A Much More Pleasing to the Eye Post!

I can't stand looking at the previous post myself. So, let me share with you what I've been working on for the past few weeks. Well, actually, I can only share bits and pieces of what I've been doing. My goal is to make a picture storybook about Mom and Dad from the time they were dating to present. It's an almost overwhelming task. I've only just begun, and it's taken lots of time and effort to get just this much done. Here are pictures of Mom and Dad taken in 1944. She was 14 and he was 16 at that time. These will be the first pages of their book, with a bit of family history on each side. I have a few pictures of them together when they were dating, which will be enhanced with some actual real stories told by Mom and Dad about one of their most memorable dates.
Then of course, I have their wedding pictures, and a few stories about that too.
I have quite a few pictures of Dad in Korea. He left two weeks after they were married, so Mom stayed with her brother and his family while Dad was in Korea. Then I plan to add pictures in chronological order as much as possible up to the present day. After I get all that done....or should I say if I ever get all that done... I'd like to go backwards to include pictures of their parents...our grandparents, and their siblings....and as much information as I can from our ancestors. I'd hoped to get this all done in time to give them as Christmas gifts, but I think that's pretty much impossible!
I love some of these old pictures. Perhaps you'll see someone you recognize! Margie and Brad, Lucille, Sonny, Lester, and of course, Mom and Dad.
There....now you who read this know what's been going on with me, and you have to admit, these are much more pleasant to look at!

Everything Came Out....

Man! Is that disgusting or what? There were no apparent problems, so I'm certainly glad to have that done! I'll see the Dr. to get the "official" report on December 13, and I'm going to ask him what that furry stuff is! Looks like .... well, never mind what it looks like. You can see for yourself. Ha! I'm at a loss as to what more I can say. The picture tells it all!
I'll be back on the bus in the morning. And looking forward to it!

Post-Coralville 101!

This is post #101, and certainly long overdue!
Last weekend was the "Tenth Annual Shopping Trip" and what a blast! We met at Younkers for a day of shopping. We made plans to meet at the food court for lunch at noon, and after that we made plans to meet again at 4:30 so that we could go check into our hotel, and then proceed to the Olive Garden for dinner.
I can't tell you how many laughs we shared, but there were many. I don't go to shop, but wouldn't miss the fun when this group gets together! Golda and Landon met us for lunch and I learned that Landon is expecting a baby brother for his birthday! Landon was enjoying lunch with all the girls. Naturally, he and Miss Emily were the center of attention.

One of the planned events was a pajama fashion show. We all had ballots, and at least ONE of us (not telling who) voted for herself! Becky was the winner, by one point, and was awarded with a certificate and lovely prize package. It was decided pretty much that next year's pajama fashion show contest would have categories. I have to wonder what categories might be included. That should be interesting, as well as entertaining!
The event coordinators, Sally and Heidi, had gift bags for each of us. Each bag contained a commemorative candle, pretty autumn sticky note pad, scented sachet packet, a lovely bracelet, and chocolate. That was so nice, but there's MORE! One of the bags was a "special bag" with an additional gift to commemorate the fact that it was our 10th trip, and guess who was the lucky recipient of the "special bag"! That's a $10 bill. I have yet to decide what I will do with that special item!

Special thanks to Heidi and Sally for planning the trip, events, and the prizes and gifts! Also, thanks to Julie for the gift of candy and the Santa ornament. And thanks to each of you, because you are more than friends, and because of that, I'm not going to post the pictures that were so funny, but might be embarrassing to some.

Well, I'd planned to put on pictures of some of the other contestants of the pajama fashion show, but Dennis has arrived and needs a ride to the field. I guess this is it, for now anyway.
However, keep in mind that I do have pictures, so you better be nice to me!!!!

Trick Or Treat...

Scamba! There's a skunk in our yard!!!
Scamba is checking out the little intruder, but he sure didn't smell like a skunk. He was the sweetest little skunk, and we gave him some treats and lots of hugs. He was a cuddly little skunk!
We also had a professional dirt biker come to our door. He was really nice, and looked so cool in his bike racing gear. He was very nice and well mannered, and a good looking young fellow! See for yourself:

You two or three folks that read this are probably wondering...what's been going on? I've not posted for quite a while. I can't say there has been nothing interesting going on, but I've just been busy and lazy I guess.
Travis and Dennis are still harvesting. They had around 100 acres of beans left when Dennis left here this morning, but I think they got a lot done today. At least, I've not seen or heard from Dennis since early morning. He just called and is on his way home...probably hungry. And amazingly, I actually have supper in the oven! Honey mustard chicken. It's starting to smell pretty good too.
I think they'll be able to get all the harvest done before the weekend, and then it will be time to work the fields getting ready for next season.
Other than that, the goats are doing great. Even Bully has adjusted and doesn't seem to be such a bully now. The calves are eating good, and the lady bugs (or Japanese beetles...whatever) are swarming the house. Scamba celebrated his 13th birthday last weekend. And Dennis has listed a bunch of his "junk" on E-bay! Yeah!!! Now, if I can just keep him from getting more! We're making some room on the shelves.

