Red neck fun at my brother Duane's house !

Hi all,
Well here we are again at my brother Duane's house for my nephew Garys de-ployment party.  Seems like a repeat from last Christmas only a different car and driver, different season, but just as much fun to watch....Here are some pic's taken with Sean's IPHONE......

Jeep pulling Jeep out !

Singing & dancing in the mud.....

The aftermath

The cheering crowd relaxing on the couch mobile....

Kids swimming

Audra getting squirted by Shane

Sweet summer fun !!!!

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 antennas

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

 Sarah and Audra

Kaylin jumping off the back of the pontoon

Shane sleeping in his chair

Shane coming up the pontoon ladder

Audra swimming in the water with some help

Everyone taking a afternoon nap

Audra thinks she's stuck underneath the TV cabinet.  It was just her head and she didn't realize she could just back out.  Poor little girl ! 

We had a great time up north and we made great memories.  

Have a great week.  

Cherry Float shot at bowling Sat. 3/3/12. 
C.J. bought all 4 of us a shot to celebrate Jackie's last time bowling for the season. Dawn took the picture with Jackie's camera.

Hi all,

Last weekend Sat. was my monthly bowling night and I had a great time. Although, my bowling scores were not the greatest (I didn’t make a 100 for either of the 3 games), this time my team bowled against my sister Denise & her husband Tom, My sister Dawn and my brother Dwight. We had a good time and finished up at 9PM. C.J. bought our team a shot called a cherry float to celebrate Jackie’s last game for awhile. It tasted real hot going down, but it had somewhat of a cherry flavor. There was whipped cream on the top of the shot, so we all had white mustaches. Yes, we got some picture’s and probably will end up on Face book. Jackie is having foot surgery on March 12th and will not be able to bowl the next time (March 31st). Jackie’s Mom Nancy will be subbing for her.

Sunday was John’s birthday so the Kids & Grandkids came over to celebrate. Before supper, John and the kids went outside to play in the snow. They slid down the snow piles on the side of the road and made a snow fort and tunnel in the snow bank in the front yard. Here are a few pictures:

Here are a few pictures of John opening his birthday gifts. A teddy bear to cuddle with from Kaylin, a gift card to Cabelas from Sean, and a few cards to open. Shane wants to take Papa to Home depot or Menards to get a tool for him. So they have to set a date for that.

Here are a few pictures of Audra playing and sitting in the chair. She is walking around all over now, such a big girl !!!

John blowing out his candle.

We had pork chop sandwiches along with potato salad, orange jello & a tossed salad. We had angel food cupcakes with green (John’s favorite color) cool whip on top sprinkled with coconut. Sarah, Kaylin & Shane made them. They were very good.

I had a new experience this morning leaving for work. I normally open the garage door, then remotely start my car and let it run a little bit. Then I say goodbye to Bailey and then gather up my purse and lunch box, go out the back door and lock it. Then I unlock the car (it locks automatically when it starts up) and put my stuff in it and sat down in the car. I remembered that I forgot to put more of my high blood pressure pills into my purse container (I take my pill at work), so I got out of the car, unlocked the back door, went in and instead of putting my keys into my coat pocket, I put them on the counter and got my pill container filled. I then walked out of the house, turned the lock on the back door and shut it !!! I turned to get into the car and OMG!! It hit me right away that I just locked my keys in the house and the car was still running ! No extra key hidden anywhere….This is the first time this has EVER happened to me !!!! So I got my cell out of my purse and called John who was just getting into Men Falls (almost to work) to ask him to turn around and come home to let me in the house. I felt so stupid !! All of that gas money burned up and time wasted !!!!! John got there about 30 min later and we got in the house. Bailey was so excited to see us thinking we were back home for good. But no…..we had to turn around and say goodbyes and leave again…. Now we do have a key hidden in the garage just in case this happens again. Needless to say, I was a little frazzled when I got to work this morning.

I hope the rest of my week goes a little smoother….

Have a wonderful week.

Hi all,
Sorry, it’s been a long time since my last post, just got in a lazy stage I guess. The weekend of Jan.14th we went up north to check on the cabin as we haven’t been up there since before Thanksgiving. Everything was ok, but lots of snow on the ground. We were asked to watch the 3 grandkids on Saturday, Jan 21st so Matt and Sarah could go out. We got over there around lunch time and the kids were so happy to see us. Sarah said Shane and Kaylin were sitting by the windows most of the morning waiting for Papa’s black truck to come by. Finally….Kaylin said she saw us back into their driveway. Shane wanted Papa to help him build a big train track and play trains with him. Sarah & Matt left around 3PM to go to a movie at Mayfair shopping center and then after that they went out to eat in Menomonee Falls. Audra had woke up from her nap and she was ready to eat lunch. The kids had some peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and Audra had a yogurt and sweet potato mixture. They ate lunch really well. After Matt and Sarah left, the kids and John went outside to shovel snow off the patio and play in the snow. John shoveled some snow into a pile and the kids went down the hill into the front of the house. I played with Audra for a while and then she was getting tired, so I fed her a bottle and put her down for her afternoon nap. We had brought Bailey along too, just because we were going to be there late and it just would be easier to feed her and take her out then. They came in from playing outside and were ready for a snack. They had granola bars.

