Thanksgiving 2007

Joc posted some pictures from

Thanksgiving

on her blog so I tried to find pictures that reflect some of the other aspects of the day. We had 16 adults and 8 little ones so it was a fun filled day. Family, food, fun, games, shooting skeet, getting cold, warming up and just enjoying the day.

It took 3 pictures to get everyone in.....the oldest four kids sat in the kitchen, Boo in the high chair, Keira with Auntie Kara and the twins with their mom and dad.

Cassie, Kayleigh (Bug), Evan and Lindsey enjoyed the arbor swing even though it was pretty cold outside. Bug thought it was too bright so had to put on her sunglasses. Lindsey was pretty concerned that Evan would only stand behind the swing rather than sit with all the girls.

Carey and Sarah try to teach the four older kids how to play Chinese Checkers. It went pretty well for a while but then they got bored with it and needed to find something else to do. This is when we decided it was time to take some pictures.

Craig and Scott usually find time for some "friendly" games of cribbage and thought Tim should learn how to play. I'm not sure what the outcome was but they all seemed to be having fun.

Ron, Rol, Gary and Norm played Yahtzee while John looked on. This game got a little roudy at times. I think the guys were all getting warmed up after spending a couple of hours out in the cold weather shooting the guns.

Boo, Logan, Cole and Keira are all getting to know each other. Logan and Cole look so much alike that maybe this picture is Cole and Logan instead of Logan and Cole. :)

There were many more pictures taken but this gives you a good idea of how the day went. Truly one of thanksgiving for all our many blessings and for our family and friends.

Newest Addition to the Family

Well, I have been asked when I would ever get around to posting pictures of the new grand baby so I guess I better get it done. After all she is already 11 days old. She is a real sweetie and it was really hard to leave after helping Krista out for a few days. Good thing they don't live too far away.

Keira Elaine

This is one of my favorite pictures so far. She looks like a real thinker here!

Kayleigh and Keira

Big sister is pretty proud here. Wish I would have remembered to turn off the date and time stamp on my camera.

Kayleigh, Cousin Evan and KeiraEvan wanted to hold Keira but Kayleigh wasn't going to be left out. So I told them both to sit in the recliner and I would help them each hold her. It ended up being a joint effort. Keira was not really too happy about the situation though.

Brooklyn and Sadie at workSometimes Brooklyn is at work with me and she loves to play with the paper out of my shredder. Usually it ends up all over the place but it sure keeps her entertained. Sadie was right in the middle of everything this time too.

One of these days I hope to get better about posting a little more often but in the mean time bear with me and I will get here as often as I can. Guess life, work, grandkids, kids, etc. just keep me too busy to get on here as often as I would like. Not to mention the garden which was very productive this year. In fact we picked tomatoes and jalepeno peppers just a few days ago. We had numerous watermelon and cantaloup and a bumper crop of onions too. The biggest watermelon weighed in at 47 pounds. Many weighed between 35 and 40 pounds! Not too many years that we can still be picking melons off the vine on October 11th. We still have not had a killing frost and the temperature today was in the 70's.

Summer is coming to a close

Well, it has been weeks since I posted and summer is nearly over. School started this week so life for most people will get back to a normal routine. (Whatever that is!) The garden has been keeping me busy and I have a few pictures to show you whats up in that department. I don't have a picture of the cabbage as they are all in the crock downstairs turning into sauerkraut. I think we got about 5 gallons this year. It will be ready to freeze in another day or two. I have made about 20 quarts of pickles so far and some hot dilly beans. There are some beans in the freezer and we have eaten a bunch. The corn is good and sweet and we eat it nearly every night. Now it is time to pick the rest and get it in the freezer. I picked peppers this morning and will probably pickle most of them. Usually make some salsa but the tomatoes are very slow this year. We have only picked a couple of handsful of tomatoes. Gary is pretty proud of his black diamond watermelon patch so I am including a picture of that too. Onions, potatoes, squash, carrots and cantaloup are all doing well also. It's a lot of work but sure enjoy the fresh flavors when the snow flys.

