Reminder for Pampered Chef

Just as a reminder, if anybody wanted to order something from the Pampered Chef Show that Kandra and I co-hosted go to the web site www.pamperedchef.biz/jnebeker to order. You can order through Friday. If you have any problems or questions let me know!

Challis's Hogle Zoo Day

It was our niece Challis's Birthday on Saturday and she's been wanting to go to the zoo for a long time now, so the family made a trip to Hogle Zoo. It was so much fun having everyone there! I haven't been in quite a while and always loved going there when I was little. It's been way longer since Lance has gone. So here's a little picture story of what we did.Lance with the spider monkeys. This year they have a white alligator there which was very cool! They are very rare because they're white which equals easy targets and since they don't have any pigment in their skin the sun damages their skin easily. Lance and I with the elephants, on of my favorite animals at the zoo. Here's one of the giraffe's. I've always loved them! The baby giraffe bending down for a snack. Lance's dad taking a snooze while the kids were on the carousel. Riding the train, which they make you pay to ride now. It was always free when I was growing up! Some of the kids cooling off after a long hot day! I found it very interesting reading on their web site about the zoo's history and how it became what it is today. It includes snippets of the favorite animals over the years, including Shasta the liger. So if you've been to this zoo and have a minute I recommend the reading, it was interesting to me!

Timber

So there's this dead tree in our front yard. I was holding out when we moved in that it was still alive but Lance assured me it wasn't. He was right. Spring and summer has come and there is nothing green on it. So the other day Lance decided he would cut it down. I think he had a little too much fun with the chain saw, like most guys would. I hid inside and snapped a few photos and videos of the event. Unfortunately I missed getting on video the other limb falling down since Ace was distracting me. I looked up just in time to see this huge thing falling towards me. Scared me a bit. Don't worry it didn't hit the house, we had quite a few feet. So now we have a nice little wood pile that we can take camping and our front yard looks very barren! We need to figure out what trees to plant now. Any suggestions of ones you like?

4th of July

So this is a little belated because I was busy this week. This week is going to be crazy too so I thought I'd update my blog while I had the chance. For the 4th we went to IF. I love going home for the 4th because there are just so many traditions and memories I have of that holiday. The first thing of course the morning of the 4th is going to a flag raising ceremony at one of our neighbors. They've been great family friends for years and I always love visiting with them. After we went to the parade. I didn't really know many people in it this year but there were a few. One of my favorite moments from the parade however was running into my dance teacher. I took dance, tap and jazz, from her all through elementary school. I absolutely loved her classes and hope there are dance teachers like her when I have little kids. It's so hard to find ones these days that don't want to dress your kids up and make them look like floozies! It was soooo hot so we didn't stay for all of it. Later that night was my favorite part, the fireworks! I was very spoiled growing up because IF has one of the best firework shows! Other shows just aren't the same. However I do have to say that Twin did a good job last year when we saw the ones here. Of course one of the main businesses to put them on, Bish's RV, is originally out of IF, so they know what firework shows are suppose to be like. We meet our friend's Brad and Amy and Amy's dear parents down by the river. I just love their family! Ace didn't like getting left in my parents garage while we went to the fireworks as you can see. We were glad to discover that he's not scared of the neighborhood fireworks. He was too busy watching the people to notice them.

Memory Game

I got this from my friend Kim M's blog. It sounded pretty fun! Here are the directions: 1. As you comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! 2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Pampered Chef Show

My SIL Kandra and I are co-hosting a Pampered Chef Show on Tuesday July 15th at 6:30pm at my place. If any of you are interested in coming please let me know and I'd be happy to send you an invite or let you know more details. I'm just never sure who's interested in coming or not so it would help me out if you let me know you'd like to come, rather than bugging you with things you're not interested in. For those out of town, if you would like to order things, don't worry, you're in luck because you can order online too. Visit my SIL Julie's website (www.pamperedchef.biz/jnebeker), she's the consultant that will be doing our show. You can order online through July 19th. If you have any questions let me know but it should be pretty fun! There will be yummy food, so what more do you need?! Even if you're not interested or not sure if you want to buy anything still please come and just eat and visit. We seriously would love to have you there! :)

Congrats Lara Loo!!!

I've been meaning to do a post on this for a while but was waiting until I could get some "action shots" off my parents computer. I have them now so I can finally post this. My dear little sister did it! She is now officially a licensed cosmetologist. She passed all her tests and we are so very proud of her!!! We look forward to her getting to cut our hair and such as a professional now. Fancy, fancy! We love you Lara Loo!! (I'm sure she's going to love this picture of her cutting Lance's hair, if she ever looks on here, I usually have to call and tell her to look, so she may never even see her great face!) Also another congrats is that Lara and Nate are getting married Aug 30th.

Disturbed and sad, sad people at the library

So I went to the library to pick up 3 movies I had on hold. However there were only 2 of them on the shelf. They always put a little slip of paper with your name and the title that's on hold and rubber band it around the movie. The third piece of paper was stuck with one of the other 2 movies. Odd right?! So I went to check them out and the lady looked it up and somebody else had checked it out. So some random, desperate and may I say crazy person stole my movie!! That's right, my movie on hold was STOLEN!!! Who in their right mind would do such a thing?! The funny part is this lady said she "knew the person who did it." She also said she saw this person pull 3 movies off the hold shelf. I wonder if any of them were actually on hold for this crazy person..... So by this point another library lady was looking at the computer screen with her and informed me all they could do was put me back on the hold list and that they'd "have the manager call and talk to this person." So my other question that comes up is why is their computer system so inept that it can alert the library person when an item is returned and they scan it that it is on hold but it doesn't have some kind of pop-up warning when some other person tries to check it out?! Luckily it wasn't a movie I was dying to see or anything, it was Surf's Up, yes I enjoy checking out kid movies. However, if somebody dares to try and take my Breaking Dawn off the hold shelf come Aug 2nd, there just might be some blood shed! :) So warning to all.....even your items on hold at the library may not be as safe as you have previously thought!

Two new Ace videos

Some of you may remember one of the first videos I put on here of Ace when he was still a little puppy trying to get his ball out of the laundry basket. That was over in our apartment. Well a couple nights ago Lance tried it again and it appears Ace couldn't remember how he had eventually gotten it out. So like most our videos here is another one for our entertainment at Ace's expense. I promise we really aren't mean to our dog, we just like to tease him a little. :) This second one is again with his ball. On a side note, just ignore the messy living room! This time we discovered that Ace was deathly scared of the Root Beer bottle and would go running any time we tried to put it near him. Maybe he was scared of it because it's one of those bottles that looks like a beer bottle and he knows that beer is bad for you and that he shouldn't drink it, like his way of saying "no". If that's the case, what are you thinking of Lance buying that kind of Root Beer to confuse our Ace, what a bad example! ;) I guess at least we know he'll say "no" though! If you're only going to watch one video, I recommend the second one with the Root Beer bottle. It's hilarious watching him jerking back and forth trying to decide how much he wants his ball! I stopped the video right before Lance knocked the bottle down which sent Ace flying into the laundry room. He's such a funny dog, pretending he's tough until a challenge back to him is made.