Hub-bub-a-dee-dub

Lots of wildness this last week. Lots of fun around here at the same time. Mark's folks called on their way home from their RV trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We were delighted to be on their way home. I went over the campground and visited with them in the camper on Thurs am. We met Mark at Rib Crib for lunch. When we got back to our house, we had a stranger at the door--my brother, Dave, from TX. So it was a houseful!!

We enjoyed hearing all the RV tales of the senior set. They greatly enjoyed the Iowa countryside. They hit several cool museums near Davenport and Decorah. (Dad showed us his pictures on a slideshow.) They were surprised that I knew about Luther College and the pretty Eastern Iowa scenery. I would love to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum at Burr Oak. Sometimes the tales of the eldery border on scary, but they make it fine. It must have been a sight to see the 8 of them rambling around the Mall of America. (Only John and Faye are super mobile--at least one of the other 3 couples has a cane.) Their MOA highlight came afterwards--they took the lightrail downtown Minneapolis to a huge farmer's market. They were so delighted to wander around on a beautiful MN fall day and get fresh veggies. They all said that they found the best corn of their life. (Another fact that I already was aware of---eating Uncle Les's corn every summer from Northern Iowa totally spoiled me for life.) The were pleased to find the locals very friendly, one lady gave Faye her seat on the lightrail. Dad got to wade across the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca. It was alarming to see the picture of 300+ lb Uncle Gene crossing on a rock footbridge. If he would have fallen in, he'd still be there--no crane could get him out, he'd be a permanent fixture there. :)

The Stinnetts left the next day forging across MO in spite of tornados in between our house and theirs. That left us with Uncle Davy, a mini tornado himself. The girls LOVE to play wild with him inside and out. We call him the Troll from the basement, b/c he sleeps down there with MUCH snoring and pillaging. He is always foraging for something to eat or looking for something--similar to my dad in years gone by. :) We took him to a Truman football game. Unfortuately we were playing the #2 team in the state and lost 63-15, BUT more importantly the band was AWESOME and Hannah enjoyed our cheering. lol

Saturday was a gorgeous MO fall day. We went to see Cars at the $2 theater. We do the best we can to see these current flicks---it only came out in June. But we all liked it. When we got home we had the news that my uncle in Denver was having a health crisis and not expected to make it thru the weekend. This caused a flurry of family phone calls sharing info and plan making. Then Sun am Mark's little sister calls that Dad took Mom to the hospital at 5:30 am with chest pains. YIKES!! So we were glad to get 2 rounds of good news when we got home from church. Uncle Arden had rallied for the time being. Mom had an angiogram and was fine. Crazy times! Dave was delighted to help Kat finished a HUGE map project that she had forgotten about until 7 pm on Sunday. argh! Good thing he was here to help, this SuperMom was not in a mapfriendly mood.

The highlight of the weekend had to be the revival of my mom's oatmeal cake. I started looking for the recipe when my brother, Michael turned 50 last March. Mom always made it for his b-day. We hadn't had in over 10 years, prob longer. Thankfully, Pat copied Mom's recipe years ago and had sent it to me. She had made it since M's b-day. So I made one and sent it to Michael since Dave was headed that way. It was so good!! I usually don't chose anything over chocolate, but this cake is TOPNOTCH!! So glad I only save 2 pieces for later, or I'd have been standing at the pan with a fork. After all the drama of the weekend,a cake of comfort food would NOT make my jeans comfortable at all.

Yesterday Dave went to Michael's. I ran errands and tried to catch up around here. Kat had 2 volleyball matches last night. She served 4 straight points in the first game and 2 in the second. Pretty fun. I'm off to get my hair reblonded and my fingerprints taken so I can sub at the school. They finally called me to come to orientation in Oct. I was hoping my application was lost for about 2 more months. lol. But I'm excited to get started. Some Xmas $$ will be handy.... Beautiful day here in KCMO!!

An honest mechanic?

