Broken Head

"The Great", CJ, Meg, and Me

 Just about a year ago, my best friend, CJ got married.  John Deere and I were both in the wedding.  It was a really fun day: getting dressed up, eating lunch together, taking crazy jumping pictures, and the like.  When the reception was over CJ and her new hubby--lets call him Mr. Painter left for home and we all stayed and cleaned up.  As the reception hall cleared out of trash and people, I set out to look for John Deere in hopes that we would be heading home.  Well, I found him lying on the cement.  He had fallen out of the back of a pickup truck while they were taking trash to the dumpster.  "The Great"--our fellow bridal party member and nurse, was checking him over, others were standing around waiting around for the first responders. They transported  him in an ambulance then loaded him in a helicopter.  We found out later that he had fractured his skull from ear to ear--like a broken-head-band.

I kept a journal of his ensuing hospital stay and recovery.  It was the scariest time of my life, but I am posting today to say thank you to God for bringing him back to normal.  He really answered my prayers that week--which I was sending to Him on rapid fire.

Also, to anyone who reads this, thank you for helping me (and him) get through this.  I don't know what we would have done without all of our friends and family there to help us.

John Deere, Chellie, and Mouth

Plow Day

 Every year for the past six years, our community has joined with the local Amish community to hold a Plow Day benefit for local families struggling with disease.  Every year the money raised goes to either an English or Amish child who is suffering with cancer or other incurable diseases.  This is truly a family event for us:  John Deere blacksmiths, my in-laws run a rope maker, distant family gathers from the community.  This year, my husbands aunt from almost an hour away even brought her kids to the event.  It is truly amazing to see community gathered like this.  I have included some pictures.  I know that the Amish do not condone photography, especially of their faces, so I tried to avoid that, but it is really hard when they are everywhere in support of the cause!

 Amish and English kids stood in line for hours, even in the rain, to make a rope!

 They had a man vs. horse pull.  It took 36 big men to pull these two huge horses backwards.

 You should have seen the look on the horses faces when they couldn't move forward--They were obviously not used to that.

 The two horses in the previous picture pulled an International M with no problems--imagine what these 12 horses could pull!

 I thought this was funny!  Of course there were lots of tractors there pulling, but they weren't nearly as fun to photograph!

 Amish boys were very excited to see what John Deere could create

My brother-in-law tries to catch a girlfriend. . .

Supper Club

Well, I have realized that I am too busy to be a very faithful blogger, but Friday--when my students are taking vocabulary quizzes and finishing up odds and ends from the week, I have realized that is a good time to blog--so I will catch you up on the week--mainly Tuesday:

Tuesday night was supper club.  Since my group of friends are all being married off and becoming domestic and boring, we decided to go out once a month to a place we have never been before.  This month it was Noa Noa--a sushi grill near home.

It was awesome!  I tried sushi that was tempura fried, and a really pretty one covered in orange sprinkles--which I later found out were fish eggs.  My main course was macadamia nut encrusted mahi mahi with grilled pineapple and banana--awesome!  One of my friends got swordfish and raved about it!  John Deere got the wood grilled red fish and he loved it, too.  I left with a "Jenny Craig's downfall" cheesecake and hopes to go back soon.

I apologize that I don't have pictures--my camera and computer are still not cooperating.  I hope to get some soon and then I may be motivated to blog more often. 

Hope all is well with everybody and if you get hungry for something new, try Noa Noa!

A Busy Week

Wow-- has this ever been a crazy week!  I was hoping to upload some pictures of lots of things yesterday, but the camera and computer were not cooperating--maybe next week.

So--this is how it went this week:

Monday: it was a Monday--ugh!  But, it was also my birthday--yay me!  The husband took me out for dinner and then we visited with some friends until past my bedtime.


Tuesday: The husband had a meeting, so I tried to catch up on grading, housework, etc.  Not much was accomplished because I wanted to go to bed early.

Wednesday:  Woke up at 4:30 because John Deere had to go to work early--he was headed south with a coworker to try and complete a two day project in one.  I was headed to Chicago with a group of students for a field trip--what a day we had ahead of us.

My class went to the Hull House Musuem at the University of Illinois--Chicago campus.  It was a cool experience into the life of Jane Addams, a social activist and welfare pioneer in the 1900s who worked with the very poor immigrant populations of Chicago at the time.  It made me think of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle when we were there.  After that we took Chicago's downtown walking poetry tour.  I was in charge of leading 15 15-year-old students through downtown Chicago, but it was awesome--they are such a good group!  I will post pictures later of all the cool city sights.  But now, my class is making a poetry tour of our town. They had to pick a place and write some poetry, later we will record it in our own voices and make an MP3 file and map that anyone could use.  We hope to give it to the Chamber of Commerce and public library so others could take our tour!  I am soooo  excited about this!

