Fun » The Fintons

We like dogs and fried dough

Aug 112010

Well as I have eluded to last weekend being an interesting weekend, that’s to say the least. We had 7 dogs here that we were watching, as well as the chicks and the cats. So pretty much our entire life was consumed with animals. Honestly, we enjoyed it. No, we wouldn’t want to do it every weekend, but yes, they were fun. And pretty freaking cute.

Erik loves Lizzy. Okay well maybe it’s me. Okay maybe it’s everyone. She is the best little dog ever. She is the sweetest dog in the whole wide world. She also makes the cutest little squeaking noises when you cuddle her. Everyone wants to snuggle her up.

I would keep her if I could. I suppose being the puppy sitter is sufficient. : )

The old man. We like the old man.

We also pretended that we were cool and had a life and went to the Spiedie Fest in Binghamton on Saturday. We love to pretend. We pretend like once every few months.

I really like to pretend when we go to the Speidie Fest because I gotta tell you, I love fried dough. Fried dough is like my caviar. It’s a special treat to get it and is really expensive (in retrospect, it’s a piece of dough for 5 bucks). And this year I got the boys hooked on it too. And that’s how it should be. Everyone should be hooked on fried dough. There should be stores solely dedicated to fried dough. Just imagine. Then I’d be really fat. But I would be fat and happy.

He cleans up nice. Even with his scabs. ; )

I will do another post tomorrow entirely dedicated to the balloons. There are so many pictures and I can’t just choose a few – I love them all. Such a beautiful sight.

I’m off to drown myself in last-week-of-school homework. I hate this week.

I'm grateful

No Responses » Tagged with: Dogs, Family, Friends, Fun, Happy, Holidays, Summer

Jul 052010

I’ve never done a post like this before, but I figured it would be fun. And possibly interesting. And at least self-soul-searching. Well, kind of.

On the 4th of July, you are supposed to be grateful for being an American. Proud.

So here are some of the things I’m grateful for. And definitely proud of.

Organic Raspberry Lemonade on a warm summer day. I even love the little bit of pulp that is in it that gets stuck to the inside of the glass. Makes me feel like my grandmother just made some fresh squeezed lemonade. Even though my grandmother never made fresh squeezed lemonade, but if she did, it would definitely feel like this.

And of course beautiful bouquets of flowers. And it’s even better that these flowers grow around our house.

And for really crazy sun rays that make for cool pictures.

Oh, and our new glasses. Our new glasses are cool. Very retro.

I’m extremely grateful for boys who are so tired out from playing so hard they almost fall asleep while driving around their power wheels. There is nothing better than a beautiful summer day and skipping naps because well, Momma doesn’t want to have fun without her boy, either.

For our furry friend visitors that take great pictures, and are a lot of fun to have around.

For dead plants that I brought back to life. Since I have this ability to save dying plants, Brandon call me the plant whisperer. So I’m grateful for silly husband, too.

And for awesome yellow petunias that bask in the summer sun. That also create sun spots on my lens.

For Grandpa’s who are patient and kind. And aren’t afraid to be silly.

And for Grandpa’s silly friends.

I’m grateful to be able to watch my boy learn how to roast marshmallows over the fire.

And to see him so proud of his work. I am also quite grateful to eat the results.

I’m grateful for others who love my little so much that they greatly care about him, and they show it.

For awesome fireworks. I love the flashes and the bangs that you hear roll down the valley.

I’m extremely grateful for my wonderful husband who allows me to take his photo so often. Who also so kindly poses for undoubtably crazy photos with me.

I’m grateful for wonderful cousins….

…and for fun days at the lake with them.

I’m grateful for fun in-laws, and falling asleep while floating in the lake. Also grateful for my sister-in-laws ingenious idea of using an anchor to keep us in place. So, I’m grateful for laziness.

For Grandmother’s who aren’t afraid to have fun with Erik.

I’m grateful for the furry ones who sit and let me take my crazy silhouette pictures.

For our view of the beautiful lake that we can look at everyday.

And I…am especially grateful…

….for a flower that has the ability to stand alone, and still be breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a lesson that I need to learn.

Hope you all had a good 4th. I know we did.

Last weekend

No Responses » Tagged with: Birthdays, Family, Fun, Summer

Jun 302010

I realized while almost falling asleep that lately the blog has become less witty and less well, angry. It has become more, happy -ish and picture-y. Random question – Does anyone else have epiphanies and clear minds when they’re on the brink of sleep? Anyway. Witty doesn’t always come naturally to me. Especially when I spend a lot of my time reading books I don’t find interesting. It fills my brain with uninteresting and dull things, and then I feel dull and uninteresting. My wittiness leaves me, so you get pictures instead.

I like the pictures better.

