Snow Day

Can you believe it, they called today a snow day. It was only 6" of snow here, OK, out in the country it was closer to 10, but really...when I was a kid I walked to and from school and it was 4 blocks and up hill both ways. No really, we had to cross the Red Cedar River in Austin Minnesota and the bridge was the old, key stone style that was humped up.

Anyway, here's our little Japanese maple tree, totally covered in snow. It is so pretty. Well done Holly, I would never have thought to put a light under that tree.


We have a lot of very cool stuff going on this weekend:

• Rockford Santa Parade
• Byrne Christmas Party
• Smithmas, the Smith family version of Christmas. Hi Bob!

I hope that you have some fun this weekend too!

Next week I'm off on an East Coast Trip. Lots of travel, lots of visits, maybe some fun. I really do hate travel, not sure why I ever thought it was glamorous, but I was wrong.

Will write again when I can.

Peace,
Pat

Happy Birthday Dear Oldest Brother!

This post is totally dedicated to my Eldest Brother John and it's his Birthday Shout Out. I do love harassing him, since he is the eldest and can you believe this, he's already retired. Whew, that's old.

Here he is, the eldest with Dave and me.

This is an old shot with John holding Nancy, David, Herb, Keith, another John holding Maureen and another kid sitting on the floor.

You can tell from this one, he's going to break some hearts.

Then again, holding Rudolph, he's not so hot.

Oh yeah, I remember this one, Mom accused him of drinking.

Here's the junior/senior shot, looking all American again. Shall we talk about some of the disruptions in his High School Sports Career. Nah, no point now.

I have always loved this shot where he's smirking down on Grandma Ames. She did love her mangy grandsons.

Sometimes he wasn't as happy to pose as he should have been. Here we have John, David, me, Chris and Reen. You have to love the striped pants I was wearing, I know I am supposed to be dissing John, but those pants...

Here he is with Nanny and Chris, in Grandma Ames' living room I believe.

Out in front of the Ames house by Owen's truck. Dave had hair and I think John was messing with David, but maybe not. Note the window air unit, the only way to survive in the summer up there.

Once we grew up, we had to finally start taking our own photos. Here's John, Dave, Pat, Reen, Jeff, Chris and Molly. Pretty sure this was Christmas time a few years back at the Holiday Inn at Austin.

I like this shot, not the reason that we gathered, but overall the shot is pretty good. Sorry Chris, you're the only one not looking dark, but then again, you always were lighter.

And there you have it, I could look for more, but that's enough for this year.

John, I want you to know, while we aren't the closest, I truly respect you for you and I'm proud to tell people that you're my brother and how well you've served our country with respect.

Happy Birthday!

Pat

Happy Thanksgiving, maybe a bit late

I have just returned from the dark side, also known as Facebook. It's a pretty cool concept, and would work well to keep us all connected, but I really don't understand how it all works and so I will strive to continue to post here occasionally.

We had a great time in Chicago with Maureen and Tom. Did all the mandatory "traditions", like drive in crappy weather to get there, pig out on turkey to the point that we really only ate the one meal on Thursday. Watched a little of a reality series show, this year was "Pawn Stars", not as good as "Junk Yard Wars", but what are you going to do? Located and cut down a tree for Tom and Reen, and it was unfortunately at a new location, but the selection was much better. Their tree was awesome. Below are a few shots from the tree farm. It was a positively gorgeous day, sunny with a high of 45... For dinner we went to a restaurant; 1776 click the link if you'd like to check it out. This year the beer was from ... Kalamazoo Michigan! It was Bells night, kind of fun since all the questions were about Michigan. We missed 2 and caught a small amount of grief for it. The boys had their traditional pizza for dinner. This time it was Tombstone, nothing but the best for our boys! Saturday is usually a day that I try to be of a small amount of help to Tom and Reen. This year was helping get their basement under control. My favorite year was when we cut a hole in the wall and installed a cat door. I have always loved using a sabre saw on someone else's house! Saturday afternoon, quick lunch and head for Michigan. Home fairly early and that makes church a bit easier for all of us, especially since Holly was singing today.

That catches us up for now. I will be playing on a more regular basis on Facebook, but will post as often as possible here.

The photos are:
The boys after the last dish was set at the Thanksgiving Dinner Table.


Ian and 1/2 of Spencer at the tree farm. That's Tom and Reen's tree between them, it really looks tons better in their living room!


Since I didn't care for that shot of Spencer I talked him into a reshoot. Much better!

Have an awesome week!

Pat