Reunion Pictures

Here's some pictures from the Slaubaugh reunion. They might overlap with Jenni's, but anyhoo -

Little guy singing at the talent show.

Siblings andGrandma

First Cousins

Grandama, Logan and Caleb

Second cousins

Long lost first cousins - we've been living about 40 minutes apart for the past almost 4 years and finally got in touch at the reunion. Hello!

a couple random quotes

"I know I'm not supposed to worry about tomorrow, but I am concerned about the size of my nose when I'm 60!"

"When I'm I supposed to see you? You're always going to bed, going to work!" (the unemployed roommate)

there were more but I forget them right now. goodnight.

For all my pregnant relatives...

... and since my family is single-handedly populating northern Minnesota and Northwestern Ontario (and Madagascar), I can always count on having at least a couple of those. Here's some wisdom from John Tesh on naming your young offspring. And I know you always need the help so here ya have it. He says that it's proven that a person's name dramatically influences other's impressions of the person so he offers some helpful tips.
1) Stay away from androgynous names. This will only cause confusion for your little darlings and if the baby is wearing yellow and named Lynn - well, imagine the implications of that...
2) Stay away from foreign sounding names. These will only make your North American child feel like a dufus. As exception might be if the child is named after a relative or some other significant person, place, or idea. In this case, little Festus or Oakey will beam with pride that he is actually named after your favorite uncle or tree.
3) Try out potential nicknames. You might like the name Tubulias, but who really wants to be called Tubby?
4) Don't be too cute. Kids don't stay kids forever, so imagine Bambi, Misty, Buffy, and Bubbles trying to be taken seriously on a resume.

One more thing for Dr. Tesh - The saying "beside oneself" originated in ancient Greece. I guess they thought that when someone was under intense pressure, the soul left the body and hung out close by. So if you were freaking out about something, you were literally, beside yourself.

I think that is all the wisdom from him for today. My arm hurts from wildly patting my back for updating again so soon. I slept a lot last night and now I feel like a new person. The fair has come to town. I think that's about all I have to say for now.

say what?

Well, Jenni wants me to say something but I feel like I have nothing to say. I was going to post before I left on my trip but ran out of time and now all of that news seems old and stale. Oh, there is one thing I could share from back then. One day I parked my car on a slight hill and (once again) sat in it a little bit to do something. Then I got out to go do a visit. I of course locked the thing, got out, and realized (once again) that my car was rolling away. great. It's hard enough to unlock the thing when it's sitting still. But when it's rolling away, it proves even trickier. I trotted along beside it, did get it unlocked and got inside it where I was able to restore order. Okay, that's that. The trip home was wonderful, but too short. It was great to see extended family that hasn't been together in years. Camping with family was also a lot of fun but the bugs were nasty. Did you know that the US is copying Canada and just came out with an American loonie? It's true - same dimensions and everything. I was going to post a picture, but I spent them. This year I think I did something I've never done before - I was in Canada on July 1at and in the States on the 4th. I feel so duel. Let's see - Canada day was celebrated by listening to a few firecrackers go off and singing a most reverent round of O Canada around the camp fire. America Day was celebrated by - well, it was actually quite nice. Normally I would feel this compulsion that I have to be outside going to cookouts and watching fireworks and all that. But after camping all weekend and traveling all Monday night, I was pretty tired and didn't care about being outside. I went with a couple friends over to one of the friend's parent's place. It was a really nice day - we sat around and slept and watched movies and did old lady crafts. I dusted off my crocheting... different than your average 4th of July, but it hit the spot. Then we saw some fireworks going off so we drove out to them and they weren't too shabby. But here's to watching fireworks with guys. Otherwise you might have to endure PMS fireworks which sounds something like, "I HATE those dumb circle ones!! They look SO stupid!!! Why do they keep setting THOSE off??!!" (it was a lot of fun and we laughed a lot, but it's true, that's what she said) Well, that ended all the festivities, then it was back to a long, agonizing 2 more days of work. I've really been struggling to get back into the swing of things and have been stumbling around in a fog - lack of sleep might be a factor. Okay, well, I'm going to leave you now. Be safe; it's hot out there.

And now for a play by play

A couple before pictures - the flower bed and bushes all had to be dug up. = (

Tree branches in the front yard. They had to cut down a bunch of the branches to get the backhoe in there.

