Well we had our last Christmas get together for 2008. Kerri, Rich , Tanner and Carter came today to have lunch and just hangout together.
The boys got the Wii for Christmas and brought there games to our house to play on our Wii. We all had so much fun. Jerry has the game"Blazing Angles". World War II planes and air battles. Carter wanted to beat uncle Jerry really bad, but I don't believe he did. He did beat him in some of the other games.
Carmen and Tanner had quite the competition going on some of the Wii play games. She beat him on everything, but he had his best score their last game of the shooting game. I played Jerry in racing cows, oh my gosh I did so bad, I was picking off the trees(not supposed to they aren't on the race track!) and not so many of the scarecrows and other items that you are supposed to hit. He beat the pants off of me! I guess I am going to have to practice a lot before playing him again.
We really need to get together more than just holidays. We really enjoyed the day.

A very special Christmas

The Sunday before Christmas was a very special day for our family. We had Christmas with Tori and her son Kory(who is our Godson). We had so much fun that day. Kory loved playing on the tredmill and making a fort out of the cushions. They were able to spend the whole day with us. Kory will be three in April.

A very special Christmas

Christmas Grotrian Style...means laughter, joy and good times. As you can tell by the pictures Texas hold em is a regular game played whenever we all get together.
Tylan brought his girlfriend Lisa. She is a very sweet and funny girl. Carmen brought her friend Travis also. Anthony and Kate also were able to come home again. We were so excited that they were able to come all the way from Kansas. Nathan was also able to come. Darrin had to work.

So a good time was had by all.

Christmas Grotrian Style

Great Aunt Kimi and Marshall. His favorite toy was an empty water bottle.

Carmen and Travis full of life.

Christmas Grotrian Style

Uncle Jerry and great Nephew Marshall.

Brrrrrr.!!!!!!!!!

Well winter has decided to come in full force. It is -2 and with the windchill factor it is -30. I hope this is not a sign as to what we are in store for this winter. Yikes!!
Our electricity has went off about 3 times today. Luckily it was only for a few seconds.
I stayed home from church to get things ready for today. We had over Vic and her son Kory(our godson.) for our Christmas. Since the weather was so yucky Jerry, Carmen and tenley went and picked up vic and kory so she wouldn't have to drive in this weather.
I had a beautiful hot lunch waiting for everyone when they returned from Church. We had so much fun. Kory will be 3 in April. But boy can this boy talk. One thing that we thought was really cute was when ever he would talk about himself it is always Kory said, Kory wants, Kory doesn't want to do that. He loved the toy monster truck we got him. Jerry and Kory played for a long time on basement steps, setting up ramps and launching the truck from the top of the stairs.
Vic is starting college classes at Ivy tech in Elkhart January 12, 2009 for nursing. We are so proud of her.
I am sorry I don't have any pictures tonight. But I will have lots to post the day after Christmas.

Christmas

Well the busy Christmas season has started. I was hoping for a not so busy Christmas like we enjoyed last year. But no such luck. This is beginning to look like a very busy time for the Yoder family.
Last Saturday Jerry had his works Christmas party. We all met at the Blue Gate in Shipshewana. The weather was nasty, snowing and blowing! But it was so beautiful in Shipshewana, all the buildings with their beautiful white lights. The weather didn't seem so awful then. After the dinner Jerry had a Vegas night set up for his employees. They had a lot of fun.

Sunday we took the girls to Amish Acres for lunch and then we went to the round barn theater to see the play" Its a wonderful Life". We all had a good time. Later that afternoon Diane came and picked Tenley up and they went and saw the movie" High School Musical 3", then on to Hacienda to eat after the movie.
This weekend is also busy, tonight we have my office Christmas party, Sunday we meet in the afternoon with our bible study group for our study and our Christmas party. Then next Saturday Christmas with the Grotrian side, Sunday a special Christmas at our house with our special (unofficial adopted) daughter and her son our God son. Then you have Christmas Eve and then Christmas day...Whew! But not done yet! We have Christmas at our house with the Kerri, rich, tanner and Carter on the Sunday after Christmas. We are very busy but love being with everyone.
I made Jerry promise me that New Years Eve would be spent at home doing only fun stuff. Games, movies, pizza, beer and plenty of laughs.
So I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and always remember the Reason for the Season is Jesus! God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

Black Friday

Well I did something today, that I had vowed 22 years ago to never do again.. I went shopping this afternoon. I wasn't one of the crazy people that goes out at 4:00am. But I went out at noon and met Carmen at her place of work. She worked from 3:30am until 12:30pm. We shopped for my Jerry, Carmen and Tenley. It really wasn't bad. I didn't have traffic issues, or parking issues. I drove into the parking lot and found a place not to far from the entrance. I was actually back home by 2:00pm.
I was surprised though with as many people as there were, with the way the economy is here . Since we live in Elkhart county ( the RV capital of the US) everyone predicting very little after Thanksgiving shopping would be done.
Even though it wasn't bad I don't see myself making this an annual event.

