Gulf Shores

 I was over cleaning the barn by 6:15 am. Mark came over to help with the sweeping and by 8:30 the barn was ready for our airbnb guests coming in tomorrow.  I still needed to move Evan into his paddock and put away one load of laundry before leaving. Amy was picked up by 9:30 am and we were on our way to the airport in Bellville, IL arriving there by noon. I went to the counter to get my boarding pass as when I tried to check in and either print it or get my ticketbon the phone was given the message I was ineligible and myst visit the counter. They explained there was a balance due of $22.00 on my ticket.  No way that was true since I had gone to the airport in Peoria personally to purchase my ticket. It took about 20 minutes with different people on the phone to finally wave the money and get my ticket. The plane wasnt full and Amy and I were able to sit together in row 9. We arrived just a little after 4:00 pm. Beth picked us up and dropped us off at Island Royale. Diane was with mom and Aunt Jinnie.  She started the tatertot casserole Joan had ready to be baked for our dinner. We watched the sunset ate dinner and now mom and Aunt Jinnie are watching Little House on the Prairie.  We will soon head to bed. I posted a video of the sunset but only have my phone here no laptops so cant share them. Will go back once home and post them all later.

Family Food and Fun

 As today is the superbowl party I meant to turn the heat on in the barn but forgot. Thankfully Mark remembered right after we got home from church. It didn't quite hit the target of 68 degrees before people started arriving but got close. We had a quiet morning just eating breakfast, showering and getting ready for church. We picked up Mackenson as Faith and Berlica were going to Tremont for a young group invite. We heard later there were 33 greetings. Amy told me later that church was packed and the singing absolutely gorgeous! Gregg Rumbold had the morning message in Peoria on Joshua 24 and Colossians 3 click HERE if you would like to watch that.  For lunch David and Lanae along with Eddie and Christa helped all the men serve a Valentines lunch for all the ladies of the church. They had red roses on each table and heart shaped pink and red napkins. LOTS of delicious food, those men really know how to spoil us ladies. The afternoon service was given by James Fehr and Craig Stickling. We will be praying about adding another minister to the Peoria church and the exhortation was on what, who and how to pray.  It really was important for us to hear. Click HERE if you would like to watch this message. We dropped Mackenson off first then Mark dropped me off so I could give the apartment a quick check and clean up any mess from when Mark was installing the new lights while he went to the gas station to fill up the car with gas. I will be taking his car tomorrow to the airport at Belleville, IL At 3:00 pm I left to pick up the chicken from Kroger. I had just pulled in a mom's to put some boxes inside when Karin arrived to pick up her mail. She came to my house, picked up Nancy and took her to the barn for tea time. There were already a lots of family there from Spark's family and Ruth's family so Nancy got to see a lot of people tonight. We also had kids from Rachel's family, Beth's family and of course our family. Below are some pictures of the evening and I'll start with the abundance of food.

Fedi brought in the door plaques he carved for his grandchildren. He made each one with love and made one for each of his 7 (so far) grandchildren.

As he had the prayer he and his family got to go first. Below are a few more pictures. 

After the meal the game was turned on, a few of the men were watching but the rest of us were visiting or playing.

Below is a short video of some of the fun.

Nancy wasn't feeling well and asked to go home to bed. I took her home as it was earlier than anyone else wanted to leave. I think she just ate too much. I didn't think her plate was extra full but found out later she helped herself to some of the pizza. Mark and I came home a little early as I have to be up early tomorrow to get the barn ready for airbnb guests before I leave for Belleville. 

The news came in on the I74 Tournament. Kensly's team remained undefeated by beating Galesburg also an undefeated team 24 to 13. It was a hard fought game and Kensley played amazing. The Fifth Grade Farmington Farmers are the new Champions of 2026's of the all those schools along I74..

Games Again

 Anna picked me up this morning so I could go watch Braelyn play at Louisville Slugger. We got there just before her games started. She played 3 sets. They lost the first set, won the second set in 2 games and barely lost the 3rd.