WOW! Look what we did.

I got a little carried away taking pictures of the dirt pile (you haven't seen the half). It just seemed rather amazing. All for a little plumbing problem.

The hole was also pretty amazing...

Now I really need an after picture but I didn't take one yet and it's quite dark outside at the moment. Basically, the front yard looks like a big sandbox with no sides (or cat poo, which was ever present in my childhood sandbox).

Maddness and Mayhem...

Howdy all - I wanted to post these awhile ago. Here's some pictures of the pipes at our house being replaced. Pretty crazy. In other news, let's see - there were some things I was going to share, but they are slipping my mind or seem really boring at the moment. On Wednesday the nice people I work with had cake for my birthday and we sat around and yacked. I must confess I feel a bit guilty for getting paid for that day - I didn't go in till almost noon, then didn't do a lot once I got there. Oh well, the next day I put a long 11ish hour day. Oh, we were still at the hotel Wed. morning so I finally got to go swimming cause the creepy guys were gone. Friday night some of my friends tried to plan a little surprise party for me and I felt really bad, but I had easily figured it out by Friday afternoon. But then do you say something so they can just stop trying? I didn't want to wreck it (till the last minute), so I didn't say anything. Anyway, we had really good food and sat around talking and went for a long walk and one of my friends had flip flops with heels on so she was in severe pain by the end of the walk. She's the one who thinks we really need to go to Europe next year - that was your free, random information for this post. Okay, I guess I don't have much more to say. Time is going too fast, I hate birthdays, I like nice friends who try to ease the pain, Europe does sound pretty good right now...

Something to say....

So, without beating around the bush... let's see, I finally have something to say. Several things actually. Ever since I have lived in my current house, it has struggled in the plumbing department. Usually this resulted in the basement flooding about twice a year. I'll spare you the gory details of that. But anyway, the plumber boys would always come out and temporarily fix it, but state that soon they would no longer be able to fix it without a major operation. Well, last Thursday, these prophetic words came to fulfillment. The boys worked on it for quite awhile and could not fix it. So, we've been without much water in the house since that time. I went with my roommate to visit her family on Friday and Saturday and have been hanging out at a friend's place quite a bit. It turns out that the boys have to bring in loads of huge equipment, tear up the entire front lawn, and the whole street will be without water while they are fixing it (tomorrow). We also heard that they were closing the street to through traffic and the ambulances would have to take an alternate route (we live on the same street as a hospital). Then we also heard that they might leave one lane open. What a huge ordeal. So now we are being put up in a hotel till it's over. This was going to be a fun little diversion from all the annoyances of not having water. Well, the indoor pool and hot tub are being renovated and we have yet to use the outdoor pool because both evenings there have been scary, tattoo infested guys sitting around - who wants to swim under those conditions? It's so odd though - it's like being out of town in your own town. Tonight we walked across the street to the gas station to pick up a few things... if I wasn't going to work every day, I'd feel like I was on vacation. Tonight we had a Healthy Families picnic so it was a crazy long and tiring day. We had so many families - more than we were expecting showed up so we were sort of scrambling. So anyway, as a side note, we have eaten 2ce at the restaurant in the motel and have had the most interesting waiter I think I have ever encountered. But to try to describe it would be difficult. Fun times. Okay, I'm hoping to get some pictures of all the madness tomorrow and maybe I can post some of them in the not to distant future. ttfn

Because I just want to make Rhonda happy

another meme...with no theme at all


I AM: Sitting at my computer in a quiet house listening to songs I like on You Tube (because I have no life?)

I WISH: I had a better functioning frontal lobe, driving on more than a 2 lane highway wasn't scary, I had 2 weeks vacation starting tomorrow, there weren't psycho people in the world that do horrible things to other people... (and many other things)

I MISS: living close to family. Gas costing 1.50. The intellectual stimulation of the classroom (but not the homework).

I FEAR: driving in the city or the interstate.

I HEAR: Clay Walker singing What's it to You? (because I miss being 15 and hanging out in Robyn's room)

I WONDER: who thought up the idea of strapping humans into little aluminum death traps, then aiming them at each other at 80 mph.

I REGRET: that blogging lessens inhibitions somehow and makes you type things you would never say outloud.

