Vacation begins NOW!!!!!!

Well I have quit my job and Craig and I are going to start to live our lives!!!! Are Kids are gone and starting families of their own. Chelsie is in South Korea and her family is in South Carolina and waiting for her to come home, Les and Nina have their own place and Kellie has Baby Jayla and will be moving into their own place soon. So Craig and I will be without Children, kind of sad yet very exciting!

We started our MINI vacation with a day trip to some places here in Nebraska:  First stop, Union, Ne. We found this Orchard that is family owned and operated, the Lechner Family. They had some really neat things in there. We found these wonderful Praline Pecans there and they are sooooo goooooodd!!! We will be planning on going back when the apples are in season and do some picking. Fresh Apple Pies, here I come.

Our next stop was Nebraska City, yet another apple orchard, went to the Arbor Lodge and visited the Arbor Tree Farm. We were going to take the walking path tour, however it was so humid that we decided to go back when the Apple Festival starts. The weather will be cooler and easier for us old people to handle. Then off to find a place for lunch: Parkers Rib Ranch. Boys was that something else. Wonderful food and a super wonderful waitress. Her name was Seirra. Super sweet young lady, stop in and see her if you are in that neighborhood.

Off to Brownville: Only to be disappointed: they had a flood and the River Boat ride was no more. So we just toured the town and what a town it is. Small little shops here and there and some very intersting museums. We went to The Captain Bailey House Museum and Gardens and it was really cool. They told us the house had been moved one brick at a time to the location that it sits at now. Pretty impressive. We also went to a Winery will we were there: Wiskey Run Creek. We sampled wines and even wound up buying three bottles!!! Those will be really good to drink this fall as we sit on the deck and rethink places we have visited.

Captain Baily's House

Last stop on this trip: Pawnee City, Nebraska and yet another Winery. SchillingBridge Winery. Love that place. They told us about a wine tour and even signed us up and gave us the directions and a map of all the wineries here in Nebraska. We enjoyed some wonderful wines and sampled some of their beers from their microbrew they have. Bought a growler of Rootbeer, yummy.  While we were in Pawnee City we seen the barn from when Larry the Cable Guy was young.

Larry the Cable Guy Barn

Grapes from SchillingBridge Winery

Our evening came to an end with our drive back home. What a wonderful time we had. Can't wait for the next trip. We think will be to Carhenge, Chimney Rock, Mt Rushmore then off to the fossil beds. Can't wait.

Doctors Appointment

Well the old dreaded doctors appointment! I knew I was having some problems but this appointment scared the heck out of me. I went to the emergency room on the 3rd of May and was told I had strep. Ok, I can deal with that, yeah right. The doctor there wasn't going to let me go home unless I promised to make an appointment with my doctor because of the blood presure, 187/105. Not good!!!! So I make the appointment with a doctor and go in and he tells me I have to make life changing plans or I won't be around to see my beautiful grandkids grow up, OH MY GOD!!! I have to be here for these little guys. Life changing plan is  now in effect!!!!!!

So here I am - Telling the whole world, or who ever is reading, the dreaded weight and begging for help! When I went to the doctor the weight was 270.5, that was on Friday the 14th. He told me he wanted me to lose 5 pounds by the 11 of June. 5 pounds! Do any of you have a doctor that hasn't said you were overweight and needs to lose the weight? Well my doctor never once told me I was fat or overweight, that is in those nasty words. All he said was, " Mary, for the sake of those grandkids and for the sake of YOUR health, I WOULD like you to lose 5 pounds by the 11th. Here are some tips to do it. If you need ANY help, PLEASE call my office." Wow now that is what I call a doctor.

 So today is the 16th of May and I got on the scale, just to see how mine was compared to the doctors and it said I weighed 268.4, ok right! I went to the neighbors house and used their scale and she is a fitness nut, so I am guessing hers would be right, and hers said I weighed 267.9. Yippy!!!!.

Ok so what I need now is some good heart healthy recipes and I can thank the internet for those, but I also need the good old encouragement for everyone, you know the cheering section. I am so grateful for the family and friends that I have that have pushed me in this life changing trip that I am on. Craig, the good old man, has helped with eating what I fix and not complaining about it and the kids for the encourgement that this is something I can do. The next thing I need to work on is getting rid of most of the stress that I have in my life or dealing with in a different want. So here goes!!!!

That is me, what I look like now. More updates as they happen!!!!

Spring Cleaning

What the heck was I thinking - SPRING CLEANING? Well need I say more? It is going so slow not getting things done like I would like to. Have so many distractions:

she is such a dolly.

Baby Jayla

This is Miss Sassy Pants Jayla. This was taken on Valentines day, 2009. What a little hambone she is. Such a sweet little thing. Love her so much. Can't wait to get some Pictures of Little Man Jaxson as soon as he comes to see Grandma and Grandpa!

House cleaning

Well started to do some spring cleaning a little early. cleaning out the home office and moving Kellie and Jaylas stuff up there. Will start cleaning the big bedroom downstairs and turning that into a guest suite. Trying to get it all done in a week. We will see how that goes.

Chelsie, Richard and Little Jaxson will be home the 16th of March for about a week and a half. We will have a busy week that week also. Chelsie will then be leaving for Korea around the 15 of April :( That will be a hard time for me. I miss talking to my kids everyday and it hurts like heck when I don't talk to them. Kellie and Jayla no longer live at home and it is hard to get to talk to them also. I was so use to having them around all the time and now they aren't here. Ripped my heart out.

 I so want to have all the kids together so I can get pictures of all of them. I really want pictures of the babies together!!!! I keep praying for the day they are all together again.