We were able to watch her team win both games of the second set before we needed to leave for Knoxville, IL where Kensley was playing in the I74 basketball tournament. Kensly played at 11:00 am playing the Knoxville team. Below she is getting ready for the jump off.

She made 6 points then missed 2 layups, easy layups. She asked to coach to take her out, she told us later she felt like she wasn't helping the team. We just had to laugh. When the coach put her back in she made 4 more points in less than 20 seconds to finish out the first half with a score of 10 to 0 The second half while she was out the other team ended up scoring 10 points but then Kensley and her team actually did well. I don't remember the final score, maybe 19 or 20 to 10.

Below is the video of the first game.

The second team they played was from Williamsville and that game was a run-a-way. I think they only allowed this team 2 points. 

Phil dropped me off around 3:00 pm. After eating a late lunch I drove over to mom's house to pick up Rachel's, Diane's, Rhonda's and some of mom's mail. I will take that down to Gulf Shores when I leave on Monday morning. The apartment booked this morning, they will be arriving on the 12th and I don't get home until the 16th so asked Anna if she would check it before they arrive. I stopped at the barn to make sure all was cleaned up and ready for the Super Bowl party tomorrow after church. BTW anyone who would like to come just bring a dish to share. We have plenty of room and there will be plenty of food. My packing is almost done, There is one more load of laundry to be dried and I can finish packing. Gulf Shores is expecting warm sunny weather for the week Amy and I are there. 

Special Mare

 There was no need to wake early as I was not needed to take the girls to school today but we were up by 4:45 am. I only got up as I heard Mark start the coffee maker and knew I had to guard it so he wouldn't steal a cup and get all the strong stuff. Joan's kids needed a ride to Co-op so they were picked up at 8:25 am. After dropping them off I drove right to church to return the towels from Family night. Meister Electric was there with their big boom trucks working on the parking lot light. 

I stopped at Kroger on the way home to pick up dried split peas. On Tuesday I found a 3 pound boneless ham marked down to $3.00 at Sam's club and this morning decided to make split pea soup. That soup is a lot more work than some of the other soups but it is really tasty and thick once done. I only picked up 1 pound but hind sight should have picked up 2 pounds. The peas were poured into a pan and gone through then rinsed. Then 8 cups of chicken broth added plus 2 cups of water and set to simmer for an hour. That gave me time to dice a half of onion, 2 stalks of celery, a clove of garlic and the 3 pounds of ham. The vegetables were sautéed in butter until soft then the chopped ham added to that pan and just left to cook on low. After an hour the split peas were removed from the chicken broth and put in the blender with some of  the liquid then once blended added back to the broth along with the vegetables and ham and left to simmer for another 20 minutes. We each had a bowl for lunch and Mark went back and got another bowl. It had good flavor, was thick and meaty.

We only had 4 quarts left to freeze after lunch but we both were pleased with the soup.

Once that was cooling I went over to the barn to get that cleaned up and ready for the company coming in tonight. I thought it would be easy to get the construction mess cleaned up but that sawdust was so ground into the rubber tiles it wouldn't come off with the vacuum I hauled up. I went downstairs and brought the broom up and that didn't work either. I finally got some all purpose Windex and the Swiffer mop and scrubbed. That worked (I think, I didn't wait for it to dry).

Even though our stallion Raven was the start of Horsemeister, our first Friesian mare Jenis was the start of publicity! We were only able to buy her as her owner was afraid of her. She was just 2 years old but acted like a stallion. She was born with male hormones but was still a mare. Dr. Hoerr checked into why she was acting like a stallion and found out if a pregnant mare is given twice the dose of regimate  during pregnancy it can cause this. She wasn't the best mother but would tolerate her foals. Rhoda trained her and this mare had such presence everywhere we went people were in awe watching. Rhoda was the one who taught her to rear on demand. Below are just a few of her performance pictures.

She is the mother of Valiant. When she was retired from breeding and showing we found a wonderful home for her at a full service barn up near Chicago. She really was special.

