Deb's Shadowbox: It's been awhile !!

Hi everyone,

It’s about time for an update…….

The weekend of March 31st we went up north. Our ATV Club held a Smelt Fry fund raiser at Crickets Bar who is one of our sponsors. It went real well, we had over 100 smelt dinners bought and everyone seemed to have a great night out. The dinner itself included a nice portion of deep fried smelt, cheesy potatoes, cole slaw & rye bread. It brings back the memory of the smelt taste. It is the same from way back when I was in my early teens and of my Dad taking us down to the Milwaukee harbor to watch the fisherman catching smelt and buying a bunch of smelt and bringing it home to eat. They were drawing door prizes through-out the night from the ticket numbers shown on your dinner ticket. I won 2 times, first I won a very pretty green stone bracelet that one of the ladies made in our club.

The 2nd time I won a big bottle of Peppermint Schnapps. Yum, Yum. I was told it goes real good with hot chocolate. I’ll have to try that out….LOL.

We had a very nice Easter weekend. For my side of the family, we went over to Sarah & Matt’s house. It turned out to be a very nice day weather wise where we could sit outside. Matt’s ham turned out real good, and all the food tasted great! We bought the kids Easter baskets and in them, Kaylin and Shane received airplane gliders to play with outside. They had a good time (along with some adults) tossing the planes into the air to watch them glide to the ground. Audra got a big yellow ball and her eyes just lit up when she saw it. She kept following it around and pushing it. All three got pin wheels to run around with and then they decided to put them in their garden to scare off the birds/rodents from eating the newly planted veggies.

John and I traded our Dodge Ram truck in for a silver Dodge Durango this past week. Shane was in denial at first. He didn’t want Papa to get rid of his pickup, but Sarah talked to him about it and told him that it was a silver SUV, he warmed up to the change. John stopped by at their house a few days after he picked the Durango up from the dealer and let the kids check it out. They were ok with it because each one of them can have their own seat area. The truck had 120,000 miles on it and was only getting at the most 14 miles to the gallon. It was sucking us dry in the tank fill ups. So now we’ve got the Durango that is getting an average of 27 miles per gallon highway.
My braces are doing fine, I’ve gone to the ortho Dr. 4 month’s now to have them tightened …Ouch !! I found out that I have to take some Aleve before I go in. I didn’t at first and boy did that hurt when she took off the old wire to put the new one on. I have noticed that my teeth have moved alot because there is more of a gap between my back molders and my teeth in the front are really straightened out now. She attached something like a thick rubber band on both sides of my mouth to pull my teeth to close the gap where I had teeth pulled and to make room for my front teeth to slide back in. It’s a slow process as some of you know, but it will be worth it once it’s all said and done. They told me sometime next spring/summer I should be done, we’ll see…

The weekend of April 14th, Kaylin & Shane stayed over at our house ! John picked them up after work on Friday and brought them home. We had pizza for supper, and then I left to drive back to Sarah’s to attend her Tastefully Simple house party. John had a great time with them . Shane prolonged going to bed by running around upstairs and jumping on his bed, until Papa came up and settled him down. Kaylin was already asleep. Then on Saturday, we were invited to Logan’s 1st birthday party. He is the son of a very good neighbor of ours (Jen & Jason Eiler). Sarah and Matt were invited also, so we met them down at the Wales Community building for his party. We had a great time and boy is Logan a little cutie and is getting so big ! He got a lot of fun presents and he loved eating his cake. We left around 7:30PM and the kids were ready to go to bed when we got home. We took them back home on Sunday afternoon.
The following weekend (April 20th & 21st), John and I went up north to Wausau for the annual WATVA (Wisconsin ATV Association) convention. Sean stayed at the house to watch Bailey for us. It was a very nice, but short get-a-way and as always we had a good time there. We went to a lot of informative workshops and learned new things about the great sport of ATVing. There were awards given out on Saturday evening for the hours riding the trails (top 20 people), the most money donated for a cause, etc…The only down side was that I left my nightgown in the room and when I contacted them back about it, the maid didn’t find it. Either she didn’t remove it when she cleaned the room or she took it and didn’t turn it in. All I know is I wore it and I didn’t have it in my luggage when I unpacked. So don’t think we’ll be going back to that place again. At the ATV meeting Stephanie Klett who is the Wisconsin Secretary of Tourisum was there to hand out the awards and that she gave a real nice (and funny) speech about the Dept of Tourism. She used to be the host of Discover Wisconsin on TV.
The last weekend of April was our last bowling night. John came along this time for support. We bowled the 3 games as usual, but instead of having to knock down 10 pins for a strike, we only had to knock down 9 pins. I got a lot more strikes then!!! They also had a raffle going on through out the night to win prizes. Our ticket was called and Sean & Jackie went up and picked out a nice IPHONE alarm clock for Sean!!! Hey where’s my prize??? I told Sean next year, I get to pick the prize !!! Next August I'm going to buy my own bowling ball and shoes for the fall league.

We have a another college graduate in the family ! Sean graduated in April with two (2) 4 year degrees, one in Buisness Management and the second in Green and Sustainable Enterprise Management. Congratulations to you Sean !!! We are so proud of you !!!!!

It was Shanes 4th birthday on May 20th so Matt & Sarah gave him a birthday party. Here are a few pic's:
Shanes's birthday cake. Sarah made a race track for him. Didn't it turn out cute ? And it tasted really good !

Audra with her little hair antenna

This last weekend we went up north with Sarah, Matt & Kids. Sarah, me, Kaylin, Shane & Audra went up on Thursday afternoon. Then Matt & John came up on Friday night. It was a fantastic weekend and the weather was great.
Here are a few pic's:
Our new ATV trailer