New Year's Eve

It's about 0 tonight - a good night to stay in! We've had pizza, watched a couple of shows about climbing Mt. Everest, going to watch The Proposal and the ball drop. Here the ball drops at 11 pm which really seems strange to me, but guess that just means we can get to bed an hour earlier!

Last Christmas Diane & Todd gave us a Netflix membership that we've just now started using - and are enjoying! Very convenient to be able to choose movies online, receive and send them back by mail!

It was dark when I took this picture of the Blue Moon rising (beautiful) but my night camera setting makes it look lighter. The Blue Moon isn't actually blue - it's just the 2nd full moon in Dec. or 1st full moon of the winter season. The next time we'll have a full moon on New Year's Eve will be 2028!

Happy New Year to all! ~Cindy www.CindyKCreations.com

Christmas Snow

This was the view of the pond in Mom's back yard on Sun. It was a pretty snow!

When we got home Mon. night, Uncle Tim had made a path for us to get in our driveway. This area had gotten about 18" of snow while we were gone.

This drift was in front of the old garage and across the front of the house. The video at the bottom is Bill getting his truck out. He shoveled some of the drift and then just backed through it. He went and got the snow blower and moved the snow back to make room for more.

Christmas Gathering

Mom had her side of the family at her house this Christmas day. We usually have mostly appetizers, ham and a couple of vegetable type dishes and homemade candy like toffee, buckeyes, "meat", peanut brittle and haystacks. Desserts that are tradition with us are persimmon pudding or date pudding. Some of you know some of these people. In this picture is cousin David, Kim, cousin Scott, Uncle Dale, Todd & the back of cousin Dina's head.


In this picture is Aunt Jan on the very left edge, cousin Debbie's husband's nose (Jerry), cousin Debbie, Aunt Dana, Uncle Neal, cousin David, Tammy and the back of cousin Dina's head.

Making and pulling taffy used to be a tradition but we haven't done that now for a few years. This year almost everybody took a turn at playing dominoes.

Christmas in Indiana

We've been in Indiana with Mom & my family for a week - Bill, Rob, Ross, Reed and I. Wow, is that drive loooooong in the winter!!! We just got home tonight after leaving at 9:15 this morning.

We had a very nice Christmas including some snow which is kind of unusual for Indiana at Christmas time. This is my favorite day and picture(s) from our trip. It was yesterday: church at Mom's church, quick lunch at the DQ, snow coming down, pictures at Clay Terrace's Santa house, went to the movie Blind Side and watched the Colts game! The boys hadn't seen the new Dairy Queen (rebuilt after a fire this past summer). We were all disappointed that the Colts coaches decided not to play Manning, Clark and others so they didn't have an undefeated season but it was fun for me to be able to 1) get to watch the game (not always on in Iowa) and 2) and see it with other family/Colts fans! We were all in our Colts jerseys, shirts, pants, etc. - except Bill. :)

Bill and I have unpacked and HOPE to sleep in tomorrow. We've unplugged/turned off all of the phones (we think) and surely with all the snow around here people won't be out and about - at least to our house! Will be posting more pictures this week. :)

Christmas in Snowy Iowa

With it being the first Christmas in this house, decorating for Christmas was a little different. This is our entry. No mantle to hang the stockings on but we do like our cozy stove vs. a drafty fireplace.

I hung a wreath on our pantry door instead of our front door since it has the decorative oval glass.

The reindeer are above the door to the basement. I'm collecting different sets to change the plates seasonally.



The trees have been frosty a couple of days recently. Right now Iowa has a mix of ice, snow and wind making travel difficult.

Merry Christmas to all from both of us!

Nice Weekend Away

We've had a busy but fun weekend away from home! We left for Kansas City Fri. morning to help Bill's younger brother move from apt. to his first home. Bill's mom went too. The move, including king size bed, big couch, cat and fish went better than expected! Here are a couple of his pictures to show what a nice place he's bought - congrats Jim! I totally forgot to take any pictures during the actual move.



Since Kansas City is known for its barbecue, we requested that he take us to the best place he knew of so he took us to Smokehouse BBQ last night - yum! This morning we went to Corner Cafe for a very good breakfast - best pancake I've ever had. They have huge cinnamon & caramel rolls which we brought home. Should've taken a picture of them but thought of it after chunks from both had been eaten. (still some left!)

It's a 5 hour drive from here to Kansas City. On the way home today we saw these pretty, frosty trees for quite a while, lots of turkeys and deer in the fields. Unfortunately, it was icy for a ways especially around Des Moines where we saw several cars that had just slid off the road (people still inside vehicles). Glad to be home!