Gobble! Gobble, Gobble!

This year I had way to much to be Thankful for!!!  Yes, there have been heartaches along the way and troubles, but I think that is why they call this life and not heaven.  I believe in heaven you definitely don’t have to deal with the problems and issues you do down here on Earth, but this is truly a gift from God.  He sees you through what you need.

We went to my aunt’s house in Southern Oklahoma.  When I think of Southern Oklahoma, I definitely don’t think of ice and snow, but I don’t think of cold weather in the desert either… That’s what I get for living in SW MO, where if you don’t like the weather, hang around 30 minutes and it’ll change.

When we got down around the Arbuckle Mountains we were greeted with ice on the trees.  My aunt said it had rained there earlier that morning and that it froze into the trees.  On the radio heading out of town we heard that it was snowing in town, we missed all of that.

When we pulled into AC & B’s place I was taken by the ice on the pipe fences… That meant I had room to play.  I grabbed my camera and took off running!

It was super cold down there for running around in a sweatshirt like I was but I didn’t care.  Once I finally came in from outside, I was behind everyone else, I heard my aunt ask where I was.  When they told her I was taking pictures, my uncle said, bring your camera, take pictures of this so out the back door I went, this time without my shoes on (you don’t walk in my aunts house in shoes) and of course they proceeded to be mean and lock me outside but whatever, I got the pictures they didn’t!

So after I finally got back inside I decided to take pictures of the desserts lining my aunt’s table.  I had my telephoto lens on and was to lazy to switch out so I was standing clear across the kitchen to get these photos.

Those are the only food photos I chose to take….

Last year PC and I spent Thanksgiving afternoon running around in the 50 degree weather taking photos.  I thought it would be fun to do that this year but 30 degree temps, No Thank you!  But in the end we wound up running outside for a few snap shots.  As you can see, here I am setting up the photo… no I’m not shooting into a mirror, PC was on the other side of me taking my picture while I was playing with the settings to get our photo.

Then we ran around to the front of the house to use her front entrance for a few shots.

And the sky was absolutely breathtaking!  These photos don’t do it any justice!!!

Then back to the back of the house to take more sky photos!!!  It was beautiful!

On Friday we got up and the girls headed out shopping, the boys headed on into Ft. Worth for the NCHA Futurity that is going on there and then we all met up at the house my aunt & uncle are renting (to save on hotel bills) and stayed the night there.  Friday night we got to watch some of the World Finals for the Open and Non Pro classes.

So we had an eventful and productive Thanksgiving weekend!  I was sad for one reason, I didn’t get to see the Sunrise on Saturday morning over my aunt & uncle’s field like last year :(… Oh well… I got to go to Ft. Worth, you win some, you lose some!

Peace, Love & Family time!

Nicole

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The Show Must Go On!!

So last weekend we were supposed to have our daughter.  I got the text from my mom Friday afternoon around 2, talked to her on the phone at 4 and told her we’d be there after we picked Tbug up from cheerleading at 6.  Once we got to the hospital and realized how bad things were, PC sent a text to Tbug’s mom to see if she could come and get her from us.  She said yes and met us at the hospital.  We felt terrible, especially because Tbug asked me what was wrong, and I couldn’t lie to her.  I broke the news to her as gently as I could and then I sat in the waiting room with her waiting for her mom to show up, crying my eyes out hugging her.  That was actually a cheerleading competition weekend that we were going to take her to, so that just added that much more heartache to it all.  She was excited because we were going to be able to make one of her competitions.

Saturday after everything that had happened, my dad pulled me aside and said that PC and I needed to make it to Tbug’s competition.  I’d already told PC if we could we would but things were so up in the air we weren’t sure what to do or what would happen.  I started crying and my dad told me that my grandpa’s favorite thing was family and that I now have a family I need to take care of and that’s what he would have wanted.  So I told PC that we were headed to Branson to see Tbug’s performance.  We decided to keep it a secret from her and just show up.

I’m so glad we did.  I think she was excited to see us.  Unfortunately I was there more in the physical form than the mental form but I was there to cheer her on never-the-less.  They placed 4th.  Here are some photos from their competition.

