wordless wednesday

Lego

Kids around the world play with Legos for a total of 5 billion hours a year! Happy 50th Birthday Lego -our life wouldn't be the same without you...

Salamander from the canoe

Hard to believe that just a bit over a week ago we had 12 inches of snow on the ground, and spring was but a dream...well with 12 inches of snow in late April you also get grass that grows like a weed. So my super husband Lars was mowing the lawn late this afternoon, and when he moved the canoe he made a spring time discovery. There hanging out like he was ready for a paddle was a salamander. Ben put it in the typical lawn pet container (Tupperware) and then did a bit of googling to see what it was and could they touch it. this is what you need to kow if you find one too.

Clean your hands and if you decide to keep it you have to keep it for life.

Have no fear, we did let it go, because the last thing this family needs is another pet!

Charlie loved it, and once we convinced him not to squeeze it he didn't want to stop playing with it. I LOVE BOYS! check it out - my first blogger video!

random questions?

have you ever checked out the random questions section under blogger profile?

this one is my favorite so far...

You forgot your mom's birthday! What can you make out of super glue and olive pits?

Tiger Badge Award

Lines are for nature and seeing well,the red dot is for courage, and we aren't sure about the blue paw print...

Big Pack meeting for Ben, he had his Tiger Badge Awards ceremony. I knew it was a big thing but when he came home all painted I was a bit taken back. Did I send him off with his dad to some warrior man session? My only involvement was the Derby Race and you know how shocked I was after that experience, so let's just say it was a good thing I was sitting down when he came home...

Don't get me wrong former cub scouts... this has been a great experience for him and at the ripe age of 6 3/4 he announced that he wants to go all the way, and stick it thru to Eagle Scout. When asked why he said he really liked all the "neat stuff" they do, hanging out with his friends and earning patches. Hopefully some day doing "stuff" for his community will also be at the top of why he loves being a Scout!

wordless wednesday

snow is back

Kids always help you find the good in any situation so when the snow started to fall and kept falling I had to smile at the joy it brought them. There was a great snowball fight with the Mack's as they departed, and then it sunk in that it had snowed 9 inches already and it wasn't stopping. Remember it is April 18th and we don't live in Denver!

Any other snow fall and I probably wouldn't have cared, but I've been working so hard in my yard to get ready for Elisabeth's 70th birthday tea in the garden. At least it will be green and cleaned up if droopy.

Smilebox did the best job capturing the fun...

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

wormies

There is something so magical about a little boy when he first discovers that the earth is full of worms. Charlie carries them around by the fist full. Then Ben comes along with a tub to put them in so he can store what he's found and get more. The real fun begins when we try to convince Charlie that the worms need to go back to find their mommies in the garden...

This got me thinking about Ben and his first worms so I headed deep in to the archives of 20k plus photos and by some miracle dug up this great photo. Ben at age 2 with his first worms. Notice he would only hold them by their tails

happy to be home with the Paklets

Earth Month

it's Earth Month and my good buddy Megan Sears sent me the best link to help do my part and I had to share. click on the link below and pick out the catalogs you no longer wish to receive. Since I was gone this week I had quite the stack of catalogs! I sat down with the stack and took them off one at a time. Best of all you can check the status of the opt-out and even if it takes 10 weeks it was worth the 5 minutes it took, the trees I will save and even the money I'm no longer tempted to spend :)

www.catalogchoice.org

The Friendly skies

It’s been a long time since I had a trip that brought a smile to my face without my family, or a fantastic destination. And even more amazing given that there are 10’s of thousands of people in airports all over the world cursing about the American Airlines mass cancellations because of grounded planes.

But as I fly home from Charlotte I can’t help but smile. I’m in the back of the bus as they say, and normally I wouldn’t be so happy about that. However, there is nobody sitting in the middle seat and I’m sitting on a direct flight from Charlotte to Seattle after being bumped when my flight with a layover in Denver was oversold. Darn J

I’m sure that you are scratching your head thinking Marla has lost her mind talking about a direct flight bringing a smile to her face but that isn’t the whole story. It started with a very early rise to catch my 6 am flight to Atlanta on Monday. I arrive at the airport to find I’ve been upgraded to first class which not only gets me the bigger seat, but the much shorter security line which during spring break is a real bonus.

