New Member

Welcome Sonya--and your pictures of your husband's restored cars!

If you count those who signed up as couples as 2 apiece, that makes 30 family members on the blog.

CLEAN YARD - FINALLY - OOPS!

I thought I had mentioned on the Blog about the bad storm we had I last Sunday night and how I was up half the night waiting for the tornado which thankfully never came. But I can't find such a post so I'm here anyway to report that Jerry has been working all week to clean the corn shucks off our yard. He's spent many hours with the grass-catcher trying to pick it all up. Today I helped him and we crawled around the yard on our hands and knees and pulled all the junk out from under all the bushes, then he mowed the entire yard again.

Guess what, just as he was finishing, the farmer across the street mowed the ditch and blew a new batch of debris across into our yard! I won't tell you what Jerry wanted to do!

Keep smiling!

A Good Idea

I sent this as an e-mail to several family and friends but didn't have everyone here's e-mail. Someone suggested posting it on the blog.

A woman I work with in our Healthcare division lost her townhouse to fire on Sunday in Duluth, GA. (Mark, this is the lady that took us on a tour of the Healthcare office and Atlanta showroom several years ago.) The pictures are here; hers is the one with the firefighter shooting water in the front door in one picture and the end unit of another picture.

I'm letting you know this because she sent out a warning of making sure that people document their house possessions and keeping the pictures in a firebox. She had pictures on her digital camera, but the camera was lost in the fire. She has spent a great deal of time this week trying to remember what she had in every cabinet, drawer, and room. I'm not sure I would do a very good job of remembering what I had after the trauma of losing literally everything but the clothes I was wearing.

This is an idea I've heard to do and have thought about doing, but it's an easy one to put off because "what are the chances it will happen to me?" I have a new weekend project as I think I'll borrow a DVD camera and make a DVD rather than still pictures.

By the way, for those of us that live in condos or apartments, this fire started with an unattended grill burning all eight units in one structure, jumping to a fence separating that structure from another one and then burning the second structure. Lynn's unit was in the second structure. It's a reminder of how someone else's carelessness can cause us great damage as well.

Perry

This is a test so I can show Perry how to get up and running. Hopefully he will be blogging soon. Carol

68 Camaro: The Latest Project

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone here, but Angela encouraged me to try a post. (My first blog post ever...believe it or not!)

As many of you know, my husband Jeremy is a huge car buff...and he's really mastering the art of restoration. Not only can he do the mechanical work, he now paints the cars right in our garage. And they turn out pretty sharp. Up until recently, he's just done projects for friends and family. But now he's branching out and has two cars that will be for sale real soon.

I'll attempt to add photos of them. One is a '68 Camaro. (Apparently it's one of about a thousand made with this certain high-performance engine/transmission combination.) I'll also post a photo from early on in the transformation. They took the car down to bare metal before they started piecing it back together. In all, they've spent about three months on it.

The orange car is a '67 Dodge Coronet.

Maybe these will bring back memories for some?

New Home

Your Memorial Day weekend memories made me realize how unpatriotic the Day is in the South. All the activities you described commemorate those who gave their lives for our freedom. Here, the main local activity is a widely-attended hot air balloon festival that, while fun, does little to remember the meaning for the holiday. Thanks for sharing; I really enjoyed the memories.

So - spending the weekend moving sounds really unpatriotic! But that's what we did. We've bought a home about 5 miles from our last one and the process is quite a chore, but we're making progress. I spent Memorial Day setting up my kitchen and Tuesday night was able to make a strawberry pie with fresh LOCAL strawberries Mom & Dad gave us. Dad brought them by my work in the afternoon. Now we're looking forward to peaches. :) I enjoy those 2 fruits the most since I missed them all those years I was in the islands. What's your favorite?