Black Diamond Watermelons (YUMMY!!!!)

Jalapeno garlic dill pickles and dilly beans (also with a hot chili pepper in them).

First picking of jalapeno peppers. We only have 5 plants total and there are still lots of little ones I will let grow for another week or so.


This is the extent of our first grape harvest but the vines are doing well and if they survive the winter I am sure we will have a much bigger crop next year.

At the beginning of the month we helped Kris and Scott build a shed in their backyard. The guys worked hard for 12 hours but got everything except the trim, shingles and painting done.

All of these pictures were taken with the camera on my phone so aren't of the best quality but shows you what took place on that Saturday. Kara and Jaret helped move all the stuff from the garage into the shed so now Krista can finally park her new car in the garage.

Maybe I will find time later this week to post some new pics of all the grandkids. Joc pretty well keeps everyone updated on Brooklyn so I need to get some pics of the other grandkids posted again.

Hope everyone enjoys what is left of the summer.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

My posts have been few this summer as we have been very busy and have put a lot of miles on the car. From June 20th through July 4th we went to Cody, WY for four wonderful days, came home and worked for a week and then headed to Iowa to see Gary's uncle Ben. ( He will be 95 the end of the month and is in a rest home). On the way we stopped in eastern Nebraska to spend the night with my sister then headed on to Lemars, Iowa. Lemars is also the home of Blue Bunny ice cream so we took a few minutes to go through the museum and have an ice cream cone in the old fashined ice cream parlour. After we left Lemars we went up to Sioux Falls, SD for the night and the next day visited Falls Park and the Sioux Falls Zoo. It was rather hot and I thouht my legs would never want to walk again but it was enjoyable and we took in some really interesting sights. After we left Sioux Falls we drove across South Dakota on I-90 (not much to see there) and took a loop tour through the Badlands National Park (too much to see). It is pretty facsinating to have the flat lands suddenly turn into these amazing outcroppings of rock. We spent that night in Rapid City then headed home via the Black Hills. We lived in Custer many years ago and wanted to see how much it had changed. Also checked up on the progress of the Crazy Horse monument. All said and done I think we put 2100 miles + on the car in two weeks time, even with the price of gas!!! I have posted a few of the scenery pictures so you can get a feel for what we saw.

America has so many great and wonderful things to see.

CODY, WYOMING

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA

SIOUX FALLS ZOO

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH DAKOTA

It's been a while since I updated on the progress of the garden. In spite of the wind and late frost and having to replant some things it is growing nicely now. We have finished off the radishes and now are enjoying Kolrabi. I think everything will be a few weeks behind because of all the early adversity but should be able to enjoy corn, cucumbers, squash, melons and tomatoes in a few weeks. Of course there is cabbage to make saurkraut (mostly for Kara and Jaret) and cucumbers to make my "famous" jalepeno garlic dill pickles. Most of my rose bushes have bloomed in profusion and are now kind of dormant but one red one was a bit late in blooming so we still get to enjoy roses for a little longer. They will probably all bloom again later this summer or early in the fall. A few pictures follow.

The Weather Can be Tough on Gardens

Besides having winds that were sustained at about 35 to 45 mph with wind gusts above 60 mph we also received a late frost. Gary is having to replant all of his pepper plants, some of the tomatoes and the cucumbers. Most of the cantaloupe also did not make it but no one has new plants so I guess we may do without that this year. The potates look a little worse for the wear but I think they will survive as will the radishes, kolrabi, carrots and watermelon (they were still covered). The corn is iffy but it was having a hard time coming up so wasn't too far along. We shouldn't complain too much because there are many corn fields in the area that were totally destoyed and it is too late to replant. Fortunately the sugar beets survived pretty well and there aren't many beans in the ground this year.

