Drive-in Theaters, injured cows and Lincoln's Eyes

The drive-in theater was a lot of fun, would have been more so if it hadn't rained on us for about 10 minutes, making us gun-shy to sit outside through "Kung-Fu Panda." But, we enjoyed tasty snacks and some vintage movie reel commericals, as well as the movie. It was a double feature, so, while the grandparents took the kids home for bath and bed, Rodney and I satyed to watch "Hulk," which I enjoyed,but Rodney did not.



Slade looks to be back to as close as normal as possible, considering he still has heart disease, it's just now controlled. He's been stealing steak bones from the kittens and chasing most cats out of my in-laws' garage, excpet for one calico tabby he allows to sleep beside him. I guess we all have our favorites!

The next day, Rodney and my brother, Joseph, headed out to the fields with Uncle John, to help him dig post holes along his property. They came back, dirty and tired.


On their 4-wheeler trip, Joe and Rodney had found an injured cow in Grandpa Bill's herd, so we all headed down to where she was along the creek to take a look. Her front hoof was swollen, but, not being overly tame, and Grandpa having seen this condition before, he decided she would probably mend on her own, but he would check in on her each day.

Tuesday we went to Springfield to visit the Lincoln Presidental Museum.
It was built in 2005 and has a lot of great interactive features housed within it, including two short (about 20 minutes) shows, "Lincoln's Eyes" and another on "Why do we save this old stuff?" as well as a newsreel section hosted by the late Tim Russert, explaining what the election Lincoln won was like at that time. If you are ever in Springfield, this si a museum worth going to, for people of all ages. Will, at 6, loved the room where he could dress up in period costumes and play with the toys of Lincoln's childhood. There are many different artifacts and alot of life-sized "dioramas" picturing snapshots of Lincoln's life that really brought the President to life.

While "No Photographs" signs are apparently around, I did not see one and snapped this before I was told not to. A scrapbooker's nightmare! Rodney and I also got news that we closed on the house in Pensacola ... we are now homeowners again!




Wednesday was our trip to historical Hannibal, Mo., the home of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer author Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens. We toured the Mark Twain cave in a group of about 25, three of them our children, who were less than thrilled to be there. Will was old enough to fear the unknown, Xan was a bit tired, but could be distracted with Grandpa Mark's pen light, and Brandon was just tired and read for a nap. By the time the tour was over, both Brandon and Xan were asleep and Will was practically knocking people over to get out. For lunch, we headed over to the nearby Tom Sawyer Village, where we could also see that the Mississippi River, while going down, was still flooding a number of buildings. Will sluiced through some gift-shop-purchased sand for some gemstones, which he was quite proud of. I got some gorgeous hand-carved candles for my new house and the rest of the ladies in the group shopped the Christmas store.




Next comes a trip to St. Louis and 4th of July festivities!

New Store: Scrapper's Cafe in Corona, CA

Formerly Once Upon a Time, now under new ownership! They are having a HUGE Clearance/Grand Opening Sale July 3 and July 5 (closed the Fourth)... for more info, log on to the store blog: www.scrapperscafe.blogspot.com. Best of luck to new store owner Carol!

Enjoying the Country Life!

At least I am now that my brother has gotten my wireless router up and running at the in-laws house! I can now access email with my own computer and print off anything I need. Whew! But despite my catching up with all my techie stuff, I am still managing to enjoy the "simple" life in the country... but it has NOT been boring, to say the least!

I arrived in the township of Detroit, Illinois (good luck finding it on a map!) at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, and moved in, took the spill on the 4-wheeler (already mentioned in a previous post) and got ready for my family to arrive via plane the next day.

Here is a quick photo of my kids with the gifts my Creative Escape Paint Can Swap Secret Sister gave them. To avoid a fight they each shared the Play-doh and bouncy balls.

Wednesday and Thursday nights there were thunderstorms, bringing rain the area just does not need. In fact, the National Guard came to buy more than 1,000 bales of straw from Uncle Jim, bringing trucks and personnel to haul it away to a levee in New Canton, IL. While I thought that the bales would be stacked as a sort of barrier, I learned that they would be placed in a machine that would shoot them on the levee, spreading it out to act as a sponge, soaking up the excess water, and hopefully saving the levee, the town and the folks' farming livelihoods. In the meantime, loading the straw upset a sleeping raccoon, who scurried out of the barn and into a nearby field. The cows in the barnyard steered (no pun intended!) clear of the barn while the the straw was loaded, and even waded in the nearby pond to beat the 90-degree heat and high humidity.