Dateline should hire me as an investigator.....I took the van to Midas yesterday am to get the brakes checked. Mark thought they were squeaking and last time we waited too long and it ended up costing us major $. So I was waiting in the lobby of Midas and the guy comes out smiling. (One has to wonder if this is a good smile, bad smile and for whom). He said my brakes were fine. He went on to explain that if I had money to burn, he'd be glad to put ceramic brake pads on it. He gave me a crash course in Brakes 101---then vs. now and why this squeak was not the "bad squeak". I was so delighted because: 1. We didn't have to invest in new brakes 2. The guy didn't tell me I needed them when I didn't. 3. He didn't make me feel like "dumb woman in the mechanics shop." (even tho I am--lol) As he was rotating the tires--for free, the other guy gave me the lowdown on when to have them checked again etc.... It was so refreshing to find some honest mechanics, I gushed over them a bit because they didn't charge me anything. I must have spent 30 min. there---they did say they take banana bread as payment. I had offered to make some knowing that I had dead bananas on the counter at home....So I whipped up a batch--had some warm for the girls when they came home and took them a warm loaf too. The guys told me that they try to treat people honestly so they will return as customers. I told them that I would never have known if I needed new brakes or not (they had me over a barrel), but because they were honest this time, then I would return.....Kind of a "feel good story" of the week.

Too bad the administrators of Indep Pub Schools don't have a similar philosophy---treat your workers right and you'll get better/more work from them. Better work policies help those who need it such as---principals, secretaries and STUDENTS---argh. As you might gather, M is still "in the trenches" trying to get his work done in spite of the uppers who can't see "the big picture" of how technology helps at every level...We can only wonder how long the Lord is going to leave us here in the desert. :)

All for now. It's Wednesday and always a rush to get everything done before supper and church.

When did I get old?

Sometimes a wild life catches up with ya. The girls and I were lured to Branson by the prospect of good weather and free tickets to Silver Dollar City AND Celebrations City. We got ready quickly after school on Fri and got down there without incident. Joy had warm choc chip cookies waiting for us! The Wheeler B & B really is Branson's finest accommodations! We got up early and were at SDC when it opened. We headed for the new part and started riding. It was a new experience to have everyone in the group riding together--no one having to wait with a little one, since the little one was riding EVERYTHING she was tall enough to ride. Even Katherine the non-fast rider had a great time riding. Em did get slung around a bit on Powder Keg and got a couple bruises. Kat rode that one for the first time--neither are getting on again soon, but the tried it. I still owe Kat $10 for trying it. lol. We hit Celebration City about 4 pm. Only Kat and H had been there, so we were tickled to try all the rides there. After a trip on the wooden roller coaster and an hour wait for the go carts, I was feeling a bit "stove up". We rode and rode until the awesome laser light and fireworks show. It was such a nice day. My neck was still stiff yesterday, but better today. We got home yesterday pm and M was glad to see us. (He stayed home due to a prior commitment.)

So we are back to the races. Kat has a volleyball clinic tonight. H has a skating party with some church kids. The laundry is in control.

I haven't blogged any info about my new business venture into Arbonne. It's so cool, will have to give details later!

Back to the normal again

Here we are the end of the holiday weekend. We started with 2 sick and end with all of us well. YAY! Kat and Ab were down all day Friday and Saturday. I managed to sneak off to the HUGE craft show here on our historic square on Friday. I must have lost 5 lbs if you count all the good things there were to eat and I walked on by. I did share an order of homemade potato chips, but I had a DIET Coke. :) It's always fun to see the craft vendors. I rarely buy anything, but feel sad if I don't get up there to see it all.

On Saturday night we went out to some friend's and had a "cream can" supper. It really was a 5 gallon milk can that they filled with brats, corn, carrots and potatoes and then put on a campfire. It was so tasty and such a nice time. The hostess is originally from Iowa and she made me a rhubarb pie. So good!! Most of the friends didn't know how wonderful rhubarb pie can be, so I had to take 1/2 a pie home. I've never had 1/2 a pie to myself in my life! Goodness knows, I don't NEED one piece, much less a 1/2, but I have enjoyed it!!! We played some dominoes--fun!!

Mark, the girls and I had a marathon Yahtzee tournament this weekend. I was the one who wanted to play---we looked all summer for our game, so I picked up score cards and dice last week. It was really fun to watch Abby improve at adding up the dice even multiplying without knowing it. :) Of course they all beat the soup out of me. Mark was the big winner---3 Yahtzees in one game--yikes the Albert Puljos of Yahtzee. :)

We got some yard work done (we meaning Mark). The kids had a lovely day to play outside. We did some minor cleaning (we meaning me, altho Ab and Em did Ab's room including some vacuuming.) The laundry is about done. We did a bit of shopping the sales for Mark---he really needed some stuff. Now we're back to regular life. Tuesday is my day to drive the early band run to Truman. We're gone by 6 am!!! but only one am a week! Nice!