The Last Day of May

Can you believe it?!?!

This weekend has been a busy one. I'll start with Friday, after all, it is the start of the weekend right?! The children and I spent time cleaning and picking up around the house and doing laundry. Then when daddy got home, Luc helped work in the addition and Lys helped make dinner.

On Saturday, T spent some time working on organizing the garage and the children cleaned up the front porch. I spent the afternoon light shopping with my in-laws while T sanded and worked in our new room, then we all went to dinner together.

Sunday we went to morning church, grabbed lunch, and stopped at Lowe's to pick up some paint. We weren't having evening church, so we decided to paint our hallway with our free time. T & I started working on the hall, our hallway is shaped like a u and we also have stairs. We have a total of 8 walls that need paint. In those said 8 walls, there are 6 doors. T painted the molding and cut in the corners while I painted the walls. Needless to say, he had some issues keeping up! I had the easier of the two jobs, that is for sure! For those of you who know our hallway, it is not dark anymore. It is a warm taupe color, light and bright! It is really hard to explain, one must see it to appreciate it. T is REALLY happy with it!

Plus, we had company in the midst of our painting. T's brother and family had come to the city and decided to stop and see us. We hadn't seen them for a bit and it was good to see them. While we painted, we talked and got caught up. Then we all moved our children's swing-set to our front yard and put a FOR SALE sign on it. The swing-set was only out there 5 minutes when our neighbor came over and said she would take it! Talk about easy money! So, we all trampled out to the front yard and carried our "old" set across the road and dropped it off to it's "new" owner. At least if the children miss their old friend, they can just go across the road and play!

I hope you had a great weekend and were successful in all that you set out to accomplish! Happy June, everyone!

Summer Vacation

Yes, it has been quiet on my blog. We have been experiencing our first week of summer vacation, and it has been fabulous! We spent the week with Mommy/Grandma and we have been busy! It is always fun to spend time together, and even when you are busy, it doesn't seem like work. Yes, work gets done, but we play cards, eat, act silly and generally have a good time!

I just thought I would let y'all know what it is that has kept me away from my blog. It might just be a quiet summer here at handy family happenings. Who knows! Hope you all have had a good week!

On The Road Again

Once again we were up and at 'em bright and early Saturday morning.  Thank you very much,We left our wonderful room, it had a table and chairs, fridge, micro, pull out couch, desk and queen bed.  Too bad we weren't there long enough to enjoy it. :-)My father-in-law had found this place the night before and off we went.  I was really sorry that Luc was not with me, he would have really liked all the "stuff".  John Deere everywhere!

The inside resembled a barn, it is kind of like eating at Cracker Barrel, but a little more "homey".  They offered a full menu of just about anything you could want for breakfast, plus a buffet.  I didn't want to eat a lot, so I decided on the french toast, thin not thick, and a cinnamon roll.  I figured a little something before the actual meal came that we could snack on.  The waitress asked if i wanted the cinnamon roll now or if I wanted it wrapped up.  I said we would take it now.  Well, that was a mistake. 

Seriously, the thing was huge!  It was practically a loaf of bread! After we were over our initial shock.  Our waitress mentioned the cinnamon rolls have been showcased on the TRAVEL CHANNEL.  Who knew!  I just wanted a little tide me over!  And the kicker, it was only $3.29!  My whole family could have eaten that thing!  It was a great way to start the day!

We made a few stops throughout the day.  But nothing major. We again had a late lunch. This time we stopped at Cracker Barrel and hit the road once again.  We drove all the way to Cleveland (643 miles, in case you were wondering) and stayed the night.   Thank you, Red Roof Inn, the king sized bed reminded me of home, too bad your pillows were AWFUL!

From Cleveland Sunday morning, we headed out for breakfast.  It was decided we would drive for an hour before stopping.  Too bad we didn't know that an hour down the road, there would not be too many places to stop and eat.  We ended up stopping in Erie, PA for breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Boy, they sure do have good pancakes!  From there it was off to 

the  younger children just had to have some for snack!  We headed for home, and arrived in Syracuse just about 3 pm.  I was very happy to be home, even if it was without a third of my family.  T was very happy to see me, and my in-laws were happy to be headed to their "home" as well.  

Thank you, Mom and Ed for the good, safe trip home.  I love you!

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO SERVE

Take a moment and thank someone who helped to make our country what it is today 

 

FREE! 

Even with our problems and issues, I feel there is no place better to live!  

Thank you to all those who have served, are serving, or lost their life for my freedom.  

May God Bless You!

On the Road-Day One

Friday morning was an early morning, at least for me.  We were all up about 7 am in order to say good-bye.  Aunt D. and Beth were headed off to school, she teaches 1st grade. C (5th grade) & J (1st grade) were off to school and Uncle B. was off to work.  Ty chose to stay home and help with yard work.  It was quite difficult for me to say goodbye to them, and more than a few tears were shed.  Of course, they were mostly mine!