Friday was Rodney's 30th birthday. We surprised him with a party, inviting the local community via the weekly newspaper the Pike County Express. More than 60 people attended the Sloppy Joe supper and it was so much fun to see Rodney's surprised face when he saw all of his family and friends there.


Saturday was a very busy day - we headed off to an estate auction in Pittsfield, which are quite popular here. My parents love them, as do my in-laws, so I have no choice but to enjoy them! I actually placed my first bids ever, in an auction like these, and loved the "rush."




I didn't get everything I bid on, but I did get a handful of great antiques: an oak end table, a small semi-circle table for Rodney to refinish so it is a lighter color and coat rack/clothes tree, complete with wooden crutches, which Rodney's Grandma Velma modeled for us. The wooden crutches were just an added bonus! Hopefully no one here will be needing them.

After the auction, we rested for a couple of hours and then headed to the Western Illinois Fair in Griggsville, IL. We allowed our inner redneck take charge and headed straight for the arena, for the infamous School Bus Demolition Derby event.

I LOVE demo derbies and hope to drive in one one of these days. I am sure I will suck, but as long as it is all in good fun and no one gets any serious injuries, I'd be the first in line! My MiL, Peggy, has a cousin, Roger, who was the oldest driver int he derby. Of course, being from Detroit, IL, we were rooting for him. When we go to the derby and saw his bus, we saw that we had another reason to cheer for Roger - he has painted my parents' last name - Kasal - on the front and back of his bus in red paint! Whoo-hoo! A demo derby AND a great reason to root for somebody! And don't forget the kiddie rides, petting zoo (which featured the usual goats, sheep and ponies, but also a couple of camels and kangaroos/wallabees), cheesy games, corndogs and funnel cake...YUM!





There some great hits between the 12 buses (three heats of four) to bring it to the final six, which the Kasal bus was a part of! There were fires and flying metal. The boys loved the noise, the cheering and the hits, of course, although I wasn't too shy with my praise, either. While the Roger and the Kasal bus didn't win they got respect for being the only bus to be pushed up on to the guardrail of the arena, causing more permanent damage to the arena than any other bus.

Rodney and I stayed to meet some of his friends at the "beer garden" to listen to a concert by the local cover band Antidote, which was a good time. We got in around midnight, but Rodney was kind eough to allow me to sleep in until 11 a.m. then next morning...

Sunday brought sunshine and spotty showers, houshold bills to pay (fun - NOT!) and lunch at Aunt Sam's house for a mere 27 family members. That woman can cook and cook for many! Ham, green beans, homemade rolls, three different desserts ... NO one went hungry! We also found out that Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda got a new Kubota vehicle to take around when they do daily chores (feed and care for their different herds of cattle). Having seen this third non-car vehicle enter the family, I began to think that when people in the country go through a "mid-life" crisis, they don't get sports cars or boats like the city and suburban folks do. They get other toys, like Peggy's 4-wheeler

Aunt Sam and Uncle John's Gator

And the Kubota, nick-named "The Pumpkin Truck" by the kids.
There is only the youngest aunt left, Aunt Vic, and her DH Uncle Earl. I wonder what they will come home with one day! But the toys were of use for the younger generation. My brother, Joe, Rodney and Rodney's cousin Ryan headed off for an hour or two on 4-wheelers to tear around the local farms. They came back quite muddy, but unharmed.


Slade is feeling much better today, a week after his Flagstaff heart failure incident. Rodney found him touring the property, about a quarter mile from the house and brought him back. He's even taking to jogging across the yard for his dinner and getting down to invite me to play. The Canyon Pet Clinic in Flagstaff has great customer service - they called me yesterday to see how he was doing and I was happy to report that he was doing better than expected.

Now, off to the drive-in movie theater in Pittsfield to watch Kung-Fu Panda. I have not been to a drive-in since I was a baby, so it will be a nice thing to experience and remember this time!

Driving Across Country: Day 4

Today was a short day driving. I only had to go 365 miles, compared to around 600 Day 2 and Day 3, so I tried to sleep in an extra hour. But poor Slade's bladder wasn't having any of it, so I was up at 6:30 a.m., anyway, taking him out.

