Two times the LOVE!

For those of you who keep up with us, this may be "old news" already. But we are VERY excited that over the course of three months, from early Oct. to mid Jan., we are going to be blessed with the arrival of TWO granddaughters! Kate's baby is due Oct. 8th... a sister to join Asher and Gabe! And Gretchen and Leon learned this week that their first child will be a daughter as well!
Her name will be Sydney Grace, and she will arrive sometime around January 19th. To see her first picture... hit the link to Jameson's Journeys on the left side bar of this blog. We are, of course, SO thrilled at all this wonderful news. Grandchildren are one of the best things in our lives! (their parents are pretty cool too.)

School Daze - year 26

Today marked the beginning of classes for my 26th year of teaching. When I look at that number, I think about when I was just starting to teach and we would celebrate anniversaries of that nature for the older teachers who always seemed VASTLY older than I feel today! Funny how time changes your perspective.

My students today all seemed rather excited to be back in school. That is no small thing when one considers that I teach seniors all day and by Christmas they will all be wanting to move on to college as fast as they can! I overheard one of them yell to another in the hall... "I've got AP Lit and it's SO COOL!" - I hope she feels that way in another month or two.

We are still in the throes of a heatwave here in St. Louis. Today the temps hit 105! Breaking a 34 yr. old record for hot days. It's rather scary to consider how much longer this heat may continue. We are all praying the cooler weather comes soon.

The photo was taken of Ed and I this past July. Hope our "school photos" come out half as well! To all of you who have to go back to the books this month... God bless!

Miss Them Already!

My grandsons have been on their way back home for about 5 hrs. now and I am missing them already! We had such fun for the past 9 days. It was wonderful being able to spend full days with them, getting to know their routines, likes and dislikes, and planning little surprises for them along the way. Both of them are so fun-loving! We can't get over how quickly the week flew by!
A few more "pool shots" and such taken after mom and dad arrived back from Florida.

My 100th Entry! And it's all about swimming elephants!

Today was the day we went to the zoo! And what a great day it was! We arrived about 10:30 am and decided to see what we could see before the heat and/or tired kidlets made us stop. Well, we stayed until an impressive 2:15pm and then we went home, ate a belated lunch and swam until 6. Then we ate AGAIN (did I mention my grandsons like to eat?!?) and then Asher hit the hay by 7:15 and Gabe lasted till 8:30.

The boys did great! We saw.... penguins, puffins, bears, elephants, hyenas, anteaters, hippos, rhinos, cheetahs, leopards, prairie dogs, big turtles, snakes, fish, seal lions, and monkeys. We ate ice cream, frozen cherry fanta, water, chips, apple juice, and golden grahams. We got t-shirts with elephants on them and rode on the zoo train! It was a total zoo experience! What follows are just a few of our exciting photos!

Boys = Fish!

While everyone over 25 in the family is off to the Gathering in Orlando, Ed and I got to babysit our grandsons! So far, we've been having a LOT of fun. Took Papa to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time in 23 yrs. last night... and it was "insane Birthday night" there... so Papa had a real test of his abilities to survive in a chaotic environment! The pizza was good and the quiet when we reached the parking lot was even more appreciated than ever before! :-)

The boys LOVE the pool. Gabe has swum just about every chance he can... sometimes 3 times a day. Asher has discovered that leaping from the steps to Grandma is a good time and that pool water is NOT for drinking! Since he took swimming lessons, Gabe is gaining more confidence. He now will leap into the deep end and swim out to the shallow end and he's getting better at it each time he does it! (all under Papa or Grandma's watchful eyes, of course!)

We Made It!

Well, we may never lay another ceramic tile in our lives - but with sore knees we grouted and scrubbed the last of the family room tiles today... then we went swimming. Tomorrow we de-clutter the rooms and put them back together, but it's done! We love it and the whole house seems larger! Can't decide which room seems the most changed... but we're glad we did it!

Here's the dining room!



Here's the kitchen


Here's three different shots of the family room.

