Some Things New

Last weekend Hubby and I experienced some new things.

Sushi.
Dog Park.
Settlers of Catan.
Doughnuts.

Last weekend we were in Kansas visiting our kids (Yay!!!).  No, visiting the kids isn't a new thing. That has happened before.

We went out for sushi with our daughter and son-in-law. Not a totally new thing. They took us out for sushi last November.

The new thing was this time we asked if they wanted to go out for sushi. They love it, so they were more than happy to accept. I have no idea what they ordered, but I liked it. This time I even had that big piece of fish in the front of the photo.

A totally new experience for us was to go to a dog park. They have these things in the middle of a big city so those city dogs can have a place to run off the leash. All six of us took the daughter's dog, Charley, to play with some friends.

 Charley is the black and white one.

 We decided to call this Dalmatian, Pongo. He was pretty.

Then there were these two. The little one was running around barking at all the other dogs. The black dog with the coat and the doggy shoes did a great job of just ignoring the little annoying one. He also made me laugh with all his prancing around in those doggy shoes.

The dog park was fascinating. I think there should be bleachers set up some where so I can just sit and watch the dogs and make up stories about all the dogs.

I will say, it makes me glad that I don't own a dog and have to think about things like when I should take them to the dog park.

Saturday night's new thing was playing  a game called Settlers of Catan. I had never played this game before. I was the only one who hadn't. We teamed up with spouses and I'm sorry to say that Hubby had no chance of winning with me as a partner.

And since I didn't really understand the game very well, I built things with the game pieces. I'm hopeless when it comes to games, it seems.

Stone Henge.

Sunday morning we were treated to homemade doughnuts courtesy of Daughter and her husband.

These are the last two doughnuts that were waiting for the oil. Zach was the fryer, the rest of us dipped in cinnamon sugar, sprinkled in powdered sugar and snarfed down way too many of them. They were scrumptious!

What a fun weekend with our kids!

I missed them the second we drove away.

Post Christmas Post

Hubby and I are in the post-Christmas mode. That involves lots of laundry, vacuuming, putting away Christmas decorations, eating leftovers.

I called lunch today "Christmas Dinner, Take Two".  Here's the line-up waiting for time in the microwave.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We started out the celebrations with traveling to Iowa the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with each of our parents and siblings. The drive down was not fun as there had been a big snow storm the day before and the roads still weren't very good. But Hubby was a good driver and it took us an hour and a half longer, but we made it. We enjoyed the time with our extended families. Caleb and Amanda met us there. The grandparents were happy to see them as it had been quite a while since they last did.

The storm left behind some beauty:

The drive back north was much, much better, especially since Megan and Zach were driving up here to celebrate Christmas with us all! I texted Megan when we turned onto the interstate and she texted back that they were only 6 miles behind us. Couldn't have timed that if we tried!

Sunday night we enjoyed some yummy spaghetti and a craft time. I got a crazy idea to look for a fun, easy, cheap craft on Pinterest and this is what I came up with:

Note to self: dollar store clothes-pins are really cheap for a reason. Bad, bad quality. But they still made interesting snowflakes.

Some people where a tad excited about the craft time:

Such a goof.

I found our craft box when I was looking for some paint brushes. The kids had fun remembering some of the things in there.

 See that red zippered thing with colored pencils in it? I used that when I was a kid. There are also some different kind of crayons from when Hubby was a kid.

I found a couple of things of Play-Doh in the craft box that was still fresh. I think it's been in there for a good five years. Zach used it as a visual-aid to explain to Hubby about something in his car that needs to be fixed. It made me giggle.

Puppy came along and had fun playing in the snow and provided lots of entertainment.

A couple of mornings his people went out to go snow-shoeing in the field next to our house. Puppy was sad and looking out the windows the whole time. He had some pretty funny sounding whines.

We opened gifts on Christmas Eve since Megan and Zach had to head back for work on the 26th.

Puppy had a gift to open and went at it until he got out the toy.

I discovered this photo where it looks like the Puppy was helping Caleb open his gift. Silly.

