August and September birthdays (and a photo bomber)

On Sunday we went to Stacia's house in Woburn for her annual BBQ and Lobster fest.

Some years it is earlier in the summer and a few years it has been at the end of the summer.  When that happens, we celebrate the August and September birthdays.  These include Kris, Mark, Janelle, me, and Maria Quinn.  The Quinns always come to the BBQ and Lobster fest, and Maria's birthday is in September, so she is part of the birthday group!

I always want to get a picture of the birthday group, but this is what happens when Paul takes the picture.

He never says when, just starts snapping until I yell at him to tell us when.

Somehow, Mason photo bombed the picture.  His birthday is in June!

If only I could get Paul to tell us WHEN!

Shrub removal and lobstahs!

What a busy day today was!

I have been after Paul for years now to take out our front shrubs. They are HUGE and even when he trims them, he can't get them small enough. They were put in when our house was built in 1973!

One day last week I said to Paul that I wanted to take out all of the front shrubs and plant hydrangeas. Imagine my total shock when he said, "I'll give Ritchie's Tree Service (a local guy) a call and see if he can do it." Ritchie came last Tuesday to see what needed to be done and said that he could probably squeeze us in on Sunday.

They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and got right to it.







I think they had most of the shrubs out by 9:30. It was funny to watch the neighhbors walking by that early in the morning. It was a big event seeing that the Radtkes don't change things much!

Then they had to grind up the roots.



Paul also wanted them to take down a whole lot of vines and a small tree in the back corner of our yard.





They are also trimming the hemlocks.



In the midst of all that excitement, we left to go to Woburn at about 11:00. Stacia was having her yearly BBQ and lobster fest. What a fun time we had there.

We basically ate all day. We had four courses....first appetizers; then Stacia had two main servings trying to accomodate all the different likes and dislikes of hamburgs and hotdogs: then steak tips, Spanish rice, and lobsters; and finally dessert!







In between eating the different course, the kids and men played sports and we all played corn hole.







But....by far the funniest thing that we did was the group picture. Paul set the timer on the camera and had 10 seconds to....run down off the deck, across the yard, and into position for the picture. I think we had only two tries, but as you can see, it made for a good picture because all of us were laughing....except Paul, who was huffing and puffing!



What a busy, fun day.

P.S. Paul has since had Kristen change the timer default to 20 seconds - we all want him to live the next time we have a group picture!

P.P.S. Today marks 4 years of blogging. I started August 19, 2008.......and I STILL LOVE IT!

Happy Mother's Day!

Janelle's mother Stacia invited us to her house in Woburn for Mother's Day this year. I usually do all of the holidays, so it was a nice break for me to just relax. Mark, Janelle, Mason and Marley went down Saturday night, and then the rest of us went Sunday afternoon.

She had a wonderful dinner of kabobs, steak, chicken and shrimp.







This is how we found Paul and Mark after dinner....



A lot of corn hole was played.





Although....someone had to keep Mason occupied because he kept wanting to take the bags off the boards and throw them himself, LOL!



We also celebrated Paul's birthday. The kids had fun decorating the cake; we all sang Happy Birthday and Happy Mother's Day, and blew out the candles.



Thanks, Stacia, for a fun day!

Dinner in Woburn with Stacia and Amy

Last Sunday we were supposed to go to Janelle's mom and sister's house in Woburn. It got cancelled because most of us had colds. This Sunday, even though we were not all 100%, we went and had a wonderful day. Janelle, Mason and Marley went down Saturday night (Mark had to work) and the rest of us went Sunday afternoon. Stacia made a wonderful Italian meal; baked ziti with meatballs and sausages, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. Marley made and decorated (all by herself except for putting it in the oven) the Valentine cake (pictured above). It was delicious.



We also had make your own sundaes, the "ugly hugs" that I made, and cannolis. Amy had gotten a new cotton candy machine and she let us play with it; that was a lot of fun. It was right up Kristen's ally!




Needless to say, we were wonderfully stuffed! Stacia invited Marley to stay overnight again as Mark, Janelle and Mason were staying until Monday (school vacation and President's Day).

Thanks, Stacia and Amy, for a wonderful day!

Pumpkin Carving in Woburn

Janelle's mother, Stacia, for the past few years has invited us all down to her house for a summer cookout, usually in August. This year, for many reasons, we could never come up with a good date until now, so it was decided that we would do pumpkin carving at her house.

While we were getting ready for dinner (which was delicious, by the way), Mason and Marley played outside.





Starting to carve.....



Mason wanted to help.





He thought it was "stinky" though.



Mark and Toby were slackers for awhile. Toby eventually got into it.



So did Mark.





Although we all felt that it was a "marginal" effort that Mark put forth!



This was one of Marley's pumpkins. She also made the one with the cat silhouette.



Kris did her job with the seeds again this year with enthusiasm. Stacia and I helped with this too. This really is one of the worst jobs!





Janelle's sister, Amy, has Rock Band for PlayStation and we all had fun playing with this.





In the end, these were our carvers.....




And these were our jack-o-lanterns.



What a really fun day. Thanks Stacia for hosting this!!