daily yarns 'n more

our blue jar is filling up

I've begun to fill our blue jar with little slips of paper, and on these slips of paper I've written all the wonderful and blessed things that have already happened in our life.  Right now it is packed carefully away for our journey back North to our home.

One blessing is that we were able to see and visit with our children who live here in Texas.  Though, they are no longer "children" they are adults now, with lives of their own.  It's still an adjustment being empty nesters, and having no-one living at home anymore, and it's an adjustment for the girls as well being on their own.  It was nice to see just how well they were doing and their cute apartment.

We'll also miss these ones, our son, daughter-in-law and the granddaughters.  It's been so fun getting to know the granddaughters and their personalities.  The oldest one is so bright and smart, and I'll miss her witty words.  I enjoy playing games with her, and believe me when I say "I don't let her win", she does just fine on her own :)  The youngest one went from being afraid of dogs, that's including Sadie, to liking Sadie, to the point of kissing her tail.  She also went from being deathly afraid of balloons, to holding them in her hands and playing with them, and for that we'll give Grandpa credit for getting her to not be afraid of them.  We were able to babysit while our son and daughter-in-law went out for "date" night.

We'll definitely miss our family down here, and we're so blessed to be able to come down here and not only spend time here in Galveston, but spend time with our "children".

I probably won't be posting for a couple of days, as we'll be on the road. 

Until then I hope Y'All have a wonderful week.

 

spending the day in houston

We got up really early yesterday and went to our son and daughter-in-laws home.  Jim was helping our son put an attic pull down for his garage, so it will be much easier getting things up into the garage attic, since no-one has basements here storage space is pretty limited.  The drive in was uneventful and the sunrise coming up was pretty, it was very hazy out in the morning.

I got to go and have lunch with our granddaughter at her school, there is a visitors table set up so that parents can eat with their child and not have to squish in with all the other children.  I don't think we would have been able to fit at her lunch table anyway.

I managed to get the girls to sit long enough for a photo, but it's not a great one, they both were pretty excited, and Olisa was very excited to have her mom and sister come, and I think I might have added to the excitement some as she didn't know I was going to be there.

We have only one week left here, wow did the time fly by.  We actually have to get back a bit early for some things.  I'm not looking forward to going back to the cold, but I am glad it's cold so that maybe when it's time to make our maple syrup we'll get a good volume of sap.  I'm seeing all over blogland the freezing temps people are having, but in order for the sap to run you need a cold winter. 

I hope Y'All are trying to keep warm, I know who am I to talk, when I'm down in a place where the temps range from 50-70 degrees :)

 

a day at the beach

The sun finally has been out for a few days in a row and with family here for the weekend we headed down to the beach for lunch and take in some fishing.

Granddaughter Ayla dumping the bait bucket.

A Fish caught.

Jay, trying to get the hook out without hurting the fish.

A helping hand seemed to do the trick.

Letting it go...

and away it swam.

Granddaughter Olisa was very happy it was let go and that it swam away.

Watching the family and relaxing on the beach today was so nice.

I don't look forward saying good-bye.

 

family time

We had a full house this weekend, it was fun visiting and just relaxing.  I'm totally amazed at what our granddaughter can do on an ipad.  She's in kindergarten and I believe she probably knows more about computers and tech gadgets than I do, and it's no wonder since her dad (our son) graduated with a degree in computer programing.

We had a fire in the fireplace which was so nice, the only thing missing was the marshmallows.

It's quiet now and tomorrow starts off the week with Jim working and me doing some knitting, taking Sadie for a walk down the beach, and just putzing around.  I plan to take a few trips to town for some photo shots.  I should find some pretty neat photo ops here.

I hope Y'All have had a wonderful weekend.

 

hello 2013

Well, you all know we are on our way down to Texas.  I hope you all had a safe and wonderful New Year celebration.  I have to admit we didn't stay up to see the New Year come in, after our company left we got busy and packed the van and got things closed up so that we could just wake up the next morning and jump in and go.  Did I tell you we left at 4:00 a.m.?  Well we did and made it over the Texas state line and that is where we are at. 

