Visitor

This pretty little bird was sitting between my flower planter and the house for about 15 minutes this afternoon. I walked right up to him and he kind of puffed up but continued sitting there. When I ran into the house to get my camera I thought he would fly away, but he sat there and posed for several pictures.

I watched him for a few more minutes before I decided to see if he was hurt. My mother is deathly afraid of birds and although I'm not afraid of them I don't like to pick them up so I went in the house to get Ken, but by the time I got back he had flown away.

This is the most exciting thing I have had to blog about for several weeks. Pathetic, isn't it?

My Reality Show Favorites.........Lost!

This extremely handsome, debonair, hunk of a man is Gilles Marini, a contestant on Dancing with the Stars.
It was so much fun to have a contestant to drool over while Ken was panting over Julianne, Edita and every other female dancer on the show. He should have won too. Besides being so darn pretty he can really dance.
















Adam Lambert was my pick to win American Idol from the first week of the show. I really didn't think there was anyway he wouldn't win, but he didn't. He shouldn't have any trouble making it in the music business though he can sing anything. His pitch is perfect and his vocal range is unbelievable. His version of Mad World was my favorite performance. Loved it, loved it!

I did pick one winner this season. Way to go JT for winning Survivor.

Maybe now that all my favorite reality shows are over I'll get my flowers planted, the house cleaned, laundry done and everything else I've neglected for the past 10 weeks.

Camping Fun (NOT!)

This is where we like to camp in the spring because it's close to home and the fishing is pretty good. We left Friday after work even though I wasn't feeling very well. Thursday I had the chills and an upset stomach but I didn't feel any worse Friday so I thought it was a 24 hour bug and I would feel better by Saturday morning. I was so wrong! All I'm going to say about it is that camping is the last thing you want to be doing when you have what I did. Whatever I had (have) has knocked me on my butt. This is the 5th day of this crud, but I am finally starting to feel better.


This was our second trip to Black's Pond this year, the first was the weekend before when we left in a torrential rainstorm. By the time we got there it was just sprinkling so we set up camp and settled in for the night when the generator conked out on us. Ken couldn't get it started but said not to worry we have the battery, well....we had a dead battery. So that night was spent without lights, heat or water. We did have a nice quilt covered bed, so we settled in for the night, but it rained most of the weekend so that camping trip was rather dismal too.

We're going to wait a few weeks before we try camping again.

May 13, 2009

Today is May 13th and this is the scene from the door of the school where I work. Adding insult to injury......it is 34 freakin' degrees outside. By the time I went home for lunch I had to scrape 2 inches of snow off my car! I may deck the next person that says we're lucky to be getting the moisture.

More Vegas and Elton John

This was inside the Wynn, a very ritzy hotel and casino.

What visit to Vegas would be complete without an Elvis sighting.


Outside the Venetian. They offered gondola rides inside or outside.

This was inside the Wynn Hotel also. We took so many pictures of ceilings I may do a posting on just ceilings.

Outside the Wynn Hotel.

The Conservatory inside the Bellagio. They change the decor according to the seasons and holidays. This spring planting represented European gardens.

The Conservatory.

We saw four different water shows at the Bellagio. We watched three nightime shows and this daytime show. On weekend nights there is a show every 15 minutes so by the time you watch one and walk around the lake there is another one starting. There was different music for each show we watched.

Seeing Elton John in concert wasn't the reason we took the trip to Vegas, but when we heard he was performing at Caesars Palace it was a huge bonus. All three of us are big fans and the chance to hear him live was beyond our wildest dreams. The tickets were expensive and we ended up sitting near the top of the coliseum but it didn't matter as there really wasn't a bad seat in the entire place. We had a good view of him playing the piano, which he did on every song.

We loved the show, even though some of the videos and stage props were a little bizzare. The show is somewhat risque, but we were in Vegas and expected that. Listening to him sing and play some of his greatest hits was worth every penny we paid. His voice sounded as strong as it did thirty years ago. Our only complaint with the show was that it ended too soon.

Next vacation together----New York City! Start saving your bucks girls.

Viva Las Vegas

Last weekend I flew to Vegas with my sisters, Brenda and Jennie. We had talked about this trip for over a year and tuthfully, I didn't think we would ever do it. Six weeks ago I called them and said we are doing it, I got us booked and we found out we could spend three days, 24/7, together and get along (even with my snoring). Jennie probably realized that her two older sisters really are a lot older than she is. After walking up and down the strip all day Friday, Brenda had 3 or 4 blisters and I did something to my foot and was hobbling around like the old lady I am quickly becoming, but Jennie was like the energizer bunny, she just kept going and going.

My pictures are in random order because I have a miserable cold and I just don't feel like taking the time to organize them.

The Venetian Hotel and Casino was our favorite. It was absolutely beautiful and of course, we took the gondola ride through the canals of Venice. This was all inside the building, a lot of the casinos have the sky painted to make you seem like you're outside, but this one was the most realistic.

The picture above is the world's largest chocolate fountain. There are 2,100 pounds of melted dark, milk and white chocolate pouring through at a rate of 120 quarts per minute. The whole shop was full of beautiful chocolate creations and it smelled yummy. The shop was inside the Bellagio Hotel.

If you ever watch Oprah (or the movie of the same name) you will know about frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. This Vegas shop just opened last month and we couldn't resist trying one. It was good, but I have heard that people stand in line for hours at the NYC store to get one, I wouldn't ever do that.

We ate at the most expensive buffet in Vegas--Bellagio's-- it was good, but I wouldn't pay that much for a buffet ever again. I mean really... can you eat $45 dollars worth of food at a buffet? This is my desert plate so you can see I tried to get my money's worth there.
While we were waiting in the line to get in I looked up and Jason Alexander (George Costanza, for all you Seinfeld fans) walked right by me. That was our only star sighting.

The Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel. We had planned to go to the top but never made it.

This is the pool area at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. I would love to stay there sometime. It has an Asian tropical theme and is really beautiful.

This Jacuzzi tub became my favorite thing in Vegas. Sitting in a tub of hot, bubbling water relaxed my muscles enough that I could go hard the next day. We stayed at Caesar's Palace and received a room upgrade when we checked in so we had a much more luxurious room than what we paid for. Thank you Caesar's Palace!

It was so nice to see green bushes, trees and blooming flowers. After our long hard winter I am sick of everything looking brown and dead.

In preparation for the highlight of our trip, Elton John's Red Piano Concert, Brenda and Jennie went shopping for some Elton glasses.

You'll have to wait for part 2 of our Vegas adventure tomorrow, right now my head is pounding, my nose is stuffy and it's time for a nap.

An Acton Easter Egg Hunt

We had a relatively quiet Easter this year. There were only six of the grandkids here but we had our annual Easter egg hunt in the yard. Because we only had three of the younger kids around we decided to hide eggs with money in them for Tanner and Tucker. Ken and Colette were in charge of the hiding and came up with some pretty unique hiding places.

This is one of the places Tucker found an egg, yes it was hidden high up in the tree. Tanner is below in another tree with his egg. I was worried about them falling and then I realized I should have worried about the person who climbed the tree to hide them........their 60 year old grandpa.