Recently...

This here blog has been pretty quiet lately. If I was actually home sometime, I might find the time to write.

There is no complaining coming from this blogger, though. I rather enjoy having my weekends full. But full weekends translate into a busy few days at home filled with laundry and other neglected house work and no blogging.

So.

What have we been up to?

In the last month or so, we've made a massive road trip, helped my in-laws move out some of their furniture, ran a half marathon, sat in road construction at 11:30 AT NIGHT, and helped our son and daughter-in-law with their new, 100 year old house.

Before any readers out there get the impression that I ran a half marathon... I did NOT. Hubby is the runner in this family. While he was running those 13.1 miles (and getting severe leg cramps, sadly), I was sleeping soundly. (Those races are early in the morning...and we all know I am not much of  morning person.)  But I did feel guilty that I was just sleeping and he was struggling with cramps in his calf muscles and feet.

After that half marathon race we went on a little road trip to take care of some family business (vagueness here on purpose...not everything that happens in my life is blabbed about on this here blog). Our drive back home started out quite late in the day and that is why we were sitting on the interstate for 20 minutes after 11pm as some sort of road construction was going on. Makes for a couple of grumpy travelers. We attempted to stop at my sister's house to sleep, but due to a power outage because of storms that had gone through earlier, we decided to not go in their dark house (they were gone) and decided to keep driving home. We arrived home at 3am. (!!)

Let's just establish right now that I am way too old to be out that late. Admittedly, I have been awake that late before, thanks to my (not) friend insomnia, but there is a difference between laying in bed and trying to sleep and riding in a car until 3am and trying not to sleep. It took me 3 days to recover.

This weekend we have been helping our son and daughter-in-law with all sorts of things around their house. A couple of weeks ago they moved into their first house in Kansas City. It's a bit over 100 years old and needs a little TLC. Yesterday I sat on my butt for way too long (my back is yelling at me today) and wiped down baseboards and door frames. Hubby has been a work-horse with painting, cleaning up the yard, washer and dryer hook-up, etc, etc, etc. Our daughter and son-in-law helped yesterday as well.

This is a brother/sister team working on putting a piece of IKEA furniture together.

(I just gotta say that I loved listening to them work together on this. Made my heart thankful and proud.)

Hubby and I are hanging around a couple of days to celebrate our 29th anniversary. We are upgrading to a fancy-schmancy hotel and enjoying ourselves. Tonight we are taking our kids out for a fancy dinner. I'm looking forward to that!

Okay. Done with my catch-up post.

The Day The Doorbell Rang Three Times And It Wasn't Even the Mailman Or The UPS Guy Or The FedEx Guy --or-- A Weekend Recap On A Wednesday

A Wednesday Weekend Recap? Works for me.

My in-laws are down-sizing significantly.  They are selling their house and moving into an apartment. Last Saturday we helped them with some of the moving process. They are generously giving away a lot of their belongings. Our daughter is blessed to receive their beautiful piano. She is a fantastic piano player. I am so grateful to my in-laws for gifting her with that. I can't wait to visit her house and hear her play.

Our son met us at his grandparents' house and filled up the back of a pickup with all kinds of furniture (including an end table my mother-in-law's grandfather made) and tools. My father-in-law loves his tools. He has made so many things around their house from handles on the door frame into the house from the garage (to grab a hold of to help climb the stairs), to a turntable on their table, to bookshelves, to modifications to almost everything, to a gorgeous clock. So there are a LOT of tools. He spent a considerable amount of time explaining everything to his grandson.

We came home with our back end of our SUV full of odd and assorted things.We are thankful for their willingness to give away so many things and grateful to be able to help in their downsizing process.

Just look at this clock my FIL made! It has yet to find a spot on a wall in this house. (We're working on it.) It seems a little surreal to hear it chiming in this house.

After we were finished at my in-law's, we drove an hour to the town where my parents live. They were flying home from their two weeks in North Carolina.  Since we would drive right through their town, we arranged with them a few days earlier to have supper with them after they got home.

As we waited for their flight to arrive, we wandered around town and the mall and hung out at Panera (of course). At the mall I ran into my childhood friend's mother. So fun to chat with her.