We, my mother-in-law & father-in-law and I, finished getting ready, packed the car and hit the road just about 9 am.  And if you want to know the truth, more tears were shed then, too!  We drove about two and one-half hours and then stopped to do some shopping at

 and a western store in Mitchell.  Then it was on to Sioux Falls for a late lunch.  

For those of you who know me, I am NOT a person who likes to try new things.  I am perfectly contend to be a boring, stuck in a rut, like my own thing kind of girl.  My in-laws have loving attempted to break me out of my rut.  They have taken us to a  couple of Japanese restaurants, and much to my surprise, I did actually enjoy them.  Well, they eat at Huhots, a Mongolian restaurant, whenever they have the chance.  I had been told ahead of time that is where we would be eating, and was even given permission to stop at good old McDonald's after if I wanted. So, with that kind of back-up plan, how could one go wrong?!

Huhots, is interesting.  I was willing to give it a shot, but I was still really unsure of the whole thing.  The waitress was quite helpful and explained how the whole thing worked.  You grabbed a bowl, decided what kind of meat you wanted (pork, chicken, beef, crab or fish) and placed it in the bowl.  Then you could choose from 3 different types of noodles, and you placed that on top of the meat.  Right about now, I was not liking this too much.  I like all my food separate, not all mixed together.  But alas, I followed on.  The next thing added to the bowl were veggies.  Any and all kinds you can think of.  Once you have selected all your choices, there is a whole different area just of sauces.  I am REALLY NOT a sauce girl.  I do not even have sauce on my pizza!  Anyway, I did cave to the pressure (just kidding, mom) and I did put about  1/2 a scoop of garlic and 1/2 a scoop of sesame oil.  I know, I go all out.  :-)

Once you have completed your "meal", you take it to the center of the restaurant and give it to the cook, where they place it on a giant cook stone (at least that is what it looked like to me) and cooked it for you.  Thankfully, we were the only ones there at the time, and we could keep an eye on our own meals.  

My first trip consisted of  a few pieces of pork, some spaghetti, shredded carrots, green beans and 2 slices of potato.  Plus the scoops of sauce. My bowl (think normal cereal bowl size) wasn't even half full.  Much to my surprise, it was really good.  Not to flavorful, but that was ok, just add some salt :-)  Yes, I did go back for seconds but this time I added some chicken and some beef, took out the carrots and potatoes and added pineapple.  And this time, I added a whole scoop of garlic and 1 1/2 scoops of sesame oil.  My in-laws were so proud of me, well I am saying they were, they really didn't say, plus, they didn't have to stop at McDonald's!

That was the bulk of our stopping for the day.  We drove all the way to Des Moine and stayed the night.  We were all quite tired, physically and emotionally. 

And the Rest of the Story

You have heard all about our unscheduled quality time at our lovely airport, or at least the high-lights.  We were so grateful we had taken our little laptop, as we were able to keep our family and friends up-to-date on our trip.  

Here are some of the things that I haven't mentioned yet:

1. While Beth and I waited to check-in at the NW counter, Ty went to "play" on the playground.  The last time we had flown, it was all new and he was only 6.  Needless to say when he came back, he said it was not as much fun as he remembered!  Hmmm, I wonder why?! 

2. Ty, Beth and I spent about 5 hours at the airport, instead of the hour and twenty minutes we had planned.

3. Beth is a much better "attention payer" / "payer of attention", I don't know what you want to call it, but she just pays attention better to what is going on around her.  Ty well, he was fun to have along.  Who would we have picked on?!  We had to tell him no less than six times what gate we had to get to for our next flight while we were in Detroit!

4.  I had to yell at them for running through one of the airports on one of the moving "sidewalks"! Yes, you read that right, I had to yell at my 15 & 16 year olds.  UGH! They wanted to race and silly me, thinking they meant just to see who could walk faster, said it was okay. Thankfully there was NO ONE around when they decided to act like children, bad, bad, children. ;-)

5. We went through the day with having very little to eat.  We did have lunch of pizza/pasta in Syracuse, but other than that, our food intake consisted of pretzels, wheat thins, m&m cookies and complimentary beverages.

6. Ty was extremely grateful for not having anything other than pretzels before our last flight.  It was that BAD! 

 

7. We arrived in SD extremely late, 11:40 pm (12:40 am our time) and stayed up for quite a bit after that. What were we thinking?! That family is great!

We are having thankful for each of you who were praying and thinking good thoughts of us.  We are so blessed to have so many who love us.  

We spent the day taking it easy on Thursday and we watched my niece's soccer game.  Then, it was time to pack and get ready for my return trip home.  

