Cribbage

Me and Mr. H like to play cribbage now and then.

Good fun game. Part luck, part skill. Mr. H has green pegs and I have the red. Here is the board after the first hand. What do you notice?

 

 

Hard to see the red red pegs, but you can tell by the hand signals that Mr. is not happy. Another round and the lead increases.

Next hand, ooohhh let's see....

Red's increased the lead a few more lengths. Go RED! Now we come to the final hand. Who's gonna win? Oh, it's RED all the way. Oh, and did I mention skunk?

Sorry honey! Like Vince Lombardi said; "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. "
Vince Lombardi

Easter Fun

Another fun Easter Extravaganza at Rancho Holmes' this weekend. We started with the egg hunt. 60 plastic eggs filled with all kinds of goodies with some quarters and dollars thrown in. Each kid gets assigned their own number and they're off!

Daniel making good progress:

Collin quickly movin to the next hidey-hole:

A lot of the eggs were in obvious places. Athena, you are getting warmer, warmer....oh you are hot!

The kids kept walking past eggs that were hidden in plain sight so Mr. H jumped in with some clues:

The boys with Grandma Lucy and the booty:

Then it was on to the treasure hunt to find the baskets. I made a treasure map with clues to find the hidden eggs. Each of the 6 eggs had a letter inside. Once they found the 6 eggs and the letters they had to unscramble them for the word that would send them to the baskets.

The map is a drawing of the house and each written clue was on the map in the general area where the clue was hidden. They were so funny. The first clue I just drew a picture of lips (in the upper left corner). I have a big arrangement of Tulips there (get it, two lips, tulips?). They needed a little help with it so here's how it went:

Me: What is the picture?

Them: Lips

Me: How many?

Them: Two

Me: What two words did you just say?

Them: Crickets

Me: How many? Them: two. Me: What's the picture? Them: lips. Me: Put the words together.

Them: two lips. Me: Say it again. Them: two lips, two lips, TULIPS! TULIPS! FLOWERS!

Me: YEAH!!!

That got them on a roll and we ended up with the final clue. Except I froze the clue in a block of ice.

Their first thought was to put it in the sink to melt the ice.

That wasn't working so well so Tyler suggested they take it outside and smash it on the driveway.

So how'd that work out?

Oooooh, not so good. But, wait! Let's try that again...

Bingo! Mission accomplished. So now they had all six clues and the six letters. Now what I did not realize when I chose the hiding place (the shower-I needed a large space to fit all the baskets) was that there is another word that you can make out of the letters. SHOWER are the letters. So when the kids put the letters on the counter for some reason they were fixated on the word starting with WH. Here they are:

Here is a close look at the letters:

At this point they had the letters arrange as WHEROS. Both Mr. H and my Mom immediately saw a word that if you just moved the E and O around......OH NO! Stop the presses! Did you get it?? I immediately jumped in and told them IT STARTS WITH AN S!!!!! Whew....ok, so they figured out the word SHOWER and found their baskets:

On to the final event, egg coloring! Pretty Athena:

Creative Collin. He got a telescope for Christmas and has been using the planet Uranus in conversations as often as possible. So here is his egg. We ran out of room so the S is around the corner and we only had room on the front for URANU....you can see the S when you turn the egg:

And the always smiling Daniel:

It was a fabulous day and I'll finish with one last picture. Boys will be boys......magnets....nose....

Things

It's spring. The rosebush is going wild. Very pretty with lots of blooms.

I saw Hop today with the grandman, nephew and Grandma Lucy. I was actually LOL'ing a few times. Fun movie!

We tried the miracle noodles yesterday with some of Mr. H's fabulous chunky meat sauce. I have to say I was under-impressed. The texture is just too weird. I am going to try Dreamfield's pasta next. Also going to try zucchini noodles. We'll see. I'll post comparisons.

We downloaded a series from Netflix called Harper's Island. Good reviews which caught my eye. A lot of murder/mystery cliches but after watching a couple episodes we were hooked. WHO IS THE KILLER?????

Oh, It's Easter!

Yes folks it's Easter time! A favorite Holiday at Rancho Holmes'. Baskets and treasure hunts and egg coloring and hiding plastic filled eggs! The growing stash of goodies:

Oh boy, can't wait!

Things

It was our daughters birthday this week and her friend at work made her these amazing cupcakes:

They are so pretty and the petals are mini marshmallows cut in half and sprinkled with colored sugar crystals. Wow.