I AM NOT: transgendered.

I DANCE: to the beat of a different drum... oh wait, that's march.

I SING: loudly in order to shock very close friends.

I TRY: to be on time.

I CRY: with each passing solstice/equinox (I feel like it more often, but just save up for every 4 months or so).

I LAUGH: till I cry on a regular basis.

I AM NOT ALWAYS: a bundle of joy and delight.

I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: food occasionally, things that are crocheted (very very occasionally), lots of paperwork, (very often) shopping malls and sprawling patios

I WRITE: till my fingers hurt and my hands cramp - then I stop for awhile.

I CONFUSE: other people.

I NEED: very specific directions without superfolus information and with the words North, South, East, or West never used. (Okay, so there was a slight theme)

I FINISH: a fraction of the books I start reading, sadly.

I START: sentences I don't finish.

I TAG: Joy

This was actually a race. The next one I just watched instead of taking pictures.

The boat that we didn't go on.

4th Street downtown - where the action's at. They have part of it blocked off and and have concerts and things of that nature. Oh I forgot to mention, another little mishap. When we were driving on 4th street, there were 2 lanes of traffic and my friend whipped out into what we thought was a turn lane and were driving in that lane for awhile when a friendly hotel staff person standing outside yelled rather loudly - "This is a 2 way street!!!" So we managed to get into the right lane before we were smushed by oncoming traffic. good times.

Amelia Bedelia Goes to Kentucky

Yeah, I know it's been awhile. I've been meaning to post all week, but it's just been crazy for some reason. So, what should I bore you with now... I am, even as we speak, "watching" a hockey game which is most delightful as Ottawa has just scored and the game is now 5-3 for O. We don't get many games, but if there's a game on Saturday, NBC will usually cover it. Very generous of them. What else? It's freakishly hot here. My friend and I went to the annual art festival today which would have been very nice, but she's very hot blooded and I have a very very small zone of comfort (I'm comfortable when it's 75 outside) so we were both miserable. It was still neat to see all the stuff, but hard to really enjoy it all when you are trying not to pass out due to heat exhaustion.

Well, I'll fill you in a bit on my little excursion to Louisville last weekend. Oh my - at the time, there were some pretty funny experiences, but to try to relay them now, well, it might not be that humorous. But oh well, ya want an update (all one or two of you) so I trust you won't be too picky. So I went with a friend and neither one of us are good with directions (understatement), confident at city driving, or had spent any time at all in Louisville. The first night we just happened to stumble onto a good place to stay that was close to downtown. It was a nice motel, but no pool or hot tub. So the next night we were going to stay somewhere else and through a long series of events, ended up at another very dumpy hotel with still no pool. I'm not one to be to finicky about staying at hotels (ya know like the people who wear their shoes all the time and spray Lysol everywhere - pash I usually say...) but this one was, well, I would have been happy for some Lysol. And did keep my feet frequently covered. And then there was something odd - somehow trying to control the room temperature resulted in the room smelling as though the place was about 4 minutes from burning to the ground. weird. As far as things we did - well, we were thinking about going on a this boat tour, but after walking forever to get to it, there was nothing running till evening. So we skipped that. We had some fun trying to get places. We decided to go to Churchill Downs where the Kentucky Derby's at. And we weren't exactly driving. So we took this trolley thing and he told us where to get out and wait for another bus. As we were getting out, this lady told us where to stand. So we went and stood exactly where she said. We were waiting awhile, noticed that there was also a bus stop across the street, but being very literal and wanting to follow directions, we stayed put. After awhile, this trolley came by and I was waving him on because we needed a bus, not a trolley. Then I notice the driver is looking right at me and motioning for me to come, then I notice that it's the same guy that dropped us off - just stopping to let us know that we're standing in the wrong place. Now how sweet is that? While he was talking to us, the bus we needed came by and he told us to go catch it - so we went barrelling across the street dodging traffic - anyway, the whole thing was rather comical, but I'm sure you had to be there. So we actually got to where we wanted to be and saw some actual horse races which was pretty neat. Then in the evening we had seen in this paper that the play Macbeth was playing. I thought, how cool would that be to go to a play in a plush theater in the big city. Well, again, we're not driving and end up waving at this taxi who was actually out for a pleasure cruise with his family but they picked us up because we looked lost and harmless. After being severely ripped of by them, we were dropped off in the general vicinity of where the play was supposed to be. After asking around, we were walking and seeing signs for it, and then this lady and her daughter drove by looking for it as well. They couldn't it either, but they went and found it and then came back to pick us up. Well, it turns out that the plush theater was actually an old abandoned garage/warehouse with 2 portapotties in front! We didn't really want to stay, but they offered to give us a ride back after and we didn't really have another way to get back. Oh my, it was sweltering hot, we sat on hard benches with no backs, one actor smoked pot (the real thing) as part of the play - it was just great. And we were both pretty much lost the whole time as far as story line goes. So that was that. We were just dying for it to be over. We hit a really good outlet mall on the way home and that was nice. Okay, hope that didn't bore you to tears - I'm not feeling very inspired tonight.