Last week was Ashley’s birthday, so we had a dinner for her on Sunday at the lake. Brandon’s mom made the highly desired ice cream cake. I think Ashley liked it. A lot.

Brandon finally decided to put up the tire swing (with no heckling from me, course). There was much fun to be had on the tire swing, and both Erik and Ashley got lots of enjoyment out of it.

I did manage to get some cute pictures of Erik and Ashley. Well, and Brandon did, too.

There’s nothing better than having dirty knees and enjoying summer to the fullest. It’s always better when you have family to spend it with, because it always ends in lots of laughs.

Speaking of laughs – Leroy got a little jealous when Ashley was up on the tire swing. Or he was being overprotective. Either way, he got a little frisky about her being up there. And there was lots of jumping. And giggling.

All pictures compliment of Brandon.

It has been quite cold for June in lovely CNY – in fact so cold I’m sitting in a sweatshirt, pants, and Brandon’s obnoxiously large hunting socks. So we haven’t been doing much of that loving summer thing. In fact, there has been much of the staying in the house and catching up on homework while we wait until it properly heats up thing. At least we had last weekend.

Even if there were a couple of minor falls.

I bid you all a fond farewell. I have a busy next few days, so if you don’t hear from me, best wishes, and here’s to hoping the sun is out there somewhere.

Animals and Parties (i.e. really long post)

No Responses » Tagged with: Crazy, Dogs, Family, Fun, Happy, Summer

Jun 212010

Life has been uncharacteristically busy. Not that I’m complaining, but, I’m tired.

I remember when I was a kid, and I used to get sheets of stickers. I was always so excited, and I would carefully place them in my sticker book. I would very rarely let someone have one, or waste them by sticking them on your hand or something. Erik, on the other hand, likes to rip them up and stick them everywhere. Including the dog.

Kind of fitting, right?

Drake likes to lay like this to sleep at night. In fact, he barely moves. One would think he was dead.

He even lets me put George on him. Oh, Drake. You are too funny.

He also likes to roll in dead fish. Yes, dead fish. One of the most disgusting things ever, and I’m sure you can imagine the smell. So he gets washed, in the lake. So much easier than the bath tub, right? And my lovely, oh so smart Drake, will stick his head under water if you throw a rock. So, alas, really easy to wash him.

I also got to shoot some pictures of Brandon. He decided to be an ass at the end.

After Drake gets in the lake, and I’m sure it’s from putting his head underwater, he gets lots of water in his ears. He runs his head along the floor to get the water out. It’s totally spastic, but quite funny.

Last Friday was really a beautiful day out, so I ran around and took some pictures around the lake.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Logan sleeps with Erik at night. Apparently Erik’s bed has turned just as much into Logan’s bed.

Yes, I realize there are more pictures of the dogs than the kid this post. That’s okay. They’re cute too.

So Saturday was my cousin Suzie’s daughter’s birthday party. We ran around a lot, watched the kids play, socialized, and ate. Of course, we ate. Lots and lots of eating. Wonderful. : )

Here are a few shots from the party. I will not bore you with lots of captions, okay well not too much.

Yes, I was in a dress. I know, amazing. It was hot!

The kids were playing a game, and apparently the boys were too cool to jump.

They then had a lovely water balloon fight.

While the kids were watering each other, Erik and Brandon jumped onto the trampoline.

Then all the kids wentswimming, and after much persuasion Erik finally went in.

He was trying to make a running jump into the pool.

And when he got there, he stopped. Haha. Funny.

After much swimming, they finally decided to do the cake. And the amazing yummy cake was a homemade ice cream cake made by Suzie. Awesome job, dear.

We finished the whole cake. Seriously. It was that good.

Well that was pretty much it for the party. I will alas leave you with one of my favorite shots with the day as I normally do.

Oh Steve, you rule.

I have more pictures from Father’s Day. I will put them in the next post. Maybe it won’t be as long.

Horse riding

No Responses » Tagged with: Fun

Jun 142010

I wasn’t lucky enough to be there, but here is a shot of Erik riding yesterday that Ash sent me. He of course loves it.

Lizzy

No Responses » Tagged with: Friends, Fun

Jun 132010

Brandon said he felt that people may feel we might have died. I don’t know if I have gone so long without posting before.

I have no idea what has gone on really. There has been no reason to not post.

So, here are a few phone pictures I have. Erik and I went shopping for a puppy with Jen on Friday. And here she is. Beautiful Lizzy.

Oh My God - I love it here

No Responses » Tagged with: Family, Fun, Happy, Love, Summer, Travel

May 312010

So, well, it has been amazing here. We have had such a wonderful time with everyone… We had to say goodbye to Sonny and Angel tonight because they had to go to their dad’s tomorrow until after we leave. It was pretty horrible. Angel was so upset she couldn’t stop crying. In fact she is still awake right now crying …it breaks my heart. : (

Okay, we will be happy for the moment. For it has been some of the happiest days in the history of happy days.

