For Crystal

These are for Crystal since she reprimanded me for my large bar pan.

These are my rectangle flat stone and my square baker.

Well, history will be made this November....

We will either have the first African American President or the first female Vice President. I normally wouldn't blog about politics but this caught my attention. I am a registered Republican although I have voted Democrat at times. Both Shawn and I voted on the Democratic ticket in the Primary in order to vote uncommited so as to keep a vote from Clinton.

I'm going to have to research some more on Governor Palin. So far I think that she may help Sen. McCain win over some of the female voters. I'm interested in hearing what Shawn thinks of Gov. Palin.

All I can say is this is sure going to be one interesting election.

I did it!

The HM steak fries came out awesome. Shawn was raving that they were perfect.

This is the cut up potatoes before I drizzled them with oil.
Close up after drizzled with oil and sprinkled with Seasoned Salt.Cooked them about 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees. This is just after coming out of the oven.
JUST YUMMY LOOKING!
Dinner plated. This is Shawn's plate.

Something's Fishy.......

and it would be dinner. We'll be having breaded fish fillets for dinner tonight. I'm thinking about trying to make some HM steak fries. We'll definitely have mac & cheese but not sure on the rest yet. I'll take pictures when trying to make the fries and will post how they turned out.

Dinner & Pictures

This was tonight's dinner. I took a steak I got on special and sliced it up. Cooked it up with some garlic, HM beef gravy and l/o green beans. Served it over rice. Side was sauteed zucchini, summer squash and onions.
This is the photo display we currently have in the bathroom. They are pictures that I have taken at the various amusement parks we have been to. The string of things in the corner is our "eye spys" and photo keychains we have collected over the years. My sister joked that she had plenty to look at if she had to be in there for some time.

Lunner anyone?

We had lunner yesterday. It was either a late lunch or early dinner depending on which way you look at it. We had Baked chicken breasts with Frankenmuth Seasoning, Smashed bacon potatoes, broccoli and whomp biscuits. Samantha and I had Root Beer popsicles for dessert and the boys had Fudge Ripple ice cream.

Tonight's dinner will be boiled dinner. We picked up some cabbage at a decent price the other day. I'll add onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and smoked sausage. I need to finish up the split pea soup I made in the slow cooker the other day.

Sammi Miami & Skunk Face

Well, Samantha (Sammi Miami) got to see Chocolate (Skunk Face) for the first time in about 6 weeks. We brought her to our place last night and will be returning her and Nicholas to their Mother this evening. I took some pictures last night of "little mama" and her "baby boy" but haven't gotten them uploaded yet. I will edit this post once I have them on the computer.

One park in two states

Our featured park today is Carowinds. I grew up with this park, literally. It was started in the year that I was born. The reason for the title is that this is the only amusement park I know of that is in two states. It's address is in North Carolina but you enter the parking lot in South Carolina. I will explain more about the two states thing with the last picture.

One of the wooden roller coasters at the park. It was a fun little ride.
The far end of Hurler as you approach it.
Carolina Cyclone is a steel coaster with two loops, a double corkscrew and a helix. Pretty simple design but quite fun.
Vortex is a stand up roller coaster. I've only ridden one stand up and that is Mantis at Cedar Point. I think I'll keep it that way.
Now for the two state explanation. This signpost is just inside the Main Entrance. The brick "line" that I'm standing on and the sign post is on is the "state line". If I recall correctly, from this view, North Carolina is on the left and South Carolina is on the right. I have a picture from 2006 when we took the kids that has Nicholas standing right in front of the sign post with it splitting him in half. He wanted to be able to say that he had been in two places at once.

New Picture

I decided I wanted to change the picture in my title bar. The new picture is of the ride Calypso at Cedar Point taken on Opening Day 2008. Shawn was off riding Blue Streak so I decided to experiment with my camera. The above picture was taken with my flash off and the ride was about 1/2 speed. I've decided I'm going to put a few of my "interesting" pictures in this post. If you click on a picture it should bring it up larger.

