Just found out today that daughter-in-law, Judy, will be coming tomorrow, and bringing Kenny and the baby, Catalina.  One of Judy’s brothers is having a big birthday party, and she will be able to see all–or most of–her siblings and dad at the same time, any they will be able to meet Catalina.  With 13 siblings, it is hard for her to see them all when she comes to visit.  They will stay here overnight and return to LaCrosse sometime Sunday.  She will also see Greg and Lori.  Don’t know yet if she will go to their house, or if Greg and family will come here.  Greg and family cannot come until afternoon, and don’t know when Judy wants to leave.  It is a four hour drive for her.  She might just go to their house Sat. evening, after her brother’s party.  I will be prepared for either way.  If Greg comes here, we will just barbecue—with beans and a pasta salad, and maybe brownies for dessert.  Easy-peasy!

They (Jeff and family) will be leaving for Nashville Monday.  Jeff is staying in LaCrosse this weekend to get the bus ready for the trip, and to help the two oldest girls pack all their stuff up for their move to Nashville.  Hannah wrote on her Facebook page that she is both excited and scared about the move.  A whole new life for her and Mindy.  Now, only grandson Jordan will be left here in Wisconsin (LaCrosse) from that family.  Since he doesn’t have a car, who knows when we will get to see him.  Our family is all spreading far and wide.  Sad, yet exciting, to see the grands “speading their wings and fly”.  Yet, we still have baby Catalina, too.  Of course, we won’t see much of her at all—depending on where Jeff travels to in the summer.  She will definitely change the most between visits.

Will try to remember to take pictures while Judy and kids are here.  I didn’t even get a picture of Ken’s sis, Diana, while she was here!!  I couldn’t believe it when I realized it afterwards.  She was here for 3 weeks!!  Guess we were so involved with the roof project, and yakking about 1,001 things that I just never thought of it while she was here.  Well,  now that she is retired, hopefully she will come a little more often.  Love to listen to her southern drawl!

Well, we went to the dermatologist today.

The new Dr. looks like he should still be in college!  He looks more like a surfer—very short, blond-tipped messy hair.  But with a British accent.  Very nice, though.  He took a biopsy from my forehead right by my hairline.  That was the only thing he saw.  No freezing of anything else, either.  Pretty good for not having gone for about 12 yrs.  They had to put a pressure bandage on it because of the blood thinner I take.  Fortunately my bangs cover it

Now, Ken was another story.  He was sprayed a lot, and had 8 biopsies taken from both arms and back.

We will get our results back in 10 days.

Yesterday, when we picked up our frozen food from our sister-in-law’s freezer, I must have picked up a crate of food wrong, because my back is a bit sore.  Thank goodness I have nothing going on for the next couple days.  I can baby myself a bit. 

Started taking some of my summer clothes out of the closet yesterday and hauled them upstairs.  That always depresses me.  I wish I had another closet to keep off-season clothes in, rather than having to haul containers out of the attic to do the switch.  Ken always complains about the mess on the spare beds  and the 5 containers spread around upstairs while all of this is in progress. Because I don’t put everything away at once, stuff sits out for a while.  Will keep one container separate, filled with the clothes I will take with me—–if we go somewhere this winter.  Still no decisions on that though.

Boring blog.  Nothing much going on!!  Maybe will finally get the pictures up from Ken’s brother’s 70th party in the next couple days.  The family that reads my blog will like to see them.

Another kaleidoscope—-ducks and koi.

Our new roof. 

 It is so much nicer than our old black, warped edges, roof.  Most of the roofs being put on in our town are using shingles that look more like cedar shakes—uneven sizes.  It is still dark, but not black. 

We also have a new freezer, which was delivered this morning.  It is a little smaller than our old one, but should suffice.  This one has shelves in the door, which the old one did not have.  That will help make up the 3 cubic foot difference.

We are still eating vegetable soup and turkey, which I cooked up when we had to empty the old one and do something with some of the totally thawed food.  Most of the food was still frozen, and we will get that back from sis-in-law’s freezer soon.

Louise, one of our local grands, stopped in yesterday to show off her new glasses.  She is like me in that she likes “girly” things.  So, plain old glasses were not for her.

