December Doin's

I was the lucky recipient of a computer virus that really messed up my 'puter. Dale did a lot of fixing for me, but just tonight I am finally able to upload pictures from my camera, so am doing a bit of catch-up. Short and sweet.



Kate and I baked our annual ton of Christmas cookies. I enjoyed having her here to help.




Here's little Shylo watching Dale snowblow. She is such a sweet kitty.





Christmas was spent downstate at Betsy and Anthony's. Most of the pictures I took include children, so will not post them. But here is a picture of their beautiful tree.





And of course, the adorable gingerbread house done by Karen.




And when everyone left the Pelkey residence, one little critter remained--The Snake

Caroline saw it in the tree when her Daddy picked her up to wave good-bye to those leaving.

It was a nice Christmas. I just love being with family. But now that it's over, today I tackled the huge task of getting the decorations all put away and the house back to normal. We have a lot of decorations. The two main rooms go through major transformation for the month of December. Now that the house is back to normal, it seems so airy and empty (if you can call a room with 3 dollhouses in it empty!)


This year is coming to a close, and I'm hoping my theme can change from "Running Behind in 2009" to "Caught Up Again in 2010". Have a wonderful new year with lots of blessings !

Parties and Peepers

Our Christmas party last night was a real hoot! One of the games consisted of lots of balloons with directions inside. As each person popped his/her balloon, that person had to do what the note said. This 'Rudolph' lost her nose (you can see it on the floor), but did a great impression anyway.




He had to flap his wings and waddle like a duck!



Carolyn was one whose directions said, "Hop on one foot while you sing 'Jesus Loves Me' " I think 3 of us had that one, but Carolyn travelled all over the place taking her turn.


Jim and Kate doing the Indian thing.


Wish I were brave enough to post the other pictures. We all laughed ourselves silly! It was so fun. Then we had the White Elephant gift exchange that is always good for a lot of laughs, too.


Last--and least--here I am in my new peepers. I'm still trying to adjust to them.

CERT

Just a few pictures of CERT doin's.

Compass practice.




Splinting and bandaging.



I won this, but unfortunately, it won't work on the car I drive. BooHoo.

Squishing the air out of the Mass Casualty Tent


Very blurry pictures of changing out SCBA's

More Dollhouse Progress

Porch floor and foundation are painted, the porch is installed and the address numbers are on. Just have to get a couple more windows and make steps and paint the foundation in the back of the house. Then starts the interior work. Better start making some plans.

Dollhouse Progress

Well, I've got this trim and the door painted so far. Also have most of the porch put together, but no picture yet. It's got to have another post and another little piece put on before it's done. Not ready to attach it yet, anyway. I'd like to get the foundation and porch floor paint soon. Also need to purchase a window for the main floor, come up with some kind of little window for the dormer, and build new steps. I do think it's already looking better :-)

New Toy

Friends had this dollhouse sitting in their basement for a long time and decided to get rid of it. It needs a good cleaning, some repairs, and parts put back on. It's real sturdy. Appears to be 3/8 " plywood. Whoever started it had put some money into it because it's got some nice staircases, wiring, etc. I have several pieces that need to be put back on...some trim, the porch, a window. Also need to replace a window or two and repair/replace the door. This house is at least as large as my Bellingham.



It's built in the English style of being front-opening. Lots of pieces of furniture in it that were made from kits. One thing I like about the English style is that there is lots of wall space unbroken by windows. Easier for placing furniture. The rooms are quite deep, too.



The front of the roof opens to access three rooms upstairs.

After I get it cleaned, I plan to paint the outside, then go from there. Hmmm, I just thought...I should check the bottom to see if the builder signed & dated it and put the name of it on. (I do that to all the houses I build)

After posting the above, I had Dale help me turn it over to see whether it was signed or not. Yahoo! It was!

My Enjoyable Week

Wednesday I headed down to Muskegon for a few days. Arrived a day earlier than little Joshua and Caroline were expecting, so they were quite excited to see Grandma's car in their driveway so soon.

On Thursday, Betsy and I took the kids to the mall so they could play in the play area for a while. It was so fun watching all the kids playing. Betsy and I were noticing all the different appearances of the little ones and how they were all so cute.

That night, Betsy talked me into taking a bike ride. Something I haven't done in probably about 40 years or so. "The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be!"

The next day, my folks, Betsy and I toured some of Muskegon's historic houses that are part of the museum complex. This first is the Scolnik House, done to represent how a home would be in the Depression Era.





This is the Hume House. The home of Charles Hackley's business partner.



The house in the background is the Hackley House. You have just got to see the inside of this house to believe it. The woodwork is amazing! And the stencilling is magnificent.

If you are from Muskegon, you know what an important man Charles Hackley was to that city. He was at one time the wealthiest man in Michigan, but definitely not a miser. His belief was that it is a sin to die wealthy. He was a real giver, as can be seen by all the places in Muskegon that bear the Hackley name, including the hospital where I was born. :-) Have you ever been to the Hackley Library and walked on the glass floor?

I have posted a lot of pictures of the interiors of these houses on Facebook, if you'd like to see them.

Between some of the tours, we went to a little mom & pop Mexican restaurant. Authentic mexican restaurant. It was good. :-)

When I arrived home Friday night, there was the rest of the driveway done!

Today we went to a going-away party for our choir director. After we ate too much, we had a little singspiration. It was a nice afternoon.

Wow! I almost feel like I've had a mini vacation!

A Most Welcome Visitor!

Look who came today!


I am so excited! I didn't know until yesterday they were going to put in a cement drive. They poured half of it today.

Now for a tour around the parsonage so you can see the progress. This is the most unfinished part (obviously!)

Here's the end of the garage:

The south side with its new half of the drive poured:

Another view: (My poor flowers really suffered here this year because of the scaffolding and weather.)

Here's the west side (the actual front, although the south side is more often considered the front). Has a bit more to do here yet--under the door, for example. I'm thinking that maybe I'll paint all that old green concrete a nice gray, and maybe put gray stone flower beds in front to match the church, now that the siding matches. Also, I need to get some kind of decoration to hang next to the door on the left side to balance it. Maybe a nice address sign or something.

Looks pretty bare along the bottom. All the growing stuff was removed before they worked on this side. I'm glad to have those forsythia bushes out of there. They are only pretty about 2 weeks out of the year.

Why Post This?

I dunno. These are what I took to the Birthday Fellowship at church last night.

Brownies made from my sister-in-law's recipe. Really good. This picture doesn't show it, but what looks white is actually light green because I did the mint version. Got lots of compliments on these.



Mini tuna bundles. Made them smaller than usual. (This is a huge platter tho, so they are a bit bigger than the picture might make you think.)



This is a Mock Apple Pie--no apples, just zucchini, but people have a hard time believing it.

Mourning the Loss of Summer

Just wanted to throw in a few pictures to remind myself of the "Summer that Wasn't". Things just didn't grow well this year, so we really appreciate what did grow..

Today is the last day of August. At 8:30 this morning, it was still in the 30's. There's something not quite right here...

Hammond Reunion

We recently had a great time at a family reunion downstate. I have lots of pictures, but will only post a few because I don't much like putting picutres of children on my public blog.

Some of my kids:

My husband's siblings: (If Dale were in this picture, you would be surprised at the difference in his height)