This was right before it started.  The music was geared up…

Here’s all the girls.

And their off!

I’m jealous, about here I’d have been on my head… and she did a complete walkover.

see, told ya 😉

The look on her face cracks me up here.

Sad thing is… I was in Ballet and never could do that 🙂

this was the end.  She looks like she’s singing here… LOL

Right after the competition we met up with her to let her know we were there and that we missed her.  We are making up our last weekend this weekend.  I think we might even decorate the tree, but shhhh don’t tell anyone and don’t sue me!  We have to do it as a family when we can 🙂

I hope you are all having a great weekend!

Peace, Love, & Family

Nicole

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Ride Grandpa, Ride

My grandpa grew up riding horses.  That was one of his favorite things to do.

A couple years ago he went on the hunt for the perfect horse.  Everyone helped him track down a horse, when he finally wound up with this Appaloosa that he named Chico.

As my grandpa got older it was harder for him to ride and we all knew that but we knew this horse would make his day.  You would go down to his house and he would say,

~If it wasn’t so cold I’d ride Chico today
~If it wasn’t so hot I’d ride Chico today
~I’m going to ride Chico tomorrow if the weather permits
~If I had shoes on Chico I’d ride him
~The next time your dad has the horse shoer out I’m going to have him put shoes on Chico

…. you name it, he’d say it.

My grandpa has always made it known that he wanted to be cremated.  I’ve known that since I was a little kid.  That is a freaky thought as a little kid, I’ll tell ya, but I’ve always known that.  Well as we started making funeral arrangements we came up with a brilliant idea, Grandpa needed to ride Chico.

With the help of the funeral home, we took a pill bottle of my grandpa’s ashes out of the urn and took them home with us.  To some of you, this may sound morbid… and it’s maybe a little weird, but I’ve heard of people doing things like this with their loved one’s ashes.  Putting them to sea, putting them on top of a mountain, you name it, I’m sure it’s been done.

Well Grandpa, you are finally getting your dream, Ride like the wind!

Tuesday was the funeral.  We all gathered at their house Tuesday evening around chore time and placed my grandfather on Chico.

Here Chico is wondering where dinner is

This pic is a little blurry (sorry!) but Papoose, Chico and Pacco couldn’t figure out why UJ was teasing them with feed.

This is Pacco.  He is my grandpa’s Jassonkey (or so I called him).  My grandpa said he wanted a jack@$$ but we weren’t sure if this was that or a donkey… so I called him a Jassonkey 🙂  Grandpa named him Pacco.

Finally UJ was feeding them a little so they’d calm down.  With UJ, my 2 aunts, my aunt’s boyfriend, UJ’s girlfriend, my dad, PC and me outside (we were waiting on my grandma to get out there) the horses were a little uneasy.  They couldn’t figure out what was going on.

AJ took the honors of helping Grandpa onto Chico’s back.

Chico wasn’t completely cooperating.

Then UJ gave them their feed.

and pet Chico.

Grandma and my dad watching.

Then grandma chased Chico with a stick so he’d run like the wind.

Pacco came to see what we were up to.

And finally Chico came back wondering if we had more feed.

I’m not going to lie, that was a very hard and difficult thing to do, but it was oddly reassuring that my grandpa got to ride his beloved horse Chico.

Nicole

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September 4, 1954

July 21, 1921 a family in middle Michigan welcomed their second child into the world.  They now had a family of four, Father, Mother, Daughter and son.  Later this family would welcome 3 more daughters into their family.  Once the depression was in full swing, the father couldn’t take it anymore and left his family.  After their son finished his 8th grade education and his mother working many jobs to support her family, the son, the now man of the house, ended his education and he joined the work force to help his mother and his family out financially.

Twelve years later in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 5, 1933 a family of three, a mother, father and son welcome the newest baby girl into their family.  Five short years later she would lose her father to pneumonia, one month before Penicillin was FDA approved.

The son later went on to serve his country, joining the military during WWII.

She went on to graduate from high school and attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  She was the only female dental student in her class.  The summer before her final year in school she was waiting tables at a truckstop outside of Ann Arbor when he walked in the door.

