Pioneer Woman

This past weekend Heather, Sue and I ventured to the Twin Cities. We had a few things in mind...... Shopping, see Pioneer woman, shopping, visiting Jenn, shopping, eating, oh and did I mention shopping????

Well we were successful in a few of those areas. WE SHOPPED! We ate Lots of food, we visited Jenn and We did see Pioneer Woman, but that part of our trip was not as successful as we had hoped. Long story short...... We saw her, but did not meet her. She was doing a book signing for her new cookbook which we wanted. When we got to Mall of America where she was scheduled to be, there was a very long line. We went up, bought our cookbooks and went to take our place in line. That is where the story gets llloooooooooonnnnnngggggg. We waited, and waited, and waited..... We actually waited for nearly two hours and moved about 10 feet in line. There were hundreds of people in front of us. Hundreds and hundreds of people. Sue was waiting in line, holding our spot while I went up to the second floor to see if I could get a couple of pics. We couldn't see her from where we were standing. Thanks Sue! Here are a few pics. Thank goodness for telephoto lenses, because she really was not that close.

Nice close-up.......

She answered a couple of questions before she started signing.

Picture of her husband. He also was signing cookbooks.....

Husband and son signing.....

Here is a picture of part of the "line" waiting to have her sign a cookbook or two, or twelve. Couldn't get all of them in the photo. They went behind the stage, behind the escalators and waaaayyyyy down the hall.

The story really didn't end there. when we had purchased the cookbooks, Sue had asked me how much they were. I told her I thought they were about $14-15 on her blog. When we purchased them they were $27.50..... Yikes! So, when we decided we were finished waiting, we decided to return the cookbooks. We went back to Barnes and Noble and returned them. We found them online that night through Amazon for $10.75. Bad enough on one, but between Sue and I we had purchased 7 of them.

Maybe next time. I think I heard she is in Florida, or maybe California in February. Good reason to go there isn't it????

Well, at least we shopped, we ate, we visited Jenn and had a nice time. Thanks Jenn, Heather and Sue for the weekend. Love ya.

Nana is a pushover

This morning I got a phone call from Pickles. Here is the conversation:

Pickles: "Nana, I don't like the lunch at school today so I want to take cold lunch but we don't have any bread. Do you have some bread?"

Me: "Yes, I think we have some bread left."

Pickles: "Would you bring it over here?"

Me: "Sure, I will be right over."

Good thing they live just through the woods. However, that is not where the story ends. I am putting my coat on and the phone rings again. Heather says, "Nana is a pushover". I told her that Pickles needs bread. Well then she explains that she told her she could take cold lunch but only had buns, but could have a sandwich with a bun, but Pickles did not want that. So when Heather went into the bathroom to get ready, Pickles called Nana. When she got off the phone with me she went into the bathroom by Heather and said, "Nana is bringing me some bread because she loves me." Boy does she have me pegged.

The picture I included is from a photo shoot I did this weekend for their Christmas Card. Obviously this isn't the one on the card. You'll just have to wait for that one. I absolutely love the one we used for the Christmas Card, and it is killing me not to show people. But - patience is a virtue - right? I do like this one too and there were so many that turned out cute. Once the Christmas cards are sent I will give you a bigger peak of what we did that day.

"Season's First"

When we woke up this morning and opened the bedroom curtains, we saw something we hadn't seen yet this season. The pond was frozen over. We have had a few days where there was a little ice along the edge, but today it is across the entire pond. Lorin laughed as I threw on my clothes and ran out the door to take a couple of photos. I had inspections this morning so I had to keep going out so I could get some photos when the sun was coming up.

Winter is on its way. Are you ready? I'm not!

"It's Lisa's Fault"

That's what I heard today when we were having lunch at Olive Garden - "It's Lisa's fault". Several months ago when we were in Vail, we made a quick detour to visit Melissa. During our short stay there, we went to Olive Garden for lunch. Melissa ordered some alfredo sauce for dipping her breadsticks. Once Lorin tried that, he was hooked. I remind him from time to time that isn't very healthy but his response always is - "It's Lisa's fault." Sorry Melissa.

Obviously he likes it because he ate the entire bowl! Bad thing is, by the time your food comes you're not very hungry anymore. Although, Lorin said he had a solution for that. Next time he will just skip the salad.

Griswold Family Christmas Tree

Clark is on vacation this week and has decided it is time to get the Griswold Family Christmas Tree to begin the holiday season. (Halloween is over so on to Christmas - or is there another holiday in there? - oh well, we'll worry about turkey day at another time.) We trudged through great depths of snow for several miles into the woods to find just the right tree........ Ahhhhhhhh the angels sang and a bright light shone upon this glorious tree. And there it stood...... The Griswold Family Christmas Tree.




Since last time we forgot our saw and had the trying task of pulling it out of the ground, this year we came prepared. Tethers, chainsaws, a cat and a tree bailer - this year we are prepared.


"Little full, lotta sap!"




Here it is laying on the ground after we cut the tree..... getting ready for the baler. It had a long way to go.


On the trailer and ready to go home. I wonder when Eddie will show up?????

"I hear a noise, it's a funny, little squeaky noise."

"You wouldn't hear a dump truck in a nitroglicerine plant."

OK - Enough lines from Christmas Vacation (can you tell that is one of our favorite movies?) BTW - We have already watched it this Christmas season. We all watched it on my birthday.

Actually......
This tree, which was about 50' tall was across the road from our house. Today, while Lorin was home, he came in as said they were cutting this tree down. Now, we have seen them cut trees before, but they had a cat, and a tree baler and the tree was tethered on all sides so of course we had to go check out what was happening. We walked down the road and talked to the workers. They said this tree was going somewhere in Tennessee to be decorated for a Christmas Tree. Wow - I wonder if the Griswolds had one like this???

Happy Halloween

Although yesterday was "officially" Halloween, here in our town we celebrate this holiday on the last weekend in October. So today we had the Halloween Parade and Trick or Treating. Pickles dressed up like a mermaid - Aerial. Mommy did her makeup and put pretty glitter on her face.

Here she is in her full costume sitting by the fireplace.

And the parade. Here is the float for our church. We have a Monday Night Worship service that we just started. (If you are unable to make it to service on Sunday, there is a service on Monday night.) So our theme for the parade was Monday Night Worship with a Monday Night Football theme. Our pastor changed the words to several songs and sang them along the parade route as we passed out candy. I figured out how much candy we gave away and it came to over 6,000 pieces. WOW - That's a lot of kids along that parade route. We had lots of kids and adults riding on and walking along with the float. As usual, we had a lot of fun.

I hope you all had a Spooktacular Day. Happy Halloween everyone!!!