Catherine's new living accommodations...

On Oct. 3, all of us 7 kids helped Mom move out of Evergreen Place in Normal into the brand new Meadows at Mercy Creek facility.  It is also in Normal, on the east edge of town.  She is now nicely settled into her apartment and reports "I love it here.  I know so many more people, the place is sparkling clean and new, and the food is great!"  Here's a photo....

Three days in Oklahoma City

Some of you may remember the Ergenbrights and the Warners that came to the big K reunions Grabill, IN.  They invite Lynn to their reunions for the K branch that settled in Oklahoma years ago.   When my dear husband wouldn't go without me and with a little prodding from our daughters, I flew there with him.  On the plane I
had an interesting chat with a young India Indian medical school student.   He posed some challenging questions to me as a Christian.  

Saturday was spent going over genealogy records.  Thankfully Carol Warner's sister was there and we had a delightful time together.   One of the highlights was the heart rending experience of going to the National Memorial for the 168 victims of the Timothy McVey bombing of the Murrah Federal building in 1995.  A Field of  Chairs on one end of the plot has a chair for each victim; the number of chairs in each row is equal to the number of those killed on that floor.  Nineteen chairs were smaller to represent the nineteen children that died in the bombing.  The name of a victim was engraved in the translucent base of each chair.  We will long remember that sobering sight.
And as most of you will agree, the best part of any trip is arriving home again!

Thought I'd share my latest creations. Picked these kits up in Shipshewana, just couldn't resist. It was more difficult than I thought, but with "perseverance", I managed to figure it out! The individual pieces of the "puzzle" had to be cut from fabric and stuffed into the slots on a foamboard.

 

 

 

Now taking orders for Christmas! NO NO NO - JUST KIDDING!!!

Disney

I mentioned I would post, so here it is:

Last week I continued the tradition of taking a grandchild to Disney World when he/she turns 10 years old. Now I will admit, when I started this, I did not research how much it would cost, nor did I know how many grandchildren I would have...but I would not go back now and I thoroughly enjoy each week I've spent with each individual child.



Here Thad and I are at the airport ready for our big week-long trip.



Thad's first airplane ride. He was nervous, but filled his time drawing in his "Doodle" book.
If you can blow up the picture, you can see his clever drawing of "The Wizard of Oz" characters going over a cliff.

Swimming at our hotel the first night.

 

Thad is mocking up a picture of the "headache" of doing homework while on vacation. I hated it, too.

Thad was interested in Walt Disney and all his successful ventures.
Thad was more into educational aspects of Disney (there are some!) than the scary, loud rides.

Waiting for a show to start. Thad loved making faces into the camera.



This is kind of a poor video, but you can see how excited Joe is to see Thad.

You can't hear it, but just before the end, Nate is anxiously asking what Thad brought him for a souvenir.

Reunited with Mom and Dad. He never really got lonesome, but he was happy to see them.
Thad is still waiting for his souvenir question to be answered.

And here is one final shot of the Steffen family with all the personalities showing up quite well!

I'm pretty much back into the swing of things back home. Mom is enjoying her new place and this week we are putting some of the finishing touches on of hanging pictures and placing knick-knacks. Stop in to see her if you get a chance. As she says, "I'll be here!"



Another Good Old Picture

Found this one tonight in my cache of scanned in pictures.  Doesn't this bring back memories of that paneled den and Grandma in her chair!

Routine Blog Business

A member just asked to be added to the list of those receiving comments via email.  If anyone else would like to be added to that (or deleted for that matter), just let me know.

This header picture is a little large - I'm just figuring out how to get them smaller on the header - so I will probably change it soon.  But I thought it was a nice change - as well as the autumn colors.

Hope the midwest weather is as beautiful as that in the southeast.  Hope all family members have a beautiful fall weekend!  Thanks so much for all the wonderful support of this family connection.  --Ann

Dad to the Rescue

Last night my folks stopped by with a huge container of soup for us.  As Mom and I were walking out into the garage, we both jumped back at what we saw.  Mike had put a "sticky board" by the steps, intended to catch crickets and other unwelcome bugs before they jumped into the house.  Somehow, a Carolina wren had flown into the garage and gotten stuck on the board.  Thoroughly stuck.  She was flopping, trying her best to get off, but there was no hope of removing her from that board.  We motioned for Dad to get out of the car, so he came and removed the board, then somehow (I'm not asking any questions) humanely dispensed with the bird and put the whole thing into his trunk to dispose of without me having to look at it any more.  Thanks, Dad!

