Southside Wins 19-15

Tonight our Southside Church of Christ won a softball game! We don't win many games, so this was a sweet victory.

A few players hit triples and one player hit a home run! The small cheering section went crazy.

Our guys are a bit older than the other teams that we play, but they are determined.

Congratulations Southside!



Jim was hot tonight!









Giving Glory to God after the Game









Lake Geneva on a Beautiful Day!



Lady of the Lake

 Today me, Lou and Mom made our annual trip to Lake Geneva. We booked a ride on "Lady of the Lake," walked the town, and enjoyed a beautiful day on the water.

The warmth of the day along with the fresh lake air made the the trip so enjoyable.

This year we sat on the upper deck of the boat, which is open. Mom was wearing her babuska, so her hair would stay in place. We both thought she looked like she was from Eastern Europe. We call her "little mama!"



We always have a good time when we go to Lake Geneva. One of the best things we do is stop at Constance Cravings for some samples of flavored popcorn. This year, we ate quite a bit of Sea Salt Carmel. Mom was munching on her bag during the trip because she said it gave her "energy."



Mom and Lou on Upper Deck



Lou and Little Mama



Hopefully, we will return this summer to ride the wave runners.



View from back of the boat



It's the BIG ONE!

Minnesota Vacation 2015

Me and a Fountain

 

We returned this week from Minnesota where we spent 5 days exploring areas around the Minneapolis area.




Lou in the Knot Garden

 

Our first stop was to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska. The Arboretum is the largest public garden in the Midwest. It is 845 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, pathways and special exhibits.











LEGO Dragonfly

  



The summer exhibit this year is the "Nature Connects Art with LEGO Bricks which features 26 sculptures made from nearly half a million LEGO bricks. The sculptures were made by the renowned artist Sean Kenny.

Our next stop was to visit The Landing, which was an 88 acre living history museum that depicts life in the Lower Minnesota River Valley from 1840-1890.



General Store: circa 1880





Moon Jellyfish



 







 



















After the Landing, we explored The Mall of America in Bloomington. It was hard not to be overwhelmed with 520 stores and 50 restaurants on 3 floors. The lower floor is devoted to the Sea Life Aquarium. We took the behind the scenes tour of the aquarium which allowed us to actually view the tanks from the top down. Our guide took us into the kitchen where he discussed the detailed feeding schedule as well as provided some shark teeth and skulls for us to pass around.

 

One of the last things we did was explore the Minnesota Zoo. The zoo was an incredible place where animals have a large scale habitat to live in that is very close to what they would experience in the wild. We were amazed at the amount of land that was available for each exhibit.

One of our favorite exhibits was the Prairie Dogs. Our Milwaukee Zoo does not have these animals, so it was fun to see something new. Other exhibits that Milwaukee does not have were Asian Wild Horses, American Eagles and Grey Wolves.

We tried the Mystic Casino buffet and were not disappointed. The desserts were beautiful and plenteous and there was so much variety that we overindulged a bit. We both gained several pounds, but it was well worth it.

We had a great time and would definitely consider visiting our neighbors to the West again some day!





Happy First Birthday, Stevie

Today we celebrated Michelle and Steve's son's birthday. Little Stevie is one year old and a real cutie. Family and friends enjoyed games, a great meal, the beautiful surroundings, and watching Stevie crawl around among the many large dogs at the party.







Messy Baby Award!

The highlight of the day was watching Stevie mash into the decorated cake that was placed in front of him. He enjoyed kneading the frosting and cake into puddy and wearing much of it on his face.



 











Mom, Linda and Jeremy gone wild!





Can these cute girls be my great-nieces?





Our family has been blessed with lots of boys over the years. But, recently, we had a new little addition. Lucy was born in April 2015 to my niece, Stephanie, and her boyfriend, Jeremy. Lucy is truly a beautiful little girl.

Her big sister, Emily, took the above picture of Lucy. Emily was the first girl in the family after over a 20 year girl-drought!

Recently, Emily received The Gold President's Award for Education Excellence. This was quite an honor, as she was the only one in her school to receive this award. Last year, her brother, Matt, received this award as well. 





My Ideal Job

Now that I am getting older, I am reflecting on on the fact that there is only one job that interests me.

I really can't think of anything else that is this appealing. I have all the qualifications:

• Ability to eat for long periods of time
• Ability to enjoy sweets anytime
• Discriminating palate
• Mostly, I have lots of my mother's genes!

Best Quote Ever

I came across this quote some time ago and have placed it as a Post-It on my desktop. It reminds me that to judge someone else's abilities based on my own beliefs about him/her, is just foolish.  

I guess this guy is a "non-conformist."



Planter Gone Wild

Jim and his family are full-swing into planting season. Living in the country on a big property allows him, his wife, and 7 sons to plant enough crops to feed themseves and the town of Merrill.



300 trees under plastic

 

Just part of the awesome-sized garden



 

Is it a scarecrow, or one of the boys being punished?















 







 



 

Goodbye to Moses

My sister, Linda, lost her dear pal, Moses, a few weeks ago. It has been a sad time for her and the other dog companions in the family.

Moses was getting up in years, but provided Linda and her family lots of love and fun.

She sure will be missed by her loving family.







My Kidneys Run/Walk

On May 9, Lou and I and our nephew, Adam, participated in the National Kidney Organization Run/Walk. Adam competed in the 5K run, and came in around 30 out of hundreds of runners. Lou and I participated in the walk. The run started before the walk, so we did not get to see Adam leap across the finish line. But,he did great and we are very proud of him!!


The weather was very cold and it wasn't particularly fun because of the cold, but we decided to do this because we have friends and family who have been affected by kidney problems. We have a friend who is on the kidney transplant list, a doctor whose wife had a transplant, and of course dad and Jeremy who were on dialysis.


Don't we look cold?



Twenty-Third Anniversary

On May 16, 2015, we went back to Whitnall Park to take a photo of ourselves on our 23rd anniversary. The day was just as nice as it was 23 years ago-blue, sunny, and in the 80s!!!

We feel blessed to still be together, have relatively good health and enjoy some fun vacations throughout the years.




We really were not together on this picture. I had to photoshop Lou in, as he took a picture of me and I took one of him.

 

Matt has a Great Day







Our visit to Merrill, Wi in April 2015. Matt learned how to drive a lawn tractor (mower).



 

Matt had such a great time. He kept telling us how he wants to live in the Country!




Matt was having a ball!




Uncle Jimmy is living the dream!!



Testing the Blog Medium

This is my first attempt at blogging. It took me 15 minutes just to figure out how to type this message. Apparently, one has to remove the formatting before being able to type.

I thought this might be a cool way of sharing family information, vacation pictures, recipes, and who knows what else.

I thought that it might be interesting to explain the nature of the blog address.

One of our favorite movies is "Somewhere in Time." The main character is named Richard Collier, and the film goes back into the era of the 1900's-specifically 1912. Hence, our blog address name. Of course, all the other cool names were already taken. So this was our creative attempt at a cool name. Somewhere in Time

I am still struggling to figure out how to add text back into a paragraph I have already typed without erasing half of the paragraph. So, I am hoping to improve my blogging skills as I go along.

Mary