Flying Time!

Ha! That's actually meant at least two different ways. First, it's hard to believe that October is already half over! Indeed time does seem to fly. Secondly, Saturday morning Zach will be attending the Iowa Youth Aviation Camp at Lindner Aviation. It's three hours of learning and some actual flying experience as I understand it.
I've taken the time to catch up on reading some of the blogs of friends, and (no big surprise) Kathy's Pumpkin Patch seems to be the most popular place to visit. I've actually been there twice myself. The first trip was with Wyatt's class, and I drove the bus. The second trip was just this morning, as I was the bus driver for the Kindergarten class trip. They went to visit the Fire Station first, and then the pumpkin patch.
Last Friday, Zach and I went to Quincy to see the Booth Brothers in concert. It was great, and they sang all Zach's favorite songs in the first set, so we left about half way through the second set, because he was so tired he could not stay awake! I figured we better leave, or I'd have to carry him out. He's way too big for that!
I'm sure I could go on and on, but it's pretty dull. I know we've been busy, and there are probably lots of things I could tell about, but I can't remember them! And I've not been taking pictures. Sometimes I think I take the pictures for me, so I can remember what I did yesterday.
Travis and Dennis are back to the field today. They're nearly finished with the corn. In fact, they might be finished with corn by now. I've not talked to Dennis since early morning. I'm thinking I'll fix some kind of food and take it to them. I expect they'll work pretty late.
Well, sad as it is...that's it for this post.

Bluegrass Fun!

Zach, Wyatt and I went to Hannibal to hear the Lewis Family, expecting to be in an air conditioned auditorium. Surprise, surprise, surprise. It was outdoors, under a tent....HOT! Never the less, we did enjoy it very much. We expected to see and hear the Lewis family, and we did, but we also heard several other groups as well! One group (Arlington) was exceptional. They were a family group, four kids and their parents, plus one cousin. They were really good. Kids ages 6, 7, 8 and 10 and they all sang well and played at least one instrument! Zach and Wyatt shared their toys with one of the little girls when she wasn't on stage performing. They were so cute, and have a lot of talent! I expect we'll see and hear more of them in the future. The Lewis family put on an outstanding performance, even exceeding our expectations. In spite of the heat and humidity, they really put on an energetic show.


We had a really pleasant and enjoyable time. We arrived early enough to eat lunch at the Golden Corral. Both boys seemed to enjoy their meal, although Wyatt went through a couple plates just figuring out what he likes. He ended up eating two chicken legs, a biscuit, grapes, a tiny taste of meatloaf, sausage, pizza which he didn't like, and ice cream with gummy bears. Both Zach and I were really surprised that Wyatt didn't like the pizza, so Zach tried it. He said, "he's right, it tastes funny." Zach rushed through the "good for you" food to get to the desserts.

A Most Unusual Sight!

Those of you who know my Dad well will realize what a unique picture I have posted! I went over to help Mom save some pictures on her computer, and when I got there, Dad was working on Betty's car. He was putting a new thermostat in...or something like that. Anyway, I just had to get a picture because it's pretty unusual to see Dad under the hood of a car.

I was able to get pictures of our "new" additions to the growing goat population yesterday. The old bearded gray goat is Bully. We'd thought to call her Nanny, but she's so mean to the others that we just call her Bully. She has settled down some since Saturday, but she's still a bully, and may be leaving here because of her inability to "get along well with others". Barney, on the other hand is very sweet and I think she's cute. She's young, so we're not sure how big she might get. She's actually our tallest goat I think, but she's still lighter than Buttons. They have been here long enough to recognize the hand that feeds them. They follow Dennis around like puppies.

Dennis had taken down the old fence that was around our pond a while back, but he'd not taken the posts out. Monday, I went out to help and we got that job done. Of course, I did the easy part. I just ran the backhoe, raising and lowering as needed. Naturally, I got some pictures of him doing his part. Once the posts were all pulled out, I went back to school while he filled the postholes.

