Aidan's SECOND birthday!!

My nephew Aidan will be two on Two-sday. His birthday party was on Saturday at Mike & Melissa’s house. It was a very nice party. There was tons of food: hankie pankies, little smokies in crescent rolls, veggie tray, fruit tray, chips & dip, bread & dip and I made Crystal’s buffalo chicken dip. Yummy! It was a Sesame Street theme, so I borrowed my friend, Denise’s mom’s Elmo cake pan and made the Elmo cake pan again. I had made it for Aidan’s first birthday too. I wanted to make something else as far as cake, so I made two dozen cupcakes. Mark’s dad and stepmom were there, along with Mark’s half brother Pat and his step-sister Nicole, her husband Jack and their two kids. Mark’s mom and boyfriend Duaine were also there. We had a great time! I should rename my blog “I forgot my camera” because of course – I forgot my camera! Melissa took some pictures so I am hoping that I’ll get copies and can post them. Aidan was very cute eating his cake.

Troop Rally

Please click on the right on MaryAnn's blog for details on last weekend's Support Our Troops rally. Mark and his motorcycle club drove downtown.

What's for dinner, honey

Let me start of by saying that Mark's mom is a great cook. She makes a full homemade dinner every night of the week. Mark should be over this by now because he's lived with me for over 4 years. I don't think I am a good cook, I only manage to make easy dinners a few nights a week. Thank goodness for our grill, we use that often. Maybe that counts as cooking, I don't know-Mark usually grills the meat that I defrost and/or season. I do make salads each night. Did I mention that he just bought a $1,100 natural gas grill!! It's currently sitting in our living room because we have to put in a gas line outside for it. I can't wait to have our first big cookout of the season. Back to Mark, some of my friends even say that I baby him, by putting out his vitamins, make sure his lunch stuff is ready, his cell phone is out for him in the morning, etc. I don't know. Back to cooking, I enjoy baking more than cooking. Anyway I go off a side track again. The reason for my blog post is Mark comes home from work last night and sees a pot on the stove. He goes over to it and says, ooh-I had a rough day today, what's for dinner honey. He opens the pot and sees two hard boiled eggs - WHICH ARE FOR BLARNEY! Whoops! P.S. Sorry this post is all over the place.

Bon Jovi

Last month, Marie and I went to Pittsburgh for our Bon Jovi concert. Here's Marie holding the tickets and me holding a poster board she made for me for my birthday present (before she actually had the tickets). She printed out a picture of a almost naked Jon. It's a damn good picture too! She also printed a seating chart of the arena and pasted pictures of the band on the stage. I really need a new camera, so please ignore the huge dust (or whatever it is) spot on my shoulder!

I took a few pics from that concert with my camera phone, but haven't gotten them to my laptop yet. Here's some that I scanned in from our summer '06 concert. We were only a few feet from stage. We weren't allowed to bring cameras in, so I brought in my 10 year old 35mm camera in case they took it away at the door. You can see how close we were because it hardly had any zoom on it.

Today

Today Mark and I went out with his bestman Dave and his girlfriend Kelly. My friend, Denise, had told me about Daffodil Days at Lakeside Cemetery, which is where Grandma Jones is buried. President Garfield is also buried there. They have a huge hill with 100,000 daffodils blooming on it. It was cool to see. The cemetery is beautiful and huge. We drove through the whole thing and looked at all the flowers and blooming trees.

While in Little Italy, we tried to go to Corbos (a bakery where Mark’s grandma worked when he was little), but they were closed. We went to another bakery and got all sorts of cookies, cannolies, bread, and tiny cakes.

These were just a little side trip as our main purpose for going out was to hit The Cleveland Museum of Art. They have a special exhibit of Arms and Armor from Imperial Austria. Mark and I had gone there two years ago when they had another exhibit from Germany. It was arms and armor during the Renaissance. They had real armor of several men and a horse. They had guns and swords too. Mark loved it!! I was pretty bored, but it was kind of cool to see the stuff. Kelly took some pictures of us with her camera, but I have to wait for her to email them to be before I can post them.

We walked around some outdoor parks and saw huge koi fish in a pretty pond. We then went to BD’s Mongolian BBQ for a early dinner. We walked around Coventry and shopped in a few of the stores. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm. It rained for a few minutes as we were walking to the car, but cleared up quickly. They came back to the house and just hung out. It was great to spend the day with them!

