Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all from the Ginky Weeds!  We hope that all deserved and got something nice from Santa.  And that you all enjoy treasured family time in the coming days.

Love to all,

Connie and Charlie

End of my season

Hi All,
Well after 31 Christmas peaks at UPS I can finally see the end of the tunnel. I wish
I had all of  my craziness written down. I'd probably be on the best seller list.
I wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. We'll be at Ran's on Sun.
Looking forward spending time with Sam & Allison.
Love to All, Deb

Happy Birthday Deb!!

Best wishes for a special and enjoyable birthday!  From a cute little girl.....

.....and still as cute as ever......

Oops!  I meant this picture......

We hope that your day is filled with special joys.  Like pushing a Jumper out of the truck, or whatever makes you happy.  Just think, this is the only time that you will turn 55, so enjoy it!

Hugs from the Ginky Weeds,

Connie & Charlie

Happy Birthday Marina!!

Happy Birthday sweet girl!  We remember well when you joined our family and can't believe that it has been six and a half years since then.

One of our first smiles!

Miss Independent!

 You have developed into a lovely young lady and we all take pride in your continuing accomplishments.

First Day of School 2010

Ballerina 2005

Ballerina 2009

Ballerina 2010

The Equestrian 2010 

We hope you enjoy your 8th birthday and know that it will be special for you!


Hugs and kisses,

Grandma and Grandpa!

My, How Kids Do So Looooooove Santa!

 The little ones don't seem so enamored with Santa on their own but they do a little better when mom and dad are around

Outside at Mom's

Before Thanksgiving dinner. Playing outside in the yard. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Deb

New Teeth for Christmas

All she wants for Christmas is two front teeth...... and a whole lot more.

Hi Everyone,
It seemed like forever for the first tooth to fall out and then the next one fell out 2 days later.
The Tooth Fairy compensated her very well.

We'll  be at Moms for dinner on Thursday & staying until Saturday.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Randy

Sleeping Beauty Awakened

Hello all!!  Sorry for the delay, but here's a quick look at our little princess.  She had a wonderful Halloween.  She did some trick-or-treating around the square last Thursday.  Then she had a party at school on Friday.  All this led up to the big event on Sunday.  We went to the neighborhood around the elementary school and wandered around there for about an hour before going to dinner.  She had a great time while we got a workout climbing the hills of Red Oak. For those of you who only know the flat parts of Iowa...you should see the hills in town!!  I hope everyone is doing well and we'll talk to you soon!

I love this photo...

...so I thought I would share it here on the family blog!  This was the Horse Show finals in October when my parents were here visiting.  We are so proud of Marina and her great horse show season! 

Don, we hope your recovery is going well!  Hang in there and keep up the good work!

Love,
Kristen

Home Again

Don arrived home (finally) at about 5:30 tonight.  He had two PT sessions before he left and will continue with the crew at St. Mary's. 

I think the smile says it all!

Love to all!

Don's Day Four

Today the patient has been "unplugged".  No more IV solutions or medications and no more pain med pump.  He is getting Vicodyn pills instead of the Morphine.  He is also dressed in loungewear now, so he doesn't "moon" us anymore when walking to the bathroom :-)

Here is his new "zipper" and the 28 staples that are holding the incision together.  Lookin' good!

It's about 1:30 pm and Liz the therapist is here for his afternoon session.  She's working on his "in the bed or chair" stretching exercises.

He has had two walks in the halls today.  This was from a few minutes ago.  When Liz told him to remember he had to have enough stamina to return to his room, he reponded "If you're tired, we can go back".

And here's an action video that will rival the best that Hollywood has to offer!

Both the doctor and the therapist are very impressed with Don's progress.  Dr. Horwood expects that he will be discharged tomorrow afternoon, following a couple of therapy sessions.  So we hope tomorrow's update will include pictures from home.

Love to all!

Don's Day Three

This morning the nurses have removed the dressing from Don's knee and it looks good.  Don complimented his doctor on the straightness of the incision.  That's the vertical straight line visible under the bandage.

The patient is in good spirits and is dedicated to getting back on his feet sooner than the doctor expects.  He says the pain is less severe than he expected.  At rest the pain is almost nonexistent.  And the morphine button is available when the pain increases and he is encouraged to use it.

His therapists are working with him a couple of times a day.  This is Elizabeth who just put his knee through its paces.

She will return this afternoon to go through the exercises again.  He is now sitting in a chair until after lunch when Elizabeth will return and will help him back into the bed. 

Don thanks you all for your prayers and well-wishes.

Love to all!

Randy D joining in

Hello everyone,
This is my first post to  the all in the family blog so please bear with me.
I'm a newbie on the blogasphere & not quite sure of the proper etiquette.

Mom and Deb were here for an overnight this weekend.
The kids were excited to see them for an extended time.

Here are a couple of pictures of my kids from this Friday at the corn maze in Grand Haven.
Allison is now 7 1/2 yrs old & in the second grade @ Holmes  Elementary in Spring Lake

Sam is in the sixth grade @ Spring Lake middle school & will soon be 12 (11/13).

It's great to read about the goings on and I'll catch up on everyones postings.

Take care
Randy

Free Wood!!

Just finished dragging logs in from down our dirt side road.  A tree service was clearing the easement for the high tension power lines and the landowner said I could take the wood.  It took the better part of 5 days to get them all home using chains and towed by the tractor.  I think I know what I'll be doing when I return from Georgia!  Chain saw and wood splitter time......

This wood will come close to lasting me through the winter of 2011.  It will need time to season and I have other seasoned wood that I need to cut, split and stack for this year in another pile behind this one.  The fun never ends :-)

Love to all!

