Sorry, everyone…. I’ve been quite sick lately, so EVERYTHING has fallen off my plate. Pretty sure I dropped the plate, too. I’ll try and catch up, if I ever get better. 🙂

Krystin invited me to the Zoo Boo with her family. It was so cute to see Evie as a bee, especially when she would tell us that a bee says, “Buzz!” Dad Jerad was quite the trooper, carrying his little girl most of the way. It’s always awesome to be around parents as excited and involved as Krystin and Jerad. 🙂

It was raining on the way over, but by the time we parked, the rain had stopped and we could see some blue sky peeking in:

The Detroit Zoo had set up a short walking course dotted with candy stations manned by Zoo personnel in various Halloween costumes. Along the way, we got to look at tons of carved pumpkins and other visual delights.

Look at the cute Kutler family! Ready to get CANDY! 🙂

Evie-Bee getting ready to get candy at the first stop:

She looks a little unsure, but Daddy’s right there to keep her safe!

Then, she took off running!

We found a maze made of hay bales and chased Mommy through that.

On the way to MORE CANDY, Mommy and Daddy helped their little bee fly!

Treat Station #2

Oh, Look! Another bee!

And a Snowman Pumpkin!

They didn’t seem to be as interested in looking at all of the pumpkin sculptures on the side of the walkway — at least not as much as I was. 🙂 These things were CUTE!!!

Okay, this one was kind of freaky…

Cheezing for the picture:

A family stroll:

The Toy Story characters were there…

Getting a family picture…

The Reptile House was set up like a Haunted House of sorts. Really, they need to get creepier?!?

Now, it was starting to get dark, but we were still able to take a look at the camels and deer.

See how Daddy picks his Evie-Bee up?! 🙂

Mommy and Daddy leading Evie to the next candy station:

Glow sticks — sold for a King’s ransom. Needless to say, we didn’t buy any.

Aww! Polar Bear Pumpkins!

I like this picture:

They needed to have this drink station more in the middle of the walk, not the end….

Zebra and Giraffe and Elephant Pumpkins!

Yay! This was a fun Zoo Boo!

The penguins watched us leave….

Goodnight, Zoo!

This post is going to be rather picture-heavy. 🙂

Yesterday was quite warm, so I spent most of the day inside in the air conditioning. My 4th of July tradition is to go up to Clawson to watch their fireworks display. For a small city, they put on quite the show!

Since I live only about a mile away, Lindsay and Erwin met up with me at my house and we walked up to the park (expecting a gridlock of traffic post-fireworks and wanting to avoid that). We met up with Brian, whose grandparents have a house in Clawson. By this time, it had started to rain. When we made it to the schoolyard across from the park field where the fireworks were to be fired from, we were soaked.

Luckily, the rain stopped in time for us to lay down our sheets and blankets and get ready for the show! The ground had been so dry that it soaked up all the rain and wasn’t soggy, although we remained damp for the rest of the night. We did get to enjoy some ice cream, while we waited for it to get fully dark. 🙂

Here is a small sample of what we got to see. The full set of pictures can be found here.

We decided to have dinner at Friday’s to conclude our evening. Food, fireworks and friends: who could ask for a better Independence Day? 🙂

Although my little peanut is in Heaven, I still had a pretty good Mother’s Day! 🙂

Before I go into my day, why don’t I post a nice, old-school photo of my mom with her two little monkeys:

We’re so cute, aren’t we? 🙂 Okay, we now return to our regularly scheduled blog posting…

I started the morning dancing to a new song I downloaded to my phone. 🙂 So much so, that I missed the 10:15 am Mass and had to attend the 12:15 pm Mass. No matter, it actually worked in my favor because I hadn’t uploaded my photos for printing yet. See, my present for all of my moms this year is prints of some of my favorite flower pictures. I usually get them *live* flowers, but the competition this year was pretty steep. I mean, at the Riccardo household alone, one of my brothers had already sent flowers, days ago, so he got the award for being first. Two of my sisters got flowers also, so I would not be original in my present. But then I thought of it. A photo of flowers! That way, they’d never die! That means I win, right? 😉

I spent time selecting photos for each of my moms: Mom Riccardo, Mom Duffy and Mom. I sent them off to the printer and headed to Mass.

After Mass, I had to stop to put gas into my car. Just as I was finishing, I heard, “Excuse me, miss?” I turned to see a guy in his early 20s from the car at the pump behind me. He asked if I would buy him a gallon of gas, as his card had declined. A girl about the same age was in the driver’s seat. Typically, I put money onto gas cards (to get the extra points), and had been using that for this fill-up. It had about $15 on it, so I gave it to the guy. 🙂 I love it when I get a chance to do something nice for someone. 🙂

I then went to Somerset, picked up the prints, got a yummy Starbucks, and bought a dark chocolate-covered strawberry for Mom and Mom R, as well as a chocolate raspberry cup and espresso truffle for myself from Godiva.

Armed with all my goodies, I stopped first at Mom Riccardo’s house. I had made some extra prints for Mom, including 2 of me so that she could put them on the fridge! 🙂 Heeheehee… She had just laid down for a nap (Yay!), so I dropped off the presents with Dad and tiptoed out of the house.

On the way to Mom’s house, I passed by the Dairy Treat. I know that years ago they had a Mounds flurry that she liked, and it was one of the only places that had this. So I stopped in and checked. Sure enough, they still had it! I grabbed a small one for her and a small Turtle flurry for me. 🙂

At Mom and Dad’s, Clint wasn’t feeling very well and spent the evening on the couch. We watched the Food Network (some things looked good, others made me nauseated) and had Chicken Shack for dinner.

I’m back home again with a few hours left in the day to prepare for the work week ahead of me and relax. What a beautiful day it was!

Happy Mother’s Day!

(Oh, and here are a few of the pictures that I printed for my moms!)

I love the heart-shaped cacti!

I love Halloween! It’s so much fun to dress up…and then, there’s the candy! 🙂

I actually managed to buy pumpkins early this year (instead of stealing from children and knocking over little old ladies on Devil’s Night to get some pumpkins).

I let my brother, who is my personal pumpkin carver (and who is WAY AWESOME at this), have free reign over this year’s theme. I ended up getting Freddy and Jason! Sweet! Look at them, aren’t they great?!

Lindsay and I celebrated the evening by meeting up with Erwin at a bar which was having a costume contest. I left before the judging, but Lindsay won 2nd place! 🙂

Here’s Lindsay in her SuperGirl costume (This outfit is rated PG-13):

And this is one tough chick! Look! She’s not even afraid when confronted by PacMan…and he’s notorious for how much he eats! 🙂

Everyone knows that superheroes congregate at bars, so when Captain America arrived, we knew it was time for a photo op! 🙂 This is the two of them looking fierce:

And at the end of the night, Bo Peep went home to count her sheep — to make sure she hadn’t lost any….