Karen's Birthday

We visited Jean & Karen on Wednesday to celebrate Grandma Karen's birthday. She made an excellent chicken/white bean chili and all sorts of sides to go with it - great food as always!! We stayed and let all the girls play for the evening. They all get so excited together; it's so much fun to watch and join in with!!

Grandma has a helper

I'm so cute!
So Happy

I am one with the flower...

I can fly!

Group Hug

TJ's Cross Country Meet

Our karate student, TJ, had a cross country meet at Kimberly HS last weekend. Jen and I went with his mom, Kandi, to cheer him on. Here is a link to some pictures posted on our karate blog: http://omro-dojo.blogspot.com/2009/10/tjs-cross-country-meet.html

Cottage Visit

We were up at the cottage last weekend. The grandmas babysat Rae & Joeli so Jen and I could go out to dinner for our anniversary. We went to The Woods - EXCELLENT food, highly recommended!! Aaron was up with his girls, Serenity and Adriana, visiting Jean and Karen also. Rae & Jo were so excited to play with them!! On Sunday we got a start to the winterizing of our cottage - we hooked up the inside winter pump. We'll be back up next weekend for a couple of days and will probably disconnect and drain the main water system.

Gratitude - I am grateful to have a family that plays and laughs, and inspires me to do the same.

First Frost

Last Thursday I woke up on our anniversary to a beautifully frost-covered back yard. I had just mowed the lawn the day before and frost highlighted the circle pattern.

Gratitude - I am grateful for the awesome beauty nature provides.

Pictures!

I got Jen (us) a new camera for our aniversary. So, we will be starting to share pictures on this blog on a regular basis again! ...I know most of you (Pam) just want to see pictures of the kids anyway. Here are some pics from yesterday's birthday party for our nephew, Chase. We went to the Greenville Zoo and then watched the Packer game.

at the zoo playground

Rae getting a good view of the animals

petting the bunnies

Joeli loves the bunnies

Rae and Jen with the goats

Joeli is still in the bunny cage

Rae on the playground

Watching the game with Joeli and niece Sanibel

Rae & Chase watching a movie

More Turkey Antics

The other day, Jen saw our group of turkeys come across the yard and visit our pond. One by one they hopped over the edge and disappeared from sight down by the water. Oddly entertaining to watch!

Today the girls and I saw them coming out of the woods and watched from the kitchen windows. A few of them chased each other - fun to watch such a big bird run so fast and stretch out their legs! They gathered for a while by some bushes at the edge of the woods to eat some berries. As they needed to get to the higher ones they would jump and grab them with their beaks...a group of hopping turkeys - we all had a good laugh at that sight!!

Chasing Turkeys

The highlight of my day, yesterday, came in the morning. I was having breakfast with Rae and Jo when we saw our Turkey family in the back yard - a mommy turkey and 6 babies (although the babies are getting pretty big now). When we were upstairs brushing teeth, we saw the same group again with two more big turkeys in the yard, and most of the babies were laying down sunning on our hill...pretty exciting stuff! The kids wanted to go outside to see them, so I let them out the front door and told them if they were quiet as they went around the garage, they'd be able to get closer and see them longer before scaring the big birds off.

I figured the girls would peek around the garage, get excited and scare the turkeys off as soon as they started running out in the back yard. But, as I watched from the kitchen window, I saw Rae and Jo calmly walking out toward the birds, and the turkeys just kept pecking at the ground, not taking much notice. The mom turkey was the first to get a little nervous and rounded her babies up and headed for the woods. The other two just kept eating. Rae and Jo got about 15 yards to them before the two big birds took off running. But then, none of the turkeys could decide where they wanted to go into the woods, so there was a couple of minutes of Rae and Jo chasing the whole group of Turkeys back and forth across the yard. They got to within 10 yards at one point!!

The flock finally scooted into the woods, and left the girls alone in the yard peering in after them. Rae and Jo were very excited about the encounter, although Jo was apparently disappointed that she wasn't able to pick up and hold one of the babies!!

Gratitude - I am grateful that our children are able to experience and interact with nature on a daily basis.