We left Springfield, Missouri around 9 a.m., after I had a very tasty breakfast at the local Waffle House. Ahh, one of the simple pleasures of life you just can't get in California! Ran into another Boxer owner at a rest stop between Springfield and St. Louis and chatted about the dogs for a moment.

I would usually drive from St. Louis, along the Mississippi River on the Missouri side, but the Midwestern flooding closed the Louisiana, MO, bridge I would usually cross to get to Pike County, Illinois. If you have seen CNN or read the USA Today lately, the towns of Clarksville, MO, and Grafton, IL, may sound familiar. These are two towns that are now flooded and the nearby highways I would usually travel on are closed. So, I had to take a longer way around, through Alton, Illinois, whose local casino overflow parking lot was under water.

By seeing the highway closures and the depth of the Illinois River as I crossed it, the flood news I had been reading about and watching on TV truly came to life for me. Corn, soy bean and wheat fields are flooded, ruined. Local Pike County farmers have not had an easy year, with bad ice storms this winter breaking limbs off trees, so they had to be cleared from fields before they could be planted; the flooding, and then, to add insult to injury, a hail storm with quarter-sized hail hit Sunday, beating the ready-to-be harvested winter wheat and shredding young corn plants' leaves into ribbons. That will delay the corn harvest this fall by about two weeks. So, aside from fuel prices, there may be other reasons why food prices rise this fall.

Once I arrived at my in-laws' comfortable, rural house, I unloaded the car, taking small breaks in the air-conditioned house to get out of the humidity and wipe the sweat off my face - yuck! Where is that dry heat of Arizona!? It was only 86 but felt SO much warmer! After making the dogs comfortable in outdoor dog runs (which Ripley is STILL protesting at 11:30 p.m. at night with barks and howls ... not that I blame him. I would prefer a fluffy dog bed in an air-conditioned hotel room, too, but this IS farm country and dogs don't live indoors here ... or at least that what I've been told. Slade's run was outfitted with a breezy fan and lots of straw ... he was sound asleep when I checked in on him a few hours ago, not waking up until I called his name twice. I keep trying to reassure myself this is OK .. I can be such a wuss when it comes to my dogs.

My MiL Peggy made me my favorite dish of hers for supper, roast beef with all the trimmings. Yum! Then she took me out on her new "toy," a four-wheeler, ATV, whatever you want to call it. We headed out to Grandpa's creek property down the road to see if a certain cow had calved yet. Couldn't find the cow, but Peggy did manage to roll the ATV over on a steep, muddy hill, dumping us into a small muddy ditch. Fortunately, we were just fine, except for Peggy's pride. She told me not to tell anyone - I told her I was taking photos and blogging about it.



Personally, I thought the whole thing was funny. Within a few hours of arriving in farm country, I am sweating profusely and covered in mud. Who-hoo! Aunt Sam and Uncle John then stopped by to show of Aunt Sam's new toy, a Gator, and she drove Peggy and I over to Grandma and Grandpa's house (about a mile down the road, int he opposite direction from the muddy fild we rolled over in) so I could chat with them. Overall, it's been a good day!


Even better was that there was a package waiting for me when I arrived this afternoon. I didn't get around to opening it until tonight. My Creative Escape Paint Can Secret Sister had sent me my paint can here, Oh, it was SO much fun opening the package!

Emily Barklage did an fabulous job, outfitting my paint can in soothing shades of green and blue.





And inside, WOW! Tons of embellies from Tim Holtz, Heidi Swapp, Heidi Grace and more, clear stamps, popcorn, Goldfish crackers, and, proving she is super thoughtful, a goodie for each of my boys! They arrive with my DH and family tomorrow - I am sure they will love the Play-Doh and bouncy balls! Y'know what else is a coincidence? I drove right past her town when I drove in to St. Louis today! I wish I had known, I might have stopped by to say hi! Thank you, Emily for such a fabulous paint can - can't wait to meet you at CE!

Hi, Leslie.... Guess What?

I'm your Creative Escape Paint Can Secret Sister! Didn't all the acrylic give it away? LOL ... I know that a few people asked how I got the letters to stand up. I just Crop-a-diled holes at the bottom of the letters (Be careful! Not all acrylic can be CaD-ed w/o shattering!) and tied them on tight to the handle, with all the other ribbon. This was a fun can to do! I am so glad you enjoyed it! I SOOO love paint can and secret sister swaps ... this swap was the best of both worlds! Thanks, Shannon, for organizing it!