We very much enjoyed having everyone here to celebrate. We are thankful they were all willing to travel up here so we could all be together. All of those kids are so special to us. My cousin wrote on his Facebook page about how their in-laws complete their family so perfectly. I believe that is true for us as well. Our kids spouses fit in and complete this family as if God planned it that way.... Hmmmm.... ;)

Month of Thankfulness -- Day 17

Another lovely day here in the land of Oz. (or is it Ahs?)

I just commented to my hubby that coming here to hang out with the kids for this half a week was a really great idea. Funny thing is, neither of us can remember who was the first one to suggest it. In my opinion, that's one of the beautiful things of 28 years of marriage. The two of us tend to think alike and we talk things through as though we were one. Hey! I think that was God's plan all along!

Our day started with a late breakfast with our daughter and son-in-law. Yummy, yummy food and great company. The belly laughs sure helped too!

The rest of the day was spent playing dominoes;

 

 (I didn't win one single game. I may or may not have been distracted with my new toy phone.)

and watching this little guy's antics:

(I'm not really clear on why he did this. But he seemed very happy.)

Megan fixed us some yummy soup and fresh bread for an early supper, and then Hubby and son went to a football game. Their Alma Maters were playing each other in football. Us girls went shopping at........
wait for it....
TARGET! So fun to wander around together.

I'm thankful for...
...my kids (all four: the two I raised and the two we were blessed with)
...laughter
...that silly dog
...God's blessings on our family
...the oneness in marriage

Fourteen Points on the 14th

I've been thinking about this blog all week, trying to figure out a specific subject to bore my readers with write about. Now it's Friday night and I haven't come up with anything. So I think that means a random-thought post is the solution:::

1. I've meant to write about our weekends for the last three or four weekends. Let's just do a little photo recap.

2. Mmmmm.... my favorite pizza was consumed last weekend. Love that thick wheat crust. They even have honey in the restaurant to squeeze into the crust. Mmmmm....

3. Several weekends ago we went to visit our parents. On Sunday we got to worship with my parents at the church where Hubby and I were married. We hadn't been there for a long time. It was good to be back and good to see a friend from high school days. I sneaked this photo during a prayer. Shhh... don't tell.

4. The skies on the drive back home were fantastic. There were several storm cells around us.

5. Labor Day weekend we had honest-to-goodness-real-live-company! Our daughter and son-in-law came for the weekend. (And Charley!)

6. We had fun at a picnic:

7. Someone had fun chasing a ball and a frisbee:::

8. And that puppy had even more fun hanging his head out the window. 

Seriously, doesn't he look so happy?  

 9. That puppy LOVED his Pup Cup at our local ice cream shop.

10. I can't even begin to say how much we enjoyed having Megan, Zach and Charley here for the weekend. We rarely get company so it was such a treat to plan and fix meals for them and just to have more voices in the house.

11. Have you ever started a project with a great goal in mind only when it was almost done you realized it's not going to turn out quite like you envisioned? I've been working on finishing up a quilt top I started while I was watching the Olympics. I think it is mostly the fabric I chose that is bugging me. I like the fabric, but just not for the pattern I am using. Hubby convinced me it will be a great take-outside quilt. So today I finished the borders. I guess I learned not everything turns out like I pictured in my head and what type of fabric works better for that specific pattern.

12. This weekend is a quite one at home. Hopefully I can finish the backing for my take-outside-quilt and get it ready to put in the mail to The Missouri Star Quilt Company on Monday. I've had two quilts quilted there and just love the work they do.

13. The city has put a ban on lawn watering due to the lack of rain. Right after Hubby (& Megan and
Zach) worked hard to re-seed part of the lawn that was dead due to the lack of rain. Ugh. All week long I have noticed county highway trucks filling up tanks from the fire hydrant on the corner of our property. Hmmmm... Should I let the city know where all their water is going? :)

14. I'm going for fourteen random comments, but can't really think of anything else, so this non-comment will have to suffice as a fill-in. :)