Can you explain something?

I know that with Blogger, whatever you post last ends up on top. So I had these last 2 posts and I wanted the pictures to be last so I ever so intentionally saved the writing and posted the pictures first and the writing last, and now, no matter what I do, it insists on the pictures coming first. I just don't get it!

It was so good to see this cutie again! He was so tired and cranky Friday night - this expression says it all.

All crammed in and ready to go...

They probably won't like me for this, but like I said, I don't have many great pictues right now of anything exciting. We got together for supper Friday night and then they headed for home.

This is my friend Anna's graduation. We had a lot of fun at school together. She finished one semester after I did and walked this spring. It was fun to meet her family.

ramblings and preponderances...

"The leech has two daughters (Jenni and Rhonda), 'Give!' Give!' they cry. (Proverbs 30:15 - one of my favorites) I deeply regret my lack of communication lately, but even now, I don't have much to say. So I'll post a couple pictures that aren't that great, but the best I can do right now. Last week was crazy busy but good to see family. This week I'm hoping to work 4 10 hour days so I can take Friday off and then have 4 days off due to next Monday being a holiday. The thought of 4 days off makes me just about cry with joy. A friend and I are trying to think of a fun place to go. We're at a pretty central location here so we've thought of St. Louis, Mackinaw Island, somewhere else in Michigan, then I started thinking Toronto... who knows. : ) Oh, here's a funny story for you. I wasn't amused at all but hopefully you can get a kick out of it. Tonight I was doing some baking for the first time in what seems like years. Anyway, I have to do something with my ever rotting bananas (I can never eat them fast enough, and it's not like I buy that many). Anyway, I digress. So I made some dirty dishes and the dishwasher was full so logic would dictate that I should empty it. So I began emptying it, but kept thinking that a lot of the dishes didn't seem to get very clean. If they were really bad, I'd leave them in, but most of them I just put away, rather puzzled. I had nearly the whole thing unloaded when I looked at the silverware and realized with sickening clarity that there is no way these dishes have been washed at all! The silverware was quite disgustingly dirty. So now what I'm I supposed to do? I have dirty dishes nicely put away in every cupboard in the kitchen! And since I enjoy making extra work for myself... well, I left some of them and gathered up some of the nastier ones and reloaded the dirty dishes back in the dishwasher and decided to run it right away. So that's my Amelia Bedelia story of the day. As a side note, for the 2 or so of you who care, my mom used to make this killer banana cake with carmel icing. Few things in life I have found that could be considered "too sweet" for my tastes, but this comes pretty close. Anyway, I tried to recreate it tonight and didn't do too bad, if I do say so myself, but I have this one gripe about American powdered sugar - it always tastes weird! Sometimes it's much worse than others, but anything I buy around here just has an odd taste. I guess I shouldn't blame all of America - maybe it's an Indiana thing. Anyway here's some pictures.

What do you expect??

