Sunday thoughts

Just looking at the picture at the top of the page - those triplets have really changed in the last year. Will need to get a new picture taken when the Texas grandkids come up at the end of July! They will only be here a few days but we already have plenty planned

Church this morning was very good - the soloist did the greatest version of Amazing Grace I have heard - had no idea the pianist/organist could play jazz like that. On the way home I heard a very interesting song called "God is Not a White Man" by the Michael Gungor band. The song is a year old but I had not heard it before. It is talking about how God is love and we are made in His image, He is not made in ours. One line that stood out was:

“Atheists and charlatans and communists and lesbians, and even ol’ Pat Robertson, oh God He loves us all. Catholic or Protestant, terrorist or President. Everybody, everybody, love, love, love, love.”

There is a very good article from the leader of the band at this site

I would also like for prayers for my son-in-law. He injured his knee playing soccer and must have surgery on July 14th but before the surgery he and the family are flying non-stop to the east coast and back. He is over 6 foot tall and riding in an airplane can't be comfortable anyway for him but with his knee in such bad shape this is going to be a very painful trip for him. I am hoping his pain pills will help without knocking him out since I doubt Stacy could carry him off the plane. :)

Another interesting thing happened this weekend. I went to Walmart (which is not the interesting part) at 7 Saturday morning. As I left the neighborhood I noticed a sign that said "Fireworks are illegal in this community. Fines up to $1,000". I was so surprised as our neighborhood is out in the county and have tons of fireworks going off every year. This big red and white sign was at the end of every street along Hydraulic. By 2:00 when we made a Blockbuster run, all the signs were gone except for one north of 79th and it was laid down flat. Obviously the rednecks of Haysville do not approve of silly signs like this. I just hope said rednecks have an extra thousand to donate the fire marshal as the signs were posted by the Sedgwick County Fire Department.

Weekend with the girls

Last weekend Jimmy and Maranda took a well deserved little vacation to Kansas City so I got to spend some time with the girls. They are such fun to watch play. One time Isabel and Audrey were on top of each other tickling each other and giggling. They just rolled around on the floor having such a good time. The three played with play doh, colored and had a good time with the play food and cookware. Izzy would bring a dish to Lily and Lily would say "thank you" and Izzy would get her another item. This went on for quite awhile and I just sat and watched. Dennis came and helped a couple of times and Niki stayed Saturday afternoon with them as I had a memorial service to attend. As much as I enjoyed the girls I was very glad to have some time to rest! They have a lot of energy and I don't have as much as I use to. On Friday night they got to play on their new swing set which was nerve wracking for grandma and grandpa as we were so afraid they would get hurt but they did fine and had a good time.
Trying to take a good picture of the three of them is not easy - Lily sees the camera and runs to it saying "cheese" but it is hard to take a picture of a moving target. I did get one good one of them on the couch. I took 10 but this one came out best.

June 13 and 14 2009

We had quite a busy but fun weekend. Saturday morning was spent helping the triplets end up with a playground in their backyard. Dennis and Jimmy got two more loads of playground gravel for their backyard to prepare for the swing set that is coming this week. They believe they may still need a couple more loads but it is looking better. This project was started last weekend. I helped inside with the potty training marathon which is quite interesting trying to do three at once.

Saturday afternoon we (the fools we are) drove to Dodge City to watch a World of Outlaws race. We have gone to Topeka to see them the last two years but they are not having a race in Topeka this year and Dodge City was the only other Kansas stop. We agreed in advance we would leave at 10 whether the A feature was over or not as it is a three hour drive. This is not an easy thing to do because they are so great. About 9 they announced that a storm was headed to the area and they were speeding up the schedule. They got the A feature started before 10 but had a flip in the second or third lap and then another one in the 5th lap (of 30 laps). About that time we saw two cloud to ground lightening strikes and sitting in an aluminum bleacher was not my idea of a smart thing. It was almost 10 so we left. Today we found out that they ran one more lap after we left then had a THREE HOUR AND 22 MINUTE rain delay. Yes, they started the race again around 1 am and finished it. They said there were still some fans in the crowd - I figure those were the ones that were too drunk to find their cars. We love the World of Outlaw races though and were not disappointed and plan to go back next year.

