4th Birthday Trip

Today was our 4th Birthday trip honoring Heather's birthday. We went to the Scottish Festival in McPherson, Ks. That was Carol's first time going. It was interesting watching men in kilts pick up telephone poles and throw them, we saw some scottish dancers and a lot of bagpipe music. They had the parade of Tartans at noon and they had many Pipe and Drum Corps there even as far away as Texas. There were some people there from Oregon and Washington.

Heather wanted a purse made from either the Blair Tartan or the Moran Tartan so we all chipped in and she chose the Moran Tartan for her purse.

For whatever reasons I forgot the camera so I don't have any pictures but you can go to a couple of websites. The first one is www.macfestival.org that one has pictures of the festival and then you can go to www.ozhighlandfarm.com where you can go to find out about Highland Cattle. We had a taste of their meat at the festival.

Sorry I forgot the camera.

Anniversary Trip

Today we celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary by going on a road trip to Kansas City to see the Steamboat Arabia Museum. That was pretty impressive, how they found it and everything that was still on the steamboat still in fairly good condition. One of the guys who found it talked to our group. If you want to know more you can go to www.1856.com


Then it was back on the road on the way back to Abilene where we were going to eat for the evening. On the way we stopped at Grandma Hoerner's Gourmet Store and Factory. They sell all natural foods with not preservatives, etc. They had some raspberry and strawberry preserves on sale buy one get one free because they were not labeled correctly. So we took advantage of that then they had some salsa that we couldn't resist and we brought home some organic cane sugar. At the checkout we saw that they had some Green Tea Mints that we couldn't pass up. To check out Grandma Hoerner's you can go to www.grandmahoerners.com and then the website for the mints is www.senchanaturals.com

From there we were on to Abilene where we ate our anniversary dinner at the Brookville Hotel. It is a replica of the real one that was in Brookville. Still the same good chicken dinners though. If you are interested you can check them out at www.brookvillehotel.com

That is the end of our day celebrating 32 years of marriage. We commented that 32 years ago we were a little slimmer and neither of us wore glasses back then. It was an enjoyable day together.

3rd Birthday Trip

Today, August 26, we took our 3rd birthday road trip to Holton, Kansas. Holton is north of Topeka. This was a combined birthday trip as Roger and Carol both have birthdays in August so we combined it into one trip.
Our first stop was at the Waterfall Restaruant which is 1/2 mile south of Holton on Highway 75. We enjoyed good home cooking, with smoked chicken, brisket, pulled pork, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy on the buffet with a trip to the salad bar. Dessert was a pumpkin dessert and blueberry dessert which we took a little of each. They are also home to the largest cinnamon rolls, Heather registered to win a 15 pound cinnamon roll. We were going to purchase their single cinnamon rolls which they say are the size of a large plate but they were sold out of them by the time we got there. Guess we will have to try that at another time. All of their food is made from scratch! That was very good!!!

The above picture I took of the front of the menu.

The above picture is of the waterfall that greets you as you enter the restaurant. After enjoying our noon meal here we went on into Holton and walked around the square and stopped inside an antique store and while there we watched a guy sandblast names into bricks on the sidewalk. I always wondered how they did that now I know. Then it was heading back west on I-70 and going to Rock City at Minneapolis, Kansas which is 20 miles north of the I-70 and I-135 intersection.

There are 200 huge sandstone concretions which were depostied here when Kansas was covered by an inland sea. It is a National Natural Landmark. We enjoyed looking at all of the formations and taking pictures on the rocks. If you look at the one rock above it almost looks like a heart imprinted on the side.

Here we are beside one of the rocks. Mark was able to get a picture of all six of us on the rocks. Which may appear in our Christmas cards this year! Hope you enjoyed this trip. We have two more to go and the next one will be for Heather in September. Scottish Festival here we come!!!

Estes Park, Colorado

We left for Estes Park, Colorado the morning of June 26 and returned the evening of June 29. This was our first time in the Estes Park area and I really enjoyed it. We stayed at the Whispering Pines Cottages and had an enjoyable stay there. Our first evening there we grilled some hamburgers and had a little visitor, a red fox thought our hamburgers smelled awfully good too. We took a few pictures of him but we didn't share our food. We also saw an Elk behind our cottage as well.

The next morning we set out for Grand Lake, Colorado which was 48 miles by way of Trail Ridge road through Rocky Mountain National Park. Neither of us realized we were going to be 12, 183 feet up in the mountains before we reached our destination. For a couple who really don't like heights this was quite a challenge. We stopped at the various places to pull over along the way and finally made it to Grand Lake in early afternoon. The picture below was taken at Alpine Visitors Center. We were told that the poles were used to measure the snow.