Thursday: Last night we closed on our mortgage re-finance.  We have cut our payback time in half with almost 1/2 the interest rate.  We are super excited to be saving tens of thousands of dollars, and we will have our mortgage paid before we are 40!!  Awesome


Friday:  The goal is just to make it through school today.  Lots of vocabulary quizzes and jeans day mean I am pretty comfortable.  I also have to post my last assignment for the course I am currently taking.  I am now officially 1/2 way done with my Master's degree!  Thank goodness for one year online programs!
It is cold-- 42 now, high of 60 today, so when I get home I am going to make some chili and unwind from this crazy week--maybe do some scrapbooking!

Tomorrow it is off to Indy to see Chellie for Parents and Family Weekend-- Maybe Sunday will be relaxing?!?

Hiking

 Camping means hiking!  Usually I just mosey along and look at the scenery.  This year, I went for it.

 I wanted to use hiking as a way to get some exercise, so I led the pack on our first hike through the sand hills.  Later I slowed down and took some pictures, but not as many as usual.

 I grew up on the river, so this was not really an extraordinary state park for me, but the trails were nice and the weather (at least for part of the weekend) was beautiful!

 They had an awesome pine plantation from when the park used to be someone's farm.  I couldn't believe that there was no underbrush here.  These trees were my favorite.

Well, Kansas people--here you go, I hope this doesn't make you miss the trees too much!

My nephew-- Ham!

 This is one of my husband's (and mine, too) nephews--let's just call him Ham.  I think I took more pictures of him than anyone/anything else on the camping trip--he is so photogenic even when he is grouchy.  He has the cutest mad face.

 As the third child in a family of four kids--the most recent being a pretty little girl--Ham is easy to overlook.  He is such a well-behaved little guy that sometimes we didn't notice when he was about to get into something ornery.  He loved the fire ring, the cook stove, and anything shiny!

 He also caught onto one of his uncle's hats and carried out his little gangster persona.  You can't tell from this picture but I think he is a budding Colts fan!

 Ham loves balls even more than he loves having his picture taken. These watermelon were wonderful toys until some crazy adults decided to eat them.  How dare we take his ball!

Uncle John Deere loves Ham.  He hogged him all weekend--Monday morning, when Ham was upset with his mother, John Deere took him and cuddled him for over an hour.  They entertained each other with funny noises and funny faces.  Uncle John Deere is convinced that he has some special kind of baby magic.  I call him "The Baby Whisperer"--hopefully that sticks around for when we have our own kids!

Happy Birthday Sisters

 LuLu, Mom, Me, and Chellie

My sisters and I were all born in September-- all at 3 year intervals.  Today is Chellie's 19th birthday--and the first one we have been apart for!  I love you Chellie, happy day!

My 25th (1/4 of a century--omg) is coming up on Monday.  The fact that I will be closer to 30 than I will be to 20 is kind of upsetting, but I am pretty happy with my life, so I guess I shouldn't complain!

And LuLu, my love--all the way in Germany-- will not be here to celebrate her 22 birthday with us on the 26th.  The second birthday she has celebrated overseas--she spent her 21st at Oktoberfest!  Awesome!

Anyway.  Happy birthday, sisters--and even though we won't be able to share a cake like we did when we were kids, I will still be thinking of you on your birthdays!

Fire tower at sunset!

                                                    I think this picture looks like heaven.

                                         The shadows were so cool.  Doesn't he look thoughtful?

                                  Lots of graffiti.  I liked this one.  Below is the view to the east.

I decided I wanted to hike the the fire tower at sunset.  I can't believe no one else had this idea!  We were at the top of the 90 foot tower as the sun went down.  I had a fun time playing with the shutter speed on my new camera.  The husband even took over and shot some awesome cloud pictures.  So pretty!  I think we are going to go back later this fall to catch some of the fall foliage.

Labor Day Canoe trip!

I go camping with my husband's family every Labor Day weekend.  This was our fifth year to go as a family.  Yesterday we spent 3+ hours in canoes.  I had to beg him to let me take my new camera--but it has a warranty, so I won!  I got some awesome pictures!  More awesome scenery to come--and some cute kid pictures. . .

Are you ready for some football?

Today is an historic day--today is our school's first home football game in 53 years!!  In previous years we had a practice area, but no bleachers or press box, so we were unable to hold our home games at our school.  Instead we had to pay an exorbitant amount of money and move all football and marching band equipment to the local college every weekend for the games.  Also, our high school was not allowed to sell concessions, so fans were supporting the college rather than the high school when coming to the games.

Tonight that all will change!  Those Friday night lights will shine on OUR high school campus and OUR players will run out onto OUR field for the first time ever!  The spirit in our school has been amazing this week and I know it will only continue to grow as students will be more encouraged to attend games.  I don't have any pictures right now, but take my word for it--something awesome is happening here. 

Although I am not an alumni of this school and have only been teaching here for 2+ years, I feel such pride in our school.  I truly believe that we are an awesome corporation and I love seeing the excitement in my students' faces.  I have never really been a fan of football before, but as I sit here in my "Home Field Advantage 2011" T-shirt I am ready for some football.

Note: Our entire community has supported this venture.  We will have free tailgate food for all home team fans, live music before the game, a tunnel of former players to welcome our current team onto the field, a special half-time show by our marching band (who is also excited about being at home), and a firework show after the game.  It will truly be the event of the century at our high school!