Buying Locally

Well, I've not gotten the refrigerator cleaned out yet, and I'm not about to post the "before" picture without an "after" one. BUT, I did go to our local farmers' market this morning and got some beautiful broccoli florets and cauliflower. The prices were better than the grocery store and the quality--well, you be the judge.
After reading comments on Drake's blog last year, and reading other things also, I'm going to make a sincere effort this year to buy locally. It makes sense whenever possible. Why should I buy broccoli raised in California and shipped here, when a local farmer who only has to bring it a few minutes to the market also has a better quality product?

I hope Drake is going to get that blog going again this year. We may not be as "gourmet" or as extensive as he is, but I like the ideas he is espousing! Do any of you try to use the buy-local approach?

Feeding 6!

I long for the day when my fridge looks like Judy's! Not crowded and didn't cost to much to fill. We usually get groceries twice or more a week, and people still say there's nothing to eat. It is a struggle to keep food in the house. You'll notice the milks are both almost gone. Never fear, there are two more in the garage fridge, which we use for overflow!

I threw in a pic of Nay so you can see what he's usually like. Sticky and happy! :) Tonight he earned this treat for eating all of his dinner!

Memorial Day in the South

Lynn and I had an unusual Memorial Day but no parades or the traditional nearly by gone commemoration. Sort of felt unpatriotic.

At noon Chuck and Marie Kieser came by as we had invited them at the annual AC Tennessee Sing, which we attended on Saturday evening. Chuck is a second cousin of mine that we hadn't seen for fifty years. My memory of him is that of a tall, wide eyed young boy. But our roots are the same so we had much in common. They left soon after lunch and mid-afternoon we left for Fayetteville to meet a Donald Klopfenstein and his wife, who live in Murfreesboro. And you can guess how we learned about him: yes, genealogy! Anyway, it turned out to be a small world as he knew about Perry and his business and also had a poster in his garage from Ralph's Illinois Senate campaign. So he was surprised that Lynn was of that lineage. His aunt is JoAnne Conrad and we knew several of his aunts as well as his widowed mother. He plans to attend the K reunion on 6/21--a really nice fellow and you would enjoy meeting him.
On the way to Fayetteville we stopped to see Mary and Joey's progress in unpacking in their recently purchased home. So that was our Memorial Day.
Mim

More Memoria Day...

The two top pictures are possibly Memorial Day, or least a great play day at Grandma's. I also found the picture of Dad and Grandma marked 1987.

I remember the ice cream maker in Grandma's basement and especially the salt sack in the bottom of that cupboard...I snuck into that sack all year long and nibbled on that crunchy salt. I also remember the little kids crying and holding their ears at the gunshots..and all the grade school boys running and grabbing up the gun shells.

To respond to Eric's "comment" Memorial Day at the Knobloch's was usually a good working day for Dave. We usually went to the parade, once in awhile the cemetery, and occasionally a picnic of someone had invited us, but we usually left it open for "planting beans" or some such farming activity. Eric is right, for us at least, Memorial Day had lost its "important holiday" status. Today for sure Dave would be planting beans if the weather would just cooperate. Not a bean in the ground at this point. Just heard that a mini-tornado went through Gridley during the night and Casey is out with the city crew trying to clean the trees out of the cemetery.

MEMORIAL DAYS OF YORE

As we were watching part of the Indy 500 race today, some memories came to my mind of when I was a child and Memorial Day was a big deal. Memories from mid 40's to late 50's:

*My big brothers coming home with their wives and children of all ages - always a treat for me.
*Watching the parade in downtown Gridley - proudly marching in that parade in my new Brownie dress - again proudly marching in that parade with the GCHS marching band.
*Going to the ceremony at the cemetery where we visited the graves of my ancestors then covered our ears when the guns went off.
*The men washing their cars with the hose in Mother's driveway and listening to the Indy race on the RADIO.
*Kids running around outside and riding bikes, trikes, wagons, scooters -- stopping by to fill up with gas at the water spigots on both sides of the house.
*Sitting on the hand-turned ice-cream maker while the men turned the handle -- sneaking bites of ice and salt whenever we could - then licking the ice-cream when the center thing was removed.
*Babies tied in the old highchair with dishtowels, babies crying, bottles, diapers, etc.
*Home-fried chicken dinner
*Swinging on the front porch swing, jumping off the steps, pretending to drive the car.
*Shooting baskets behind the old garage
*Swinging on the tire swing

Those were the "good old days". Just think at all the fun we had WITHOUT TV'S, IPODS, VIDEO GAMES. But, NO, I wouldn't to go back! And I hope somebody will give us their wii when something better comes along!

