A YELLOW SUNDAY WALK

On my walk this evening I found lots of yellow.  There were tall yellow flowers and short yellow flowers,

and yellow weeds, and yellow leaves,

and even yellow signs.

Everywhere I looked there was yellow.

I stepped on yellow.

I saw yellow that was turning brown.

I saw yellow mixed in the green grasses.

And this yellow will soon cover the whole tree.  The whole forest.

I love these pretty yellow flowers.

And the yellow clouds.

And the yellow clouds in the orange sunset.

ROAD TRIP!

Yesterday was a beautiful day in our neighborhood, and Ernie asked if I wanted to go somewhere on an adventure.  Yes!  I am usually up for a road trip!  So we picked a destination a couple of hours north and east of here, and we took off.

Let's see if you can guess from this photo where we went.

Yup....we went to Red Wing, Minnesota,  a picturesque city on the mighty Mississippi River, and home to two very famous items that I'm sure you have all heard about.  Both products use the red wing in their logo... do you know what I'm talking about?  Red Wing pottery and Red Wing boots and shoes.  Both are manufactured here.

 The town is also a destination for Minnesotans and Wisconsinites.  These boats and houseboats are lining the Wisconsin shore of the Mississippi River.

 These boat garages are on the Minnesota side.

 There are hundreds of these boat garages along the shore line.  There are also many open marinas along here, but those lucky folks who have had a garage passed down to them will have their own covered storage space for the winter.

The sign above the pottery  showroom.  I really love pottery, and do have a couple of pieces of Red Wing pottery, but I was a good girl yesterday and I didn't purchase a thing!

This is the old original pottery factory that has now been turned into shops and antique stores.  We had a good time looking through some of the antique shops, admiring the glassware and china, especially the depression glass because I have so much of it.  My green goblets are marked $65.....I have 5 of them!  And a footed dish, called a mayonnaise compote, was marked $50.  I am looking for a specific green creamer to go with the sugar bowl that I have, but didn't find one.

This photo was taken at 55 MPH.....sorry......it's the Red Wing shoe factory.  We didn't go there, although I did see that they have an outlet store there.  And just a little piece of history.....Ernie's mom worked there for a few years back in the day.

All in all, it was a fun day spent in one of the summer's most glorious days.  I'm so glad we went on our little road trip.

And, the little cafe where we had a cup of soup and a half a sandwich, served their healthy lunches on Fiesta dinnerware!  Fun!

REUNION PICTURES #2

This is a little tour of some of the metal art that Ernie's brother, Arnold has created out on his little farm where the family reunion was held this past weekend.  This is Arnold.

This is the car and wagon he built.  Some of the kids were able to get rides in it.

All of the metal creations you see here were made in Arnold's shop.  This is an Indian village,

complete with buffalo.

Isn't this amazing metal work?

He has a shop with hundreds of items lining the walls

and shelves.

Arnold has made many chairs and benches in a great variety of styles.

This one is occupied by our granddaughter Anna

and this one by grandson, Adam, who is more interested in texting his friends then having his grandma take his picture!

If you are interested in some of the other metal art that Arnie has created, here is a story about his Jesse James Theme Park, which I neglected to take pictures of this weekend.

http://www.mnriv.com/jparkope.html

REUNION PICTURES # 1

If you didn't accept my invitation to join my family and come to the reunion this past weekend, then these next two posts will not mean a thing to you!  Sorry!  But I will post the pictures so my family that didn't attend can see part of the festivities.

This first picture is of the shop full of empty tables and chairs that would soon be filled with scores of hubby's relatives.  Yes, scores.  More than a hundred people attended.

Here are a few of them: Ernie in the purple shirt next to nephew David.  On the other end are two of Ernie's brothers, Roy and Neil.

 Here are a few more folks, with the two women in the foreground being two sisters in law, Karen and Dotty.

More relatives.

The two young men on the left are Justin barely visible and Joe, two grandsons.  Another sister in law, Sue, in the yellow shirt, our son Kevin in the red shirt next to his wife Molly in the white, and SIL Karen again.

