Mel's Two Cents for the Day

According to IEA and MIT databases (says website thisisreality.org), "the coal industry is spending millions advertising clean coal, but not a single clean coal power plant exists in the US today." And proposed coal-power plants in the pipeline won't be capturing pollutants like the advertizing claims, either.

How do we address the coal problem? I think we need to give a cap & trade system a try. When the price of coal-generated electricity includes the environmental costs normally outboarded to taxpayers (somebody's paying for river cleanups, associated health costs, etc and it's not the power companies....) it will be much easier to transition to truely cleaner sources as a country....

Let's do it! :)

It's Spring Fever

Spring has sprung (finally!!) and it feels GREAT!!! I took this photo last weekend, but noticed today that one daffodil is already blooming! I was starting to worry about these guys because I was seeing daffodils in full bloom all over town 3 weeks ago.... mine were just being patient I think :).
Uncle John visited Mom & Dad last weekend and look what he made! It's a hanging birdfeeder, which you fill by sliding the chimney out of the way. Beautiful project, just like my grandfather's woodworking.

We also went to a local theater, Frontier Cafe, for dinner and to see a film on genetically modified

food. Eaters beware! I could go on and on about this... but let's just leave it at this: they made agent orange and still insist its not harmful to people - so let's be honest, they're not trying to save the world with gm foods, they're trying to make money by ensuring people have to use their other product, RoundUp. Write to your representatives and ask for federally mandated labeling of GM foods. You're eating it right now without being informed, and it's wreaking havic on our environment and our food supplies. We've got to stop it.

So on that positive note... we're looking forward to Farmer's Market back outside at the farm, with lots of fresh, local vegis!

Off to spend the rest of the day outside in the garden - gotta take advantage of these spring days when it's warm and sunny!

Quarter of a Century

Brian reminisces on this big day: "Things were simpler 25 years ago. Gas was cheap, Michael Jackson had a nose, and I [Brian] was the youngest child." Then came Stacy! And besides a traumatic incident (allegedly) involving a phone to the head, every day has been better with her here.

So we celebrated this momentous milestone together last weekend. It was such a milestone it required two cakes!

Stacy gets new running shoes!
Eric surprised Stacy with a song for her birthday (the first song he's learned to play on the guitar - nice work Eric!!)

Then we ventured outside to try out our new Ladder Toss game we got at Christmas. You score points by wrapping the bolas (golf balls connected with a piece of rope) around a rung on the ladder.


And Brian's cousin Kelley & husband Bobby came up to visit - their son Brody was the center of attention!

Happy Birthday Stacy!!!

Easter Feasting

We invited the families over to our house this year for the Easter Feast. It started with a few great scores at the winter farmer's market: potatoes (of which we cooked WAY too many, although I thought that would be impossible!), beets, and carrots. I thought the mix of yellow and orange carrots was pretty...And a ham from Bisson's market.
And then the Moms & Scott brought a few goodies to round out the dinner and dessert menu
Here's Brian "helping" with dinner....
... but this is what he was really doing while dinner was cooking - attacking Grammy & Grampy with balls!
Quick Grammy - get him!Lunch ended up being about an hour later than planned (there was some miscalculating of how long a ham takes to cook... I'll blame that on the fact that it's our the first time cooking anything 12 pounds!) But other than that everything was great!
Dessert was great - so great Mom couldn't even wait until she sat at the table to sample the treats! (To be fair, if I hadn't been holding the camera, there would have been a photo of me doing the same thing!)
Mmmmmm, dessert! Scott made delicious fudge, but it didn't make the picture (probably because I had eaten it already).
And a photo of us... we made it through our first big holiday meal at our house; and we both agreed it was a great success!


We also got these sweet Easter treats from Isabella, Gianna, and Andy in the mail - Thanks for thinking of us kiddos (and Laura & Mike)!!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Scrap Happy

A few things I've made in the past month or so... mostly rainy weekend projects :)

This one was a can of pancake mix, but I thought it'd make a perfect tool cup!
This page has been in the making for a while. I knew I wanted a lot of photos on this one page because we look 20 or so shots on the steps trying to get it just right... had to show how we got to that final shot :)

And a recent photo... this one of me and my sis :)

That's it for now, but with plenty of rainy spring weekends in our future, I'm sure there will be more.

post number two hundred

Hard to believe we've found 200 reasons to make posts to our blog!! (Even harder to believe there's a few of you out there still reading it!! -wink wink)

"Thank you" to those of you that follow along with our everyday adventures. We enjoy sharing our memorable moments with you, and LOVE when we get comments (hint hint... there are a few moms out there that check but don't comment - yes, you!)

(yes, this is from a few weeks ago.... the winter beard doesn't grow back that fast)