When my parents finally got home (delay in Chicago), we greeted them at their house (we know how to get in...) with a lasagna dinner all laid out. And no, I didn't cook it, unless reheating the garlic bread in the oven and warming up the lasagna in the microwave and dumping salad into bowls counts. (We picked up dinner at our favorite restaurant in town.) It was a super yummy supper and fun to spend a little time with my mom and dad.

We drove back home Saturday night and unloaded the car and crashed.

Sunday was a momentous day. As seen in the title of this post, I call it:

The Day The Doorbell Rang Three Times 

And It Wasn't Even the Mailman 

Or The UPS Guy 

Or The FedEx Guy

The first two times the doorbell rang, it was our neighbors giving us a piece of mail belonging to us and giving us some extra fish they had.

While both of those gestures were very kind, the third doorbell was the best. It was our niece! She was driving by on the nearby interstate her way home and stopped by for a quick visit and a bite to eat. So fun to have her here! Hubby helped me throw together a pasta chicken salad and some strawberry shortcake. He makes an awesome sous chef!

So we had an eventful and history making weekend! (The doorbell has never been rung that many times in one day.)

Giant Road Trip of 2013 -- Part Three (**Revised**)

**Somehow this posted with just pictures 
and not all the content I wrote. 

Grr...... 

Let's see if I can recreate what I wrote.**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the end of a vacation approaches I tend to have mixed feelings. Part of me is looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed, the other part hates the thought of getting home and facing a mountain of laundry and Hubby back at work and I don't get to see my friends and family any more.

But then there's this blog where I get to drag out my posts about the trip and re-live the whole thing.

You're welcome

We left the beach house on Friday morning. I was glad all the Little Ones were awake so I could give them all kisses good-bye.

We took a different route on our trip back home so we could squeeze in a few more visits.

Our stop on Friday was to visit my cousins who live in Eastern Tennessee. (Loudon.) I hadn't been there to see them for 34 years (I've seen them at family events over the years). Hubby never had been to that part of Tennessee.

My aunt and uncle farmed there on an old farm.  My uncle passed away 24 years ago. (My aunt remarried a few years ago at age 82 (!) and lives in Florida.) My cousins live in this house.

The house was built in 1845. There are a couple of chunks out of the bricks around the front porch that happened during a Civil War battle.

My relatives have lived here since 1957. But just think that before they lived there, there had been over 100 years of history there already! Mind boggling.

The views from the house are breathtaking. (It was beginning to get dark and had been raining, so the pictures are a little dull.)

A very, very long time ago, this building was slave quarters.

A cherished photo of my sweet cousins and me. These two have an older sister who is the oldest cousin on my dad's side of the family. I am the youngest. I am so blessed to be related to these two Southern Ladies.

We enjoyed a few hours of talking, looking at a few pictures, and laughing.  We shared memories, family stories and had fun talking about our grandparents.



(As we were planning our vacation, this stop was all Hubby's idea. He gets a Gold Star for that!)

The next day we stopped in Nashville for a long lunch with some friends. We know them from the previous Minnesota town we lived in. It was good to spend time with them at catch up on each others lives. We miss our friends.

We were delayed getting into Nashville because of slow traffic. (You know -- one of those traffic jams that when it finally breaks up, there is no obvious reason for the slow down.) So, because of that delay, we were just a smidge too late for a stop later in the day at The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. (I was wanting to look around in the gift shop some.) It closed at 5pm and we got there at 5:05pm. Phooey. I was sad.

Saturday night was in St. Louis, then Sunday morning, we drove through northeast Missouri on up into Iowa. Sunday afternoon was a quick stop at my in-law's house. They are getting ready to sell their house and move into an apartment. (More on that later.) We picked up a few things, had a nice visit, then finished our last leg home.

It was a wonderful vacation. I was worried I would be stressed with having to get up early to get on the road so many mornings, but I really wasn't. (Maybe it helped that we were seeing friends or family at the end of most days?) We passed the time in the car listening to a couple of audio books. One book I really liked (a John Grishan novel) the other not so much (about WW2 battles). We also took notice of the license plates on the cars around us and wrote down all the different states. We found 43 states and The District of Columbia and 2 Canadian provinces. (Remember doing that as a kid?)

Ten days. 3,301 miles. Thirteen States. Five hotels. Good memories.

