My Birthday!

This is a little late but I wanted to just show everyone what my awsom husband surprised me with for my birthday! I had a wonderful birthday, lots of birthday wishes, some cute little stone bowls which I love to collect and use and a great night out with all the kids, minus honeymooner Casey and Jacob, at Royal Tokyo. And just when I think it's all over Randy surprise me with the above, a gorgeous Buckskin Quarter Horse mare that his dad had. I've been drooling over her for awhile now whenever we go down to his dad's but never dreamt she would ever be mine! Thank you Randy for another great surprise!

Happy Birthday Lia!!!!

Swimmer girl!

Riding the ponies at the steam engine show this past summer.

Patiently waiting for the parade to start at Colby Cheese Days.

1st Communion

With Godmother Aunt Casey

With mom and dad for her first communion.

Cheerleader Lia-she's the one on the far right!

Where does the time go! I must be getting old because I say that a lot lately! Little Lia has turned 9 today! My oldest grand daughter who has a wonderful sense of humor, beautiful green eyes, loves to read and is already a very talented writer has her 9th birthday today! Courtney will have to put some of her stories on her blog! She has a wonderful imagination and is able to get it all down in her journal! Hope you have a wonderful day Lia, we all love you very much!

A Visit to the Past!

Our home in Illinois. We lived here from the time I was going on 2 years old til I was almost 12. I know it was only 10 years but I still remember it so much as being "home" Except for new siding it looks exactly the way it did when we all lived there. So many memories of so many great times. My mom, dad, my grandparents(dads mom & dad) my brothers Dennis, Jerry, Dave, my sister Liz and after an addition was added to the left of the house my Aunt Helen and cousins Joyce, Roland and Warren came to live with us. There are tons of memories of large dinners, picnics on the weekends, walks in the woods in the back, ice skating on the ponds way in the back, sleding on the hill and I could go on and on. Maybe that's why it seems more like home than any other place, it's where I remember everyone still all being together. Joyce and I shared so many memories that day, thanks Joyce!



Barn/country club. When we moved here there was no barn. My dad, my grandfather and I think my Uncle Ted all worked on building this dairy barn which was later converted over to a country club when my dad built the whole farm into a golf course. It looked a lot different back in it's day. Now it is being used as a mechanics building.



More photos of the house

Back of the house.

Looking out the back door of the house towards where the sheds used to be and is now part of the golf course.

The fairway to the first hole is on the left and the house is setting to the left in back of me.

Where I went to school until the 7th grade.

A little hard to see but we lived here for 5 years after our farm house/golf course before moving to Wisconsin. When we lived here the willow trees were half the size and we had horses and kept the pasture all mowed. It has sure grown up and looks much different now.

This is the new Marengo High School. I was amazed, our old high school is now the grade school and probably a third the size! Hard to believe!

Two weeks ago we took Casey and Jacob down to Illinois to take off for their trip to Spain. We left a day early so we could spend some time with my cousin and her husband and they showed us around to a lot of the places where I grew up. It was quite a trip down memory lane and I loved every second of it! Thank you again to Joyce and Ron for their wonderful hospitality and the awesome tour of my home town.

Library Cabinets

Cabinets above the doors that are going to be used for storing huge notebooks that document all the events that the library does. The librarian told us it used to take only one notebook a year but they are now up to four a year! Very busy little library.

Upper cabinets, lower open cabinet by wall and table looking shelf to the back on the right.

Here is a close up of the above open cabinet by the wall.

Close up of the wall cabinet.

A huge open cabinet that holds all books that come in from other librarys.

And a close up of the table type shelf

We have been very slow this summer with woodworking jobs so it was nice to get this job for our library here in Colby.Everything is solid oak and the stain was matched to the existing cabinets. It is such a nice library and is growing every year so the need for more shelving and storage was a must. Thank you Colby Library for letting us help you out!