Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving this year. We had 23 people, including all of the kids.

This is my mom with my 2 Grandpas. Her dad & Marvin's dad.


This is our group at the table.


The kids sat at the bar, expect Neviah, she sat next to her mom at the table.

Mom instructed everyone to take a picture of the couple sitting accross from you. This is my grandpa & Esther.

This was the couple sitting across from Marvin - empty seats (not the walker). Matt & Eric were not there yet. They both came late.

Grandpa & Grandma

Uncle Phil - Aunt Evelyn did not make it.

Mom & Marvin. She did a really good job with Thanksgiving dinner. We had a nice time. The weather was great & we had TONS of food.

Sam & Teri. They left right after dinner to head to his family's in Arkansas.

Ashley & Neviah. They left right after dinner too to go back home to Oklahoma.

Eugene & Sarah or Richie is his real name.

Me & J

Uncle Rick & Aunt Mona came from Oregon.

Matt made it just as we all had started.

Eric made it too.

Brayden Video

Every Tuesday Brayden's school does Rise & Shine Assemblies & each week a different class does a "show case". This week Brayden's class demonstrated their progress of learning sign language. They signed "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Another Weekend in the Windy City

I was off to Chicago again this weekend. But I brought a little piece of home with me this time. My friend Suzanne & I traveled to Chicago together. She has friends & family there so we decided to go up & hang out. We spent one evening together, but then she spent the rest of the time with friends.
Friday night Jeremy & I went to PF Changs, it was super good as usual. Actually it was better than usual, but it could be because I had a real taste for it. We went to the one downtown, which was a bad idea. We had a hard time parking, we had to fight traffic & we had to pay $19.00 to park!!!

Then we met up with Suzanne and a couple of her friends for a couple of hours.

Saturday we just hung out & did a lot of nothing. But we did spend some time babysitting Jeremy's niece/god daughter Sophia. As you can see we have some mad babysitting skills. We were having fun, but I do not think Sophia felt the same way. When Chris, Jeremy's brother, got there he informed us that she had never been left with anyone other than the sitter & grandparents & she had NEVER been left without her big sister. So we were pretty excited about that. But this was right when they left. It only lasted about 5 minutes then she was totally fine!

Sunday we went to see Role Models. UBER funny!!! Then we did some shopping. And I got to see my first snow fall of the year.

I refuse...

I refuse to fall into the trap of letting Christmas take over Thanksgiving. I took this picture of a house in our neighborhood on November 13!! Not only did they already decorate, they already have lights on!!

Personally, I find it very annoying. Thanksgiving in not a 2nd rate holiday. I understand that "Branson" starts celebrating Christmas in November to take advantage of the vacation season but we are not out to make money on tourists so the residents should leave the Christmas season to revenue generating operations.

I guess these people are thankful for Christmas!

MAHA

Missouri Association of Hospital Auxiliaries

The hospital auxiliary is a volunteer organization that raises money for the hospital. This past year I was the President Elect for our auxiliary so I was able to go to the annual convention at Tan-Tar-A resort in Osage Beach.

Like this picture demonstrates, I am by far one of the youngest volunteers. But I don't mind because I enjoy volunteering and I am hoping to re-evaluate my volunteering time & maybe going to expand into other areas of the hospital.

I will not be an officer next year and I am sad that I will not be able to go. Because believe it or not I enjoyed it AND I learned a lot about the auxiliary. Mainly, that I should have done more for the auxiliary and that we do raise money for good causes. So I decided to "rededicate" myself to the auxiliary.

Planes, Traines & Automobiles

I have had several posts regarding my different experiences with airplane travel. Most of my stories were about the airlines themselves or delays in the airport. I have not had too many about people that I have met.

On auto trips, it is usually me & the boys. So nothing too exciting there on road trips either. They all have been pretty uneventful.

BUT, within my 2nd train ride, I had one of the most unusual experiences we the passengers:

Part 1 - St. Louis to Bloomington Normal, IL

There is this middle aged lady sitting a row in front of me to the right. She is talking to a lady a row in front of her & I am just being nosey. So, she is telling the other lady that she is going home from St. Louis & she had some type of medical thing done in St. Louis. She proceeds to tell the lady that when she gets home she is going to a wedding on Halloween. The wedding is in the morning & the reception is a costume part at night. So this story gets my attention & I then start taking more of an interest in this lady. They finish their conversation and the middle aged lady goes to the snack cart & gets some type of Vodka drink. This lady is hard core because she makes the drink & downs half of it in one drink. I am thinking that this could get interesting. Some time later I notice she is throwing up. She is still in her seat! I walk past her to throw something away & on my way back I decide to assess the situation a little more. Well she has a cup & she is leaning over in her seat throwing up. I listen to her for about 20 minutes. The whole time she does not leave her seat & the whole time I am totally getting grossed out & thinking that I should do something. At one point someone calls her & she answers the phone & tell them that she is sick & hangs up. Then someone else calls her & she answers. She talks on the phone & continues to throw up while she is on the phone!!

Then she finally stops, composes herself & takes another call. I hear her telling the person on the phone that the Dr. in St. Louis told her that she is on the list for a new LIVER, but she cannot have a transplant until her cancer is in remission. I'm not quite sure what type of cancer she has but she has liver problems & I'm guessing the Vodka does not help. Well she tells the person on the phone that she thinks that she has the flu. I'm thinking it was the trip to the Dr. mixed with the Vodka. But whatever.

Then the lady makes ANOTHER call & tells the person on the other line that she LOST her teeth. Where? When? I'm not sure, but she had no teeth when I saw her again.

