Saying Good-bye

 

Today, my family went to the memorial service of a dear family friend who passed away after a too-long battle with Alzheimers. Josephine, (we all knew her as just Jo) Koennecke built a house on the land next to my parents. I was a teenager, so we have known her for many years. She and Clarence got married the same year as Lamar and I did. We always thought that was a fun connection between us. She watched as each of us started our own families. Our kids grew up knowing her. She was a very special lady who touched many, many lives in her 83 years of life. She was hilarious, she was generous, she had spunk. She was special and we will miss her dearly.

Busy

Rile' and Hunter were over tonight and boy, were they busy beavers. They just went from one toy to another. Hunter is walking all over the place and he totally gets the concept that he can go anywhere on his own! That definitely keeps us running!
I picked up a Step 2 Desk at a garage sale down the road for $6.00. Rile' loved it, which made me feel especially happy of my find! The first thing she did was plop herself down and announced that she was now going to do her homework. Makes you smile, doesn't it?!





Andy came over and had a busy time with them too, but he loved every minute of it!

It's Star Wars This Halloween

We look forward to seeing our grandkids on Halloween, just to see them in their little costumes. This year, Star Wars seemed to be the theme with Rile' being Princess Leah and Hunter, Yoda. I had to work at the Rose Garden for SHS, so I missed out, but Lamar was home and he tried his best to get some pictures. Although, it seems to get harder and harder to get anything on "film", here are a couple for your viewing pleasure.

Maple Gold

In the last week, our big Maple in our backyard went from not showing any color to exploding with gold. And of course, there's plenty on the ground and everywhere else. Guess it's time for the rake to come out...Brittany!



And our showiest of maples, sadly to say, lost all it's 2008 leaves and is now bare. 'Tis a sad day, indeed.

Dripping Colors

The leaves continue to fall, dripping colors onto the ground. The wind the other night stripped at least half the leaves off our assorted young maples in our secret garden. Sad, I must say. I don't look forward to the bare trees of the coming winter. But, hopefully, we'll have a little snow to make everything beautiful in a new way and I'll have another reason to go outside and walk around with my camera in hand...


We'll wait and see as the colors of fall slowly fade.

Another Trip To The Gorge

After Lamar's long week delivering all that political mail that all of us have been getting in our mailboxes, he got a day off...actually, it's his long weekend. Good timing! The days have been gorgeous around here. Lamar wanted to take advantage of the blue sky and fall color, and so we headed back to the gorge to see the trees turning. Unfortunately, we are way ahead with the fall color here in Warren compared to the gorge. The colors were just starting to turn. Probably give it another week and it'll be at it's peak. But, we still had a great day. It's beautiful no matter what color the trees are! Some guy sharing a hiking trail with us took this picture with my cell phone. I just wanted to see how it would turn out. Definitely can tell the difference in quality, but not bad for a cell phone, I guess.

Snuggles

Nana loves to snuggle!