Pysanky on the River 2022

We were up early this morning to hit the Ukrainian Museum Archives in Cleveland. Surprisingly the bathroom lighting was pretty good—I love Hampton Inn!

I bought a new necklace there (because I broke my necklace on the way here).

With my mom at the museum.

Then it was off to State Meats and eating lunch at Mama Maria’s Ukrainian Kitchen!

Pierogi, potato pancake, and a slaw.

Then we visited a Ukrainian cathedral (to see the gold spires in the sun), grabbed a donut across the street, and then some ice cream at the Honey Hut!

Then it was back to the hotel to grab our stuff to setup for the event!

OMG all the “naked eggs” for sale… Typically you’d have to blow them all out yourself and it’s not complicated but it is a lot of work. These were already blown out and cleaned! And on sale! For less than it would cost to even buy them in the store! Turns out the vendor was getting out of the egg business and just wanted them gone. Stay tuned to see just how many I ended up buying!!!

And then I bought my Christmas present! A goose egg from Pysanky Master Lorrie Popow! It’s absolutely stunning. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it!

I asked her how she could even see to do that and she said “When my eyes were younger!” I eventually looked through her Facebook page to see if I could find it to see when she did it…and it was 2012!!

Lorrie Popow: LorriePopow.com and on Facebook

Dave and Buster’s!

We finally took the kids to Dave and Buster’s for the first time today! They had gotten a gift certificate from Anna for their birthdays last year that we’d forgotten about. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it because I knew from other people’s stories that it’s usually crazy busy and loud and I assumed the food would be blah. Thankfully I was wrong!

I’m sure it’s due to the state of the world, but it was practically empty! And the menu looked pretty good (especially the drink menu)! My margarita was yummy!

Anna did warn us that we’d spend more money than we’d want to and we just needed to let it go and let the kids have fun (LOL). We didn’t go crazy with the games—and we did make them pay for a tiny part of it—but yeah, that was an expensive lunch. Hopefully they have lasting memories of it!

And also, now Dave and Buster’s gift cards are a great gift to give!!

P.S. This drink was DELICIOUS and we need to try and recreate it at home:

CARIBBEAN LUXE LONG ISLAND TEA
Don Julio Reposado Tequila, Grey Goose Vodka, Bacardi Superior Rum, Grand Marnier, mango puree, scratch sour mix and cranberry juice.

Amazing USMC Pysanky

(This was actually on March 10.)

I made an ostrich egg for my son-in-law. He retired from the United States Marine Corps last year. I had so many issues with this project and want to thank one of my egg peeps, Mark Malachowski, for all his help! We were able to travel this weekend so I could gift him with it. It was, by far, the most challenging Pysanky I’ve ever done.

Congratulations Tom!

And some photos of the whole process!

The best part about Christmas Eve?

Friends, an amazing pizza (from leftover fish tacos that that boys gave me grief about but IT was freaking delicious!), and our first dip in the hot tub! Merry Christmas!

Butter and garlic crust, Tilapia, and cheese… Cooked then topped with lime crema slaw and Pico. Yuuuuum.

This pic makes the hot tub look soooo much bigger than it really is. It would be a stretch to have three adults in it at the same time—four would have everyone’s knees touching for sure!

And then we did the Saran wrap ball for the kids! We had about $60 worth of stuff in it!

And it was great fun…

Until two kids weren’t getting anything.

Don’t worry, they all ended up with stuff—and some trading was done. But it definitely wasn’t perfect.

And then I tried to get a Santa hat picture but Katie wasn’t really being cooperative. Oh well—it just makes memories!

Past year’s pics!

The bar is coming along…

We absolutely love our bar and it’s totally amazing…but it was missing a few things.

We really wanted footrests—so dad and Linda offered to pay for them as a housewarming gift! Tom installed them today and they are perfection!

And I’ve always wanted a slot machine and long story short we looked at a few (and I adjusted my expectations) and we decided on this one (it’s not crazy noisy)! The kids are going to go crazy! (That isn’t quite the final resting place—Tom will build something.)

More things are coming, too!! I can’t wait!

I love it when you find THE perfect gift!!

My mom friends have been doing ninja porch drop offs with random gifts every so often (it’s hilarious what some will do to try and avoid the Ring)!! And I’ve been wanting to return the favors but just couldn’t come up with the right thing. Then I hit on these tumblers. It took awhile to decide on the perfect saying but once I found this one I knew that was it! (Piper Lou has great stuff and great deals, BTW.)

Needless to say we’re all looking forward to using them together again this summer!

Owen’s birthday present!

We just gave Owen his birthday present—a personalized video from a YouTuber we watch all the time—and he freaking loved it! (If you don’t watch Charlie on YouTube, you should.)

Here’s the original video if you want to watch without Owen’s reaction.

If you want your own personalized video from any number of people, check out Cameo.

Katie’s card for Tom

So long story short, the kids didn’t get anything for Tom for Christmas because I told them it was up to them to give me some ideas and tell me when they wanted to go shopping. It never happened because, well, kids. And it’s always all about them.

Of course we don’t care if we get anything from them, but we’re trying to teach them to think about others. ON THEIR OWN.

