Finally rigging up the lights

This was definitely not a week to write home about.  Suffice it to say that I had a LONG list of things that needed to be accomplished, both here at home and at my various jobs, I put my nose to the grindstone (whatever that means, but it sounds like what I did), and I got all of them done.  Except I still have to clean up the mess from decorating for Christmas today.

I did not take one picture all week long until today.  Austin came this afternoon and we decorated for Christmas, both inside and out.  He even got to shoot some baskets with Grandpa.  As I walked outside to take a picture, I saw him get 3 in the hoop in a row!

Later when he was helping me to decorate the tree and exclaiming over everything I got out of the storage tub, he asked, "Do you know that I'm a fan of ornaments?"  We had such a good time.

We even set up one of his trains under the tree.  I have never had a train under our tree in all these years!  Thank you, Austin!

Then it was time for hot chocolate with Grandpa.

Dick has some more tweaking to do on the porch Christmas lights, but I'm just happy to have them up.

And now there is that mess to clean up and Christmas music to be prepped.

The rest of our Thanksgiving weekend

Here's the story of the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend.  I don't expect most of my readers to be interested in all these details, but this also serves as my diary, so here goes.

On Friday morning I made French toast and sausage for breakfast.  I laughed as they crowded around the tiny kitchen table, as though we didn't have the long stretched-out table in the dining room.  

Dick had to work that day and Saturday morning also, bless his heart.  We ladies plus Destiny and Bianca went to the mall.  We spent most of our time at the Shoe Department.  I finally got a cute pair of boots.  I haven't worn boots since the days when I wore them with plaid, wool skirts!  

Bianca was so happy the whole time we were shopping.  She seemed to absolutely love the exciting atmosphere of the mall.  Uh-oh!!  We're afraid she's a born shopper!

When we got home we discovered that the men and boys hadn't even eaten while we were gone, even though we had told them there were lots of Thanksgiving leftovers.  Poor lost boys without us women, hahahaha!!   Of course, when we put the food out on the counter, a whole lot of it disappeared!

There were plenty of games played that day.  Uno and Life.

Destiny loves puzzles and even roped Bjorn into doing a puzzle with her.  We discovered that Sammy really likes puzzles too.  

Other shots from the day.

I made lasagna, salad, and garlic bread for our dinner that evening.  Dick came home from work with some good news.  A co-worker had offered him tickets at a very good price for Saturday's Penn State/Michigan game.  Bjorn had very much wished he could see a Penn State game, but we really did not think it would be possible!  So around the dinner table our conversation was about who would and would not be going to the game, what would be the best transportation, etc.  It was decided that Dick, Bjorn, Ray, and Sam would go to the game and that they would park at Walmart and pay to take the shuttle bus to the game.  Needless to say, that added some unexpected excitement to our weekend!

Bianca's bath time!

Sammy wanted me to take a picture with him in it too.

Jenn snapped these pictures on Saturday morning.  I think Bianca took most of her naps in my arms on Saturday.  Just looking at this picture, I miss her so much.  She had the cutest outfit on that day.

We had a variety of bagels and cream cheeses, as well as scrambled eggs for breakfast that morning.  Jenn made a delicious crockpot meal of sweet and sour meatballs with rice.  The guys filled up on that before leaving for the game around 1:30.

The rest of us went to the mall again.  And once again, Bianca was in her element!!

Destiny got her hair trimmed.

Bianca LOVED the hair salon!  She didn't miss a THING!  There was a poster on the wall of a hair model, and Bianca's face would light up every time she looked at it.   We were cracking up at her.

The most fun thing we did was watching Destiny and Sammy Bungee jumping.  Jenn wasn't sure Sammy would like it, but boy, was she wrong!!  He LOVED it!!

We all got home around the same time in the evening.  We had pizza and chips.  Here's a cute shot I took sometime on Saturday.

Later in the evening Sam & Jenn and Ray & Thyda went out.  Dick was packing his stuff for deer hunting.  I held sleeping Bianca, Sammy and Bjorn fell asleep on the sofas, Destiny and I cracked ourselves up messaging each other on our devices across the room.