Thanksgiving with the Grotrian Side

We actually had Thanksgiving last Sunday November 23rd. My brother Mark had all of us their after church. We didn't have a traditional dinner. We had a taco buffet. It was great. I was really sorry my sister Kim's son, daughter in-law and grandson couldn't be there. But everyone else made it.
Anthony, Kate and Marshall came from Kansas, Darrin, Becky and Nathan came from Manchester, Indiana.
All the rest of us live in the area.
We all just spent the afternoon either playing with Marshall, watching football or just catching up on all of our lives.
It seems like just yesterday my girls were little and we were all getting together to let the kids play. Now they are dating, getting married and having children of their own.

Me, Carmen and little Marshall. He is so cute. I can't believe he is only 7 months old. He has the biggest dark brown eyes.

This is a picture of me with my baby(who will be 20 in February).

This is my brothers youngest son Darrin, and his girl friend Becky. I can't believe how much Darrin looks like his dad.

Great grandpa Grotrian with his second Great grandson Marshall Grotrian.

Thanksgiving with the Grotrian Side

This my nephew Nathan Grotrian with his nephew Marshall, who is my great nephew. They are both great to me!

change

As all of you Tenley has been attending the Young Adult Program in Goshen, since she graduated High School.
Well she has had a very big change take place in a very short period of time.

As most of you know, a year ago she was told she was to advanced to recieve the help she would need to live on her own. We then got in contact with our state representive, who got another ball rolling for her. She went through alot of testing last month. We were hoping she would qualify for this waiver. Well Wednesday afternoon, I recieved a call saying she qualified! We were so excited( but then came the bad news), she couldn't attend the Young Adult Program any more. She would have graduated in April of 2009. But we had to tell her Thursday evening that Friday would be her last day. Needless to say there were many tears shed, by all four of us. Then we all talked about how this will be a good next step for her.
She will be home doing nothing for 3-6 weeks until we are contacted again and start setting up her new program.

Today was a Happy and sad day.
When her bus driver Mr. Erb came to pick her up we took pictures of the two of them. He has been her driver since she was in sixth grade. He was shocked but very supportive. He told her he was going to miss her and loved her.
Everyone at the Young Adult Program was very supportive. They all told her how much they were going to miss her and loved her. She got all of their address's, phone numbers and email address.
So starts a new Chapter in the life of Tenley Yoder.

Fall in MIllersburg... it is my favorite time of year. I love the beautiful fall colors,the smells of burning leaves and watching the farmers harvesting their crops. I also love making apple crisp, soups and stews.

When Carmen and Tenley were little we would spend time raking leaves making piles then jump in them and roll around in the pile. When we were all done playing outside we would go inside and have cider and cookies. We would sometimes find some of the prettiest leaves lay them on a sheet of wax paper, scrape some crayon shavings onto the wax paper and then lay another sheet of wax paper on top. Then I would iron them until the crayons melted and the papers stuck together. The girls liked to hang them in the window or use them as place mats.

Fall in Millersburg

Best Friends

This is a picture of my best friend, my husband Jerry and I.

I love this picture of us. I can't believe I don't have that many recent pictures of just the two of us. Usually one of the girls or someone else is in the picture with us.

Curb appeal

The first two weeks of October we had some landscaping done. We had the front sidewalk taken out. We now have this beautiful limestone walkway from the drive to the front porch. Earlier in the spring we had two huge maple trees taken down. Next summer and fall our next project will be to build a garage and do more landscaping.

Grandma and Grandpa Yoder and Grandkids

Pete and Shirley were up from Sarasota, for a week. We all got together at Jerry's sister Kerri's house last Sunday. Back row: Tanner, Pete, Carmen. Front row: Carter, Tenley and Shirley.

MMM.. Chicken Wings!

As you can all see Tenley really enjoyed her dads BBQ wings Thursday night! She didn't even know she was covered in the sauce.