Another Wedding!

It's finally official! Joe and Lauren are getting married. For the last 6 years Lauren has been part of the family, and we love her whether they are married or not, but now it's going to be official.

We are so happy guys! Love ya.....

Happy Bday Matty!

I know, it's only 2 weeks late. Sorry 'bout that one. Although we would have celebrated closer to his birthday, but he had something else more important to do. Fine! My baby turned 24 a couple weeks ago. That's pretty weird to say. Definitely makes me feel a bit old (along with everything else lately, but whatever).

We went to Jack & Arnie's, a local grill your own steakhouse, then out on the town in CF. It was fun. Nice to get everyone together, which doesn't happen as much as it used to. (Nice smiles guys!)

Al did most of the cooking.

Joe & Morgan were in charge of the bread. They didn't burn too many pieces, so it was all fine.

The birthday boy took care of his niece all night.

Happy birthday Baby!

Hoar Frost

It was so foggy here all week. That's the part of winter in Iowa that I hate. January is so dreary. You don't see the sun forever and spring seem so very far away.  As I headed for Waterloo yesterday morning, I just had to take a drive around the park, though.  It was gorgeous!  Schnack on KWWL said it was "hoar frost".  From Wikipedia: Radiation frost (also called hoar frost or hoarfrost) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat losses into the open skies cause objects to become colder than the surrounding air.

Whatever....I just thought it was very pretty. Almost surreal.

This picnic table at the end of one of the jetty's looks very lonely.

 

The campground is patiently waiting for campers to come back. (although I do like this time of year when we have the park all to ourselves and it is so quiet!)

The animals didn't seem to mind the quiet too much. They were just waiting for their breakfast. (Al did you remember to feed today?)

I think this buffalo already found his. He just kept putting his head in the hay and throwing it around with his horns. He was covered with it.

Al is ready as well for something warmer. He has been getting ready for spring and for camping (although if you ask him in the middle of summer, he will say he can't wait for winter until everyone leaves!).  He made this cool tabletop for outside to hold your beer or whatever. And of course, he included the dogs on it!   I'm sure the guy and slogan are copyrighted, but I don't think they are going to care about this copy. I thought it was very cool.

TTFN!

The entertainer.....

I was in Target not too long ago looking at the tons and tons of baby stuff thinking of what to give Ava for Christmas. Not having had kids for a long long time, we are pretty much out of the loop when it comes to what might be fun for them, especially for a 5 month old! Ava likes to be held, she doesn't like to lay on the floor much. But I really think what she wants is to be able to be up so she can look around, not just get held. Mom had said something about a contraption that Mandy had for McCoy that he really liked, so I started looking around for something like that. If you look online for this type of thing at Target they are called "entertainers". I guess it's a good name, it entertains the baby, but who would think to look for that name? Certainly not a new grandmother. They didn't have entertainers when our kids were little, they had walkers (one such walker went down the stairs with Joe in it when he was a baby) or the old bouncers that hung from the doorway or just the old windup flimsy swing (Loved the swings!).

Sarah and Ava have been coming down on some Wednesdays when I work at home to visit, so before she came this last week Al ran up and got one, thinking you just take it out of the box, pop it up and it's done. NOT!  He even had to look at the directions. What man actually looks at directions? Not this one usually.

An hour later however, we (he!) had it set up. And she actually liked it. We had to prop her up, and her feet don't reach the floor, but I think when she gets a bit bigger, we will be glad we have it.

Good job grandpa!

Going to see the Broncos....

Joe has been a Broncos fan since he was little. You really don't want to watch a close game with him, he gets a little crazy. And since we don't live close to Denver, it's nice to be able to drive a few hours and get to see them play. We went down a few years ago and it was absolutely freezing. This year it was much nicer.

Joe and Lauren were all decked out in their gear and ready to go!

Lauren bought the tickets on eBay and got a great deal on them. They were for a VIP box, and this box had a special deal on this game day with free food and drink for the game. It was a private suite that had "better" food than normal for this day evidentially for a special promotion or something.  They had fajitas and brats and all kinds of stuff. We kind of felt a bit weird since we really weren't part of the client group, but we had great seats and we just pretty much stayed on our own. But it was weird when a guy came up and asked to see our tickets. I think they thought we just decided to crash their box or something, but they said we were fine. The guy that sold the tickets evidentially wasn't supposed to sell them.  It wasn't real cold, but it was nice to have the heat, too.  And it beats the heck out of $10 beer!

Casey Wiegmann of the Broncos is from Parkersburg, Iowa, and his parents are friends of a friend of ours, so we went with them to where the players came out. Here's Joe getting to meet Casey.

It was a great day (of course, especially since the Broncos won!), and Joe was happy. The drive home was not great, but I guess that's winter for ya!  It would be really nice if they played the Chiefs in October instead of December!

