Christmas Lights

First I want to tell you all about our Amish meal. Friday night we went with several couples to an Amish or perhaps a Mennonite home over south of Shipshewana. They host dinners in their home for groups of eight or more. There were twelve in our group and another group of about twenty four in the the very large basement of this house. The owners welcomed us and started passing around very large bowls of food. There was a salad, corn, mashed potatoes & gravy, chicken, salisbury steak, beef & noodles, delicious bread with raspberry-rhubarb jelly(absolutely yummy), jello type salad and fresh baked pies. I was very proud of myself and took reasonable helpings and when we had finished the first go around with the main courses they started them around again! We will start counting calories after the holidays. The food was all excellent, home grown and cooked to perfection. We had a very nice evening and are ready to go again.

Since the title is Christmas lights I guess I better tell a little about them. The above is the moon shining between a couple of walnut trees in our yard. That's quite a light.

Next are Mom's lights by the back door. They are shot with a long exposure so they give kind of a neat look to the lights.

This is from the road in front of the house showing Mom's lighted trees on the front porch and the lights shining in the windows showing everyone the way home.

Here is another shot of the trees on the front porch and two of the candles in the windows. Of course all of this would not have been possible without the Bota. We went for a night ride and took these while on our ride.

Actually all of the credit goes to Marcia. She loves to decorate for the Holidays and spent hours and hours working on all of the decorations.

Quinn's 2nd Birthday

Happy # 2 Quinn

As the title implies this is all about Quinn turning two. Last Saturday we went to Noblesville for the big day. Quinn was in fine form as were all of the kids. Quinn's cousins where there as well as older brother Cole. Above is a shot of Quinn blowing out his candles.

After blowing out the candles Quinn was trying to decide what to do next.

I guess he decided the figures were more interesting than the cake!

Here he is checking out one of his presents. This one was from Aunt Awwyssa.

I'm not sure but he seems to like it. It was a great day and everyone really enjoyed spending time together with the kids.

Family update:

My knees are doing much better. That is a good thing because the Holiday rush has kept me busy in the shop. Plus we are excited to be planning a trip to the 4 corners area of the Southwest in the spring.

Marcia is enjoying retirement but does not quite have it figured out. She has been substituting at the High School for a friend and observing student teachers for Trine(Tri-State) University's education dept. She is also busy planning our family Thanksgiving and the Powers Church Christmas Service to be held Sunday, November 29(also Grandma Powers birthday).

Jennifer & Brian are busy with the two boys. Brian is still working for Simon Group in downtown Indy. Recently he took Cole to a Pacers game which they both enjoyed. Jennifer is still busy working two days a week for First Steps and keeping up with the two little tornadoes.

Alyssa is still at IU finishing a very busy semester grading student papers and attending classes that require a lot of time(ie. statistics). One of her class projects involves making observations about her Great-Great-Great-Great-Uncle Calvin Powers based on letters he wrote in the 1830's.

Matt is living in northern Minnesota doing research for the Forest Service. He is adjusting to a new apartment, new job, new area and working for the government. He is looking forward to exploring the area especially up near the Boundary Waters. Seri is finishing her degree at Michigan Tech in Houghton and will be done in the spring. She is currently finishing a two week school sponsored research project in Hawaii. It sounds like good work if you can get it. She will be home to spend Thanksgiving with Matt.

We have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween & Conner Prairie

With Halloween coming and fall rapidly turning to winter we decided to make one more trip in the camper. We went to Cicero Indiana to White River Campground. We did not know until we got there that it is a Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Campground. They have a lot of acreage right along the White River with walking trails and equestrian trails with plans for a great deal of future development. They have several hundred acres to work with and from the looks of their early projects it will be a very impressive park. The best thing about the park is that it is only about ten miles from Brian and Jennifer's house.

The real reason we went was to take Cole & Quinn's pumpkins to them. We had been growing them in the garden all summer. Saturday evening was pumpkin carving night and the boys were all excited. Mom & Dad joined right in and we had a good time watching the boys with their pumpkins. They were not sure about the gooey insides but they plunged right in and helped clean them out.

Above is Cole with Mom working on his pumpkin. They did a great job of outlining their faces and then carving them into the pumpkins. Cole's had such a thick shell that it took a lot of effort to carve out the design. Below are Cole and Mom working on his pumpkin and Dad working on Quinn's. Brian carved a very intricate design and worked diligently to get it finished.

Quinn was helping out big time also. He wanted to be doing everything that big brother was so he got a scraper and went to work on his pumpkin. With a little(lots) of help he got it done.

Sunday we went to Conner Prairie, which is a historic settlement with museum and recreated communities based on the 1830's time frame. It has a couple of recreated communities with most of the buildings being authentic and moved to the site from other locations. They came from all around the area, one even came from Steuben County.

We had a great time and the weather was beautiful. The leaves were turning and the buildings mostly had fires going in their fireplaces. It was just a beautiful fall day. The boys had a great time exploring all of the buildings and especially the animals. In the above picture Cole, Grandma and Aunt Alyssa are checking out the pig pen. They had an old bank barn with an assortment of animals running around, or in some cases laying around. Quinn was fascinated with the animals he would go up to each one and try to pet it. I think there may be some farmboy in that young man.

Weddings and wood cutting

We got to see Matt and Seri again a few weeks ago when Ryan Frey, a friend of Matt's, got married in Fort Wayne. It was a whirlwind trip for Matt and Seri (two days out of four spent in travel time), but we had a great time visiting with them and attending Ryan's wedding. Matt was best man, so we enjoyed talking with Seri while Matt was involved in best man duties. We did have the opportunity to take these pictures of Matt with the groom and with Seri.