Part III

Now that we had a confirmed flight on NW, we needed to check-in with them. We walked across the terminal to the NW counter and surprise, found it empty! I was really starting to get a complex! After sending the children off to find me a soda, I was starting to feel a little wishy-washy, I waited at the desk for someone to appear. It seemed like I stood there for a long time, when finally an older man appeared and told me they would not be opening the desk until around 1 pm. Ugh! It just kept getting better and better! In my mind, everything would be okay as long as I could just get checked in and assigned seats on our flight! I know not very realistic.

About 1:15, the same man I spoke with earlier opened the desk and said he was ready for us. I handed him our confirmation number, he punched it in and looked quite puzzled. I wasn't feeling too optimistic once again. He asked if I had the coupons from United to issue our new tickets. I said, no, all the guy told me I would need was this number. He told me I would have to go back to the United counter and ask for the coupons. We collected our luggage and headed back across the terminal once again.

When we arrived at United, there were 9 people in line waiting to check-in. They were still handling Chicago check-ins for later in the day, and they were not moving very fast. There were a number of attendants working the desk, but none of them were the guy I had spoken too. Again, not feeling too good! I called Tom to let him know what was going on and the line moved along fairly well. Once the majority of the line had been checked in and I had moved up in line, I noticed the guy from earlier standing against a back wall. I politely cut the line and walked over to him. I asked if he remembered me and he said yes. Phew, that was something positive! I told him about needing the coupons and he went right to a computer and printed them right up for me. Once we had the required coupons, we gathered our stuff and headed off across the terminal for the last time!

We arrived at the NW counter and finally were able to check-in! We were given the last 3 seats and so thankful, even though we would not be sitting together. Happy to have boarding passes in hand, we took the escalator up to the second floor to find something to eat. Thankfully there was a Sbarro and we were able to get some lunch! While we were eating, we heard them call for boarding of our original flight, it was 1:45. A full hour and five minutes after our scheduled departure and forty-five minutes before the rescheduled departure. We would NOT have made our connecting flights! We were so thankful we were not going to be stranded in Chicago.

An Award For Me?!?

Just before I left on my trip, momma bestowed upon me an award.  You can see my award and read her post by clicking her name.  

I am supposed to then pass it on to 5  true online friends.  If you read her blog, she has already given awards to the only online "friends" I have.  

So, thank you very much for my award, momma.  If I could, I would bestow it right back to you. Of course you already have one, so that would be rather lame on my part.  Thanks for being my bloggy friend :-)

Recap - Part II

So a quick catch-up.  We had arrived at the airport, checked-in and cleared security when we noticed our flight was delayed.

First of all let me say that I haven't not flown very often, and when I have flown Tom has been with me.  If there have ever been problems, he was the one to take care of them.  After all, I am the mommy and someone had to tend to the children! ;-)

After noticing the delayed departure time, I went to the nearest gate with an actual person working.  Of course our United gate had NO ONE around,  ugh!  The ticket agent for American Airlines was very helpful.  She told me the latest information she had regarding flights in/out of Chicago (their flight for Chicago was boarding at this time) which was not good.  She told me I would have to go back out through security, to the ticket/check-in desk downstairs and talk with an agent.  I decided to leave Ty & Beth at the gate, one because I didn't want them to have to cart everything back out and go through security again if I didn't have to, and two because I wanted someone at the gate to see/hear what was going on there.

Once I hoofed my way to the counter, much to my chagrin, there was quite a line!  It seemed as though everyone had waited until the last minute to check-in for this flight to Chicago.  Standing in line, I was able to get a better feel for what I was up against.  The flight was delayed because Chicago was having terrible weather and not many planes were being landed or cleared for take-off.  When my turn finally arrived, I was not feeling too optimistic.  But thankfully, God had other things in mind.

When I first arrived in line, there were three ticket agents working, two men and a woman.  Just through observation, I was hoping to get the woman, she seemed to be the most helpful.  Well, while I stood in line, one man had to leave to help with a plane that landed and the other (younger) man had a few "easy" check-ins, guess who I got.  Yup, you guessed it, the younger guy, the woman was having issues with an international flight.  I told him my dilemma and asked what he suggested I do.  His first question to me was, "Do you have to get to your destination today?"  Of course I said yes! After all, we were all packed and at the airport plus I needed to get to SD to be there when my ride left for NY and home!  He immediately checked his computer to see who would have flights and then got on the phone to find out availability.  He worked his "magic" (read: God's plan was put into place) and secured 3 (the last ones out of SYR) seats on the last flight on Northwest Airlines.  I was relieved and extremely grateful.

P.S. I arrived home this afternoon and will continue the story in parts.  It is way too long for one post!  Thank you for all your prayers!

Sun, Wind & Family

Today it is in the sixties and the sun is shinning brightly and the wind is still blowing! True, it is not quite as bad as yesterday, but as the natives say, the wind is always blowing in SD!