Our Sugar Plum Fairy

Here's a look at our little Sugar Plum Fairy on her first day of dance class.  She had a blast and is very much looking forward to next week.  She has an excellent teacher and I look forward to seeing her progress throughout the year.  She has her 2nd soccer practice tomorrow and will be starting swim lessons again on Saturday. 

Farewell to Summer in Michigan.........

With nightime temps in the 40s it's time to cover the pool.  Connie is not happy!!!!  The only good news is it's time for Spartan football!  And we will be visiting some of you in the next few weeks.  Something else to look forward to.

Love to all!

Happy Anniversary Mike and Kristen!!

Happy 12th anniversary, you two.  It's heartening that you are spending it doing one of your favorite things.....spending quality time with your family.  We hope you find a fun way to celebrate as a couple also.

Of course, we all were a little younger then!

Love,

Mom & Dad

In Memoriam

When we picked up two dogs on the side of the road, we had no idea just what we were in for. When I saw the little puppies, I thought that it would be best to keep the litter mates together. However, Stephanie brought me around to see reason and we took two cute little Rottie puppies home and named them Indy and Rascal.


Now, they said that keeping litter mates together would keep them from developing their own personality. Indy says WOOOOOOOOOOO to that and Rascal poops on the notion. Those two had some serious personality. Indy was always ready to play a little tug and pull with you and loved to try to talk back. Rascal some days looked like she was going to actually use words to tell you off. Talk about a dog that could carry a grudge. But, they weren’t going to have their own personality.

Oklahoma was highlighted by damage and daring. Those two dogs did more damage in the house in Shawnee than all the other places combined. After putting a hole in the bathtub, Rascal decided that the best way to let me know how she felt about being caged at night was to take a hole out of our couch. And don’t let them dig those nails into the woodwork. WOW!! It was in Shawnee where they most wanted to explore the world much to their detriment. It cost them a night in the pound. Lucky for them, that was the worst of their punishment.

Life after Oklahoma settled down a little. However, life was far from peaceful. The dogs loved to get into everything and eat anything. Indy usually had no trouble eating crazy stuff. However, Rascal had trouble getting the non-food items passed. Chasing her around trying to get nylons out of her buns was an experience I’ll never forget.

All too soon it seemed we reached the holidays of 2005. Caitlin was just turning 8 months old. Indy was diagnosed with cancer in the liver and spleen. Once we saw how damaged her system was, we knew it wasn’t going to be long. Her battle with cancer lasted about a month longer than we thought it would. She would be lost in January of 2006. She just couldn’t go on and we knew at that point she needed to go home to God.

Now at this point we had every concern that Rascal would lose her mind. Frequently, litter mates who live their whole lives together cannot bare to lose their siblings and go downhill quickly. Rascal was much stronger than we knew. She knew it was time for Indy to go. She was able to cope much better than we could have imagined. She said her goodbyes and moved on and lived her life.

Rascal had nearly five years after Indy went. She did very well over that time even though she was a little less spirited. She did manage to maintain her attitude. Rascal lived with arthritis in her knees and hips and had some days that were better than others, but she managed to do well over the past few years. We thought her time came this past Mother’s Day when she had her first seizures. She once again proved us wrong and showed her resilience. However, when she had another seizure Wednesday night, that would be the beginning of the end. Yesterday, the seizures came too frequently to be controlled or maintained by any medicine. She went home to join her sister with God this morning around 1 am.

Words cannot express what those two meant to us and I cannot begin to thank everyone for all the help we had in raising those mutts. They touched many lives and will be missed by more than just us here in this house. I do rest easier tonight knowing that their pain is past and they are together again with God.

God bless and keep Indy and Rascal. We love you very much.

Love,

Bryan, Stephanie and Caitlin

Another Tractor in the Family

With an acre of lawn to mow at his new house, Bryan has added another color to our family of tractors.  In addition to the Red one in Georgia and the Orange one in Ceresco, there is now a Yellow one in Red Oak.  This one has 4-wheel steering to help him navigate some pretty steep grades around the back of the house and in the drainage ditch by the road. 

I can't complain about the Yellow color since my new snowblower that I purchased last winter is the same color!

Enjoy your "seat time" on your new machine, Bryan!

My New Purple Bedroom

Hi everybody,


Sunday afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa met us in Red Oak, Iowa and we went to visit our new house there.  Here it is!

Here we are about to open the front door and show it to Grandma and Grandpa.

We have a really nice view of the city of Red Oak from the back of our house.  We have a city water tower, an occasional train and the county courthouse.  I think the courthouse looks like a castle!

On Monday Grandma and Grandpa took me back to the new house to help me paint my bedroom.  Here is the beige room before we started our project:

After masking, spackling and putting plastic on the carpet we started painting.  Grandma did the bottom of each wall, I did the middle and Grandpa did the top.

Here is my new purple bedroom:

I think it looks beautiful and can't wait for the big truck to arrive and unload on Thursday so I can sleep in my new room.

Mommy and I just love my new purple bedroom!

Today we went to Council Bluffs to do some shopping.  It was a 45 minute drive from Red Oak.  Tomorrow Grandpa will be gone all day visiting his cousins in Nebraska and Kansas.  Grandma and I are going to have a fun girls' day.

We hope you will come to visit us in our new house.  And then you can see my new beautiful purple bedroom in person.

Love,

Caitlin

Butterfly Heaven

Since returning home from Michigan City we've found that a number of flying creatures seem to like what our gardens have to offer.  Last night we had two hummingbirds competing for what must be a particularly juicy Red Bee Balm.  The bumble bees love the salvia and laitress.  And the butterflies seem partial to the coneflowers and the Butterfly Bush.  It seems there are wings flying constantly.  We thought that you guys, and especially some of our youngest generation, would enjoy seeing some of the butterflies that add to the pleasure of our days.

Love to all.  We miss you!

Connie and Charlie