Friday, April 30, 2010

What's for Dinner?

 "It looks like Spaghetti!"

"Wait..."

"One problem... what is Spaghetti?"
  
"I'll try anything once."





 "Hmmm... seems a little soggy..."

"Not the easiest to grab..."


















 "Ok, here we go."

















 "Mmmm... A robust tomato sauce..."

"Noodles are cooked to perfection..."

"Seems like some kind of ground meat in here..."

 "Is that beef? I think it's beef."






 "Hey! This IS good!"



"I like it A LOT!"


   
"Wow. So good. I'm... I'm..."



"I'm feeling a little tired."


















"Ok. It's beginning to look like I can't eat all of this myself."


"I need a pinch hitter."


"You in?"







"Here!"


"Just eat this little bit..."


"Come one! Don't worry. It's not the piece from my nose."










"Fine. You don't want to help?"


"I have other methods and people that can help. Well. Dogs that can help. Here ya go Herman!"












"So, Spaghetti... I hope we meet again!"




















"Ok. So I'm done. It was a success!"

"Hey, you just gonna leave me here?"



Thursday, April 29, 2010

Get Out!

Outdoors that is. It's nice to get out and just be outside a little once in a while isn't it? Unless your career has you outdoors all the time or you've just plain had your fair share already, getting outside can be a pretty satisfying venture. Specific goals had me outside a couple days ago. Goals of tree triming, bush whacking, and garbage burning. When we bought our home last year it was evident that the previous owners had not put too much time into the landscape. Don't get me wrong here, I am not one to put much time into it either! I prefer nice looking, low maintenance approaches to landscape. However, when we bought the house and I tried to mow my new lawn for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the tree branches touching the ground, the outer edge of the lawn covered in nasty branches and burr bushes, and the lilac bushes that had transplanted so many times that they each had formed their own mini lilac woods! I went to work and about one apple tree, one large evergreen, and many random branches later, I could mow the lawn without fear of decapitation, loss of one of my own limbs, or hundreds of earwigs falling on me and seriously freaking me out! I kid not. They used to fall from all these untrimed trees as you were mowing! Eeewwww...


One monster lilac tree/bush escaped me last year... okay, I was exhausted and sick of it before I got to the beast, so it lived another winter. Lucky it, eh? Here it is, right by the road, threatening to take over more ground by the day...


The picture is deceiving... plus I had already done some trimming... what does it look like to you? A bush? A tree? What's left of a haunted woods?

Here is a tamer and remade lilac bush...


Do you see a difference? It even looks happier!

A before and after model shot! There actually looks like some farmland behind it too!
Before                                                                                    After










The exposed farmland behind the tree wasn't the only treat nature had in store with this trimming either. A little birdie decided to scare the bejeebers out of me on more than one occasion while I was working on it. Here's your trivia for the day...

What kind of bird was scaring me?


You should know this one. Alright, it's NOT a penguin... or an ostrich. You are welcome.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Insanity!

That's what I have been feeling lately due to one particular person... err... rather... one particular sponge. A sponge with a first name as unique as naming your dog "Spot". That sponge would be SpongeBob Square Pants. He is on the Nick Cartoon Network quite often and Nick is on our TV almost everymorning for the enjoyment of Avery/Kathleen. For about a month Nick was promoting a new episode of SpongeBob with a song he and Patrick the goofy starfish sang in that episode. Now that song plagues my mind CONSTANTLY!!! So, let me do you all a favor and stick it in your craw for a day or two! Watch this video if you dare!



One person doesn't mind me singing this song one bit however! She'll listen to it while she works on the farm all day! Nice mustache mini farmer! Is Avery repairing fence or destructing it?


Saturday, April 24, 2010

Vacation!

I have been gone. Gone from Wisconsin for a moment. Gone from work for a little. Gone from the cyber world for a time. It was nice. What can I say?

I started a vacation last week after working third shift and began that night attending the annual LPS Gala fund raiser! Thanks Ma and Pop for the invite! I attempted to shamelessly steal some photos off of the LPS website with no success. Oh, well. The photo's my family and friends appeared in were mostly back of the head shots anyhow! (If more family had been present, I'd be inserting a smart comment about the back of head shot being the best camera shots for some family members anyway. Lol. Too narrow of selection of attendees to drop that one.) You can check it out for yourself if you are interested by going to http://www.lps.wels.net/ and clicking News and Events and then selecting the LPS Gala in the photo drop box.

After the Gala, less than 24hrs after, I was headed to the U.P.! Yup! Way up dehr, hey. I was visting a friend and got to take in a flavor of what it was like up nort dehr! I will have some pictures to post in the future of some of the trip which included coming back to Wisconsin for a Lambeau Field tour and a hotel stay next to an exceptional view and local attraction.

