Pre AR Trip - AR Trip - Post AR Trip

Mike has his annual gourd harvesting party on Thursday - before we left for Arkansas.

These are Karson and Aubrey Vander Ziel (Sue Leloux's grandchildren)

Aubrey, Karson, Jaycie Van Zee is in back, Mike and Sawyer - they were all excited Mike let them all take a bag home! Jamie helped too but she took this picture - I was at school for my last pie making day - Jamie is 8th grader and have lots of last time things that I need to help with this year - YEAH!!

On Saturday - the 10th we made our way to Arkansas and met Pugsley for the first time - he did not like us very well at first and jumped on either mom or dad's laps fast when we showed up.

Sunday afternoon we hiked at Roaring River - this is from the top of the falls there - it's quite pretty there at this time of the year.

I tried - not very good at the self-protrait pictures but you can see a bit of the trout farm in the background.

We did enjoy watching the deer each morning at the feeder - if you look really close their are two more in front of the big tree - they are watching the dogs coming up and yes they ran away right after this picture.

We ate supper at Famous Daves on Monday night - with everyone - I ate way too much but it was very good - I took this opportunity to take a picture with my sister-in-laws - love them both dearly - was great to be all together.

The Altena family - Love this picture too - the pig in the background with his arms open wide is such a nice touch :)

After supper on Monday - we all went back to mom and dads and Pugsley was way excited that night - he didn't know quite how to act with so many people around - Mom is trying to get him to settle down here!!

Tuesday was 4-wheeling day - what fun - Mike and I ready to go!! Make sure you take note of my nice riding gloves :)

Rich and Cindy ready to go - now note Rich's gloves - he couldn't find his and had to settle for these gorgeous orange ones - half way through the day - he asks me where I got my gloves and I said these are the ones Cindy gave me to wear - well they were Rich's gloves (I didn't know) we laughed about that - but he was just glad that he didn't lose them!

We went through alot of water that day - and made is through them all - fun - you can see my boots on both sides of the 4 wheeler - I was holding them straight out.

This is how Rich goes through the puddles after he sees how deep they are.

For this steep decline Cindy and I choose to walk down and wait to be picked up again at bottom.

Mike was leaning way back on the way down.

Well they needed to get back up and Rich didn't quite make it and got stuck here on a tree trunk. The rocks were way slippery from all the rain.

We had to get out the wrench to help pull him out of this one but all worked out well and we found another way to get the second 4 wheeler up.

Here we are under a tree on the way back - was truly a super fun day and something we don't get to do around here. Thanks Rich and Cindy.

Thanks to everyone in Arkansas we had a blast and was a super fun get-away. Thanks mom and dad for feeding us too all the time - we just finished off the party mix last night.

Well, we got back home in time for FOOTBALL FRIDAY and here we are bundling up the night - boots, rain gear, hats, mittens, winter coats and all - even hand warmers.

Western Wolfpack beat Sioux Center 27 to 0 - one more regular season game on the 23rd and playoffs start on Wed, the 28th - GO PACK

Happy 20th Anniversary!

Mike and I have been married 20 years today and it's been great - he has put up with alot and I have put up with some :)

Example - this morning - I was a little uncomfortable at around 5am and was moving my pillow - well my hand slipped and I punched him right in the nose - he just politely said -"Happy Anniversary to you too" I did feed bad and he is always so positive and continues to make me smile daily. I love him more today than I did yesterday and this also continues each day - thanks for a great 20 and looking forward to the next!!!

He is full of s___ quite often too - as he is scooping it here!

I get to work this morning and get a text on my phone that says ""thanks for 20 great years 2 great kids and 1 sore nose :) luv ya xoxox"

I reply "your welcome just wanted to make sure u thought bout me all day luv ya too - thanks for always making me smile"

FOOTBALL FUN!!

Western Wolfpack is having an awesome season this year - they are 5-0 for the season so far and this will be Western's first year with a winning season - YEAH - that is awesome for a program that just started 6 years ago. The picture above is Marcus (20) and Jacob Faber (11) running off the field after Marcus ran the ball in for his first touchdown in High School - yes I did tear up - it was awesome and we are very proud of him, he is putting in alot of time and effort and it's paying off. They all are and its just fun to be a part of it (even if its only in the 50's this week) YIKES

This is his head-coach Travis Kooima - Marcus just had a great tackle here and coach met him coming off the field - all the guys are doing great and thanks to Joy for taking awesome pictures all the time - GO WOLFPACK!!

Some of the Pollema pictures

I took a few pictures with my camera - I will hopefully get a CD of all of the pictures and then share some more with you. Mom and Dad with there 5 hoodlems.

All the grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild!!

Grandma Bonnie with Kaylee - she gave out and fell asleep way at the end!!

Jamie got ahold of the camera and snap-snap-snap!!! Looks like she could be in trouble :)

It could look like one of these will have gone thru the house by the end of this week.

Monday - Jamie runs cross-country in Orange City - back to town and the 8th graders are serving breakfast at school on Tuesday so to school to set up - Mike is mowing

Tuesday - Jamie has volleyball game - my turn to drive and then they want to go to Western home volleyball game.

Wed - we start small groups for CREW (Young Peoples at church) - supper and movie with the high-schoolers at the campground

Thur - Jamie has volleyball in Sioux Center and since in Sx Center better make a Walmart run

Fri - Mike and I are volunteering to help with fund raiser from 1:30-3pm in afternoon for Feed My Starving Children and then Marcus plays football in Spirit Lake.

Saturday - hope to sleep in and then I better maybe do some laundry and look at next weeks schedule :) - Jamie has kick-off for Youth Roc (8th and 9th graders at church) and we have our neighborhood picnic.

Sunday - dinner at Mom and Dad Pollemas and then family picture with all of them - Mom wants to have a picture updated since hers is out-dated and after that I am going to take a NAP!!

Loving life and living it fast lately but all is well and everyone is healthy so much to be thankful for - Have a great week!!

Potato Harvest

Jamie and her father picked all the potatoes on Monday - Labor Day !!!!!

Some very big and odd shaped ones were all around.

Paco wasn't much help but he made sure they got the job done

Mike gave the fork to Jamie three times and each time she stabbed a potato - this time she happen to get two - many laughs

Here are the results - we should be able to eat for quite awhile now

Salsa making with Friends!

Marcus' friends just love our salsa that we make - so all year we have told them that we were going to have a salsa party and they could come and help make it and take some home - so Wed. night we did just that. I got the tomatoes ready before they showed up.

Mike picked potatoes and onions from the garden and made everyone fresh onion rings and potato wedges on the cooker - I also made jalopeno poppers inside (stuffed peppers in oven with bacon around them)

Marcus invited about 15-20 of his friends and I do believe all but 4 showed up - we had a blast.

Marcus, Jamie, and Vanessa helped show everyone how we cut up the peppers and get seeds out.

Fun to see the guys jump right in and help! I think they were having a pretty good time.

A few more helping peel the tomatoes and chop them up!!

Patrick chopping up the onions!

The girl at the end of the table just licked one of the hot peppers - love her face on this one - that's why the milk is out also - when they eat the habinero peppers - milk helps with the sting.

Getting ready to put them in the canner.

We did 22 pints this night and while they were in the canners - we had some basketball going on outside and one of the guys came in a jeep and another one on a cycle - so some were cruising as well - all in all we had a fun night and was neat to see how excited and eager they were to help us - Marcus has a great group of friends and I hope they all know that they are welcome here any time!!!

Everyone left with a pint to share with their families. I hope we started something that we can do again next year!!!!