Merry Christmas to All

One of Grandma Lucy's Christmas Post Cards

These cards are close to 100 years old - still beautiful.

Wishing You a lovely Christmas!

Cherish the Season!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We had a wonderful time on Sunday with the whole gang..........tomorrow our kids will celebrate with their families.  Tonight we will go out to eat.  This is the third year we have done that; I like this new tradition.
Later Christmas morning we will take the short walk to join our daughter and her family for brunch. Then it will be time to play some games. Warren and I will round out the day reading and relaxing.

A VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON to EVERYONE!

After the Rain

We got a new piece of garden art this spring.  This is not where I intended it to be placed in our yard but for now this is where is resides.

Our daughter and family gave me a fused garden art class for part of my birthday gift.  This butterfly was one of the four pieces I made for the class.  They turned out better than I expected.

This one may be my favorite as it shows up the most from a distance.

This blue flower is the final one I have put in place.  The other one is a gift.  I am still moving them around the yard to see where I want them.  If I had made three flowers for myself I might put them together for more impact.  It was a fun thing to do with our daughter.

I wanted to spill the beans on Veteran’s Day but it was requested that our knowledge of an award be keep quite.  Last night my father's family was given the Sullivan Brothers Outstanding Military Family Award.  I felt like a mini family reunion last night.  The award was presented by the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum which is part of the Grout Museum District. 

There was a write up about the family and the award in today's Waterloo Ceder Falls, Courier. It can be found at King-sized military family wins Sullivan award.

Warren and I visited the museum a couple of  years ago.  It is a worthwhile stop if you are in the Waterloo, Iowa area.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in military history.  

As a child I enjoyed visits the museum as they had a pioneer section.  I loved the Laura Ingles Wilder books and the museum helped make them real.  The pioneer section is still there but it is much smaller that I remember.  I doubt if some of Laura's homes were much bigger than the displays.  

Happy Halloween

This picture was not taken this year; yet it could have been. 

A couple of weeks ago we had a snow fall of an inch..

Since it is Halloween I thought it would be fun to post.  

Fall is in Full Swing

Yesterday I cleaned half of my vegetable garden and harvested the last of the carrots.  Warren and I enjoy the flavor of homegrown carrots.  This year I bought a package that had red, white, light orange, and orange carrots.  We found the white to be rather tasteless but liked the others better.  The red ones were orange when peeled so unless they are young and well scrubbed they were not the fun product I had hoped.  Their flavor was good.  The light orange ones did not have a very strong carrot flavor so I will stick with regular carrots next year.

Oh, yes I had one very big carrot.  It was in a row of normal carrots so I do not know what caused the steroid like growth.

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate Cookies with White Chocolate Chips or Peanut Butter Chips  

   

       

I made these cookies today.  For the cocoa I used some of the Valrhona 100% cacao.  This cocoa powder is said to be one of the best brands.  This is the first I have used the package we bought in Minneapolis this winter in cookies.  I wanted to know if we could tell the difference and if it was by chance worth the extra money. 

It is a bit different in taste from the other cocoas I have used.  It is certainly good.  I am not sure my taste buds can tell the difference in a blind test.  My palate my not be refined enough to warrant the extra cost of this cocoa but I will buy it again.  It is not a must to have product. But nice to have in the cabinet.