And the winner is.......

I was totally surprised and ecstatic at how much the pumpkins weighed. The small one weighed in at 51.5 pounds and the large one at 88.5 pounds. My scales only weigh in 1/2 pound increments. There were 22 entries and the winner is Orlando with a guess of 40 for #1 and 100 for #2. She was only 23 pounds off the total weight. Orlando is a computer friend of Janelle's that lives in Conneticut, and NO Janelle did not help her. Cherie came in second with a guess of 126. I have to admit, I laughed when Cherie sent her guess in. I was thinking, no way, it would be totally cool, but no way. I grew 140 pounds in two pumpkins and that doesn't even have the 7 small ones I grew. Watch out next year. I've been reading about growing pumpkins and how you need to water twice a day and all the great fertilizer. Next year I'm going for the largest in Sussex County. This year the winner had a 600 pound pumpkin. I would be delighted with half that weight!!! Thanks to all who entered and Have a Happy Halloween. Thought........what do you do with 140 pounds of pumpkin.........Penny said I should can it!!!!!! She left too early for that to happen. One thing for sure, they will not be carved!!!!

Guess my weight contest!

No, not my (Joni's) weight...my (the pumpkin's) weight!

I'm having a contest!!! You know how I love pumpkins and plant them every year. Well this year, I have two really big pumpkins, well the biggest I've ever grown. Guess the weight of them both, the closest guess gets the New Mars candy bars Mick brought home this week. The smaller pumpkin is #1 and the one with my hands on, is pumpkin #2. Good Luck. They are still growing, but will probably be harvested this week because the frost is arriving in the mornings.

Falling for Autumn

Here are some sights of Fall in Jersey. The deer are in our backyard. Sorry didn't get to the camera fast enough for the momma bear and her two cubs crossing the road. Oh, and just today when we were out getting the pics for the pumpkin weight contest, we heard a boom and then a Dodge Ram truck hobbled to the side of the road. He had hit a deer right by our home.

This is the pumpkin patch down the road. Wish it was mine!!!! I just got the two out front and 7 little ones in the back.

Ok, these are the sights I get everytime I get in the car. This road on the right is the one I travel to take Janelle to work everyday.

WE woke up monday morning to 31 degrees and frost everywhere. My neighbors think I'm crazy taking a picture of frost, but hey, I haven't had frost at the home I live at in over 27 years!!!! My excitement about Fall here is overwhelming to the natives. They just roll their eyes and say, "wait till you live through a winter!!" But I have to say, I am LOVING JERSEY in the Fall.

Guziks come to Jersey

Historic Bond home we stayed in in Philly

Mark and Cindy Guzik came to visit us here in Jersey. They were are second visitors from Brea. (The Sheffelds came in August and stayed with us for a couple of nights). We went to Gettysburg, Philadelphia, and spent a day in New York. We also took several little day trips around the area. It was great fun having them here.

Guziks on the front porch at Jersey home.

Graig turns 25!!!

Graig turned 25 on Sept 29th. We celebrated in New Jersey when he was out for his first visit to our Jersey home the end of August. His Aunt Sharon also gave him a "25 times three" party while in Washington for his Grandad that turned 75 on Sept 8th, his uncle Mark 50 on Sept 7th, and Graig 25 on the 29th. They had a fun party.

Graig has always brought us many laughs and continues to amaze us with his talents and abilities. Hard to believe that my little boy that rolled over at 3 days old and walked at 7 1/2 months, rode a bike at 27 months without training wheels, is now 25!!! I'm trying to get a u-tube of Graig surfing behind his Uncle Mikes boat, but so far no luck. I'll keep trying.

More lakehouse

Here are some more fun pics from the lakehouse. Oroville was having its 150 year celebration this summer. We went to the street dance, hangar dance, Graig played in the golf tournament and Granddad went on the annual motorcycle ride with 35 other bikers from the big towns around Oroville. The pic with Graig and Austin wearing the old orange life vests was part of a show they put on for us. The sprayed each other, jumped the wake and other fun tricks. We never laughed so hard watching them. Oh, another past time on cloudy days was to shoot golf balls into the lake. Next day, retrieve them.

