Friday, November 28, 2008

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.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

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!

Friday, November 14, 2008

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.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

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






Saturday, November 1, 2008

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.