Time to trim the trees!

(spoiler alert.....if you do not care about Christmas trees, don't waste your time looking! That's all it is.....) We used to have one tree with a hodge podge of the kid's ornaments on it. There is nothing wrong with that, but as the kids got older, I wanted to give them their ornaments for their own trees and decorate one of my own. That first tree has now turned into 4 full size decorated trees (to be honest, I used to do one more in the basement, but we don't really use the family room anymore, so I don't do that one anymore). I like several different themes and colors, so this way I can indulge in them all!

I always do it the day after Thanksgiving. No Black Friday for me. This is my tradition instead. It was so much nicer when Sarah was still home because she liked helping. Now it's a long day, but worth it.

This is my absolute favorite tree. It's in the living room. I don't even want to think about how much money I have in ornaments on this one, although it has been spread out over 10 years at least. The pictures really don't show how beautiful it is.

I fill every space that I can. It is loaded with ornaments.

 

This one is in the dining room. It started because I love the rustic look and went from there.

 

This is on the porch.  We don't use the porch much this time of year, but this tree mostly has overflow from the dining room tree.

The final one is in the kitchen. It's the newest one, and I just did it because I liked one ornament and it went from there.

The only other real decorating that I do is to set up my village.

This also started just because I found this one in Menards a few years after we moved to the park. It really fits us perfect for where we live. I even found a "Ranger Al" to go with it!

And of course, you have to have a bar & grill.

This was one that Grandma Sara had, that I received after she passed away last year.

Now at least my relatives in Wyoming can actually see what they look like. Maybe next year we will have to try to talk some of you to come out here for Christmas instead of us going there? :)

Wyoming, cousins and what's important.....

It was a nice, short weekend to be able to go to Wyoming last week. We left Wednesday, and drove back Sunday. It's 720 miles each way. We have driven this trip so many many times the last 20 years that we finally have it down to where we stop for gas and to eat, and it usually works like clockwork. It's usually not too bad if you leave at 5:00 am, you get to Wyoming at 5:00 pm. Long day, but manageable.  And so much cheaper than flying.  I do miss this, though. You definitely don't get to see this in the middle of Iowa!

This time, however, was a teensy bit different. To start off with, my dog, Tai, has epilepsy. He has to take meds twice a day, every day to (hopefully) keep him from doing his "stevie wonder dance". He thinks flies are flying around his head and has fits trying to bite them. We also give him Valium sometimes in between to fend off the fits that come between the daily meds. Whenever we travel he gets worse, but he's even worse if he's at home in the kennel. So we had to take him. We had to give him two Valium on the trip out. (only 1 on the way back, maybe he knew we were going home!)Then you put a 4 month old baby in a car for a long drive. Then you top it off with a (actually very well behaved on the trip) Chihuahua who Tai doesn't care for.  And then you put Sarah in the car. She just got off a 12 hour shift at the ER and had had no sleep. Then you put us all in a Tahoe for a 12 (at least) hour drive! We couldn't leave until 8:00 am. To say the least, the trip out was a bit long. It took us almost 14 hours, and it usually only takes 12. I just wanted to snap my fingers and wish I was already there, but sadly it didn't work.  I usually drive when we go to Wyoming and it's fine, but this day I was wishing I wasn't doing all the driving.

But it really was nice when we got there. I got to see new babies of two of my cousins, and everyone got to see Ava. Mandy's baby McCoy is so all boy. He is 10 months old and just loved Ava's toys and Ava as well. He's a big guy, just like Matt was. I'm not sure that either of the girls thought too much of him yet, though, although he had a great time!

I think Mandy's older kids, Markie and Mason really wanted a little sister, as well as a little brother. (anymore on the way Mandy?) Markie just packed Ava around everywhere we went.

My other cousin Jamie has a girl Jacie, who is 6 months old. She was very quiet. She's a big girl, too, and very laid back. Except when McCoy decided to check her out.  Then she didn't really care for that. Keep it up Jacie. Boys are bad!

Even Uncle Blake got in on the act, although not by choice. I just plopped Ava on him and he didn't have a chance. She was happy to see him, though. 

Aunt Susie made her laugh and giggle like crazy. Maybe it was the new boots she bought? I think Ava is just telling Susie that she liked them.

But the best one to get to see her again was Great Grandma Pat. It was nice that Ava is older now and able to laugh and smile and interact. It makes it better to be able to see that, especially since we are so many miles apart.  Ava found out that she can ALMOST grab what she wants while we were in Wyoming. It was fun to see her try to find her feet, and to see Great Grandma help her.

Overall it was a great weekend.It was nice to see everyone and let everyone see Ava.  There are some other things going on right now, that I'm not going to get into, but I just want everyone to make sure and cherish your family because you never know if they are always going to be there or not. And you do not want to be wondering "what if only....".