It must have been love at first sight because 6 short weeks later they went into Indiana and were married.

He was 33 years old, she was only 21.  She entered a pre-made family becoming an instant step mother to a 12 year old boy.

Her family was displeased with her because she never finished college, married a “homely” man who had an already made family but she never looked back; at that time men took care of their families and two income families were unheard of.

They went on to have two more daughters to give them a family of five.  Her mother finally accepted her husband when the first child was born.

They were married 53 years.

Nicole

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I've been gone :(

I’m not sure if many of you have noticed or not, but I’ve been gone a few days.  I wish I could say I was off on a caribbean cruise or in the desert (hey it should be warm there, right) or at a Hawaiian getaway, but sadly, I’m not…  Friday afternoon my mom sent me a text about 2pm and later I talked to her at 4… they had to rush my grandpa to the emergency room.  He passed away Saturday morning at 4am.  We had a funeral for him yesterday, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.  No one has any idea how much time I spent with both sets of my grandparents throughout the years.

In fact, this may be sad but true, I think I spent more time with my family as a whole than I ever did with any of my friends, and no that isn’t sad b/c I got to spend time with my family, but I didn’t have many friends either…  Oh well it’ll suck someday because I’m an only child and all my family is older than I am but for now I wouldn’t have changed a minute of my life for anything in the world.

I think the part that freaks me out a lot… the grandpa that died, is the one I referred to in the post Thursday.  Anyway I just thought I would let you all know that I hadn’t completely fallen off the face of the earth, some of you who I am friends with on facebook could have seen the posts :(… but the rest of you, I promise I’ll be back.

All I can say right now is… This Sucks!  I hope you all have had a better week/weekend than I have!  I’ve been walking around in a haze all weekend/week so far.  I’m down to one grandparent… and I’ve lost 3 of my bestestestestestest friends.  I just know he isn’t in pain right now and isn’t suffering, however I so want to be selfish and keep him just a bit longer!

So I now ask a favor of you guys out there in bloggy land… tonight if your kids are getting on your nerves, hug them just a bit tighter!  If you can, give our parents, your grandparents, your elderly neighbor a hug.  If you aren’t close to them (proximity or otherwise) call them and just let them know that you love them!

Ok I’ll quit being a Debbie Downer (no idea where that phrase came from, it just sounded good) and I’ll be back tomorrow with a great, wonderful, happy, I think post 🙂

Peace, Love, & Grandparents!

Nicole

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June 10, 1950

August 28, 1928 in a town near Peoria, Illinois a bounding baby boy entered the world to a single mother.  Three years later his sister was to follow.  It was said they both had the same father and the family knew who the father was, but the mother and father weren’t married, something that was unheard of in those times.  A few years down the road when the boy was 6 and his sister was 3, his mother loaded them up into a car and drove them in to an orphanage in St. Louis with her to never be seen or heard from again.

On July 30, 1932 a mother and father in rural southwest Missouri welcomed a baby girl into their family.  She was the fourth girl and the fifth child.  They lost their first to an oil lantern explosion at an early age and had one more, a son after the last baby girl born.

An older husband and wife decided that they wanted a family.  They headed to St. Louis to an orphanage in search of a child to call their own.  A six year old little boy stood out to them.  They loaded him up and moved him to their home, 4 hours from that orphanage in St. Louis, his life would never be the same again.

That young man went on to lead a greater childhood than he could have possibly imagined.  He always remembered his previous life and sometimes wondered why it happened that way, but loved his mom and dad and never looked back.  His senior year of high school WWII was in full swing.  He dropped out of high school to join the Navy and defend his country.  He wound up getting his GED through the Navy.

That girl we spoke of previously, went on to graduate from high school in 1949.

At a revival held at the Town’s memorial hall, the girl and her sisters and cousins were singing.  Her older sister was dating a guy who had come to watch her sing.  He brought with him a group of friends.  In that group of friends was this boy, who wore a Red wool shirt and a pair of blue jeans.  The girl caught his eyes and when she and her sister walked past him, he complimented her on her ankles.  He was an ankle man.

Soon after the couple were married in her parents house under her father’s stuffed Moose head on June 10, 1950

This lovely couple went on to have 4 children, a son, twin daughters and another son.

