Making It Through The Holidays

Things are changing in our family...  with the passing of Dad last month, and soon the changes of our stepdad Lowell's impending passing, it has been a tough holiday.

We did have two nice family celebrations with Steve's family... on Christmas Eve Day Steve's brother Pete and his new bride Cindy hosted a nice luncheon at a quaint restaurant in Menasha.  Some of the family came to this event, but some had to work and were unable to come.

Then on Christmas Day we trekked on down to Belgium where Steve's sister Lynn hosted the rest of the family gathering.  It was a sunny day with good roads and fine travelling.  We rode down and back with Steve's dad, Pa Pfundtner and had a wonderful time.  He is so full of fun and interesting stories and laughter.  It was good for us to be with him.

After Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was spent with Steve's family, the weekend was the time for our family...  our three grown kids, their spouses and ALL the grandtots!   We gathered at Erin and Waylen's house because it's big enough for all of us.  Since the roads were clear and dry (and no snow or slush or salt)  we decided to take our "extra hotel room" along.  

Plus with four other dogs in the house, we thought the comfort of our own rig for our two who are more shy would be better.  No accidental escapes out the door when someone ins't looking.  Our dogs are safer in our motorhome where things are more familar to them. 

On our way up, we noticed the alternator was not charging properly, kinda intermittent.  If we had to, we can connect the four house batteries to the two diesel engine batteries for enough emergency power.  But it kept up enough to keep us going for 75 miles.  Once there, Steve has enough tools and a spare alternator on board to swap it out right on the street.  P.S. we also got an overnight parking permit to park on the street by their house in Oconto. 

The house was decorated with care and joy for the family gathering....

Erin and Waylen put on a spread of food, with the rest of us contributing the side dishes and salads.  It was so much fun to see everyone again, all under one roof.

and the grandtots were on their 

BEST BEHAVIOR  

(most of the time) 

I will let the pics speak for themselves: 

(I was teaching little Whitney about the family charms on my necklace) 

 Gift opening was a crazy mess of fun stuff,

many things reminiscent of childhood past or 

homemade things this year which made it extra special!

 Later on the grandtots all put on their new jammies (from Grandma and
Grandpa Pfun) and were doing pushups and wrestling in the livingroom

As the grown-ups were gathering in the diningroom to play cards,

I got all the grandtots settled in watching 

The Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas...  

working my "Grandma Magic" to get them all to rest in a row...

This is a favorite "selfie" I did during some quiet time upstairs

with newest grandtot Whitney....  

The grown-ups were playing cribbage, 31 and Cards Against Humanity 

in the diningroom well into the night.... 

along with beverages of their choice. 

 I gave up about 11 p.m. and headed out to our rig 

and our dogs 

and our own bed....

And here are our silly kids

at 1 a.m. after a raucous night

(with little bright eyed Whitney photobombing!~)

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT! 

A Big Ray of Sunshine - Allegra's 6th Birthday!

In spite of all the grim stuff going on in our family... we had a big ray of sunshine today!

 It was our oldest granddaughter 

Allegra's

SIXTH

birthday!!!!

Family gathered at our son Dan and daughterinlaw Heather's house for a party on a sunny wintery Saturday.  I had the chance to see ALL six of our grandtots in one place.... so of course I got in lots of snuggles! My big Birthday Girl took time to give me an especially big hug! 

Erin stole niece Whitney for a snuggle time, and all of the relatives gathered around in the sunshiny livingroom for the party.  I grabbed Chelsea Bug for a hug too! 

Little grandsons Clayton and Jameson were lined up for the party, with wee little Whitney keeping an eye on all the goings-on....

 It was such a good day to be with family,

seeing smiles and happiness. 

I needed that. 

We all needed that.

Soninlaw Waylen helped to keep the boys in line.  But at one point all five grandkids disappeared in the parent's bedroom and were JUMPING ON THE BED!  They came out to round up this Grandma to come in and asked me to SING to them??? The song???  Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed!!!!  LOL ~!

After a nice lunch of pizza (Allegra's choice for her birthday meal) and pot luck salads and veggie trays ... it was time for the BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!!    This lucky girl got an ice cream cake.... yummmmmm

Daddy Dan served up the cake to everyone really fast, before it melted.... and all of the kids got sugar'd up pretty danged good.

After our cake, it was time for PRESENTS!!! 

All of the little ones looked on as Allegra opened gift after gift...

She graciously said "thank you" 

and delivered hugs all around the room when she was done.  

Good manners! 

 (we got her the Easy Bake Oven... and hope to help her use it sometime when we visit) 

It was a wonderful afternoon.  I got pretty tuckered out, so we headed on back home again.  I took a nice long nap and feel pretty good now.  The blood pressure is still peaking and dumping, but not as severe.  It will level out with proper medication, and find a balance.   We also got our outside house decorations up this morning... and as I write this, the timer went "click" and we are all lit up!  

