At the River

Stan suggested we try to cool off at the river so we drove out to the bridge with Sydney and the dogs. After Stan dragged me through the mud, which I fell into after my flip flop got stuck, we found a nice spot.

Grandpa and his shadow.

The dogs hated the water and Merlin rolled in the gravel to try to dry off. It took a long bath to get the sand out of his fur!

The boy dipping for minnows.

Came home and we all showered. Then I cooked bacon, fresh farm eggs and pancakes. Now to muster the energy to clean up the kitchen.

Freedom! And 45 Years.

I am finally off my blood pressure medication!  It took two months, but it was very much worth it.  I've increased my walking distance to 1 3/4 miles, my lungs are so very much happier, the pounding in my heart has pretty much gone away, and the tinnitus is lessening.  When I first started walking I couldn't walk a block without wheezing and struggling for air.  Now I can buzz out almost a mile each way!  I cough a little, but I haven't had to stop to catch my breath is many weeks.  I am so grateful to the folks at Gesundheit, my favorite wellness store; my acupuncturist; and my God for getting me through this!  Bonus is, I'm really starting to trim up-no pounds lost yet, but my jeans are baggy-a definite sign.  I expect if I keep up the walking one morning I'll wake up to a stunning weight loss.

I have so much more energy.  I didn't think I was depressed or tired on the Bystolic, but as the dose was decreased, my desire to do things and my stamina improved.  Talking to my son tonight he thought it might have been a very mild depression.  Funny how you don't realize things until you're looking back at them!

My walking companions.  If they think it's time for a walk, they follow me around the house alternating staring at me, sniffing my feet to see if I have the right shoes on, and going to the garage door to hopefully get me to go out and get the leashes.  They are addicted to it.  I'm getting to the point where I get the itch to go out too-the only way one can continue an exercise program is to really enjoy it.

The other good thing about today is that it's our 45th anniversary.  I can't believe that many years have passed-I don't feel any different than I did back then, other than hopefully being a little wiser!  We went to a barbecue place for supper, then tomorrow we'll go to a steakhouse and a movie.  We're hoping to see "The Butler."

Ma and Pa in Mazatlan a couple years ago.

The Rest of the Pictures

Here are the rest of the pics we took the other night.

"Soldier Hill," Kris' group.  Notice they're pinching their vocal cords in order to get the high notes.

This gentleman is 87 years old.  He is carrying the eagle staff and led the procession of flags for the grand entry.  He then gave the invocation, "The Seven Directions."

Procession of the flags.

Two boys watching the drum-they gather around the group and listen, sometimes a big crowd.

L to R-Kris, Stan, me, and Amanda.  Yep, she was ready to pop!

Amanda made these for me while she sat watching the dancers.  Gorgeous!

This drum came all the way from Texas.

Amanda said this particular pow wow was a little different than the ones they have on the reservations.  Montana State University has a spring pow wow every April and it was different than this one, too.  Amanda called the group here "Urban Indians."

Whatever, it was a blast, and we felt so honored to sit with them and to be gifted with the earrings.  On Facebook later Kris said we are his forever adopted family and our son Steve is his brother forever.  It means a lot coming from an Indian.  Can't wait to see little Crazy Bear!

Delivered!

The couple that I made the blanket for were in Helena last weekend for a pow wow, so Stan and I made a little road trip to bring them the gift.  We had a blast at the pow wow and were so honored to sit with the dancers. Kris' drum group was the host drum so they played for almost every dance.  Made for a late night, Helena is about an hour and a half from here, but well worth it.

Amanda was due on October 8 but the drive back to Poplar (about eight hours) must have started things, she had the baby last night! Mahto Witko "Crazy Bear" weighed in at six pounds thirteen ounces and is beautiful!

I ran out of the multi colored yarn and it's been discontinued, so I edged it with the teal. I like it and so did they.

I'm on my Kindle and my other photos of the pow wow are on my laptop, so hopefully I'll share them later.

It Was a Nice Mother's Day

A very nice day.  Went to church, stopped at my favorite coffee shop, then headed home to change and gather up stuff for dinner.  Off to Steve's house for a backyard beer can chicken barbecue.  We sat in the shade on the deck visiting and watching the kids play.  A very mellow day, I felt spoiled and appreciated.  I took my camera but I never took it out of my purse.

Stan did give me some very pretty roses on Saturday.

They're opening nicely. 

Jim and Millie gave me these lilies.  Just have to figure out where to plant them.  I have a ton of lilies in the backyard, so maybe I should find a home for them in the front.

The flowering trees are a little early this year.  Our jelly crabapple tree is going nuts!  We're going to have to share the apples this year!

Looks like snow!

Here and There, Bits and Pieces

Boy, working a second job keeps one busy!  Let's see-what have I been up to.  Well, first I've been working quite a bit at Macy's-last week was 30 hours in addition to my work at the church.  My knees are complaining loudly so I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through Christmas or not.  Don't think I'm going to go on after that, I have too many fish to fry.  I did buy some support socks yesterday from the "As Seen on TV" shelf at Walmart.  I put them on when I got home just to see how they would be, and I think they'll be a welcome addition to my work wardrobe.

