Holiday Letters

I can't believe it's been a year since I signed into my blog!  How life can take over and change your direction is amazing at the very least!  So, what drove me back to my blog is a need to get a thought out into the world.  Here's the question:

Should I write a Holiday Letter or not? 

With the growing popularity of online social sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, etc.)...have these continuous contact sites made us too exposed to our family friends so a letter for the Holidays ends up being just a bunch of repetative information?  I am torn!  I LOVE writing our yearly letter, not only for our friends and family but I always keep a copy to add to our scrapbook so I can look back and see what we did as a family.  I always include at least one photo (some years I have put multiple pics on the letter) which makes it even more capturing of the moments in time.  I know there are a select few people in my life that are not on the computer (grandparents & the older generation mostly), so maybe I should go ahead and write a letter, send it out to those not connected online and then just post it online for everyone else to see if they wish.  This would be a much cheaper option than in the past!!  Hmmm...

If anyone is out there with the same issue or struggle, please comment and let me know what you think or if you have another plan of action for the holiday communications! 

Too funny...

While I was away from the family last weekend helping my move from WY to MI.... Larry said that he and Morgan  were getting ready to head to the store.  Larry was wearing some overalls (probably his hole filled and dirty pair) and as they were getting her jacket and shoes on, she looked at her daddy and said "You can't go wearing THAT!"  I was so very proud when he told me this!  That's my girl!  Love you Morgan!  :-)  Thank you for helping keep daddy on his toes and to teach him what is okay to wear to the store and what is not!  LMAO!!

Happy Veteran's Day

Today is a very special  day in our family...a day to honor those in our family and friends who have served or are serving in the military.  We are very proud to call ourselves a military family and hope that everyone says thank you to those you know are serving.  I think one of the greatest things I see is when someone finds out someone is military and they say thank you for serving...even to complete strangers.  I am in awe when complete strangers open themselves up like that! 

My hubby Larry, brother Cory, father Daryl, cousin Harley and many, many, many friends who have served or are currently serving are especially in my thoughts today.  I know someone from each of the 5 military branches and am very proud of them all!

Happy Veteran's Day!  Thank you for fighting for our freedom and security!

Gotta Love Fall

Today Morgan and I had a lot of fun at the Whistling Well Farm in Hastings, MN.  http://whistlingwellfarm.com/find_us.html
First we stopped by the chicken and turkey coop and fed several of them some corn and got to pet the local donkey and goats.  Then we picked apples straight from the trees where we walked around the orchard getting lots of fresh air. There were quite a few apples still on the trees thankfully since it's getting late in the season....a lot more were on the ground!  I chose several for pie baking and then we chose some for snacking on too.  We took our bounty back, picked up a wagon and headed for the pumpkin patch to pick some pumpkins to decorate.  We ended up w/ 2 little ones and 3 larger ones.  I think we have some good potential jack-o-lanterns.  :-)   This on one of the many reasons why I LOVE fall!  Hope you are all having fun enjoying the season too!

Where did the summer go?

I can't belive my last post was back in May!  How time flies!  I'm sure I say that a lot but it seems so true...especially when you have a very full calendar and a little one to keep track of too!

We did finally sell our house in Sparta.  I think we closed on it in early June, making our summer much more relaxed not having 2 house payments hanging over our head.  Right away after we moved into our new house, we found out that part of the nice wood fence had to be replaced (according to our neighbor) and so we went in half to get it rebuilt.  Bummer it wasn't even half as good as it was originally.  Larry said he thinks it could have just been reset but our neighbor had it in her mind to get a pretty (but definitely more wimpy) new one... and then while they dug out for new post holes, they pierced our underground sprinkler system at least once so we called in a specialist (also recommended by our neighbor) and after 10 heads and part of a line replaced and another part moved... $500 later we had our sprinkler system up and running...on top of the $1200 we spent for a new fence.  Thankfully that has been the extent of our major repairs since we have moved in! 

Let's see if I can recall what else we've been up to these past few months.  We sold our pontoon boat then bought a newer fishing boat that thankfully fits in our 3rd stall of the garage.  Morgan and I have started to go to the library on Mondays for some preschool-time which has been a lot of fun.  In August, Morgan and I went to South Dakota for Cory's wedding reception/picnic.  That was a nice trip!  We flew out, spent 2 weeks there, saw family and friends and then drove back to MN with my mom and aunt.   During our stay there, Larry had Coast Guard and regular work priorities so he was busy while we were gone....plus he bought himself a new car.  A 2012 Chevy Cruze Eco... what a great car!  We both thankfully really like the car and it's a great replacement for the Nissan Sentra his dad gave him a while back that was starting to fail. 

In September we decided to go on a mini-vacation for our Anniversary and Morgan's 3rd Birthday.  We headed north to the Lake Mille Lacs area where we stayed at Camp Holiday on Turtle Lake and had a really nice weekend.  We rented a fully furnished and outfitted cabin right on the lake.  And we couldn't of asked for more beautiful weather! We rented a paddle boat for an hour on Morgan's birthday and I even made her a cake!  She got to open up her presents and spent some good quality family time together.  On our last day we drove around the lake on the way home to get a better sense of the area and looking for other rental options for another trip in the future.  We found some good options!

Now October is here and our calendar is filling up quickly again.  Hopefully I won't take so long to update this as the last time.  So much for my resolution to add to this more often!  LOL  Hope all is well with everyone and you're enjoying the beautiful fall weather as much as we are!  Winter will be here before we know it!

Fair and Rainy

We sent off my mom today after a nice long visit with us.  She was a TREMENDOUS help during the move and after to help us get settled in.  If it wasnt' for her help, we would probably still be sitting with boxes in every room and the kitchen/dining room still blue (thankfully we got that paint job accomplished!!).

So, it's been raining off and on the past week or so and it hasn't been really warm either except for one odd day last week that was down right sultry.  I've got vegetables ready to plant in our make shift garden and lots of other yard work that I would love to tackle once it dries out.  I thought it was 'April showers bring May flowers' but this year sure seems to be running late.  I guess it's to make up for it being so early last year!  Eventually it will all work out and I can get started on our new yard whipping it into shape!  I've definitely got my work cut out for me...it's a mess and has been neglected for quite some time!

On another note, we got an offer on our house in Sparta.  It's lower than we were hoping but all in all, it's an offer so we accepted hoping that things will go quickly and smoothly so we don't have it hanging  over our heads anymore. 

Time is flying by!

It's been almost 3 weeks since my mom flew in to help with our move and it's been a crazy busy 3 weeks!  I'll update more this weekend when I have a few more minutes but just wanted to say hi and let everyone know we are moved into our new house!!!