Giant Road Trip of 2013 -- Part Two

For Part One of our Giant Road Trip of 2013 click here.

Before we left the Raleigh area, we strategically spent the night near a mall I wanted to shop at on Monday morning. You know me, living in a small town, I take advantage of shopping whenever I can!

We needed to pick up a gift for a sweet little girl (my niece's little girl) who was turning three in a few days. We picked her up some LEGOS. She smiled when she opened it and said "thank you!" very sweetly. 

Hubby captured a great series of pictures of the new three year old trying to blow out her birthday candle. I made a little collage of the series. You can see the flame flickering and her little cousin trying to help.

I just love her face in the last picture when she realized there was victory! 

The next several days we hung out at the beach with the majority of my family in this house::

With views on the outside like this:

And views on the inside like this:

It was very difficult to get a good picture of these three great-nieces of mine when we were playing together. They were wiggly and being tickled by their great-uncle and therefore -- blurry photos! :)

There were three babies in addition to these three. After we left somehow they managed to get all Six of The Littles on a couch for a photo:

(The two babies on either side of the girl in the purple shirt are twins.) (Photo credit: my niece. She graciously let me "borrow" this photo and the next.)

While I think the photo of The Six Littles is adorable, this photo is hilarious:

 (My niece calls this one, The Paparazzi.) (It looks like a twin is getting her diaper changed on the left there.) (The quilt on the floor is one of two I made for my sister.)

We had really good food while we were at the beach house: grilled tuna steaks, roasted broccoli, a shrimp boil., went out for shrimp burgers and my brother made these amazing wings on the 4th of July:

One more post to warp up our trip.....

Giant Road Trip of 2013 -- Part One

Sunday night Hubby and I returned from what I dubbed Giant Road Trip of 2013.

3,301 miles and thirteen states to be exact. I think that qualifies as Giant, don't you?

Our destination was the beach in North Carolina. My sister and brother-in-law own a house on the beach and my extended family was gathering there for parts of the first two weeks of July. We debated about flying out there, but decided on driving and stopping to see friends along the way.

As I look through my list of Facebook friends, sometimes I have to stop and think about which "life" do I know that person from. Was it College? Childhood? Family? When we lived in Iowa? Kansas? Missouri? Singapore? Minnesota? Needless to say, we have friends and family spread out all over the country.

Hubby mapped out a few possible routes, we thought about who we knew where and sent out emails to college friends, family and old friends. Only one visit didn't work out because of a special family outing they had planned for their special needs son. (We thought it was best to let the family have their time with him.)

So the last Friday in June, we hit the road and drove until quite late that night. We "waved" at our parents as we drove through their towns (we'd see them later), and made a stop at my (other) sister's house to use the clean non-public bathroom. ;)

Saturday we were up at at 'em and on the road to our destination to western Pennsylvania to visit our best friends from college whom we hadn't seen for 10 years. He was Hubby's roommate and a groomsman in our wedding and she was a very close friend and my personal attendant for our wedding. We were all four very good friends in college.

I can't even describe how good it was to see these people! So encouraging to see how God has built our marriages, how our faith has grown and what our kids are up to.

After a delicious dinner, we said goodbye way too soon and headed on down the road for our second night in a hotel.

The next day took us through Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia and North Carolina. This mid-westerner finds it a little crazy to drive through so many states in one day. And can I say that the traffic through the DC area is more than a bit nuts? We were thankful to have GPS that kept us up to date on the traffic patterns. We also spent time listening to one of our favorite CDs that is full of hymns. Selah - Greatest Hymns. So appropriate for a Sunday on the road.

In order to maximize our time on the road and to avoid fast food, we packed a cooler full of sandwich fixings and snacks. That worked out very well. I must say, Hubby is a master at driving and munching on a sandwich.

That evening we ended up in the Raleigh, NC area to see some friends from the town we lived in before here. These friends moved away seven years ago and five years ago their beloved daughter was killed in a car accident. We have longed to see them for such a long time. They treated us to yummy North Carolina barbecue. We were so encouraged to be with them and to hear about the journey they have been on. 

Sadly, we forgot all about getting a picture of all of us. 

Trip story to be continued....

