Art in the Park

This weekend was a crazy one! On Friday I worked a car wash fundraiser for my work which was exhausting and then played softball that evening where we won 18-6. It was fun! On Saturday I was up early because it was MOVING DAY! Yay! As excited as I was, I'm not sure I was prepared for the amount of work that had to be done this day! The lucky part for all of us was that I was moving about a mile and a half away so the trips back and forth were easy. However, the heavy duty lifting and carrying that my Dad and Andy did were incredible and I can't thank them enough for doing that difficult work. I also have to send a HUGE "thank you" to my Mom who helped me out so much. She packed up my kitchen and set it up in my new place. (She did way more than that too) She is incredible! I am so blessed to have my parents and the Lieser's in my life. Thank you all for helping! And thanks to Jill for allowing Andy to help me move while she spent a Saturday with the kids. If anyone is wondering where my sister and Ben were in all of this moving fun, well, they went to Chicago for the weekend. Great planning guys...haha! JK, they didn't know my moving date when they booked their trip! We missed them! *I will post some pictures of the new place soon. I have so much organizing to do before it looks good enough for pictures. :)

Today, Jill called me and asked if they could stop by for a visit (to see the new place) and if I was interested in going to Art in the Park with them. It was practically across the street from my new place and it was a beautiful day so I was up for the fun! Jill, Andy, Catelyn and Connor arrived to my place shortly after she called with breakfast (thank you) and after that we headed over to the park. We walked around and looked at some beautiful art (way out of my price range) and then we walked Catelyn over to the playground so she could run around. Here are some pictures of all of us on the playground. It was a great day!

Thanks for a great day! It was so much fun!

I Scream, You Scream....

We all scream for Ice Cream!!! :)

Last night I joined the Lieser clan for Ice Cream at Handel's and it was quite delicious! MMMM! I had my camera so I took a few pictures of the Lieser's enjoying their delicious ice cream! (thank goodness no one took my picture...hehe) Sorry, Connor for not taking your picture. Some day, before long, you will be enjoying ice cream with all of us!

Jill

Andy (doesn't he look happy I took his picture...)

Catelyn and her Vanilla with Sprinkles!
MMM! Someone loves their Ice Cream!!

St. Colman's

One of the people who attends the soup kitchen my family volunteers at a few times a month took a picture of us one day before we started serving the meal and I wanted to post the picture on my blog.

Don't we look like we are hard at work? :)

In the picture: Me, our friend Megan, Lisa, Mom & Dad (oh and Megan's mom is in the kitchen)

St. Colman's has been such a great thing for me to experience. I have been blessed to meet some amazing people and to hear their stories is quite incredible. The gift of service is such an incredible one and I am so lucky to be able to do this with my family. There are so many times in our lives when we need help and I think it's such a neat thing when we can provide help to someone else, even if they don't always appreciate it. Their lives are so much more difficult than I could ever imagine but many of them are thankful for what they do have and for those who providing a listening ear or helping hand and they never fall short of making that known to all they encounter.

Always thank God for all the many blessing you have in your life! They may seem trivial to you but to others they are things they may never have!

16 weeks

These pictures really are just to show the change in Lisa as she goes through her pregnancy, however as you will note after seeing this picture, Lisa doesn't look any different than she did the last time I took her picture at 12 weeks. hehe! Although when we were leaving the concert she looked a little bigger! :)

I will post the pictures anyways so we can look back and smile about how small she was! She is 16 weeks today!! Yay baby! Oh and this will make everyone laugh; we had to take the pictures in the handicap bathroom stall at TGI Friday's because there wasn't anywhere else to take the picture since we were heading to Blossom for the concert. We laughed pretty hard about it!

You can see Lisa's laughing in this first picture:

In this trimester it says that she should gain between 12 & 14 pounds so by the next picture in 4 weeks we should see a bigger change in her belly! Her little munchkin is about the size of an avocado right now! It will double it's weight and add inches to it's length during this trimester!! Sweet!! At her next appointment, towards the end of the month, she should get an ultrasound and we will be able to see the little Bebe! Can't wait!!

Broadway Today

A few years back Lisa and Ben went to see the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center as they were playing music from Lord of the Rings (one of Ben's favorite movies). A week or so ago Lisa mentioned to me that the Cleveland Orchestra was playing music from many of the top Broadway musicals and wondered if I was interested in going. I said "sure", as I had never seen an orchestra before except for at an actual Broadway musical. It also dawned on me that Lisa and I's good friend, Megan, was going to be in town visiting from Philadelphia and we invited her along.

The weather turned out to be fantastic and we got to see such a great show! There were 4 vocalists at the show who performed songs from many of the great musicals. Many of these vocalists were from actual Broadway shows which was a real treat for many people there! They sang songs from Jesus Christ Superstar, Jekyll & Hyde, The Lion King, Mama Mia, Wicked and many others. I enjoyed the entire show! It was also great to spend some time with Megan as we do not get to see her as often as we would like. Philly is a good drive from here! :) We will get out there someday though! We are so happy for her and all the great things that are happening in her life right now! She is more than deserving of it!!

I took some pictures of the three of us, of Blossom and I also posted a couple videos of the orchestra and vocalists! You can't see much but you get idea of the music that was played. Oh and AMANDA you better watch the second video; I'm sure you will laugh. You can hear me on the video saying that you'll get a kick out of the song. And I tried to get Lisa saying "hi" to you but the camera was zoomed in really close on her face and I couldn't get it to zoom out. You can see by her reaction that I was trying to fix the camera and she wasn't sure what was going on. Sorry about that! :) Enjoy though!!

