Super supper!

I really meant to take a photo of last night's supper, but was way too consumed with my role, so you'll just have to develop you picture mentally...

Mike and Emily's church sponsored a men's retreat at Maranatha, author Michael Wittmer of GR Baptist Seminary serving as the speaker. At Mike's invitation, Don, Eric and Mike K joined him.

So, knowing that Emily, Lea Anne, and Elizabeth have their hands full and would feel a bit overwhelmed by the weekend w/o dads, I made plans for last night. I asked Natalie's help and then told the girls that their kids were invited to have supper at Grammy's while they went out for supper.

So, from 6-9, Natalie (14) and I had supper and played and kept the peace with Jason (10 and of limited help), Nathan (7 and entertaining but way over the top stimulating), Boden (5 and excited to be with all the boys), Heidi (3 and really wanting to be read to for hours on end), Caleb (2 and strong and active and coordinated like a three year old with terrible twos mentality), and Logan (certainly and completely 2 and always wanting to do everything that Nathan and Boden and Caleb do).

I bought Valentine-themed paper serve ware, fixed mac n cheese (I'm not dumb!), cooked carrots for the token vegetable that I ate, opened cans of fruit cocktail for the token fruit that I ate, finger jello that saved the day a couple times throughout the evening and, after all, I got to send them home afterward, hot dogs which are classic kid food that a couple of them scarfed down. And, for the piece d resistance, Natalie made vanilla cupcakes that we frosted on the spot and sprinkled with their choice of junk -- colored sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, green sprinkles, or red sprinkles.

While I did the dishes, Natalie read to Heidi and Jason tried to supervise the boys in the basement. Fortunately, the meltdown did not occur until my dishes were about finished. So, I ordered them all up to the living room, turned out all the lights, and turned on the little camping lantern Don got for Christmas. Then we all sat together on the floor and read stories. One more rescue with the finger jello, and we saw the headlights in the driveway. Whew! We made it!!!

This morning, I'm going with Liz and the boys to pick out yarn for the baby stuff. Yikes!!!

Only a bit of snow in this southern winter

Here we are in Michigan!!! and on January 19, during the first good snow, we saw traffic backed up westbound on I-196 probably due to the usual semi-jacknifing, two cars way down in that ditch by us that is much deeper since MDOT dug out the fill, and numerous slide-offs on the way to GR.

Sunday's event was deeper and slick but nary a slide-off in sight.

Crazy, but wonderful! Christmas Holiday

Photo journal of this week's excitement, or weariness?

Till death do us part?????

All I wanted to do was get a better picture of that animal that was not a dog or a deer that was running across the eastern 80!!!

So, I got one photo and then The Man, The Until Death Do Us Part Man, said "You really need to be over here to see it better..." Huh. Booby trap? What happened to "in sickness and in health"?

When I fell over the two power cords in the way, managed to avoid crashing the monitor and baby puter into the hardwood floor, dug my pinkie into the Churgovich violets that I have not yet killed and did not them and only breaking off seven leaves, rolled onto the floor and didn't even smash or drop or destroy the camera...

So, anyway, what did my mighty protector do??? Help me up??? Call 911??? Drop to the floor so he could assess the serious nature of my injuries???

NOPE! He took the CAMERA from ME and took a picture, too blurry to be useful. Then, he looked and said, "Oh, your foot is caught? I didn't see that!" And he took another photo???!!!???

Some people wondered why I did it, but take a look at this...

Holland State Park, October 27-30, 2011 -- plenty of privacy for my camper.

End of an Era

After maybe 55 years of running a baler, Dad decided he's done. He'll hire someone else, or maybe even borrow Brian's if he needs some bales, but it's not worth the expense and inconvenience of owning our own machine for the few acres of hay we have. So, today we said a reluctant farewell to a trusty part of the past.

I guess nostalgia is kind of like today's view from my windows. When I looked north, the sky was black and violent and threatening. When I sat back in my chaise, the rusty oranges of the Kousa just seemed to be a beautiful statement that complemented my comfortable haven.