I'm back.....maybe!
Well....here I am after an absence of.....YIKES! It's been over 4 months since my last post!
Oh well, my few followers have certainly not been beating down my door or clogging up my email box with concern for where I am!
What has happened since April 23? Did I show you Easter pictures? My entire family was at church with us. Forgive the photos of Jake in his sunglasses, but in the next one I took, Christie had her eyes shut!
In May the kids were wrapping up their school year. I was back at Jake's working on that blasted BATHROOM, and Heather's family was preparing for their trip to the Rockies.
Jake had applied for a job with the railroad in Jackson, MS, but did not get it. Then a position in the communications department in NEW ORLEANS with the railroad came open. He applied for that and DID get it! When Heather's family was on their trip, I went daily to her house to feed their menagerie of animals: goldfish and turtles, guinea pig and hamster, cat and 2 dogs! Every one of them was still alive when the family returned, although I had considered moving the hamster in with the goldfish a time or two. He/she (we never got friendly enough to check) bit me whenever I would reach in for its food dish. By then end I was dropping it's food down into the cage like rain and hoping it fell into the dish!!! Samantha, their youngest, played softball this year so we went to numerous games. Did I mention that it has been a very HOT June, July and August here?
Ron and I left for Michigan in late June. Shortly after I arrived in Traverse City, the hard-drive on my old laptop died. Dead as a doornail. (BTW, what IS a doornail and would it ever be alive? If not...how could it be dead? Oh well, I digress) I went to Best Buy (uggh) down the road and bought a new laptop and a wireless printer (which I have yet to hook up...and yes, you DO have to plug in a wireless printer...at least to electricity!!!)
It was certainly different being at "home" without my Dad. I felt his absence every day. (Hard for me to believe that this next Thursday will be one year since he died.) My sister and brother-in-law have stayed very involved with Mom and so we were all together nearly every day. We had a lot of beach times, Ron fished a lot, and our favorite activity was garage sailing! (More about THAT in a future blog post!)
Below are some of Ron's fish. Below that is my great-nephew, Christian, and myself.
Above is my nephew, Tim, and his fiance', Kristen. The other is a group playing at a luncheon we went to. The guitar player second from right is my Dad's best friend, Leon. We surprised him with our attendance shortly after we arrived!
Ron and I came home the week preceeding our niece's wedding here in Baton Rouge. She had a lovely wedding and we enjoyed it very much.
A few days after the wedding, Ron and I loaded all 3 grands into our van and drove 11 hours to Branson, MO. We took them to see "Noah, They Musical" which is in its last season at the Branson location. I don't know why I didn't get any pictures of them there....except this. It is the newest way to keep a bunch of kids quiet while waiting for something! They each had an iPod to play games on! What a world we live in!!!
We enjoyed the play very much and the girls enjoyed the pool at the hotel. We spent 2 days IN Branson before starting the 11 hour drive home. It was actually HOTTER there than it was here at home and reached 106 the day we arrived there! We were grateful for the pool.
Speaking of the pool, just before we returned from Michigan, Jake called to inform us that the inflateable ring on our pool seemed to be losing air. He got the compressor and aired it up and less than a week later, after we got home, the ring had nearly collapsed again. Once that ring no longer is floatable, the entire pool (18 feet across and 4 foot deep) would empty in seconds! We aired it up and a couple days later I was able to determine where it was leaking. We tried patching it....but the pinholes were developing in these little dark spots that were showing up on the tube. When we looked, the spots were very numerous and we knew it was only a matter of time before more leaks would develop. So, just before leaving for Branson, we opened the drains. When we returned, we siphoned the remainder of the water and hauled the vinyl pool out of the back yard. I was so sad to see it go as Emmie had really started getting comfortable in the pool at the hotel. We have SEVERAL more weeks to enjoy the water here in Louisiana, but now we have no pool!
Now we are gearing up for autumn. The kids returned to school two weeks ago. Ashlyn is in 7th grade, Samantha in 6th...both at Middle School. (Samantha just tried out for, and made it on the girls softball team at school!!!) Emmie has started Kindergarten. Ron took a load of stuff to the deer camp in Mississippi this weekend as they had a "Work Day" on last weekend. Dove hunting season is next weekend. Our bowling league had started back up for the season!
(Sorry about the tiny picture of Heather's girls. I copied it from her Facebook page! )
The Big R Club (retirement group from the railroad) has several people, including Ron and I, who are going on an Alaskan cruise in September, so I am trying to plan what to pack already. We fly to Seattle on Sept. 10.
