Daughter Erin’s Baby Shower – Oct 24, 2009

Our oldest daughter, Erin and her husband Mark, are expecting a baby girl on Jan 22, 2010.   Our younger daughter, Heather, and I threw her a baby shower at her lovely home on Saturday.  

We had a nice day for Erin's shower,  We held it at their house, and the livingroom held all the guests. Erin gave a few tours of the work she and mark had done to their home so far...  they have done complete gutting, rewiring, insulating, sheetrocking, windows, doors, trim---  totally redoing all the rooms of a huge 5 bedroom home, now almost complete except for the kitchen and one bathroom...  its the first time many of these folks got to see it, as it has been under major renovation since they bought it.  they are doing it all themselves and it is turning out to be a wonderful home, especially to raise children!

 

 

(L to R: Daughter-in-law Heather expecting in Dec.,   Karen (me),   Erin the Mommy-to-Be expecting in Jan, and down in front is Heather who had her son, Jameson, our first grandson, in July 2008.   The photo is a bit blurry, the camera was at it’s end of batteries.

Both girls are having girls, so now we have some Princesses!

 

 

We had Walmart make up a bumblebee hive cake made up of cupcakes .. how cute!  Erin's nursery theme is bumblebees..... 

 

 

Heather was the hostess leading all the games, while I manned the kitchen with four big party pans of lasagna (2 regular and 2 veggie)   and four pans of garlic bread (not on the table in the pic yet--they were still baking)   Added to this table of goodies was also a pudding cake from Lisa, Jameson’s other grandma….   it was still in the fridge when I snapped this picture.

  Oh, we had rubber duckies floating in the punch bowl… tee heeeee

 

Heather and Lisa (Jameson's other grandma, mother of Heather’s fiance Jesse) made up a Diaper Cake..   Lisa specializes in making these!   It is made of stacks of rolled diapers, bound together with ribbons, and decorated around the edges with rattles, booties, and other baby necessities...

 

So many aunties, grandmas, cousins, and friends, it was quite a group!   But we all fit in the huge livingroom in Erin’s house.  I think we had 28 altogether?

 

Heather kept everyone busy with word games and puzzles…. we had a great assortment of prizes, mostly from my good friend Janis who makes her own soaps and lotions, among other wonderful things!  

http://rustic-hearth-soaps.netfirms.com/

rustic_hearth_soaps@msn.com

 

 

Lots of laughs and groaners on the quizzes and games…. with lots of winners too….

 

Everyone had to cut off a length of ribbon according to how big they thought Erin’s belly was around….

 

I think it was Barb who was the closest in determining Erin’s actual circumference… though we think the baby grew in just the few hours during the shower!

 

It was such a pleasant way to spend an autumn afternoon….  Steve was at our house, babysitting the two rat dog chihuahua puppies of Erins… and also tearing apart our transmission on the truck.  Mark escaped too before the party started, and went out to the woods for some bow-hunting  (ps he got a big doe this weekend!)

 

We think some gals were making the ribbons extra long … tee heee…    just to tease Erin.  Also on the seat on the right is ANOTHER Heather, a sis-in-law to our Heather, also pregnant and due the day before Erin.  All these babies.. and all these Heathers! She made a great Italian salad for our dinner and helped me in the kitchen with meal prep.

 

 

We had little Jameson stealing the show, being a clown, and loving all the attention!  He is 15 months old and just thinks all women are to FLIRT with!   He was go go go from 11am right through till 6pm.   No naps!    I took him home later for staying overnight and he sure slept good!   Right through till 8am.   Some of Erin's friends brought kids too, so we had a lot of fun with the little ones around.   Missing was poor Tisha and her girls, Becca and Hunter...  as Tisha had come down with the flu and didn't want to get anyone else sick. 

 

Baby showers are such a right of passage… and something guys really don’t understand.  It was great to be in a room full of love and warmth and good wishes for the moms with upcoming babies and the secrets of motherhood to enjoy and cherish…..

 

 

 

After the games and the food, then Erin opened up such lovely thoughtful presents...  and now is happily stowing them all away in the new baby nursery! 

(dang, I forgot to take a pic of her nursery!)

 

 

Daughter-in-law Heather with her big belly baby due in Dec.. so we did some comparisons, and Heather's belly wins!  LOL  

  (Heather on the left and Erin on the right)

After everyone left, we did a cleanup, the guys folded chairs and hauled out the trash, we split up the leftovers and went on home.   Whew.. .what a day!

Apple Creek Campground, De Pere, WI – July 2008 Pfundtner Family Picnic

 

Steve and I both come from *camping families*…  His folks own two RV’s:   a diesel motorhome for his dad’s business trips, and his mom loves fifth wheels, so she just got her *cottage* for camping trips.   We decided to have a little family gathering with the siblings and kids, and I chose a campground kinda centrally located for all of us to meet up.  

