Our week; CUTE pictures I 'stole"

Friday already!  

On Monday evening I had a council meeting with the Houserville folks while Dick was at a sound system trouble-shooting session with some Fillmore folks.  

On Tuesday evening we decided to use a gift card Frank and Lauren had given us for Christmas.  Any guesses where we went?

Olive Garden, of course!  Nobody makes chicken alfredo like they do.  And their salad and breadsticks are the best.  

On Wednesday evening at Houserville's praise team practice I introduced the song I Need Thee (Hear My Cry).  It's a new song from a few years ago that incorporates the chorus from an old hymn.  When I first learned it a couple of years ago it was truly the cry from the depths of my heart.  It still is.  I found it on YouTube if you'd like to hear it.

http://youtu.be/wgxTLTUPRTM


There wasn't anything else to take pictures of this week, so instead I'll share a few cute ones from other people.  

This is what happens when you let a little boy put his own bubble bath in the water!

In Florida Sophie is working out with her headphones on!  You go, girl!

In California my nephew Scott (Janet and Elvin's son) has his three boys on board.  I laughed out loud as soon as I saw this picture.  The varied expressions on the boys' faces is just too funny!

Since Dick took all the pictures I had posted from our time at my sister Mary Ellen's house on Sunday, he did not get this shot!  Mary Ellen took this one.

  
I plan to make a trip to Lancaster County this afternoon.  Jenn is away for training for these two weeks, and Sam and Sammy are batching it.  So I'll go add some Grandma presence tonight and tomorrow.  

Family Gatherings Weekend

We had beautiful weather for driving on Saturday afternoon.  The mountains were showing off their winter beauty.

We drove to Reading first to pick up Destiny, then went to Total Vision Care near Park City Mall in Lancaster to pick up Destiny's second pair of glasses that had been ordered a month ago.  These have a non-glare surfaced added to the lenses.  

Then it was time to head to Grandpa Stauffer's house for the annual family gathering at the long tables in the basement.  I think we had 33 people this year.  There were probably more than 33 people missing! 

As you can imagine, this is a very loud event.  Grandma Arlene always has to get her important announcement in right after the prayer, "Pass everything to the LEFT."  Because from then on, there is no way everyone would hear her.  It's hard to hear the person sitting next to you sometimes!

Lately there have been mostly baby boys in the Stauffer family, so it's fun to watch Laura's Payton.  Here she was getting into her diaper and jammies before leaving for home as her adoring great-aunts watched and commented!

We stayed at Dick's parents overnight and had some nice quiet time with them Sunday morning over breakfast.  We went to Grace Community Fellowship for church and enjoyed getting to be with our church family there.  

For lunch we met up with some of my family at a restaurant - you can see Dick in the foreground of the picture, Destiny is to his left, my sister Doris  in the black and white shirt, her daughter Ellen next to her, Doris's husband Dale at the end of the table, my brother Dick in red, his wife Nancy talking to Grandma Mary, and my sister Mary Ellen in black.  

After a delicious lunch we went to Mary Ellen's house for dessert.  She had the yummiest cherry cheese cake.  We were also joined by our brother-in-law Elvin Peifer (left), formerly our late sister Janet's husband, and his wife Pauline (middle).  It was wonderful to see them again and hear more about their family trip to Georgia to visit his 90-year-old mother.  He also came prepared with plenty of grandchildren pictures! 

One of our dad's favorite things was singing with his family, so we try to keep up that tradition whenever we're together, even though he's no longer here to enjoy it.  Mary Ellen pulled out the Christmas Carol sheets that were my dad's, and we sang through a verse or two of most of the carols.  We sound pretty darn good, if I must say so myself.  Destiny used my phone to record the entire session, and it sounds so sweet to hear her voice trying to sing along, even though some were not all that familiar to her.  

Late in the afternoon we said our goodbyes and went to Sam and Jenn's.  Sammy had been sick all week, but was beginning to feel better.  We were greeted by his adorable smile.

Jenn had made some spaghetti and garlic bread.  We weren't very hungry, but it tasted good.

Anyone for a sword fight?

Daddy's always willing!

Or maybe Destiny?

Or maybe you, Grandma?

Daddy or Mommy, can you please save me from this cackling grandma???

