And So It Begins.....

  Summer is over - it's back to the classroom for all of the grandkids!  And what a crew we have going this year!  There's no doubt it will be an exciting year for all of them!

Kylan Smith will be a senior at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park.

Kenzie Keppy will be a junior at Eaglecrest High School in Centennial.

Aleah Savage will be a junior at Fossil Ridge High School in Ft. Collins.

Parker Savage will be a freshman at Fossil Ridge High School in Ft. Collins.

Chance Raymond will be an 8th grader at West Monona in Onawa, Iowa

Maggie Raymond will be a 7th grader at West Monona in Onawa, Iowa.

Gwyn Keppy will be a 5th grader at Timberline in Centennial.

And now for the college kids!

Matias Lopez is attending UCCS in Colorado Springs, 

Rayna Smith is attending UCCS in Colorado Springs.

Nedelle Smartt is attending NE Community College in Norfolk, NE.

Evan Keppy is attending Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

What a great crew of kids!!  

Iowa #2

 Was it hot in Iowa - OH MY!!!  The heat wasn't actually that bad but the humidity was!  I did manage to walk early a couple of days but the one day when I opened the door and felt the air, I decided it was a no go - just too humid!

Thursday morning we picked up Brenda and went to coffee in Mapleton - always GREAT coffee and we talked and talked!  We had fresh peach fizzies that afternoon from Colorado peaches - YUM!

We headed out to the South Church - always one of my favorite spots to go!  They have a new sign in the front and I love reading the history here!  Of course I always enjoy seeing that old pump organ that I used to play on Sunday mornings!  MEMORIES!

Late morning the 3 sisters ventured over to Tekamah to go to Masters' Hand - we had done this before and always enjoyed it so it was a pleasure to go again!  Your lunch includes a drink, appetizer, entree and dessert!  I started with strawberry lemonade which was excellent - next up was herbed cottage cheese (or you could have soup) and now I have a new way to eat cottage cheese - my lunch was chicken salad while the other two had quiche!  The homemade rolls were excellent and I loved the pretty butter setting on a rose petal!  The salad was plentiful with the dressing in a little swan dish!  Both of our main dishes were great!

We're all smiles in this picture as we're about to eat!

Dessert was hard to pick!  Patty had bread pudding with ice cream, Teri had triple chocolate cake and I had peach crisp with ice cream - all wonderful!

We were SO full driving back home!  Jim and Brenda came a little later and we headed out to the farm - Teri hadn't seen the old house gone yet and it IS a shock to not see it there any more!  Across the road is Jim's garden - cantaloupe, watermelons and pumpkins!  The pumpkins are doing the best and Jim's going to have plenty for his grandkids - I liked this huge white one!

That evening we took 2 cars over to Woodbine to eat at Good Fellas, always a great place to eat!  We split shrimp dinners because we were all so full and even opted to NOT take dessert to go since we still had the cherry cobbler and special bakery items that Cheri had brought up !

Glenn and I said our goodbyes to Jim and Brenda and I got packed up that evening!  5:45 came early the next morning as we loaded up to head out about 6:30 with a box of Iowa tomatoes - YUM!  What a fun and busy time in Iowa this year - thanks to Patty and Leonard for hosting!

And then it was hugs and time to say goodbye!!

We had hoped to make better time going home since construction wasn't going on (it was Saturday) but of course some of the construction zones were still down to one lane - things were going great till we got outside of Limon and Glenn said one of the tires was going down - fast!  We limped into the edge of Limon and there was a huge spot by a car wash so we pulled in there - Glenn finally got the spare tire on in 91 degree heat and said it must have been a nail as it was a perfect hole - we were going to find a tire shop but Glenn knew there was a NAPA there and he said he could patch the good tire and get it blown up to put back on.  Luckily NAPA was only 1/2 mile away and when we pulled in, they actually had a repair shop right there and the bay was open!  15 minutes later the guy had fixed the tire for $20 and put it back on and we were back on the road!  A rain storm had just moved through and it was 59 degrees when we pulled into home - now that felt great!!

Iowa Bound

 We don't usually drive to Iowa during August - in fact, I have a note in my day-timer that reads:  Don't go to Iowa in August - it's hot and humid and there are chiggers!   HA!  SO what do we do this year?  Of course, we drive to Iowa in August!

But there was a reason behind this - Teri was flying in from Michigan and what better way to get the 3 sisters together than to head to Iowa so we could spend time with them!  We left on a Tuesday morning - hit 8 different construction zones on the way out - and the decision was made that we MUST be getting older doing this drive as it gets harder every year!  I even brought lunch so we could eat at a rest area and not take the time to get fast food, hoping it wouldn't take us 11 1/2 hours to get there - no luck - it STILL took us that long with all the construction!

But everything was nice and green out and we had some cloud cover so that always helps!  AND I located a Scooters Coffee in Ogallala so I didn't have to wait until Kearney to get my coffee - that was a plus!  Anyway, we rolled into Patty's and it was great to see everyone!

After a couple of wonderful tasting dips and drinks, Jim and Brenda stopped by so we visited with them and almost forgot to eat dinner!!  Leonard and Patty have been working on finishing off their basement and had one bedroom almost completely done and that's where Glenn and I slept - it was nice and cool down there and we slept great!

Wednesday was busy!  We all headed up to Don and Nadine's that morning - it's always so good to see them and they're both doing well in their 90's!  We talked and talked!

Patty had brought a cherry coffeecake up and Nadine had her yummy oatmeal cookies so we enjoyed more visiting during coffee time!  It's always fun to hear their stories!

We relaxed back at Patty's house for a while before Glenn and I left to head to Onawa - we went to Geri and Carl's house for dinner with the local relatives and were surprised as ever when we walked in and saw Dusty, Glenn's brother whom we hadn't seen for 15 years!!  Glenn and him talk on the phone but just hadn't seen each other!  Dusty has a new wife, Janis.