Back on the farm, it's time to cut wood! We know that winter is coming because we had our first snow on Friday. It didn't stick, but we had enough to make the ground white for a little while. The pictures below show Dewey after we have loaded the Kubota. We have found that the Bota is a work horse when we get to the woods and is much more maneuverable than a tractor and wagon. With Dewey cutting and Marcia loading, we can have this much wood in a half an hour. We also reminisce about times in the woods with the family when the kids had assembly line wood loading. Remember that Jennifer, Alyssa, and Matt? I bet you wish you we here helping now!

Kids & Pumpkins

Holy Halloween! Cole whose pumpkin do you suppose this one is? I think it has your name on it just waiting for Halloween. I am sure you will be able to carve a great face on this pumpkin. I hope it is not too scary.

Oh here is another one, who do you suppose this one is for? We also have some small ones for pumpkin pie. We are looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

This is from earlier when the kids were visiting. Grandpa and Cole working hard with the Bota. We sure had a good time in the Bota didn't we Cole?

This of course is Quinn and Grandma. I'm not sure what the look is for but you never have to wander long with Quinn. He will let you know real quick what he is thinking.

We are trying to get caught up with chores around the farm, but it seems they are never ending. With the head of grounds and maintenance hard at work on her new job there seem to be a lot of things that need attention. She did manage to get the depot scraped and painted in between the showers. It looks great but now she is talking about the barn, maybe next year. We started moving things around to get ready for winter. We try to put more things inside during the winter but it always is a chore getting them to fit.

Not much else to report so will sign off now.

UP VACATION

We went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan right after Labor Day. We drove to Escanaba first to attend a lumber trade show so that the trip was deductible. We spent three nights camped at the Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds where the show was located. We were right across from the exhibit field so was nice to go walk around for a while then go back to the camper to rest for a bit before going on to more exhibits both inside and out. We spent part of one afternoon watching the lumberjack & lumberjill competitions which was very interesting. They can saw through a 10" x 10" cant three times with a two person crosscut saw in less than ten seconds, its pretty amazing. In the modified chainsaw competition one guy made three cuts through the 10" x 10" cant in less than four seconds, that is starting with the chainsaw on the ground not running. I would hate to be cutting firewood with him and trying to keep up loading. But probably the most exciting was the guys standing on a 10" x 10" cant and chopping it in two between their feet as they are standing on it. The axes they use are extremely sharp so you don't want a miscue. It took them about 40 seconds to chop through the wood.

Next we went up to the Keweenaw Peninsula to visit Matt & Seri. We stayed at McClain State Park right on Lake Superior just outside of Hancock where they live. We had a beautiful view of Lake Superior right across from our camper. We enjoyed a campfire with Matt & Seri on Sat. night just talking and relaxing with them. Then Sun. Matt took us up the Keweenaw sightseeing. We stopped at Eagle Harbor and toured the lighthouse facilities then went on to Copper Harbor via the Brockway Drive which is an absolutely beautiful drive. From there we went to Fort Wilkins which is a recreated military installation dating back to the early times of settlement of the UP. The UP and especially the Keweenaw is a beautiful place and the weather was great. We really enjoyed the time we spent with the kids.

Next we travelled to the other end of the UP and spent a couple of nights at one of our favorite campgrounds Muskellonge Lake State Park. It is northwest of Newberry about 25 miles out in the middle of nowhere, maybe that's what we like so much. It is also just across the road from Lake Superior but the weather had turned windy and the Lake was a lot rougher than it had been over on the Keweenaw. I will put a link to a web album at the end of this which has a variety of pictures of Lake Superior, some beautiful vistas as well as some of us and the kids. Hope you enjoy. Just click on or cut and paste into your browsers address bar the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dewwoodp/UPVac?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnrs9T81YTELQ&feat=directlink

Kids & Kittens

Jennifer and the boys came up for a couple of days and we really enjoyed having them here. I think the boys and Jennifer had a good time too. It is a well known fact that Cole is an ice cream lover but apparently Quinn is also. The first photo shows Quinn eating ice cream but the spoon was too slow he decided to just use his hands. That was interesting watching him eat ice cream with his hands.

Cole uses a more traditional approach and used his spoon and I think you can see he was enjoying the ice cream too.

Since I mentioned kittens in the title I thought I should show this picture of Quinn with Blackie, Sophie, Shadow or whatever name we eventually decide on. At present Shadow is ranking right up there as the black kitty is just like a little shadow following you around. Quinn is enthralled by animals and he and Cole both just loved the kitty. They played and played with it out in the barn. It would go into its little hiding place and stick its head out and the boys would laugh like crazy. They would play games with it and they all had a good time. Quinn thought the kitty was thirsty so everytime the kitty moved he would move the water bowl closer to it and was apparently telling him he should be drinking more. Friday night as we were sitting by the campfire we noticed something up by the barn and there was another little black kitty sneaking around. It is definitely not related to Shadow because it is quite wild and smaller than Shadow. We have no idea where it came from but it is sharing the cat food in the barn. This morning we found it in the live trap I keep up there for raccoons. Marcia would like to tame it but I am afraid it is too wild for that.

The last photo is one of Jennifer with the boys and Grandpa tooling around in his new tool, the Bota. The boys thought it was fun to go flying around in it with Grandpa. Jennifer took off in it on her own and was flying around the farm also. I wasn't sure she would give it up cause she was having a good time too.

We had a lot of fun with the Bota and really enjoyed having Jennifer and the boys visit. Brian was busy at work so was not able to come but we missed seeing him. Brian should be happy with the outcome of the ND game yesterday, he is a big fan and they won big.