My flowers faired pretty well and mostly show some wind burn. I did lose a couple of delicate plants that I had put in the barrels out front. Mostly I planted petunias and they are pretty hardy. The roses look pretty good in spite of it all. I am posting one picture although I actually have between 24 and 30 rose bushes. The grape vines also don't look too bad and even though they are only in their second year of growth and still pretty small there is one that has several bunches of grapes growing. If you look close at the picture you can see some of them. Brooklyn stayed with me Wednesday afternoon and I got a couple of cute shots of her playing under the dining room table. She thought it was pretty funny to peer out at Grammy. Later I took her outside to the swing on the tree. I don't think she has ever giggled so hard. Swinging sure did tickle her.

Memorial Day 2007

To remember all of those who gave their life for our freedom! Have a great Memorial Day.

For my family I am posting a picture that Jocelyn took for me on April 29th, 2007. We took some flowers to the cemetary that day in rememberance of both dad and mom. I blocked out the name on the picture for blogger privacy.

Time for a garden update. Gary and Ron look like they are trying to decide how to deal with all of the weeds. Ron says: "It's too bad the vegetable seeds don't sprout so easy! Just like evil thoughts sprout when we aren't looking, the weeds just pop up everywhere."

Things are looking a little better. TJ and Sadie are "supervising" and it looks like break time again. Shortly after this they decided to put down the hoe and shovel and go get the tiller. The job was completed in no time after that. The tomatoes, cantalop, watermelon and peppers are still sitting on the kitchen counter because Gary is afraid we might get a nasty storm and he will have have start over with them. That is the prediction for this afternoon and it doesn't look to good outside right now. I got all of the flowers for my barrels and planters but they too are sitting in the kitchen. Too expensive to put outside and have a storm destroy them the same day.

Family Picture Time

Since the whole family was together on Saturday we decided to have a family picture session at the local Sears. Thought you might all like to see some of the photos we had taken. The kids were so good and actually seemed to enjoy the whole experience. Even all the guys were good sports and went along with whatever the photographer asked them to do.

This is the whole crew.... not the best picture in the bunch but not the worst either.

Krista, Scott and Kayleigh

Craig, Jocelyn and Brooklyn

Jaret, Kara and Evan

I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the whole session. My three kids with each of their kids.

Prints of some of the best pictures will be coming soon to all the relatives so be patient. Anyone else who wants a picture just let me know. We got the disk from Sears so can reprint any of the pictures we want.

A Wild and Crazy May

It's been a while since I did any posting but this has been a pretty busy month. Graduation ceremonies and receptions started on April 28th with a reception for Craig's best friend in high school who graduated from UW. The next weekend we attended another reception for a distant relative of Gary's who graduated from nursing school. She is a mother who needed something to do now that all of her children are grown and away from home. Last weekend, we all went to my nieces graduation from high school and her reception. My brother from the west coast, his wife and their daughter, son-in-law and grandson flew out to join us. It was the first time in a couple of years that my brothers, sister and I were all together so we also had a mini family reunion. My youngest brother had a nice get together in his back yard for everyone on Sunday evening. The food was fantastic and it was great to catch up with everyone again. Krista and Scott and Kara's husband Jaret did not get to go with us but we did have all three grandkids along. Thursday night was Jaret's graduation from UW/CC and we spent a few days with all of the kids and even had a birthday party for Evan who will turn 4 on the 22nd. I think we are done traveling and celebrating for this month but enjoyed every minute of it all. A few pictures from the past two weekends are posted here just to help you imagine the fun we had.

Evan, Papa and Kayleigh leaving Chelsea's graduation.

Five cousins: Craig, Kara, Chelsea, Dustin, Jenna At uncle Reed's house: Dustin, Kayleigh, Trish and Evan.

Jenna, Cheri and Reed doing some family catching up.

Cole and Brooklyn are getting acquainted with some help from Nick and Kara.Evan is four now and just loves "Cars" and of course his favorite is Lightening McQueen. So Kara found a cake pan and grammy spent most of an afternoon making this cake for him. He seemed pretty pleased and actually I had a lot of fun creating the cake.

The candles are all blown out with a little help from his cousins. Brookie seemed to think it was all pretty interesting.

We were also celebrating Jaret's graduation. This is his family except for his mom who must have been behind me when I took this picture.