Hi all - I trust that you've been sensing an ever-growing lack in your life since I've been so quiet. I was meaning to update before I headed out of town, but ran out of time. I spent last week from Sunday - Friday in Indy at work training. I went with some other people from another office so I had people to hang out with. The evenings were fun - we were right downtown - we went to the IMAX theater one night and watched the shark show, walked around the circle, walked around downtown, etc. I was privileged to be able to watch some hockey, having access to cable TV and all. So the evenings were fun. The actual training however - much different story! man oh daises - you stuff 40 women in a small room with extremely limited space, strap them down with approximately 900 pounds of training manuals and NO room to move them, then drone on and on for hours and hours and hours, nay, even unto DAYS... well, let's just say there were some pretty cranky women in that room. You had these huge and hard to maneuver books and the trainers would be jumping from book to book telling us to find different things. I thought a couple times that there might be an angry outburst or huge revolt. But people mostly kept it to quietly uttered bitter statements. And then there were a couple women behind me who were just a mess. The spent the last 2 days being loud and obnoxious and making smart remarks about everything that was said. It actually helped to pass the time and was a nice diversion. The training was very helpful in that I'll be able to use a whole bunch more information now when I do visits, but a lot of the information they gave us was either training we had already had or things that didn't apply. But anyway, I'll stop griping about the trauma and try to move on. I got back last night and today I went to graduation and then went for lunch with a friend and her family who was here for grad. After that I ran around to 3 different open houses. It's been a really long week and day today and hopefully tomorrow will be somewhat relaxing. So, that's what's going on here.

For your entertainment...

I tend to forget that everything you post will be backwards to people reading it, so I sort of explained where these pictures came from in the first post. Which is a little ways down. Anyway, hope you enjoy and some of you aren't too truamatized. = )

Sing it Robyn!

Oh man! I miss Red Lake!!

I don't know if it will show up or not, but if you look closely in the background, it looks like Jenni is instructing Derek in the way he should go, and he's saying, Yeah right, just try and make me!

Old Fort William in Thunder Bay - good times - and what's the deal with matching back in the day? We used to think it was so cool!

Oh to have nothing better to do than dress up doggies in doll clothes...

Sorry Robyn, I couldn't resist.

It's that awkward stage, ya know. (as a sidenote, what I am wearing is the result of a new serger experiment, nothing more)

Oh my!

Freezing cold at the beach in FL.

ah, shucks!

oh for simpler times once again...

Such charming little boys...

This has got to be my favorite! Love ya ladies! = )

A little stroll down memory lane...

At Christmas time my family was going through a bunch of old pictures so I thought I should post some of my favorites on here. Some of you will appreciate some of these more than others...

Can I have a refund on this week?

Oh my - I don't even know where to start. This has been one of those weeks that I just want to erase and start over... the strain of wonderful luck continues. Let's see - I'm going to start with Sunday - I wanted to go and get something from work. I asked a co-worker/friend and she said it was okay to go after hours. So I go to the side door and enter the code like I do every day, open the door, and (**INSERT LOUD ALARM HERE!!**) Yes, I set the alarms off and they were loud, ringing out to the ends of the earth. I freaked out and called my friend/co-worker and apparently one is supposed to have a key and code for the front door for such a time as this - all new information. I found out today that people were asking who set the alarm off and I think the police did come out, but I was already long gone. (a very effective system in the event of a real burglar)

Day 2: The day after this ordeal, after work I went over to the same friend's house to help her with a paper for school. We worked on it for well over 2 hours - editing, rearranging, and correcting. It was all done and she went to save it and somehow, ALL of our work was erased. Ohhhhh my, what a sad night! I couldn't stand the thought of all that wasted effort and her trying redo it all, so I ended up staying for round 2. By then it was very late and I felt very weary and yet needed to go to the store...

Day 3: The day after this ordeal, I came home from work, and sat in my car for a little bit so I could write some things down. Then I came in the house and had been inside for quite some time. The RM and I were both in the living room and head honking outside and she looks out the window and says, "RACHEL, YOUR CAR IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET!!!" We live on a somewhat busy street... So I go barrelling out there outside, have to stand in the middle of the road, UNLOCK my roving, unmanned vehicle which is blocking at least one lane, get in, and fix the problem. Meanwhile onlookers are wondering what for fruitcake is on the loose. Thankfully there weren't many people around at the time...

Day 4: This was my off day, a reprieve if you will. I even killed a spider of unusual size without screaming or passing out. I thought life was looking up.