On October 1 or thereabouts, Ron and I are going back north to enjoy the fall colors in Michigan. We plan to have Mom ride back with us and she will continue on to Arizona from here.
All of this will come to pass and be behind us before you know it.
(I will insert here that I wrote the content above a week ago. It has taken me a week to get the pictures inserted in here. I think I had their resolution too large. I am trying to get this corrected and maybe I can get back to blogging again! CHECK BACK!!!)
See you later
Oh well, my few followers have certainly not been beating down my door or clogging up my email box with concern for where I am!
What has happened since April 23? Did I show you Easter pictures? My entire family was at church with us. Forgive the photos of Jake in his sunglasses, but in the next one I took, Christie had her eyes shut!
In May the kids were wrapping up their school year. I was back at Jake's working on that blasted BATHROOM, and Heather's family was preparing for their trip to the Rockies.
Jake had applied for a job with the railroad in Jackson, MS, but did not get it. Then a position in the communications department in NEW ORLEANS with the railroad came open. He applied for that and DID get it! When Heather's family was on their trip, I went daily to her house to feed their menagerie of animals: goldfish and turtles, guinea pig and hamster, cat and 2 dogs! Every one of them was still alive when the family returned, although I had considered moving the hamster in with the goldfish a time or two. He/she (we never got friendly enough to check) bit me whenever I would reach in for its food dish. By then end I was dropping it's food down into the cage like rain and hoping it fell into the dish!!! Samantha, their youngest, played softball this year so we went to numerous games. Did I mention that it has been a very HOT June, July and August here?
It was certainly different being at "home" without my Dad. I felt his absence every day. (Hard for me to believe that this next Thursday will be one year since he died.) My sister and brother-in-law have stayed very involved with Mom and so we were all together nearly every day. We had a lot of beach times, Ron fished a lot, and our favorite activity was garage sailing! (More about THAT in a future blog post!)
Below are some of Ron's fish. Below that is my great-nephew, Christian, and myself.
Ron and I came home the week preceeding our niece's wedding here in Baton Rouge. She had a lovely wedding and we enjoyed it very much.
A few days after the wedding, Ron and I loaded all 3 grands into our van and drove 11 hours to Branson, MO. We took them to see "Noah, They Musical" which is in its last season at the Branson location. I don't know why I didn't get any pictures of them there....except this. It is the newest way to keep a bunch of kids quiet while waiting for something! They each had an iPod to play games on! What a world we live in!!!
Speaking of the pool, just before we returned from Michigan, Jake called to inform us that the inflateable ring on our pool seemed to be losing air. He got the compressor and aired it up and less than a week later, after we got home, the ring had nearly collapsed again. Once that ring no longer is floatable, the entire pool (18 feet across and 4 foot deep) would empty in seconds! We aired it up and a couple days later I was able to determine where it was leaking. We tried patching it....but the pinholes were developing in these little dark spots that were showing up on the tube. When we looked, the spots were very numerous and we knew it was only a matter of time before more leaks would develop. So, just before leaving for Branson, we opened the drains. When we returned, we siphoned the remainder of the water and hauled the vinyl pool out of the back yard. I was so sad to see it go as Emmie had really started getting comfortable in the pool at the hotel. We have SEVERAL more weeks to enjoy the water here in Louisiana, but now we have no pool!
Can you see the bubbles on the ring? LEAKS!
Now we are gearing up for autumn. The kids returned to school two weeks ago. Ashlyn is in 7th grade, Samantha in 6th...both at Middle School. (Samantha just tried out for, and made it on the girls softball team at school!!!) Emmie has started Kindergarten. Ron took a load of stuff to the deer camp in Mississippi this weekend as they had a "Work Day" on last weekend. Dove hunting season is next weekend. Our bowling league had started back up for the season!(Sorry about the tiny picture of Heather's girls. I copied it from her Facebook page! )
The Big R Club (retirement group from the railroad) has several people, including Ron and I, who are going on an Alaskan cruise in September, so I am trying to plan what to pack already. We fly to Seattle on Sept. 10.
On October 1 or thereabouts, Ron and I are going back north to enjoy the fall colors in Michigan. We plan to have Mom ride back with us and she will continue on to Arizona from here.
All of this will come to pass and be behind us before you know it.
(I will insert here that I wrote the content above a week ago. It has taken me a week to get the pictures inserted in here. I think I had their resolution too large. I am trying to get this corrected and maybe I can get back to blogging again! CHECK BACK!!!)
See you later
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