It was late when I hit the sack that night, and my alarm was not a welcome sound on Sunday morning.    Dick and I went to Fillmore's 8:15 service, then came home.  He and Bjorn were leaving for the hunting cabin and Ray and Thyda were leaving for a quick visit with her folks in Lancaster before returning home to VA Beach.

Destiny and Sammy came with me to the Houserville service.  Sammy could hardly wait to play piano with me.   I didn't realize that Destiny took this picture and video.

He seems to sense when to play softly and when to liven it up!  Occasionally I had to ask him to play more softly and he always obliged.  I wish Destiny hadn't cut the video off when she did.  It's just so precious to watch him.

I loved the sweetness of seeing Bianca napping with her daddy when we got home from church.  

Anthony and Lori and Austin had gotten back from New York the evening before, so they joined us for a quick lunch of cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Lori held Bianca the entire time until Sam and Jenn left!  I did not think to take any pictures.  I pretty much was not thinking anymore by that time.  I was SO SLEEPY!  

After everyone left and I was here all alone, I was too sleepy to even feel sad about it, haha!!  I took a nap and have been trying to catch up with everything ever since!  All the time I keep thinking of things from the weekend and find myself smiling and giggling.  

Dick did not have any luck today with deer hunting.  But at least he has a nice tree stand now in which to sit and wait.  This is a picture he took yesterday after getting it set up.  That is Bjorn up there.  

He posted this picture of his view today.  I'm sure he wishes there were snow on the ground.

And that concludes my Thanksgiving 2014 story.  And once again I'm in the midst of a very, very busy week.  No time to even think about Christmas decorations like everyone else.  Maybe next week.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2014, Part One

SO MUCH to write about.  SO MANY pictures to share!!  I hate when I get so behind in blogging, but  when you're having fun with a houseful of people, sitting at the computer just doesn't happen.

Our Thanksgiving week was decked with very beautiful snow.  I know I'll probably have snow pictures for the next six months, but I just can't ignore how beautiful it was this week.  Here are pics taken from my windows!

Ray and Thyda left Virginia Beach on Wednesday evening and arrived at our place around 2 AM.  I never heard them come in!  It was wonderful to have them here and finally have time to catch up with them.  We hadn't seen Thyda since June or Ray since August.  Of course Leo, their sweet, sweet dog was along too.

I took this picture of them in the afternoon as we waited for the others to arrive.  Sam and Jenn had Destiny with them and stopped at Jenn's home near Harrisburg first for their Thanksgiving dinner.  Fred and Deb put Bjorn on the train in Lancaster and Dick picked him up at the Lewistown station around 3:45.  Anthony, Lori, and Austin headed to New York that day to spend the holiday weekend with her folks

By 5:30 everyone was here and we were enjoying our feast of turkey, stuffing, baked corn, sweet potato pudding, green bean casserole, cranberry applesauce, pie, and ice cream.

This precious little girl!!  I fell so in love with her this weekend!!  She is feisty, she is nosey, she is loud, she LOVES the mall, and she loves me.  (-:

Bless Sammy's heart.  He's been telling me for months that he wants to come to my house and read books.  All through the meal he kept asking if we could read books now.   As I was holding Bianca we noticed that Sammy had given up on me and went to Grandpa with his books!  

Jammy time. 

Sammy got lots of help building what was first of all a daycare, but in the end was a zoo.

We got out this new toy that Dick had brought home from Mommy Shoppe donations one time.  Destiny, Ray and Thyda worked on building it, and we ended up with an amazing, functioning  marble roller coaster. 

Sammy wanted to take pictures with my camera.  Most of them turned out with his finger over the lens, but here are some that didn't turn out too bad!

We also played a few rounds of "Dictionary", our homemade version of Balderdash.  Destiny absolutely associates Thanksgiving with playing that game, and she begged and pleaded till she found at least four people to play.  As usual, we had plenty of good laughs.  

We found places for everyone to lay their heads for the next three nights.  Sam, Jenn, and Bianca had the guest room, Sammy slept in our room, Thdya, Ray, and Leo had the sofa and loveseat, Destiny had a cot beside the dining room table, and Bjorn had an air mattress here in the den.  

That will be all for this post.   I'll finish up tomorrow evening, hopefully.

