Oliver's obsession -

Oliver would play fetch 24/7 if someone would throw his little tennis ball for him. But we won't. So one day we heard "thump, thump, thump...patter, patter, patter...thump, thump, thump...patter, patter, patter..." You get the idea, we just kept hearing it. Come to find out it was Oliver, on the deck, dropping his tennis ball at the top of the stairs, letting it bounce down the steps, then running down to fetch it. Back up, repeat.

Wallpaper! Gaahhh!

I just remembered why I thought "maybe I SHOULDN'T put up a border" because 11 years later it has bonded with the wall. P.S. I'm redoing the office.

Waffles...

Because Bryan is couch bound, he's home from church. So I made waffles...but also because I found this cute waffle maker at a garage sale.

Knee surgery and "resting"

Last summer, while working on the Beetle, Bryan tore his medial meniscus in his knee. The Doctors told him it wasn't going to get better without surgery. That happened on Thursday. On Friday I had some stuff I needed to do in town. He is on crutches and really not supposed to walk around much. I got everything arranged by the couch. Apples and a banana in case he got hungry, books, remotes, glasses, water, medication... You get the idea. I headed in to town. 10 minutes after I left he saw Dakota in the small pasture. Now, we hadn't moved the horses yet so this should not be. He gets his crutches, goes into the laundry room, looks out, sees that the corral gate is wide open. No Montana anywhere. He hobbles to the dining room and looks out that window. There is Montana in the top corner of the small pasture. But, both gates on the small pasture are wide open. So, he crutches his way across the lawn to close the top gate. Because he has the horses trained to come to him when he is out with them they start walking to where he is. He crutches down the lawn, across the back yard and down the path to the bottom gates. The horses come with him and he has to chase them away because if they get out, well... He had to put the gate poles back in, retrieve the small gate from the corner and put it in back in it's place between the big gates and chain them all shut. AND it was only 39 degrees out and he was in a t-shirt, shorts and barefoot. All this on crutches and laughing about the fact that I had put everything he could possibly need by him so he wouldn't have to get up and around much. Ok so... (you thought this story was done) I get home at noon to get him some lunch and be home with him for the day. I look out across the pond and say, "Looks like the neighbors boat blew away from their dock." Bryan looks out and says "Where is my boat?" I say "Looks like your boat is across the pond. What form of mischief is going on here! Horse gate open, boat unclipped from it's boathouse!" So I put on my rain boots and drove around to the other side and tied it to a tree, called Bryan's friend, Chan, and he came over later and brought it back for us. It is a complicated rearranging of wires to switch it from the solar wiring to using the trolling motor and I never use the boat, so thankfully Chan could help out. I did have to take a picture of the batteries so Bryan could talk Chan through it.
We have had some good laughs about all this. Bryan is doing great and is very tired of the crutches and laying on the couch. You know what a lounger he is...

We started a garden...

Ashley and I, that is. It was a lesson in tool rental (I know more about tools then the guy who helped us). Currently my arms feel like they are noodles but that will pass I am sure. Updates will be posted all summer long.

Ashley's house-

Bryan had some minor cosmetic things to do to Ashley's house before the final inspection before closing. Glad I wasn't up that high.

So it rained today...

In about 20 minutes the pasture looked like an extension of the pond. The rain came from the west. It was calm for 10 minutes the wind changed directions and it poured even harder. The last picture is the retaining wall at the pond.

Yesterday...

It was Hudson's 5th birthday and Amiah didn't have school so we came out here for most of the day.

First Bike Ride...

Ashley has a cruiser Huffy that she got at Walmart, Bryan restored an old 1950's Schwinn for himself (i forgot "before" pictures!) and my Corvair finally got done last night so we rode to Firth for supper. What fun!

1966 Huffy Corvair (restored)

Bryan took it apart. We cleaned it up, primed and painted it, got new tires and put it all back together. I didn't want to repaint it if I couldn't have the logos look the same so I cut stencils exactly like the originals and applied them to the parts. I love how it turned out.

Remember my bike?

Old, rusty, flat tires? I love it. But I wanted to be able to ride it so...

Easter Sunday...

We had an amazing service at church. Then I came home with Ashley, Amiah and Hudson to finish getting dinner done. As usual what began as a small family dinner became 15 people sharing a wonderful day. Jon, Alicia and Navy brought Ferne out, the 5 Griesers, all of us and a friend from Broken Bow days, Mike.
Andrea gave me an old clock and phone that her dad had gotten rid of. So we took pictures to show him they were put to good use.
The weather was amazing. What a great day.

Easter Eggs, Bubbles and laughter...

Last night the girls dyed Easter eggs and then blew bubbles at each other.
Always a good time when they all hang out.

Husker baseball...

We went to the game on Friday night and I learned so much from the man sitting next to me.
1. The umpires don't know a strike when it is thrown.
2. The umpires don't know when someone is actually out or safe.
3. This is Iowa we are playing they can't score 4 points in a weekend let alone in one game.
4. Big 10 umpires don't know what a balk is.
5. Nebraska is so much better than this. It's Iowa for crying out loud.
6. The coaches don't know how to coach the infield. They need to charge the ball.
7. Iowa can't beat us they at terrible.

Iowa won 4-3. Hummmm oh well I learned a lot.

Two favorites...

Lilacs blooming and having the windows open.

Pittsburgh Penguins-

On Friday, March 31 Jayme and I headed for Kansas City to catch an early Saturday flight to Pittsburgh. Clear back in September she asked for a professional hockey game for her birthday. Her favorite team playing their arch rivals. Penguins versus Flyers. It was a blast. We got to Pittsburgh on Saturday. The game was Sunday. After the game she met her favorite player's, Evgeni Malkin, parents on the street and got her picture taken with them. I should mention that I found us tickets that were in rows 2 and 3 one right behind the other. It felt like we were almost in the game.
We had so much fun. There was an amazing all out brawl at the end. Even though the Penguins lost it was worth the trip.

Picnic basket...

Ever since Bryan got the VW, I have had this vision of an old picnic set to put in it for times when we take little day trips in it. I have searched in every antique store everywhere we go. I found a modern pink one one day at Hobby Lobby for 80% off. I bought it because I thought better than nothing. Yesterday Jayme and I were on our way home from Pittsburgh (more on that in another blog). We flew into Kansas City and on our drive home stopped at an antique store. There sitting open was this beauty. I thought it would be super expensive. Nope...$29.00. I took it up to the counter and The little, ancient old man at the counter said, "Oh, you're buying my picnic set." That made it even better. He was so cute.