Kissing Balls!

Kissing balls are a fresh green decoration that is hung outside. Apparently they are named that because women use to get kissed on the cheek under them. We made them on the snow day. They were originally made to sell at a FFA fundraiser, but it got cancelled. We were able to sell them to a friend's husband.

Neola with her kissing ball before it is finished.

Jay's kissing ball out front at our house.

Jay with his kissing ball. Shows how big it is.

Cool huh?

Snow Day!

The weather forecast called for a huge storm to hit the Grand Valley. We had no idea what that meant having not lived here that long. It started snowing Monday afternoon, Dec 7th. We woke up to 8 inches of snow on Tuesday. "Snow Day" no school! Jay was thrilled. John of course had to work. He walked across the parking lot.

Out the front window.

Backyard.
Jay shoveling snow.

Vehicles

Neola taking pictures and Jay shoveling. What we didn't was that the afternoon the yard people shovel snow. They came by in the afternoon and finished what we started.

The next day after the snow the below zero weather came and it was wintery cold! Weather we haven't had since Idaho. Clear blue skies and cold! 2 weeks later we still have snow. Our street was never was plowed so it is rutty and icey.

The week of Thanksgiving!

It was so cool to have all the kids at our house on Thanksgiving!! Luke visited for the first time since we move here and Jessica got to be here also. A big thanks to her parents for sharing her with us!

Of course having the kids home meant that we had the camera's going and taking pictures. I'm sharing a few of what we took the week they were home.

Jay, Jessica,Luke, John, Neola
Mark and Chubby

Jessica took us on a "field trip" to see the Alpaca farm in Loma, Co.

The Alpaca were friendly and liked Jessica.

Mark even convinced Jay to go rock climbing with him.Mark

Jay


Mark

John and Luke managed to fit a round of golf in at the Redlands Mesa Golf Course in Grand Junction, CO
Luke
John

We took the kids up to the Colorado Monument to show it to them and get a few pictures for the Christmas card. It took several shots to get the ones we liked!

Jay was the camera man and got some interesting "between the pose" shots.
It was a real blessing to have them all home for a week!

I'm so thankful for family!

The Annual Pumpkin Fest!

It all began on October 31st. Halloween! John, Jay and I carved our pumpkins in anticipation of the trick or treaters coming. I bought 2 huge bags of candy at Sam's and was prepared... new house, new neighborhood.. the unknown but need to be ready.

We had 4 early trick or treaters before we got the jack-o-lanterns going and that was it!

Needless to say we ate way too much candy!

So I turned the pumpkins around so the good side faced the road. My "fall decorations" and waited for the boys to come home at Thanksgiving to preform the annual pumpkin stabbing/throwing sharp objects at and baseball.

You can see the pumpkin guts flying when Luke connects with a chunk of pumpkin.
Brothers and pumpkins!

They did a great job of cleaning it all up out of the front yard.

Not Yet!

We had a great time with the Mark, Luke and Jessica here for Thanksgiving! Miss them already!

We looked at a bunch of house before they got here. Then took them to what we thought were our top three choices. Then looked some more. Decided to show them the house that we had been looking at that was way over our budget. On a wild stab thought we would make a low ball offer and see what happened. Well they didn't like our low offer and came back really close to the asking price. It made that decision easy ... too much...

.... John got out the Christmas decorations and we put up lights on the outside of the house... meaning we will be here for Christmas......

... not yet... still looking!