Busy week; memory lane

As you can tell by my lack of posting, this was not a very interesting week!  The biggest thing was the BITTER cold for most of the week!!  But it seems that was not news, since everyone else in the country was experiencing colder temps than normal.  At least we were fortunate enough to avoid the snow that some parts of the country, especially around the Great Lakes, experienced.  In comparison, today feels like HEAVEN.  It is 56 degrees outside right now and supposedly going even higher tomorrow!

This is a super busy time for me at the church office.  There is an annual meeting coming up by which time many forms must be submitted to our district superintendent.  So on Tuesday I put in a really long day taking care of some those things.   The meeting is on December 4th and when that's over I'm going to celebrate in some way.  Gotta figure that out yet.

I do food prep at Anthony and Lori's on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, work at the church office on Tuesday and Thursday, do music prep for two churches on Monday and Tuesday evenings, have practice at Houserville Wednesday evening and at Fillmore Thursday evenings, and piano lessons for two students on Thursday between work and practice.  In addition to those regular things this week I had a hair appointment Wednesday morning, went for blood work Thursday morning, and had my annual physical Friday morning.  Now you know why I didn't blog all week.

This weekend I did something I have not done since the weekend of August 16 and 17.  I stayed here in State College all weekend - no traveling anywhere!!  No football games, no family reunions.  Yesterday I did some deep cleaning out around here.  Right now in my living room I have a bunch of stuff that has to be taken here, there, and everywhere to dispose of.  It's just unbelievable how things accumulate with so little effort!

Last evening Anthony, Lori, and Austin stopped in with some yummy food from Dickey's BBQ, and Lori made some apple crisp while they were here.  They had ice cream with theirs.  I had almond milk with mine.  Ahhhhh.  It was so delicious.

I was actually torn about my plans to finally stay home all weekend when I saw that my beloved high school choral director had died this week.  There was a memorial service for him in Lancaster yesterday, and I would have dearly loved to go to it.  But I knew I had a big week coming up and I really needed the chance to stay home and get things done.   

Arnold Moshier was the music teacher/choral director at Lancaster Mennonite High School for many years.  In addition to that, he had his own choral group, the Choraleers, which I was a member of for three years - my senior year of high school and the following two years.  We did a lot of traveling, both as a whole group and as smaller teams.  My biggest opportunity was being part of a team that went to Jamaica for ten days.  Of all things, I had all my pictures from that trip developed into slides!  I have rarely ever looked at them.  I really must find a way to get them made into digital pictures.

I looked on Ebay and Amazon and actually found old Choraleers records for sale!  Here's the front cover of one of our first ones.

I remember Arnold's absolute horror when the records came and we discovered that on the inner label it said, "An Oasis in the Dessert."  Too late to do anything about it!!  We kids thought it was hilarious.

Here's info from the back cover that I found.  I am the last girl on the left on the front row.  

Here are some pics I scanned from other trips we took.  The first one was the "Florida Team" in 1970.  There was a Mennonite Voluntary Service unit in Lakeland (same one my sister Janet and her husband Elvin had served with a few years prior) that we were based out of.  One of the churches we went to sing at was in Tampa.  Cracks me up.  I had no idea then how big a part Tampa would play in my life.  

Arnold and his wife, who always traveled with us, are on the far right.  Somehow they raised four children at the same time they did all this crazy fun stuff with us.  They were absolutely amazing.  

This picture was outside of a church in the Toronto, Canada area.  We were like Mennonite hippies, hahaha!!  Sitting in the grass singing with a guitar. 

Whether traveling on a plane or a bus, we always had SO MUCH FUN!!  We often traveled all night long to get back home after a bus tour.  Some tried to sleep, others couldn't sleep and kept everyone awake.  I will let you guess which category I most often fit into.  

Well, that was my trip back memory lane.  Oh, one more thing.  In 2008 there was a Choraleers reunion.  He was probably 82 at that time.  I was honored that he asked me to sing the solo in Harry Belafonte's "Amen".

And now I have MUCH to look forward to!  We will have a wonderful houseful from Thursday to Sunday.  As usual, we will pack them in and feed them and have a whole lot of fun.  I doubt that I will have time to post for a whole week!