So when I asked on Christmas Eve what they had gotten for him, they both looked so sad. I suggested they make him cards with coupons in them—which they both liked but didn’t get around to actually doing until today after I’d reminded them TWICE. And when they eventually did sit down to do it, they still didn’t really grasp the concept of coupons. And of course they didn’t really want to listen to me because they know everything. And I kind of hoped that a lightbulb would go off for Owen (because he hadn’t gotten me anything and was sad about it when he realized it) but nope. No lightbulb whatsoever.

So anyway—look at all the options Katie gave him of things he can choose. Yep, they’re pretty much all stuff she wants to do. Merry Christmas?!

Sidenote: Owen went shopping with Tom to get Katie something but didn’t think to get me anything. Gramma Jean asked him what he got me and he just hung his head and looked ashamed.

I guess 7:15 wasn’t too bad.

Tom and I had both taken Tylenol PM so we were both zonked in the morning when the kids came in together at 7:15 with a loud MERRY CHRISTMAS and hopped in bed with us! We always leave their phones outside their doors so they can let us sleep longer but apparently 30 minutes was all they could handle!

I must be slacking on my old age because I didn’t take any pictures! But they started with their stockings and were thrilled to find a ton of Lego Minifigure packs so they started building those right away! Before we knew it, this is what the room looked like (and I think this is after one mid-opening cleaning).

Santa brought the kids a few things they asked for so they were thrilled—Owen got a game for his computer (he was super sneaky and actually installed it on the computer!) and some video game cash and Katie got some dolls she asked for.

Katie was proud of her wrapping job. And she knows me…it was a stemless wineglass that said BEST MOM EVER.

Then we video chatted with both sets of grandparents AND had a zoom call with the Schwalmlettes. (We might have been a little unprepared since we were thinking it was noon our time. But it was noon Eastern. I am never going to get used to being CST.)

We got my bucket list tree!

I have always wanted a huge Christmas tree! My dad used to get a 2-story tree and I loved it. My cousin gets a 2-story tree and I love it. But we’ve just never had the room for one—and even if we did at one point…the next house we moved to might not fit it. So when we found our forever house and it has super tall ceilings, I knew what was going to happen. But of course I didn’t want to spend the $900 Costco was asking for their 14′ tree, so I figured I would wait until the clearance sales after the holidays and see what deals I could get.

Well…Costco was out of trees by mid-November so there would be no discount Costco tree. Sam’s Club was even out of them! So I resigned myself to probably paying full price next year.

And then Tom and I ran into Sam’s this morning and while we were browsing…I saw my 12′ slim tree on clearance for $259! WHAAAAAT?!?! Yes, please!

And the best part? Dad and Linda had wanted to get us a housewarming present and we hadn’t really been able to think of anything perfect…so the tree was our gift! It’s soooo perfect!!!

I don’t have any decorations for it but those will come with further clearance sales!!

ADDENDUM: Two days later Anna was at Sam’s Club and told me it was reduced even more so I went back and got $100 credited!

Katie’s teacher gift drop off!

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and…end of year I guess?! Mrs. Hansen got some beauty goodies from me and, well, since it’s Cinco de Mayo she also got margaritas (plus Katie’s memory book to write in). She only lives about a mile from us—and probably less as the crow flies.

Lest you think I forgot Owen’s teacher…I delivered hers last week! That was a story in itself. I transposed her address so I actually dropped off the gift—and Owen’s book!—at the wrong house!!! There were a few moments of panic on my end because Owen’s book is irreplaceable and I kept thinking WHAT IF… Plus with the Corona thing, it’s not like she could just go knock on the other person’s door! And I felt horrible that I screwed it up. Well, some quick googling got me property records and a name which got me to LinkedIn where I recognized the guy who had been inside the screen door at a desk (I had just assumed it was her husband) and his posted resume had a phone number! I called and left a message explaining everything…and he called back almost immediately—he had been talking to her! She had walked down and they had a nice chat! In a bizarre turn of events, his daughter’s name was Heather and she was a teacher so he just thought it was a gift for her and didn’t even think anything of it! But he was very nice about it and even joked about enjoying the margaritas!

I’m going to be counting rainbows.

Cleaning out my work armoire on this dumpster fire of a still-sheltering-at-home/first-official-day-of-distance-learning Monday, I found this lovely gift from a friend that got hidden away. I figure now is the best time to open it and get to work remembering everything I have and am grateful for.

To that end, as I was standing thinking about the journal, a really great song came on Alexa so I started crazy dancing which got Katie dancing which eventually even got Owen dancing!! We must have sounded like a herd of elephants to Tom working downstairs in the office, because he came up you see what the hell was going on.

Owen’s birthday shirt…adventure.

Owen’s birthday is coming up next week so I thought I’d make this awesome shirt I saw on Etsy. I only had one snafu but on the bright side I learned how to do something. Do you see it?

I posted this pic on Facebook and a friend pointed out that seconds and minutes were in the wrong order. Gahhhhhhhh!! So I learned how to remove vinyl…

And then printed more text and fixed it.

P.S. If you’ve thought about getting the Cricut heat press, do it. It’s soooo worth it.

Gramma’s pics from Christmas in Grayling.

I forgot my mom gave me her pics so now they’re out of order. But all these were from our trip.

Owen gave us a saxophone performance.

And some silliness…

Katie decided to go barefoot in the snow like cousin Anna did one year.

Owen in two of his presents.

The family picture.

Katie was being kinda a stinker and left this sad note for Santa.