Stage Three - Week 2 - Flooring Saga Continues

Okay! So it's crunch time on this big project. We have our grandkids arriving in just 2 days for a week long visit... leaving us just today and tomorrow to finish our project. We got behind a bit over the weekend due to some mechanical snafus with some equipment at the vineyard and also due to the fact that old knees overestimated how long they could hold up under the strain of crawling on them for about 5 continuous days. However... the last tile will be on the floor by 2:30 today and the grouting will begin in the kitchen tonight. (with time out in between for Ed to go spray the vineyard.) That being done, we'll have tomorrow to grout and seal the sunroom and start to put the house back together. (It presently looks like a bomb went off in just about every room of the place because we keep moving things to work on flooring!) We shall succeed... we think... provided the boys don't arrive too much before noon on Wednesday.... hey, but if they do, we'll teach 'em how to scrub floors!!! My assessment: Ty what's-his-name on Extreme Home Makeover has NOTHING on the Staude's... we need a TV Show!


This is our kitchen floor with NO flooring.. pretty scary! I say it looks like an Jackson Pollack "dark mood" painting.


Kitchen with new tiles down extended into the garage entryway. Are you in awe of our skills yet?


Ed doing his best impression of a floor "elf" from Harry Potter.... behold the man with bionic knees!


Sunroom tile VERY near completion at approx 2pm this afternoon.

Ceramic Tile is Fun! (or Stage 3 )

Well, we tackled the fearsome foe.... ceramic tile! Last night with the dining room parquet wood flooring GONE for good... we tackled the TILE! And actually it was pretty fun! The difference was dramatic! Still have to grout it, but you can see what it will look like. Tonight, the tile will creep onward into the kitchen and then beyond that into the sunroom! Can't wait... no more ugly grey indoor/outdoor carpet in the ol' sunroom! YAHOO!
Oh yes... we also put a new lighting fixture in the dining room.

Two views of the dining room.



Closeup of the ceramic sans grouting.

The "project" Continues!

What is it about summertime and projects? Maybe I just watched too much HG tv while on vacation, but we suddenly found ourselves all fired up to tackle phase 2 and 3 of the big kitchen/dining room/sunroom remodel. First a stop at Lowes... I love Lowes; everything you've ever wanted to do to your home all under one roof! Came home with paint (phase 2) and ceramic tile (phase 3) and a whole lot of other things too... like new lighting and outlet/switch covers and valances for the dining room. Fun!
So here at last is phase 2 - the paint. The color is called Apricot....but it's really a spicey warm color that hearkens to Tuscany... which is the look we're going for. The dining room got the deeper color and the kitchen is a lighter tone of the same hue. Today we start the tile.... so it'll be a bit before the stage 3 photos are posted because we have to lay it down, wait 24 hrs., then grout it and wait 24 hours, and then seal it, and then wait 24 hrs. - 3 days per room.... across three rooms so we're figuring on 5 days total to complete all the rooms on a "rotation" of steps basis. We'll see! After this we'll be ready to be ON HG tv!


These are the "before" and the stage one (cabinet refinishing) shots. We did this last April.


After the painting... stage 2 shot! Note the new lighting fixture too!


The view from the dining room through to the kitchen. Lots of "work tool clutter" in here for now... but it will vanish soon!

Special Friends and Old Times

Had a chance on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to reconnect with some friends we don't get to see very often. The Mahnkens of Iowa were passing through St. Chuck on their way home from a family trip. Chris and I were roomies way back in the early 70's at Seward. Her youngest daughter is our godchild and we usually only see one another once a year. So it was fun to relax, talk into the wee hours of the evening and just plain catch up on all that's been going on for us. It's not often you have someone in your life who knew you back in high school... yes, Chris and I really go all the way back to Lutheran High West in Detroit... class of '73.... yikes! That's only 34 years ago now!!!! Okay... I am stopping while I still feel young enough to write this.
Mahnken family: (l-r) Chris & Merle, Sarah & Hannah


Chris and I - I don't think we've changed TOO much!!!


The girls... Sarah on the left (going to be a Junior this year) and Hannah, headed for the 8th grade!