As soon as I learn to up load pictures, watch out. I really love to take pictures!! Keep smiling and may God bless each and everyone of us.

Taking a stand on Abuse:

In the last few months I have been watching a very dear person go through Domestic Abuse. The sad thing is that she doesn't see it. She is a very young mother who has a beautiful little girl. I love both so very much and it truely hurts me to see what she is doing. I have taken a stand to fight abuse and will make posts on facebook and here to hopefully one day end the Abuse. I know it will never go away but if I can help at least one person see what is happening in their life and help them get the help they need then that is what I will do. I will post a  form of abuse every day for the next 6 days and maybe someone will see it and in turn help me fight this horrible disease.

Emotional Abuse is defined as Hurting another person's feelings by saying cruel, unfair comments or by name calling. Such as:
          *  Attacks on and/or insults about people you care about, such as family and friends
         * Cursing, swearing and /or screaming at you and blames you for everything that has gone wrong
          * Uses money to control you (e.g. taking all of you money, forcing you to ask family and friends for money.
          * telling you you are "crazy" and needs help, that you are not a good person, can't take care of you children, etc.


I hope one day to be able to help this person in my life to understand what is happening and to help her end the Abuse she and her daughter are going through. She doesn't understand that she in turn is inflicking abuse on her daughter and her family and friends. WE need to take this stand on abuse so that the abuser and the Abusee are getting the help that is needed before it is too late.

 If any one reading this wants to help fight abuse please call your local Abuse center and find out what you can do. The National Abuse Hotline numbers are: i-800-799-SAFE(7233) Or TTY 1-800-787-3224.

Thanks for listening and May God bless each and everyone.

My Mini Vacation

Oh boy did I have fun this weekend. I went out of town to visit my best friend Kathy. We did just what we wanted to do this weekend, Nothing!!! I was all about us. We did our nails, colored our hair, had Chinese for lunch on Friday and went out for lunch on Saturday. We had a great weekend. I was afraid to come home on Sunday because I didn't know what was waithing. The kitchen could have been cleaned up, it wasn't the way I left it. Kellie did fix dinner one night so at least I know they didn't starve :). Kathy and I had a great time and I can't wait to do it again.

Getting Away

I am so excited. I get to go out of town tomorrow, Thursday. I get to go see my best friend Kathy. I haven't seen her in quite awhile. We have plans to go out to eat and to visit the cutest little store around. I love to collect chickens and this place has them all, or they use to. I haven't been there in a long time. I am so hoping that this weekend is a great weekend. Just the girls!!

Happy Bithday Kellie

Today is my youngest daughter Kellie's 19th birthday. Boy do I feel old. Kellie is very much her own person. I remember that day she was born. Uncle "Turtle" had taken Chelsie, Kellie's older sister, to see Sesame Street Live and it was snow really bad. He brought Chelsie home around 6:30pm. I had Chelsie take her bath and eat dinner while I gave Les his bath, he was 1 at the time. We read stories and then it was bed time. The kids dad was at work, he worked the late night shift so he was gone. I went to bed and played Mario on the Nintendo and went to sleep around 11:30pm. I woke up at 3am thinking I had to go to the restroom. Well to my surprise that wasn't what was going on. I was in Labor!! There was no one here but me and two sleeping kids. What to do. Call Mom and have her send over Dad. That was the first thing. Call Randy and let him know he needed to come home. Call 911, this baby isn't going to wait. Most women usually have time. My first baby was a 4.5 hour labor, the 2nd was 2.75 hours and this one, well no way was she going to wait. I was talking the 911 dispatcher and he asked if my water had broken, thanks it just did. Yuck all over the carpet. Thanks 911. Then I had the Very YOUNG police officer that showed up and as soon as he seen what was going on, turned as white as a sheet. Great now what? My Dad showed up about that time. Thank you Dad. Here comes the paramedics. Finally. They get me into the ambulance and off to the hospital. Of course the roads were really nasty from all the snow, oh did I mention that it was a blizzard that was going on? Oh yes it was!! We had gotten to the hospital and I asked the paramedic to tell me if it was a boy or girl and she laughed. "You didn't have that baby yet". I asked her to amuse me and look anyway. "Wow it is a girl!" The rest is history. Thanks for letting me remember this day and to share it with you. Happy Birthday Kellie.

A little about my family

So my son is 20 years old and wants to either go to culinary school or machinics. He asked my to teach him how to make a peach pie, so here we are in the kitchen and he is covered in flour. What a funny sight it was! He has on black so you can only imagine how that looked. Mine you Les, my son, is 6'2" and a fairly hefty young man. So let your imagination run wild with that thought. I wish I would have had the camera handy. He loves to cook and is always ready to learn a new dish. Some day he will make a good house husband :). My girls on the other hand really don't care if they cook or not. Chelsie is my oldest, 24, and she is married to a super guy Richard. They have a little boy named Jaxson. Chelsie is in the Army and stationed in South Carolina for now. She will be deployed to Korea in April. Not so sure I will be able to handle that. Richard and Jaxson will come to stay with us for awhile while she is gone. Looking forward to that. I don't get to see Jaxson very much and he is 2. Can't wait. Kellie is my youngest, 19, and she has a little girl named Jayla. What a beauty she is. Jayla is 5 months old. Kellie can't decide what she wants to do with her life just yet. Nursing shool looks pretty good to her. Well thanks for reading a little about my family. I am sure there will be tons more to come.

Thank you Kim

I am just starting out blogging and I would like to say a big thank you to my sister-in-law Kim for coming and giving me a crash course on how to get started. Hopefully soon I will be off and running on my own. Again, thanks Kim for your help!!