They have been married for 60 years

Nicole

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Christmas in October…..

Today Prince Charming and I have been married for 2 months.  2 whole months.  Can you believe it?  I can’t.  Someday’s it doesn’t even feel like we’re married and other days I swear we’ve been married for 50 years.  I guess that’s what you get though 🙂

I swear the last couple days I have been in a funk and I’m not sure why… maybe it’s the weather change.  I would rather be warm/hot than cold.  I hate being cold b/c I have the hardest time finally warming up.  But one good thing to come from this time of the year is the holidays, Thanksgiving (U.S.) and Christmas!  I love those times of the year and really the time between the two holidays.  It’s great because I get to see some family more often than not, my family takes a yearly vacation that I hope is still on this year (so far so good but who knows right this minute….), the people, the atmosphere, the smells (oh the smells!) and so much more!

Sunday we got an early Christmas present.  It was an accident we got it but let me back up and give you some story leading up to the Christmas present.

We had Tbug this past weekend.  Saturday morning PC and I woke up and started cleaning on our house.  There’s still a lot to be put away from the move in before Christmas because we are having it at our house this year :).  I’m excited.  Anyway getting off subject…. we definitely wanted to get the living room cleaned up, the kitchen, and the MIL room put back together, cleaned out both vehicles (so I’m working on another 101), all that fun stuff.  By about noon Tbug and the rest of us were going a little stir crazy so we decided to head in to town and get lunch and maybe look for a third pumpkin to carve.

We wound up at Lowes.  I’ve been wanting a new kitchen faucet but in my opinion, they are ridiculously priced and I’m not ready to shell out the money yet.  Not $150+ for a pretty one.  I’m cheap not easy 🙂  That’s my motto.

So after I day dreamed about my new kitchen faucet we wandered over to my dream refrigerator

Then we wandered over and dreamed about my new washer and dryer.

so then we looked at cabinets and counter tops.  Yes we were killing time so we didn’t have to go home and clean more… LOL.  So our next stop was around to the small appliances: coffee makers, deep fryers, etc.  When we got to the end of the aisle I went left and PC went right so I turned around to see what he was up to and that’s when we spotted it.  A lovely front load dryer with a bright yellow sticker on it.  We walked over to see what was up with it and finally got a worker to come talk to us about it.  It was a close out that was last year’s model and it was a showroom model.  Hmmmm… the price was right and they said if we’d take it, we could have the pedastool it was on… those things are $199.99… for free!  I looked at PC, he looked at me, and we grinned.  I told him I had the money to buy it and it would help cut down on our electricity bill… maybe we should buy it.  So…….

You are looking at our gorgeous new dryer.

But you might be saying, wait… Where does the Christmas present fall in?

Never fear, I won’t leave you hanging 🙂

So Sunday we were headed to my parents house to go celebrate PC’s birthday and I was texting my aunt about our recent purchase.  She has the front loading Washer & Dryer and loved them so I was like Wow, just Wow.  She laughed at me.  Then she asked if they had a washer.  I was like No :(.  She said well if they would have, I’d have bought that for you for Christmas.  Well we were like score, now we need to find a washer… LOL.  Ok we aren’t that petty!  But we did look.  And looky looky here:

My mom called my aunt and said she’d make up the difference if need be but my aunt said nope, as long as they don’t expect anything else for Christmas.  LOL.  We don’t expect things at all and so we were joking with her and I was like, Yey I won’t have to find places for more stuff. haha.  And PC got a comment about we’d have clean clothes for Christmas.  We were like, um we had a washer… but ok works for us 🙂

Ok so thanks for indulging in my long rambling story full of pretty dreams!

Nicole

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Make-up Blog

Okay I promised a better blog post today ;).

A year ago late August through September I took a photography class with these 2, Evelyn & Josh. They went on to start up a photography business, Longcoat Portraits.

And I went on to do this: aka learn to take photos better 🙂

I read somewhere that to learn to take better photos of others, you needed to be able to tell them how to pose. So PC and I set out on a mission… learn to pose each other so we could tell others what looks best for them. (Yes, I read that)

We weren’t picky, scenic shots, people shots, we tried it all.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE railroad tracks for some reason.

