Blogging friends

I've been blogging now for about 2 1/2 years. When I first started blogging, like many of the rest of you I did plenty of blog hopping and reading different blogs from all over.  Yeah--spent a lot of time that way!

As time went on I established my favorite ones.  Maybe there was some connection of people, maybe something we had in common, maybe it was because I stepped out of my comfort zone and commented on their blog & they responded to me, maybe it was those who commented on my blog.

Sometimes for some reason you just "feel" a connection with certain people causing you or them to reach out a little further than causal comments.

Those of you who are around me hear me in conversation refer to "My blogging friend from ___"  I find myself saying this quite a lot.  I feel very fortunate to have gotten "acquainted" with quite a few bloggers and consider them friends!  But, the truth is, other than my family and very few others that I actually do personally know;  I have never met any of the other of my blogging friends.

Until this weekend!!

Last week I got pretty close....if you remember I posted about meeting some of Alison's family.

When I made one of my "house tour" posts, Patty made the comment "we're coming to visit", and I responded that would be awesome,  and then she said "Seriously"!!  I still can hardly believe it.

They arrived Sat. afternoon, and we had some friends/family out for a potluck for supper that night.  The question was asked, "when did you meet"?  uhhh, TODAY!!

We joked about the fact that they were stopping by to meet us on their way home to TX after visiting in CO!
Really they were on a road trip and heading on east & south, but they did go out of their way to come see us!

 

Can you think of a more appropriate place to have our picture taken together than beside the computer?!




We had some family and friends over for a potluck on Sat. eve,

We spent some time inside eating...

My younger sister--and our friends aka big Opps, I MEANT older! "sistah" Cyndie & Dan

The middle sister--Gay and Patrick.  Yes, she's the one who makes those delightful comments, and is the mother of THIS delightful blogger, my niece

 And with my mom

On the porch eating;

Alisha & Ryan, Derek,  Becky & Paul & Leon at the end

On the steps eating....

My friend Shelley from HERE; with her delightful mischievous little grandson

Outside eating on the play set;

Gay's youngest, Jackson, & her oldest grandaughter Felicity, with Kaela in the middle.

In a tree eating;

 

Her Grandson Latham--

And outside under the trees in the cool breeze visiting, too full to move

and the sun went down on another day of country memories

Andy & Patty--we are so happy you came to meet us, and spent some time with us.  We so enjoyed having you as our our first guests in our country home, having you in our Sun. a.m. gathering, sharing you with our friends & family--both here and Sun. evening at Russ & Lanae's too.
We hope you have a wonderful & safe rest of your journey "home"!

Words, Numbers and Generations

So I'm really bad. I had a whole house full of company Saturday evening and Sunday noon, and did not take any pictures myself. I have to rely on what my girls took.

Instead of photos, I'll have to give you words and numbers.

We had all our kids home except Jana and Laura. That's 10 kids-5 spouses and 5 grandkids. --That's 20

Wades parents, his grandmother, his brother, his sister, husband & 3 kids. --That's 9

Leon's Mom, 2 sisters, and 1 brother--That's 4

My Mom--1 and Jim's Mom 1----That's 2

1 single guy friend (Martin)--Add 1 more

Leon and I--Two more makes a total of 38
That's who all we had here for supper Sat. evening.

Sunday noon we were 10 less, -- 28 for dinner.

Barrett and Jessi with their 2 grammies and 3 of their great grandmothers.

Front, L to R--My mom holding Barrett, Wades Grandma Velma, Jessi and Leon's Mom; Edith.
Back, Me, and Wades mom, Ruth.

We might have missed getting alot of other pictures, but we did get a few special ones!

Jessi bear

 

Happy (belated) birthday--I hope you have lots of fun playing dress-up Jessi!

Work boys, work!

Thankfully Friday and Saturday were sunny. We've had alot of rain and everything is lovely green, but we were hoping for sun and warm with all our weekend company


I got a load of wood chips to use for landscaping...now if it would just quit raining long enough to get my yard work done!


My brick-laying son built us a new fire pit for bonfires!


And some stood (or sat) around and watched him..


NICE job Ryan!! Thanks!


We roasted all our hotdogs & enjoyed the fire.


Play kids, play!

Well, some of them weren't kids, and some of us didn't play, but it was fun to watch anyway. Hopefully they had fun.


These were kids, and they were playing. The little ones loved the outdoor space, and I hardly saw them inside!

