A *Glorious* Party!

Grandma Gloria (aka Glorious to Vivian, and Grandma-Great to Calvin) turned 72 on September 16th. On Saturday the 15th, my parents hosted a party for her that turned out to be ENORMOUS! It was practically a family reunion! I'm pretty sure I met some extended family I had never met before, or else I was too little to remember. Amongst the distant travelers were Grandma's stepsister, Karen, from California; her stepbrother, Don, and his daughter Leslie from Texas; cousins Melvin & Bea from Arizona; Jeremy, Vivian, & Vail from St. Joe, MO... Lots of the Fruechtings from the Marion area came, people from Plains, and everywhere inbetween. In all, 91 people came that day! Not all at once, though :) It was come-and-go all day, and I'd guess there were 35-40 at one point, and the food never stopped! I'll get some pictures up when I get them off my dad's computer.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!!

Grandma (in purple) and her siblings: Karen, Don, & Joyce









"The kids" in the yard playing Bocce. Funny how my cousins, siblings, and I are "the kids." OUR children are the "little kids."







Don, Meredith, and Melvin Behnke (with Fallyn on his lap) laughing at stories from growing up together.

We Need a Makeover!

What to do with this interesting room??? It will be even more interesting once it has to become our bedroom, too!!! It is a converted attic room and is currently the office, guest bedroom, project space (where I store all my craft stuff), and storage for lots of random things!

We have 2 bedrooms on our main floor--one for us, one for the kids. We'll have 4 children (as far as we know) in this little house before we know it! We will have to use our current bedroom for an additional kids' room, putting 2 kids in each room. So Rick and I are going to move upstairs and rough it. :)

This room needs professional help! :) I think it'd be a challenge even for those awesome designers on HGTV and TLC and those programs!!!

Problems:

• Only a full-size bed will fit up there. We (Rick, mostly) needs lots of room to sleep, which is why we have a king-size bed now (we had a full for a year). Push 2 twin beds together? Where will THAT fit?
  
• No clothes closets! Maybe I'll just have to keep my clothes where they're at, but what do I do with all the kids' clothes/stuff? Armoires galore?!?
• Need more shelving/storage units upstairs. Can't have anything very tall with the sloped ceiling. That's challenging.
  
• The dimensions of the room are challenging--it's about 6'10" in the center, and the highest point is only about 14" wide. We've scraped our heads many times, esp when going around the desk. The wall-to-ceiling measurement where they meet is 4 ft. It's about 23 feet long, not counting the portion where the built-in cabinets are, which I love by the way! It's great space--but almost all of that storage space is taken up already! The width is about 11 feet.
  
• We don't have money to spend on armoires, shelving, whatever else needs to be done....How do we do this on a VERY LIMITED budget?
  

Please leave a comment and share your ideas!!! Let the brainstorming begin!!

For All the Moms!

Aunt Ann emailed this video to me....I laughed out loud! Thanks Ann! It's so funny, even if you've never seen or heard of the show that this is a parody of (called Pimp My Ride). I think the inside of my mini looks worse than this one sometimes! Share with all the mini-van mommas you know!

Here's "Mom My Ride":

The KNACK

Calvin has shown definite signs since infancy of possessing "The Knack". :) :) :)

Meet Our Friends!

These are our frends Manish and Parul. They are from India--Manish has been here about 2 years, and Parul has been here since February. They just got married in January in India! Rick met Manish at Spirit. He's a contract engineer. They will only be here 2 more months before they go back to India! :( We hope they'll come back!

Parul and Fallyn. These pics are from a few weeks ago when we had dinner at their apartment...a REALLY YUMMY Indian dinner!!! I can't tell you the name of the dishes, but I can say that you should be envious! :)



Manish, Parul, and Fallyn. Aren't they a cute couple?!











Parul and Calvin on the couch. Our kids really like them!

Rewind to August--Clio Festival

Calvin and Rick went to Iowa August 3rd for the Clio Festival. Clio is Rick's hometown of 91 people! During the Clio Festival, there are well over 200 people, though! Fallyn and I stayed in Wichita because of a friend's wedding that weekend. The only big event on Friday is the firetruck coming and washing Main Street with its hose, but the boys weren't there for that. They stopped in KC on the way and picked up James (Rick's brother).

In this first picture, Calvin is standing with Grandma Lesley on Main Street--the unpaved part.


Here's the view of Main Street from the park side. This is about the end of the paved portion. It's very clean from the powerwashing it got the night before! :)


This is the other end of Main Street--it's just a few shops long!

"Clio Hillbillies"







Whew! Walking down Main Street and back can wear a little bee out! :) It was probably just a couple hundred feet down and back.



There's lots for a little boy to do in the country!










Calvin played with Grandma and Grandpa's kitties a lot...or tried to, anyway. They may have tried to avoid him. Here he's trying to give the kitty some water. *If the kitty won't come to the water, I'll splash the water to the kitty!*













Playing down by the pond. The wooden thing he's crawling on is a raft Rick and his brother rigged up when they were younger. It had barrells underneath it for flotation.





I bet Calvin could've played on the little tractor for hours!