I ordered some Miracle Noodles from amazon.com. I plan to have them this weekend with a big pot of chunky tomato sauce. We have not had spaghetti since January when we went primal. Jonesin' for some spaghetti! I'll let you know how they turn out. Mostly positive reviews but a few negative ones. We'll see. I'm also going to make some Lo Mein with them. Yum! They contain zero net carbohydrates and zero calories, no gluten -made of a healthy natural fiber called Glucomannan. It comes from the Konjac root. I'll post the results.

And last but not least.....I am the eggman, I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob:

 C'mon? Don't you see the resemblance?

That's my bro and sis-n-law's puppy Chloe the Mastiff. (the top picture) Ain't she pretty?

Things

So I buy a lot of the reusable bags from different stores. I end up sending many of them home with people when they need a bag to tote food or stuff home or maybe need a  purse (Patty, but that's another story). I didn't really need one today while I was at Sprouts (I love that store and have one right around the corner...if you don't then you should move near one) but this strawberry one I just had to have:

I was also surprised the other day with a box in the mail from my sis-in-law Patty. I had a little camera tripod on my amazon wish list for Christmas and didn't get it. Lo and behold in the box was my cute little tripod.

Now I couldn't take a picture of it with the camera mounted on it cause well....I just couldn't. But it's really cool and you can place it or attach it anywhere:

How cool is that? It's great in the kitchen now when I am taking pictures while cooking. Before I would have to hold the camera and take the pic with one hand (that was usually covered in food) while my other hand was adding ingredients or stirring. Now I can set it up and just reach over and "snap." No more food particles all over the camera!

She also included a card thanking me for things that I do for her and my nieces. But I think she will have to abstain from sending me thank you gifts because shortly after I got it she was in an accident and I was called to pick her up. Picking her up was not a problem at all but the accident thing......well if that is what comes with a gift...I'm just sayin....

On another note I was with the Grandman the other day. He lost his first tooth!!!

There's the new one...the next one is starting to poke through.....get wiggling!

So we were driving the other day and we heard the Pink song "Pretty Pretty Please" 3 times and we were just belting it out together. Then another song came on that I can't remember but sounded like nails on a chalkboard so I switched the station.

Daniel: "Gram! Why do you want to spend so much time with me when you don't like my music?"

Gram: "But Daniel, I like a lot of your music, do I have to like every song?"

Daniel: "Well, Mommy likes ALL of my music."

How do you argue with that logic?

And when he was getting in my car he slipped and hit his you know whats and said "Awwww, I smashed my tentacles!" I love that little man:

Saturday, In The Park

After a popcorn, candy, soda filled fest at the Imax in 3D Green Hornet (there were some good laughs and I think the whole IMAX 3D thing made it seem better, if you can get past the bumbling, comedic superhero and don't take it too seriously it was good) me and the grandman, nephew and nieces headed to the park to burn off the sugar and giant (free refill) popcorn.

Ariel (Happy Birthday darlin!)

Athena (ethereal)

Collin (over the top-so deep in thought)

and last but not least Daniel (you made it buddy!)

The girls:

The boys:

The whole crew:

I love you guys!!!!!

New Years Eve Fireworks

Boys will be boys. Here is Mr. H on New Years Eve at my little brother Jay's house. We heard some firecrackers going off down the street...and well....that's all it took.

Notice the awesome headgear worn by Mr. H. The maker is John Hanly & Co., making hats since 1893. Mr. H was asked by a student of his to write a letter of recommendation as the student was applying for an ambassador program where if selected he would travel to Ireland, Scotland and England. The student was selected and brought this beautiful handmade wool tam from Ireland to Mr. H in appreciation. Mr. H wears it backwards which I say does look dashing. It has a brim but little bro calls him Andy Capp when he wears it frontward. I covet it and want to steal it.

Scenes from Christmas

Just a few random shots from Christmas:

My beautiful nieces Athena & Ariel:

And I must apologize here to their dentist/orthodontist for wrapping and taping and wrapping and taping and stapling their $50 bills causing them to use their teeth to try and open the little bundles. It sure was fun to watch tho:

Daniel wearing his new Peyton Manning jersey:

Fun with jello jigglers:

Daniel asking if he could use all of his cash for the ice cream man that haunts the neighborhood with that all too familiar music:

Grandma Lucy trying to stick her fingers up Casey's nose:

Chloe, need I say more:

Daniel helping Grandpa open his presents:

The kids:

Me and my darlings:

Collin & Grandma Lucy:

Good fun and much love.