Her sister Sylvia’s prescription didn’t change, and she was happy with her present frames.  Sylvia is more sporty.

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Dianelub  had a blog up that showed pics of her and her hubby, using pics from old yearbooks with their
“now” faces put in.  I had fun with this, too.  Check out http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ , and have some fun.

I did Ken from 1954, using a recent pic of him.  Because of the beard, it didn’t work the best, but still got a kick out of it.  He actually wore his hair similar to this at the time.

I graduated in 1959, but they only do even years, so here is 1958.  I notice that they keep the original person’s face shape and chin line, which makes a big difference.  My inserted picture is the same in all the photos.

1960—I didn’t wear glasses back then!  But this picture actually looks a lot like the senior picture of an old girlfriend of mine from that time.

I forget what year this is—-late 90′s I think.  But I like the hairdo!  The picture also makes me look good.  Have decided that if I had had a narrower face, and a nice chin, I wouldn’t look half bad!  lol   I have always had a receding chin, which is even worse with all the extra weight I carry.  I am the chinless (or maybe triple-chinned?) wonder!

Thanks Diane, for a few good laughs this morning!!

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Tomorrow we have appts. with dermatologist.  It is an annual thing for Ken, because he has a lot of skin damage from working outside shirtless in the summer since mid-50′s to mid-90′s!   It has been quite a few years since I have gone, so it will be interesting to see what he finds, if anything.

Just a quick entry.

Roofers finished up Tuesday.  Enjoyed the peace and quiet yesterday.

Until the afternoon.

I went downstairs to get something out of our freezer, and found thawing food!

I did a lot of cooking yesterday, and will do more today.

Our sis-in-law, who lives behind us, was kind enough to loan us a couple shelves in her freezer for storing some things that could be refrozen.

Ken is out right now shopping for a new freezer.

This evening, Ken’s sis and above mentioned sis-in-law will be here for dinner—Papa Murphy pizza.  That has become a tradition when Diana comes to visit from Atlanta.  Diana returns home Saturday morning.  They were supposed to be here for dinner last nite, but Diana got sick.  Hopefully, it is just a 24 hr. bug.  She said she would call if they cannot come.  She was feeling better last evening when we took the food over for the freezer.  Don’t know if I mentioned that she stays with sis-in-law when she is here.

The roof looks great.  It used to be black, but is a little lighter color now.  They say it will help keep the upstairs from getting so hot in the summer.  Will put pics up later. 

Must get going and get a turkey in the oven—-one of the things that started thawing.

Have a great day!

The roofers are roofing!

And making a lot of noise doing it!!

They also have plastic draped over one side of the house to keep the old shingles from hitting the house when they drop them down.

Can’t see out the southside windows or go out the side door.  It felt so claustrophobic at first, I escaped to the mall.  I am fine now, except for a light nagging headache—probably from the noise.

Yesterday I said I would put up the pics from Ken’s brother’s party.  I lied—-well, not really, I just changed my mind.  I scanned in the newspaper picture and typed up the article that was written about Catalina’s birth.

Here it is:

Article on the front page of the Muscoda Progressive newspaper on Sept. 4, 2008.

New Arrival at Eagle Cave Campground

        Catalina Marie Stuebs was born Tuesday, August 19 at 1:46 a.m.  She weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 21 ½ inches.  Her parents are Jeff and Judy Stuebs of Eagle Cave Campground, Blue River—at least that is where they were at the time of the birth.  In about a week they will be calling some other location “home”.

        If you look back into the history of Eagle Cave, you will find the first wedding held in the cave 60 years ago.  But the owners of Eagle Cave and adjoining campground, Weston and Michelle Hanke, say the recent blessed event is the first birth on the site.

In Their Own Words!

        The Stuebs tell their story in the following way:

        “We sold our home and businesses in Onalaska, Wisconsin in November of 2007 and moved into a 1982 Silver Eagle highway coach which we had converted to an RV.  Most of our traveling has been in the southwestern United States where we picked up work along the way.

