the BIG tomato

well, summer is almost over and we have spent much of our time gardening and preserving! we've had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, but here is the "monster tomato" from our garden so far -- 1 lb and 1 oz. i knew there would be some sceptics in the family, so i've taken a picture of the tomato on the kitchen scales as proof! we've had many tomatoes that weighed in at almost a pound, but just not quite.

so far, we've canned 70 qts of tomatoes & 24 pints of jalapenos, and we've frozen 15 qts of sweet corn and 56 qts of apple sauce. we still have more tomatoes and jalapenos coming on, cucumbers picked to make pickles, and more zucchini than we can keep up w/ giving away!

we have over 30 canteloupes coming on (and have already picked 3) and have about 20 watermelons on the vine. the way we have it figured -- the canteloupes and the watermelons will probably all be ready at the same time! if that happens, i'm not really sure what we'll do w/ all that produce!

we have had SO much fun watching our garden and watching the grandchildren "helping" in the garden. then grandpa started making all these rules like "no throwing dirt" and "no kicking dirt" and pretty soon it'll be "no having fun"!

i told jerry if he wasn't careful, no one would be going to the garden w/ him if he had all those rules! it's rather hard for me to enforce rules on the grandkids when i'm not willing to follow them myself! but, i guess i could just throw a rotten tomato instead??? i'm sure that would be just ducky -- don't you think?

evelyn's quilt for auction

the elliott reunion is coming up very soon, and evelyn has her quilt ready for the auction. the auction is the fundraiser to support the reunion expenses that may occur in preparing the reunion gathering. this year, evelyn has designed a family quilt (with jennifer and janie and joleen's help) that notes this reunion was held in missouri, has a block for the elliott parents, and a block for each of the children (evelyn and her siblings). this is also a memorable reunion because it's the first time the reunion has been anywhere except nebraska.

this is quite an amazing quilt and very meaningful to the family members. jerry and i have already decided what we are willing to bid for this treasure and we're hoping that we come away the proud winners. we understand that we might not be, but we're going to give it a run for the money!

bidders must be present to bid and/or win any auction items. be prepared and be forewarned!

midwest storms

many people have asked lately about the tornadoes near us and what was going on with that. this is a photo of the tornado from 5/10/08 that hit picher, OK, through seneca, MO (south edge of joplin, MO), and then on down through granby, MO.

this picture was taken from the parking lot of central school in baxter springs, KS -- about 10 minutes from picher, OK, area. i received this picture through email, so i'm not sure who should get the credit for the original photograph.

ireport has posted several pictures of this incident if you're interested in specific destruction of this area.

this particular tornado rated an EF 3-4 on the scale, which means it's pretty bad. i've not ever noticed a hyphenated number before, but i guess it could've changed levels of destruction as it traveled or something. if you're interested in tornado ratings, you can read the classifications.

what can i say? not a lot going on in tornado alley during tornado season -- other than watching the storms roll in and (hopefully) right on by. we had another tornado warning last night and could hear the pittsburg, KS, sirens going off. part of the my kids were already here and the other part arrived shortly before the sirens. i guess it was more fun to watch the storm from here!

last night to keep raven from being scared of tornadoes, i told her that's how a person gets to oz to see the wizard -- so she just went on about playing as if there was nothing wrong. no need having her crying as well as riahna, who was afraid of the thunder (and the cat and the dog and the train, etc!)

new baby is here!

well, she finally arrived on monday evening around 6 p.m. and of course, she's beautiful! here's our first glimpse of her when we first arrived. grandpa jerry was near bursting w/ pride as i stood back and watched b/c i have a cold. how unlucky is that???

jerry had to be out of town for 3 days for a work conference, and he was so worried that she would arrive while he was gone and he wouldn't get to see her until he returned -- so this was great luck for him! he had his bags all packed so we could race to the hospital as soon as we heard she was here.

all is well; everyone is doing great. summer and i are going to joplin tonight and hope to see her while we are there. i'm sure she won't be the least little bit spoiled (said with dripping sarcasm!), but there is nothing wrong with being spoiled w/ love.

vacation photo for jerry

well, we've just returned from a wonderful week in new orleans for spring break. after years of paying for mission trips for kids and other people, we went on a mission trip ourselves -- a first for both of us. our church went to new orleans to help rebuild homes after hurricane katrina. it was a great experience and we had lots of fun!

on our afternoon off, our group went to the french quarter. since jerry is still recovering from knee replacement surgery, he didn't want to just walk around and shop so we went to the aquarium. it was a fantastic time and we had this picture taken. i didn't really want to, but jerry talked me into it and it turned out great -- i'm so glad we did it.

we later "lost" the picture as we left it behind in the restaurant where we had dinner and didn't realize it until almost 2 hours later. that meant a walk back down to the other end of the french quarter to retrieve our prize and we were lucky that the waitress had found it and set it back for us. we were so excited to show it to our grandchildren, as they all love to watch shrek when they come to visit.

i was SO homesick for the little ones that i couldn't wait to see them when i got back. that is the longest that i have gone w/o seeing them and it really hurt. they were waiting here at the house when we got home that night and spent the next 2 hours climbing all over memaw and grandpa. thank God for cell phones and keeping in touch. i even got an "i love you" on voicemail from riahna that i'll be saving!

