Bird breeders...

Every year we have 2 sets of red sparrows that use the tops of the columns on the corners of our front porch as their nesting spot.  It makes enjoying our front porch dangerous at times as dad becomes very protective of his nest.  However, when the babies are born it's a treat to hear them chatter at feeding times and to watch their growth.  This is the first of this year's new borns.

There is a 4th little one hidden behind the one on the left.

Minor Project Gone Major

Chad has to park on the left side of our driveway, outside of the garage, so my car can be in the garage. :-)  He has complained for years about how muddy his shoes get when he gets in and out of his car and has to walk through the yard there.  Well we finally decided to do something about it a couple weeks ago.  We bought some retaining wall blocks, pavers, and rock to extend our "sidewalk" down that side of the driveway past his car.  It turned out really nice.

So nice, in fact, we decided to do the replace the shale stones that outlined our existing "sidewalk" with the retaining wall blocks.

 

So then, we decided to replace the shale stone throughout our flower gardens with the retaining wall blocks.  We had to order 125 of them, and thank goodness Lowe's delivered them.

When they showed up we were thinking, "Those aren't all ours, are they?"  No, they weren't, just one pallet.

That's still a lot of pavers that need to be placed!  I can't wait to see the end result.  I'll be sure to post it.

Doggy Dental Downer

On the morning of Saturday, February 23rd I thought it looked like Abby's cheek under her left eye was a little swollen, but then I thought maybe it was just the way she was laying...it was getting pushed up or something.  By the time we got home from dinner that evening, her cheek was noticeably swollen.

By Sunday morning, it was so swollen it was causing her eye to not be able to open fully.  I called the veterinarian's office first thing Monday morning and got her an appointment for that afternoon.

The doctor thought it was probably an abscessing tooth, so she gave Abby a shot of Penicillin, gave me Amoxicillin to give her at home, and told me to call back on Wednesday and let them know if the swelling was going down.  If it was going down then she could be sure that it was an abscessed tooth, if it didn't she would have to do x-rays and look into it further.  They had me schedule extraction surgery for Thursday anyway, because the doctor was pretty sure that was what it was.

We didn't make it to Thursday.  Tuesday morning, we woke up to goop oozing out of her eye and her cheek so swollen her eye was just a slit.

I called the veterinarian back and they moved her extraction surgery up to Wednesday morning.  She had 2 teeth that were cracked up the middle and abscessing.  One of the teeth came out in its 2 parts, the other took more work and came out in 4 pieces.

We had them do a complete dental cleaning on her as long as they had her under sedation.  Hopefully that will keep this from happening again.  So, $520 and about a week later, the swelling was almost completely gone and she was well on her way back to healthy.

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike snakes?

Last weekend when the weather was nice we were working out in the front flowerbeds.  Chad suggested that I pull out some of the old plants that were sprouting up and as he reached in to show me what he was talking about...he suddenly jumped back and said, "Whoa, snake!"

Mind you, this was just a garter snake.  We didn't get a picture of him still in the bush, but this is about what he looked like, maybe 2 feet long.

I FREAKED OUT!!! I ran around and jumped up on his tractor to get off the ground.  Chad and Zak started laughing at me, but I noticed they both stepped back several feet also.  Chad's first thought was to try and catch it.  I said, "NO WAY, kill that thing, I don't want it coming back!"

So Chad grabbed 2 shovels, 1 to hold the snake down with and 1 to chop its head off with.  He didn't have very good aim on the first shot, ended up cutting it pretty much in half.  But the second shot got the head.

The creepiest part was the tail end kept moving for a good 10 minutes!!!  I didn't come off the trailer until it was properly disposed of and Chad had checked around for more. Haha!

Popping the Question

Zak's girlfriend, Meesa, is a junior, so therefore the plans were that they would be going to prom.  But Zak wanted to do it right and officially ask her to prom.  He came up with a very unique way.  When she came over Friday night this greeted her as she got out of the car.

Fortunately for him, her answer was "yes."  She had perma-grin for the rest of the evening.

My Birthday Celebration

As usual, Chad and Zak gave me a wonderful birthday celebration this year.  It was a Thursday night, so they didn't go too crazy, but it was perfect for me!

We started with dinner at my favorite restaurant, Mexican of course, Los Aztecas.

223 Shoemaker Rd.,  Pottstown, PA

When we got home from dinner I had a pile of gifts awaiting me.

Chad got me everything I had suggested for gift ideas!

Yes, Corningware...I'm a cooking geek.

Our 3 birthstones. He had Chad and Zachary engraved on each side of the stones.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Chad pulled this out of the refrigerator.

Cake Boss Red Velvet cake...my favorite flavor. This one was phenomenal!

He even got me sparkly candles!

Sometimes you'd think my son was still a toddler.  True to form he had more fun playing with the box than the gift.  HAHA!!!

It was his "helmet".

My BFF, Tami, got me this beautiful windchime to add to my sun collection on our front porch.

Thank you, Chad, Zak, and Tami, for all of your love and support.  You all mean so much to me!!!

Snog, Marry, or Throw Off a Cliff

My BFF posted this the other day and I loved the idea!

Pick a male/female for each category: 1)Snog (Kiss), 2)Marry, and 3)Throw off a cliff.  You can use real people, movie or literary characters… whatever.

Here's my list:

1) SNOG

I couldn't narrow it down to just one!

