November Wrap Up

Has it really been 10 days since I've blogged?  It has......sigh.....

October and November is really crunch time for me as I prepare for Christmas early!!  I not only make the picture calendars through Snapfish for the families, but also make an individual book for each grand child of their time spent here during the summer or just pictures of them throughout the year!  It's time consuming - extremely time consuming - and since I'm a perfectionist, it takes even longer!!

And the books and calendars have to be ordered early enough to get here in time as we celebrate Christmas with the family early!!  And this year it's even earlier than usual because of the kids' schedules so we're celebrating the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend!!  AHHHHH!!  So I've been busy!

I decorated super early this year as I don't have to host Thanksgiving - Jaime's new house has the honors this year!!  I took my time decorating with the Christmas music blaring and loved each and every  minute of it!!  I am SO enjoying the decorations!

The presents are all bought and wrapped and ready to take to Estes Park so my list is slowly dwindling!  That's a good thing! 

So I guess I have had an excuse not to blog - and there hasn't been a lot to write about either since I've been finishing up all these projects!!

But Jaime and I took a Sunday afternoon and went to Co Springs - did a little bit of shopping and then headed over to the Mona Lisa for fondue!!  Another fantastic groupon for 2 glasses of wine and a pot of cheese!!  And because it was happy hour with reduced prices, we opted to order the dark chocolate dessert fondue - it was excellent!!

Kylan had his first band concert!!  He plays the trumpet and I was totally shocked at how good this 6th grade band sounded for only have practiced a couple of months!!  He looked pretty darn cute sitting in the band!

This last weekend Glenn wanted to fish with his boat one more time so we headed to Denver for the weekend!  Evan was having a basketball tournament so we got to watch him play in 3 games!!  He has really improved from last year and with his height, he does great!!

They took 2nd place in the tournament - way to go Evan!!

Jessi and I actually got to go out for coffee TWICE - surely that's a record!!  We did a little bit of shopping too and it was an awesome weekend!!

The Archway Museum

By Sunday evening we had seen almost everyone we wanted to see so made the decision to leave on Monday and spend a night on the road so we didn't have to drive it all in one day - after all, isn't that what retirement is all about?  Taking a little more time........

I had always wanted to do The Archway museum that goes over the interstate in Kearney, NE!  Jaime and her crew had stopped this summer and she said it was really good!  So it was onward to Kearney!

We actually stopped in Onawa (a little ways out of the way) as Patty had told us they had a new coffee place and we were both thirsty for some special coffee!  It's a really cute place and the coffee was excellent!  I guess we didn't look like locals as the first thing the barista said to us was "Where are you two from"?

The drive was nice out to Kearney and we stopped at the museum!

With tickets bought and headphones on, we started the journey west with the pioneers!

The museum was excellent!  It was a "go at your own pace" with a remote to tap on the black buttons whenever you wanted to hear the story - very interesting!

And the journey continued on into the early 1900's and forward!  Naturally I'm standing in the 50's section!!

When the tour is complete, you can look out at the interstate below and watch the radar situated right in front of you to see how fast the trucks and cars are going!  Pretty neat!!

And another look at the escalator taking you up to the start!

I highly recommend the museum if you're passing through!

We drove on to Ogallala for the night and checked into the motel - we were too lazy to go out to eat so ordered in pizza - the perfect thing to do!

And then there was the fog we had to drive in the next morning for almost 3 hours before we saw the sun!!  Let's see - snow and rain and ice and fog for our drive - I think we need to nix the late fall trips and go back to summer!!

Thanks again Patty and Leonard for letting us stay for the week!

Iowa Family and Fun

The main reason we head back to Iowa is to see the relatives - and we have no shortage of them!!

This is Nedelle, Todd's daughter - she's taller than the both of us!!  It was great to catch up with her and her mom and eat dinner together!

One morning we headed up to Don and Nadine's home - Cousin Brent joined us and Nadine always puts out a lovely brunch!

We had our annual farm meeting and the 6 of us headed to Woodbine to eat a fantastic dinner!

We celebrated an early 88th birthday for Glenn's mom and saw lots of relatives - it's always fun to get together!  And the potluck was amazing!

These are Neal and Jen's kids - our other 2 grand kids!  They are super energetic and fun to be around!

I guess this picture must have been taken when we went out to eat as we're dressed up!!  The other days found us in sweatpants and sweatshirts - ha!