We had a pretty good flight down – we ended up flying from Rochester to Orlando because it was so much cheaper. We were able to get a rental car because of the money saved on the flight.

On the tram at the airport in Orlando.

So we drove the two hours from Orlando to get here. We ended up finally getting to my mom’s house around 9 p.m. So we just unpacked and were lazy for a little while before bed.

Saturday was wonderful – of course. After getting up in the a.m. we got ready and headed over to my sister Chris’s house. After some heartfelt reunions we finally got around to getting to the beach. We ended up going to Howard Beach in Tarpon Springs. A smaller beach but still great. Erik and Brandon’s first time swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Very cool for them.

Simone had a pretty good time too. The water was a little seaweed filled – but we survived anyway.

After our beach excursion we decided to wash off not in the shower like normal people – but in another body of water! This time in Chris’s mother-in-laws pool.

After spending most of the day in some type of water, and in the sun, we decided to go back home and be completely lazy and get already made dinner from the grocery store. We were all way too tired. Hey, it was still great. : )

Since I am camera obsessed, I already have over 200 shots. My lovely niece Simone is almost as camera obsessed as me, so when we were going crazy Saturday night taking pictures, there are amazingly enough some pictures of myself. Woohoo!

Caitlyn’s shirt says love. Sums up my feelings perfectly.

Beautiful girls – God I’m so proud to be their aunt.

We get a little silly sometimes. It’s a sister thing.

Sunday was….well guess what…amazing. It was the day of our family/friends BBQ. It was the first time since Erik’s baptism that ALL of the kids were together. And of course I took advantage of that….

Haha love the last picture – Marijane has her fingers in her nose. GREAT!

So I had this amazing idea of getting the kids to stand in height order.

Okay yea, it actually turned out to be one of the hardest thing in the history of photography – but well, they’re cute anyway. Even if not in a single one are they all looking.

I’m sure the ultra mega cool huge slide they were standing in doesn’t help with the attention span thing.

Okay there were a few more but they weren’t any better. : ( I still love them – and they will be printed. I can oh so fully promise you that.

There are more from the BBQ, and they will be in the next post, promise. You just wait….total picture overload.

Rejoicing

No Responses » Tagged with: Dogs, Family, Fun, Lake

May 252010

My heart is happy.

Yesterday Erik and I decided to be domestic and baked. We made those mini cheesecake things – the ones with the vanilla wafers on the bottom. Delicious if I may say so… Erik likes to help me bake though. He isn’t so interested in eating them, but interested in helping (who does that?). And since I told him they were cakes, he wanted to make sure we put candles in them.

After our cheesecakes were done Erik decided it was time to read the newspaper. He chose the comics, of course.

Today was another beautiful day in CNY. Literally, beautiful. I ended up being stuck in the house reading, the Bible (I have another post on that – don’t worry). After lunch I was finally able to venture outside and gave up on reading.

Erik has decided he likes to water plants as of late. Just the last few days of course. He gets on these random kicks, where he becomes obsessed with something and it’s all he wants to do. All day long. Right now it’s the watering. Couple days ago it was Drake. I wonder what tomorrow will be.

I had an awesome night with my boys (all of them). We went to Highland Forest tonight for a small walk. Erik ended up not napping so our walk wasn’t so long. He was ready to be carried about 20 feet from the car. It was still nice though to get the dogs out. After we did our exercise, in true American fashion, we went and got ice cream. It was quite delicious, though.

When we got home we went and sat down by the lake. I was still eating my ice cream because apparently I’m slow…so we just sat for a little while. The whole time we were sitting we were attempting to get the dogs to NOT go in the lake. Obliviously fruitless attempt for the Finton dogs, but hey, we can still try.

As anyone who has read my blog has realized that I like the “just getting dark” pictures, I was lucky enough to have a beautiful night outside with the boys…so of course I took a ton of pictures. And tonight I got to take some shadow/silhouette pictures, which are my favorite. And well, probably one of the hardest to do. Brandon tried to get some of me, but, well, he then discovered how difficult it was when you were really trying to do it. : ) He tried, and I really appreciate it. He’s still an amazing photographer.

Without further ado…(even though you probably already looked down…)

Now these next pictures are probably some of the hardest to take. They appear to be the hardest to post, as well.

The love I have for these boys fills up my heart. I’m so glad I am able to take pictures like this of them.

I do have to admit that living on a lake has its advantages, and being able to take pictures like this is one of them.

But here, is my absolute favorite from tonight. My boy. This one is definitely going to be printed. So handsome.

I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a family this beautiful and wonderful, but I sure hope I keep doing it.

We like to paint

No Responses » Tagged with: Fun, Love, Work

May 182010

Yesterday we had a fun filled day of…can you guess….