The cowboy in the back is the oldest family member, the family patriarch, Milo.  The others are the family that hosted the reunion, Ernie's brother Arnold on the far right, his wife Jan, their daughter Tammy in the middle in the pink shirt who was the actual hostess for the reunion, then their son Mark, his wife Shelly, and their son Jeremiah.

Ernie's brothers and spouses: left to right are Roy, Dotty, behind Dotty is David, then Sue, and behind her is Ernie, then Neil, me in back center, Karen in dark blue, Joann in back, Jan in pink, Jim in back, and Arnold.

Granddaughter Jaden holding Eden

Granddaughter Madison shooting bean bags

Ernie's brother Jim and his wife Joann

And to top the evening off, fireworks, which were much nicer than this shaky photographer shows here!!!

DO YOU WANT TO BE MY FAMILY?

If you were my family, or should I say my husband's family, you would be invited to a big family reunion this weekend.  Ernie is from a huge family.  His teeny, tiny, less than five foot tall mom gave birth to nine boys.  Yes, you heard me right!  Nine boys.  No girls.  Nine boys.  They lived in northern Minnesota, out on a little farm, in a little house where she baked bread eight loaves at a time, which didn't last long I'm sure!  Where  they had no electricity until the 1950's.  And where the boys would do things like tear down machine sheds for fun.  But that's another story.

Many years ago, Ernie's dad and his brothers and sisters started getting together in the fall.  Then Ernie and his brothers and their cousins generation starting attending, too.  Now the oldest generation is just about gone, but the next two generations are attending.  Each fall at the reunion, the spot and host are chosen for the next year.  This year the destination is only a few miles southwest of where we live, out on Ernie's brother's small farm.  His daughter is the hostess this year.  Tammy is from the next generation, the same age as my oldest daughter, Kari.   Tammy has been planning and scheming and working and cooking and busting her butt to plan a great time.  I volunteered to bring cowboy beans.

So yesterday I hit HyVee and wiped them clean of beans.  Lots of beans.  Different kinds of beans.  I'm now ready to open all these cans, fry up three pounds of bacon and three pounds of hamburger, cut up 3 onions and saute them, and mix it all together with catsup, vinegar, mustard, and brown sugar and dump it into a couple of crock pots to cook for the afternoon.  

So if you want to be in our family, hurry and get over here.  The fun begins tonight!  And pictures will be posted.  Oh, did I tell you that Tammy is a biker, and the theme of the weekkend is leather and lace?

I'm wearing Capri's and a T-shirt.  You'll thank me for that.

T A P S

 

 

Day is done, gone the sun,

From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky

All is well, safely rest,

God is nigh.

Fading light, dims the sight,

And a star, gems the sky, gleaming bright,

From afar, drawing nigh,

Falls the night.

Thanks and praise, for our days,

Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky,

As we go, this we know,

God is nigh.

Taps was written during the Civil War.  There are many differing stories regarding the origin, but the Military District of Washington D.C. lists General Butterfield as the composer and the man who directed that it be used for Taps in his brigade.  Today it is used whenever a person is buried with military honors anywhere in the United States.

http://www.iboww.org/taps.htm

FAKE FIESTA

I have new dishes!  Lots of pretty colors, don't you think?  I have been coveting Fiestaware, but could not afford it.  Even on sale it was too much for me to spend.  Today I was walking through Cheepko, and saw they had dishes on clearance.  The colors were nice and bright, like the Fiesta colors, and the price was fantastic!  In fact, I got all eight four-piece place settings for just a few bucks more than one place setting of Fiesta.

The colors aren't the same.  This brand doesn't have the chocolate color that I really love, and there also is no peacock or aqua color.  But these colors are just fine by me!  Especially considering the price I paid for them.   And these bright colors sure do make my old white dishes look pretty boring, don't they!

ONCE AGAIN............

The sirens were blaring and the rain was falling, but I braved it all to get some photos for you!

Off to the north west of us....

West of us........

 Southwest of us...........The warnings have been lifted, and it's just sprinkling a little bit.  Time to fix the pork chops and settle in for a peaceful night.  I hope.