The picture below is one taken of the valley below. We did not feel that Grand Lake was as interesting as we were told it was and we didn't stay very long. We did walk a trail that took us to Adam's Falls which was worth the walk to see. Then we took another route back to Estes Park.

On Thursday we walked downtown and enjoyed the River Walk, while we were downtown in the middle of town there is a small triangular park area and there were several Elk and their babies enjoying the grass and the shade. A lot of people stopped to take their picture. The rangers finally came along and sent the Elk back into the woods as it was too dangerous for them to be in town.

During the afternoon we went back to Rocky Mountain National Park to the area called Horseshoe Park which is not very far in to see if we could see a Big Horn Sheep. We were able to see one up on the side of the mountain. We spent the rest of the day checking out things in Estes Park. We had an enjoyable trip, now it is back to our daily routine.

Devotion Time

In my devotional time today I finally realized that through the Holy Spirit God produces the following fruit in our lives - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-26. It is only as I read and meditate and study God's word that He will produce this fruit in my life. I need to stay connected to Him, the Vine, and as I stay connected to the Lifesource then this fruit will be procuded in me.

I have been trying to produce this fruit on my own. What joy to know that as I spend more and more time with Him, He will produce this fruit in my life. Right now is garden time and as each plant is watered and fertilized it produces fruit and as long as the fruit remains connected to the life of the plant it grows.

I realize I have been working too hard to produce fruit in my life. I feel I can now relax, enjoy drinking in God's Word and allow Him the pleasure of producing the fruit as I stay connected to Him. As the plant stays connected to the soil and receives water to nourish the plant then the plant produces fruit without a lot of effort. The plant only needs to stay connected to it's life source to produce fruit and so do I.

2nd Birthday Road Trip

Today we went on our second birthday road trip to celebrate son-in-law Mark's birthday which is coming up at the end of the month. We went to Fort Scott, Ks. and enjoyed a pizza lunch at Papa Don's Restaurante, then it was on to the Trolley Tour where we had an hour tour of Fort Scott in the Fort Scott Trolley. After that we went to Mercy Hospital where they have a photo gallery of Gordon Parks pictures. That was interesting and of course of interest to Mark being the photographer in the family. On the way back home we stopped at the Sunny Meadows Golf Course in Moran, Ks. and checked it out, then we stopped in El Dorado and enjoyed a picnic lunch and swinging on the swings in the park.

Carol took this picture of Mark from the front seat of the car.

Mark and Cherie in the hospital

Stopped in Moran, Ks. and took pictures of Steve and Heather

with the Moran water tower.

Found someone to take a group picture

Mark, Cherie,Steve, Heather, Roger and Carol

Between Carol and Roger we took a total of 69 pictures today. The next birthday road trip comes up in August and we're planning a combined trip for both Roger and Carol's birthdays as they are just a week couple weeks apart in August. See you then.............................

Great Plains Nature Center

Today we went to the Great Plains Nature Center to the Walk in the Park event in Wichita where they had various birds, reptiles, and other creatures along the path and you could see them up close and ask about their habits, etc. They have this once a year. Roger had been their once before. I, Carol, had never been there before and it was a nice place to walk and enjoy nature. In the main building they have an aquarium and other items of interest about wildlife. I particularly enjoyed the observation room where you could sit and watch nature through and observation window. We saw some Canadian geese and their babies. This is a neat place to go to enjoy nature.

Alligator Snapping Turtle 80 lbs.

Red Tailed Hawk

Aunt Margie's 80th Birthday Celebration 6-02-07

Today we went to Roger's Aunt Margie's 80th Birthday Celebration at her oldest son's place in Louisburg, Kansas. We had a good time visiting with family and enjoying the celebration. We started with a picnic lunch then moved to the backyard where Aunt Margie's children, 11 in all, blessed her with memories of their life with her. Afterwards we enjoyed cupcakes and ice cream. Following are a few pictures from the day.

Aunt Margie with her birthday hat

A family portrait

Everyone decked out in flower mode

Decorations - Pictures of Aunt Margie in the

center of the flowers

It was definitely a fun time for all!!!!

Birthday Trip

I thought I would try this out and see how it works. Cherie created a blog for friends and family and after our trip today I thought it would be an easy way to share happenings in our lives with our friends and family. Today we took our first "Birthday Trip" as a family. This year we are trying out this new concept in celebrating birthdays. Steve's birthday is April 1 so we spent today celebrating with him by doing some things that he enjoys doing. He enjoys Nascar auto racing and mexican food so we all traveled to Chapman, Kansas to the Kansas Auto Racing Museum and ate at a Mexican Restaurant in Junction City, Kansas. There was a car show at the Salina Zoo and we took that in as well. It was a cloudy day but enjoyable, it didn't rain. I will share a few pictures from our day. Hope you enjoy this and plan to update it as we have news to update.