Colorado High Adventure

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Colorado Horse Ride

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Halloween Party

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Update

"Silence is Golden"????? Have you missed my blogging? Things have been really busy in our house. We have been finishing the bedroom and bathroom remodeling. It is going fairly well. I am already starting to think about my garden and have noticed my strawberries are coming up. I need to weed them soon though. Dan has already mowed once this year at our house and my mother's house too. Mom broke (shattered) her femur (upper leg) in January and she hasn't been as mobile as before but her recovery is coming along very rapidly and she just recently progressed to a cane. She goes to therapy 3 times a week. Usually Dan or I take her but her friend is visiting this past week and she has been helping with that. Thanks Peggy. This last weekend we went to Talladega which gave us a nice break from all the activity. It was a lot of fun and a close race with Jimmy Johnson winning by seconds. Now we are back and have a growing list of things needing done. Whew! I did manage to can some stuff Tuesday. Spaghetti, macaroni, flour, dried onions and rice. Hoping to have a good garden this year since my tomato sauces and salsas are getting low. Planning to have an Easter Egg hunt with the fire department pancake breakfast this Saturday. I managed to keep that on the back burner far too long. But thanks to Kate it is coming together. I will try to post some new pictures soon on this blog. I don't want to bore you all with the same thing and I do have some new pictures to share. My laptop is getting very slow and outdated though which takes more time than I have so I end up putting it off. So once again I will put it off...just a few more days...LOL. TTYL

My new stove

To start the new year, I got a new stove. I LOVE IT! This stove is incredible! The entire top can be used for when I can and use the big canning pots. The oven has 3 racks. The oven has multiple settings. I can use it for convection or conventional baking, roast, broil or even slow cooking. There is a warmer in the bottom. I can also pre-program it to turn on and bake later in the day. This may be helpful since Dan doesn't like to wait for a meal to be made. If it takes longer than 15 minutes to prepare he will go out to eat or fill up on snacks. This new stove is awesome in helping me make the meals ahead. Now if I can just keep leftovers in my refrigerator longer.....???? LOL

The Incredible Invisible Clothes

For many years now I have wondered why Dan insists upon leaving his clothes draped over chairs and gets very upset when I move them, even if it is to wash them and put them away. But I have finally figured out the reason for his distress..... His clothes become invisible when they are put away! This is TRUE. He will frantically search for a particular item, ask me where it is, I tell him, he will go and look and then come to me and proclaim "Nope, it isn't there." When I look in that spot I can see it plain as day. I used to believe he just enjoyed having me lay his clothes out for him, but now I realize that is not it at all....They are truly invisible to him. If your husband has clothing that will turn invisible when put away, the fix appears to be simple. Buy lots of chairs and leave them throughout the house. Drape one item of clothing over each chair. If these clothes are never put away, they will remain clearly visible to the male species! FYI For underclothes you may place multiple items on the same chair.

Christmas 2010

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Chicago Getaway

For Christmas Dan and I got this romantic getaway to Chicago to see "Wicked." It was GREAT!

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Dan's Birthday

This year we had a surprise birthday party for Dan. It was at Grandpa Johns Cafe and it definitely surprised him. Kendall and Sarah both got pictures but I didn't so I can't blog any. Hopefully somebody will post them on their blog or send them to me to blog.

Another Romantic Getaway

This year our November romantic getaway was to Davenport. Dan planned this one since I planned his last two birthday travels to Iowa City and to Chicago. We went to see Harry Potter on the IMAX screen. Unfortunately, the tickets we purchased online and when we got there found out the 3:30 showing had been canceled. So we shopped until the 7:00 one started. Then we went to a motel that we both have wanted to visit for years. The Canterbury in Muscatine. It has themed rooms and we stayed in the Cinderella room. Below are some pictures. We had some problems with the camera not working right and finally gave up. However, before we left the next morning I tried one more time and got it to work. So we were very lucky to get these pictures.

Halloween 2010

Here our some of our pictures of our Halloween. It was too dark to get very many pictures but Sarah got some and posted them on her blog. If you check her blog link you can see more.

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Halloween Party

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Fall projects

We have had a number of cast iron skillets, dutch ovens, corn bread pans, etc stored in our garage for a long time. It was always Dan's intentions to "clean them up" one day. I was never really interested in cooking with cast iron. But since I like use the things that I have, I have decided to clean up the cast iron stuff and begin using it. It my research on cooking and caring for cast iron I have discovered that: 1. Food generally taste better, 2. when seasoned correctly, food doesn't stick and 3. I may be able to quit taking a daily iron supplement as the cast iron will increase levels of iron in the food. These are some pics of my newly cleaned and seasoned cast iron pots.


For my birthday we cleaned out the garage. This was amazing! Dan actually got rid of 3 truckloads of junk and he survived! Kendall brought his saw over and made some shelves for me and i have a lot of my canning, gardening and camping stuff neatly stowed away.

Catching Up

Been a while since I posted so I thought i would just catch up today. This summer has been packed with so much to do. Joanne and I have been taking cake decorating classes. I hadn't really planned on taking ALL the classes offered but that is what we did. Finally we finished! Thanks to those of you that ate all my practice creations so I wouldn't have to! Dan and I haven't been practicing our dancing this summer but fall is approaching and I see there is a harvest dance planned so we better get back into the swing (I made a pun LOL!) of things.
We have been learning to fish. I think this will give us more fun things to do when we vacation. I found it is very relaxing. I plan to be taking sewing classes this winter and I also notice a gourmet cooking school that recently opened.
On the garden front... it didn't turn out very well this year. I did manage to can some stuff but not much. The garden flooded 3 times, which is exactly how many times I had to replant it. However, I went out there yesterday and I do have tomatoes, peppers and just now blooming are some cucumber plants. Not sure where they came from but it will be interesting to see if they produce more than just blooms.
Of course EMS renewal classes will begin again this fall and I will be busy teaching them. Dan and I will be going to Texas next week to the EMS EXPO so that I can get the PHTLS updates. As soon as I get back I will have to update everyone else. Hopefully this won't be too time consuming because I LOVE the fall season and want to spend time enjoying it.

summertime 2010

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Visiting the Nauvoo Pageant

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Visiting Aunt Ellin

The beginning of our week was spent in Kansas visiting Kent's Aunt Ellin. She is 94 years old and the last living child of John and Carrie (Shmalsolf)Gallaher. Unfortunatly when we went to pick her up to take her to breakfast Monday we found she had fallen in her apartment during the night. After going to the hospital for xrays she did have a fractured hip. Hopefully she can recuperate soon. Here is a photo of Kent, Ellin and Bobbi on Sunday night while at Montana Mike's for dinner.
 

Bahamas Celebration

 

Our Bahama's Cruise 2010

Dan and I took a short vacation cruise to the Bahama's last week. It was a nice time to relax and spend some time away. We also visited the new Harry Potter Theme park at Universal Studios. I highly recommend it to all Harry Potter fans, but you may want to wait for a time of year when the park is not so busy.

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Birthday BBQ

July 11th 2010 Robert turned 19. Hard to believe my kids are officially grown up. We had a family BBQ. I used my new cake pan for the ice cream filled chocolate cake and Dan did the grilling. Been awhile since we all have been able to get together. It was a lot of fun. Be sure to click on the green arrow to see all the photos on the movie screen. They won't advance automatically.

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