Fun Times.....

                      Friday night Amy, Christa and I went to the Garth Brooks concert.

        Christa and Amy had to take a selfie of them self's drinking beer. They are so funny

The concert was one of the best concerts I have been to, it is in my top 3 for sure. We have all been big fans of Garth for years so we had to go when we found out he was going. We asked Cassie to go with us too but she went to the 10:30  show with Nick because he is also a huge fan.

It was such a fun night!


Sharon

"Grandmas are moms with lots of frosting." ~Author Unknown

 Amy got a trunk full of fabric for free. She went through it and took what she wanted. Then she brought it over to me and I took what I wanted. The rest I took to my Mom's garage sale and gave it all away.

 I saw this plaid fabric and thought it would make some cute pajamas for the kids.  So Wednesday I whipped up some for Josie and Liam and yesterday I made Eli's. I think for free fabric they turned out pretty cute. They kids loved them. Sewing them was way easier then trying to get them to pose for the picture and not be silly.

The kids spent the night at our house last night because Amy had to work her evening shift ever!  Putting three kids to bed is a lot of work! Glad it was only for one night. Rick had to get them up and get them to school this morning since I leave for work at 5:00. He tells me he got them all to school on time :)

 My Christmas Cactus is in full bloom so Christmas must be right around the corner. I was a little worried about my plant because it was my Grandma Becker's plant and I never want to kill it. It had out grown it's pot and I had to replant it. I was so nervous that I would kill it. It usually has a bloom in June/July and this year it was very small. It was looking a little sickly for most of the summer and I was getting more and more nervous that it was not going to make it. But it came back and is now looking great.

I finally got our mailbox post painted. It was painted a ugly brown that was peeling off. It had been that way since we moved in 4 years ago. I had left over red paint from painting the front door so that is what color it gets to be. It looks much better now when I come home everyday.

Tonight I am going to Garth Brooks with Amy and Christa. We are very excited!

Have a great weekend!
Sharon

It Was All Worth It.....

                    Eli in his Ninja costume. He told me I better watch out when he gets all the bad guys with his sword.

 Josie wanted to be Bell this year so of course she was. She told me she had to have roses and they had to be red.

 Liam wanted to be a zombie from Mine Craft. It is a video game that he plays that I guess is very popular with kids his age. 

 Oliver was my biggest challenge this year. He kept changing his mind and finally picked a fire truck. He was super excited to get it today. Rick painted the red on the box for me and cut out the ladders.

Every year around August I start asking the grandkids what they want to be for Halloween because I tell myself I am going to start early and get them done. This year I started making them just over two weeks ago. I was a bit stressful trying to get them all done. But it was all worth it when I see the happy smiles on there faces when they get to see there costumes for the first time.


Next year I swear I am going to start them in June.....

Sharon 

Picture Time.....

 Diane decided that we needed a new family picture. We managed to all get together last Sunday. Christa took the pictures for us since she has the best camera. They turned out pretty good.

                                                                        Me and the girls

                                                                     Mom and Dad

                                                                I love this picture.

                                                                  Me with my sisters

                                                        Christa, Cassie and Amy

Since there is four birthdays in October we also celebrated them. Christa and Dad were born on the same day so they have always taken a picture together. I am not sure how it started but every year they always take one of Christa giving grandpa a kiss. It is always a cute picture. One of these days I need to get them all out and put them up together.

I spent my days off sewing Halloween costumes. I have Eli's and Josie's done. Yesterday I took off work early and worked on Liam's. I am 95% done with it. I have to finish it tonight because he has a costume/birthday party to go to on Saturday. This weekend Rick and I are going to make Oliver's costume.

Rick finally got out hunting this week. He has been so busy making strings that he has not been able to get out. I am not going to go hunting this year. I have to many other things I want to do.

Hopefully my next blog I will have pictures of the kids in there costumes!

Sharon

It's Been A Long Time.....

Gosh I have not updated since Oct. 1. That is a long time for me. The days just go by so fast and I always seem to have 10 things going on at once. So I will try and update you on my super exciting life...Well okay it is not that exciting :)

We got to take our last camping trip of the year on Oct. 3-6. We went back to Yankton SD again to White Crane State Park. Rick wanted to shoot the last outdoor Nation Target shoot for the year. He did good coming in 3rd place. It was super windy and cold so he was not real happy with his score but still managed to have fun.

Other then shooting we took the bikes out for a couple rides and took some walks and just relaxed. The only bad part of the trip was Dexter. On Friday night he started to vomit. He was up three times that night getting sick. It was the same on Saturday and Sunday night. He did not eat anything in the four days we were there. I figured he must have had some kind of stomach flu. But as soon as we got home on Monday he ran right to his food dish and started eating and was just fine. The dumb dog was just upset to be away from home.  He has separation anxiety from me when every I am gone to much to suit him. And gets very anxious when every we do anything different. Poor Dexter is going a little bit crazy.  I am about at my wits end with him. It was like having a baby with us camping. We were up every couple hours with him every night.