(please note, we don’t often camp like this…. we like rustic woods and boondocking)

 

Apple Creek Campground is located south of Green Bay, WI about 15 miles.  It is a privately owned campground of 130 sites, located right next to the highway, and within the pungent smells of the nearby dairy farm, which odiferous runoff could be smelled in the little creek flowing behind our campsites… sigh.    The creek was green, slimey, and clogged up with gosh knows what???

The rates were steep, $34 a night, plus a $25 fee to just put in a reservation!  Times two sites, that was $50 just for the honor for them to save a spot to be able to camp there?   And a charge of $2 per person for all our family to come to eat at our own campsite and who would not be using any of the campground amenities….   even our grown kids were considered guests and we had to pay for all of them to come for the meal too.

http://www.applecreekcamping.com/

On the plus side, they had a lot of activities for little kids, a fishing pond, a swimming pool, a game room, camp store, and plenty of kids shouting, hollering, running through sites and having a great time all around.   This fun cow ride made about 10 passes each night, with bells clanging and people getting on and off throughout the park.  What fun!

A great handy-man lent me an extra adaptor as our 50 amp cord could not reach the 50 amp outlet…. (we now have an extra 50amp extension cord) …. so I had to lay out the long 50 amp cord, then ramp it down to 30 amp for our other extension cord,  which would have been just fine.  But once you reach the power pole, its ONLY 50 amp at the pole.   So I had to adapt it back up to 50 again when it got to the box….      I asked him for the adaptor and he snuck me one,  turns out that most campers have to usually go inside, sign a book, pay a deposit, and return it when done.   He said I looked *honest* and saw my predicament of being too far from the post.   What a nice guy! 

On the negative, did I mention the smells?   and the charges for each guest coming to visit for a 2 hour lunch on our site?  no parking spaces for guests?  and wayyy too high campground fees for our budget?  And the packed in tight like sardines?  And the people next to us where we could look out our window and see in their window 10 feet away?

 

(to solve that, we pulled down our awnings over our windows on that side, and they pulled down theirs on their side… LOL)I drove the rig down myself during the day and got all set up.  Steveio came later on the scooter which he had ridden to work earlier that day.   Then we would have one less car taking up space on our tiny campsite.  We had the rack on the back of the motorhome to put the scooter back on for the ride home on Sunday.  

The reason why we pulled in forwards was so our door could face the reserved site next to us for the folks.  It all worked out good this way…..

 

Here is Grandma’s new cottage, and Grandpa’s new truck to pull it.

The folks came later Friday afternoon and got all set up on the site next to us.  We had one table between us and our awnings just about touched.  LOL    

 

I hung our newly refreshed sign between our campsites.  See how close we were???

(I mentioned in a past blog about this sign, but it bears repeating… the folks gave it as a gift many years ago to Steve and his first wife.  It was the ONLY thing he got outta his divorce LOL…  So I spruced it up, added OUR first names, and gave it new varnish.  The folks were so happy to see us using the sign now.  I will gladly take the hand-me-down sign and the hand-me-down husband.  He is a WINNER ….    her loss, my gain)

 

The folks brought along sassy Nicky, who is still learning what it takes to be a Good Campground Doggie.  He is so full of energy and sassiness, that he’s quite a *handful* for the folks.   Heck, I even have a hard time hanging onto him!

 

We managed to get a second picnic table from a nearby site to add to the first, and on Saturday, the family rolled on in for a gathering of Pfundtner Proportions!   Good food, good fun, good laughs……  everyone brought a dish, and we filled our extra folding table up with goodies.  Steve manned the grill, and we ate and ate and ate…

 

Steve’s brothers prefer to sink their playtime into cool cars… we choose to sink ours into the motorhome.  LOL     The parking was limited, so we had to squeeze all our guests cars onto our sites.   We considered parking them out on the road and having our guests walk in, but we still had to pay, never-the-less, just for them to be in the park.  Besides, the brothers weren’t about to let their cars sit on a frontage road just feet away from the highway.  So we crammed the cars in on our two sites anyhow.

We sure are not used to those kind of regulations, most state, county, national forest or COE parks don’t have such fees.

 

Steveio helped his folks with some wiring issues between their rig and their truck.  He got it all figured out and they were good to hookup and roll down the road again.   Gosh, that man can fix just about anything! 

 

After the meal, the folks needed to hit the road for another event.  They wiggled and waggled their way into the horribly designed dump station, which is in the MIDDLE of the loops of campsites….  quite aromatically pungent and noticeable when campers were dumping.  Would hate to be camped in those campsites located 20 feet away from that? Bad enough we were by the cow-manure creek….  LOL

They managed to maneuver it through the crowded loops and got their tanks dumped, so it was ON THE ROAD AGAIN for the folks!

 

After all the food was done, the bellies were full to the point of exploding, now it was time for cleanup, and our guests went on their way.   I took a nap.  YAAWWWWNNN

I guess camping at a place like this once year, lets us appreciate the kind of peaceful camping we do in the northwood’s rustic beauty the rest of the year!