The picture below is the same ride but at full speed. It probably would be clearer if I had used a tripod but I don't feel like dragging one to the park.
This is Corkscrew (1st roller coaster to take you upside down 3 times, twice over the midway). Corkscrew made it's debut in 1976. Power Tower is in the near background. Top Thrill Dragster can be seen through the corkscrew of Corkscrew. I call this picture "Ghost Train". This is the teardrop loop on Mantis (stand up coaster). The train enters the loop from the right and exits the left. The "ghost train" is the blur that you see going around the loop. I thought the title was appropriate since this picture was taken during Halloweekends. The lift hill for Mantis is the first thing you see through the loop. The structures for Iron Dragon (suspended roller coaster) and Top Thrill Dragster are in the background.

I did manipulate this picture on my computer some. I played with the color. This was taken July 4, 2007. It's of Gemini's twin trains cresting the lift hill. What I love about how this picture turned out is the trains switched colors. In the original picture, the closest train would be blue and the furthest one would be red. I had this as my desktop background for the longest time. I currently have the pic I have in the title bar.
This is the Gemini station. It's empty because Shawn & I were the only ones up there other than the Gemini crew. We had just gotten up to the platform when it started pouring rain. We decided to wait it out on the platform to stay dry. We were there 30-45 minutes. We had some interesting conversation with the crew though. They got a giggle on Closing Day when we showed up just before the park closed and waited on the platform to ride the final train of the Season. This was fun. Maybe I'll do it with some of the other parks we've been to.

Tired Tuesday

Well, I was not a happy camper when the alarm went off at 5 am today. I got out of bed though and got changed to take Shawn to work. I let him drive as I needed to still finish waking up. As Shawn was getting out of the car at work he realized he didn't have his work radio with them. I found out from him where he'd be working today. I then drove home and got his radio. Stopped at Target to put some minutes on his cell phone and then went searching for him. I had a 2 square mile area that I had to look in. Luckily, I know his truck number so I don't have to stop and look at the driver as all the trash and yard waste trucks are "grab arm" trucks where the driver doesn't have to get out if it's just the curbie cart. I found the trash truck, then the recycle truck and then Shawn. He does yard waste during Compost season. I told him there were minutes on his phone, gave him his radio and a 20 oz Coke bottle filled with sweet tea. I figured he could use it. I have to giggle at him sometimes. He was born and raised in the Metro Detroit area but he gets upset if I don't have sweet tea made. When we first met he thought it was too sweet. Now he orders it if he has it as an option and has become somewhat of a sweet tea snob. I'm somewhat the same though. I usually won't order sweet tea north of Kentucky although I did find a Big Boy in Ohio that was pretty good.

Went to my appointment at noon and then headed to Wal-Mart Supercenter. I'm upset with them right now as they had a box of 100 tea bags for 96 cents as recently as a month ago. I bought two boxes at that time. I use 8 tea bags for a 3 quart pitcher. When I went to buy more today I couldn't find them. Picked up the rest of my list and got two things not on my list. They had fresh corn 8/$2 and fresh green beans for 77 cents/lb.

Now I'm debating what I want to make for dinner. I was originally thinking tacos & burritos. Now I'm thinking I might take some pork chops out of the freezer and have them with salad, corn on the cob and some other side. Decisions, decisions. I think it will depend on what time Shawn gets off work as I have to go pick him up.

Monday, Monday

Well, I've been putzing around today. I've done 3 loads of laundry (except for putting up), cycled the dishwasher, made 3 gallons of sweet tea, organized some of the kitchen cabinets, made the bed and figured out what's for dinner. I still need to run the vacuum cleaner. I need to get bedding and pellets for the guinea pigs. If I get it tonight, I might change out their cage. I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow though as I'll be getting up with Shawn and taking him to work so that I will have the vehicle as I have an appointment tomorrow at Noon. It's going to be a long day. Shawn gets up at 5 am as he works in the next county over and starts at 6 am.

Still Waiting....

Well, they towed the van to the collision shop on Wednesday. We went yesterday and signed the paperwork they needed. They told us it would be at least a few days before they knew anything.