        “When we found out we were pregnant in the spring, we decided we would come back to Wisconsin to be close to our other four children.  We knew we wanted a home (bus) birth.  (Gretta, now 14, was also a home birth).  No midwives were available in the LaCrosse area so in our search we found In Due Time Midwifery in Avoca.  In mid-August we moved to Eagle Cave Campground and had Gretchen Spicer and Lindsey Kross assist us in the birth of our seventh child, Catalina Marie.”

        But there is more to the Stuebs story than that.  When they were looking for a campsite for the birth, they talked with the Hankes, who were excited about the plan—which didn’t work out exactly as charted.

        The Stuebs arrived at Eagle Cave August 18^th with the baby expected to arrive in about a week.  But by 9:00 p.m., Judy was having contractions, and by 1:46 a.m. Tuesday the baby was born.

        The Stuebses, who have been married 25 yrs, are both natives of Wisconsin, Judy from a family of 15 and Jeff with one brother.  They had lived and worked for 20 years in the LaCrosse area.

        They decided to search for a simpler life.  They converted the bus to a home and Jeff, Judy, and their two children who still remained at home, Gretta, 14, and Kenny, 11, took to the road.

        Jeff, a sign painter, says with the new life, he works about half-time.  Some of their journeys are planned.  Others are the result of arriving at an intersection and deciding which way to go next. 

        Prior to the recent return to the LaCrosse area, Jeff had been working, painting signs for a PGA golf tournament at Des Moines, Iowa. 

        When they leave Richland County they will be helping move two daughters to Nashville, Tennessee.  The young ladies hope to strike it big in the country-western music business with their Katrina Rose act.

        From there the bus and family will roll on down the highway to a PGA tournament at West Palm Beach, Florida where Jeff will again be painting signs.

        From then on, their travels, which include home-schooling Gretta and Kenny, are not definite.  But that doesn’t seem to worry them as painted on the side of their bus home is Soar on Wings Like an Eagle,  part of a Bible verse.  The entire Isaiah 40:31 is painted across the rear of the bus, something that brings many honks as they lumber along at about 50 miles per hour, towing a car and a motorcycle.

        Jeff says their home on wheels, pulling the car and cycle, gets about 11 miles to the gallon.  They stay at various locations for a week, or two, or three, and then move on.

        Asked about handling the bus in traffic, Jeff says a week before last Christmas he piloted the rig down Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, towing his load and with bicycles hanging.  They attracted considerable gawking from fellow highway travelers but had no problems.  He smiles a bit when he says his brother claims he starts to hum the Beverly Hillbillies theme song whenever he sees the rig.

        Meanwhile, back at Eagle Cave Campground, Weston says he is going to name the birth campsite “Catalina” in honor of the baby.

We had a great, but short visit with Jeff and family.

Will talk about Ken’s brother’s birthday party the next time.

Catalina got lots of loving from her Mimi and Papa in 1 1/2 days!

At less than a month old, all she does is eat, sleep and poop!  And cry a bit.  She is really a contented baby.  Jeff was like that when he was born.  He slept through the night before he was 2 weeks old.  Catalina sleeps about 6 hrs at night.

As promised, here are the pictures.

This one is a little fuzzy because I was holding her with one hand and trying to take her picture with the other—-and trying to get her when she wasn’t wiggling!!  This is the best one of about 5 I took.

Mother and daughter

Mimi and Papa and Catalina—Now she decides to be fussy!!

Jeff, Judy and Catalina

Gretta, Kenny, Judy, Jeff and Catalina

Of course, Ken had to have a silly picture taken by the handicapped sign again.

You all know that the two kids traveling on the bus are home-schooled.  Gretta is a freshman in high school, and is taking Home Economics.  She decided to make us dinner on Monday evening as one of her assignments.  She made baked salmon with a lemon butter and rosemary baste, fresh asparagus, rice, and a decadent cake for dessert.  It was all delicious, and the salmon was cooked to perfection.  She had a little problem with the cake because the bus is not quite level, and the layers came out of the oven lop-sided.  It was homemade chocolate cake with a rich, thick layer of filling made up of cream cheese and chopped chocolate chips and cocoa.  Then the frosting was home-made whipped cream topping.  It may not LOOK beautiful, but it was sooooooo rich and delicious!  I am such a chocolate freak anyway!!  I can still taste it.  YUMMY!!!