One of the things that stands out in my mind about the 2 1/2 day trip was the sight seeing drive I was taken on. I visited an old deer camp, (I mean old!), and saw hundreds of whitetail deer, (I mean hundreds!) and beautiful country land all in about a 30 minute drive. The deer stand out in my mind because of the countless hours I have spent hoping to see a deer during hunting season and then comparing it to one 1/2 hour of driving to see more deer than I have seen ever combined in the rest of my life! So in tribute to the deer sight seeing and the U.P. all in one, I present you with this...


Still a good song! Even if you have a no good brother law of yours from Illinoooois...

Friday, April 16, 2010

I Had to Laugh!

Here is a video that a friend posted on Facebook recently... I laughed pretty good. Watch the babies in the background along with the sweet moves in the foreground! I am starting training with Avery tomorrow...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

I Bet You Had NO Idea!

Today is a special day! Yes, it's true! Guess why... No, not because its tax day! It's because my little sis Stephanie has a birthday today! I was sitting at the computer thinking about my sis and her birthday being today and decided to see what the rest of the world knew of Stephanie Zastrow. I was rather surprised what I found...

A simple search for Steph on YouTube uncovered some interesting stuff! Most of you know that Steph lives in Minnesota and isn't all that far from the twin cities, right? Well, did you know that Steph has been putting in work with the St. Paul Figure Skating Club!?! I was just as surprised and impressed! Good secret Steph! I posted the video below. Apparently she has been competing in the couples category. She is wearing a red dress in this particular video and is featured with other friends from her club. There are a few spots in the video where Steph does some down right impressive moves!




Cool, huh? I am still amazed! Steph isn't one to keep these things secret...


Happy Birthday Steph!

Go easy on the cheesy potatoe chips or you might find out that its a lot harder to execute that triple double spinning flip wheeling spud tonker hoop de la whoop super one legged jump flip than you think! Just kidding, I've seen you land that one a thousand times.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Last Minute Easter!

Ok, So I know I show enough of Avery on this blog by far... but I sometimes I just plain can't help it! I will be making an effort to include more about my wiley wife who tends to avoid getting in front of a camera. In the mean time, in between time, here's some Easter pics of Avery at 9 months that I just gotta share!

Not real grass Avery!
(Not that I encourage her to eat real grass either.)


This tastes funny!


While she only started doing it a few months ago and it was exclusively with Mommy for the first couple weeks... I hope to never lose the little girl that reaches out to Daddy.


I hope you all had a Blessed Easter!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Easter Sunday Disc Golfing!

Easter Sunday turned out to be beautiful day! So, when I suggested the possibility of going out disc golfing to my brother in law Jeff, his ever ready response was, "Let's go!". Hartford has a nice little 9 hole course in a local park and it was perfect for a quick ride and some quality time with myself and the male in-laws. (There will be no comments on actual score as I do not want to embarrass certain party's... (Jeff) ).

Here is Jeff getting ready to miss a putt...


One odd occurrance on hole 17 was a drive I had and the ending result was pretty cool! No, not a hole in one...


See anything weird about that pic?

How about this one?
Yep, I stuck it. My disc remained upright... It was funny, it brought smiles, it'll never happen again.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Sure, It's Raining.

Sure, its raining out this morning and a little nasty storming... but so what. I offer you some memories of what we don't have outside anymore...

No more snow! No more ice! (Our back yard earlier this year)


No more exclusively gray, white, and black scenery!


No more moose walking through my back yard! (You don't believe it? What, you don't have any mountains in your backyard?)


Most of all, thank goodness... no more having to save my damsel in distress when the elk start fighting! She looks sincerely distressed doesn't she?


So, I don't mind the rain. It brings growth and warmth and all the colors of spring. The two pictures above were from the Milwaukee Public Museum. My parents and Kathleen and I when to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exihibit. It was cool! We bummed around the rest of the museum also, hence the pictures of random wild beasts.  Catch you later.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Here Today, Goo Tommorow

About a month ago I ran across a series of videos involving the Cadbury creme eggs. Apparently the goo inside is so good that even they can't avoid letting it out. There are a ton of these videos on Youtube, here is a sliver of the different ideas they came up with... happy creme egg eating folks.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Baby Butt!

So, I needed a special quick message to test out my abilities to blog from my cell phone.

My choice was a baby hinder that I saw each morning when I was working on 1st shift at the East Capitol store. I left each morning before 6am, so I would peek in Avery's room and give her a rub on the back and "I love you" before I would head to work. Several mornings she helped put me in a good mood for the day with a cute little bum in the air.


So, after two days of getting email updates telling me that the website was trying to post my attempt at mobile blogging... it gave up and told me it was a failure. I guess I gotta figure it out some other time. So, in the mean time, enjoy some baby butt in your life.