What else do you remember?

Blessings come by little boys!

Well, my plans changed in a hurry when Shelley called and said Thad was sick (of the intestinal type) and she was going to take him to the walk-in doctor's office if I could watch the other boys. Sam is on call this weekend taking care of other people's sick kids...and he doesn't treat his own as is the practice of the trade. SO Dave took two of them to Sunday School and I had the two younger ones home with me. The music project was put on hold. When a grandbaby shows up with a bib on that says "Grandma loves me" there's no question on priorities in life!

Now a challenge! When I opened my fridge this morning, this is what I saw. This is one area where Grandma falls short. When I say it's time for groceries, you can see that I tell the TRUTH! I'd love to see the inside of your fridge...if you're brave enough to share!

Day of Worship

My throat still hurts, my voice is about gone, and I if I talk too much I have spasmic coughing fits...so I won't be going to church today, or Dave's nephew's graduation this afternoon. It's a perfect day to set up my new USB turntable. I'm a little nervous about setting it up, although it doesn't look hard to do. I'm very excited about getting out the old records and hearing good music and reliving lots of good memories. I'm anticipating a wonderful day of worship!

Uncle Lynn - yes, it does convert 45's and also cassette tapes to CD. For those who are really musically talented, it also has the ability to do advanced editing and processing, such as normalization, noise removal, 78 RPM speed conversion, and automatic track separation. I copied that out of the instruction manual because I would not be in the advanced group.

Wish me luck..and pray for blessings...

Quiet here...

I've just had nothing to say or share on the blog...tonight I'm lying on the couch with my laptop on my lap. Dave is channel surfing on the TV and I am going through emails, etc. It's boring. Dave says, "What are you doing? Blogging that you have a sore throat?" So there you go...I have a sore throat.

Air Show Photo

Recently the Canadian Air Force performed an air show at our local airport. (Don't think anything big and dramatic here with the word airport.) I didn't see the show but could hear it from home. The airport is near our church, and our assistant pastor caught this picture with his cell phone. I thought it was quite a photo and thought y'all might enjoy it too. He needs to enter this in some sort of contest.

LOCALVORES RETURNING?

I've been watching to see whether the localvores websites are returning this summer. They were quite interesting last year. Could be I was a little partial.

I finally got the rest of my flowers planted and Jerry is finishing up the mowing. So we'll be free for the rest of this holiday weekend. If any of you are traveling, be careful.

BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

AHA! BET THAT WOKE YOU UP, RIGHT?

It's a rainy day today and I told Jerry this morning that I'm not going to do anything today - just lay around and "veg-out". We've had a busy two weeks and I'm tired and deserve to be lazy.

Last night we had our final Crown Financial Ministries Bible Study. We actually lead two groups in this study and found it to be very interesting and worthwhile. Ten weeks gets to be a little long. Both groups were eager to share thoughts and we had a lot of good conversation discussing what God expects of us in regard to the "stewardship" of all that He has given us. We will have a lot to think about and a lot to live up to in what short life we have left. Now we are coordinating future groups for our church and are in the process of setting up two groups to begin in mid-June. We are not leading them, just "administrating" them.

For a quick update on our little darling Nathan -- Wednesday when I babysat, we were on the way to WalMart (we go there every Wed. to look at the fish and it's so exciting) and as we were driving Veteran's Parkway I heard this excited little voice say "Nards, Nards, Nards". Sure enough we were driving by Menards. Later we went to "Donald's" for lunch. He keeps me hopping!

Hope you all have a good weekend. Jerry will be giving the commencement address at Fieldcrest Sunday afternoon. Should be interesting.

Do I remember it correctly?

A couple weeks ago, Cleve posted about Uncle Perry's broken ankle named "Lefty". On Saturday, Lynn posted the Mother's day picture taken in Grandma-Greats/Perry's back yard. In the picture, the garden is visible behind the group. At some point a basketball pad and hoop were installed in this general area, and I seem to remember Uncle Perry breaking or severely spraining his ankle on the edge of this basketball court. At the next family event at Uncle Perry's, I seem to remember a rather detailed "reenactment" of the shot that resulted in the sprained ankle.

Is this, in fact the second time Perry has been laid up with a broken ankle? Did the reenactment occur? Am I the only one who remembers this or can someone else validate my memory? Just curious if I remember it correctly.

Alabama speak/Culture

We've had Michigan speak and Illinois speak in recent days, so now are you ready for Alabama speak? This afternoon we attended Whitney's
(Mary and Joey's second daughter) college graduation and went out to
eat with about twenty others. As we left no one said "Good-bye," but instead they said "Be careful." Then I realized that is the usual farewell term in these parts. Are we unique or is that a midwest term also?
Miriam/Mim

For this they pay me??

I drew the straw to work in Pediatrics tonight. It's 3:30 a.m. and so far I have plugged in two IV pumps to stop their beeping, answered the phone once, filled the printer with paper (which I could do right from my seat) and took the RN's money to the vending machine to get her some snacks. I hear they are doing a c-section in labor so I guess I did get the lucky draw tonight. That's it...no comments needed, just filling in time (and they pay me for it, too.)

Mother's Day--What year and location?

Fun Gift

I got a gift from my kids that I'm anxious to try out...it's a USB turntable that will convert my old LP's to CD's through my computer. I have all my old LP's and some of Mom and Dad's and I can't wait to pull them out and see how it works. (I promised myself I'd finish my spring cleaning first before I start a big project, so I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how it worked out.) Some of you who have hung on to your old albums may want to borrow it... JK

Of the Bloomington Nog Blogs

Michelle, the kids, and I were in the car the other night and Michelle (who's not a regular reader here) asked who is doing the posting. I listed the names of the people who post regularly here. There was a brief silence then Grace says from the back seat, "So on the Blog there's somebody named Judy Nog Blog?"

Great-Grandparents

I found these on my school computer, probably from last fall when we were working on Dad's book, and decided to upload them. I don't believe anyone living remembers knowing Peter Alexander Klopfenstein, but several of you remember Great-Grandmother Klopfenstein, right? Some memories please? Or just some thoughts about what you've heard over the years of these two?

Do you see any resemblance of the current generation(s) to them?

Emch family update

I just though I'd send a few recent pictures of our kids (and horses). Anna is 4 and Timon will be 2 this week. They spend a lot of time outside with the three horses we keep in our pasture. (we board them for a friend). Jazz is the mother of Christy (1yr) and Daisy (2 months). It was a very exciting day back in late March when Jazz foaled at 9am and the whole family got to be there to watch....along with several neighbors who stopped to get in on the action! Horses usually foal in the middle of the night when nobody's around so this was pretty unusual.

Also included is Timon showing off his owies after tripping over his own feet and getting a face full of asphalt on our driveway :(
Anna and Timon are at
very fun ages....we are trying to cherish every minute!

Songwriter Killed in Crash

If any of you are Southern Gospel fans, you have heard of Dottie Rambo. She is an "old-timer" who has been on the gospel circuit for years and has written some beautiful songs that you have probably heard. Saw in the paper this morning that she was killed in a bus accident. Here she is singing a familiar song. She obviously looks like an "entertainer" and her voice would not be my favorite, but she has a talent for writing wonderful lyrics. Suppose she is now realizing the lyrics of "We Shall Behold Him."



And now I better get off the computer and get to work!

Thought for the Day

INDY TIME TRIALS

The Christensen/Wetzel men (minus Nathan) are planning on meeting in Indianapolis Friday night for pizza and swimming and then going to the Indy 500 Time Trials on Saturday. I don't know who's more excited -- Grandpa or the little boys -- or maybe the women!?!? At least they will be "out of our way" on Saturday as we prepare and enjoy the shower for Joan. I believe if anyone else would like to join them, you'd be welcome.