Part 2 - Bloomington Normal to Chicago

After the first part of the trip I was really looking forward to a quite end, no such luck. The guy sitting right in front of me apparently was aware of everything going on next to him too, so the told everyone that wanted to sit across from him that a lady was throwing up the whole time. Well a lot of people boarded the train. There was a guys sitting behind me that realized that he knew some relatives of the lady sitting across from him because he was CELL MATES with them!! So I find out that he has been in & out of prison for the past 10 years & I got to hear 2 or 3 of his stories on how he made it to prison. THEN he informs the girl that the guys in the front of the car all just got out of prison. There were like 10 of them. That made me EXCITED! I was never so happy to get off the train. (Did not take pictures of them)

Cards

I have recently started a small card group at my house. We play the last Wednesday of every month. This is our 3rd time playing. We decided (or I decided) to make it a dress up time. So here is our group. One - did not dress up...

So here are the non-party poopers.

We meet from 12-3 PM. That way we do not take away from "family" time. We bring food & we are done by the time school lets out - as we all have kids in school. It has worked out really well so far.

The Great Pumpkin

Or 6 great pumpkins.The first 3 started at the pumpkin patch. We went there with Brayden's cub scout pack. Cody picked out an extra one for me.

Then we got 3 more. The boys & their friend Vince enjoyed some eats with their carving time.

Vince had to show his mom that I fed him well while he was with me.

The finished products. We are all a bunch of traditionalists. I helped Brayden if you could not tell. And mine is at the end. Brayden went the extreme with eye brows & you cannot see but he has a tear drop & a drool drop.

Cody got more creative with the asymetric eyes.

Vince's had a great smile on his as you can see below in the dark.

Eckelkamp Wedding

The night before the wedding Matt drove up from OKC & Jeremy flew in from Chicago & the three of us went to a Haunted House. Fun stuff. Matt made a new BFF with the clown in the fun mirror maze part.

The man at the door but not dressed too scary.

Got up & headed to St. Louis at 9:00 AM on Saturday.

We stopped in Springfield to pick up Liz's boyfriend Drew.

View of the arch from our room. Thanks, Matt.

Ted & Emily got married outside. It was a little cool in the shade but a very nice day.

Uncle Phil offering a prayer.

The proud Grandparents. A great night.

SNL

I'm sure most of you saw this, but it totally made me laugh!

Weekend Update

Weekend update with Kira Perkins, yes it is, no it's not, just kidding, yes it is...

Ryan, Katie, Matt, Ashley & Neviah all came into town this past weekend so it was fun filled cousin Saturday. Starting with pedicures for Matt, Katie & I. And ending with Nertz with many more family members. And a birthday dinner for Ashley in between.

Katie looks happy here, but her experience with the pedicure was not so much all smiles.
Matt's looking good & being entertained during his pedicure with his girl that was extra talkative.
Mine was the only normal one, but my mouth does not look normal. I look like a have a LOT of lipstick on & chocolate all over my face. Thanks Katie for not telling me I had chocolate all over my lips. Us at dinner. Neviah has grown up so much. I MISS HER. She is so big.

She also knows what she wants. She wanted to sit in GG's lap so she made herself comfy there.

Allen Wedding

A couple of weekends ago, we went to my friend Ashley's wedding. She married Stetson. I left my camera in the car, so I have limited photos.



But here is Brayden dancing with the bride.



And yes that is a Bingo board in the back.

Missouri Fun

Brayden's class has been learning about our home state of Missouri. Today they made cookies in the shape of Missouri. They used Twizzlers for the rivers & M&M's to mark the cities of St. Louis, Jefferson City (our capital), Kansas City, Springfield & Reeds Spring. It was fun watching & helping.

The finished product.

Side note: at the school you have to have a background check to be a room volunteer. Apparently I am the only parent in Brayden's class that has done that. So I get asked to volunteer a lot for his class. So you will see many more pictures of Brayden's school year.

Evolution of Hair

This is me on Friday at 3:15 PM. Going in for a hair cut. When I went, I was not 100% sure what I was going to do with my hair.

This is me Friday evening. Not too sure about my hair. I was at the beauty shop for over an hour & I finally had to leave & my hair lady had another client. So I left, not 100% happy with my hair.

Now this is me Saturday afternoon.

After another 30 minutes at the beauty shop, I think I finally like it. One of the reasons it took so long & multiple trips was because this was such a drastic cut. Another reason was because this is a new style & I was not sure how I wanted it or how it would look. The final reason is because when I show people how short I want my hair, they do not listen. I had to tell my hair lady like 10-15 times SHORTER. But every hair lady that I've had has been like that. They all are afraid to cut my hair.

In case you haven't heard...

In case you do not watch the market all day or watch the news 2-3 hours a day like I do, you might have some concerns about the market. And if you have watched any news at all, it sounds all gloom & doom but DO NOT PANIC about the market. Almost everyone reading this blog is young enough to ride this out.

I have pretty brochures and graphs that show lots of cool information about the market. But I am probably one of the only ones that think it is cool so I will not go through the trouble of posting them, but here are some facts & tidbits for you (disclaimer: no one can predict the future, all this info is based off the entire HISTORY of the market):

1. After a major decline in the market, the market has always rebounded better than the decline.
2. There has never been a 10 year period of time that someone has lost money in the stock market.
3. If you are saving for retirement, which I hope you are, do not stop.
4. Do not reallocate unless you are not being risky enough (unless you are going to retire in the next 5 years).
5. I would say that now would be a good time to invest (mutual funds though not individual stocks & bonds).
6. The "market" is for long term investors that can take the ups & downs of the market.
7. Always consult a professional for a personal recommendation, do NOT listen to just general plans on the news, they do not know your personal financial situation.
8. Never react to the market out of fear or emotion.

I guess that's all I have for now. Good luck.