There is some sewing and knitting going on.  I'm still working on Stan's goose decoy bag, can't forget to take pictures of that, plus I still have the Christmas blankets waiting to work on.  Then yesterday Stan asked if I would make him a polar fleece stocking hat for goose hunting.  I got the fabric out, but after black Friday weekend at Macy's I was too wasted to whip anything up.  Hopefully today.

I did make the treat bags for the church Christmas program.  I took over for the elderly lady that did them for years.  I wanted them to be done early just in case I got backed up, which is pretty common for me, ha ha!

Fun and quick!

Trying again to finish this post-I got rid of some pictures and resized the ones I wanted to share.

Uno before Thanksgiving dinner.

A beautiful place setting!

 

I finished the hat order.  I made five and my friend picked out two.  I have three left that I think I'm going to post on our town's Facebook page.

I got the goose bag done, but the straps aren't long enough, so alterations are in my future with that one, and I made him a reversible hat-one side brown and the other snow camo for when he's goose hunting with snow on the ground.  Not the prettiest but he says it works very well.

I'll finish this post and move on to another.  Still haven't decided what to do about the picture thing, but I'll figure it out.

Family Fun

Our nephew Paul was here from Seattle with his daughter, Julie.  So we had to cram as many family members as we could into my sister-in-law's house yesterday.  All four of Stan's siblings were there, plus a couple of my kids and some cousins and second cousins.  We had a great dinner and a good visit.  But the fun started after almost everybody had left:

Stan, Steve and Paul hanging out and catching up around the fire pit.

Paul's daughter Julie.

Sydney and Julie playing ball.  It was nice that they got to play together, last time Julie was here she was only one.

Then the cousins, who hadn't seen each other in three years, decided to get crazy and play war with the kids on their shoulders.  We laughed so hard!

The daddies "riding" on the kids' shoulders.

 Paul's dad got involved in the game, but he won't let me share his pictures, he was a bit embarrassed!  But we had a ball watching the hijinks!

In other news, I have an interview at Macy's tomorrow.  You may remember that instead of doing the sick time paperwork over and over, I just resigned with the idea of returning.  Well, I should never have gone into the store!  I was kidnapped by a couple of managers and asked if I was ready to come back to work.  (Puleeeeese!)  So I did the online application and scheduled an interview.  I'm going to have to be firm-I don't want full time and I don't want to give up my job at the church-that's my retirement job.  Besides, my Social Security starts in February and I don't want to earn so much that it cuts my payments.

I have a ton of sewing to get done before Christmas, so I really have to budget my time.  I'm almost finished with the hats I've been knitting, so that will be out of the way.  The kids all want fleece blankets instead of pajamas so that's on my list.  I'm hoping to pick up the fleece for them tomorrow after my interview.

Wine, Aunt Grace, and Nail Polish

Monday when Gracie and I were in town, I picked up the cheapest red nail polish I could find.  Not for me, but for the hummingbirds.  We have two feeders-a bright red cheap plastic one and a really nice brass one that has a solar light.  But the flowers on the brass one weren't very bright:

Jim and Millie's family gave this to me for Mother's day.  Really cute but not very red.

Nice red.

It actually worked better than I expected!

 And now the hummingbirds are visiting BOTH feeders!

On a sad note, do you remember my story about Uncle George and Aunt Grace?  We got the call that Aunt Grace passed away yesterday morning.  She was a young 91-year-old, but life happens and people leave us.  We'll say our final goodby Saturday morning.

Our good friends, Wayne and Connie, came over to pick raspberries tonight, and they brought the bottle of wine they scored on their vacation to South Dakota.  I'm ashamed to say we polished that thing off in a hurry!  Very yummy-mostly rhubarb and a touch of raspberry.  A lovely cool evening on the deck with wine, snacks and good conversation.  Can't beat that.

They said the winery was right there, but they got this bottle at a gift shop.  If they'd bought it at the winery they would have had to buy a case.  Well, now we realize they should have gone with the case!

Kiddos

Millie had another heart cath procedure in Salt Lake City today, so we've  had the two youngest since yesterday.  Chris is in Wyoming and Isaac has a new job at Pizza Hut so it's just the two little ones.

Stan took Sam fishing today, along with his friend Anders.

They had a really good time, Grandpa even let Sam "drive" the boat for a while.

The catch of the day-five walleye and a trout.  We had trout and walleye for supper tonight-yum!

Gracie and I went to town to get some sewing supplies.  We were just starting lunch when I realized I had left my phone at home.  Since I didn't want to miss Jim's call about Millie, we cut our time in town short and came home.  It gave us some time for some sewing.  I gave Grace a sewing lesson, and she watched while I made her a new dress:

A nice summer frock, cool and airy!

Millie is doing great-she was even alert enough to call the kids tonight.  They think they hit most of the damaged spots this time.

Summer Stuff

It's been pretty hot here.  We've had a couple of storms that actually brought some nice rain, but then it warms back up again-so not like Montana.  Usually it's hot for a few days, then rains and gets chilly.  I don't mind this one bit!