Next up Denver to Atlanta – it’s Masters Week so Atlanta is a hot spot and not being a golfer this doesn’t click right away. But it doesn’t take long to notice the throngs of 50 something golf enthusiasts and how rude they are being. The flight is full of “Premier” United members all flexing their muscle and basically being rude because of the oversold flight causing seat changes. The people watching was great! I board the plane as a dutiful passenger and shortly after we are all seated a ticket agent comes on and asks for one volunteer. I couldn’t jump out of my seat fast enough because I had been seated next to one of the biggest “muscle flexors” and wanted away from him about as much if not more than I wanted a free ticket.

I’m quickly rebooked on a Frontier Airlines flight and find myself with hours to kill. Not only do I have the free ticket, but Megan offers to drive out and visit with me over a meal while I wait. Can it get better?

Frontier Airlines – if you’ve never flown them because like me you thought it was a low budget southwest like airline with animals on the tail wing think again. Nice forest green leather seats, Direct TV at every seat and flight attendants dressed in modern twin sets and sweater. Not looking like the soodo pilot being sported by the attendants on my current US Airways flight.

Atlanta… holy crazy airport, but the beauty of being bumped from my flight is that my luggage is waiting and I could jump right out to the Avis bus. Guess who’s waiting at Avis? More of the muscle flexors and their bad attitudes… assigned a small car for them and their 4 buddies and accompanying golf clubs and luggage. So what do you think I get? That’s right the Lincoln Town car ~ brings a smile to my face just thinking about it. As many of you know last year was the worst travel year of my life. Between lost luggage (8 or 9 times) and almost every flight delayed and some canceled. I saw this as another opportunity to improve my travel Karma and went back to offer up my car to someone who needs more space. Guess what this gets me… a convertible! Too bad with the raining pollen I was scared to put the top down.

Spend a great day catching up with TJ and meeting with one of his accounts. My meeting is awesome and I then head off to the airport for my flight to Charlotte for BD&A meeting #2. I’m very early and end up sitting next to this fantastic family from Australia on a 6 week holiday – 13 year old, 10 year old and the parents. I wanted to be in this family, and envied them for having so much time to take such a proper holiday. I won’t bore you with the details of their trip, but they will see more of this country than 90% of those living here do in a lifetime.

And now here I sit on the plane, scheduled to arrive a few minutes early and several hours before my original flight. Travel life has turned a corner for this pen, bag, paper, magnet, Mousepad, flashlight, lighter, drinkware schlepping traveler!!!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

I have 2 great friends who are serious and I mean serious KU basketball fans. This is the email I got from one of them today along with the above photo of her and her candle. Please note the red eyes after tears of joy flowed like a river - love it!

Just wanted to share my excitement with everybody about KU winning the championship last night over Memphis! Wowsa....what a game! I nearly didn't make it through the last 3 minutes, but somehow they pulled it out and beat a really good Memphis team. But, the best thing by far is that I was FINALLY able to light my Jayhawk candle after 20 years of waiting. For those of you that know me pretty well... you know that I live & die by Jayhawk basketball. IF you are wondering why I am sending you a picture of a burning candle...here is the short version of the story. Almost 20 years ago I bought this candle in Lawrence, KS. My friends all wondered why I would never burned this candle...I told them that I was going to wait until we won another National Championship. I have moved that candle from Lawrence, KS to Kansas City and then out to Seattle with me. It has been a long 20 years, but I finally got to burn my candle last night and it was glorious! ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!

Jennifer

Phone booths, record players, developing film ...

We were out at Legion's Park today getting outside before the rain came back and stumbled upon a phone booth. Can't remember the last time I saw one of those, so I forced the Paklets in there for a photo... (ended up with one Paklet and an almost Paklet Nate Ross)

This got Lars and I thinking about how many other things would seem "old fashioned" and what our generation would be remember for - born before the Internet, born before the digital camera, born before the music video, before the iPod... There are so many things our kids won't know - LP's, waiting for your vacation pictures to come back from the photo processing hut etc, and then so many things that will be developed from now until they have kids... I'd love to see some comments on what else we are missing ~