A 'Possom Tale...
So I'm doing book work last Friday when something catches my eye out the window. I like to use the laptop at the Dining Room table. Anyway, Lacy has something... usually she barks and carries on when she finds something like an opposom or squirrel, but not today. Ewwww

Eww, eww eww I think it's dead, but then it looks at me... ew ew ew!I thought I'd just leave it until Chris got home for lunch. The cats came to check things out so Lacy had to guard it. Then she started playing with it and I decided to lock her up in the fence.As I came around to the front of the house, the dead possom was walking away. "I let him live." At this point of course Lacy busted out of the fence after it and followed it into the Wolfe's garage where it found some place to hide. And this I had to share with you. You can add it to the "If you ever catch your dog playin with a possom in the front yard...you might be a red neck"

'nough said!

christmas 09.wmv

A little past the Holiday season, but here are the Holiday photos! Lindsey and Mom I shared some of yours to fill in what I did not have. It's a little long, but hang on until at least the middle as there is some live Chirstmas Eve music! Oh boy.

We had some freezing fog this morning through noon.

There's a train parked by our house, this is about a quarter of a mile out...foggy!

Around 11 the sun started to come out and add some color!

I never cease to be amazed at how beautiful some frozen water can be! God is good!

MVI_1010.AVI

The son of one of our friends from church singing, "Hush Little Chicken" at the Christmas program. Now never mind that chickens don't say "cockadoodle do", this is how he chose and insisted on singing it and it is CUTE!

The weather in PA was snowy with a forecast of freezing rain. The weather across country was not good and only getting worse, so even though I was nervous, we headed out. We had travel mercies in that the roads through western Kansas and West Viriginia were not too bad and then it was pretty clear the rest of the way. I took some car photos just for fun! Leaving Harrisburg PA It was so very foggy and yucky but I wanted a photo of the state capitol, you can see the Capitol building on the far left side of the photo. Actually I think this was taken the day before we left, oh well! Here we are heading under the mountain tunnels. There are several: Blue Mountain is the first and here it is. Under we go!

I love this photo while driving in western PA looking down into this valley. Brings back memories of driving to my sister’s house in Pittsburgh PA for a visit!

Leaving PA and into West Virginia, you can see the weather is lovely! Sunset finds us in Indianapolis…pretty sunset.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home!

Kathy and I have been friends since high school. Often we miss each other when we make our trips back east, but this year we were able to snag some time on a snowy day and let our kids sled together. Zach was awesome to share his sled and even us moms had a turn. Do you see my kids up to no good sending a huge snowball down the hill after us?We quickly went from, "We're going to die" to this is fun!!!! I have told my kids how tall my tall friend Kathy is, now they know!! Many things change over time, but really good friends just don't!!!

More pictures of our time sledding with Kathy and Zach, this hill was not here when I grew up. They added a strip mall and built this rather large hill on the east ? edge of our neighborhood. It made for some fun sledding. What do you do with 1 sled and 6 kids? Have a snowball battle in the midst of it of course!!! Sean did not work until 4 so he got to join in the fun!

Collin and Hans demonstrate that you don't need a sled to slide!!! Brrrrr. It was hot cocoa all around when we got back to Mom mom McCormicks.

Mom wanted a photo of the original Smithsonian and then we had to go inside!!!
This is a photo of when Mom went as a high school student to the Smithsonian. I think Uncle Bill is in there too.

After that we walked around, tried to go to the Air and Space museum but the line outside was at least a block long...brrrr. That got voted down so we ducked into the Art Gallery and finally enjoyed some neat art work and quiet!!! I of course tried for a group photo outside and Mike tried to get the kids to stand with him, but "it's cold uncle Mike!!!"

So I got this rather nice one of him instead!
Lots of naked sculptures at first. Ann said you'll see are a lot of p_____ in here! Gotta love art.
Next morning we all did some bird watching and relaxing before we packed up to head back to PA only to find out Sean had been sick while we were gone. That flu....

This is a fateful photo. The children thoroughly enjoyed visiting with Ann's brother Tom the last time we were in Anapolis and again they just surrounded him. He got the infamous KS flu along with Ann and her other brother. We are so sorry!!!

We had 2 side trips planned during out trip to PA: one to Anapolis and then into Washington DC to the Smithsonian for the day. Realizing that a day was not near enough...however there were 3 things we did not count on. 1. Chris got the flu this morning, so he did not get to go with us; it was FREEZING cold and very windy, thousands of other people had the same idea...Here we are just getting started. See the smiles...they fade as the day goes by! Here are kids might be pointing out the differences between a Biblical world view and the Evolutionary world view presented at the Museum...Doesn't Hans looks cute!!!Here things started to fall apart. The boys went with Uncle Mike to see the birds. Erin was peopled out...so Ann and Mom and I were going outside.

The Hope diamond...it took 15 minutes just for Erin to shimmy though, I just saw the photo.

I don't even know where Alan is...???It was very sad, to be here with so many neat historical things to see and do and not be able to. The lines were horrendous and the kids were cranky! (I had to remember that

they were just getting over the flu and travel. At the time I was just disappointed. They could care less that here we were at the Washington Monument and the Capitol building. It was just too cold. The walk back to the car was miseable. I have NEVER been so cold. We even stopped at a Star Bucks for coffee and cocoa. The drive out of Washington was interesting for me who was very aware of not being in KS anymore!!! Then my mom got sick just moments after being back at Mike and Ann's. That canceled out trip to Doylestown to see my cousins the next day. We were even going to get to sing at my cousin Jim's recording studio, he had a version of Silent Night for us to lay some tracks down too and my Aunt Terry had little beds made up for us. Sigh...oh well, maybe another time!

Christmas Eve sledding...

After a day of resting and shopping :o) We went to Mark and Lu's for some sledding. Now my brother Mark has some serious toys and we are so thankful he likes to share! We were greeted by the smell of baking cookies and 2 snowmobiles, a UTV, 3 sleds and even some snowboards (thanks to Aaron and Lindsey). That turned into some major fun!

Place like home.wmv

Hans grade school photo