Kick off to Summer

Kick off to summer has officially begun! We spent the weekend with family and friends and a couple of cookouts. Our parents came over on Saturday and it was nice to grill out and sit outside. I was not anticipating the sweltering heat but it was still an enjoyable time. We then went with my parents to a bar to celebrate my dad's birthday. It is a neat lounge here in town that has 62 different beers on tap. I of course was the dd for the night but Chris and my parents enjoyed the selection. After the crew was feeling good we headed to the store to get some things for breakfast in the morning. Chris decided to push dad around in these neat adult friendly seated carts. My mom and I were laughing so hard I though I was going to have an accident in the store. We had to take a picture. It's a little blurry because of the laughter and it was taken with a phone, but still funny.

Sunday we headed to another cookout and enjoyed some foot long hot dogs and fixings. Chris and I decided to relax the rest of the evening by watching a movie and today has been pretty low key. It's been a great long weekend and kick off to the summer. I've only got four more days left of school and then it's officially summer time for me. 

Weekend Full of Fun

This weekend was packed full of fun, family, and friends.  My parents came into town to spend the weekend with us and to celebrate their anniversary. We went to a bar close to our house that has yummy food and the best cranberry vodkas in town. This is one of our favorite places to go for dinner and a drink. Then we decided to go on a mini bar crawl.  It's always fun when we get together with my parents and the evening proved to be chalked full of it.
On Saturday mom and dad did some shopping for most of the day while I headed to school to get some things done for the upcoming musical and book fair. After they returned home we headed to a friends house to celebrate two birthday parties. It was a fantastic evening spent with friends and my parents. An evening the went until 2:30 in the morning. I've not been out that late in a while and I feel so old saying that! Today we woke up late, had a yummy brunch and hung out before my parents headed home. We managed to strum up some energy to put the edging around the flower beds and Sloopy had a chance to hang out in the shade.

Now it's time to relax and prepare for the busy week ahead at school.

Wicked

I've been wanting to blog about seeing Wicked the other night but I've been super busy. Better late then never right? First off Wicked was freaking awesome and a "wicked" show to see. If you've never seen it before I highly suggest you get tickets when the show is in town. I've never really been one for liking The Wizard of Oz so when I learned that Wicked was stemmed around The Wizard of Oz I was skeptical to see it. That however changed after the show started. The set was amazing, the effects were amazing, and the signing and acting was.. amazing! I loved how the story line introduced you to how the good witch and the bad witch came to be and even how some of the other main characters such as the Tin Man came to be as well. It was a really touching story line and I would love to have the chance to see the show again. I'm still singing some of the songs and that doesn't happen very often after a musical. It was a lovely evening that I got to spend with my mom and have some much needed girl time. We also continued girl time the next day by having lunch with my two aunts. One who is home for another week from California. I enjoyed the little break in Sidney with mom and my aunts and especially the show.
I also wanted to show you this hilarious video that I found on her blog that I visit frequently. It's called the Evolution of Dance and this guy pinpoints all the key dances that have taken place over the past 50 years or so. Turn up your sound and enjoy. This will surely make you laugh.

Grandpa

Grandpa Bernard Danzig I will miss you and always love you. This weekend was an emotional rollercoaster and I would of not gotten through it if it wasn't for Chris and all my family. I will always remember grandpa as kind, generous, loving man who had a heart of gold. His hugs made you melt in his arms and he always would put a smile on your face. He loved to laugh and was always the life of the party. He was the glue that held our family together and I'm hoping that even though he is gone now we can all stay in touch and see each other often. Despite the circumstances it was wonderful to have all the family together and bittersweet to all be in his house enjoying his favorite pizza place one last time. I have many found memories in his house and it is going to be hard when that house is no longer and a new family moves in. That is where we all gathered for holidays, birthdays, and family celebrations. That house is the house where grandma and grandpa both took their last breath, and that house is where wonderful memories were made. The last memory that I take from that house is the whole family gathered all together and starting a random game of telephone the night after his viewing. It was fun to watch 20 plus people sit in a circle passing silly messages around. It put smiles on our faces and made us all laugh. We all reminisced about the wonderful memories we had in that house and the wonderful memories of grandpa. That house will always hold a very special place in my heart. I made sure to take a picture before we left of a particular wall that marked all the years spent in that house. It has all 11 of us grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren height's and year measured going up the wall. It is a special wall and even though it will be painted over soon and a new family will move in, I know it will always be there.

A chapter in all of our lives has come to a close and I'm interested in what the new chapter will bring. It is going to be interesting to not have a grandparent anymore and even though he is gone we will always remember him and carry his memory and grandmas on with us. To bring the weekend to a close and one last celebration for grandpa we went and ate at one of his favorite eateries as a family. We all gathered at a long table and had fried chicken (his favorite) and watched the ducks in the pond out the big window. He loved to feed the ducks and Chris, my brother, and cousin's daughter made a point throw the ducks some bread.