Hot weather in the Heartland!

Had another very hot day here in St. Chuck... temps well into the 90's again for about the 4th or 5th straight day. So of course, we worked out at the vineyard, building a loft in our little barn. Must say it makes the barn MUCH more organized and tidy, but Ed must've lost about 10 lbs. just working in that heat!

So we leaped into the pool on our arrival home...and are going to have an in home "movie night" and sit in the A/C to our hearts' content!




More Door County pics to share.... enjoy...

Happy Birthday America

The 4th of July! What is it about this day that makes us all kick back, relax, and be hugely proud of our country? I can honestly say I've never had a "stressful" July 4th; not something one can say about a lot of other holidays on the calendar! Maybe it's the fact that this day doesn't demand that we shop, mail cards, go to church, or ANYTHING except maybe put out a great barbecue, swim, see a local fireworks display, and enjoy time with friends! In any case... here's to you, America! Happy Birthday!

To the Door and Back Again

We just arrived home last night from a week in one of the most gorgeous places in America.... Door County. For about 13 summers now we've spent at least one week in the Door Peninsula. It's a place where we all sort of "rediscover" ourselves, and we always return home refreshed and ready to tackle another year of work and life. This summer we were there from the 23rd through the 30th... so for the next few posts I'll have to share some photos and some "Door Time" with all of you!

The UK - Part III

Here are some more of my shots from the trip.. this time all from Ireland.

1. This first one is one of my favorites... boats lined up along an inlet just below Ross Castle. I may make an enlargement of this one and frame it.


2. A shot of Ed and I in a little seaside town on the Ring of Kerry with the North Sea as a backdrop. All the shots of the two of us were shot by semi-camera illiterates on the trip... so many are either, a. dark, b. grainy, c. shot from too far away... etc. sigh... can't have everything! We did get some very nice shots of each other individually.... This one was nice, but again shot from too far away to enlarge it well.


3. The three girls and I at Ladies View overlooking the ocean. We look severely windblown, because we're so high up that the wind is always blowing here. But it was fun. The girls were a blast to travel with and we had such a good time!


4. The total Irish scenic package, cows in the foreground, oceans with islands in the background... and green beauty everywhere else in between! Beautiful!


5. A shot of me up at Ladies View, so named because Queen Victoria used to travel here with her entire entourage of ladies-in-waiting to admire the vistas. She was smart and supposedly LOVED natural beauty... since it couldn't have been too easy to get to this spot in the 1860's either!

UK trip - Part II

As I said yesterday... a few photos each day will tell all about our trip.
(top to bottom; remember, you can click on each one to see it larger... and use the back arrow to revert to the blog)

1. The cottage of Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife) was getting a re-thatching job on the rooftop. It was quite interesting to see that in progress as well as to tour the house.

2. Slowly, yet ever so slowly, I climbed a 700+ ft. mountain. It had a ruins of an ancient Welsh fort, Dinas Bran, at the top and overlooked an entire valley below. You can see some of our hiking group still working their way toward the summit in the photo. You zigged and zagged your way stopping to soak up the scenery and catch your breath. We stayed in the tiny town below of Llangollen, Wales... at a 400+ yr. old coaching inn. Very cool!

3. This is us at the top of Dinas Bran in Wales.

4. Me on the ramparts of Beaumaris Castle in Northwest Wales. We caught the ferry from Holyhead just a few minutes from this castle to get over to Ireland. Beaumaris is huge and quite interesting. However, once you see it, you never fantasize about living in Medieval times again! The rooms were dank and small and the floors were an uneven stone mess! You could imagine those poor medieval ladies busting their hips from falls at every turn! I also can't imagine trying to lay siege to this place and hoping to win!

5. Yes, another castle... this one is Ross Castle not too far from present day Killarney, Ireland. It sits on an island in the middle of a lake. It was the last castle the Oliver Cromwell destroyed near the tail end of his 'reign of terror'. It seemed so desolate and yet so beautiful all at the same time... this is one of my favorite shots from the trip.

More tomorrow!