First Snow

Exciting to see the trees planted a couple years ago garnished by their first snow of the season.

Pat Graduates!!

A monumental day yesterday as Pat received his PhD in School Psychology at Ball State - a long, demanding program successfully completed and topped off by an invitation to teach a class at BSU this coming semester. We were thrilled to be there for the graduation service.

Thanksgiving

Here it is almost Christmas and I haven't even posted Thanksgiving pictures. Once again we had our traditional Saturday after Thanksgiving get-together with our kids. My mom came and stayed a week and we had a nice visit. Angela & Ethan's family and Uncle John joined us for the Saturday fest. "A good time was had by all."

Halloween

The grandkids stopped over tonight in their Halloween costumes on the way to the ward party. Grandpa & I opted to stay home this rainy Halloween. Good to see the Munchkins in their costumes.

Fall - A Busy Season

You might say we've been busy as bees - or more exactly, busy with bees. We extracted our first honey harvest on October 1. We were able to extract 5 gallons of honey and about half pound of beeswax. George created a label for the honey jars, and we processed a good share of the wax into lip balm ( a combo of beeswax, almond oil, and peppermint).

The grandkids assisted with the extraction and it was a great time once we figured out what was wrong with the extractor. We used the Northeastern Indiana Beekeepers Association extractor - a good reason to join the group in addition to meeting some fun people. We'll attend our first meeting of the association this coming Thursday night.

This past Saturday, we were involved in the Ward's Provident Living Fair and exhibited information on beekeeping along with lip balm samples and a video of Harry & the kids extracting honey.

Trips to Chicago and Lafayette

Two wonderful weekends - Courtney's patriarchal blessing and Cole's baptism were reasons for travel and so enjoyed being with kids & grandkids. We were so pleased that Pat & Amber were able to stop to pick up Mom on their way to the baptism and John (alias "Uncle Truck") went with Harry, Levi, Natalie, and I. It was a great time.

More Grandkids - Visit

More Grandkids

We had Chuck & Amy's kids for a couple days while they took a short "no kids" trip for their anniversary. As always there's no getting around playing in the garden when you come to grandpa's house.