Mindy and Hannah stopped in Sunday evening, but we were ready to go to the motel by then, so only got to visit with them for about 15 minutes.  They were going to record their fourth song for their demo CD on Monday.  Doggone it—–I just realized I forgot to put their 3rd song on my computer!!  I meant to do that.  Nuts!!

Jeff, Judy, and the 3 kids on the bus will be heading out the beginning of Oct., along with Mindy and Hannah following along in vehicles—heading to Nashville.  The fella from the local recording studio is from Nashville, and has been helping them with where to live, and which areas to avoid, giving them a lot of good pointers and contacts. 

Judy said she would like to get over this way with the baby and the two youngest before they leave.  She wants her dad and her siblings to see the baby.  But, their schedule may not allow it.  She just has to wait and see.  Jeff is working for another week or so. 

They also gave us a newspaper from the area where they had the baby.  A reporter came to the campsite and interviewed them.  They made the front page of the paper, along with a picture.  Whenever I get it scanned into the computer I will put it up here.  A really nice article about them!

When we were in LaCrosse a month ago, just before the baby was born, they had a family picture taken the day after we left.  It was with Jacob’s camera, and he finally e-mailed them the pictures.  They had it on one of their cupboard doors.  Told them to e-mail it to me, too.  But I took a picture of the picture, since I didn’t know when they would get around to it.

In back:  Jacob 24, Hannah 19, Mindy 21, Jordan 23

In front:  Gretta 14, Jeff, Judy, Kenny 11

Must go and pick up a prescription from Walgreens.  We are still waiting for the roofers—it is now noon.  But, am not surprised.  Ken’s sis came over here early this morning, and was here most of the morning, waiting for them to come.

Ha!  I spoke too soon.  They have just pulled into the driveway!! 

I am at the motel by LaCrosse (West Salem) now.  The baby is absolutely beautiful—-of course!  lol  Pictures when we get home.

Will be going over there again today.  Have to get as much “Mimi” time in as possible with little “Cate”.

Ken’s brother’s party went great, too.  The only “damper” on the party was that it was misting the whole time, and Karen had planned everything for on the deck.  But they have a monstrous home, and everything was moved to the family room on the lower level.  Merlin enjoyed the memory gifts—gave him a chuckle.  I also found a figurine of a basset hound with an “Old Dog” sign around it’s neck.  Karen had made up a little history of his life, along with music and props, which mentioned a couple of the things our gifts were related to—-cherry picking and after-bath treats. 

I also got a hair-raising ride on Merlin’s gator around their back yard.  Pictures and details later.

We will be returning home tomorrow (Tues.) morning.  Talk to you then!!

I have really been a bad Xangan.

I have been reading my subscription digest, but doing almost no commenting.

So sorry!!

Not much time to write today, either.

Ken’s sis decided on a roofer.  One day it was kind of funny.  One roofer hung around talking so long, I was worried the next roofer was going to arrive before the first one left!  That didn’t happen.

They will start on the roof next Wednesday.  She wanted it done before she left, so that eliminated a couple of the roofers that came. 

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Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be going over to Appleton for Ken’s next younger brother’s 70th birthday bash.  It is so hard to think of something to get, so am just going with silly stuff.  Kind of “memory” gifts.  M ate with us for a while before he was married, and I used to make LOTS of casseroles.  When he got married he told his wife NOT to make noodles for him—he had his fill while living with us!  lol  So, of course I am giving him a package of noodles.  Ken is giving him some bent nails—-said M collected them when he was young.  Also found a cherry flavored candle that has cherries embedded in the wax.   One of their relatives had a cherry orchard up in Door County, and the family would spend a week up there, helping pick the crop, and making about 5 cents for every pail they picked.  Ken just picked up a package of caramels.  They would get 4 or 5 caramels as a treat after their weekly bath when they were little. 

That is what we have thought of so far.  Maybe be tomorrow afternoon we will have thought of something else.

We will be driving over with Ken’s oldest sister and hubby.  They cannot drive distances anymore, so Ken will drive their car.

