancel at the last minute.
I spent Monday morning with Mom. We went and bought some flags to put at the gravesides of some former soldiers we knew. We went to Arendtsville first and put one next to Andrew's headstone, then to Biglerville where Mom placed another at the headstone of a man she'd known when she was doing home care nursing. He doesn't have any children.
Afterward, we went to some farm markets and picked up fruits for our cookout. We spent the rest of the morning getting food ready. Tim spent the morning at his parents' house mowing and weed-whacking.
We had a cookout that afternoon with Mom, Tim's parents, Dan, and Emily. Dan was the grill-master, and everything turned out great. So much good food!
We didn't hit the road until almost 7, so we got home by 10 and went straight to bed. But, all in all a good weekend:)

 The new chicken coop at the Rohrer homestead

Jeremy's '67 Firebird

Playing with baby Zach

 The view from the cemetery in Arendtsville

 One of my Mom's roses. Fran says they are Peace Roses. We've never been sure, since they came with the house.

Mom is trying to make new rose bushes from the one by her back stairs and gave me two little cuttings in compostable pots that have taken root. So hopefully, in a year or so, I'll be planting them in my own yard:)

For now, I'm just fretting over whether or not they're dead.

If you want to see larger versions of the photos, just click on them:)

Via Email...

I've never posted via email before, so I'm giving this a shot. Hopefully I don't get any blue screens of doom or anything.

I haven't been very crafty lately...mostly because my favorite form of crafting is crochet, and it's hard to sit around with yarn on your lap when it's 85 degrees and humid. That and we did some spring cleaning about a month ago and, well, out of sight, out of mind. I have been doing my best to finish one thing before I start another...and Tim will tell you that I have a ton of half-finished projects hidden in the closet in the office :-x

Tim signed us up for Netflix recently, so a lot of my time has been spent watching full seasons of Bones and old movies I forgot existed via our Wii while waiting for Tim to get home in the evenings. We watched The Iron Giant last night, which is a movie I like mostly for it's animation, if not the story.

Another good chunk of my time has been spent on researching and learning about houses...how to buy them, what to look for, figuring out where we want to live. And we're about 9-10 months away from having our down payment set up, but I want to make sure I'm educated before we jump into anything. And I use the term "research" loosely because I've skimmed a couple of books, but I spend most of my time on Realtor.com looking at houses for sale to try and figure out what it is that I want. I included Tim in some of this last week, and it was nice to know we're pretty much on the same page as far as houses go. We even have a thermometer on the wall in our office that we fill in with red sharpie every time we add money to the "house" fund. And we have a pro-con list for 3 areas we're considering moving to.

On the up side, we have no plans for this coming weekend, so maybe I'll make some progress on that baby blanket:)

I also have some photos from Memorial Day weekend to post, so come back later for that:)