I thought I would show you the fun our grand kids had in the snow.  But first some candid shots of the grand kids, playing Nintendo DS, showing what they can do, being goofy and flashing those beautiful smiles.

The grand kids had lots of fun sledding down the hill into our woods.  Jim made a couple of banks along the path so they wouldn't hit any trees.  The more they went down the better the hill became, and by the time they left our house, the sledding hill was pretty slick and they could go pretty fast down it.

Jim lit the sauna so that they could go in there to warm up and our daughter made some hot chocolate for them to have outside on the picnic table.

We had a wonderful visit with them and I wish it could have been just a bit longer. 

This is how we ended 2012.  How did you end yours?

 

how we spent our christmas

We had a very quiet but wonderful Christmas.  We had our son and daughter-in-law here, they are expecting their first child in March.  I totally didn't take any photos and when I thought of it Dan and Kelli were already in their relaxing clothes.  I think we spent most of our time relaxing and eating.  Dan and Kelli left very early Christmas morning, they just bought a new home in Michigan where they live and were anxious to get moved in.  We had an early meal on Christmas Eve, a friend had stopped by to visit and bring a gift, so he stayed and shared our meal with us.

Jim and I try to live a simple life.  We are debt free, we have a garden, we heat with wood that is harvested from our land, we make maple syrup for our personal use also harvested from our land, and now we hunt for food to fill our freezer.  This is the second deer that Jim has gotten, that deer is in our freezer and Jim is in the process of tanning the deer hide.  I will make a pair of chopper mittens for him.

I snowshoed out to not only take photos, but to help drag the deer out of the woods.  This guy was very heavy.  With the first deer we brought it to the butchers in town to be processed, but being Christmas day they were closed.  One of our sons encouraged Jim to do it himself, so he did.  But I won't show you any of those photos, I don't think you would like them (lol).

This is how we spent our Christmas holiday, which was wonderful!  How was yours?

 

good morning

How are y'all (said with a Texas accent) doing this wonderful Tuesday morning?  We took a drive last Thursday to Minnesota to Grandparents day 2012.  We only have one grandchild left in the elementary school that celebrates grandparents day there, the other two have moved on up to the middle school.  We always have a nice time watching the kids perform, then visiting the classrooms and then on to the lunchroom for a delicious turkey dinner.

We headed back home later in the day, because my sister and parents were heading out for a visit.  My sister didn't like the photos of her so I put her dog Cleo in the collage instead.

I'll show you the beautiful bench that Jim made for me that matches great with my loom.  The wood is darkening up very nicely.  I used the bench while I did some quilting yesterday and it works great for that too.

Busy day today, I'm off later to get my hair cut and later I'll be laying out another quilt to pin so that I can get that quilted.

We had rain over the weekend and now the sun is shining and hopefully we'll get the last of the deck railings painted.  Trying to get things done around here before winter sets in.

Hope y'all have a beautiful day today.

 

determination

The grand-kids got to pick out pumpkins from the garden when they were here last weekend.  This one was bound and determined to carry a pumpkin to the trailer all by herself.  Her big brother came to help but soon gave up as it was too heavy.

Finally her dad came and helped to put the pumpkin in the wagon with all the other pumpkins they were taking back home with them.  The grand-kids helped us pick all the pumpkins, as I wanted to put some out by our sign and up by the house.

Even with the drought this summer we got 25 pumpkins to grow.  This is our Three Sisters project that worked out great.

You can't really see them, but the bean plants are there and they did great growing up the corn stalks.  Look how big and yummy these beans look, can't wait to have them in soups this winter.

I love the pumpkins out by the sign.  Our hostas don't look that great, the drought really did a number on them this year.

Hope you all are doing great.

hello :: autumn

We had company this weekend and of course we had a fire in the fire pit and roasted marshmallows and had s'mores.

It was a fun way to say goodbye to summer and say hello to autumn, which is my favorite time of year.  I like to call this time of year autumn.

Do you say fall or autumn?

 

sandcastles

On Labor day we had a BBQ at our sons house.  The grand-kids along with two of the neighbors grand-kids had a sandcastle making contest.  It's neat that these are children of parents that used to play together when they were growing up.