Day 5: I was wrong. Today, let's see, first of all, this afternoon I was running around like a banchee preparing for a home visit - making copies, gathering information, etc. I was running quite late, ran out the door, and when I was almost at the house, I realized that for some reason, I didn't have her file with all the info in it - I had nothing that I had just prepared and no information to give her (and no reason at all for being so late). I was SO annoyed, but just lived with it, did the visit without it, came back to work, and sat in my car for a little bit writing stuff down... always a bad idea. When I came back to my car a couple hours late for the last visit of the day, a late one, I realized that I had locked my keys in the car. This is not even funny - I don't know how many times I've done that in the last few months. I had an interpreter going along so we were able to use her vehicle and she took me home and then my roommate was going to take me to my car, I had the spare key, thought everything would be fine. So we get to the car, and of course, it's dead as anything. So we think we can boost it, but her battery is completely inaccessible for some very odd reason. So we drive back home and get a booster/charger but it lacks sufficient juice. So then we start calling people. 900 voice mails later, we decide to drive down the street to Dairy Queen and beg the mercies of a benevolent stranger. As we're driving, a friend returns my call, and she is indeed able to come boost me and it goes fairly smoothly after that, but by now it's about 2.5 hours later. Instead of going to the grocery store as originally planned, I went to DQ and had my first cheeseburger since January. It seemed fitting somehow... I'm scared to get up tomorrow.

I have some old, fun pictures that I've been meaning to post, but I've been busy with the above that I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe this weekend. Hope you all had a great week! = )

One more thing

I don't know if this will be helpful for anyone, but I know a lot of you have preschoolers and either homeschool or don't send them to school yet. The other day I was looking for stuff at work and came accross this website and thought of some of you, especially some of you living in remote areas. = ) You can print all kinds of stuff for free right off the internet. Don't know if you're interested, but just incase, here you go. http://www.teachersandfamilies.com/open/ps-themes.html

Is it a leg... Is it jelly?

What a crazy week it's been already. I'm SO glad tomorrow's Friday! Last night I got back from 2 days of training in Indy. Myself and 4 coworkers went and it was a lot of fun. To clarify - it was loads of fun hanging out with coworkers and eating out for free. The sessions I went to were all training on how to use a curriculum. I found it long, boring, and if I actually did the things they suggested, I think the people we work with yell "Get outta my house, ya fruit cake!" So training wise I feel as though it was a bit of a bust. But the trip was fun. Tiring though - I had to get up on Tuesday morning only slightly later than I stayed up last Saturday night. When we were driving home last night, there were tornado warnings close by. I don't think there were any for right where we were, but it looked really scary out. I called Jenni to see if she made it home safely and let her know I might not. = P But tragedy was averted and we made it okay. A friend and I have been trying to make it to the pool for a couple weeks now. So after working a long day today, we finally made it happen. I think swimming - ahh, floating peacefully about the water. Oh no, this was laps and the whole shebang! She said she had gone 8 laps the first time and 16 (half mile) the second time. I haven't been really swimming in a long time. She's fast and has great technique. I like to swim, but flail about the water in a really neat zig zag pattern. At about 4 laps I thought there was no way I was going to do 16. But then, as tends to happen in situations such as these, a seed of stubbornness takes root and bears much fruit. Actually, it was really weird - at about 3 laps I was way more tired than I was at 10. So then it seemed silly not to. So I persevered to win end where there was waiting very bloodshot eyes and wobbly legs and I'll be lucky if I can lift a glass to my mouth tomorrow. So that was my week thus far. How was yours? Tomorrow night a friend is helping me with my taxes - forever on the ball and getting things done ahead of time, that's me.

Ramblings and musings

Jenni and I both had the idea to put some type of tribute to Mom on our blog on March 23. Well, she was more inspired than I was on that day, but I decided to take today since it's mom's birthday and I've been thinking about her a lot. I still don't feel particularly inspired, but I thought I'd share a picture from a birthday of hers a long time ago. (It doesn't show up very well, and not to be prideful, but I do think the cake I made was not too shabby for an approximately 10 year old. : ) I've been thinking a lot about a neat memory I have of mom that I think some of you would maybe appreciate. I remember ages and eeons ago at church one time we were singing the song "Amazing Grace." When we sang the last verse ("When we've been there 10,000 years... we've no less days to sing his praise than when we first begun) she whispered in my ear something like,"Do you realize what this is saying and what that means? Stop and think about it!" I remember sitting there trying to wrap my kid brain around it and every time I've sang that song since then I've thought of that. And now I guess it's a bit more
poignant.