Man the title gave it away. I continued to paint the garage (my 3rd 9 hour day of painting – you would think I would have painted the garage and the house by now with how much work I’m putting into it) and Erik, well my poor dear sweet boy was, well, completely bored out of his mind and sick of watching paint dry. Quite literally.

I figured it was high time he had something to do himself while I painted. I went and found an old piece of sheet rock that was from when we remodeled his bathroom – and then I cracked out the paints. Some his finger paints, the rest old acrylic paints that I didn’t like/want anymore (bad idea…..I knew it then but figured what the heck). I handed him a brush, and the kid went to town. We have a new Picasso on our hands, people.

Maybe he’ll take after Aunt Chris.

Of course I had to shoot some cute pictures of Erik, which he actually let me. I think it was his compromise for me letting him keep himself painted. Oh, kids.

Yes, he had it on his lips.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer days as much as Erik and I are. But please, don’t work as hard as we are. : )

I love...

No Responses » Tagged with: Family, Fun, Summer

Apr 302010

I’m in love with Central New York spring weather. Totally….in love. Not only is the weather great, but while driving down the road in your small town you notice the local ice cream shop has opened. So have the outdoor bar-b-ques and the veggie stands. People have come out of hibernation, and there is nothing better than feeling alive again. Beat that, beach.

I’m also in love with being able to take our pooches outside. Especially Logan – he lives for the summer. You say frisbee or ball and he starts having a heart attack by jumping up and down. And living on a lake is such an amazing thing when the seasons change. If you have the opportunity to do it, do it, you won’t regret it.

So I decided to give my camera a little work out…put her to the test (of course it’s a her, she’s super cool). I took Logan outside and played frisbee with him while Leroy and Drake were on lines at the house…albeit they weren’t impressed…but it’s the only way to actually have Logan catch the frisbee and not be jumping on other dogs to get it.

Our awesome frisbee dog. And let me tell you, throwing a frisbee and taking a picture at this fast speed is not an easy thing to do. But hey, I have mad picture taking skills. That and I have the most talented frisbee dog ever (okay…at least I think so).

I love the one in the middle where he is completely airborn, but yet the frisbee isn’t even close to him. He tries, he almost always catches it.

Nothing says a warm spring CNY day like popsicles. Erik was kind enough to share one with me. I reluctantly took the orange (just kidding, they’re my favorite, and of course red is too). Erik loves popsicles, and usually only gets them after dinner. Today was a treat though, because we like treats, and honestly, I really felt like a popsicle.

Earlier today, Erik and I went to the cemetery in Scott because my grandfather was being buried. Yes, I get that I’m saying it completely nonchalantly like it’s no big deal. My grandfather actually passed away in January while the three of us were in Florida on vacation – strangely enough it happened while we were there. So my aunt had calling hours for him while we were still in Florida, and his body was brought back up here to be laid to rest next to my grandmother that passed away in 1994.

My grandfather lived a very long life…and I sadly can say that I wasn’t very close to him. I didn’t know him well. My mother was unable to come up to be here for it, but Erik and I were able to go, so we did. It was nice to see my mother’s side of the family since I haven’t seen them in…years. And years.

I actually had never even met all of my cousin Lori’s kids. Lori was my sister Chris’s best friend growing up, so we spent a lot of time with her. I was actually a bridesmaid in Lori’s wedding, so it really sucks that we lost touch. Especially since she lives so close. Today though, even with the sadness that surrounded it, I was able to meet one of my cousin’s children, Emily. She is absolutely adorable…and Erik was absolutely smitten with his cousin.

They got to play together for part of the afternoon, and he loved it. He didn’t want to leave her. But as life goes, on we go… Hopefully we will be able to see them all soon, and I can meet the rest of her family, and she can meet the rest of mine.

Oh and don’t worry, I didn’t dress Erik like that to go to the cemetery. It was just afterwards when he decided to run back and forth like a manic and kept falling in the gravel getting his nice clothes dirty. I envy those parents that can keep their kids in ultra cute clothes all the time, and who cares if they ruin them. Well, I honestly don’t know if I envy it, because yes we can’t afford a ton of really nice clothes so he has lots of play clothes…but at least we get to distinguish between the times when we need to be serious, and those times when you can go all out and rip and stain your clothes as much as you want. Those are the most fun times, and who cares if we look fashionable, right? …and I’m just starting to realize that almost all of the pictures that I have been taking of him recently are in play clothes. I’ll have to dress him up nicely sometime just to take picture of him so y’all can see how nice our little one looks when we’re not completely focused on getting dirty.

Well I’m off to go read…I have this post brewing in my head about my Nook obsession. It will come, oh don’t you worry.

And I will leave you with this adorable, sweet, enticing picture of Erik and Emily.

Ah cousin love, it’s the best. Haven’t I said that before?

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