We're hoping for a beautiful, sunny day such as today so the men can enjoy watching the speeding cars and we can enjoy the shower.

Building

We've run out of room in our current house and are in the process of building a new one. I will miss the character and charm of our 100+ year old home but I am really looking forward to more space! Especially the laundry room which is almost as big as our master bedroom (Sam thinks it's crazy but I'm sure you ladies will understand). We managed to find 5 acres in the country between Lexington and Towanda. It has an existing shed on it (which needs some work), and some beautiful pasture around it. I thought I'd post some pictures occasionally so everyone can see the progress. We're hoping to be in around the end of August. Here's a front-view photo, and one of Grandma and my Mom at the "front door". Everyone says that building is so stressful. I have to say that so far things have gone really smoothly - but what I am dreading is listing our house. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage to keep it clean all the time!

A rose is a rose is a. . .

Since we've had a lot of gardening posts, maybe somebody can help me. When we moved to this house in 2000, this rosebush was putting out large yellow roses with pinkish tips. I think it was a "Peace" rosebush. I confess to not taking very good care of it over the years. Well, here is what it is doing now. The top is putting out solid yellow tea roses, not very big, and the bottom is putting out these pink flowers which do not look anything like the yellow roses in shape. Any ideas as to what might have happened? Have you ever seen anything like this?

The next big star?

This Friday the boys had a spring musical at their school. It was titled "The Rockin' Trial of Simon Peter". There was a judge, defendant, and several 'eye witnesses' of the miracles that Jesus performed. Zachary and his friend Ike were James and John and testified about several miracles that they witnessed.



Janice and I were very impressed at how well they did. Many of the actors were also in their 5th grade class, so we are looking forward to a few more years of even more exciting plays.

I'm sure he would love to hear any critiques... you can email him at zac@teamchristensen.com.

We're Back!

Amber and I are home from Disney and can say we had a good trip. The mood was dampened by the bad news about Earl's death, and we did return just one day earlier than planned, but all in all we had the Disney experience. Amber was enthusiastic and appreciated it all. We braved some roller coasters and some pretty wild water slides at the two Disney water parks. The weather was perfect and the lines were manageable. Sure wonder what Walt Disney would think of the empire that bears his name.

Wetzel News

Nathan is potty trained! Yea!

GOOD BLACK EARTH

As I was driving home from Bloomington yesterday, I noticed the beauty of the freshly worked black earth. The farmers were busy in the fields and some fields were showing rows of green with the sprouting of tiny corn. The smell of the black dirt is also a good sign of Spring.

And most people think driving through the Midwest flat farming land is boring. I think it is amazing to watch the crops grow and flourish each year. It shows the "amazingness" of God just as much as the majestic mountains of the West.

I hope to plant a few pots of flowers today and brighten up our deck.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Klop mothers out there.

Amazing

This BLOG business is absolutely amazing! On the right side bar scroll down to statistics then click. There are then numerous options to the use of statistics on the Blog. I did a copy/paste of VISITS; however, the results below are not representative of the table. But check it out. It's very fascinating to review the variety of data available. Being a "numbers" dude, I reckon this is high level forte for me!!!

VISITS
Total
3,659

Average Per Day
45

Average Visit Length
3:09 min.

Last Hour
2

Today
5

This Week
316

PAGE VIEWS

Total
7,996

Average Per Day
103

Average Per Visit
2.3

Last Hour
4

Today
15

This Week
724

Where are the bloggers?