Gotta have some lights--- ya know, some merrymaking, joy and happiness, even with the difficult situations we are finding ourselves in.  We will all be together next weekend for dad's memorial gathering.

I tried to call mom twice today to check on my step-dad Lowell. They are over at his daughter's house nearby and she said "all is good" for now.  We will get an update later from mom when Lowell is not within earshot in the background. I fear things are moving along fast. 

OH HAPPY OH JOY ANOTHER GRANDBABY COMING!

We have been grinning from ear to ear, and the reason can not be more wonderful than finding out that we have a new grandbaby on the way!

Our daughter Heather and soninlaw Jesse have blessed us six years ago with our first grandchild, Jameson. Our other children have added to the tally, so we have the joy of loving five grandchildren.  That in itself is wonderful and fulfilling.

Little Jameson has always asked for a sibling, because all his cousins had siblings and he wanted one too. Although they had tried to give him a little brother or sister for quite a few years, it was just not meant to be.  Or so they thought!  

Ta daaaaaa!!!!  The new bundle will be here in August.  Heather exclaimed that it's no wonder she's been emotional and hungry and even craving things like Los Banditos chili con queso....   she went to the doc and even got to hear the heartbeat! Ten weeks along...wheeeeee

This Granmuddah and Grandfaddah are so happy to soon have an even half dozen grandtots to love...

This is how they announced it to their friends and family on Facebook:

The first thing Jameson asked was if his new sibling will play video games with him?

We will remind him of that when the little tyke is pestering him while he plays. LOL

Friday I got to spend some time with grandtots Chelsea and Clayton. 

 I put them to work baking cookies:

putting together some stacking wire bins for yarn:

and made them cook their own lunch.... Octopus Hotdogs! 

 Stick raw spaghetti noodles into 4" long hunks of hot dogs,

simmer until the noodle portions are soft within the hotdog,

cut dogs in half again to make "octopus" lunch! 

We made a little snuggle area at the back of the closet wayyyy down behind the stairs, and it's a perfect hide-away with books and grandtots and doggers... Both Binney and Finney enjoy the cuddles and snuggles. Binney sure loves the grandkids and we are glad she has acclimated well to having small kids around.  When adopting a rescue dog, you are never sure of what their reaction will be to new circumstances or people.  I think we got a winner! 

The highlight of the afternoon is when our mail lady comes to the house.

She slides the mail through a slot in the door, 

and the dogs are as excited as the kids

 to see the mail come plopping inside! 

Even though it was cold outside, they wanted to hang out on the front porch until the mail came.  It is not heated out there, but they didn't care.  Even the dogs came out and hopped up on the loveseat.  I have a collection of blown glass paper weights lining the windowsills.  Although they are glass, the grandtots are allowed to play with them and are delighted they are handling real glass. 

The windows all frosted up, 

but they scraped out designs in the frost for me.

Yesterday my brother Butch brought my dad down for a visit, and they took home our extra washing machine for dad to take the place of his broken one.  Also the quilt that I repaired (see my last blog) was picked up by Paula and Pat, the people who sold us this house. So we had a houseful of friendly company to see us off on our upcoming vacation.


The weather is looking good for travelling on Tuesday, but dropping temps and snow by Wednesday.  Seeing as we will be doing about 500 miles on Tuesday, we might not get far enough south to avoid bad weather by the time we pull off the road for the night.  Steve suggested we leave on Monday as soon as he is done with work and get a couple hundred miles under our tires while the weather is good. Probably find a spot to overnight somewhere in central Illinois, but be up early and hit the road Tuesday morning refreshed and ready to roll.  We don't care to drive at night.

The rig is still winterized and we won't fill with water until we get further south.  We saw temps in the 50's and 60's around southern Missouri into Oklahoma which look mighty good to us. We take along a few big jugs of water to get through until we can fill the 100 gallon fresh water tank up.  The dogs drink bottled water for the entire trip.  (long furry haired butts on dogs and strange water types do not mix well when travelling)

Today is packing up day of clothing, dry goods, dog supplies and such stuff that won't freeze. Steve has all his tools packed, and his portable fire pit, bags of pellets, and the lawn chairs. We are looking forward to some lawnchair setting out in the desert for a few weeks.

I am packing up some fabric, yarn, sewing machine, sockknitting machine and other fun fiber toys. Gotta keep the hands busy ya know.

Then tomorrow morning I will turn on the heater, finish tossing in the last of the freezable stuff, load up the dogs, and our computer things.....  as soon as Steve gets done with work we will hit the road!  



P.S.  Would Be Thieves--- we have a house-sitter coming, two widow ladies on each side of us who don't miss a thing, three dogs alerting the neighbors in the back, and we live 2 blocks from the police dept and 4 blocks from the sheriff dept. They are always driving by. This year we even added a wifi thermostat that we can monitor the heat from our tablets or cell phone, and get a warning if the furnace develops a problem back home.  The alarms will be set and there isn't anything left of value in the house.  LOL.