Took the grandkids to the Bogert pool, but it's an outdoor pool and the thunder and lightening hit, so the pool was closed.  They played in the playground for a while and then Millie stopped by and picked up Grace and Sam.  Syd talked his dad into staying for the farmer's market and concert, so he was with us all night.  Mostly he played on the playground-we positioned our chairs at the concert so we could watch him all evening.  He had a blast, and we heard a nice concert.

His dad gave him enough money to go on the bungee bouncer:

We celebrated Independence Day by going to the fairgrounds to take in the Bozeman Symphony's all-American concert, followed by fireworks.  The Symphony even accompanied some of them.  The best fireworks evening I think I've had.

Since Syd had to go back to his mom's soon, he, Stan & Steve took the boat out fishing.  They had a ball!

A beautiful Montana sunrise!

 Yesterday we took our Costco rebate and a World Market gift card to town-time to get them spent.  We made quite a little haul-I got a new vacuum cleaner, a small TV for the kitchen, a 16G memory card for my camera, and ribeye steaks for two meals at Costco.  At World Market I found a new outdoor rug for my deck.  When Stan and my cousin built the deck, my cousin talked him into leaving a gap between the floor boards.  The only problem is, the thin legs on my chairs fall through, so I put a rug over it to prevent that.  The old rug was bad enough to make it into the trash.

Chloe and I both think it looks snazzy-kind of tropical.  It's quite a bit larger than the old one.  This one is made from plastic, so maybe it won't rot quite so quickly.

We assembled the vacuum and I took it for a test drive in the living room.  I was astounded to see how much dog hair ended up in the dirt cup!  Plus a lot of dirt-and I thought my old vac was working!

Now that my deck is spruced up, I'm headed out there to catch a cool breeze and eat ice cream with fresh strawberries from the garden.  Can't beat that for a summer evening!

This Week

I don't mean to lump all my week's activities together, but lately it seems to work out that way.  Wednesday we had a quickly arranged potluck of Stan's cousins.  At one time there were 60 cousins-grandchildren of Opa and Grandma Kamps.  Time has gone by and some of the cousins have passed away and we're all getting older.  There are only two of Opa and Grandma's children left, the two youngest boys, Uncle Bert and Uncle George.  Stan's mom was the most recent to pass away.

Gretta hugging Judy.  Gretta and her husband hadn't been to Montana in over 18 years.

Sharing a laugh.

Tressa, cousin John's wife.  John is the oldest living cousin.

Uncle George chatting with cousin Teddy.

Catherine, Aunt Grace (Uncle George's wife) and Judy.  Judy is married to Stan's brother Harold.

How this all came about was an anniversary open house for Uncle George and Aunt Grace-70 years!  Some cousins came to Montana to help them celebrate, so we decided we hadn't had enough gabbing time!

Then Stan and I drove to Great Falls to celebrate Sydney's birthday.  We drove up yesterday and came back today.  Steve went up on Thursday, driving a flatbed truck, minus flatbed, from work.  Yesterday we followed him all the way north to a little town about 60 miles from the Canadian border.  There was a company there that would put a new flatbed on for them.  Lots of driving yesterday!

We returned to Great Falls and had some fun:

Birthday gifts from the cousins.

Grandma and Grandpa gave him the Cars 2 WII game.

 We had a nice dinner at a steakhouse.  (I know-crazy kid!)

Today we picked them up and went for a late breakfast.  We had just about 1 1/2 hours left so we spent it at the "duck park."  A beautiful park with a huge pond and a large playground.  A nice picnic area-there were many families having after-church lunch.

Duck!

We didn't have any bread with us, but we did have homemade ginger snaps, so that's what the ducks, geese and gulls got!  Hope they didn't get tummy aches!

Then we returned Sydney to his mom, actually his mom's friend who was going to watch him for a couple of minutes, and we sadly drove away.  Steve was pretty quiet on the way home.  Summer is going to be really long.  And his mom wants him to spend next winter in Great Falls, but we are going to fight that-not going to happen!  Pray for us on that one!

Holiday

We had a busy weekend-a housewarming party, a graduation party, church, and I fed the workers at the church on Saturday.  So today we took it a little slower.  I fixed waffles for breakfast, then we drove to the cemetery to put flowers on our parents' graves.  Then I called the boys-Millie is in New Orleans this week, so Jim is alone with the kids-and invited them all over for a burger.  Steve did most of the cooking, something he loves, and we just had a nice leisurely evening.

Lounging around eating burgers.  Note Isaac on the exercise ball!  And see the doggie cleanup crew?

Then-after Jim and his kids left, Syd got on our little bike and yay, he rode it for the first time!  That's two grandkids that learned to ride their bikes in our driveway.  And with the same bike Stan got from the neighbor that had a "free" sign on it.  It's been a pretty useful thing to have.

Look at the utter joy on his face!

Now for some Monday night TV and early bed.  Still fighting the back thing, but it isn't as bad as it was.  If the chiropractor doesn't do the trick, I'm going to get acupuncture.  My massage therapist and the neighbor have both recommended the same guy so I think that's who I'll go with.  I'm going to lick this if it kills me!