Happy Birthday, Amber!

Amber is Don's niece. This photo of Amber & Matt is over two years old but it seemed fitting since these two just got married in August. The picture was taken out on the farm when Mavis was still alive. They just happened to be sitting in front of that pink "love" pillow that belonged to Mavis. Have a great day Amber!

kitchen update

Thanksgiving is behind us but it was a memorable weekend. I was thankful to spend the day with my family & enjoy good food. Thanksgiving was also the birthday of Angie, Jim & Deb's daughter. Happy Birthday, Angie (late)! Hope you didn't have to cook either! I also wanted to congratulate Jean & Terry (Don's brother) on their recent sixth anniversary.
Progress was made in the kitchen on Friday. These two photos show what we had accomplished before the destruction guys showed up.



Don took down some cupboards & they now reside in the garage. The garage has paneling & the cupboards match!



The space is wide open & dusty now. Not so much brown right now!



Found some water damage to the subfloor under the dishwasher. This was most likely from the leaky shower we repaired in our bedroom bathroom a few years ago.



Doing the dishes in the bathroom . . .





This is the guest bedroom. Call before showing up!

Laura, Adam & Jayden

Getting caught up on photos tonight. A week ago I took these photos for Laura. Jayden isn't one to sit still & according to Laura she loves to be outside. Since they live out in the country it was the perfect backdrop for picture taking. The cloudy day helped.





Out of the bunch this is my favorite . . .

Mary's family

For the second year my coworker, Mary, has given me the chance to photograph her family for her Christmas cards. The group has grown by two since last year, although Mary looks too young to be a grandma! Here she is shown with her husband, David.



















Thanks, Mary!

kitchen remodel

We've been busy yesterday & today preparing for our kitchen remodeling. Austin came home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday. Realizing that we would be busy clearing out the kitchen we ate dinner at a buffet with all the fixings. Workers showed up this morning at 8:30 am. But here's a tour of the kitchen before we all tore into it.



This is my much loved bread board (although not a lot of bread was cut on it). It was more often a place to put a hot dish or cut up onions. When Jim, the cabinet maker, stopped by for one last measurement I asked if he could put in a bread board. He said he could so I ordered one.



This is a device Don attached to the stove knobs so certain Beagles could not turn on the burners.



This is the old oven which no longer works. It was a great oven though. Note the stainless steel.



This is a view of the kitchen from the living room. Lots of brown. Brown floor, brown walls, brown cabinets and brown ceiling!



I took these photos on a day I was making split pea soup. Please excuse the mess, although my kitchen usually looks about this bad all the time. Note the burnt area above the stove where a certain Beagle turned on the burner & could've burnt the house down. Hence the bar across the knobs.



Note the built in radio/intercom system.



Well, it doesn't usually look this bad; I still needed to clean up after cooking. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Don's buck

This photo was taken by Marc on Sunday. Last day of deer season (rifle). Four point buck. Sorry you didn't get one Marc.

a pair of boots

Down the long, winding road to the ranch there is an old pair of boots decorating the fence posts. There is a beautiful shade of yellow fungus growing on the boots that complements the red leather. I find the combination of colors to be quite striking. Don finally got his buck on Sunday. We'll be glad to replenish our freezer with venison.

Happy Birthday, Adam!

Today is Adam's birthday (Nancy's son). Laura invited me to take a family picture for their Christmas card so I accepted. I got this birthday shot of Adam. I told him he looks like a young Brett Favre (a pro football quarterback for those of you who don't know who that is).



Laura & Jayden carved a pumpkin for Halloween & it is shrinking in on itself.





I got a few good shots. Jayden doesn't like to look at the camera but Nancy was there trying to get her to smile.

Cheyenne at the ranch

Don's niece, Cheyenne, joined us for deer season this past weekend. She ventured out into the chilly morning with me & let me take some pictures of her. We had a great overcast day. I told her she even looked cool wearing hunter orange. She did remove the jacket for a few shots. You don't see it in the photos but she is wearing thin slip on shoes. She complained that she couldn't feel her feet when we heading back to the house.

Amber's shots

Amber has two batteries for her digital camera & on Saturday both batteries were dead. So I lent her my point&shoot camera (Canon G7) while we were out & about. Here are some pictures she took . . .







She got some cockle burrs stuck to her pants so she took a picture of that too! Nice job, Amber!