Precious Memories

 Mark woke me at 5:30 to ask if we had any coffee filters. Last night the coffee maker was filled with water but the coffee ground holder was left off to dry well. I got up, put it together and the pot worked. We had to wait for our first cups but thankful I didn't have a mess to clean up nor did I have to strain ground coffee beans out of my cup. I quickly downed 2 cups then left for Sarah and Nolan's house. Zion was reading her Pony Pals book when I arrived. 

We went over her spelling words then Eden was ready to work on hers.

Before leaving for school today Eden and River showed me their creation. I had sent the craft bag Gail gave home with these girls and they found boxes to decorate.

Above is River's creation and below is Edens.

They have good imaginations. We made it to school at 7:43 am and had to wait two minutes before it was time to go inside.

Joan sent the video below of the view off the 10th floor balcony of the fish feeding frenzy.

Ruth sent the picture below of Nancy checking out Goliath in Sunday school. Kathy made him to show his size.

Impressive!

We decided to change our farm insurance. Mike was applying and made sure to tell the new company that there are videos on the website of vaulting and performances but the performers and kids in these videos are all grown up, married with kids and we haven't done any of the dangerous stuff for 10 years. Our last performance was at the 2019 IL Horse Fair where we performed The Wizard of Oz and that wasn't dangerous at all.

This memory came up today on Facebook. I had the girls with me this afternoon so showed it to them of their cousins 3 years ago. 

They loved seeing it and want to do the same thing. I had purchased little battery operated lights off Amazon, a pack of balloons and put the lights in the balloons. They had so much fun with them. I'll have to buy those tiny lights and do it again with all of these younger grandchildren. Time for this group to make precious memories too.

Family Night WOES

 I awoke at 3:30 am and that was much too early to stay up so fell back asleep but started dreaming I was trying to get the girls ready for school and couldn't find any decent clothes for them. I finally got up at 4:30 am started the coffee and sat back down on the recliner only to hear something that didn't sound right. The coffee pot was overflowing from the top and not dripping into the carafe. I finally just strained out enough grounds that we each got one cup. Not a good start to our morning. Later that coffee pot was given a good scrubbing and if it doesn't work right tomorrow it will go in the trash and I'll order another one. Yesterday on the news we heard that today would be warmer and above 32 degrees so I went out at 6:20 am in a lighter coat and froze all the way to Sarah and Nolan's house. It was only 10 degrees outside and I don't think it ever made it up past 20 today. That news station was WRONG! The girls were dressed and fed, they just needed their hair to be brushed. Below is River playing with the real puppy and her toy puppy. 

Nolan let the Rilla, the mama dog with the 4 puppies out before he left for work.

We drove back to our house to pick up grandpa Mark then drove to Alethia. Today was grandparents day and they had all of us grandparents for breakfast then a small program in the sanctuary. 

The kids were all dismissed then we went to each classroom and visited each grandchild.

I forgot to take pictures of River and Zion's class but below is Eden's.

Zion had us filling out some papers and spent some time interviewing us. Next was Elisabet's class. Martha Kay and Dana were already visiting her.

The teacher in Israel's class didn't want to stop teaching so we just said hello to Israel.