the biggest party yet

amazing as it may seem, we're planning the biggest party yet to happen at our house. it seems that so many parties end up here and we LOVE having people over and spending time w/ family and friends. we've had thanksgiving, christmas, superbowl, father's day, mother's day, and 4th of july plus just "come over and have some food and fun" get-togethers. but now, we're hosting the elliott family reunion for 2008.

that's right. the nebraska reunion is now going to be in missouri! we're probably going to have a hundred or more people here and we're so excited! we've got 3 days of fun and activities planned for all ages . . . including the elliott reunion auction. top secret word has it that evelyn is making one of her quilts for the auction. super-top-secret word is that the "missouri bunch" is pooling their money to make sure that no one from nebraska can take that quilt home w/ them!!! sounds like some excitement building there!

about 2 weeks ago, we sent out an invitation letter and a reminder of the reunion activities and dates. we're also collecting recipes for an elliott family cookbook to be distributed at the reunion, so everyone needs to get recipes collected and turned in to cindy to be included in the book. we've already heard from several people in the family and know that we're having family come from coast to coast -- even people we were so surprised to hear were making the trip.

we included this great group shot of the family, taken at the 2006 reunion when we went to nebraska and took evelyn w/ us. we had a great time on that trip, taking some time to do a couple tourist stops along the way, and i met many great people from jerry's family. after doing all the pictures from evelyn's 80th bday party, i knew these people from pictures and now i could meet them in real life. it was a great trip and provided the invitation to everyone there to visit us in missouri in 2008.

we are so excited for this event and the fun times, memories, and great pictures that we'll have. oh yeah, and hopefully and beautiful new quilt, too!!! it'll be a great june and a wonderful summer!

3 little gorillas

here are the 3 little boys that we are so proud of and enjoy spending time w/ doing special activities and having them out to the house. they are so much fun that we can't wait to see them again the next time! as soon as the weather gets nicer, we'll have even more fun things to do w/ them when we can be outside.

holiday letdown

while others are preparing for their thanksgiving holiday coming up, it feels to me as if the holiday is already over. we had our big thanksgiving dinner on sunday, 11/18, with all of jerry's family here and most of my family here. overall, we had about 30 people for dinner and to spend most of the day. it was great fun, but for some reason i didn't get many pictures taken.

we had jerry's mother, brother, 3 sisters and families, nephew and family, neice and child, son and family. on my side, we had my mother and husband, my son and girlfriend, and my daughter w/ her hubby and 2 little girls. there was SO much food here, i didn't even see it all.

we had a great dinner, lots of time to spend together as a family, beautiful weather so the kids could play outside, and a wonderful time to spend together being thankful for all that we have. after everyone left but our kids, we started the movie shrek the third for our evening. we snuggled down in our comfy seats w/ our blankets (at least raven and i did!) and watched the movie -- it was a great ending to a wonderful day.

i left jerry in charge of taking pictures that day -- we have 5 pictures and all of the same people doing the same thing. bad judgment mistake on my part, i guess, to give the camera to someone still on pain pills and recovering from surgery and say, "here, you take the pictures for today." i'll know better next time!

raven's preschool portrait

this is raven, one of my little princesses, last year at preschool just after she had turned 3 years old. she has always loved going to miss lorie's "prettyschool", which is how she says "preschool" when she's in a hurry. now it's just a habit and i think she thinks of it as "pretty school". she loves going SO much that even when she's sick, she thinks she needs to go to school.

here is her current picture, taken just after she turned 4. it was amazing to see the change in her, as i guess i don't notice the overall changes when i see her so often. she told me she had pictures taken and i asked her how she posed. she said, "he told me to put my foot out." i couldn't quite figure out what she was talking about, but she was excited about it so i didn't push for more info. after seeing the picture, now i know what she meant!

i was floored when i saw what a little lady she looked like in this picture -- so young and yet so grown up looking. i guess that's one of the best parts of parenting is that we can just sit back and watch them grow up. she's certainly going to run her parents around the block a time or two, and i'm sure i'm going to enjoy the show.

raven, memaw and grandpa are so proud of you and think you have a wonderful and bright future ahead of you!

jerry's "captain morgan" machine

well, now that knee replacement surgery is over, the fun part starts -- physical therapy! for the first 2 weeks at home, we had a home health care physical therapist who came to the house 5 days a week. now, we have 3 trips a week to physical therapy in town at the hospital.

based on the recommendations of the home health physical therapist, jerry got a knee bending machine. i'm not sure of the technical name for this equipment, but scott refers to it as "the captain morgan machine". i think scott feels rather safe giving jerry quite a bit of hassle, as he knows that jerry can't get up and do much about it. after all, he just has to stay out of cane-striking distance!

so between a list of exercises to do each day, walking around the house/porch or down the lane, and spending time in the "captain morgan machine," jerry also has plenty of time to play games on the computer, read, watch television, make work phone calls, sort the mail, and overall just go stir-crazy in the house. since his surgery, he's added the sports package to our cable, watched pay-per-views, downloaded the full games on the internet, and purchased more books online! at this rate, we can't afford for him to be house-bound much longer!

he rooked me into a trip to walmart the other day (i despise going to walmart) and he even rode to parsons w/ me when i went to teach class the other day. just getting out of the house was a huge treat for him. saturday, 11/10, was opening day of deer season, and it was tough for him to be stuck in the house while the boys were hunting. after all, last year, jerry got his deer right after season opened.

we were going to make a trip out somewhere, driving around and exploring, but just didn't get to it with everything else going on. maybe tomorrow will bring a day that has time for these little pleasures in life.