#29 - #4 W. 6th Street, Gerald, MO

This is it, the new house. HUD kept rejecting our offers. Then they realized no one else was going to bid on it so they went back and accepted our last offer.

It doesn't need a lot of work. We are going to put hard wood floors in it and change out the bathroom sink. It has a pedestal sink now and there is a big spot, so we are going to put a sink and cabinet Jim bought a long time ago in there ( and I get it out of my garage). There are a couple of walls to fix and some painting to be done. The front door needs a seal and the kitchen needs a dishwasher. There is a big deck on back of it and some mature trees, but they are not too close to the house. On the side of the house is a tree that needs to come down. It promises future problems if it is not cut down.



This makes house # 3 in Franklin County and house #2 in Gerald. The address is a little tricky. I know Jim is just chomping at the bit to start work on it.

Our Youngest Is Coming For a Visit

Allison announced she is coming home April 28th through May 6th. Everyone is so excited, including me. I cannot wait to see her. Her baby is due Aug 15th.
In this picture she is pregnant, but doesn't know it.

This means the Kuhls will be here, too. That includes the g-kids.



Christmas 2008

Happy Valentines Day Everyone

Jim and I got engaged 20 years ago yesterday. I get flowers from him every year.
I also get a card from the cats. Jim works so hard at finding the right card from the cats. I always look forward to opening it.
Jim & I get a card from the Kuhl's every year. It is always fun to see what creative thing Sara had the kids doing or caught them doing. This year she caught them dancing in the kitchen together.





Hope you had a nice Valentine's Day!

Making Progress

Sunny and Lexi are getting to trust each other more. Yesterday morning I walked into the bedroom to fine these two laying on bed rather close to each other and napping. This is the closest they have ever slept to one another. They have been together about 18 months now. Sunny is an unofficial 10 years 5 months and Lexi will be 9 years old March 8th. Both cats will now let me pick them up hold them for more than 2 minutes. Lexi now will also sit on my lap sometimes.

Baskets for Beine

Baskets for Beine is another idea from FHM to raise money for the Beine family. Officer Beine was our resource officer at school. Last July while working at one of his several charity events he was hit in the head by a golf ball. It caused a lot of brain and eye damage. Our school committed to raising money for the family so they can pay their utility bills for at least this school year.

We have a pasta dinner about this time every year. It is held in the cafeteria.
The students make cakes for dessert and the lady in charge, Mary Stone finds a caterer to furnish the pasta, salad and bread at a low cost.

This year we added Baskets for Beine. All the Teams made baskets to be raffled off. Our team ended up with 3 baskets with a Valentine theme. The intent was to make one big one, but I made two smaller ones, then a third one was created when items were donated to our team. This is one of our baskets.



Jim joined me for dinner in the school cafeteria. The place was packed. I bought tickets ahead of time so we had to only stand in the food line and not both the ticket and food lines.

Snow Days - Jan. 27 & 28, 2009

Solar light in our front yard


We use wood in our buckstove, snow covered our wood and all our front porch.


I was so glad to see the sun, that I was taking pictures of everything - including our flag.


Some of the woods behind our house.


Pool area - you can see how close the woods are to the pool and house.


On snow days I like to try to catch up with school work, but Lexi thinks I need to spend it with her. So on this day I pulled a chair around by mine and put a cat bed on the chair and put Lexi in it. She thought it was wonderful and settled herself down for some naps on and off for the two days I was off.

More Birthday Weekend

Travis appears to be in deep reflection. I believe his was watching one of the flat screens keeping up with sports news!


Saturday night, the kids went down and Sara & Travis were both still awake, so I thought I better get this picture. Usually the pictures I get of them are when they have fallen asleep watching TV.


Jackson and Mckinley watching the Bills game. They pretty much missed their naps that day.


Sweet Jack!


We received 4 extra tickets for the bills game for being season ticket holders.
It worked out really nice that Sara and Travis came to town and the game was in the afternoon, so they didn't have to arrive home in the middle of the night.



Mckinley is still little, so little she didn't weigh enough to hold the seat down unless she sat on the very edge.


We went to Humphrey's, the only bar on SLUs campus before the game and rode the bus over to the Chaifetz. We didn't have time to eat lunch so we had drinks and the kids ate their snacks.


The weekend before my birthday Jim and I went to the BX at Scott Airforce Base.
They had really good deals on shoes, so we found shoes for both kids. Mckinley decided she really, really liked hers...


so much she had to wear them to play in with her pjs on ...

and sleep with them that night.
Bless her heart, she is a girl taking after her grandma.




Mckinley playing.

Lexi wanted her picture taken - she felt a little left out while the kids and g-kids were here.


Jackson playing the guiter.

My 50th Birthday

My official birthday picture taken by Jackson.

Jack(son) and Mckinley getting some play time in while waiting for dinner at Pios on Saturday evening.

Jack(son)and me. Jack has a mouth full of chocolate. He told us his address to get that piece of chocolate.

Sara, Travis, Jack and Mckinley watching the bills game.

My birthday cards