Ohhhhh.. the weather out side is frightful, me? i got.. a rifle.

Hey all...

Just wanted to let anyone know that was wondering about us, we're ok. We went on a little "adventure" today and drove to Red Oak Iowa to find a generator. They sold out while we were there so thank god we got there when we did! It dipped into our emergency fund, but we're going to do some rearranging and we'll be back up and running ok.

Anyway, we don't have complete power, but we do have heat and interestingly enough, we have phone and internet, but no cell phones. Kinda weird surfing the net by candlelight. Speaking of which, thanks Carol for all those candles, I have like *all* of them lit LOL.

Updating some pics I took this afternoon. I wish I had taken my camera when we went to Maryville, then Clarinda, then Red Oak, we saw a lot of stuff. Maryville was the worst really. Dave the insurance man down the street from my old house got it bad - crushed his car with a fallen branch. Good thing he's an insurance guy :)

Anyway - the pics - you can pull up the larger images, but I didn't want to resize everything so it will be BIG when you pull it up.

These are taken about 15 hours after the last ones so you can see some big differences.

Overall, we're ok. We're Blessed!

Last post - ICE STORM

Last but not least.... we're in the middle of an ice storm. I have a feeling I will officially miss my first day of work.

Hmm.. wait I missed a day for the flood of Ought-Seven.

I tried to take some pics out the back door as not to bother gene (bedroom in front) but my camera is flash-tarded today and would not take and I was NOT GOING OUT IN THE RAIN, not with a digital.

Trying to post the pics. Now blogger is being slow-tarded. If they don't make it tonight, I'll update tomorrow.

I admit, it would be nice to stay home (especially if there's no work to be had anyway). Sit around, eat soup, work on scrapbooks, decorate the tree. Tanner won't be going to school tomorrow that's for sure!



*I* am the slow-tarded one. Blogger did not fail me. I'm so sorry baby. ;)

Anyway, these are night time pics, taken from the safety of inside my house with the door open. Keep in mind I have a yellow bug light 'kay??

I think ice might officially suck. Pretty no? Suck yes?
Ah we agree.

more posting

I told you I was splitting this up.

Chris and Amy made it to Fort Bliss. They say it's not Blissful. Eh. Welcome to the army!

So anyway, all the pressies had to be mailed, did that stop us from buying 18 things for each child. *noooooo*. Gift cards woulda been cheap to mail. LOL. It's ok, I just wish we could see them open their stuff!

This is one of 3 boxes, Us and great-grandma/pa (hi Carol/Bud!) all went a little hog wild and they might not even have to buy santa presents. Look at that haul. I'm so proud of my packing skills I took a pic. Dayum. I should pack boxes for a living (and then shoot myself cuz how freaking boring would that be).

Snapshot of the upper cabinets now in the kitchen that has no cabinets on one side! Thanks amber/cole/copper for bringing them down! Once they are painting and new handles and lowers, and a countertop and a pantry and a desk and and and and....

they'll be great. LOL. Right now, I love them because they are hung, by us, while we were irritated at each other and they didn't fall off the wall. All in all, an accomplishment.

Vaca ya'll

Weekend after Thanksgiving, Gene and I went to Branson. I've wanted to go during Christmas for like TEN YEARS. It was fun, and nice to get away just t he two of us. Bless Gene, he was such a trooper I could tell he was hell bent on ME having a good time. Gee I love that guy. But when I could see that irriatated look on his face (cleverly masked as a grimacing smile) we moved on. It's just my way of saying "thank you" baby.

See how handsome my cowboy is? Lurve that guy. BTW, off topic for a moment. Someone at work today asked me why I had a pic of Hank Williams Jr. LOL. Gee if we only had a fraction of his cash, we would be doing glass. :)

Back to Branson - here is the train all light up coming out of the tunnel at Silver Dollar City. Suggestion... if you're going to go to branson to Silver Dollar City, go later in the day We went around 11 and I thought it was too soon, the lights didn't come on until 5:30 and the shows were so crowded we couldn't get in to any but one. Oh, and dress warm!

Here is the new tree. It's computerized to christmas music and it plays every 15 min after 5:30. Very cool. I forgot my camera that takes video! Grrupph.

Best view of the tree. God Bless America.

And what day at SDC (that's Silver Dollar City ya'll) is not complete without pickled eggs. Amusing shot, and all my christmas shopping done in one fell swoop. Quite a score.

Sidebar:

As a child, we would go to SDC every fall and we always played the game where the first to see a SDC sign would win. Easy right?

Wrong! The glassman cheated.. it was MY FREAKING GAME! He pulls over, gets the birthday candy from Becky/David out of the trunk and dazzles me with that, then the next hill finds one. Dammit.

I had to rub his BACK for 20 min. *thanks becky* (sarcasm)

updates schumpudates

I'm going to post several postings! It just seems easier that way.

I need to force myself to write once a week at least, it seems the longer I wait, the more there is to say/tell/do and I just put it off, making it worse!

First, my sister's house burnt down the saturday after Thanksgiving! Actually her whole apartment complex went up. All of them were ok (although a neighbor went to the hospital). Thank the lord they all got out ok. their sweet little pets did not make it tho. I know they are all really sad about that. I'm holding out hopes that the kitty made it out the door and someone has him.

They seem to be doing *ok*. They have another house (and I'll never live in an apt complex in my whole life I SWEAR - you can't rely on your neighbors not to be dumbasses).

There were some questions about whether Chris would get insurance or not, I don't know. Hoping that will work out. In the meantime, they've received a lot of help from salvation army and red cross. BLESS THEM! So in this season of wanting places to help with your money, I vote for those two!

We finally got all of Chis and Amy (the other Chris, gene's son) christmas shopping done. I swear the girls will think that Santa uses USPS now. Don't even wanna know what the shipping will be. There are THREE BOXES. I took a pic of how tight I packed those boxes. *for real* I won't need any packing materials. Damn I'm good.

OK, going to post some pics from the past few weeks in seperate posts!