Christmas Eve at Moms'

We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve Day with Mom, Aunt Jo, Judi & Non, Vern, John, Cousin Butch, Art & I.
Moms' Tree

Here's Mom n Aunt Jo

Cousin Butch

Vern

Judi

Me n Mom

Let's Eat

Group Picture, all here except Art & John

Merry Christmas Everyone! Remember Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

Vernon Jr and Tara Visit!

We had a surprise visit from Junior and Tara today. They came down from Washington and it was a great day! I got to meet a nephew and niece I've never seen before, and found they are very pleasant company. Here are some of the pictures:


And they helped us finish the puzzle, too! What a day!


Judis' visitor Sherry (a visiting missionary from Washington), also helped!




Might as well show how tall the sunflowers were in Johns' garden:



ttfn

Arts' Hi-topper trailer project

Oh, no, another great idea from our Idea factory. This time, it is to take our tall topper, which we paid many many dollars for (about 5 years ago) and make a covered trailer out of it. Started with a Harbor Freight trailer kit. This is the one with 1980 lb. carrying capacity. But, since this is a car which will be pulling it, we've got to keep it as light as possible. Our intention is to use it for summer travel with the car. He doesn't care for tents, I don't care for Motels. So, we should be able to use this behind the car, instead of the truck, which uses 3 times more gas than the car. We can sleep in it, stand up in it (because we are short) and use it for hauling stuff out of the weather, too. We'll see, how it works out. The whole point is, we have a use for the hi-topper now.

DJ turns '61'

Well, it's that time of year and my old tripometer clicked over to '61'. A person never knows how many you'll have, we're not given that information. The Lord gives us a certain amount of time to do the things we're supposed to do, and he takes 'his own' home in His timing. Till then, the birthdays keep coming. We waited to celebrate Saturday, when the teens and Dave could be there. Jody baked a cake, Mak pulled it out of oven and decorated it. It kinda had lumps on the top, and Jody said "It fell, lets make brownies". But, when she tried a corner it was fine, actually very good. After our BBQ steak dinner, the guys dispersed and us girls started eating the cake, and fed some to the little guys. Not much left after that.
Here are the two door greeters, who are always so anxious for us to come in the house, waiting by the door and excited. This is a great morale booster for us old people, that someone really enjoys our visits.


After dinner, we took a group pic of those of us who didn't 'bail' to the garage or retreat to their room.

Here's Mak and me. Her arms are long enough to reach out and take a pic without using the timer feature.

Catching up - August 2010

I'm really behind in my blogging, summer is such a busy time! We have had company, gardening, fixing cars, fixing camper, building trailer, Art had lots of jobs coming through the shop. But what's new? This is summer! Here are some pics from this month. Starting with pics of the twins and Jody's crew, then camping this week in Minneapolis with Arte & Meriden.

More May Events

After Maks concert, she had a dance recital, also at the High School Auditorium. I got a few pics, but none were very good or close up. But here they are:
This first one is her costume before we left. The second is very blurry, yes, and Mak is on the far right. I'm just not catching on to getting good shots in the auditorium with the lighting, movement, etc.

Next is Mothers Day, these are flowers Karen sent with Tulips and Hyacinth Bulbs all arranged in this neat planter. Jody and I made dinner at their house, Steak and salad, yummm....plus another attempt at the perfect Ice Cream Cake, it was very good, yes it was. Arte called, too. That was my 40th Mothers Day.

Next event was our Ladies Tea at church. Karen, recognize anyone?



Flowers again, blooming on the deck.

Next event was our Garage Sale, which we held here in our pole barn during the Annual Pengilly Saturday Sales. That really helps, since there are hundreds of people from around the area for all the sales in Pengilly and around the lake. We did pretty good, got rid of lots of stuff, visited with lots of people and had fun, too. But I didn't get any pictures, very busy that day and many days before that.
Next are pictures of the twins, with new haircuts. Jody did very good, wrangling and cutting hair on those two wiggle worms.




Well, that's it for now, more later as the summer unfolds. ttfn

Mak Band Concert

Monday night was the HHS band concert. They can really play and have a wonderful band instructor. She picked some great music for the classes, and I really enjoyed it. Pictures aren't too great, the lighting inside the auditorium isn't the best, but oh, well, you get the idea, anyway. Here is the front of HHS, we parked out front, and it is an interesting building, so.... then I got Mak walking up to the stage (yes she has red eye) wearing all black, then next one is 'peeking' over her music stand - flute in hand, next is her class actually performing, then one shot of them all standing up preparing to leave. Good job, Mak!

Mankato Visit

Wednesday morning we left to visit Meriden and Arte with our pop-up pickup camper on the truck. We noticed there was more and more green on the trees and ground the further south we drove. They definitely have warmer temperatures. Wednesday night we camped at a campground in Henderson,MN, right on the Minnesota River about 14 miles north of St. Peter. It was nice there, beautiful and quiet, since we were alone.

Arte stopped by on his way home from work, first time we saw him since last September. He ate with us and we sent him home with a Bonnevile side window to put in. Next morning we were off to Mankato, found some interesting shopping, way more stuff than we have up north. Arte & Kat came and we visited and the guys looked at the Bonneville motor. They left for Burnsville and we stopped by at Becky & Tims' to see Meriden. First she drove her Jeep, then grandpa Art teased her a lot.


We ate dinner out, came back to Beckys' and Meriden wanted to see our camper. Really enjoyed it, told me she wanted to play 'camp'. So we did:

Next morning, Arte came and used his jumper cables to get our truck started. (Somebody left the 12v cooler plugged in all night inside the truck) then off to Perkins for breakfast. Meriden hadn't seen Arte in months, so she was extremely excited and did not want to part when it was time to go. Very hard for the little one, really misses her Daddy. Here are some pictures with one 'two funny faces' in the middle.



Then we headed back north, 5 hour drive and home to cooler temps and partially greened up foliage.

Maks' 14th Party!

Makayla had 5 friends over after school Friday. Celebrating her 14th birthday, which is Sunday. Dave had his garage all ready for them to have their sleepover, very nice with the hot tub and lots of amenities. But mostly the girls wanted to: TALK! Hmmm, I'm sure I wasn't that gabby as a girl, or was I? We got pictures of the boys as we waited for her friends to arrive, then some pictures of the actual gift opening, pizza and grandmas' experimental ice cream cake. Jody said it was good, but I have better ideas for my next one, so I'm thinking of making one for Mothers Day. Back to the party, here is the first video, we let the boys go in the garage so they could see Sis' decorations, but it was a short visit for obvious reasons:



We brought the jeep out of the garage so they could play with it. It's not charged, because we got the wrong charger, but Jacob decided to give brother a ride, a one-hp motor it was. I cranked the wheel so we would not run into poles and other objects:



Pictures from that day: