Experiencing a New Normal

So for quite a while now we've had an artificial tree in our house during Christmas. Well because of our remodeling project the tree was put in the garage for a year AND the lid was left open during that time (don't ask me why.... I'm not really sure how that happened). Anyway I was afraid to put the tree up. I was worried we would find a family of mice or a snake!  So I talked Jon into getting a real tree this year. I also thought it would be the start of a new family tradition.  So, the Friday after Thanksgiving we went to pick out and cut down our real Christmas tree! We had a fun time trying to pick just the right one. We brought it home, set it up and proceeded to decorate it. I'll be honest I didn't really like it. It took up so much room in the living room and it was bigger than our fake tree so all our ornaments looked pretty sparse on this new tree (just call me the Grinch)! Well by Wednesday afternoon I wasn't feel very well. Thursday, Will and I both ...

I finally got it figured out.  So here are a FEW of the pictures I took of harvest! This was one of the tractors I drove this year - the JD 4850! Jon just got this tractor this summer to replace the 305. Jon combining beans! This was one of my jobs one day.  Every year Jon would get frustrated with his Dad for not cleaning out his bins before they got busy with harvest.  Well this year all the bins were cleaned out ready to go before harvest.  HOWEVER, DFS had a hot bid and Jon knew we were going to run out of room, so he sold corn right during the middle of harvest! So my job was to empty the grain bin and fill the grain cart full of corn so when Jon came back with the semi he could fill it up a whole lot faster and get back down to Osky quicker with a load of corn.  I teased Jon about this later - how he was keeping up the tradition of getting rid of grain during harvest!   This was just one of the examples of our dow...

It's been awhile since I've updated this blog.  There have been several factors as to why I haven't. Those being harvest, internet problems and exhaustion!  So now that I've got a little down time I thought I'd update you all what's been going on around here. We finally finished up harvest for us on Saturday, November 8.  We had about 30 acres of custom combining that we finished up the following Monday (10th). Boy was I thankful to be done!  It was a harvest we probably won't forget.  It was our first harvest on our own.  I'm sure there were several times Jon wished his Dad would've been here - I know I did!  We had several breakdowns with one being pretty major setting us back two days.  Another breakdown had us taking the combine into Titan Machinery only setting us back not quite a full day.  Other breakdowns were just little maintenance things but sometimes took us all morning to work on.  I tried my best to jump in and do what Jo...

I honestly can't remember what year it was - but TJ and Anthony had pooled their money together and bought a laptop computer.  They mostly used it just to have fun with - and it kept them off my computer!  Well, the way the two of them set it up was that they each had their own log in page.  That way TJ's stuff was on his side and Anthony's was on his and neither of them usually used the other one's side!  Since TJ's been gone we have been trying to get on his side of the computer.  We have tried different words, names that we thought he might use as password and nothing ever worked.  I've asked around to different people if they knew of anyone you might be able to hack into TJ's side.  Nobody could ever give me a name.  Until one day we were over at our friend's house.  He told us about all the work he had done to their own computer - so I asked him if he would be willing to give it a try. I knew I could trust him with this computer.  W...

This has been a hard week. We started off the week attending the funeral of a young man who graduated a year a head of me at school.  This same man was the son of TJ's fourth grade teacher. We knew it was important for us to go and I'm glad we did - it was a very nice service with a great message for all to hear!  Later that day we started harvesting.  Remember the corn that was flattened this summer?  Well Jon wanted to get that out of the field before the stalks rotted or broke off and we had bigger issues of getting it out of the field.  It was a little wetter than we would have liked but the yields were better than we expected which was great!  We finished this field up Friday afternoon. Then Tuesday we got a phone call from our landlord's daughter telling us Bob had passed away.  This was a complete shock to us.  He was the neatest, amazing, and one of the most godliness men I've ever met.  Jon and I absolutely adore this family! ...

Earlier this year we had gone to a special event for Help a Heart.  At this event they had a silent auction  - and it was there that we bid and won a Kansas City package - complete with Zoo passes and Royals tickets!  It just so happened that the dates that were available for the Royals game and the dates free on our calender was Labor Day weekend!  So Friday we picked up the kids from school and headed to Kansas City.  We ran into some pretty good rain almost all the way down -so it wasn't any too early when we arrived. Saturday morning after breakfast in the hotel we headed to the Zoo.  I was pretty impressed with it!  There wasn't an animal exhibit we didn't see an animal - and it was a HOT day!  They had what they called "animal chat" - where there would be a zoo employee telling you more about that particular animal.  We just happen to be at a couple of those (not on purpose) - the leopard and the rhino - that made it a little more int...

I guess I've been avoiding this post for awhile and thought I should try to tackle it now.... TJ's 13th birthday.  I can hardly believe that I would have a teenager - there are days I feel like I'm still a teenager!  I had debated over and over what to do for his 13th birthday.  Do we celebrate just the five of us?  Invite the whole family?  Just our parents?  What do we do that is different?  And then it all became clear.  I saw that the Newsboys and Matthew West were going to be at the Iowa State Fair - just four days after TJ's birthday.  So we decided to invite the whole family to go (most of the family was able to go).  We thought it was the perfect way to honor TJ's 13th birthday with something he loved so much - music and Christ!  We all met at our campers before the concert for walking tacos and cookie cakes!  We had such an enjoyable evening.  We were even able to share TJ's story with the lady who sat in front of...

So, I have a few blogs that I like to read - some are friend's blogs, or people I know and then there are those blogs people have shared with me to encourage me along this road of grief.  Well the other day I was going thru some of them and this one struck me deep.  She spoke such truth - truth that I need to remember DAILY (sometimes even hourly)!  I've shared it with a few others, but thought it was very worthy of sharing it on here.  Instead of copying a link - I decided to copy and paste it right here for you all to read! Here it is: Does God Give Us More Than We Can Handle? I grew up using the phrase, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," and it works great as an encouragement for us when times get rough. It helps us to believe that whatever is thrown our way we were made to handle. But what if that is all wrong? I mean, I thought this was scriptural, but when I looked it up in 1 Corinthians 10:3 it stated, "No temptation has overta...

The Run in the Sun has become one of those 5K's that is near and dear to my heart.  All the proceeds go to the Serenity House in Oskaloosa (where TJ and Don spent time at).  This year with other things going on I didn't get preregistered and just showed up the day of the event.  I was able to convince my good friend Kelly (whose grandfather-in-law spent time at the Serenity House too) to join me.  Kelly runs all the time, so I had told her I hadn't had time to train and would probably need to walk most of it and asked her if we should just do the one mile instead.  Her response - nah, let's do the 5K - it gives us more time to talk!!  So that was what we did!  We talked, walked and gave back to something that is so special to us! Running to the finish line!

We had a great time at the Iowa State Fair.  It seems like every year there is something that makes it different - and I haven't quite figured out if I like it or not.  This year my nephew had football practice - so he only came up on weekends.  My sister-in-law now teaches - so she had to go back home during the second half of the fair - which left the boys and I up there by ourselves for part of the fair.  We got to see and experience all of our favorite things and then some!  We camped in a new territory this year - which ended up being really nice. We even got on the IPTV Fair show three times!  Here are some pictures highlighting our time at the fair! Charlie was the only one that competed in the big wheel races this year - the other two were too old.  He got third in his heat! Will and Charlie did Mutton Bustin' again.  This was Will's last year and he did well.  Charlie wasn't really sure that he wanted to do it (I sort o...

The boys have officially been back to school now for one week.  So far things are going well.  We are venturing into new territory.  Anthony is now in 5th grade - a grade and wing of the elementary we haven't been down before.  Will is in 3rd grade and has a teacher we've never had.  Charlie is in 1st grade with a teacher we have had and like!  TJ would have been in 7th grade - JR HIGH - this year!  I often wonder what this year would have looked like had he still been here.  We are hoping and praying for a good school year.

This was the first year we were able to experience the county fair with one of our kiddos actually participating.  The fair sure has changed from when I was an exhibitor (isn't that what all parents say?), however we still had an enjoyable week - a bit exhausting - but enjoyable!  We have a reserved camping spot there - so it made it easy to be there in time for chores and enjoy the other activities going on at the fair.  Time got away from us so Anthony's only project this year was Buddy - which was probably enough for this year!  I do believe I was more of a nervous wreck than Anthony - all because of added pressure I put on myself.  Anyway, Buddy did really well - he got Reserve County Bred Steer!!  Not too bad for our first year of showing!  We sold Buddy at the auction that last Saturday of the fair.  We were beyond pleased with what he brought.  When the time came for us to say good bye after he sold, I do believe the three of us (...

A few months ago - I think it was actually Fourth of July weekend - Jon and I along with a couple of friends of ours headed to Sully for a murder mystery supper.  I have always wanted to go to one of these things and it proved to be a GREAT evening full of fun!  The food was fabulous, the murder mystery was hilarious and the fellowship with our friends was fantastic!!  Michael and Kelly, Jon and I, Kelly and LeAnn Jon posing with one of the actors! Kelly doing his part to help figure out who murdered Captain Jack Blackheart!

Stay tuned as I am going to try to catch up with all that's been going on with us (and not necessarily in any particular order).  If my computer works correctly and if time allows I hope to get a few things up yet today.  Otherwise look for updates a little at a time the rest of this week!

I have SO much to share and not enough time to do it.  Look for MANY updates AFTER the Iowa State Fair!! 

We were given the opportunity to do some fun things with the boys over the last couple of days and decided to take advantage of it!  We "won" a sports package at a silent auction (which I hope to blog about soon) which included tickets to a Barnstormer game.  Just incase you've never heard of the Iowa Barnstormers it is an arena football team. We had a fun time!  The first half was exciting and a lot of fun to watch.  However, the second half the opposing team came out fired up and smoked us.  The final score was 84 - 48.  Here are a couple of pictures of that night. The boys! This was the view from our seats! The other event we attended was an Iowa cubs game.  My parents had purchased Knothole Gang memberships for all the grand kids at Christmas.  With this membership included tickets to several cubs games, t-shirt, ice cream and free drinks.  There are a couple of other perks like clinics, autograph sessions and ba...

So my mother in law has informed me that there is always a severe storm around her birthday - which happens to be June 29!  Well, Sunday evening proved her to be right!  But it didn't just stop on that day - we got more the next day.  In fact I would say we had a couple good rounds.  In the 14 years that Jon and I have lived here (on our farm) we have only had water over the lane once - yesterday marked the second time.  Our corn got knocked down not only here but at another farm we farm.  We didn't get any other damage than that which is good, but it still makes us sick to our stomachs to look out the window.  We just pray now that rain will stop for awhile, that the sun will come out and maybe it will bounce back from this.  Here are some pictures of some of the flooding of our fields and damage to the corn: This is our lane. Jon's alfalfa and oats - completely flattened. Some of the down corn at our place. More...