Rachel is home from the Peace Corps!

Our niece, Rachel, has been in South America since the end of May, 2007, and surprised her mom last weekend by coming home from her "trek" a little early. She'd been touring South America after she finished her assignment in Paraguay.

She came to visit Izaac and me today on her way to Sac City to spend time with her grandmother and aunt. So she read a couple of books to Izaac while she was here.

This is a picture of most of the family that was in Oklahoma recently. From left, (nephew) Joe, Uncle Charlie, (cousin) Margaret, (sister) Shirley, my mom, and (brother) Bob. Not sure what's so funny, but it made for a pretty good picture.

YOU'RE going to "Daughtry"??

My daughter kept repeating this phrase when she found out the news. I said, "You can keep saying it, but it won't change the fact." My friend, Kim, is a big fan, and I like his voice and some of his songs, too, so she talked me into going to Ames last Thursday evening to see the concert. It was a nasty night for weather, but a good concert and we had great seats! (We were not the OLDEST people there, either, Samantha!)

Lucy--out of focus, on the last nice day we had this fall!

Gracey, posing for the camera.

Bogart Wrigley showing his beautiful panther side of himself (he weighs about 18 pounds so it's easy to tell him apart from George & Gracey).

Patrick is back from his 'walkabout'...

Patrick went outside on Tuesday about 5:30pm, and disappeared until last night a midnight! We had just about given up on him, but I had put the patio light on one more night, just in case. He was hardly dirty (surprisingly, with the rain and fields around us), a little skinnier and VERY happy to see us. He couldn't seem to get too many squeezes, and he had the loudest purr we've ever heard.

It was Queen (pictured below on top of the cupboard) who wasn't too pleased about it (he chases her several times a day). Samantha and Marty had planned on adopting Ron & Patrick on Saturday, but took Ron & Georgy instead. Patrick seems to be looking for Ron today, and Samantha will exchange Georgy for Patrick next weekend.

This is just a 20-second video of Izaac dancing to Craig Morgan's "Bonfire".

It must be getting cooler!

It's a sure sign that the weather has turned cold (for the last couple of weeks!) when Bogart and Ron are in the dryer together (on warm clothes)....

A day in Sac City and picking apples!

Yesterday, John and Izaac and I traveled to Sac City to see Gr. Walker and Mary and have lunch at "The Hub"....yum. (We took homemade cookies.)

Izaac LOVES fruit of most kinds; apples, oranges, grapes and bananas are favorites. Wanda (who is the landlord/next door neighbor business of Gr. Walker's fabric shop) has a bunch of apple trees at her house on the west end of town and we went to pick up some GREAT Jonadels!

Even though it was pretty chilly for October (45 degrees and a little breezy!!!) we got two bags full of gorgeous apples for cooking, baking and EATING!


Izaac in the truck on the way over. He loves riding in the truck.

Izaac and the car mat

Our friend (and pastor) made this 'car mat' for her son when he was young. (He's a college grad and married now...) It's a replica of part of Marshalltown (which is where they lived at the time), with a grocery store, discount store, and a gas station, complete with parking lots.

He's played with it every day since he's had it, and seems to love the gas station and the grocery store the most. (The top picture is a little out of focus because he doesn't stay still for long!)

Thanks, Suzie...hope Bob doesn't mind....

Pictures with the old camera and a new lens.

I've had a good Minolta camera with a small telephoto lens for 26 years. Recently I saw a bigger telephoto lens on the Goodwill Auction site, and it was from the Des Moines Goodwill store, so I could go and try it on the camera before bidding. It fit, and I won the bid for $33! (Pricing them new was $300-350, and it's a real Minolta lens.) Here are the results from the first (200 speed and OLD) roll of film.

Yes, I drove it till the wheel fell off, AGAIN! Hopefully we won't have to mow again this fall. But the colors around it were too pretty not to try a picture.

Patrick was the only cat to cooperate this day, and he did a nice job of posing.

Pictures I took at the marina at Saylorville Lake on my way home last Sunday evening.

I'm pretty sure these are pelicans near the middle of this picture, but even with the new lens they're pretty hard to see.

Two graduations this year, two weddings next year!

Yes, it's an April graduation picture of Samantha and her fiance, Marty, but I was busy 'proofing' recipes (STILL) for the new church cookbook, so I got lazy and found this quick. Samantha is planning a wedding in Carroll on 5/29/10.

This is Alex and Allison, in April. They have set their wedding date as July 23rd, 2010, in Dubuque!

My two kids are 18 months apart, but have been doing things similarly in the past few years (Alex started college in fall, 2004, at Mt. Mercy, but had to transfer to Grand View, where Samantha started in the fall of 2005, to be closer to Allison in the fall, 2005!). They both graduated 4/25/09--YEAH!!! and now they are in the planning stages of their weddings. Oh my, how time flies!!!!

Happy Birthday Michelle!!!

We had Michelle's 20th b.d. party in Des Moines on Sunday. Hopefully she won't forget to study (while she's a sophomore at Simpson College) while she's enjoying her day!

Here is Izaac waiting for Michelle's candles to be lit so he can sing "Happy Birthday" to his aunt Michelle.

An Iowa "Staycation"

This is "The Sullivan Brothers" statue in the Grout Museum in Waterloo, (IA). John, the train engineer, had worked 6 days in a row, and under the new safety rules, had to take 48 hours off. So we took off to stay a night in Waterloo.

I think Samantha's fiance, Marty, is in this picture below, which we found in the Museum, also. It shows the "Red Bull" National Guard unit (First Battalion, 133rd Infantry) arriving home from Iraq in July, 2007. We were surprised to see this because most of the exhibits were from longer ago.