good friday

happy good friday {in more ways than one!}

it was a good day at school.  woo hoo!

i talked to my parents on the phone tonight, and i might get to go junkin' with my mom.  more details later.....

i hung out with some new friends tonight and got to scrapbook for 3 hours!!! thanks kelli and tracey for inviting me!  i had a blast!

photo of the day #100

hangin' with kelli and tracey

by the way........if your dog ever poops on the dashboard of your car, and it runs down into the defrost vent and your husband says it will eventually dry up and disintegrate, tell him he's WRONG!  what actually happens is that it will dry up and then 2 weeks later when you have to use the defroster, dog-poop shrapnel will come flying out of the vent and land on your dashboard like charred cornflakes!!!

random quote of the day:  "Chicks dig scars." ~one of my boy students said this as he was showing me one of his many scars!

springtime in oklahoma

photo of the day #99

ominous

we had quite a little weather scare here this afternoon!  around 4:15 most of the counties in this area were put under a severe thunderstorm warning.

high winds, hail, and possibly tornadoes were possible with this storm.  the meteorologists kept saying they were more concerned with the backside of the storms because they kept showing signs of rotation.  one of the worst storms was headed straight for tulsa and broken arrow. 

daryl was still at work, so the boys and i were by ourselves.  3 people who are scared and fascinated by storms were all alone.  

i knew what to do if the sirens started wailing.  i was prepared for the worst.  the thunder began rumbling.  then i saw some flashes of light, and the wind suddenly picked up speed.  the raindrops came faster and louder, and then they changed to hail. we lost our satellite signal so i had no idea how bad this storm was going to be.  so what did i do?  grabbed the boys, the pillows and headed for shelter in the bathroom, right?  WRONG!

i grabbed my camera, opened the curtains and the blinds and started taking pictures!!!  the clouds were churning and the hail sounded like someone was throwing marbles at the house.  it turns out that we were spared the worst of the storms.  we got a little bit of rain, pea-sized hail and no tornado.  

i'm not complaining!!!!  the storm's bark was much worse than its bite for us.  i just pray that the people in the other parts of the state who got it worse are ok.

quote of the day: The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.  ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

not my favorite camera!

i had a little scare today....my camera got sick.  i tried to take a picture and when i tried to zoom it said turn the camera off and then on again.  when i tried to do that, it wouldn't let me!!! something was stuck around the part of the lens that zooms in and out, so it wouldn't work right.  i had to use my library card to scrape it out and finally, it started working!  i was so scared that my favorite camera was dead and gone.  i know our newer camera takes great pictures, but this one i can whip out of my purse, turn it on and take a picture without even looking at the camera!  i'm like a cowboy in an old western drawing his pistol out of its holster!!!

photo of the day #98

my camera

quote of the day:  No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.  ~Edward Steichen

scavenger hunt

this afternoon i left school with nothing in my hands but my keys and my purse.  i didn't bring home any papers to grade or anything related to school.  i just didn't want to work on any of that stuff.  i wanted to play!  and i wanted to be creative!

so i created a list of ten things to photograph, and the varmints and i went on a photo scavenger hunt.  fun!  these are the items were hunting:  an insect, a flower, a frog, something red, a cloud, a footprint, something broken, a rock, a tree, and something that makes you smile.  

colby was all about this hunt!  it took spencer a while to get into the spirit of things.  he asked if the best picture could be my photo of the day, and i said sure!  daryl looked at all the pictures on all 3 cameras and chose his favorite from each camera.  then he chose his favorite pictures out of the 3. it's funny...out of the 3 finalists, i would have picked a different winner! (and no, it wasn't my picture!)

daryl's favorite photo of the day #97

colby's pawprint

amy's favorite photo of the day #97

spencer's something broken

amy's something that makes me smile!

these ugly teeth were out in the middle of the field between 2 ponds!  i'm not kidding!  i didn't place them there so i could get a weird, or as daryl put it...disturbing, picture!  i was looking across the pond trying to find a frog, i turned around and there they were!!!  how funny is that?

quote of the day:  "As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs." ~Sam Abell

photos of the day

until just a few minutes ago, i didn't have a photo of the day!  i couldn't believe it!  i'd made it through the whole day with nothing to take a picture of that would represent my day.  i was beginning to think i wouldn't have a picture at all!

leave it to the varmints to remedy that problem!  now i have 2 photos of the day because after i took their pictures, they BOTH wanted me to use theirs!  how could i say no?

the first one is of spencer making his lunch.  actually joey is "helping" spencer make his lunch! when i walked in and saw the bird on the bread, i immediately hollered, "get the bird off the bread before he poops on it!" to which spencer replied, "what?  it's closed!"

photo of the day #96A

helper bird

then colby came in the living room after his bath and his hair was standing on end!  he asked, "do i look like einstein?"

photo of the day #96 B

einstein's twin

quote of the day: My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

-- Mark Twain

god's family

today was a good day.  bruce mcintyre, one of daryl's college roommates, spoke at church this morning about being resilient.  he had excellent lessons even thought it was hard for me to listen to him without remembering what a prankster he was in college!  he actually mailed daryl's dirty underwear to me when daryl and i were just dating!!!

i also got a new sister this morning!  lindsey lineback gave her life to christ and was baptized!

then after services tonight, a group of us from church had dinner together at jason's deli.  i absolutely love god's family.

photo of the day #95

the gang at jason's deli

quote of the day:  Behold how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. ~Psalm 133:1

clean

well, after lots of hard work (mostly on daryl's part!) our house is clean again!  after a deep cleaning like this, i always say we are going to stop leaving things lying around and we're going to keep this house looking just like this.  but then, we fail.  i've never been a neat person.  i'm not filthy...can't stand germs....but i do tend to have piles.  just ask my parents how my room used to look growing up!

today it seemed like the mounds of laundry would never end!  i've been folding clothes all day, and there is still a load in the dryer, one in the washer, and 2 more waiting to be washed!  so i'll be folding clothes and towels tomorrow, too!

photo of the day #94

laundry

quote of the day:“I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?” ~unknown

finally Friday

i'm so glad it's friday!  i'm ready for the weekend.  tomorrow is the first soccer game of the season.  i just hope it's not too cold in the morning!

tonight i had a date with all my boys!  we had dinner at rib crib and then went to see race to witch mountain.  it was nice to just be with them.

photo of the day #92

do you need a napkin, spencer?

quote of the day:  

groovy

spencer presented his decades project for kaleidoscope today, and he did a great job!  he was so calm and confident.  he knew his information well, and presented it well!  my favorite part was the outfit!  as part of his presentation, he dressed up as a man from the 60s.  another student in his class said he looked like ozzy osbourne!

photo of the day #92

groovy spencer

quote of the day (from the 60s):  "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." ~Neil Armstrong

april fool's day

no one tricked me today, thank goodness!  this is another one of my least favorite 'holidays'.  

nothing exciting, amazing or disgusting happened in my world today.  it was just a wednesday.

photo of the day #91

weeds

quote of the day: One thing kids like is to be tricked.  For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse.  "Oh, no," I said.  "Disneyland burned down."  He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke.  I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.  ~Jack Handey