A July Hodgepodge

I'm joining up with the Wednesday Hodgepodge this week. Click on over to Joyce's blog and read the other participant's answers to these questions or, better yet, link up yourself!

1. What's something people might ask you for help with?

I have had a few people ask me for a little help with making a quilt. Last fall my sister made her one and only quilt from a stack of our grandma's feed-sacks. We had a few texting and phone conversations during the process. She did a wonderful job!

I like to think that I would be asked for help with cooking, but the ever-knowing internet has taken over that job.

2. What's something you might ask someone else for help with?

I ask Hubby to help with vacuuming,  washing dishes, creating a spread sheet in Excel for me (his favorite) arranging quilt squares for me, and well, just lots of stuff. We make a good team.


3.  Did your family take summer vacations when you were a child? If so, where did you go? If you're a parent, did/do you plan summer vacations with your own family? Did/do they resemble those you took as a child?

Yes, we took vacations when I was a child. Every summer we went camping some where. And when I say camping, I mean in a tent. Quite often it involved driving ( six of us in a four-door sedan) across the country somewhere. Sometimes the trip included a conference that my dad attended. Sometimes we visited friends. Sometimes we just went camping. 

When our kids were growing up we tried to plan a vacation every summer. We even went tent camping a few times. While I enjoyed camping as a kid and the few times we went with our kids, Hubby and I decided that neither of us totally loved the whole camping thing. I don't think our tent has seen the light of day since 1997.

When the kids were very small, Hubby and I sat down and made a list of places we wanted to go with the kids. We managed to do several of those, but it got a bit derailed when we moved to Singapore. But then we were blessed to be able to travel to places we never thought possible.

Hubby and I just got back from what I dubbed The Giant Road Trip of 2013. We drove to the east coast. I'll blog about it later this week.

4.   Pool-lake-ocean...which one is most appealing to you on a hot summer day?

An air-conditioned house.
What? 
That wasn't one of the choices?
Fine.
Pool. I prefer a good-ole cement pond so I don't have to think about what might be lurking under the water. This thought was reinforced four years ago when a shark decided to nibble on my niece's foot and she had to get 42 stitches on her foot and ankle. When I was at the ocean recently, I only ventured in up to my ankles. I was just fine with that. 

5.  Have you ever justified using the expression, 'you gotta be cruel to be kind'?  Was it really necessary or were you rationalizing?

I don't think I've ever tried to follow that expression. I think it would fall under the category of rationalizing.

I have been on the receiving end of someone thinking being cruel was helpful. Take it from me it was not. It ruined the friendship.

6.  The Journal of Psychology recently mentioned the results of a survey identifying the ten most hated foods as-liver, lima beans, mayonnaise, mushrooms, eggs, okra, beets, brussel sprouts, tuna, and gelatin.  Of those foods, how many do you actually hate? Anything you'd add to the list?

Hate: Liver
Like:  Mayonnaise, Mushrooms, Eggs, Brussel Sprouts, Gelatin and Tuna if it's fresh and not canned
Have eaten, but care to not eat anymore, thank-you-very-much:  Okra, Beets, Lima Beans

7. What's your favorite book or movie set in a beach or lake town?

I thought about this all day yesterday and just could not think of an answer. Lame.


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I am wanting the advice of you people out there in blog-land. 
I have been considering buying a blender. For several years I had a blender attachment for my Oster Kitchen Center but for probably the last 10 years I haven't had a blender. I have a food processor and a hand-held blender. 

My questions are:
What would I use a blender for?
Is it useful for things that I can't do with my food processor or hand-held blender? 
What do you blog-land people use your blenders for?

I have this feeling that I am missing out by not having a blender. I found out after Hubby gave me a food processor for my birthday two years ago how much I was missing out on. Every single time I use that thing I think how much I love it and wonder how I lived without it for so long.

Babies

I've been busy watching,  holding and playing with babies and toddlers.  Such fun!

Our Adventure

Hubby and I got stuck in this flash flood on our way to my sister's beach house in North Carolina.  We got off the interstate to wait out the heavy, heavy rain and then had to wait more than an hour for the waters to go down enough so we could get back on the interstate.

The upside is we had a snack and I used the bathroom -- twice. ;-) Sorry. Too much information?