He was definitely acting more like a daddy's and mommy's boy than usual, but I assured them that when kids are sick, they usually regress a bit.

Sam did us a great favor by offering to take Destiny home, so we were able to leave for home right from their place.

Right now I am reading a really, really good book on my Nook - Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley.  The sub-title is Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend.  Anthony has been talking about this book for a couple of months.  I was reading aloud to Dick a good bit of the way home last evening.  I highly recommend it.

Our New Years Day; almost back to the routine

Gotta keep up my diary!

On Tuesday, New Years Day, we packed up Destiny's stuff and left here around 11 am to take her home to Reading.  We had such a great time the entire week-a-half she was here, and it felt sad that she was leaving.  She had fun with my new phone on the trip home.  It has a reverse camera, which makes it easier to do self portraits.  Here are a few of them.

We stopped at a Wawa near her home before we dropped her off,  to get her and her family some of the Chicken Caesar wraps that she loves so much.  

I love them too, but I had pork and sauerkraut on the brain.  We by no means have had pork and sauerkraut every New Years day, nor do I believe it brings any kind of good luck.  But I LOVE it, and I had such a craving for it!  I googled "pork and sauerkraut", but discovered that many of the churches and fire companies that were serving it that day were finishing up around 2 or 3:00, and we were on the tail end of that time frame.  So I started googling family restaurants in towns between Reading and Harrisburg.  Some were closed for the day.  But I found an Esther's Restaurant near Fredericksburg that was open and was serving pork and sauerkraut.  The person who answered the phone even had a Lebanon County accent, so I knew that they probably knew how to make good pork and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes!!   Does this look good??     

They even brought me extra broth because I don't like mine dry.  It really satisfied my craving, but I have to admit - when I make it, it tastes even better than that.  Sorry if I sound like I'm bragging.  

Dick and I got home early evening, although it felt much later.  We admitted that we were ready for some routine again.  So I was back to the normal this week - working at the church office, praise team prep and practice at Houserville, piano lessons.  

There was one exception.  This month the Fillmore choir is practicing Wednesday nights for some reason, which means we can't go - that's our Houserville practice night.  So my Thursday evening was freed up to help the ladies at Houserville with a huge project.  They had received a huge donation of clothes for the Mommy Shoppe.  Normally they wash the donations at home, but when they receive huge donations it's much more time-efficient to take the stuff to a laundromat.  There were four of us and a LOT of laundry.  I kid you not, we filled every washer and still had to wait to fill some the second time!  Later we had all the dryers filled, with second loads for many of them.  There were just two men in the place, each with a load or two, so we were nice and shared a few washers and dryers!

And of course, the BIG job was all the folding and folding and folding and folding.  I think we were there till 10:00 pm!

Heather is pictured above, Heather and Sharon below.  Somehow I missed getting a picture of Amy.  We had a lot of fun.

Now I have to get myself moving.  Dick is working this morning till noon, at which time I will meet him and we will leave right from there for our trip to Lancaster County for the weekend.  Dick's family is getting together at his parents' place this evening.  We'll go to Grace, our home church in the morning.  Then we're eating lunch and spending the afternoon with my PA siblings and Grandma Mary.  She will be leaving on Tuesday for a month in Florida. Sigh.  Sounds so wonderful.    We're hoping to catch a little bit of time with Sam and Jenn and Sammy late Sunday afternoon before we head back home.   And of course,  Destiny will be with us for the weekend.  She doesn't want to miss that good food at Grandpa Stauffers this evening!

Reposting my Rabbit Head story

Last evening one of my FB friends posted a picture of a very large rabbit.  It reminded me of a story.  I posted it a few years ago, but for the amusement of my newer readers, I'm posting it again, this time with some pictures to go with it! (Warning:  not all of this story is funny.  You have to read all the way to the end.) 

THE RABBIT HEAD

In the 1990's our family was "blessed" with an ongoing parade of teenaged drivers. We discovered that VW Rabbits were just the ticket for us. They could be bought for just a few hundred bucks and Dick knew how to fix whatever ailed them. Teenaged driver accidents became quite commonplace for us. But not to worry - there was probably another Rabbit just around the corner, and most likely it needed a part that Dick had salvaged from one of the previously wrecked Rabbits. We probably could have opened our own Rabbit parts store. A few times we even made money on them!  After having made just one payment for collision insurance, one of our teenaged drivers would wreck the poor thing, and lo and behold, the insurance payment would be about three times more than we had just paid for it!

