wogoman weekly - volume 4 issue 13

I'd thought I would start by mentioning why I sent you a picture last week of corn.  While the deer/coons/windstorm whatever it was eat up and destroyed my corn, while taking down the stalks and clearing out the garden I found those.  Rather pathetic, but I am now not a complete failure in the corn department.  :)  Yippy for me!  And as for the kid in the big sink,  she wanted to wash her cup at the fire station and doing it from inside the sink next to the water was WAY more fun than letting J do it himself.   Not much has happened around here with all this rain.  We did get the deck sealed in the one afternoon of sun. :)  It looks awesome.  Now we just have to finish that one spot and we are good!   Tenille is eating and sleeping well and that means that she woke up yesterday and her shoes, pants, and shirt all didn't fit.  I kid you not.  I put her to bed and when she woke up the only thing that still fits is her underwear.  :)     We did venture out to the library this week.  Very nice, Tenille got both her hands stamped and then cried when they started coming off when she washed her hands.  But I love them, she cried.   J passed is class that he took last week.  He spent last week training on the water and getting bumped around the East Race.  Only a few bruises.  Well I think that is it . . we found Tenille 3 more small pickles in the garden that she eat up instantly.  Oh how could I forget, it rained Saturday and J worked so Mom and I made 60 + quarts of applesauce.  That is three bushels worth.  It was a good time and it tastes so good!  Tenille even helped.   Tenille also had her first quiz in daycare/preschool.  She can correctly identify 5 uppercase letters, 1 lower case letter, the number 1, most of her shapes.  Today they are working on colors.  So cool.  I didn't even have her study!  :)  If she learns all this at 3, she is going to be bored in kindergarten.   Hope you enjoy the rain!  :)  It will stop sometime right?  Tracy "The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do."   check us out on the web: wogomanweekly.blogspot.com   13551 CR 12 Middlebury, IN 46540 t - 574.361.2334 j - 574.596.8144

wogoman weekly - volume 4 issue 12

Welcome to a rainy day in Indiana!  We got most of the stamped concrete done this weekend.  Jeff, Alec, Luke, J, and a guy we went to high school with all mixed, poured, smoothed, sprayed, and stamped concrete.  It looks so awesome.  Unfortunately we ran out of bags on concrete mix and are about 2 or 3 bags short. :(  We had to level out a lot of placed that we didn't realize were an issue.  But it looks AWESOME!  So we just have to finish the one corner, spray on the sealant and tada . . . no one will no that we have concrete that was poured like 5 different times. :)  I am so proud of our guys.  They all worked so hard!   Quote of the week from Tenille: We are in the car going to school. T: "Mom what is that smell?" Me: "What smell, I don't smell anything." T:"No, that smell.  Smell it.  It smells like chipmunk." Me: "Oh really, what does chipmunk smell like?" T: " Maybe it's not chipmunk, maybe it is my smellums, in my bag" How funny is she?  Her smells in a little jar of scentsy wax that Heather gave her.  I am so glad I write these emails and blog, because some day I am going to need a laugh and that my friends and family is a good one!  Smells like chipmunk indeed!   Another one (I couldn't help but put this in) J asked me why Ms. Mary Ellen is now the cook at school. Tenille heard this and said," Because we can't cook our own food dad!" True Very True.   We almost lost a member of our family this week.  J was working outside and came in to find Dorthy (Tenille's fish) on the floor.  She apparently went for the big triple axle flip and miss calculated.  She was unresponsive when care was started.  J threw her in the bowl only for her to go belly up. Hmm not good.  J left her alone for a while to come back and find her happily swimming around asking for food.  Goodness, this fish is a tough one!   Sasha did manage to kill a wood chuck yesterday.  She was so proud of it too.  I found her all snuggled up with it in the yard.  She had ripped two of the legs off.  I sent a picture to J and showed it to Tenille.  Her response? Mommy can I go see it?  What have we done to this child! :)   Hope all is well and that your rain barrels are full.  Have a great week!   Tracy "The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do."   check us out on the web: wogomanweekly.blogspot.com   13551 CR 12 Middlebury, IN 46540 t - 574.361.2334 j - 574.596.8144

