What a Great Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful.  Great food and great company for Turkey dinner.  Everyone brought a lot, ate a lot, and took home a lot.  We played games, searched and planned for our Black Friday shopping adventure, and ate some more.  

Girls searching the paper preparing for the shopping day ahead

Jodi and Steve - don't they look great!

The girls playing a little Mad Gab.  Merry was awesome!

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Just a quick note to tell you all happy Turkey Day. We are heading to Illinois for the weekend to enjoy time with all Chris' family. I anticipate lots of good food and even better company. I've already got the turkey brining and a mint chocolate cheesecake ready to go. Jodi will be making ham and sweet potato casserole (which I'm really excited about). And Merry will be making her famous Texas cake along with some pumpkin pies. We are looking forward to seeing everyone.

A note to our far away family and friends: we will sure miss you this weekend. Whether you are in Oregon, in Idaho, in Utah, in Wisconsin, in Florida, in South Africa, in England or where ever you may be, we will be thinking about you. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Wonderful Weekends

What a great weekend. Friday night we had date night. Went out for good food and a great movie back at home. Saturday we ran errands, went to the library, had our good friend Larry over for dinner and watched another good movie. Dinner was fantastic. Chicken Marsala and then a great new lemon bar recipe for dessert. Hope you are all having a nice weekend too.

Bad News

We found out this week, after a lot of added pain, that Chris needs to have back surgery a second time. He re-reherniated the disc that he originally had fixed in September. Bad news for both of us. Him because he has to deal with all the pain. Kim because she has to deal with him. Just joking. We can't wait for him to start feeling better. Poor guy. Keep your fingers crossed that this next surgery actually works.

Pictures of our best friends babies

These are pictures of our best friends, Mike & Ahren's little babies.  They are all grown up now, but thought we would show you how stinkin' cute they were (and still are of course).

Here's Macy

And here's Cole

We miss you Chris Cremer

For those of you who don't know, our nephew/cousin, Christopher Cremer had an incident with an ATV last month and broke his collarbone.  He grows so much that the doctors are convinced it will heal quickly.  He has a doctors appointment in a week to see if he gets to start basketball practice.  By the way, I think our influence on him over the summer is going to pay off with him going out for the tennis team this year.  He bought himself a new tennis racquet already.

We had a great time with him this summer and miss him a lot.  You can see the picture above of Venita, Christopher & Chris in front of the Field Museum in Chicago.  Look how much taller than Chris he looks.  Wow!

Memories from traveling

One of our favorite spots to travel to is Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I think for me it is so incredibly beautiful I enjoy it every time. In this picture you can see a herd of buffalo and the Teton mountains. There is something about seeing things as they are meant to be, it is really relaxing there and a recommended time to go is about first week in Novemeber. Sking has not begun so deals on food are better but it is getting colder so wildlife is dropping down into the valley to be seen. The first time we went we saw a herd of about 3000 elk.

Relaxation 101

Hey we are having a great weekend, Kim is in the kitchen cooking up some cookies and dinner for tonight. We have done some shopping and made it by the library and watched just the right amount of TV and movies. Sleeping in is a treat and we made it until almost 8am, that is rare for us. The weather has turned to snuggle from fall and snow is in the forcast soon. Anyone intersted in raking some leaves, we are allowed to put out 40 bags a week and I am sure we have more than enough.

I'm a little worried that Chris is taking pictures of himself while I am away during the week. Maybe you guys need to check in on him more often when I'm out of town.

Santorini (Greece) Donkeys

So on our trip to Greece and Turkey I had my own camera, Kim and Mike are close to professional photographers and Ahren and I are what you call point and clickers. Well I seemed to wake up a little before everyone else in Santorini and I got to take some unusual pictures. Seen above is the construction donkey, the paths are very narrow and have lots of turns and steps so the only way to get material to a site is use the donkeys.

The same holds true for getting stuff out, here you see the garbage truck donkey.

How's the back?

So the as you can see the scar is small.  My back is getting better everyday and I am almost entirely off anything for pain except ibuprofen.  It takes time to heal and I am not even allowed to rehab yet.  I have been walking on the treadmill and following Kim around the yard as she continues to do all the work.

  And before any of you can start in yes below my hand, the curve, yes that is a love handle and with Kim's cooking I get as much love as I can fit in.

Hello from Monterrey

Kim is in Monterrey working this week. Monterrey is actually a city of between 1 - 2 million people. It is quite large and quite developed in areas. The people are truly wonderful and its a nice place to have a plant to visit.


Chris is holding the fort down at home. Can't wait to see him on Friday.