One morning in September 1996 I was hurriedly getting ready to leave for school, when I remembered I needed to run to the basement to get a frozen lunch from the freezer to take with me. I ran down the basement stairs, yanked the freezer door open, and *#%?!~^*#@*! I found myself on the floor in front of the open freezer door, realizing that something tremendously heavy had fallen onto my head. I was dazed and couldn't even think what to do. There was this huge thing on the floor in front of me. I never knew that freezer motors were inside the freezer, but that's the only thing I could imagine it was. I started to cry out for help, and began crawling toward the stairs. I heard Sam come pounding down the stairs to the kitchen above me yelling, "Mom, what's wrong??!!" He helped me to get up the stairs to the kitchen table so I could call Dick.

Poor Dick. As soon as I managed to tell him that something big had just fallen onto my head when I yanked the freezer door open, he immediately knew what a terrible thing he had just done the evening before. He had been replacing the stove pipe for our coal stove, which was a very dirty, dusty job. There had been a cylinder head from a Rabbit down there and he had decided to move it away from the dirty job he was doing. SO he put it on top of the upright freezer, never imagining that it would come falling down on someone. 
 

He took me to the doctor's office where they determined that I was not having a concussion, but I did need several stitches. They advised me to take the day off from school, which I had no problem obeying. I had a MAJOR head ache!

A few years later I needed to obtain a few years’ worth of my medical history in order to qualify for a cheaper premium on my life insurance. My doctor's office got everything copied for me, and during a break in my schedule one day, I went to pick them up. As I got back into my car I took a quick glance at the first page. The very first entry was dated September 27, 1996. The first sentence read:

"Was trying to get something out of the freezer in the basement and a head from a rabbit which weighs about 25 pounds fell out on her head."

I howled laughing the whole way back to school. I could just picture the transcriptionist who had listened to the doctor's explanation on the little tape recorder and then had faithfully typed it onto paper. What ever must she have been thinking?  “A rabbit head that weighed 25 pounds??? That was one BIG rabbit!! And what in the heck was it doing in this lady's freezer anyway???”

 

For the record: we weighed the cylinder head, and it weighed 33 pounds. I obviously have a very hard head.

First Night in State College, 2012

Once again we had a fun evening at State College's First Night celebration.  I think this was our sixth year there, starting in 2007, even before we moved up here.  Destiny would have been just five that year!  Here are a few cute shots of her and some ice sculptures last night - 

And one from 2007!  We miss the many large ice sculptures that used to line Allen Street and the reindeer that we could feed in the park.  This is the second year those things have been missing.  There are still many small ice sculptures, a few large ones, and many, many shows to attend all over town.  We took in two - both of them jugglers/comedians.  Just hilarious and unbelievably skilled.

In the park it's nice to have fires to warm up to.

Especially if you're crazy enough to go down the ice slide, which Destiny was several times.  Austin thought he wanted to, so they waited in the long line with him, Anthony sat on the sled to hold him, and at the last minute Austin changed his mind and ran down beside the slide as Anthony slid down.  

Here's Destiny first run.  I was a little late getting my camera started.


There are lots of bells and gongs to ring, which Austin loved - the louder the better.

Of course, the kettle corn and hot drinks are VERY popular.

We came home in time to watch the ball drop in NYC.  Now it's time to wrap up this holiday season.  We'll take Destiny home today where she'll start school tomorrow.  Lori's break from Penn State is shorter this year than it's ever been.  Three or four weeks between semesters has always been the norm; this year it's only two.  Everyone I talk to who works there in a teaching capacity feels extreme pressure because of it.  

Blessings to all my readers in 2013. 

Last post of 2012

I want to get one last post written before 2012 is history.  Last time I wrote I mentioned being left with lots of good memories and dirty laundry.  Boy, did I have laundry!!  And it hasn't gotten any better, because we've had snow, plus a girl in the house who likes to play in that snow, which means wet coats, wet socks, wet gloves, wet snow pants, wet boots, a mess at the door.....  But it's okay.  