It was fun to catch up with Nedelle who is switching colleges and now has a boyfriend!!  Neal's were there and Chance and Maggie are BOTH taller than me and already into sports for the fall season!  Sherry and her guy Gary were there - I sat with them at dinner and enjoyed visiting with them!

Love this picture of Nedelle, Chance, Glenn and Maggie!!

And the whole crew!  Carl and Geri, Sherry and Gary, Becky and Glenn, Janis and Dusty!

After saying our goodbyes to Nedelle and Neals' family, we headed over to the local nursing home where Glenns' sister Deanna is - she is doing fairly well and we enjoyed visiting and hearing stories from all of them growing up - always fun to reminisce about those memories!

We were both exhausted by the time we got back home so we didn't stay up very late that night!

To be cont'd...

Girls Weekend #2

 Pancake time for the girls - Glenn always enjoys making strange pancakes for the girls - even the adults couldn't figure some of them out - HA!  And I even took these pics BEFORE they were dressed and had their make-up on!!  They are BOTH beautiful just like this!

I guess this pic is from Saturday - I made them special coffee that morning and Sunday morning I made Jessi and I special coffee - Jill is a cocoa drinker so she joined the coffee drinkers on the porch with her drink!       Jessi had brought me a 6 pack of small coffee flavors - what a fun surprise!

While the moms packed up late morning, the girls made smoothies and I took the "annual" picture of sitting on the front porch - usually it's with cocoa or coffee but today it was smoothies!  We played a couple of more card games before it was lunch time and by 2:00, it was time for them to hit the road!

Yes, both girls are taller than their Nana!

Jill must have snapped this picture on the way home - teenagers who can never seem to get enough sleep!

It was a great "girls" weekend - and maybe next year we can do separate ones!

Girls' Weekend

 Girls' Weekend usually means Kenzie and Aleah are coming down for their 2 or 3 night stay with us - but due to their hectic summer schedules, time was running out!!  In the meantime, Jill and Jessi always enjoy coming down for a weekend so they can get away from the daily summer grind and have time to themselves to blog and read!  Since school was starting in a couple of weeks, the ONLY choice was to have all 4 of them come at the same time - needless to say the young girls were NOT happy having their moms come too so they kind of pretended they weren't there......

Now these two 16 year olds, always want the PERFECT picture - so that's why they look SO GOOD in all the pictures I took!  They would look at the picture after I took it and if they didn't like the way they looked, they would ask if I would take it again!!  GIRLS!!!!  

I made mango daiquiris for the older girls and I -  non-alcoholic white peach daiquiris for these two!  Jaime and Brad came over for adjustments so they joined us for happy hour!

Game time!!  I can't tell you how many times we played rummikub, Phase 10, Skyjo, Skipbo, and the 7 game!!!  But I can tell you we only played 5 Crowns ONCE and then only 1/2 way through because I was in 2nd place and we had to stop so I could get dinner going!!!  And darn it, we never made it back to it!

We had a couple of really nice days!!  The crew all arrived late morning on Friday and then left Sunday after lunch so we had plenty of time together!  These two got some blogging done and reading!

One of the things the girls do when they come is to make chocolate chip cookie dough and between the 3 of us, (and this time with a little help from Jessi) we eat the entire batch raw!!!  YUM!!!  We also use my moms' old recipe which takes crisco - and it's hard to believe what it costs to buy a stick of crisco these days!!!!  

The batch turned out perfect!  Instead of using full size chocolate chips, they used the minis which worked out perfect because we don't eat it for the chocolate chips but for the dough!

The girls had made plans to go to Cripple Creek and celebrate all of their birthdays - don't they look great?  They had tickets to go to the Butte Theater and see Bee-Hive which was ladies singing the best female songs of the 60's - guess it was great!

They ate lunch at The District and said it was good!

And then walked around Cripple Creek and took some pictures!  After the theater, they went to the Teller County Fair and even saw some old friends from 4-H and school!

Meanwhile, the girls wanted to go to Goodwill to go "thrifting".  They love the Goodwill store we have in town so we headed in - and ironically, we ran into Rayna and Hez!!!  How fun!!  The girls found clothes to buy and then we went to the new thrift place and looked around!

Friday night dinner was Kenzie's choice of Spicy Crab Linguine and Saturday night dinner was Aleah's choice of Chicken Alfredo!  Both were great but next year we'll probably NOT have 2 pasta dishes in a row!

More games that evening......

July Photo Dump

 Just a few pictures to round out July!   August has already arrived -The 2 "A" months, August and April have always been my LEAST favorite months of the year!  Isn't that weird?  But so far August is going great and I can't complain one bit!

When Gwyn came down to stay, I FINALLY opened my pack of cards that I had purchased in Greece and was SO shocked and surprised when I saw that each card had a different picture on it - WOW!  I had to spread them all out so I could just see the different pictures!  A few of them were of the same thing but taken at different times of the day so the lighting was different!  I was SO GLAD I had bought these and we were excited to use them!

A cute picture of Jim and Brenda sitting on the front porch!

When Gwyn was here and we played with the "outside" toys, we both decided I needed to order some new sets of our 2 favorite games!!  They look so bright and a nice change from the old sets!

Glenn and Brad went fishing one day over at 11 Mile and Glenn caught the BIG one!  It's a Northern and Glenn even made their website!

Last but not least, Glenn is getting ready for winter early this year!  Check out ALL that wood he already has!  And the majority of it he did NOT have to cut - just picked up from the neighbors!  He did help a neighbor cut a tree and got some really large pieces out of that which he now has split!  I believe we're good!!

And that's a wrap for July!