If somebody doesn't write soon, Keith will be harvesting those potatoes!
Well, Lynn thought he'd get through the winter without the annual bronchitis/cough. But now that spring is here, a minor cold blossomed into the usual malady. He didn't go to kindergarten graduation last night but will go to Mary's tonight for Mother's Day dinner (Medlen term)/supper (LCK term). We'll have strawberry shortcake with fresh berries from the Farmer's Market. Y'all come. Mim

Gardening

I can't let everyone get ahead of us on the subject of gardening.
We had our garden "roto-tilled" on Monday. Yesterday Keith planted almost all of the
garden in potatoes. That is his favorite thing to plant and almost his favorite
food. He will plant a few tomato plants soon. Keith's Dad planted potatoes
well into his 90's.

Last Saturday Larry and Lauren took Keith and Ken to Pulaski, Iowa to show
them where they grew up, went to school, etc. Lauren said she loved all of
'it and wants to write a journal about it. They went to the house where they
were born and it had been vacated for years and was literally falling apart.
They went in and took a tour of the place. The next morning when Lauren
was taking a shower she found a tick in her hair. (they think she got it in that
old house:)

Alice

My Annual Garden Joke

Last night I rhoda-tilled my garden.

Whitney's Award

Mary probably won't post this so I’m doing so as a proud aunt.

Whitney, Joey and Mary’s second daughter, recently was named a 2008 co-winner of the Johnny Johnson Most Inspirational Senior Student-Athlete Awards. She helped the women’s soccer team to a 12- 6 overall record in 2007. She played in 17 games with 11 starts and recorded one assist and had four shots from her defender spot.

Whitney will graduate on May 18 and is the first grandchild in three families (Debbie’s, Joey’s, and Mary’s) to graduate from college.

It’s a great milestone for a great kid.

Perry's broken ankle -- named "Lefty"

As you may have noticed, Uncle Perry has not contributed much to the Blog. He's been on crutches since Feb. 8th with a VERY bad broken left ankle which he calls "Lefty". Lefty had more than one broken bone and multiple screws put in place. He has had a protective boot which is used at night and at certain times which he calls "Billy" (seen in photo). I offered to include a picture on the Blog for him so one and all can see his plight. He agreed to this. This is his usual daily posture, although he is now finally able to go in to work at Pontiac about 4-5 hours on most days. He socializes enough to have had to explain about Lefty and Billy countless times to countless people. He is anxious to get back into civilization and back to exercising like he did for, I believe, daily for 13 years. It might have even been more. He reads the Blog and enjoys it, but has had trouble getting his computer to POST. He would love to have any email at perry@gridcom.net

GREAT TO BE RETIRED

Tomorrow night we are going to the ACTIVE ice cream social. ACTIVE stands for Apostolic Christian Teens something - I don't know the rest of it. I think Perry was instrumental in getting it started quite a few years ago. Anyway, they have "adopted" friends among the older brothers and sisters in the church. Last year was our first year to be invited as a friend (does this mean we are old now?) We have two girls, Chloe Meiss and Rebekah Ehresman, and they each bring two of their friends to all the meetings, so I have to plan for four all the time. They will not be expecting a gift tomorrow, but I'm surprising them with a bag of treats and thought I'd show you what I made.

It's nice to be retired and do things like this. I love it. Tomorrow's a Nathan-sitting day. Love that also!

GARDENING TIME IS HERE AGAIN

I've been assessing the new flower garden we started last year after pulling out the overgrown bushes. I'm thrilled that the pretty Rose of Sharon is showing a good start as are the double knock-out roses. The boxwood survived the winter and the Minuet Weigela appears to be healthy. In the back, off the deck, we planted a hydrangea, and I'm happy to report that some new leaves are sprouting there.

On the down side, the spirea has no new life and neither does the purple fountain grass. I just looked in my "flower" file and see that I have the receipts so I may try to get new plants as I was assured they were perennials. I've never had much of a "green thumb" and maybe I'm too old to begin now.

Next week, I'll get my annuals and begin planting. Mostly geraniums and petunias which always grow easily for me until last year when the rabbits ate the petunias as fast as I planted. I finally took the stubs that were left in the ground, planted them in pots on the deck, and had beautiful petunias there all summer.

Jerry is working on his water garden now, and I'm going downstairs to make a couple bags. I try to stay out of the sun in the afternoon.