And many, many hours were spent on the computer - we not only found our place to stay in San Francisco for our sisters trip next spring, but we also made the decision that we ARE going to Europe together next fall on a bus tour!!   WOW - very excited with lots of planning to be done!

And getting ahead of myself  - here's the cute little gnome I bought from a lady in Soldier who makes the most darling gnomes for any occasion imaginable!!  Isn't he cute?

Senior Night Football

We were sad we had to miss Matias' last home football game as we were in Iowa - it was also parents night!!  But with all the snow in Colorado, they postponed the game till Saturday - and unfortunately Jaime was scheduled to work and couldn't get switched.  She was NOT happy!

But it was an awesome game and W. Pk won!  Rayna walked with Matias out on the field as they read his accomplishments over the past 4 years - and lots of great pictures were taken!!

Rayna made this poster for him!

Check out all the snow in the background!

One PROUD family!!!

Hard to believe the football season is already over and Matias has played his last football game as a senior!  But winter sports is right around the corner!!  Will it be wrestling or basketball?  Time will tell!

An awesome season Matias - we're all very proud of you!

Halloween

Even though we were in Iowa over Halloween, the girls sent me pics of their pumpkin carving and the kids' outfits!

First up - pumpkin carving - and the results when they're lit up!

The Savages - Aleah, Parker and Robby (with Jill manning the camera)

The Keppys - Evan, Jessi, Gwyn, Kenzie and Gary

The Smiths - Kylan, Matias and Rayna (Jaime & Brad helped too!)

And now for the costumes!

They're all cute as can be - and all received WAY too much candy!!

Iowa Bound - Lefse Making

We usually head to Iowa in the spring or summer - but this year we decided to wait until late fall to head out there and it's probably the last time we do that!

Of course it snowed here!!  We had quite the storm come in on Sunday on into Monday - and then had another one coming in Tuesday afternoon so we decided to take the chance and head out early Tuesday morning to beat the storm.  But the weathermen were wrong again as there wasn't supposed to be any snow Tuesday night and there was - we had snowy, ice packed roads all the way to Ogallala!

But we beat the next snowstorm at least and it was a relief to pull into Patty and Leonard's early Tuesday evening!

I think Patty and I spent the entire next day drinking coffee and talking!!  Always fun to catch up on all the news and families!

Patty had thought it would be fun to teach me how to make lefse - I LOVE eating it so I was very excited to learn how to make it - and now I REALLY appreciate eating it after I know how much hard work goes into it!

I learned step by step how to make it - and it certainly takes some time!!

Here I am mashing the potatoes - yes, that's what lefse is made of!

Making round balls and then flattening them.

Rolling out the balls of dough - this is by far the hardest part as you have to roll them very thin and the dough is moist!

Then you cook them on a special griddle.

And finally place them inside a folded over sheet to keep them moist while they cool!

The final product - ALMOST PERFECT!!!  It's definitely not a recipe you master the first time you make it!

We also made a second batch a couple of days later so I could bring it back home!  I was excited to learn this skill but of course you need a lot of items to make lefse.  Luckily, Patty had bought a lefse making kit (that she didn't really need and her daughters didn't either) so I ended up buying it from her and only had to order 3 more items when I got back home!  Now the real test is to see if I can do it in my home - but of course I eat all mistakes so that's not a problem!

Thanks Patty for the wonderful lesson!

Wildlife

When the kids and Jaime came over one evening for dinner (when Glenn was gone), Rayna happened to look out the window and saw a red fox!  Sure enough - that's what it was and it seemed pretty friendly!

The kids ran out and of course wanted to feed it - so I gave them some chunks of bread and also some lunch meat!  Apparently the fox was pretty hungry as it ate all of it and continued to hang around!  He was a cute thing!!

By this time, it was starting to get dark and I needed to go out to the greenhouse and cover things - Rayna went with me but the fox decided he wanted to follow us - that was NOT happening!!  So we called Matias out and he started throwing a few rocks just to get the fox to head down the driveway!  And we haven't seen the fox since - guess he was on a journey somewhere and just needed a bite to eat!

After our snow, the deer came around and they're so fun to watch in the snow!

We have a herd of 7 who seem to walk by the house a couple times a day!  Unfortunately the buck with the large antlers has not been around this season at all - I'm sure someone shot him for his antlers and that makes all of us in the neighborhood sad!!  He truly was a unique specimen!!