I'm debating about going to Urgent Care or the ER. I'm a little sore in my right shoulder area and it sometimes feels like it's going up my neck some. I'm going to see how I feel when Shawn gets home. I don't work again until Sunday so maybe I'll see how I'm feeling.

Dinner tonight is going to be simple. Spaghetti with meat sauce, broccoli and french loaf.

I need to get back to the housework as everything that was in the van is now in the front room. There had been extra stuff in there as Shawn had put everything from the Aztek in it when we took Nicholas to Canada's Wonderland.

Ready to cry UPDATE with pictures

UPDATE: 8-13-08

One small boo boo and one big boo boo.

The picture below is of my left leg just below the knee. The "circle" in approximately the middle of the picture is my boo boo from the accident. Basically I got dry skin scraped off.

Now for the big boo boo. This is what my "baby" looks like. I missed the phone call from the collision shop taking these pictures. I took from all sides but am only including two pictures on here.

Well, my "baby" decided she wanted to see what the tail end of a Dodge Dakota 4x4 truck tasted like. Her front end looks a mess right now. Both headlights are smashed, hood is folded and radiator is pushed in. Airbags never went off but FIL thinks that may be due to the fact that my bumper probably went under the truck. I did drive it home but we are waiting for a call back from the collision shop that the insurance company suggested. I was in no shape to take pictures today but I will try to get some tomorrow.

Last night's dinner, puzzle pain and a Mayoral Mess

This was last night's dinner. BBQ Chicken leg quarters, zucchini, summer squash and onions sauteed together and "whomp" biscuits. I had made enough for Shawn to take some for lunch today but he walked out the door this morning leaving it in the fridge. We have been working on this puzzle for over a week now. Nicholas wanted to put it together while he was here on vacation. We started it the evening of Saturday the 2nd. I have one piece in the upper left that is becoming my nemisis.
Lastly, for those who don't know I'm in the Metro Detroit area. Right now on the local stations they are showing the hearing on whether or not Detroit's Mayor violated his bond on his latest charge. I believe that Kwame Kilpatrick should step down from office. There are some that say that those who live in the suburbs have no say in what happens in the city. This situation though is affecting not just the city of Detroit but the surrounding area including the entire state of Michigan. I believe he is causing this area to have a huge "black eye". This all stems from an alleged party at the Manoogian Mansion (Mayoral residence) in 2002. This is just my two cents.

All "Quiet" on the home front

Well, we are back to being pretty "quiet" around here. Shawn's vacation ended today so we took Nicholas back to his mother tonight. We did get to spend some time with Samantha when we got there. Although I like the quiet at times, I miss the kids when they are not here.

We did have a little incident here though with Nicholas. I was giving him a facial mask to try to help with his skin. As I was putting on the mask, I thought something looked weird. When I went to take the mask off, I figured out what was wrong. He was missing part of his eyebrows. He had worn a rolled up bandana around his head covering his eyebrows starting with when we picked him up for vacation. When asked about it, he told me that he did it on a whim at his mother's house. He pulled them out with his fingers. According to our neighbor, they should grow back in somewhat fast. We are just hoping that he didn't pull hard enough to cause damage. If he caused damage, his eyebrows could grow in "freckled".

Food Question

Ok, I have a question. How do you make Macaroni Salad? Shawn & I have differing views on what goes in it. Shawn thinks elbows, peas, tuna and Miracle Whip. I think pasta (usually elbows), peas, onion, cut up pickles, Miracle Whip and sometimes cubed cheese and hard boiled eggs.

This subject came up because we are meeting up with Nicholas' best friends family today at Stony Creek Metro Park . We're planning on having a cookout and are sharing the responsibility of the food. Shawn decided HE wanted Macaroni Salad. He said that he was going to make it. Well, he slept in this morning, so I made it. I did it my way and he says that I did it wrong. Maybe it's a Northern/Southern thing.

What do you think?

WHO are you?

Well, on Tuesday, Shawn and I both made it on the top 10 list for a midday radio show that Shawn usually listens to. They mentioned that there was supposedly a Sunday Night Football cookbook coming out. They wanted other recipes for the cookbook. Keep in mind that this is a sports station. Shawn came in at #10 and I came in at #8. They were doing a random drawing to win two tickets to see The Who in October at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Guess WHO won? We don't know which entry won but we're going to see The Who on October 21st.