John made hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill and we had macaroni salad for supper. Then for dessert, we had a piece of Great Grandma Rose’s yummy caramels….Um,Um good !

We then went and played some My Little Pony’s and more trains and a game of trouble and the Princess game. By that time it was getting close to bedtime, so we got the kids into their PJ’s and then we watches a few shows. Audra had woken up during this time and the poor girl has bad diaper rash. Sarah thinks she’s getting more teeth. Seems like she’s pooping every time her pants is changed. So we got her changed and calmed her down from crying and then it was ready for her bedtime too. So I fed her a bottle and took her up stairs to bed and she went down real easy. Sarah & Matt came home around 10:30PM and they had a real nice relaxing time.

On Sunday, I went to Thunder Bay for a girls luncheon with my sisters Denna & Denise, my nieces Elizabeth & Becky, Sarah, Kaylin & Shane. After we got seated, Elizabeth told us that her & Eric have set a date for their wedding !!! It’s going to be on Sept 22nd at Old World Wisconsin. How fun and exciting !!! I can’t wait ! We all had the All You Can Eat Salad Bar except Elizabeth, who had a specialty salad. The kids had macaroni & cheese (Shane) and grill cheese (Kaylin). It was a real nice time.

John and I went up north again the on Friday, Feb. 3rd through Sunday Feb. 5th for our ATV Club’s annual “Kind Gary Fisheree”. It was a beautiful day on Sat. in the low 40”s on the lake with no wind. There were 200 registered fishermen/women/kids. We made $5000 for the club including the food sales.  5 kids from the Big Brothers/Big Sisters came for the fun. Here are a few pic’s of the event:
The prize tent and the food trailer

Digging a hole with ice auger

Some of the fish that were caught

Below is the group of 5 from Northwoods Big Brothers Big Sisters

Handing out the winning prizes below

The prizes to be won shown below

Our little Audra turned 1 year old on Feb. 10th and Matt & Sarah had a birthday party for her on that following Sat.. John and I, Bud & Jane, Bill, Lauren & Reese and Sean were there.  There was good food and cake and presents to open.  Kaylin & Shane helped open presents too.  I forgot to bring the camera...OOPS ! :(

I finally made the decision to get braces for my upper teeth.  I've had 2 teeth pulled already..I will NEVER do that again....and now on Tuesday, I go to get the braces put on. 

This past weekend Sean, Chris & Holly went up north to the cabin to go skiing as Sean has off on Monday for Presidents Day.  John and I went to the Greek Orthodox church for their winter festival.  Um..Um...good food.  There were tours of the Greek church (beautiful) and there were Greek dancers to watch. We had some Baklava for a snack and brought some Greek rotisserie chicken, a gyro and Greek salad home for supper.  I want to try and make some Baklava, that is really good!!
Have a good week.

Happy belated New Year. I hope everyone has a wonderful year ahead of them. John and I were set on going up north for the New Year’s weekend, but as it was it was a snowy, rainy Friday night, so we decided to try going up on Sat. morning. Well it was still raining and snowing that morning, so we stayed home. That freed us up to go to Bud & Jane Zomboracz’s annual New Year’s Day party, so I hurried up and RSVP’d to them that we could come.

On Sat. night, I fell asleep early but woke up again around 11PM.  John had already gone to bed, so I thought I would try to stay awake for the New Year’s celebration. I went onto Facebook and I get a message from Sean asking me “is it true??? You’re still up?” I replied “Amazing huh?” So we counted down till the New Year and wished each other Happy New Year through Facebook.

On Sunday we got ready to go to Bud & Jane’s party. I made ham & pickle rollups as a dish to pass. We arrived around 1pm and Sarah, Matt & Kids were already there. More friends and neighbors slowly began to arrive and soon the house was full of lively conversation and lots of fun. Bud has a washer tournament every year so some people signed up for that. The packer game was on and YES! We won again….It was a fun time and hopefully we can come again next year.

On New Years Day, we had a snowfall that stuck, and we got about 4 inches to where we had to shovel. John was happy as a lark to be able to  plow with the ATV. Here are a few pictures and a few videos:

Last Saturday night was a bowling night again for me, so Sean & C.J. came down from Neenah and I met them at the bowling alley. We had a great time and I really improved on my scores. We bowled 3 games and my scores were 84, 72 & 128!!!! Here’s a picture of the screen from the last game:

I am so happy I finally broke the 100 mark. I think I found my grove now. Next week I want to go and buy my own bowling ball. There’s a pro shop by Sunset bowl that my sister Dawn went to a few weeks ago so I’ll check that out. Other than that today we are supposed to get our first substantial snow fall, but we’ll see how that pans out.

Have a great week/weekend.

