Sad News

I've attempted to write something for the last few days and haven't known how to properly word it.  I still don't.  On Friday morning my grandmother passed away.  It is unbelievably sad for me to think about.  I can take a small comfort in the fact that we did get to see her one last time this past summer. 

Kathryn Milcheck, 92, of North Huntingdon, died Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, at Mt. Vernon Care Center. She was born Nov. 4, 1915, in Yukon, a daughter of the late Michael and Kata Grgk Persin Topolnak. Kathryn was a member of St. Agnes Church, North Huntingdon. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Stephen Milcheck; and sisters, Bertha Farich, Ann Crider, Dorothy Milovac, Rose Paxon, Veronica Mehn, Mary DeGiovanni and Mildred O'Busec. She is survived by two sons, Steven and his wife, Donna, of Mount Dora, Fla., and Ronald, of New Stanton; one brother, Anthony Topolnak, of West Mifflin; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at the JAMES W. SHIRLEY FUNERAL HOME, Clay Pike, North Huntingdon. A blessing service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, followed by interment in Yukon Cemetery.  Courtesy of the Pittsbrugh Tribune Review.

 

Grandma Kay and I (1981)

 

Ella, Grandma Kay and I (July 2008)

 

Grandma Kay at age 16 and age 18

Historical moment!!

The iPhone is cool

The iPhone fairly recently started offering additional applications you can download onto your iPhone...stuff like games, productivity software or goofy little add-ons (doesn't everyone want their phone to turn into a light saber?)  I've been playing around with some of them and wanted to share my current favorite.  It is an app called "Camera Bag" and what it does is enhance the photos you take with your camera phone...so simple and no need for Photoshop.  There are 8 different filter options (Helga, 1974, Lolo, Cinema, 1962, Ansel, Infrared and Fisheye) and they're all really cool for a different/vintage look...I had been wanting to buy and play around with a Holga camera and a fish-eye lens and now I don't have to! 

Here's one I took of Ella today demonstrating the different filters....

 

My favorite is the 'helga' based on the Holga camera...

 

Not bad for a camera phone, huh?

Today's the Day!

Here's Jacob's prediction for the election...'Birrock Obona is gonna win and the other guy will get one vote."  Let's see if he's right! 

Here's the Motley Halloween Crew

Jacob as a Jawa, Lisa as 'Mrs. Joker', Aaron as the Joker, and Ella as a Vampire....fun, fun stuff!  Had a great Halloween day and capped it off with our annual party with friends and trick-or-treating.  Everyone (just about..ahem, Karen and John) went all out and dressed up.  Only bummer was the rain...well actually it added a certain something special to Aaron and I's costume, but Jacob was having a really hard time trick-or-treating in a heavy wet blanket, which eventually came off as to make the night not, "the worst Halloween ever!"  Click here for a crazy amount of Halloween pics!

Happy Halloween!

The Big Reveal coming soon!  Tonight we're going to a party and trick-or-treating...hope to get photos of our costumes up afterwards or Saturday at the latest! 

Hope everyone has a frightfully great day!!

My Handsome 1st Grader

VOTE

So often I want to get political on here but I refrain for a multitude of reasons. Instead I'll just post this....

Every celeb on the planet seems to be in this video!

Family Harvest Fest

Every year we like to have a family harvest fest where we go to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins then go back home to carve them and have a fall themed dinner.  This year we invited the Nostrands to join us.  We spent hours at the pumpkin patch while the kids played in the hay maze, petting zoo, bounce house and all the other little activities they had for kids (digging in a barrel of dirt-TONS of fun!  Who needs videogames?) Afterwards we went home and made caramel apples dipped in mini chocolate chips and peanuts.  We also had a make your own nacho bar (is that fall themed?) and salad.  It was a fun (and very late) night for the kids and us!

The finished products...

Jacob's is the first one, mine the middle (used a hand drill-sweet and simple) and Ella's the fancy one on the right.  Ella got help from dad doing hers, but Jacob's was all his own!