Lakehouse 2008

OK, here it is finally! The lakehouse pictures. I took these with my camera and they show some of the fun things we did at the lakehouse. There is the trampoline, skiing, (yes that is 52 year old Joni - I would also like to add that she got up on her ski the first try again this year), being with cousins, the porch swing, reading, launching potatoes into the lake with the potato gun, playing board games, cards, etc. We had three weeks at the lakehouse this year, which was awesome. Mick joined us for one week before he and I left for our Alaskan Cruise to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. There is a picture of us on the back of the boat on our big day August 5th (our anniversary). The big lakehouse maintenance project this summer was redoing the outside shower. We had to rip off the siding, replumb it, then we put up tile. It turned out great, and Graig was a big help to his Granddad with the plumbing.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

Summer vacation started on July 8th with Janelle and I trying to get an early morning stand-by flight to LA. This way we would have 24 hours in Brea instead of 16 as scheduled. That's the problem when we had to make our flight 4 months earlier with Mars. We were successful and landed in LA at 11am. Jamie picked us up at the airport in her BMW convertible. Thanks goodness we didn't check bags because she hardly had room for our two small overhead bags in her little rag top car. From the airport we headed straight to Aarons home, so Janelle could spend the day with her best friend. Jamie and I then visited those we could, stopped at Cranberry Quiltworks to visit with friends at work, and dropped off three quilts to be sewn. We had dinner with the Guziks and Peters that evening and then spent the rest of the evening in our home in Brea. WOW, it looked great! The Rosells are doing an awesome job keeping it up for us. Janelle loved sleeping in her old room, Jamie had been staying in hers for 3 weeks while she worked at Cranberry. I slept in the guest room. Wednesday morning I was up early due to being on east coast time and called our BMW mechanic to see if he could find out what was making all the noise in Jamie's car when we ran the AC. I took it in and he was able to install a new alternator belt while I went to bookclub. It was so good to visit and see everyone there. The car was done by 11:30am and we were on the road by noon, headed for Provo, Utah. Jamie drove the whole way stopping only in Las Vegas for In-N-Out Burger and in Cedar City for fuel and ice cream. We arrived in Provo around 10 pm and all slept at our condo there. Thursday morning it was up and out to Lava Hot Springs for a Thalman Family reunion. What fun that was. The William Harmer family was in charge this year, with Eleanor and Janet (Joni's mom) doing the organizing. There was lots to do, including running the river. My first time down I crashed over a rapid, scraped my knee on the lava rocks, lost my Rx glasses and felt really stupid. I did it again, with contacts on this time, and a bigger tube and successfully ran it unharmed. The Harmer family had all of Albert's family, most of Bob's, all of Eleanor's, and our group only had my mom and dad, myself, Janelle, Graig, and Jamie. Graig came down on Saturday from Rexburg, ID only for the day because he was in finals at BYU-Idaho. Jamie, my Dad and Andrew drove Graig back to Rexburg so we could borrow his car for the week until he finished summer semester at school. Sunday we drove back to utah and spent the week visiting relatives. Be sure to check out my cousin Anna's blog to see some fun underwater pics at cousin Merrilee's pool, doing some minor repairs at the condo, and working on what to do with the bathroom there. We stayed with cousin Leslie Ewell out in Payson, UT and loved being with their family. Thursday we drove back to Rexburg to spend the evening with Graig at the home he lives in. Friday we drove to the lakehouse in Eastern Washington state after Graig's last final at noon. OK, is anyone keeping track of all the miles so far. Next post will be about our 3 week stay at the lakehouse.

From sea to shining sea! (Pacific to the Atlantic) Summer 2008

Summer is over and what a summer it was! This is one of our last adventures here in New Jersey where summer started and ended while traveling to 9 states in between. Graig and Jamie joined us out here in Jersey for a few days before returning to school. We went to the Jersey shore, where we got our feet wet in the Atlantic Ocean. We can say we've been shore to shore in 2008! I'll be posting the rest of our summers adventures over the next few days.

Boston

Ok, once again you have to tilt your head to see the pics. Sorry. Technical support has gone to bed (technical support has since fixed the pics). I'm on a roll so decided to finish. Here are some of the highlights from our Old Town Boston Trolley Tour. They drove around the town pointing out the sights of Boston and you could get on and off at your leisure. We spent the entire day seeing all there was to see and I have to say......................

Been there, done that!

I was very disappointed in the restoration they had done. Several of the key sights such as Historic Faneuil Hall where the town meetings were held, the Old State House, site of the Boston Massacre, etc. were filled with trinket/tourist shops. Paul Revere's home was very interesting, it is the oldest wood house remaining in downtown Boston. Old North Church was fascinating also. We did the tour of Old Ironside/USS Constitution and that was good and had lunch at Cheers. Felt like we were one of the gang, but nobody knew my name!!!!