More to come.........

Did I mention....

How much I love being able to see sunsets out here in the country?

Obviously my kids do too, because they will be out playing, come running to the house telling me to "come quick Mom"!

Tonight was one of those nights & Kaela came running to get me. I handed her the camera to take to Kara & off she went.

Great job with the photos Kara!

Where to start?

We had a wonderful weekend.

A really full weekend.

I have so many pictures I'd like to share of our weekend that I really don't quite know where to start, so I guess I'll share this one first.

I've said before that one of the best things about blogging (and facebook) is connecting with people and making friends that you might never have the chance to meet otherwise.

One of the best things is making "virtual friends" that you MIGHT get the chance to meet someday because of it!

Last week one of my blogging friends contacted me to let me know that her parents and daughter were going to be in our town for high school graduation of their nephew, and they would like to connect with me for Sunday a.m. arrangements.

I was delighted! I hadn't had a chance to meet any of my blogging friends (ones that I don't personally know already) so although I didn't get to meet A. herself, the next best thing was some of her family!



Here's me with my two youngest, Kaela & Kara & A's mom with her grandaughter Kyla. She is right in-between in age of my girls.

How very fun to meet you, and have you with us Sunday a.m. Thank you Alison!

Rather incredibly this coming weekend I'm going to have the chance to finally meet another one of my blogging friends. Patty & Andy are coming to visit for the weekend and I'm just ecstatic about it!

Stay tuned!

More Music

Kara and Kaela have been taking piano lessons just a little under a year now. This spring was their first time at public performances.
Their teacher, Jane entered them in a talent show in March and the girls worked hard learning their pieces & memorizing them. Both girls played two songs and although they didn't place, they did a wonderful job on their playing


Kaela~ along with her first public performance, she had to go first.


~Kara


I believe the judges were music students from the collage here.


The crew who tallied the scores & wrote out the certificates


Yesterday the girls had their first recital. When Jane told me who she was having the c0-recital with, I thought it was pretty ironical that it was with a teacher (Karen D.) that my sisters and I had taken lessons from when we were teens. Also a couple of my older girls had lessons with her too!
Yeah, I goofed, I missed a great photo op!


~Kaela


~Kara


~My nephew Nathan


As I was zooming in on the kids playing, I noticed the reflection of their hands.
I thought it was pretty cool. A while back someone else did this for one of the photos on our photo challenge blog.



And this last picture? Well no piano or violin music here, But I think maybe this qualifies for melody for the soul.


Our oldest son, and the flowers he brought me for mothers day.

Keeping things real

Before we go any further on this house tour I'd like to assure you all that things are really quite "normal" at this house. If you read THIS (my dear nieces) blog, then you will understand my desire to clarify a few things. (grin!) She was too young to remember several of our moves that resulted in much the same state as hers, and I am still not too old to remember the complete chaos that I lived with and in for way too long. Moving is a chore. At least with a family. Our moves before children were relatively fast and simple. In fact our first move after we were married; from Wyo back to NE was accomplished in one trip in the back of a pickup. That was 33 years ago this summer. I don't WANT to remember how many trailer, van, pickup & car loads (and TIME) this move took us, and it was only 17 miles.

So--without any more adieu I present just a tiny glimpse of REAL life--


The porch BEFORE. Unfortunately this was only one of the many times it was piled in, then put "away" before the next batch came in.


My downstairs bath/laundry room, and yes, it still looks this way. It was a little worse yesterday before I pulled a few things out for another organization project.


In the mean time, life must go on. Meals must appear, kids seem to think they still have to eat. I have cleaning jobs. I have school runs. I have chores to assign kids. Kids have piano lessons and strings concerts.

Kara's spring orchestra concert--This is the 5th graders (all K. public schools)





Sorry, no video's. I've misplaced my camera card, and the one I'm using is a 32 M. I get about 5 pictures at a time :P


Anyway, the days rush past. One melts into another, and it seems like it's taking a long time to get everything together but I stop and realize it's "only" the 5th of May, and we've really only had everything moved for 2 weeks.

I am encouraged when I hear "Wow mom, it looks like things are really coming together". Thank you son, I appreciate that!




And here's a picture I found on my camera when I was downloading this morning. A reminder to stop and enjoy the "simple things" The beauty in the middle of our hectic chaos.
Thank you for whoever grabbed my camera & captured the moment.