The Lion King - Circle of Life


A flash back in time - some memories just never fade....


Wicked - For Good (my favorite musical and one of my favorite songs from it)

Cheese!!!

I took a few pictures of my god daughter, Catelyn, the other day when I was visiting and wanted to post them on my blog! There is even one of the two of us. I turned it into a black and white photo. I thought it was cute!

Exciting News!!

Tomorrow I am going to sign the papers and pick out carpet for my new Condo!! YAY!! I am purchasing my first home! How exciting!!! I am a little nervous but who isn't when they buy their first home! The condo has 2 bedrooms and 1 & 1/2 baths! (maybe I'll get my first cat too....hehe)

I will post more when I know my moving date!

More Posts, Oh my!!

I will combine Sunday and today's post into one! :) They are short!

On Sunday morning I drove out to Chippewa Lake to attend 8:30am mass with my parents! It was a nice "after the 4th" celebration and much joy and thanksgiving to be celebrated. A sweet little girl from our church "Avery" made her first communion at this particular mass and it was such a joy to see her celebrate a milestone in her young life! She is a little firecracker and is always entertaining! The choir played and sang great music that reminded us of the sacrifice Jesus made for us and of the sacrifice so many soldiers are making today so that we can have freedom! We are so blessed!

After mass we had a wonderful breakfast, as usual, with a few fellow friends and caught up on the events going on in our lives. After that I went over to the lake to head out on the boat for a little bit. I hadn't been on the lake once this year and figured I better try and get out there while we had a nice day! My dad came out with me and I took just a couple pictures from the lake (none of me, thank goodness..haha):

Today, Monday, I had the day off as well! Wow, Am I lucky or what?!?! A five day break from work! My sister, who is off from teaching until the end of the month, came over for the afternoon and we spent some time just hanging out. It was great to be with her! We went to lunch at Panera (something she was craving) and then did some shopping at Walmart and TJ Maxx! I picked up this sweet little outfit for my niece or nephew:


I'm sure you can't read the bib but it says "Give Peas a Chance" and the little onesie says "sweet pea" above the polka dots. It was a great deal at TJ Maxx and I couldn't pass it up! lol! Auntie is hooked! :)

Rhododendron Craziness!!

We are so lucky to have the parents we do! My dad is an all around "handy man" and my mom is the resident plant enthusiast. haha! My sister and Ben really used their skills on Saturday!

On Friday when we were over for their cookout my dad began talking about this horrible Rhododendron Tree Lisa and Ben have at the back of their house. Someone long ago planted this tree and it took over most of the back of their house. They have this cute sun room on the back of the house but it never received any sun inside because of this stinkin' tree! :) Here is a picture I took of the tree on Friday at their cookout:

Wow! Can you believe that?!?! Look at that thing!! So after talking about it some more my Dad asked Lisa what they had going on on Saturday and she said "nothing" so he said, "Me and your mom (or just me) are going to come up here tomorrow and get that thing out of here". My mom wasn't keen on the whole idea of cutting it down completely but after seeing the inside of it, there wasn't much of an option! She had to succumb to their decision to gain a larger backyard and utilize their sun room! :)

On Saturday afternoon the work began and continued until dinner time! They accomplished a lot of work. Lisa and Mom pulled all the weeds from around the backyard (which was a lot) and Ben and Dad battled with the Rhododendron tree! I had earlier plans and didn't arrive until a little later on in the day but got my hands slightly dirty by helping break branches in half. Here is the "after" picture of where the Rhododendron was previously:

It's incredible! I can't believe how much of a difference it makes now that the tree is gone! They filled a ton of trash bags with this tree and even have a ton of firewood to use in their fire pit! I know they are so glad that they removed the tree and have the opportunity to possibly plant grass to increase their yard space or plant smaller items around the back of the house. Kids love a yard to play in and now they have a bigger one than before! I love how the sun shines in the sun room now! Here are more pictures of the crew working hard on Saturday:

hehe!!

Ben and Lisa treated everyone to Pizza for dinner and the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 before we all got super tired and some of us had to head home in our different directions! It was a nice day!!

Happy 4th of July

There will be plenty of posts from this long holiday weekend!! :)

My holiday weekend started off early because I had Thursday off!! Phew, it was so nice to begin the relaxing early! I went out to my parents on Thursday to visit with them. We went to dinner and did a quick run at the grocery store to get a few items for the 4th of July cookout Lisa and Ben were having at their place.

On Friday Dad and I went over to Grandma's (at the lake) to visit her before we headed up to Lisa and Ben's for the day. We had to go over early because Chippewa Lake has a parade for the holiday and they close the road and you can't get out until it's over! So while we were visiting her we asked her if she wanted to go to Lisa and Ben's for the day and she said she didn't have anything else planned so she decided to come along. She had never been able to make the trip up to their place in the almost 2 years they have been their so it was nice that she could do that.

We got to their place and sat around outside just talking and enjoying the nice weather. Ben fired up the grill and we had plenty to eat. Good burgers, hotdogs, potatoes, veggies, corn on the cob, etc. They even treated us to some good vanilla ice cream and strawberries for dessert! MMM!!

Here are some pictures from the 4th!! Hope everyone had a great holiday with their families and friends! We are truly blessed to live in the country we live in!

The home of Ben & Lisa Baranovic

Sitting around

Mom taking pictures

Lisa

The GRILL :)

The Grill Master!

Me and Grandma (a little too close)

Checking out the garden


Bird Bath


Lisa in her garden