My voilet

Here's a picture of my violet. Marie and I were in Walmart last year and they had tons of violets out. They were all completely dry and had no flowers on them. Marie commented that it was like being at the pound. :( We picked one out and I bought him to save him. Long story that only Marie would know, but you know the saying "fo' shizzle" well I named him "Trey shizzle" Don't ask. Anyways, here is Trey all nursed back to health and loving his spot in my dining room window. I got the cute pot form Yankee Peddler - a local craft festival.

Dog Toy Hospital

Grandma Welch came over one day last week and found a box on the floor. She asked Linda what was in it. She informed her that it was filled with my mangled toys that I had pulled the inside fluff out of. I love my toys so much that I tear them to pieces immediately! Grandma offered to take my box of misfit toys home and repair them. Thanks, Grandma, for repairing them and bringing them back to me yesterday!

Love, Blarney

P.S. My Republican elephant already has another hole in it, so maybe next time you come over - you could fix it again? Sorry!

Blarney's Birthday

Blarney turned one on April 10th! Here he is with his Happy Birthday bandana!



We get together with Ray & Marie almost every Saturday night. Tonight, I asked my parent's to stop over too. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for Blarney's birthday "party". My parents bought him the largest rawhide bone he's ever gotten. Marie bought him some doggie cookies, two large Dingo bones, and a mail truck toy. It's hard to buy Blarney toys because he ruins them so quickly.


Marie also bought a cake and decorated it with those sugary things. Yummy!

Blarney wanted to eat it (we teased him a little), but he does not get any people food - so he was out of luck. I did buy him a canned Eukanuba which I will mix into his dry food tomorrow for a special treat.

Laura & Jeff were over her best friend Andrea's house tonight, so they couldn't make it. Also, Laur worked the overnight shift yesterday and has to work it again tomorrow. Jeff also worked all day yesterday and today.

I had a great time babysitting Dylan this weekend. I left work early on Friday because Laura had a work meeting. Dylan slept a lot better last night than the previous time I had watched him. That was a relief to me.

Mark takes a nap with Blarney

Blarney's eyes really do not glow in the dark!

Aidan-in-a-box

Aidan's new little game is taking all of his toys out of his toy box (aka a dell computer box) and replacing the toys with himself. I pull him down Carol's long hallway as fast as I can go backwards, then run and push him back. It's about 30 foot straightaway stretch, so I can pick up some speed. He loves it (so do I!!) As you'll see in this video - he also loves to close himself inside the box.

Guardian Indians Day

For the Tribe home opener, we had an Indians Food Day at work. Denise grilled hotdogs on the George Foreman grills. We had tons of food. Here’s Karin, me, and Marie in our Indians shirts. We were the last three people in the building, so I had to prop the camera up on top of one of our cube walls, which is why the picture sucks. Oh yeah-they won!

My eyes

I thought I'd give an update on my PRK eye surgery that was the middle of February. My doctor told me it would take two months before I was healed and my vision was back to normal. I, of course, figured I would heal instantly and was in no way prepared for the loss of vision that I'd have. I have never been 20/20...even with my contacts I was 20/25. I had a lot of pain that first day that I was home. I was very light sensitive too. Even a night light in my pitch black room (did I forget to mention that I had Mark put heavy duty foil over all the windows in our bedroom and in my bathroom) was too bright. I slept pretty much all Friday and Saturday. Sunday, I was up for about 8 hours, and Monday I stayed awake about 12 hours. I had 3 prescription eye drops, Tylenol with codeine and re-wetting drops. I was putting in drops every hour and had to sleep with these clear plastic eye patches on. I took 5 days off work and when I went back on Tuesday, I could not see enough to drive myself to work. Marie picked me up for a few days. I had to move my 19" computer monitor so close to my face that it was hanging off my desk a little. Work sucked that week!! I was only about 20/50 on the eye chart - which is horrible! I tried reading glasses, but they didn't help. After a few more days, I was able to drive, but only while the sun was out (with heavy sun glasses). I had to wear sunglasses in the office at work too-embarrassing! At Dylan's baptism (thank goodness I didn’t have to wear my sunglasses in the church!), I couldn't even read the hymnal without holding it almost to my nose. By about 3 weeks post-op, I could see well enough to move my monitor a few inches back and now could drive at night. I was down to one prescription drop, and doing rewetting drops about every 3 hours. I was really upset and sure that I had made a mistake in having the surgery. My third visit back to the eye doctor had me seeing 20/35. About two weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor again and was back to my pre-op 20/25. Thank God! I was really praying for my sight back. Last weekend I got a chalazion (kind of like a stye, but more inside your eye lid - a blocked duct) and back to the eye doctor again. I am on an oral antibiotic but was able to see 20/20 on the eye chart! It was worth it!