THE HORSES

Kelsie posted this as a comment under the "When, Where" post. Just so it doesn't get missed:

"I remember going to this and singing songs the entire way there and back. Heather and I also tried to to learn someone's horses names. Whose horses were these and what were the names? "

Okay, Kelsie, you HAVE to know the names of Great-Grandfather Peter Alexander Klopfenstein's horses to be a true blue-blood Klopfenstein!

Dick, Fly, Sally, Maud, Jack, Molly, Pet, Bess, Soul, Dick, Doll, Daze, Prince, Stinky, Tony, Nell, Nance!!!

Did I get them all right?

Two New Members

Just so everyone knows, "Celina C." is Kelsie Celis who from her first post I feel certain is going to be an enthusiastic member of this blog! Also, Shelley joined about a week ago--sorry for being a little late in getting that news on here.

Keep up those posts and comments! Lately there's always something new and it's great. I'm digging through things looking for old pictures and may get some posted once summer gets here.

New Member

I just joined the blog today which is exciting because everyone always talks about it. People always bring up things that my mom posts about me on the blog and I never have any clue what they are talking about. Also, excuse my name being Celina C. on here, we use the website for my spanish class too, and that is my spanish name.

Northern Speak?

Awhile back, I was reading Rhoda's blog and noticed this comment, in which she talked about saying something they way they'd say it in Michigan:

The neighbor was riding his bike down the street as I was finishing
my walk/run this morning. Since it was about 6:45 a.m. I asked him, "Do you
have to be to school early today?" All my life I would have said at school,
but apparently I'm picking up the local dialect.

When I read that, I wondered which way I would have said it. Both, actually, sounded right to me. Then, today, as I was driving home, I was griping in my mind about having to pick up Nathan. Usually, Jerry picks him up on Monday, but at the last minute, he said he couldn't do it. I was playing out our future conversation in my mind.

Jerry would said, "I had a paper due and a final tonight. You knew that. How did you think could I pick up Nathan too?" And then I would say, "You had plenty of time. You said you had to be TO school at 5:30."

As soon as I thought it, I remembered Rhoda's blog. How would you have said it?

It was 1998....

A few pics of Mary's lovely home, at the time. Good memories.
The year was definitely 1998 and as UL would say, "A good time was had by all.."
Cleve

When? Where?

The Lake Run

Since most of our teammates are running their big race in Indy today, Brett and I decided to do our training at the 27th Annual Lake Run. They have three events, a non-competitive 3 mile walk, a 7K run, and a 12K (7.44 mile) run around Lake Bloomington. We signed up for the 12K.

Brett's time was 1 hour 15 minutes. Mine was 1 hour 31 minutes. I finished second to last! WOOHOO! In fact, I WAS last for most of the way, but I passed a guy in his sixties (I guess) at mile 6.

One of the things I love about endurance running is that you don't have to be an elite competitor to participate. The only time you need to worry about is your own, and you only need to compete with yourself and your goals. The goals I reached today:

1. Finish.
2. Maintain a steady pace. (I was pretty consistent ~12:15/mile the whole way.)

So yay for us! Just four more weeks to Race Day in San Diego.

Candidate Match

This is late in the process, but someone just shared it with me today. I was not surprised by the results that I got.

Answer 11 questions to see which presidential candidate (those still in the race and those that have dropped out) you most align your views.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/candidate-match-game.htm

Please Pray...

Many of you have met or known my father-in-law Earl Steffen over the years. Tragically, he was killed in a traffic accident yesterday afternoon in Colorado. Please pray for his wife Betty, Sam, and the rest of the family as we go through this difficult time.

Pictures from Amish Country

I was able to get some pictures from our Amish outing from Jody - who now has my job and took the pictures. It was fun to be back with my dear friends from Meadows for a day. I think you can find me because I'm the youngest one in the pictures (well, except for one lady's daughter who went along). The first picture is on the bus, the second at the dinner table (the lady let us take a picture but would not be in it) and the last one is the host's home.