wogoman weekly - volume 4 issue 12

Sunday we got to experience something awesome out of something terrible.  The Elkhart Fire Department held their annual Fallen Firefighter/Police Ride.  It was so cool to start at our house with one bike and slowly, the closer we got to Elkhart, we picked up more and more.  All riding that day for the purpose of not forgetting the fallen.  I am nervous as my students get older that the next generation will forget what 9 11 means, how it made us all feel,  how helpless but united we were as we all watched from our T.V.s  I heard someone say that 9 11 will be like pearl harbor day to the next generation and that makes me sad.  But for today, J and I could see all the support and love from so many people.  So thank you if you were out there or saw the motorcycles.   The day and the ride were awesome.  We started at Elkhart and worked through waki, nappanee, goshen(where we stopped for a great ceremony), middlebury, bristol, and back to elkhart.  It was awesome to see the people come out to support the fire, police, and ems.  And man what a racket 700 + motorcycle bikes make while traveling.  You could tell people came out just to see what the noise was all about!   Tenille is religious about brushing her teeth now.  I think maybe she just likes to spit in the sink.  :)   J and Tenille had their first gun safety lesson.  It involved cleaning the hand gun that J used the other day at the range.  They were back there for an hour, cleaning and talking.  When done I quizzed her on what she learned.  She is a smart cookie.  I think gun safety is so important for her.  Our guns are locked in the safe but she still needs to know.   Last night Tenille helped me make pizza.  I think she just wanted to eat the toppings.  But that is why I bought the big cans.  That way she can eat and still have some for the pizza.  Then we started looking around our house for rocks.  They are going to make prayer rocks at school.  Then Tenille exclaims, "I saw a snake!"  Yes, we now officially have a pet snake.  It is a Gardner about as long as my forearm.  So little so cute and hopefully he is eating all the stupid spiders!  Well as we carefully looked for the little guy (he is FAST!) I found his shed skin.  Complete and intact.  So off to school that went today.  Apparently Ms. Terry (Tenille's teacher) is terrified of bugs, Oops!  Hope a snake doesn't count. :)  J hates snakes so hopefully this one will hide when he sees J coming.    Hope you have a great week.  A last little Tenille note, I told her this morning I was going to get my hair cut and she started sobbing.  When I asked why, she got out, "But I don't want you to cut all your hair off!"  How cute right.  I tried to tell her what a trim was and then gave up.  Silly kiddo.   Tracy "The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do."   check us out on the web: wogomanweekly.blogspot.com   13551 CR 12 Middlebury, IN 46540 t - 574.361.2334 j - 574.596.8144

wogoman weekly - volume 4 issue 11

I would like to start by saving we are not old.  Nope not at all.  But getting out of bed this morning sure made it seem like we are.  Why was that you might ask?  Well we LABORED over labor day.  We: painted the pool shed, mowed the yard, moved landscaping blocks, burned up a huge pile of brush(had a cookout with it, waste not want not)m hung up the mirror in the bathroom(looks awesome!) and hung up 8 pictures on our wall.  That doens't sound bad does it? well we also spilt, hauled and stacked 4 pig carts full of wood.  We now have NEXT winters wood put up drying.  It is taller than me and the whole length of the barn.  Thanks to my parents for letting us borrow the log splitter.  Oh yeah, I ran it :)  Tenille played on her swing set and we split wood.  Tenille played with a pail of rocks, and we split wood.  Tenille sat on the 4 wheeler, and we split wood.  My forearms are so tired. :)   We also sat around and contemplated all the work we did this year: new windows and doors on part of the house the pool the new concrete the pool shed landscaped the front of the house moved landscape bricks from the side created and put rocks in 4 beds around the yard half cleared the orchard built a playground set tore out the deck replaced parts of the deck created two raised beds and a garden created a rain garden   Wow, I'm tried just writing that!  Think what next year will hold!   We have picked out Tenille's halloween costume.  so cute.  You will have to wait to see what it is.  Anyways, Tenille had a great time trying on all the different costumes that could fit her.  This morning on the way to school she asked, "Mommy do you know where my pumpkin is?"  I said no but we will find it.  Why do you need it.  Her reply, "Well went we go Halloweening we need it so we can get candy.  And mommy, you and Daddy need to come too so ....so.... so.... I don't get hit by a fire truck."  First I loved that she made Halloweening into a verb and second that she needs us to cross the road, because you can only get hit by fire trucks I guess.  :)  She is so silly!   I have finally been able to grow a moon flower.  I am so excited.  I tired last year but bought the wrong kind of seeds.  I tried two years ago but my plant died and didn't ever bloom.  But now . . now I am growing moon flowers.  My parents grew them we we lived on brewster drive in bristol.  I don't know why I love them so much . . just do.  They are the first offical (If they make it through the winter) plant in my white flower garden.  So cool!   We went to the dentist yesterday.  Tenille did great.  She wasn't sure about the whole thing but they gave her a toothbrush and a little tube of tootpaste and she loves it.  She starts going every 6 months.  I on the other hand have TWO cavitities.  Well they are pre cavitities.  I am so sad.  33 years with a cavitity and now TWO ugh!  The ladies there said, well you know when you have kids everything else goes and all I could think about was my grandpa, "When you got kids, that's all you got!"  Well I wouldn't trade Tenille back for no cavitities so I'll be a big girl and get them fixed.  Hope all is well!   Tracy "The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do."   check us out on the web: wogomanweekly.blogspot.com   13551 CR 12 Middlebury, IN 46540 t - 574.361.2334 j - 574.596.8144