 

Guns 'N Hoses

Saturday was the 1st Annual Guns 'N Hoses Flag Football event and it was so much fun!  It was the police officers vs the firefighters....it's an event to raise money for the fallen firefighter and peace officers funds.  I gotta say though, I was quite worried Aaron would be one of those fallen firefighters...some of those guys could have killed him...he doesn't quite have the body for football!  Fortunately he came away from the game
walking and not in pain, unlike a lot of the others who played.  Unfortunately the Hose Boys lost...quite bad...what was the score Aaron?  12 to 26 or something like that?  They started out good, but then with an absurd amount of substitutions and erratic coaching they got took down....the gift of donuts to the cops beforehand didn't even help.  Maybe that hindered?  

The whole event was a lot of fun with a bag piper, helicopter fly over during the Star Spangled Banner (we think that was intentional...if not the timing was awfully perfect), raffles, and halftime entertainment (Ella's dance company had some dancers perform, Enterprise High dance team, and some bizarre Crossfit boot camp demo).  It was a great way to spend the afternoon and we look forward to next year's event.  I'd suggest you bulk up Aaron!  Click here for more photos

Busy Autumn Days

Whew...it's Sunday and I can finally relax (a little)....in the past 3 days we have had 2 soccer games, dance class, cub scouts, school field trip to the pumpkin patch, my first jewelry open house at Steph's house, school fall carnival, 1st Annual Guns n' Hoses flag football game, and a fall fest night at a different pumpkin patch and dinner and fun with the Nostrands.  Whew....pictures from some of the above to come....

Halloween Preshow

Jacob as a....


Jawa!  The 3rd Halloween he's been a Star Wars character!  According to Wookieepedia (and yes, there is such a thing), Jawas were typically short humanoid natives of Tatooine. They were often scavengers, seeking out technology for sale or trade in the deep deserts in their huge sandcrawler transports. A band of Jawas was responsible for locating C-3PO and R2-D2 and selling them to Luke Skywalker's uncle Owen Lars. Another tribe of Jawas, led by Tteel Kkak, found Jabba the Hutt's rancor. They had a reputation for swindling, as they had a penchant for selling old equipment such as outdated droids to moisture farmers, but they were passive beings, and hardly put up any resistance to colonists of their planet unlike the other natives the Sand People, instead seeing them as an excellent business opportunity.  Fascinating, huh?

I think we did pretty good with the costume.  With E-bay, Joann's, random things around the house, and Grandma's help sewing the robe, it all came together and he is so excited to wear it.  Here's the original dudes...

Ella as....

A Vampire!  All her own choice, though of course I couldn't resist resurrecting part of my costume from last year and playing along as her mother vampire for the pictures.  And for those wondering--this is NOT my costume for this year--that will be revealed the night of Halloween!  I'm all up for playing a little guessing game though if anyone wants to guess...

How we spent a Sunday afternoon in OCTOBER

Cub Scouts at Fire Station 8

Soccer Saturdays

(and Soccer Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday too)...
Only a few more weeks of soccer to go and it's been a great season.  Especially for Jacob.  We were really starting to wonder if maybe sports wasn't his thing the first couple of weeks but then something clicked in him and he's been really into it, getting aggressive and very energetic out on the field.  He's been scoring goals or coming very close to it (those darn goalies!) like crazy.  [Jacob's number 10]

 

Ella is having fun at her games and practices but has yet to find that competitive edge.  She chases the rest of the kids around and follows the ball around the field but is a little timid to really get in there.  It seems her coach has made her designated kicker though whenever the ball goes out!

Firefighter or Rainbow Maker?

Photo by Greg Barnette / Record Searchlight
Redding firefighter Aaron Lee fights a blaze near Market and Benton on Monday.

Too fun!

When the song is over, her eyes will follow your mouse cursor around...creepy!

Do you believe she's only 4?

And just when I think she's got to be the prettiest girl in the whole world she goes and makes faces like this!

It's a bird, it's a plane

It's a pool above our house!

After many years of thinking about it, the time is right for us to put in an underground pool.  Just in time for fall to start...LOL!  It's been an exciting couple weeks and the kids (and us too) are so enjoying the process.  It has gone unbelievably fast and we'll be eager for summer to start again. Click here for some more photos of the process so far. 

You know it's getting to be fall when...

my hair gets darker!