We were able to spend some time chatting with our family last night when we arrived and before we headed to bed. It was a long day, and we were glad to arrive. Needless to say, everyone slept well!

Here is a recap of our trip.

Part I

We left our house around 10:45 am and headed (with Ty driving) to the airport. Our original flight plan was to fly out of Syracuse around 12:40 pm with a connection in Chicago, then Denver and on to Pierre. We arrived at the airport about 11:00 am and spent some time talking, killing time until it was time to go through security. The children checked the monitors and the flight was on schedule. We were pleased to see that. Little did we know how quickly things can change! At 11:20 am, we decided we would get in line and start the process of getting through security. Tom watched while we went through the line and waved goodbye as we cleared the gate. We walked to the departure gate and the first thing we noticed was the scheduled flight time had changed to 2:31 pm. That was not what we wanted to see with 2 different connections. I went into problem solving mode immediately.

We're Here!!!

Thanks everyone for your prayers! We arrived in South Dakota at 11:40 pm (cst) and we are most excited. The children are even more excited than I am!

We will update you more when we have the time and can actually think in coherent sentences.

Good night or good morning which it may be!

Delayed

In a perfect world, we would be landing in Chicago right now. In our world, we are accepting the fact that we were not supposed to even be on the plane to Chicago. We are about 45 minutes away from boarding our new flight and we are very happy we brought our gadgets to keep us occupied.

Please keep us in your prayers as we fly from Syracuse to Detroit/Minneapolis and then on to Pierre.

Thanks you in advance!

To the BEST Mom EVER!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!  We love you so much!  We had a great time celebrating your birthday (spider & all) and we hope you had as much fun as we did.  Know that we will be thinking of you often and missing you!

Make sure those children you are watching treat you well today!  You are the best mom, mother-in-law, grandma there is!  We are so thankful God gifted our family with you. 

P. S. Did we happen to mention how much we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU!

The Buzz!

I just had to post and let y'all know, EXAMS are done for the older children and required PACE work is complete for the younger children!  

Can I get a great big "Praise the Lord"?!  Without Him, it would not have been possible.  Thank you, God, for getting us through another year of school!  Who knew when we started this journey 11 years ago, we would still be schooling at home, or that I would be schooling 4 children instead of 3.  

We are pleased to report:

1. Ty has completed his required work and has passed the 10th grade, he is "promoted" to the 11th grade!

2. Beth has completed her required work, passed 9th grade and is "promoted" to 10th grade!

3. Lys has completed her required work, passed 6th grade and is "promoted" to junior high! Oh, MY! She was just a baby when we started this journey!

4. Luc has completed his required work, passed 2nd grade and is not looking forward to 3rd grade at all!, Sorry!  He is promoted to 3rd grade, where cursive and multiplication facts await. Phew, when is vacation scheduled for next year?! Just kidding :-) 

Thank you to all who keep us in your prayers! We couldn't have done it without them! 

May 8, 1994

Tom & Wendi were pleased to announce the birth of their daughter:

Bethany Rachel 

20 3/4 inches long

7 lbs, 8 1/2 oz

3:16 pm

It's Thursday's Word of The Week

I hope y'all haven't been waiting patiently at your computer for Tuesday's word.  This week has been really busy, and I just haven't had much time to keep up with our blog.

We have been inundated with appointments; a dentist and chiropractor appointment, p t appointments, and a burial.  Plus, did I mention we are in the last week of school and it is EXAM time! Oh, my! 

I know you have been waiting, so here it is.

~ EXTIRPATE~

extirpate: –verb [ek-ster-peyt, ik-stur-peyt]

1.	to remove or destroy totally; do away with; exterminate.

2.	to pull up by or as if by the roots; root up: to extirpate an unwanted hair.

Goin' Green

Today's Spring post is dedicated to green...trees and bushes, that is! Pretty much all of our bulbs are history. We had 90 degree temps last week and it killed them. Today I mowed the lawn and decided we would celebrate green. These are blossoms on one of our apple trees in our "back 40". I think it is pretty and it isn't even open yet :-) Plus, I like the pink!

Blackberry bush before all the good fruit makes its way to a homemade pie by Beth.Our one and only lilac bush that actually blooms, they should be open soon! Yippee! Of course Tom doesn't think so, they bother his allergies.

My weeping cherry tree, this is the first year it has bloomed since the children gave it to me for Mother's Day three years ago. Sorry it isn't focused.

We planted a row of poplar trees along the east side of our house. They have grown leaps and bounds since we planted them. We can't wait until they form a hedge along the property line.
And last but not least, this little evergreen tree is one of my favorite. It was on the property when we bought our house, and it was just a tiny little thing. Now it is taller than Tom! It looks great decorated at Christmas.

I hope you have enjoyed our "green" post! I love Spring and the reminder of new life!