Morgan on the other hand had lots of fun camping. She spends the whole time looking for squirrels to chase.

I did not take a lot of pictures since we were just there but here are a few of the ones I took.

              I got Eli and Oliver matching Carleton Jackets. They look very cute in them.

Sunday Cassie and I went to the Tiny Diner in Minneapolis for brunch. It was really good and lots of fun.

 

We also went fabric shopping. I got all the fabric for the kids Halloween costumes and also got some wool fabric to make myself a new coat. I  cannot wait to get sewing my coat. First I have to get the costumes done! I have a lot of work to do  before Halloween!

So that is about it for  my super excited life.

Sharon

"Love Yourself, Love Others" - Mick Fleetwood

Last night Jane and I went to the Target Center to see Fleetwood Mac. It was a great show! It is so fun to see the artist that I grew up hearing. They sang for 2 1/5 hours, I could have listened to them for another 2 hours. It was worth every penny we paid for the tickets.

I took today off of work and I am really glad I did. We did not get home until 12:30 last night. This morning I woke up at 9:00 when my phone rang. I guess I should not stay out past my bed time :)

 Amy thinks she needs to take  a selfie with every animal she can. Here she is was a toad we found at Grandma Becker's house

       Last weekend Rick and I had a free day so we invited the kids over for a fire and supper.

 Eli did not want to eat he just wanted to fill the dump truck full of rocks. For some reason I found rocks and sand all over the lawn.....

 We got Josie and Liam new bikes at a garage sale last week. There bike were getting a little small for them. Josie's is a little big for her but will be perfect for her next summer. We also got Eli a little bike at Walmart. It was only $29.00. He was so excited but then would not ride it. He would just push it around the yard. It was pretty funny. 

 Liam loved his bike. He had to learn how to use the hand breaks and how to shift. We took him out on Sunday and road around in a park near there house. He did really good. He picked up how and when to shift very fast. He was very excited to have a better bike to go riding with Grandpa Rick.

 After supper the kids discovered all the toads and frogs in the yard. Oliver was so cute with his. He even let Eli see it.

Josie go one too!

I am loving the cool weather we are having today even if it is raining. It is a perfect day for some chili so I have a big pot cooking now.

Later Sharon

Fall Camping.....

Fall is my favorite time to go camping. I love that the campground are  less crowded and the weather is cooler. There is noting better then sitting by a campfire on a cool night.

This past weekend we went to Stevens Point WI. We decided to go there because we have a friend that is going to college there and after some research I found out they have great biking trails. We left on Wed. afternoon and come home on Sunday morning.

 We stayed at Jordan County Park. It is a great little park. There is only 22 camp sites and when we got there on Wed. only 5 of them were in use.

                                     Our campsite was good sized and very shady. 

We got a new truck last week! We got a  2013 used 2500 Dodge Ram diesel. It only had 12,000 miles on it.  It pulled the camper so much nicer. We wanted something a little bigger for towing so in a couple of years we can upgrade our camper to something a little bigger.

Back to camping. The campground had some really nice trails though the woods. Morgan has gotten so bad walking, she pulls and pulls. It is time to get out the training collar again.

 We biked the Green Circle trail on Thursday and Friday. It is a 26 mile trail that goes around the city of Stevens Point. The trail is mostly crushed rock and in the woods. About 1/3 of it goes through the neighborhoods of the town. There are several off shoots on the trail so you can make it over 30 miles.

Thursday it was raining in the morning and the weather said it was going to clear up in the afternoon. So I checked the radar and it looked that we were in the clear. So we packed up the bikes and went to the trail. We go about 9 miles in when it started to rain, then it started to pour! We decided to turn around and bike back to the truck. We go so wet and muddy.

They have several parts of the trail that go over swamp and wet area's so they have wood over them. We were biking along on one of them in the pouring rain and Rick was way ahead of me. I was thinking to myself as I biked slow that he sure is going fast on this slippery wood. I went around a corner to find him on the ground! Yep his bike slipped on the wood and down he went. He sprained his pinky finger but other then that he was lucky. He slowed down after that :)

Friday the weather was beautiful so we went back to the trail and biked the whole thing. It is such a great bike trail.

The river was really high and flooding. There was several places over the trail that we had to go through water. Some local people said they have never seen the trails so flooded. 

                                 We saw lots of deer on the trail.

                    One of the off shoots of the trail went though a sculpture park.

On Saturday we just took it easy. We went into town to the farmers market and then just hung around the campgrounds. We had wanted to go the a mountain biking park but it was closed because the rain had made the trails to muddy.

                                             They named a town hall after me :)

 Saturday night we left the dogs in the camper and went for a walk around the park. It was so pretty out.

                                           This is the river below the dam

                                                 Another great trip!

Sharon