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Then, early Sunday morning we will head over to LaCrosse to FINALLY see our newest granddaughter, Catalina Marie.  Talked to Judy a couple days ago, and little Cate is growing by leaps and bounds now.  Says she is a very contented baby.  They wanted us to come Saturday, because friends are giving Judy a baby shower.  But we had the plans made for M’s party already.  If we don’t go to that, Ken’s sis won’t be able to go—no driver.  We will  only stay until Tues. a.m. because Ken wants to be here when the roofers start on Wed..   I also have lab work scheduled for Wed. a.m.

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This is just too much crammed in at one time for me.  I wanted to wait until next weekend to go to LaCrosse, but Ken said no.  I also would have liked to have more time with the new baby, since it will be quite a while before we see them again! 

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Must get this day going.  Need to do laundry, get clothes together for the trip, make something to take along to the party tomorrow, and make something to take over to the kids. 

Tough to do when I have been battling a light depression, and all I want to do is sit and do nothing!!  The weather cooled down very quickly—got down to 41 a couple nights ago.  Makes me realize winter is not far away—-which depresses me even more!

Hope you all have a great weekend.

 Here’s a kaleidoscope I made.

Hmmm.  It came out kind of blurry.  Sorry about that.  Didn’t seem to be when I made it!

Ken’s youngest sis arrived from Georgia yesterday afternoon, and started calling roofers right away.  One came and gave her a price today, and another will come Tuesday.  Didn’t get calls back from the other 4!!  Very frustrating, since she wants the roof done before she leaves in three weeks.  She is staying with sis-in-law who lives behind us.  It has been two years since she has been here.

I told you the other day that I was going to put up pictures from when we went to see Ken’s other younger sis on Wednesday.  Well, I’m finally getting to it!

Linda had given me a belated birthday present—several small floral-scented candles.  Her hubby, Roy, decided they looked like deodorant sticks.

He is such a NUT!!!  He is going to hate this picture when he sees it.  lol

Linda loaned Ken a hat to wear for a while, and we decided it made him look Amish—do you agree?

Had to tour the outside of the house.  Linda loves puttering in her garden, and it seems to get bigger and bigger each year.  Here are several pictures.

Roy by side of garage.

Back of house.  All those sunflowers were “planted” by the birds, and Linda just let them grow.

Planting toward front and side of house.

Front of house

close-up of front.  She has all her halloween decor up already.

Linda and Roy and “friend”—-a much nicer picture of  Roy!

Linda and Ken sitting at “Kenny’s Korners”.  She even has a picture of him encased in plastic stuck in the ground by the gnomes.

Then Roy took a picture of Ken and I by the arbor.

He told me he was holding his cap in front of me in order to hide my belly.  I told him he needed a bigger cap!!!!!

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Lydia and her boyfriend, Nate, stopped in for a little while this morning while the roofer and sis were here.  They were just here overnight, because Lyd still wasn’t caught up completely on her homework from the days she missed.  She had to bring some things home she didn’t need for school.

 It was good to hear more about her experience with the Rams, and to hear about Nate’s experiences being a counselor at a camp serving mentally and physically handicapped people.  He had to go to the hospital once to be treated for a bite he received from a camper.  Poor guy! 

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Just read in this morning’s paper that the kite festival drew an estimated crowd of 25,000.  Amazing numbers, since our town’s population is only 13,000.  The festival keeps drawing more people each year, and it is only in it’s third year.

If anyone is interested, here is a link to an article on the St. Louis Rams website.

It is an article about the athletic training interns—-mostly about granddaughter Lydia and her training roomie, Samantha—along with a photo of the two of them at one of the games.

She is back at school, trying to catch up on all the homework she missed the first week of school.

For those of you who cannot do the link, here is the picture.  Lyd is on the right.

Photo is courtesy of the St Louis Rams website.  Thank you for the great picture!!

(#72 is their first round draft pick, Chris Long—son of Howie Long, former player and now announcer on tv.)

Intern Article Link

(It works now)

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Had a wonderful day with Ken’s sis and hubby yesterday.  Non-stop talking the whole time we were there.  Will put pics up tomorrow.