Is There Really a Pot of Gold at the End of a Rainbow?

If that's true, then the pot of gold is on our place! This is the rainbow I saw as I was coming home this morning. The end of it appears to be right on our place. I'll be out looking for that pot of gold today!
In other weekend "news"...Snowy went back to the sale barn. We sold him and bought a cute little nanny kid. Wyatt named her Barney. We should have left then, but I like to stay for the whole thing, and ended up buying another very nice looking nanny for a very low price. We got her home and think we've discovered why she went to the sale barn. What a bully! She's so mean to Buttons and Barney that we're thinking she's going to have to find a new home!
That's it for now. Dennis brought the backhoe down from Travis' house, and we're going to work on taking out some old rotted fence posts. I better get out there to help before he comes looking for me.

Meet Buttons and Snowy!

Yes, I went to the sale yesterday with Zach and Wyatt along, and our first buy was a couple goats! LOL! The boys are so excited to have goats, Wyatt kept saying over and over, "I got a goat!" I thought he was saying "I gotta go", so kept trying to take him to the bathroom, but he finally said it slow enough for me to understand....He's tickled to have a goat! I have a picture of Wyatt with Buttons. They've made themselves quite at home, and their favorite place is right beside the house under the west deck. Snowy is actually Wyatt's goat, but as of yet, Snowy is a little timid and not wanting to be handled as much as Buttons, who seems to enjoy the attention. Snowy is also a young billy, and black as coal. Wyatt chose to call him Snowy, for who knows what reason! Since we'd not really planned on goats, Dennis is spending his Sunday afternoon building a pen that will (we hope) contain them. Last night I put them in the tightest fenced pen we have, and this morning we woke up to find them munching on our bushes in the yard. We actually went to the sale looking to get either a couple cows or some calves. We did buy two very good looking white (I realize they're a particular breed, but I can't spell it!) heifers. So, when we got them home, we put them in the pasture, with Lucky...the horse. Lucky had been a companion and friend to Burger King until he went to the locker, so we figured that would work well, but apparently Lucky has some racial issues or something. She saw those little white heifers, and started running, bucking, kicking and snorting. She chased them all over the pasture. We now have "segregated" pastures for Lucky and the calves, and at this time, the goats are roaming at will.
Next week, we're getting rid of the horse, and maybe getting more goats or calves! LOL! What an adventure.

National Quartet Convention 2007

What a great time! We left home very early on Friday morning, arriving in St. Louis for rush hour traffic! Had we been thinking about that, we'd have arranged to get there earlier. It took us about an hour to get through the city! However, we never missed a turn, didn't get lost once, so it really wasn't that bad! We then arrived in Louisville at 1:30 central time. Since they're on eastern time, we were able to check into our room.
I thought I had ordered a 2 bed/2 persons room, but alas! what we got was a room with a King size bed. We were a little disgruntled, but it worked out just fine. We weren't there that much anyway. We hurried right out to the convention, and wandered around to get our bearings and just see what we might like to do. There is something going on at all times, from morning to late night. We enjoyed concerts from 6PM to Midnight both Friday and Saturday as well as the showcase spotlights and other activities. One thing we did learn is that you should be prepared to either carry your own drink or pay $3.50 for a warm bottle of coke! Ever tried drinking warm Coca-Cola?
We saw and heard so much great talent while we were there, I couldn't begin to name them all, or even to pick one favorite. They were all great! It's pretty well decided that we'll be planning to attend NQC 2008. In fact, I just bought my tickets today! If you'd be interested in going, let me hear from you soon (and show me your money...LOL!) because I'm planning to be there Thursday through Saturday even if I must go alone!




If you'd like just a tiny little bit of the show, here's a clip of the harmonica and piano duet from Triumphant Quartet.

At least, I think I got the video clip in here. It's not showing on the preview, so if it's not here when I publish, I will (again) look really stupid.
Anyway, as soon as I returned from Louisville, I found that the boys (Zach and Wyatt) were waiting for me to get home. They were planning to spend the night with us, and had been playing with Popo until I would get here. I also had a class, so rushed off to that leaving the boys with Dennis for another hour and a half. Finally, when I got home to stay, the boys were so happy to see me, and we had a fun night, and morning. They stayed here until it was time for me to leave. I drove our Volleyball team to the Holy Trinity Classic tournament. They made it to the semi-finals and played well, but we got to leave early...which was fine by me!
That brings me up to date I think. I'll be driving our cross-country team to Mt. Pleasant this afternoon, so really need to get going!