We’ve tried to learn to crop….

I’ve done photo challenges. This one was 1 object 5 places. You can see the rest at my flickr site. My item was sunglasses. (I was running around at the falls in my socks… haha)

We’d pose 1 and set the timer and run to get ourselves in the photo too 🙂

Eventually We got a remote.

See, cropping would have been better here… get rid of that nasty tree in the background… but then you lose the falls… sigh!

We had photos like this…

And photos like this.

Photos like this….

And photos like this.

There were walking photos… (and the train tracks are back)

And standing photos.

Sitting photos….

And up-close photos.

Random photos

And Group photos

Kissing photos

And sheer chance photos (the 10 second time was set and yes the marry-go-round was spinning)

We took so many photos and we laughed and had a fun time! Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that bring you the most joy. Apparently having fun and doing photo shoots is what brought us lots of fun times last fall!

Peace, Love & Good times

One Big Happy Family!!!

So this last weekend was our FIRST weekend as a family. We haven’t seen PC’s daughter since the wedding (we only have her every other weekend). I’m doing my days out of order, because well I haven’t dumped Saturday’s pictures on my computer yet, they are still on the camera, but Sunday’s pictures were on the computer so you know what… we’ll go in reverse order b/c that’s the way I roll 🙂 Sunday was PC’s dad’s company picnic and he got a few extra tickets so we could go with him. It was held at a small amusement park type place (like my explanation) called Carousel Park.

**Warning… This is another extremely photo-o-rized blog post**
Wow Now I’m making up words! But I like pictures, it’s all good!

And I know it was the last weekend of Summer, but holy moly was it hot! We hit up around the 94 degree mark that day. It was a warm and toasty one but we had a blast!

PC and Tbug

Me and PC

I learned last year when we went to Silver Dollar City, NEVER ride the Tea Cups with PC! He made me sick last year so I didn’t even attempt to ride with them this year!

My Father-in-law didn’t think I could do this and get both of us in the photo. Boy little does he know about my ability to get people in photos when I’m taking the photo 😉

Standing in line waiting to ride the big pirate ship. You know the one that swings back and forth…

Our cute little family… waiting for everyone to get seated on the big pirate ship…

The big Swings that swing you way out!

Tbug and Grandpa

Oddly enough, I can ride the Tilt-a-Whirl… Go figure….
PC is getting good at taking photos like that too!

We then went to play Mini-golf (still at Carousel Park)
As you can see my FIL is with the big Gorilla.

Miss Tbug with the Gorilla.

I needed my turn too I guess 🙂

The bat was swinging and getting in the way 😉

Oh no do you see her? I lost her!

She’s winning that Gator over!!!

Seriously dude, you’re going to have to speak up, I can’t here you!!!

TBug on the Hippo

Oh No Save me!!!!

He’s a hungry hungry Hippo!!!

Riding the Ferris Wheel

I’m not a big fan of ferris wheels and no I’m not afraid of heights, I’m not sure what my deal is…

That was our view. And that’s Route 66 to the left there.

Oddly enough, I managed just fine!!

Bumper Cars!!!

Tbug got in on the side with the gas… we should have swapped places, her drive, me run the pedal!

Bumper Boats. These felt great since it was so hot out!!!

We were after each other!!

Man if looks could kill! That’s a terrible picture of me but it’s funny, I thought I’d still share… don’t hold it against me!

Miss Tbug looks refreshed! And look at PC’s face. haha 🙂

Then we went to jump on… well… this thing… It was fun. Bad part was the sand all around it. We had sand in our shoes/socks afterwards. But if you go down it (like I did a time or two) it’s fairly soft landing!

We ended with Go-Karts!

ha Eat my dirt 😉
I was leading, the were right behind me!

Step carefully!

Tbug’s hair is always in her face… 🙁

So I know, these aren’t wedding photos… but if I let it go by too long, we’d be way late on seeing these :). I’m still not 100% sure what to do about the wedding photos. I hope I get to see them this weekend… fingers crossed!

Love ya guys!!
Peace, Love, and Eating Dirt (haha)