Campground Review - Camping at Ada Lake, Nicolet National Forest Campground – August 2009

Okey Dokey..being somewhat sidelined here by some health issues, I decided that I would fill my blog and go through my camping pic files, (in alphabetical order) and post them here……

First place is Ada Lake, which is located NW of Townsend and Wabeno, WI just west of highway 32.  We were here in August 2009 for four days.
 http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/cnnf/rec/camping/nic_19.html

This is a quiet rustic national forest campground, with large sites and the pleasing rate of $12 a night, this is our kind of camping!   We went up here on a Thursday night, as it quite a popular place.  We snagged a back row site in the pouring rain, (#18) as all the lake front sites were occupied.   The next morning, during our doggie walk, we chatted with some folks who were leaving their primo lakeside spot at 11 am~   so we paid for that site for the next two nights and hung a tag on their post.    (this is first come first serve, self pay, no reservations)    The lady came over just as they were ready to leave, so as they pulled out, we pulled in.  

It continued to rain most of the weekend.  We were snug and dry inside, and read books, watched tv, I wove and knit, and we did manage to sneak out between raindrops a few times to walk the dogs.  Basically it was a lazy weekend of relaxing inside and being totally comfortable, as we watched various tenters and popup folks give up and pack it in and go home.

The majority of these pics were taken on Sunday, when the sun came out.  And of course it was time for us to pack up and go home….





First time trying out my Coleman Heat N Serve for some beef stew.  Set it up on the picnic table under the awning, with the 20 pounder propane tank to fuel the cooker.   It seemed to cook too fast and now Coleman sent me a new regulator to see if that might help tone down it’s bubbling.  Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet with the new control regulator.







   This pic was taken right out from the edge of our campsite.  What a GREAT location!


This lake is listed as *no motors* allowed.  So only canoes, kayaks and rowboats with electric motors are allowed.  We can take our small boat on it, without the gas powered motor, and just use the electric trolling motor instead.





The rain let up long enough for us to build a campfire for Saturday evening.  By the time we were about out of wood, the rain started again.








We are at peace in places like this.

We have our solar panels to top off the batteries during the day, and at night we are comfortable and warm , though the temps start dipping in the 30’s at night. 

We enjoy lakes like this where we can just unhook our little fishing boat and carry it down to the shore, instead of launching at the boat ramp.

Kinda hard to back up the whole motorhome and tiny boat at the small awkward not too well designed boat ramps on these small lakes.  Plus the water levels are wayyy low this year all over Wisconsin, so it’s even more difficult to launch boats.   Even if we beg someone nearby with a pickup truck to back it in, it’s still a pain in the butt.
Looking for lakeshore sites like this one, we can each grab one side of the little aluminum boat and carry it down ourselves. 
  

Sunday morning dawned calm and quiet.  With such a lovely shoreline to walk along, we noticed something in front of the newly abandoned site next to us…..
 


 

 
Golly gee, I would never have let my kids leave defenseless animals trapped like that, and would have taught them the circle of life and how little fish grow into big fish etc.  We sometimes let our kids catch bugs or things, but after looking and learning, we taught our kids to let them go again.   I felt these little guys were being tortured in a way.  And the parents should have been more vigilant on their kid’s actions.  
 

 
After breakfast on Sunday, I was able to enjoy some rays of sunshine out in my lawn chair.  I was sitting and knitting …. had to get those baby booties done for the grandkids on the way!
 
The whole campground cleared out fast, with the exception of one trailer who pulled in.  They were going to stay for the full week, Lucky Ducks!   Sure wish we could have too, but alas, that work-a-day world has it’s grips on us till 2013.
 

Digging out a treasure and Baby Showers galore!

With our oldest daughter Erin expecting her first baby, it was time to dig out a treasure to wash up and send along with her.   So that was my project today. I am not much of a quilter, but this baby quilt has endured many years of cuddling babies, burping and diaper changes, little children playing on it, and going on buggy rides.  Had to repair a small hole made from baby buggy axle.  Now it’s time to pass it on to the new mother-to-be.

 

And here is the one for Heather, our younger daughter, and this is used for our little grandson Jameson now!

My friend Jean is working a quilt now for our upcoming grandchild with our son, Dan and his wife, also a Heather,  to match their baby nursery.  (I think my quilting days are over)

 

We went to a baby shower this weekend for our daughter-in-law Heather and we had a wonderful time.  The Mommy is having a great pregnancy and is due in Dec.  Erin is due in Jan.  Both are gonna be little girls…awwwwww  We are gonna have PRINCESSES !!!

 

 

Little grandson Jameson was there, flirting with the ladies.  He thought he was Sumptin Special of course.  Wait till all the new babies come, and he gets to be the Big Cousin! 

He gave up after a while and went to join all the guys in the Family Room with Football!

 

Next weekend is a shower for our daughter, Erin.  Oh gosh, it’s been *baby baby baby* around here…. and we are lovin it~!