We left then as I needed to get home and start cooking the party potatoes. Those were to go with the fried chicken I was serving at Family night tonight. Today just happens to be national Fried Chicken Day but I didn't know that when I drove in to Kroger on Monday to order and pay for 192 pieces of chicken. I explained I needed it on Wednesday Feb 4th at 5:00 pm. I watched the deli lady write it down, checked it over, gave her both mine and Mark's phone number. Once I paid for it had the check out lady give me 2 receipts then walked back to the deli and gave them the receipt to staple on to the order. Mark was going to be picking the chicken up and just in case he mislaid the receipt I wanted to make sure they knew it was already paid for. I finished making 120 servings of the party potatoes and put them in crock pots to keep warm while I made a quart of poppy seed dressing. Then the car was loaded with the 3 crock pots full of potatoes, one roaster (for the fried chicken) the fruit, rolls, butter, all the salad fixings and the desserts. I also put in plates, forks, cups and napkins just in case the church was out of those. I thought I was so prepared. I got to church by 4:45 pm and was unloading the car just putting things on the kitchen steps when Faith and Mackenson arrived. They helped carry everything up. Rhoda H arrived to help then Tim and Diane R and Eunice and they also brought dessert. Ruth and Fedi also arrived to help Mark was to pick up the chicken at 5:00 pm. He called about 5:15 pm to give me the bad news that Kroger had NO fried chicken prepared. The note was there with the receipt but no one realized it was needed TODAY. Diane got on the phone to call Snucks while Faith called HiVee but neither of them had enough fried chicken to serve over 100 people. I called Sam's Club about 5:25 pm and asked if I could order 15 pizza's and have it ready by 6:00 pm. They told me, "nope can't be done." Then I asked if I would order 12 pizza's could that be done and they agreed. Mark and David drove to Sam's got there just before 6:00 pm, paid for and got 12 pizza's, each was cut into 10 slices and we were able to have the prayer and start eating by 6:20 pm.

We realized pretty quickly that 120 pieces were not going to be quite enough so Ruth and Fedi started cutting the last 5 pizza's into 15 pieces each.

By the time everyone had gone through the line we had 2 slices left. I've never served mashed potatoes with pizza before and hopefully will never have to do that again. I'm thankful Sam's has BIG pizza's and so very thankful for all the help. Caleb Plattner had the family night message on singing the Psalms. Click HERE if you would like to watch that. 

Diane sent a video of the sunset tonight at Gulf Shores.

God really is good and the beauty of his creation cries out as proof.

Hitting the Sack Soon

 I needed to be at Sarah and Nolan's house by 6:30 am and don't have an alarm clock. As I was worried I would over sleep when I awoke at 4:30 am decided I'd better get up then. Nolan needed to leave for work at 6:30 am and I was to help get the girls ready for school then drive them there. One of Zion and Eden's jobs to do before leaving was to take Willow's puppy outside to pottie and let Rilla out. Rilla had 4 gorgeous Cavapoo puppies a few days ago.

Eden let her out. Zion left Willow's puppy out.

We left at 7:20 am as they need to be at school around 7:45 am and after dropping them off I had a lot of time before Skip got to the Berean office with the mail so went to Sam's Club to get the lettuce, fruit and rolls for the Family night meal tomorrow. I also picked up a chicken as the girls like that for lunch. We didn't have a lot of mail today but enough to keep us busy. 

Skip read us a letter after the prayer.

I dropped off studies to be graded at Meisters, then ran to the Bartonville post office to drop off the studies going out and the Bible requests for the day. From there it was back to Alethia to pick up the girls. Zion was pleased to show me her spelling test. She got 100% all of the words were spelled correctly.

We came straight to our house and had lunch of chicken and strawberries then drove over to the barn to take the lettuce and fruit over to that fridge. We worked on homework until 3:00 pm.

River didn't have any homework so she practiced her jumping.

Once the homework was done the girls practiced shooting hoops backwards.

Mark needed a little help on the bathroom door.

Above he is apply bondo wood filler and below once that dried he is sanding it down flat and smooth.

When it came time to attach the door back to the door frame every girl had a job to do. 

Zion was holding the door in place, River was holding the bowl with the screws and Eden had the drill bits and screw driver bits.

I needed to run Berlica to Spanish class at Laura's house and left them with Mark but when I picked Berlica up the girls came with me. Berlica was dropped off at her house and we came back to our house for a supper of scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes. Mark wanted a salad but even he ate a couple of pancakes. Nolan picked up the girls after supper. I will need to be back at his house tomorrow at 6:30 am.

Skip sent the email his brother Mark sent him of grandpa Meister's story. It is VERY interesting and if you would like to read it I posted it earlier tonight but you can also read by clicking HERE.

After getting up so early this morning I will need to hit the sack soon.