A Red Neck Christmas Eve, then a normal Christmas Day

Hi all,

Oh Yeah, this year at my brother Duane's house was memerable!  First of all, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas ! Mine started out on Saturday. We celebrated the Neumann side on Christmas Eve. This year it was hosted by my brother Duane who lives in Jefferson, WI. We started out the day with a Christmas wagon ride.  He has a neighbor that lives right behind him that has horses and he rents out wagon rides to groups of people. Duane talked to him and set it up for him to come over to give us a wagon ride. We all were to be at my brother's house by noon. Here are a few pictures of the wagon ride from my sister Dawn's camera. I only wish that there was some amount of snow for it to be more Christmas-like.

We went through a few farmers fields, over some ditches, one of them was a little scary, I thought we were going to tip over....then every few minutes ducking the tree branches as we went through the woods, and then finally going on the road and waving at the people in cars/trucks passing us.  Most everyone waved at us, some were grumpy and ignored us...oh well, ya get the friendly and ya get the grumpy...ha,ha. We had some encouragement with our cups filled with a variety of  drinks....Rum Chata was the popular one this year.  We got back to the house around 2:00 and we all had a good time.  While most of us were on the wagon ride, my other brother Dwight, my husband John, my Brother-in Law Rusty were checking out Dwight's new toy.  He bought himself a Allis Chalmers tractor just like the one we used to have when my brothers and sisters were little at our old homestead in New Berlin.  Boy that brought back memories of driving the tractor around the property, with one kid sitting on the gas tank and two or three of us riding/sitting on the seat and standing on the back of it.  We had alot of fun with it.  I remember as a kid cranking the tractor to get it started.

Then we all came into the house and had a snack.  We decided this year to just have appetizers, instead of a regular dinner, so we all brought a variety of appetizers.  I brought ham & pickle roll ups, veggie pizza. I also attempted to make the melting snowman cookies.  They turned out ok, but I was not happy with the white icing.  It never set so the sugar cookie got soft.  Here is a picture:

There was so much food again.....Duane made a ham too.  It was such a nice day that there was a lot of outside activity happening....some good, some not so good.  We did the wagon ride, then Stephanie and Rusty decided to go outside in the back yard and do some target practicing with Rusty's handgun.  She started out shooting at a plastic bottle on the ground.  She then shot at something hanging in a apple tree.  She hit it, but also took out the top of the apple tree....Rusty then set up a actual target for her to shoot at and she got lots of bullseyes.  Good Job Steph !!!

On to the next activity....not so good as these pictures show.  This is my niece Emily and her husband Chris' Jeep.  Chris, Eric & Gary decided to test out the ice on the pond.  The story is that Gary told Chris that the ice was thick enough for Chris to drive on....NOT!

First, Gary tried to pull it out with a ATV.  No luck....

Second,  Gary got his Jeep to try and pull it out,...No Luck...

Lastly, my brother got his backhoe out and it did the job.....



So that was alot of excitment for a while.  There was water inside of the Jeep and when they took it into the garage, they shopvac'd 6 gallons of water out of the interior.  The engine was ok, even though the exhaust pipe had gone underwater.  The engine was still running and that kept it from being damaged.

After all that we came inside again to relax and eat some more.  My sisters and I have a ornament exchange each year.  This time I picked my sister Denna's gift of ornaments. Really pretty and good idea.  The rule is that you have to make it, not buy it.  Through the years, we have come up with really good ideas, and beautiful ornaments and Christmas decorations.

We also played the Dirty Santa game. There were a variety of nice presents opened and traded for.  One stands out in my mind though.  My nephew Nick opened up a personal back massager that you hold in your hand and you can reach your back with it.  I think he was really embarassed because there was a lot of laughing going on about it.  My sister Denise fueled the laugher, when she kept saying "I want it, I can use that".  Sean & Steph almost fell on the floor laughing.
I ended up with the "Big Bobber".  It's a floating cooler that you can put int the water.  I'm going to tie it to my paddle boat this summer.

It was a great day and probably with be talked about for years to come.  I know Chris & Emily will not forget it for awhile. But as the title of my post says....It was a redneck Christmas Eve this year, with the shooting and Jeep sinking, and driving a new tractor around in the woods, who gets that all in one day????
Then Sunday, Christmas Day...John's brother Chris & sister-in-law Dannette hosted it at their house this year.  We were to be at their house around 1PM.  John and I got there and Sean followed in his car because he was going back to his house that night.  We brought a green grape salad to share with dinner.   We got to see Katy & Bill (John's sister Mary's daughter & son-in-law) who now live in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  They had a little boy (Will) last June and it was the first time we got to meet him.  What a cutie ! They also have a little girl Josephine (JoJo) who turned 2 this last October.  What a little sweetheart.  Julie & Kellen (Mary's older daughter & Grandson) was also there from Woodbury, Minnesota.  We haven't seen them for a while either.  Kellen is so cute and is growing up so fast !  It was so nice to see everyone again.  We had a nice dinner and of course Dannette's wonderful cookies for dessert. 
We waddled out the door around 6:30PM to get home before the Packer/Bear game.  Go PACKERS !
All in all it was a very nice Christmas weekend.
I hope you had a very Merry Christmas...