May you rest in peace grandpa and I hope you are having a wonderful time with grandma up in heaven.

I will miss you

about 10 minutes after I posted I got a call from my mom saying that grandpa has passed away. Grandpa I love you and will miss you. I know that he is in a better place now and isn't suffering anymore. It is also comforting to know that after almost 8 years he gets to meet grandma and be with her again.

All You Need is Love =

All you need is love.... is a fitting phrase to sum up the weekend. It started on Friday with my parents who came to town. My mom arrived on Thursday to help me in my classroom on Friday for my student's Valentine's Party and my dad came later in the day. He received four tickets and a parking pass to the Blue Jackets hockey game. We had been talking about going for a while and it worked out great that he got them for free. The tickets were amazing. Only 8 rows from the ice behind the players and center ice. Even though the Jackets didn't win I loved the game and spending time with my family.



Saturday I had to get up early for parent teacher conferences all day. This was something that I did not love. I had a better turn out this year compared to last and even though we had to stay until 3:00 I was able to get a lot done. When I got home the
in-laws stopped by to drop off our Valentine's card and after some visiting we decided to take a trip up to the Polaris area and have Quaker Stake and Lube for dinner. That place has amazing wings and I loved that we got to go and was excited for Chris because this is something he has been craving for while. We then headed over to the mall to do some shopping and then headed home. I watched some of the Olympics and headed to bed.

Sunday was Valentine's Day. I absolutely love this day. I always have and always will. I think it is a great day to express how much you love those around you and how much you care for the people who are in your life. Chris and I did our annual dinner and movie. We headed to Olive Garden for a tasty meal and then went to Easton to see Valentine's Day. This movie was perfect for date night and I loved the star studded cast it had. We will definitely be purchasing this movie when it comes out on DVD.



Today Chris had the day off and I had the day off because of President's Day. We got a few groceries, I did some cleaning, and had some pizza for dinner. The day has been cozy and low key and we are now snowed in because another 6 inches has fallen on the ground. I love snow and really enjoy the beauty of it. I also love that I have a snow day tomorrow and can continue my weekend. We will see what the week brings but my weekend was packed full of love and great things.

Camping Memories

This past weekend brought back many fun childhood memories of camping. I visited my parents who were camping at the fall festival in Fort Loramie on Saturday while Chris was at the OSU vs. Toledo game in Cleveland. The festival is held at the camp ground and numerous craft vendors, demonstrators, tractors, and food tents are set up for the weekend. The cool part is you get to camp there as well. When I was growing up my family would always go camping with an average of six other families. The fall festival was always the favorite weekend to camp and where most of my camping memories stem from. It's nice to sit around the fire and relax and then go shop at the craft booths and peruse the demonstrators around the camp ground when you want to. All the kids are now grown up but the parents still camp together. They have all down graded to tents now, but even the tents are still pretty snazzy in my opinion. I went to celebrate my mom's birthday and it was great seeing my parents and the other adults there who I've not seen in a long time. Sloopy really enjoyed being outside and managed to provide entertainment everybody. He even claimed a chair for himself. Every time my dad would get up he would hop up in the chair and stretch out. It was adorable. He had a great time and spent so much time outside that he came home with black paws. He has since had a bath. Spending the day at the campground gave me a hankering to want to start camping again. So we shall see, if a tent is on sale we might have to purchase one.


Sloopy claiming his chair. Doesn't he look like a stuffed animal?


The massive fire dad and the other dads built. I think they need a bigger fire ring!

The Weekend Festivities

Wow, it's hard to believe that another 4th of July has come and gone. It was a great weekend and an awesome 4th this year. We started the celebration the same way we do every year by attending Red, White, and Boom downtown. I love this event and the fireworks are awesome. Growing up in a small town, I only saw small home town firework shows that lasted about 10 minutes and sometimes barely made it up over the tree line. The RR and Boom show is like none other. The show is set to music and lasts about 25 min. They launch them off over the water way which provides even more scenery to look at. There are tons of people who cram the streets and stake out their spots for the day in the wee hours of the morning. I'm thankful for the awesome group of people who got up early to get a stellar V.I.P spot for everyone. The premo site was huge and we all had plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the festivities. We also had family come in for the weekend to help us celebrate the 4th. I'm glad that the "Hallstrom Hotel" as I call my house sometimes, has plenty of room because we sure were filled up this weekend. My parents came into town on Thursday to come watch us bowl and then stay for the weekend. We also had my husband's cousin and her husband and daughter from Chicago in for the weekend too. We don't get to see them very often and were super excited that they made the trip down here. It was their 15 month old daughter's first long trip and she did great. She is so cute and playful. We all had a great time together and enjoyed the fireworks, the cookout, and all the firsts the little one experienced this weekend. The 4th always makes me feel like summer is officially here and gears me up for sun and fun. It was a great weekend and it was wonderful to be with family and friends.





