Joplin Tornado

Kansas and Missouri are known for horrible tornadoes but the one in Joplin is right up there with the 1957 Ruskin tornado. My prayers go out to the people in Joplin and to the families of the lost.

WOW! It"s been longer than I thought!

I can not believe it has been over 2 years since I have posted on my blog. So much has happened since then. We had a really bad accident. Jim's neck was broken and my ankle was crushed. Jim retired and his knee needs replaced. I have to admit that we are relatively healthy right now.

Flat Stanley comes to Kansas City

Did I tell you about the Flat Stanley that came to visit us. Rayce who is in kindergarten has started to study geography with the help of the book "Where in the World is Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley is a regular little boy who woke up one morning and was flat as a piece of paper.The teacher mails the Flat Stanley to people and they write back with pictures and stories of where Flat Stanley is visiting. I enlisted my sister and we took off on a beautiful day and took Stanley to the Plaza, the Liberty Memorial, The Nelson Art Gallery and a couple of other places around Kansas City. Tricia held Stanley and I took his picture with the places behind him. We had a great day.

I brought Flat Stanley home and wrote about where we had been and a little history about those places, printed the story and the pictures and mailed them back to his teacher.

Busy, busy, busy

This has been a very busy month so far. I thought January would slow down a bit but so far I have done 3 girls scout workshops with a total of 62 girl scouts. I still have two more workshops scheduled with at least 20 girls each.
I received my check from the Gifted Hands Gallery and it was more than I thought it would be and my new fish plate had sold. Lots of other stuff sold too.
After my February 2nd workshop, I will take time to do taxes, clean the house, and reorganize my workspaces. Also, oh yeah do some new work that I have had in my head for a long while.
My sister is starting reconstruction on February 6th so I will stay busy. I hope the surgery goes well.

I hope everyone got what they wanted from Santa. We had a nice day. I fixed pork tenderloin, fresh brussel sprouts and boiled new potatoes with pineapple upside down cake for dessert. Tricia and Penny(her dog) came over for dinner.

Sunday, the baby, Hudson will have his 1st birthday party at his other Grandma's. Monday we will go to Tricia's and all have our Christmas. Santa will truly have come to our family then.

Holiday prep

These are a few of my jewelry designs this year. I have the earrings in both posts and wires. All of the pendants are different.

The last three months I have mainly been teaching Girl Scouts to make their own pendants. I added them up today and there are 149 little girls that have designed their own pendants this Fall. This is really fun for me. I feel like I am making a difference and educating more people about stained glass and fusing. In the workshops we fire a pendant with my little Quik-fire kiln so they get to actually watch the different stages of warm glass. I have the last Troop of the year in my kiln right now and I will fire them tomorrow. They will get them back this weekend.

Next week I will wrap presents and get ready for Christmas. Our Christmas will be quiet but after the 27th our grandsons and daughter and son-in-law will be here from Dallas and then the fun will begin. That week we will exchange gifts for Christmas and celebrate two birthdays, Hudson's the 27th and mine on New Year's Eve.

Branson Trip

Thanksgiving was nice. My son and his new wife, Vickie came in so I cooked the traditional Thanksgiving fare. The food and company was great. They left to go back to Greeley, CO about 4:00 p.m. Short visit but a nice visit.
Hurray! Let the celebration begin. My sister, Tricia's last Hercepton treatment was over. We went to Branson, just us girls, Tricia, her best friend, Pat and me. Tricia and I went to Dixie Stampede on the Friday night and it was their Christmas show. The food was good and so was the show.
On Saturday, we went to Branson Landing and the one store I went to find was closed. Peace Frogs, Both of our girls collect frogs so I was going to get them T-shirts for Christmas. After wearing ourselves out walking we had dinner, saw the city Christmas lights and crashed at the Hotel. We left to come home Sunday morning. It was a fun weekend.

The Westies

These are the latest in the puppy series. Mikey is the handsome devil on the left and Mimi is the Miss Princess on the right. These dogs belong to my friend Sheila who also owns Jasmine the sous chef. These were fun. The leather jacket has silver brads, while the jewels and pink boa add a 3D touch.

Mikey is also wearing a blue bandana around his neck.

Dallas

I have been home for five days now. I am still not on my schedule nor have I done anything useful. I am busy with the Girl Scouts. I delivered Troop 7660's pendants to them today. I have another program in Paola Monday.
My trip was uneventful. I loved being with Mel and the boys. I missed them before I was on the plane.
Penny and Trina were glad to see me and so was Jim, Gus and Max.

This is Sparkle! Since we don't have a cat of our own I got to make her up. After she was finished I have to admit that she reminds me of Gilenda from" Wicked". It has been a year since Tricia(my sister) was diagnosed with breast cancer and treatment began. I read "Wicked" while she was in surgery. Her mamogram came back clear last week. We are just holding our breathe that everything else is good.
I am getting ready to leave for Dallas tomorrow for 6 days. I will have oodles of pictures to show when I get back. I can't believe that I haven't seen my kids since June. I know Hudson will have grown a foot.