Today, we took the smaller camper to Ponca City for Laura to live in for a month or so. She got a permanent job in the hospital there and wanted to stay in the camper to save money and decide where in town she wanted to live. The campground was nice, no trees but not a lot of people either. It is about 15 minutes from the hospital. She will be in training working days for a month and by then will probably be ready for an apartment. When she goes on nights it will be hard to sleep in a camper in the daytime in the summer heat. She starts work a week from tomorrow so will have a week to check out the town.

Next weekend will be not quite as busy but a lot more responsibility. I am babysitting the girls while Jimmy and Maranda take a little vacation to KC. I love being with them but the idea of have total responsibility is a little scary. Glad to know that Aunt Niki will be coming over on Saturday!

End of May

We spent Friday night (May 29) at the wonderful wedding of my cousin Betty's daughter. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was just the best. Great music, beautiful decorations, fine food and a delicious cake. The fun of visiting with family at such a happy occasion made the evening complete. Seems like the only times that family gets together is at funerals or weddings and weddings are so much more fun.






Today we drove to Topeka to the drags. I got some really great pictures. The first is of John Force and his daughter Ashley Force Hood doing a burnout. The next shows how close the fans can get to the cars in the pits which is a major attraction to drag racing. The drivers give autographs easily - the last picture is Tony Schumacher (the point leader in the top fuel dragster division) being very nice to a long line of people that crossed under a rope to go in to an area they weren't suppose to go to. He didn't seem to care a bit - just signed their items.

Mother's Day

We had a busy weekend. Went to Texas Saturday morning to celebrate our grandson's 10th birthday which was the Thursday before. We went to a soccer game and saw him score a goal. After the birthday party at the house we went to the park and watched a movie set up on a big screen. It was chilly but was still fun. On Sunday morning we took the family to IHOP for breakfast then left for Wichita. For supper we went to Chili's with Jimmy and family. Laura was lucky - she got to eat out with both families too. It was a great day.

Nashville

I am sitting in a room at the Opryland Resort in Nashville. I am attending the NAPCP convention which is over tomorrow. This weekend was quite the weekend. The March for Babies was Saturday morning. This was my second year to be involved in this and I had forgotten just how emotional it is. Not everyone attending has the success we had in our family with the girls. We all had a nice time though - Izzy chased a bird across the outfield which was hilarious to watch. They got to see different mascots in their costumes which was a little scary for them at times. It was held at the ball park downtown and the walk was along the river then we came back to the ballpark and had soft tacos.

Saturday evening we went to a Kris Kristofferson concert at the Orpheum. We had great seats - third row center and he was fantastic. He was so much better than I ever thought it would be.

Then Sunday morning I flew to Nashville for this convention. I had no idea the Opryland Resort was so big and so beautiful or I would have brought my camera. I have gotten lost a number of times but found my way back one way or another. I am very lucky in that my room is very close to the convention rooms - some people have had a very long walk. The last sessions are tomorrow morning then I fly home at 4:30 in the afternoon. My flight has a layover in Memphis so I don't get home until 9:30 tomorrow night then back to work on Thursday. :(

Spring Storms

Usually when a Kansan talks of spring storms they are talking about tornadoes but this time we had a snow storm instead. It started sleeting and freezing rain with a little snow on Friday, the 27th then continued to sleet and snow all day Saturday. Around 2 am on Saturday our electricity went out. Dennis sleeps with a CPAP so when the electricity goes out in the night he wakes up quickly which wakes me up. The wonderful juice of life did not come back until after 6 pm that day. With well water the pump doesn't work when the electricity goes off so we were without water all day too which is just really annoying. I was very glad I had a number of gallons of water in the safe room for this type of situation. We also had a two burner propane stove so coffee was made which is extremely important for everyone around me staying alive. I did get a ton of crocheting done. Started an afghan last Wednesday and it will probably be done by this weekend. We all sat in the basement by the fireplace with the blind open so light would shine in and did hobbies. I crocheted, Laura did weaving and Dennis cleaned his guns. :)By Sunday afternoon most of the snow was gone but they said on the weather that we may have more snow tomorrow night. I WANT SPRING!