From left to right, top row to bottom row:

Dwayne Johnson, Ian Somerhalder, Jasom Momoa, Jason Statham, Paul Walker, Jared Padelecki, Jensen Ackles, Ryan Reynolds, Chad Feltenberger

2) MARRY

If I have to choose somebody other than the love of my life

I would pick

Andrea Casiraghi, second in line heir to the throne of Monaco

3) THROW OFF A CLIFF

Any one of them!!!!

What are your choices??

Snowboarding!

For Zak's birthday in 2012 he got snowboarding clothes (coat, pants, gloves, socks) in anticipation of going on the snowboarding trip that is offered through our school.  It is every Friday night from December through the first week of February to Bear Mountain that is about 40 minutes north of here.  He never made it last winter and this winter he and Meesa have attempted to go on the trip several times but it was cancelled each time due to either low attendance or poor weather.

Well this week Meesa suggested they go on their own and mentioned that Spring Mountain is only about 25 minutes east of here, so we took them last night.  We got there at about 4:00pm and they were geared up and ready to go at 4:45pm.  The slope is open until 9:00pm but we thought for sure they wouldn't last that long.  Well they did and Zak came off the slope with a huge smile on his face!

Geared up and ready to go!

Getting his bindings on proved to be a bit difficult at first.

First ride on the chair lift, he got on with no troubles.

Meesa sent me this from the chair lift.

I'm so glad he was finally able to go snowboarding.  Of course his first words when he saw us after they came off the slope were, "I want to get my own board."  Houston, we have a new obsession.  Haha! :-)

Super Bowl Sunday Hurt This Year

This year for Super Bowl Sunday we thought we were going to have a quiet, uneventful evening...boy were we wrong!

We had a hockey game in Hackensack, NJ, and got home at 6:15pm, just in time to settle in for kick-off.  Chad built a roaring fire for us, we ordered dinner in, and kicked back with a couple of beers.

Well, as he was putting wood on the fire one time, the fire popped and a hot coal shot out and hit Chad in the EYE!  Thank goodness he got his eye closed before it hit so his eyeball was not injured, but the corner of his eye nearest his nose took the brunt of the burn.  I tried to talk him into going to the hospital to get it flushed and ensure there was no injury to the eyeball, however, he refused..."The Super Bowl is on and I leave for Las Vegas tomorrow, I'm not going to the hospital."  So we did the best we could flushing it out and I used a wet Q-tip to remove the charcoal that was spreading through his eye.

He left Monday morning for Las Vegas for work, and at that point his eye was just red.  Wednesday evening I asked him how his eye was feeling and he sent me a pic:

It had completely scabbed over, and every time he woke in the morning it had crusted over and started oozing after he got his eye open.  I felt so bad for him!

I'm happy to report that it has completely healed and he looks just as handsome as always. :-)

My Sweet Valentine

After 25 Valentine's Days together, Chad still finds a way to make me feel extra special and extra loved every time.  This year we went to lunch at our favorite diner, The Jukebox Cafe.  Shortly after we returned from lunch, there was a delivery for me...Shari's Berries!

They are gourmet chocolate covered strawberries...

Not only are the coatings delicious, they use the freshest, sweetest berries!

And it was accompanied by the simplest but sweetest card...

I loved the instructions on the outside of the shipping box, too.

I hope your valentine was as good to you as mine was to me!

I love Amazon!

I am very hard on dishes, I tend to break them at a fairly rapid rate...oops, clumsy me!  So the fact that my current set has lasted since we moved into the new house 5 years ago is quite a feat.  However, Tuesday I broke the 3rd bowl, leaving us only 5, not even enough for 2 meals worth, and I already broken a couple of the salad plates too.

So we decided it was time for the current set to be "retired" and to start the search for a new set.  We visited Kohl's, and sadly every set I found that I really liked was $120 for a 16-piece box (4 place settings). It was a Racheal Ray set called round and square in green apple. :-(

Never being discouraged, I started a search on Amazon Wednesday morning and found the exact same set I was looking at at Kohl's for $50!!!  Needless to say, I jumped right on the purchase, therefore I was able to get 2 sets for less than the price of 1 at Kohl's!  They were delivered yesterday.

I love the unique shape and bright color!

Wordless Wednesday

Driver's Training

Zak started driver's training with Blue Bell Driver's School this weekend.  He had 2 hours yesterday and 2 hours today.

Sat, Jan 19th

Sat, Jan 19th

Sat, Jan 19th

Sun, Jan 20th

Sun, Jan 20th

I'm really glad we chose to enroll him in the lessons, he learned A LOT this weekend.  He was even able to drive us to dinner last night!

He passed the test!

We took Zak to the DMV yesterday to get his driver's permit.  Unlike in MI, in PA you have to pass a written test before you get your permit and can start any driving at all.  Zak had been studying for the test for a couple of weeks, but was still very nervous as we entered the driver's license center.

Even the staff member that helped us commented, "you need to relax son, you're about to stroke out and you're too young for that." Haha!  The good news, all the hard studying paid off, he passed on his first try!

We took him to a parking lot to get him his first experience behind the wheel of a car.  He's been saying to us for months, "I can drive a go cart and the tractor, how hard can it be?"

Well he found out how different it can be.  He was extremely nervous!  We are going to be enrolling him in a driver's training course, which is not required in PA but does result in you getting a discount on your car insurance, but the course is only 6 hours and he must have 65 hours and six months before he can take the driving test to get his license.