ARTkissed

It's been a long time!.....but I'm back!

I know I've been bad about posting on a regular basis. Life gets in the way.

Looking back on the last few months, I've been busy!

September....
my PSMWG buddies.... plus "I" & "E" ....
(I=Irene= Winnie's mom. E=Evelyn=Sheila's mom.) spent the weekend at the cottage at Madison-on-the-Lake! We were the "PSMWGIE's"..... it's the first time we ever let any other "letters" in our group!

The cottage, is one of the group of cottages, where we hold our annual YA YA. The cottage was a little smaller, and only had one bathroom, but we made do. It was so much fun doing NOTHING for 2 days! It was great having the moms with us. We wore our: "WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE GIRLFRIENDS, STAYS WITH THE GIRLFRIENDS" T-shirts, that Winnie got us. Sheila gave us "customized" necklines! We sat and watched the lake, that was only a few yards from our Cottage, A LOT.

I found really cool little frosted glasses at the thrift store and decided to decorated them to use for candle holders. I hand stamped them, with coffee cups, phrases like "cherish friends" and embellished them with tiny crystals. I added each PSMWG's name and dropped in a candle. They really liked them.

For the moms, I made them an "initial" necklace, complete with lots of glitter and bling!

I also passed out matching PJ's that I got from my work, for just a penny a pair!! what a deal!
Even the moms got cozy flannel loungers.
We played Jacks.. yes Jacks!.. and the moms kicked our butts!!!
We ate a lot, laughed a lot...it was such a great time and I can't wait till we do it again!

Just one month later, I was back again, for YA

YA! It was our 8Th annual. And as always it was
great to be together.

It was a beautiful Sunny day. Warm enough for the "Petites" to play on the beach.
The "little Petites" are really growing up. They love YA YA!

I made a little learning game for them, where I printed 5x7 photos of our (dearly departed) relatives. Each child picked a relative and had to go to each of the "Elders" (aka: my sisters, cousins and I) and "interview" them. Each elder would write a little something about the person in the picture, while telling the petite about them.
When they were done, They each got to tell everyone what they learned. Then, they got to hang (fun tack) the picture on the "YaYa wall of fame! It was a great learning experience for them.
They also worked on a cool "Dream Pillow" craft my sister Susan brought. Rita made the most awesome family calendars. It took her months to assemble.

Each page features family members photos on their birthday. As well as a collage for the month.

This year, sister Deb had a great idea to take our annual photo outdoors! we all piled on a picnic table lol..... but it held up.. thank Goodness!

We had our gift exchange. And feasted on our Traditional Tostada's and tons of other food, including Jamies Stromboli, and cute little Halloween baby cupcakes!

We discovered we had "neighbors" 2 guys staying in the other cottages. They were living there, while on the job at the Perry Nuclear Power plant nearby. One guy "Tom" had is amazing Silver "Viper" parked in the lot, that made my younger cousin drool! I'm not much into cars, but this was pretty impressive!

Tom's friend and co-worker "Greg" was also staying in one of the cottages. The were toting wood to the beach, and invited us (several times) to join them for a bonfire. When the sun was setting, I looked over and saw this gorgeous fire just a few yards from the lake. It was too hard to resist!

Several of us, decided to join them and they couldn't have been nicer. They were friendly and pleasant and engaging... OK.. and Greg was adorably cute. (oh!) And he thought our YA YA was the coolest thing, and thought it was funny that "no male of walking age" was allowed to attend! lol

Tom, took my "drooling" cousin to Kmart ... yes... in the amazing Viper. They picked up every kind of Marshmallows you could imagine. Big ones, small, flavored & coconut. He even bought us fancy-shmancy retractable marshmallow forks.

It was sooo wonderfully relaxing, just watching the fire, listening to the waves... and staring at the cute guy .. :D

We said thanks, with cupcakes and Tostada's.

And as hard as it was, I pulled my self away to go back to my YA YA party.

Finally, a couple weeks ago...

Patti, her sister Cindy, Winnie and I got to have lunch with our former Jr. high school English teacher/Cheer leading advisor, Mrs. Badger..

Patti coordinated the lunch, and it was so awesome to see her again.

Mrs. Badger is the teacher that everyone loved and always remembered.

She looked great! Her long dark "that Girl" hair, was now short, pure white and gorgeous.

She still had that twinkle.. (ya.. she really had a twinkle) in her eyes, and that charming way about her.
We poured over old years books, caught up on the past 38 years. We sat for 3 hours reminiscing, about those days.

It was such a great opportunity, to see her again.

Sooo..

All these pictures I posted, move as I type, and try as I may, I'm sure when I publish this, they'll still have huge gaps in between. I need to go to "Blog 101"... or learn more about HTML.

Oh well..

So.... now we're back to Standard time. And today it was dark when I left work. You know how I hate that!

This weekend, is another Sister birthday weekend. This time it's Susan's birthday we'll be celebrating. I can't believe Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away! It's been said a ba-zillion times before... but time really does fly by. I'm already on Spring countdown!

the Saturday, I'll be (reluctantly) going to my 35th... High school reunion. I really have nooo desire to go... and I'm being dragged against my will. After our boring 20th, I swore I'd never go to another one. Seeing people I don't remember or care to. I know that sounds really bad. I love

seeing old friends, but at the 20th. These people who, were "hippie types" and oh so cool, had become "old" even telling the DJ to turn the music down!!!.......WHAT??.......

The people I love I already see.

Oh well... I guess I'll just suck it up and go.

So that's it, the highlights of my last 3 months