Snow days

Snow is beautiful in the first hours after falling.
It's even better when we have the day off!

Laura and Ron's apartment

Laura's getting breakfast.














Angela taking her turn at Guitar Hero. We all enjoyed making fools of ourselves in front of Ron, the real hero!



This is taken from the front porch of their apartment, looking down the row. This was their first snow this year.

Ron & Laura downtown, where we went for lattes and wonderful ice cream!

These lights were in the old towne square area.

Laura and Ron's schools

We were introduced to Newman University where Ron is enrolled. These are two views of the campus.





We visited Laura's kindergarten room and school. This is St. Francis Hospital emergency
Ron works here and in other
Ron is sneaking candy from the teacher's desk!!! sections of the hospital.




This is their library. Really neat place.

Angela is investigating the kids work.

Wichita

Angela, Ed & I went to Wichita for Thanksgiving.
Angela loves traveling!

You would think we were out in the badlands or something with this landscape.










Laura and Angela prepped the turkey and enjoyed every minute of it. Don't let the expressions on their faces fool you.

Angela signing

In November, Ed & I went to Goshen to visit Ang. While we were there, Angela and 3 others signed the play they were giving that weekend. The deaf in the community were invited and the 4 seniors in the program interpreted for them. These pictures are not top quality because we were not allowed to take pictures, so I took them without flash before they began.

Fall colors

Trees by Lehman's driveway.

Tree at Central

Fall colors around the house.
Took these pictures during our walk today. It is supposed to freeze tonight.
May be enough to kill the vegetation and we can finish cleaning up flower beds.

Katie teaching kids to make paper.
Grandma Bonnie and Micah, who is learning to sew. (Not his favorite center!)
Todd finishing his candle.
Making apple butter, top view.
Micah and Paulo enjoying the day.

A few more pictures from Colonial Day, as described in the previous blog.

Colonial Day

Today we had our Colonial Day at school. The kids did activities at 10 different centers. This is Todd pressing cider. I've chosen several pictures of people from our family. I will add a few more on the next blog, as I haven't figured out how to add more than 5 at once.

Todd with some of his colonial friends.
Four generations of apple butter making. Grandpa Til, Kurt, Micah, and Todd.
Esther and Don helped all day as well.

It was rather wet and rainy, but they were troopers. We were so good to pick the only day it has rained between many sunny days. The kids were excited to walk over our quickly built "bridges" to get over the huge puddles. All our activities were in the big MCC tent except the apple butter making.
Todd is just beginning his candle dipping.

The kids also made butter, played colonial games, learned about manners, learned to sew, made paper (Katie ran this center), fruit painting, shelling popcorn, traded beads, and made hand formed marbles. It was a great day. We were just thankful it wasn't snowing!

VA trip

Dad & I enjoyed our weekend in Virginia. Saturday morning we took Joe & Crystal to lunch at Mr. J's (bagel place). The pumpkin bagel with cinnamon cream chez was great! Joe & Crystal took us up to Massenhutten Mountain. We rode the ski lift up to the top to see the leaves and the wonderful view. They had a fall fest with booths, food, etc. at the base of the mountain to support the fire departments in the area. It was the first time I've been up a ski lift and it was great. In the afternoon, I had my 30th college class reunion. It was interesting for me, but Ed was rather bored. We ate dinner together and watched a video of EMU's 90th year celebration.

We went to the soccer game for a brief time-it was rather cold, then went to Crystal's to watch the Indians. This morning we had breakfast together before we left for home. The leaves were not turning too much yet, but the valley is always wonderful, no matter what the season.

We enjoyed the weekend with Joe, Crystal, and 4 friends from H-burg.

Ed & I also made applesauce with the bees. They (hundreds of bees) wanted all the applesauce they could get. It was rather crazy.

My one and only ground cherry pie for this year. The plants came up in my garden, so I kept gathering the ground cherries until I had enough for a pie.

Monday, my sisters and I got together to scrapbook our Florida trip.

Our daily routine must be rather mundane as we had to find something to do to take pictures to add to our blog. We went to the Dariette for lunch and split a nightmare and it was worth every calorie! We wanted to go before they close for the winter, which should be sometime soon.

After watching the Indians win the division championship, we went for a bike ride. We decided to go around the block and call it quits, knowing our sitter downers will thank us. They don't make the bike seats like they used to!

Tonight we decided to enjoy a fire on the terrace since it was so nice. Took our popcorn outside to eat, as you can see on the pictures. Tomorrow begins a busy week with parent teacher conferences two nights, church meeting, sisters' night, and faculty campfire and singing.

summer hobby

These pictures are from my flower gardens. The latest heat and my going back to school have now changed the appearance, but at one time, this is how it looked.