Sad Family Weekend, my Foyer Floor, and looking ahead to Vacation Out West

Saturday was a very sad day for our family as our sisterinlaw Shirley was laid to rest.  The funeral at the church was standing room only as so many people who knew and loved her all came to share their experiences and pay their respects.  We felt so deeply for Steve's brother Mark and three daughters, Jen, Heather and Faith, their families and two sweet little grandsons.  The family had taken this photo a while back and it clearly shows the caring and love as they all prayed for the best for her as she was dealing with cancer.

What an emotional and touching family moment. 

On Sunday... we hung around the house and took it easy... well, that is, until Steveio got a bug of an idea in his brain.  (from watching too many episodes of The Rehab Addict on HGtv)  He decided to tear up "just a corner" of the carpeting in the foyer "just to look" and see the condition of the hardwood floor underneath.  We know the entire first floor of house is all maple hardwood flooring from 1913, but didn't know the condition of the actual floors underneath the wall-to-wall carpeting.  Because the carpeting is in such good shape, we have never really ripped any up yet.  (we did peek a bit around the fireplace when we pulled back the carpeting to expose the tile hearth area last spring)  

Well..... of course. like everything else in this wonderful home, 

it's in EXCELLENT CONDITION! 

I swept up the dusty layer after removing the pad as Steve pulled up the staples from the padding. Then he carefully removed the tack strips from the carpeting installation with a prybar and a piece of cardboard to pad it to avoid any more marks on the floor.  The maple hardwood was in such great shape for 100+ years old.  WHEEEEEEEEEE  

On Monday, I cleaned the floor well and let it dry.  

I had a plan in mind. 

The I carefully spread on a layer of quick drying low odor polyurethane for floors. I used a wide foam brush as kindof a pushing motion to spread the poly, rather than stroking and painting it on which would leave bubbles.  Then I shut the pocket doors and let it dry all day.  

I picked up enough lengths of hardwood quarter-round trim and stained that down in the basement. It will be cut to size and put around the edges where it had been removed to install the carpeting years ago.  The intricate cast iron grate on the cold air return easily lifted off to get the poly brushed right up to the edge.

This was SO exciting to "make it pretty" !!!

I left the house that afternoon, to run up to Oconto to babysit a couple grandtots overnight.  The floor had a good time to cure.  Steve was left a BIG HANDWRITTEN NOTE when he got home after work to not walk on it... It's a good thing we have the back servants stairs to get up to the bedrooms, or else he would have been sleeping on the couch overnight.  Tee heee.... I had the dogs with me so so we didn't have any accidental paw prints running through it either. 

I had a delightful evening up at the grandtots' house and it was first time for newly adopted Binney to be around children.  We kept her leashed and harnessed until we could observe her demeanor... which I am pleased to say was gentle and loving.  Both grandtots know how to be respectful of dogs and not mistreat or manhandle them. Soon Binney and Chelsea were best snuggle buds on the couch... and Finney was happily lapping up all the attention from Clayton. 

We did run into one problem though.... little Binney would NOT go pee or poop while on a leash in our daughter's yard.  She held it in hour after hour---- the stubborn little cuss.  I took her out on leash at least 12 times in the 24 hours we were there, and she would NOT go.  Finney did, but Binney refused.   I got her home to our own safe little fenced in potty yard and she broke the dam loose and went and went and went!   

Soooo that means with our upcoming vacation in 3 weeks,  we have some major potty lessons to learn how to go in other places rather than just her safe little fenced in potty yard!   "Pee On Demand"  Today I spent at least four different half hour sessions with her out on a leash in various parts of the far back yard.  None of the times would she relent and go.  Finally I had to let her use the fenced in yard this afternoon.

We have only had her for five weeks so far, and each time we have taken her on walks around town, we realize that she always held it till we got back home.  We never needed a doggie pickup bag for her because she just waited till she was in her secure little fenced in poop yard at home!

Some friends on my dog list suggested moving some of the leftover doggie poop from the fenced yard out to various spots in the big back yard which I did.  No difference.  Finney has repeatedly gone out there each time, but that doesn't entice her to go out there either.  

Someone suggested a training spray from Nature's Miracle that you put down where you DO want them to go, so I will get some of that on Friday when I am in Appleton.

We have about two weeks to get her past this phobia, or else this little lady is going to be holding her bladder for six weeks!  oh my....

Every dog we have had traveled easy and went on demand on the leash when we would stop for a fuel break, or a stretch break, or at the end of the day or during a walk around a campground.  I just didn't think that this would be such a problem, and should have started taking her to various spots in the yard on leash from the beginning to get her used to it, I guess.  

Our Little Binney will have to get with the program and learn how to be a Motorhoming Dog! 

As soon as I am done typing this blog, I will go out with her one more time tonight to see if she will go on the leash.  Sigh. 

We are working on our lists and plans and ideas for 6 weeks Out West.. probably try to explore more of New Mexico, because we shirked on that state last time in our rush to get to Arizona and S. California. But we don't make any real reservations or promises.  We will see where the road takes us.