Dick still had off work on Wednesday, using up a vacation day he would have lost otherwise, so we took down the Christmas tree already.  We cut it on December 4th, and it was shedding needles so bad, I was just sick of it.  Dick also hung the pictures Jeremy gave me for Christmas - on either side of the drapes.  I didn't realize when I took this picture that I was "hiding" a basket of clean laundry behind the sofa, hahaha!

Here are two of the jigsaw puzzles that Dick and Destiny did last week.

Our first snow came on Wednesday.  I absolutely HAD to work at the church office on Thursday, so Dick took Destiny to Anthony and Lori's on his way to work that morning.  Lori took her to Walmart for more snow clothes and then they went sledding.  They had a lot of fun, but it sounds like Austin bumped a front tooth, so he's not so sure he likes sledding anymore. 

On Friday afternoon Destiny and I did a bunch of errands and then went to the Discovery Space kids' museum in State College.  She just loves that place, and they had a lot of new stuff since last summer.  

That evening Lori had a ladies event to attend, so Anthony and Austin came here.  We had fun playing with Austin (no pictures, though) while Anthony set up my new iPhone, which they gave me for Christmas,  and transferred everything over from my old one.  I am THRILLED with the pictures this phone takes!!  My other one had a terrible camera, and my real camera, which I LOVED, has become increasingly difficult to use.  When I was in Florida in October, it decided it would no longer respond to the on/off switch, so I had to take the battery out to turn it off!  Then it decided to be in "motion picture" mode every time I inserted the battery to use it, thus adding one more thing I had to remember to do before snapping a picture.  So having a good camera right in my phone is indeed a blessing!

I got a chance to put it to use Saturday morning as more snow came down.  Our neighborhood was just gorgeous.  I took this one right out our front door.

And this one out my kitchen window.

Destiny and I were also reading a lot last week.  We both were so disappointed to finish our books on Saturday - mine was Neta Jackson's Come to the Table on my Nook, and Destiny's was a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book that Ray and Thyda gave her for Christmas. I have since started Andy Stanley's Deep and Wide, which Anthony has been talking about a lot.  It is GOOD, and I highly recommend it.

Destiny also played outside in the snow with the neighbor girls for a long time on Saturday and was a tremendous help to Dick with shoveling the driveway.  In the evening we used a coupon we had for the Bellefonte Wok.  We'd never been there before, and the food was SCRUMPTIOUS!!  We will definitely go back sometime.  

Sunday was church(es)  in the morning.  Afterward Ashley from Hourserville came along home with us for the afternoon, and we also stopped at Anthony and Lori's to pick up Austin.  After lunch the girls went outside to play, Dick snoozed on the recliner, and Austin and I took our naps.  Boy, did I ever nap.  I felt like a total zombie when Austin woke me up!  I was such a zombie I didn't take one picture of Austin with my new easy-to-use phone camera!!  What is up with that??

In the evening Destiny wanted to watch a "family movie" together.  I browsed through the free movies in our Comcast On-Demand and found The Adventures of the Wilderness Family.  Destiny had never seen it.  We ended up watching it and its sequel.  What MEMORIES these movies brought back, along with doubts about my motherly wisdom.   

When our children were very young, and when the well-known Sight and Sound theater in Lancaster was also very young, they used to show family films on Saturday evenings and gospel films on Sunday evenings.  There would always be a period of singing praise and worship songs before the Sunday evening films, and Dick and our bass player Don would play with the little "band".  Because of that, we had the unique privilege of attending anything that was showing for free.  The Joni movie came out over that time, and Dick helped to usher or park cars, so we were there to see that several times.  Anyway, we watched the  Wilderness Family movies a few times, and like I said, our children were very young, the screen was very large, the sound was loud, and those movies are horribly scary!!  Even last evening I sat there wondering whatever were we thinking by letting our children endure them at such young age????  Close up shots of wild wolves, angry bears, a cabin fire, children lost in a blizzard....  But they were free.  We had our priorities, you know, hahaha!

I've got more dirty laundry to do today, then this evening we'll go to the New Years Eve festivities in State College (I WILL take pictures), come home and watch the ball drop on TV, and then tomorrow make a trip to Reading to take Destiny back home.

Happy New Year!!