Sweater for Stacy

This is the sweater I knitted for Stacy's birthday. It didn't quite get done - I had to finish the second sleeve this week. Started it February 11 - made with Cascade Fixation - 98 % cotton and the rest is elastic so knitting was tricky as the yarn needed to be relaxed while knitting. She tried it on Saturday and it fit great. The pattern was from a special issue of Knitscene magazine.

Camping pictures

Here are some pictures from our camping trip. Dennis rented a boat one day to fish. I caught the same number of fish while knitting as he did on the boat.

March Madness

Spring Break is over- work tomorrow. Be good to get back to a routine I suppose but enjoyed being lazy. We took the 5th wheel to Lake Texoma and spend five days. On Thursday we met Stacy at a Starbucks in Denton and got the two grandkids and took them camping with us. Had fun even with not great weather that day. We flew a kite, fished from the bank and played games. We came home on Friday and on Saturday Stacy and James came here and we celebrated her birthday with Jimmy and his family. I would like to say her sweater was finished that I am knitting her but since she wants two sleeves instead of one, it isn't quite done. I will finish the second sleeve and post pictures soon. We had a good time, had cake and Godfather's pizza.

With Laura's help I figured out a way to put a link to my March for Babies site on the blog. If you click on it you will be taken to my section of the Wilson Team site. Hope you will contribute.

Sponsor Me at March for Babies!

More on Jimmy's birthday

Izzy is hard to get to stand still long enough for a picture but her daddy holding her helped.





As the girls went up for their nap, Lily had to stop at every step and say "bye" and wave to grandpa.







Audrey has learned to stop and pose for the camera, even if she does look a little worried about how the shot will come out

Vest is done!

I haven't mentioned my knitting projects lately because the project I have worked on since January 11th was a surprise for my son Jimmy's birthday. His birthday is today and the vest was finished up yesterday. I am very pleased with the way it came out and felt very good with his reaction - his words were "I am very impressed!" :)

We had a great day with him - met them at Red Beans Grill. Audrey and Izzy ate like little pigs and Lily even ate 1 1/2 goldfish. We went to their house and had cake and ice cream. Izzy and Audrey really liked the cake with the frosting that I make. They were a big help in opening presents for their daddy - they won't need instructions next weekend on their own birthday!

Isabel

Isabel thought the goose was a lot of fun to visit with

Audrey

Audrey thought the tissue was very important to keeping herself looking just perfect.

Lily and blocks

Lily liked playing with the "new" wooden blocks. Of course she didn't know that these blocks were ones her Aunt Laura got for her birthday about 39 years ago.

Weekend delight

If the Arizona Cardinals would have just sacked the Steeler's quarterback at the end of the game instead of letting him throw a touchdown this would have been an almost perfect weekend. :) The weather on Saturday was great and I cleaned house, barbecued and babysat the girls for a little while. On Sunday the triplets brought their parents down to our house for lunch. It was such an easy meal as the meat was all cooked the day before on the grill and made the strawberry salad that Nancy introduced us to in Arizona. The girls had so much fun playing with the "new" toys. They ate a great lunch - loved the pretzels. Even Lily put a pretzel in her mouth - didn't eat it but licked the salt.