The Red, White, and Boom finale.

Longaburger Trip

I've driven past the Longaberger headquarters basket a couple of times but I've never been in or to the homestead. My mom and I took a bus trip with some relatives to the headquarters and homestead. We boarded the charter bus in Dayton and headed over to the basket. On the way we played games and answered trivia questions for prizes. I actually won a prize! I'm usually not lucky enough to win drawings but my name was pulled. It is a cute tote bag that has a festive print on it and Longaberger printed on the front. The ladies gave out all kinds of prizes ranging from baskets to crockery. It was fun and made the trip over go quickly. Our first stop was at the headquarters office. It is built in the shape of their picnic basket. This building is huge and awesome on the inside. We were only allowed to tour the main floor but you could see to the top of the building and the basket handles overhead. The ceiling is made from glass and the handles are heated to make sure the glass doesn't ice over during the winter time.


After our stop at headquarters we boarded the bus and headed over to the homestead. This is where the factory is located and all the cute shops. I was excited to purchase a basket with cute organizing compartments in it for my desk at school. My mom and I walked around the factory and peeked our heads in to all the shops to do some shopping. In the middle of the homestead they have this huge basket filled with apples. I had to take a picture being a teacher in all.


They sure do like to make their baskets big at Longaberger. We had a great time and I enjoyed spending the day with my mom. We want to do the bus tour again and hopefully go back around Christmas time. I hear the homestead is really festive and neat that time of year.

Crack Me Up

When I was little we would always watch the Lawrence Welk show on Saturdays. When we would spend the night at my grandparents they would always make sure to have the show on to. I can remember wearing a long flowy nightgown and slippers that looked like ballet shoes. I'd dance around to the the songs and laugh when the bubbles would come on the TV. As I've gotten older my mom still watches the show but I find it funny and most of the time poke fun at the show. I laughed so hard when SNL did a Lawrence Welk sketch this past Saturday. It cracks me up. I hope you find it funny to.

Easter in Sidney

I'm in Sidney right now at my parents house celebrating Easter. We went to Church and came back home to have brunch and chill for the day. Yesterday Chris and I came into to town to have dinner with the rest of the family at g-pa's house. It was nice to see the relatives. Most of the family we only see at Christmas and Easter so it's been a while. After dinner we went bowling with the parents and my brother. Sidney's bowling ally is a lot different then C-bus. It only has 10 lanes maybe, compared to 64 at the place Chris bowls at. It was pretty fun and interesting because it was glow bowl. Lot's of glowing flashing lights and random pictures of pins and bowling balls flying around the place made it fun. I bowled ok for the most part and each game it went up in score... not to bad. Dad on the other hand rocked it out with and average of 220 each game. His name was Gimp Arm because of his arm that he broke a while ago. Gimp Arm should of been called kick ass arm because of his scores. It's always a good time with the fam, especially when bowling and boozes are involved.


Check out the shoes. Daniel's are the bright orange, glowing pair.


Sweet names, courtesy of Chris


Let the fun begin.


Whoa glow bowling.


Gimp Arm is kicking ass

Festive Weekend..

It has been a great couple of days. Friday I had a Valentine's Party at school for my kindergartners. Valentine's sure has changes since I was their age in school. I can remember little cards that I would write each of my classmates name on, seal in an envelope, and take to school to pass out. These days the cards come with pencils, stickers, tatoos, candy, and who knows what else. They are all extremly cute and festive. The children had a wonderful time passing out their hand picked cards for each of their classmates. We then had a little party filled with cupcakes, candy, and punch. I was amazed at how many snacks parents sent in for our little Valentine's celebration. I'm glad we did the party on a Friday so I could send them home all sugared up and have a three day weekend for them to calm down :)
After school on Friday my husband and I celebrated our Valentine's date together. We went out to dinner at our favarite restaurant The Cheesecake Factory and then saw "He's Just Not That Into You." The dinner was really nice and the movie is very cute, funny, and packed full of great actors and acrtresses. It was a great movie to watch for our Valentine's date. We celebrated on Friday because one of my best friends from college came into town on Saturday with her husband to visit. I've not seen her since Christmas and she is pregnant and I was so excited to see her with her cute pregnant belly and hear how things are going. We had a wonderful time hanging out, catching up, and shopping for baby items. It was great seeing them again.
Today we celebrated my husbands 30th birthday with family. His actual birthday isn't unti tomorrow, but today we did the famly thing for his birhthdy. Dinner followed by cake and icecream at our house. It was a nice time to have both families together. Tomorrow I am off of school for President's Day and my husband took the day off for his birthday. We are going to go out to lunch and shop around. I am excited for him to enter this next milestone in his life and I hope his birthday is a great one. Next week I am throwing a big 30th birthday party for him at our house with all of his friends. It has been a busy weekend so far, but lots of fun!