Marguerite, Char, and Mary

    How many of you next generation recognize the names in the title?  They are daughters of Aunt Florence Krones, who was a Gridleyite all her life.   All three girls are graduates of Gridley High.  Marguerite Zupansic has lived in Largo, FL many years, Char Hozie is in Bloomington and Mary Hermann in Peoria.
    All three were in Easley, SC last weekend for the wedding of Marguerite's grandson, Cory Zupansic.   Cory's dad is Joe Zupansic, who has been in South Carolina for about thirty years, having married a South Carolina girl.   Anyway, Lynn and I went to Easley, only twenty miles from our home,  on Saturday night to see the cousins (the wedding at been the previous night). 
    A slow housing market caused Joe to quit the stucco business.   He now operates Poppin Joe's Kettle Corn concession at the Jockey Lot, the world's largest flea market, ten miles out of Anderson.   That kettle corn is yummy and we'll take you there when you come to visit us.

Daughter, Sister-In-Law, Niece

Thought you would like to see a picture of three lovely K ladies who have been spending time together this weekend and here are on a girls' night out.

THIS AND THAT

We had a very busy today. Got up at 8:30, sat around until 10, cleaned the house until 2 (with lunch from Subway tucked in there), took a nap, "computerized" here and there between tasks, had dinner and are now just passing time.

Mr. Chef-Boy-R-D and I made pizza for dinner. One of our favorites - Jerry was so excited when I told him what I was going to make. We ate the WHOLE pizza.

Happy Autumn to Everyone!

This is my latest project. I found these kits in Shipshewanna and have the snowman about half finished. I thought it looked easy! But when I got started, I thought I wasn't going to be able to get it going! It got easier as I went. As you can see, it is a puzzle with numbered sections - see the guide behind? Kinda like a paint-by-number thing only it's "stuff the fabric in the cracks"! I'll show you the completed projects when they are done.

MINI-VACATION

We left Tuesday morning and headed to Michigan City, Indiana for an overnight stay - enjoyed the quaint little town with its interesting shops. On Wednesday morning we drove to Portage, Michigan, where we had lunch with some OLD college friends. From there we went to Shipshewana, Indiana. I thought their flea market was on Thursdays, but discovered that it was on Wednesdays! And it was closed by the time we got there, so that idea was null and void! Today we browsed a few shops, bought a few items, and came on home.

We hope you enjoy this short video of our road trip!

It might make you smile - or it might make you just shake your heads!! 

The really amazing thing about this post is that I actually made this video AND was able to get it posted on here. I'm just getting soooooo good at modern technology!  ha ha ha

Good pictures of Good ladies

I came into the office to clean out the closet a little, when I found a couple of Gloria's photo books that I have to get back to her. So I had to look through them, and then I had to pull some that I wanted, and then I had to post a few to the blog. I can find more reasons than you can think of to put off cleaning out that closet! These are just a few of the good, strong women who left good memories in the Klopfenstein clan.

 

Aunt Ruth and Aunt Minerva

Betty



Last weekend to be 4 _

Several weekends ago my friend Renae asked if I had plans for this weekend. She planned a trip but didn't tell me where we were going. On Friday when I left work I found out we were headed to Boyne Mountain for the weekend. It's a ski resort about 3 hours north that has year round activities, and this weekend was Skitoberfest. The colors of the leaves were just amazing the entire weekend. We did have some light rain at times, but the weekend was just perfect.

Twice we rode the chairlift to the top of the mountain to enjoy the view.

 

  

This is at the top. I felt like the parent with the gloves, ear muffs, camera, etc. in my jacket pockets.

 

We rode the zip line twice so we can cross that off our bucket list. On the second trip Renae felt brave enough to get a picture of me. Notice I'm still holding on tightly with one hand. As I looked at the pictures I realized it looks more painful than it really was. It was fun to zip over part of the campus including a pond by the lodge.

We also enjoyed a 90+ minute horseride through the woods and the grounds to enjoy the beautiful colors.

And one of the best parts of the weekend is that the first digit of my age isn't changing soon!!!

Some true quotes?

I kinda liked Aunt Ada’s clever quotes awhile back on this Blog. For the sake of a new Post, I’m posting a few of my favorites, some of which I’ve found amazingly true.


(Safety Disclaimer: Not all are true for me and/or Kathleen!)

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn’t need.

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting she won’t change, but she does.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and try not to understand her at all.

Men wake up as good-looking as when they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

Mice? UGH!

I can't imagine what in the world I was doing dragging mice out to Ralph and Catherine's. I don't even like mice although the lab white ones aren't nearly as obnoxious as the sneaky gray house mice. Guess I was trying to get on the good side of Gloria. That had to be the only time the mice left the lab. Lynn surely was highly tolerant and appears so in the pics, but then we were newly weds! By the way, he still is quite tolerant.