By the way - it is not too early to sponsor me in the March For Babies. You can do so at this link. The march is in April so I am getting in to shape now! (not)

Floss "Organiser"

I bought a wonderful floss organizer from The Stitchery Magazine which is a catalog of cross stitch projects and accessories. It is totally cool for keeping the floss for a project organized. The product is made by Pako which is in the Netherlands and a non-English speaker wrote the instructions which always makes me laugh. The best sentence was "If the pin does not hold too much yarn, you can as well divide the yarn in the floss organiser"
I have enrolled in a drop spindle spinning class at Twist for the beginning of March. I will learn to spin the yarn. Next I just need to buy some sheep and I am in business. Or maybe an alpaca.
We had snow and freezing rain last night and today. I didn't want to drive on it first thing, so sent an email to my boss and told her I would be in mid morning. I really enjoyed my extra couple of hours at home. I ran the sweeper, did a load of clothes, ironed, cleaned the kitchen while watching old West Wing reruns. That show is absolutely the best show that has ever been on tv. I think I may go to six hour work days. Not. :)

Fiber Study

A few months ago I came up with the idea of having a stitch and "complain" group at work during the lunch hour. I thought about it for quite awhile before I finally got the nerve to put up a sign asking if anyone would be interested in meeting to knit or crochet together. I indicated that if a person didn't know how to do the craft someone would be there to teach them. I was amazed at the reaction of the people on the floor - everyone was very excited, then the word spread to other floors and others expressed an interest too. We had our first meeting last Wednesday in the conference room on my floor. 14 or 15 people showed up, four learned to knit and one learned to crochet. We all had a great time and have decided to meet every Wednesday. Not everyone will turn up every time of course, but this week I know of three more that are planning to come. We talked about doing a joint project where everyone makes just part of the project. Since we work for the school district I came up with the idea of calling the meeting a "Fiber Study".

Pictures of vacation

Here are a few pictures from the trip. Thought about buying the blue car - NOT - that was a new car for sale at the auction - $226,000. The top picture was taken at the auction - you can see the stage behind us. The next one is the three cousins at the race track.

Vacation

Time to catch up again. We had a wonderful vacation to Arizona last week. Left on Wednesday the 14th. Found out at the airport that traveling with husband is not as easy as thought. His name is on the watch list so it took forever to check in then the CPAP has to be taken apart and checked to be sure it isn't a bomb. GA (My cousin Nancy's husband) picked us up at the airport and took us to their beautiful house in Scottsdale where my brother Gary and his wife Becky were also there. After lunch the guys went to the Russo Steel car show while the gals went shopping. We hit the City North Mall which was too cool. It looked like a main street of a town with little shops. Very expensive little shops. Had to take a picture with my phone of a pair of jeans with lots of bling that cost $280. Thought that cheaper than buying them.
That evening the six of us played a game called Sequence which Dennis and I hadn't played before. It was a lot of fun and now I need to look for one.
On Thursday GA took Gary, Becky, Dennis and I to the Barrett Jackson car auction. That was an experience! I expected quite a few cars, did not expect all the vendors with the cool items of everything you can imagine and tons and tons of cars. We watch this auction on tv each year but that is just the tip of the iceberg. There were over 1,000 cars and every one was beautiful. I took a ton of pictures. In the evening my cousins kids, Greg and Cheri and her husband Doug came for supper. Doug had been at the car show with us and he matched me on taking pictures I think.
Friday morning started out for Dennis and I at 4:30 am with him throwing up. Apparently when the antibiotic says in bold large underlined font to take it with food they really mean it. He was sick most of the day but did manage to go to the gun range in the afternoon. The gals went shopping again. This time we went to a wonderful yarn shop. The owner gave me a bunch of business cards that have a place to keep track of your knitting needles to share back home. I wanted to get a skein of the special yarn that was dyed for that shop but the price they wanted was a bit more than reasonable. I did get a skein of lovely yarn and a book, Becky also got a book. After the yarn shop we drove around Old Town Scottsdale. That is high on the list to visit at length the next time. That evening the kids met us at Rumbi Island Gril and we had supper. It was a neat little place that we don't have here.
Saturday Dennis was better (thank goodness) and we went to the . What a deal. I will not fly to Arizona next time - We will be in the van with the seats stored away. :) This is a 55 acre facility with 1600 booths under tents. You name it - they had it. And the prices were amazing. We had so much fun. After the swap meet we went to the Phoenix NASCAR track. That turned into such a great experience. They were having SCAA car races and they let us go through the tunnel in Gary's truck and we parked and was able to walk all around the pits. It was so cool. After the track the guys dropped us off at the biggest Hobby Lobby I have seen and they went to Cabelas. Cheri came to Hobby Lobby too after dropping Doug off at Cabelas. We shopped then met the guys at Cabelas and a nice customer took a picture of all of us in front of the store. As we drove there we saw the Phoenix stadium where the Cardinals won their playoff game on Sunday.
On Sunday it was sadly time to end a great vacation. The six of us have never spent that much time together and we just had a blast. The hospitality was wonderful and the weather couldn't have been better. Sitting outside knitting in January is just the best. I can see why people snowbird now. GA took us to the airport and as we sat waiting on the plane, they announced they had oversold the plane and needed volunteers to spend another day in the great city. We talked it over and volunteered. We were given food vouchers for the airport, a hotel room at the Residence Inn and two free tickets to fly anywhere in the states. What a deal. We watched the game and then went walking around the area. There was a Chinese mall across the street with a cool grocery store with a live fish market. We saw so many things we had never seen before!
Monday we actually got on the plane and came on home. All good things must come to an end but we went to see the triplets that afternoon and that cheered us up. :) At the swap meet we had t-shirts made for them that had three little girl faces and the words "Yes, we are triplets. I'm -------"

