What? Two nieces with birthdays in the same week?

Today, my niece, Alayna, became a legal adult. She can now vote! This young lady is a senior at the local public high school, serves as an officer for her class, is in the church choir and attends Bible study with her Aunt Lynn, Grandma K, and friend, Linda J, whom we share. Alayna also works at the public library. How does she do it? She is fired up by Starbucks! Happy birthday, Sweetheart!

Justin is brushing his cousins' gorgeous hair. She has the best head of hair I have ever seen although I have never styled it like Justin did!

Here is Alayna as a little girl, sitting on Justin's lap. Because I did not live in Manitowoc when she was born or growing up, I have fewer pictures of her than I have of Lisa. Sorry, sweetheart! But the ones I have do show my Justin in them, too, so that might make up for it. This was taken at Grandma K's house, when she lived in the duplex, so at least 12 years ago.

Now that her hair is all brushed, it is time to make some toast.

You cannot sit around eating and watching TV all day! There are chores to attend to.....teamwork, people, teamwork!

Alayna is flanked by her two cousins, Justin and Dustin, and her by her dear friend, Grandma K!

Kerry and Alayna share a chuckle at Lori's house this summer at Dusty's graduation party.
Alayna and Justin are wallflowers at Lynn's surprise birthday party last year in September.
Here is Alayna in her prom dress from last spring. She is a vision of beauty in yellow, her favorite color! Justin did not fix her hair for this event....
Alayna and her mama, Kerry, taken at Time Out at one of our family gatherings. Look at that child's, excuse me, now adult, gorgeous hair. How much you want to bet she will never spike her hair when she is old like me!

Friday's observations

My friend, Jami, wrote her blog last night declaring that she was exceptionally grumpy but writing anyway. While I am not normally grumpy, I do have my moments, you know? (I am the only one allowed to use the "you know" at the end of a sentence!) So, today while at home and later while taking care of errands I made some observations of my own----

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The obvious report which boggled my brain was the announcement out of Oslo. Later on, Fox News showed the entire footage of a car chase, actually a truck chase, taking place in Dallas, TX. Why? What was so interesting about that? It was not even all high-speed, more like a Sunday afternoon ride in the country with a trail of squad cars trying to keep up. Finally, a police truck got positioned in front of the run away truck and caused it to run off the road. What did this driver do? Left a gas station after filling up with out paying for the gas. All these police cars and the helicopter used a good deal of fuel themselves. Really, ten police cars?

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I was annoyed by the sound of the A/C turning on when it is set up to 81 degrees. That just is not right to have it turn on when I am not even hot, it should be matter of personal comfort and not numbers. Of course, it was quite hot today with the heat indexes reaching about 105 degrees. Further, the painters are trying everything to get the paint splashes and such cleaned up, today using a huge pressure washer. I was so jealous of him, getting to use a P/W all afternoon, but the racket was awful.

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I went off on a quest for the best price for Diet Coke and found it at CVS drug store. Also secured some Junior Mints for my movie watching tonight, as I am expecting Brenda N. to come over. Seinfeld reference: "Who's gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It's chocolate, it's peppermint, it's delicious. It's very refreshing." "My Life In Ruins" came out on DVD this week so off I went to secure that. Justin and I had gone to see that when it first came out in the theaters and he has been counting the days until it was released for home use. I so 'cited!

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Before I headed for home, I stopped at the bank, rather, the credit union, to deposit my check. Being Friday and having Monday a bank holiday, the lines were considerable. No sweat for me, I am a good waiter, but sadly I had to watch those others around me who were also waiting. Along side of me was a slim lady with long blond hair, her arm draped out the window with a cigarette hanging from her fingers. In the backseat of her car were two car seats, thankfully empty. As I pulled forward, the lady in the car next to me was in a PT Cruiser, a grizzled grey haired lady, complete with a cigarette hanging off her lips! Ew! The car next to her also had a woman smoking a long cigarette. Where do the people get the money for such expenditures?

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At the Blockbuster store a poor mama was in there with a group of kids, possibly not all her own, hopefully not all her own. As the cashier was ringing me up, we heard this rather pronounced crash from the back of the store. She spoke to her co-worker about a table being knocked over and he said, "I heard it...." From under a display toward the front of the store came a little boy crawling, peeking from beneath the black tablecloth. That would have been a huge mess to clean up if it went over! Oh, he was such a cutie pie! I could have just scooped him up and kissed his little cheeks!!!!

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Huh, what do you know? I am out of things to be grumpy about!