Here's the link to the list if you want to see our entries:
http://www.971theticket.com/pages/1179770.php

or here's the list:

Other recipes for the Sunday Night Football cook book...
10) Deacon Jones' recipe for the cookbook was rejected because it only had one ingrediant: 1 quart of vodka. J-S Flying Robot---Belle Isle
9) Mike Williams how to put a buffet together. Craig---Madison
8) Reggie Bush: Rump Roast. Mrs. Karsch's Garbage Man---The Kitchen Cooking Southern Food
7) Ricky Williams' Pot Roast. Bill---New Hudson
6) Fernando Rodney's Artichoke Dip. Lawson---Novi
5) Mike Tyson could tell you how to cook the children and heart of Lennox Lewis. Cruz---Your Mom's House
4) Ron Artest's Crazy Bread. Dan---NYC
3) Rebecca Lobo could make some killer Horseradish. Adam---Work
2) Joe Tiller's "What's In My Mouth" Casserole Surprise. BeadGrl---Farmington Hills
1) Roger Clemens' Non-Alcoholic Party Platter: Virgin Mary..or Cindy or Jessica. Darrell---Selfridge

Update..... with pics

This is the lift hill for Wild Beast. If I recall correctly, it's the tallest wooden roller coaster in Canada.
This is an inverted coaster (ski-lift style seats). My guys waited almost 2 hours to ride this. It got a new name this year due to not being able to use the Paramount movie names anymore. It used to be called Top Gun.
My "boys" walking into the Time Warp roller coaster. This roller coaster does not have a traditional lift hill. The spiral lift hill is in the background of the pic.
My guys on Time Warp. They are on the right hand side of the car when you're looking at it. I didn't do much due to my sunburn that I got on Saturday.
Waiting in line for Behemoth (tallest steel coaster in Canada). It just opened this year. It is just over 200 ft tall which seems small in comparison to some of the coasters we have in the USA.

I found this in Wal-Mart and couldn't stop laughing. I told Shawn that nobody would believe me without a picture.
Everything in Canada has two languages on it. This was one of the ketchup packets that we got with our onion rings.
Waffle & Ice Cream Sandwich. Shawn said they used to sell these at Cedar Point. He was somewhat disappointed with Canada's Wonderland's offering.
This was in the bathroom in the rest area on the 401.
My guys heading out on Wild Beast.

I have more pictures and some video. I'll probably post a link to my Photobucket when I get them uploaded there.

Back in the USA

I'm in the process of getting the pictures on the computer. We crossed the border into Canada about 5 am on Sunday morning and crossed back into the USA just before 2 am Monday morning. We got home about 3 am and unloaded kid and vehicle. Both guys are still sleeping. I have no idea why I'm awake. Nicholas enjoyed himself. I think he rode almost every coaster there. We did get to watch a Security guard jump the fence while we were eating lunch and flush out a group of kids that were in the trees smoking something they shouldn't be.

I'll update once I have pics ready.

TGIF!

Well, I'm awaiting my husband's arrival home. He will be on vacation once he leaves work today. I will be working next week but will have time off to spend with Shawn & Nicholas. We have a busy weekend planned.

Saturday:

Pick up Nicholas at 11 am

Head to Red Oaks to meet up with my BF & her family. Her daughter (my "niece") wanted to go there for her birthday gathering.

After Red Oaks we will head back to BF's house for a cookout.

Leave either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning for Canada

Sunday:

Visit Canada's Wonderland . Shawn & I went in June but this will be Nicholas' first visit to the park. The picture at the top of the post is from our trip on June 1st.I can't wait to take him on Vortex. I know Shawn is ready to take him on Behemoth.

I don't know yet if we're going to stay over Sunday and visit Toronto on Monday.

I called Customs & Border Patrol this morning to find out if Nicholas needed a photo ID to cross the border. We only need his birth certificate although Shawn & I need both photo ID and birth certificate.

I'm doing something with steak tonight although I have no clue what yet.