Family photo

Here we are in all our splendor.

Happy New Year

Oh my - been a very long time since I have posted. We had a wonderful Christmas - Laura came from Boston, Stacy's family came from Texas. Laura came in on Christmas Day in the evening. Stacy's family came the next day. We went to Jimmy's that night (26th) and had dinner and opened presents. I thing everyone was very happy with their gifts - I know I certainly was. On Saturday James Sr, Stacy, Laura, Jessica and I went shopping for awhile while Dennis and James Jr stayed home. That evening we went back to Jimmys and took pizza, opened stockings and played cards. On Sunday Stacy's family left in time to get home to watch their Cowboys lose big time. Dennis, Laura and I started watching the John Adams miniseries that was on HBO but I bought the dvd from Amazon on sale. It was over 15 hours long but really good. We watched it Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights so we could finish it before Laura left town. On Monday I worked half the day then came home and got Laura and we went shopping at Towne West, Michaels and Tuesday Morning. That evening we went to Carabbes for supper. Tuesday I worked half a day and Laura came up to AMAC and met what few co-workers were working. Then we went to Twist - Laura fell in love with that store as I have. Bought some delightful yarn. After Twist we went to Palette for lunch and then to the Art Museum. The exhibits were great - one was fabric and weavings. After the Art Museum we went to Jimmy's and watched the girls for awhile so they could go look at cars. While there Lily's feeding tube button fell out and I had to put it back in. Not a pleasant experience but she was fine with it and didn't mind at all but of course that was because it was put back in so quickly after falling out so it didn't bother her. That evening we had deer steaks. Wednesday I took Laura to the airport during my lunch break - really hated to see her fly off - she is so far away now. New Years eve was very quiet here except for the fireworks outside - we watched two movies and went to bed. New Year's day Lily's button fell out during her nap and by the time she woke up the hole had started to shut so Jimmy had to take her to the emergency room to have it put back in. She did not enjoy that at all nor did anyone else. Dennis took vacation on Friday so he left on Thursday for deer hunting. I worked Friday and today finally got my house cleaned back up and de-Christmased which is not a word but the decorations are all put away now and my house looks more normal. And that gets things updated. Now I am back to knitting and cross stitching. Knitting a pair of socks for a soldier and cross stitching another Marilyn design.