Gifts from the Family

My daughter and her fiancé gave me the vintage Gibson Girl Barbie doll for my birthday last week. It's kind of a surprise that I didn't already own her, since I love Gibson Girls. I use it as one of my online names and one of my emails. However, as I pointed out to my daughter, when that doll line came out, we were newlyweds, and then most of our disposable income started going towards our children. :) I think her shirtwaist and parasol might have yellowed, but at least it all looks the same shade still. 

Then Mr. BTEG presented me with this pack of mini totes after his last trip to Costco. At first they were only available at DIY stores like Home Depot and Lowe's. Apparently they have become one of the "popular" items right now. Not only does Costco have them, but Dollar Tree does too. Some of Dollar Tree's come in pink. Some people are even making mini wooden shelving units for them, like the life-size ones that you can find in garages across America. The "human" sizes of black totes with yellow lids are used for storing all kinds of things here in the US. I also have some mini utility buckets a couple of the DIY stores put out that I need to find. I'll throw in a picture of a Barbie with a few of these bins to show size when I get pictures of the buckets.

I haven't been doing much with the My Collection posts, but I might as well add Gibson Girl Barbie to my list.

Total Dolls: 93

Independence Day 2026

Sadly, I didn't get any photos of dolls for Independence Day, but here are some photos of Cleveland's fireworks, as well as some of the surrounding area. This year we sat on the rooftop of the apartment complex where the Dancer and her boyfriend live.

This barge is typical of ones coming in to the Port of Cleveland. It had to anchor here until the fireworks were over.

Fireworks were going off in the distance before, during and after the city ones.

Here's the barge all lit up at night.

The small lights are private boats out on the lake to watch the fireworks.

I hope all of my readers in the United States had a great Independence Day!

P.S. If you've ever watched the movie A Christmas Story, you can see the red, white and blue building in the Cleveland skyline in that movie. You can also find the house used in the movie here in Cleveland, and even stay the night! Apparently the Terminal Tower (the red, white and blue building) can be seen in Major League also, which makes sense, as the movie was about the Cleveland Indians baseball team.