A surprise visit to Molokai Ohana by Ron...

Aloha....I had  orginally planned to share some photos from my trip to Minnesota today until I received this great photo of Ron, Barbara and Justin. They had no idea Ron was dropping by--oh, I love surprises. Ron made a quick weekend trip to visit friends on Molokai since he is working on Maui for a couple more weeks.

Barbara and Justin are some very special people that became part of our Molokai family. I met Barbara and Justin while walking my girlz to the Kalaupapa Lookout every morning. During those walks we solved all the worlds problems, had lots of laughs and even a few tears. They also had a beautiful dog named Annie.

Surprise... photo by Julie

pretty girl Annie

our meeting place for the morning walk

In our book, a Molokai visit would not be complete without a visit with Barbara and Justin....wonder what kind of wine they enjoyed last night?????   :)
Thanks to Julie for taking and sharing the great group photo....

I'll take a "Mulligan" please...

Ever had one of those days you wish you could just take a mulligan?? Yesterday was one of those days. On Wednesday night I had difficulty getting the wood stove going. In fact, I had smoke bellowing out of the stove pipe inside the house. Not a good thing since the chief wood stove operator (Ron) is out of town for a couple more weeks.  I ran around checking for fire and signs of other problems. Fortunately, no fire...but it scared me to death. Now I figured I needed to clean out the stove and possibly the stove pipe, but can't do that while it's hot. Ron was going to do this before he left for Maui, but he had to deal with a frozen sewer line instead!!  Anyhow, I had to wait til Thursday morning to clean the stove once it was cool. Cleaning the stove is one dirty job and I must have looked like a "Chimney Sweep"--sorry no photos!! Once the inside of the stove was cleaned I had to vacuum up the debris around the front of the stove. Got the vacuum out and it didn't seem to be working properly, so I took it apart and found that the vacuum bag had broke and now I had a huge mess all over the carpet. Argh...now to find the new bags and get that vacuum back together. In doing that I didn't realize that I didn't get all the soot off my hands from cleaning the stove and placed them down on the carpet...yes, now I have handprints on the carpet that don't come up with a good vacuuming. So out came the carpet cleaner... Mind you all of this is happening before 6:30 a.m. and I have to be to leave for work at 8 a.m. The dogs need to be fed, walked, I need a shower and so on. Good grief what else can happen?
I really was feeling defeated and somewhat sorry for myself. Then the song  "This is the stuff" by Francesca Ballistelli, popped into my head.  The chorus goes like this:  "This is the stuff that drives me crazy, this is the stuff that's getting to me lately. In the middle of my little mess, I forget how BIG I'm blessed." So I picked myself up(dirty hands and all) and thanked God for my little mess and thought yes, I am blessed.....interesting how God's perfect timing was at work again. He knew I needed a different perspective on my "catastrophe".
Fast forward, the stove is in working order again, the soot prints came out of the carpet and yes, the vacuum cleaner is working again. My little world is back to normal!!
So, I guess I'll save my "Mulligan" for now.  I, will however, be very happy when the "chief wood stove operator" is back and doing his job!!
Til next time....

This is one Big Snow Pile...



Snow pile at Stadium Park parking lot, St. Paul, MN

 This is a photo from my Minnesota trip last weekend. I am in front of a pile of snow that is about 1.5 city blocks wide and deep plus it's 60 foot tall. The photo was taken before the snow storm that dumped another 17-20 inches of snow in the Twin Cities. Experts say that if this pile was left to melt on it's own it would take until the middle of July.  Reminds me of a large glacier right now, a huge solid piece of dirty ice. They will bring in some sort of "melting" machine to get rid of the pile. Wonder how big that pile is now.....

Home...

We made it home with no problems--well almost, my windshield wiper fluid was froze up so I had to stop periodically to clean off the windshield due to all the road spray from the other trucks and cars.  No big deal it thawed once I got to dry pavement!! 
Wanted to show some photos of the girlz playing in the snow. They had such fun, wish we could have stayed another day to play. Oh, and remember those cute little squeaky toys?? well I'll let the photo tell the story!!!!GRACIE....


puppy zoomies thru the snow tunnel




Brenda and Gracie



The sunrise with the new snow.

Gracie..what happened to your new toys??!!??

Headed home...

Well it's time to head home. Over 17 inches of snow fell here at my sister's house in Bloomington,MN. We did alot of shoveling and snow blowing yesterday. People in Minnesota not only rake their yards, they rake the snow off the roofs of their homes...see picture of my sister raking!!  With all this snow I didn't hear one person complain or whine, they just know how to handle this kind of snow here and deal with it.

snow blowing the front walk...still snowing!

raking the roof



at the beginning of the snowfall

 So in a short bit I will load up the girlz and we will be headed south....thanks for a fun weekend Brenda. Will post more photos from the weekend when we get back to Nebraska.

After the snow...

Sunday, February 20, 2011





Doing zoomies





A Romp in the Snow....



At my sister's house in Bloomington, MN watching the snow continue to fall. Nearly 10 inches with more to come. The girlz have enjoyed romping around in the white stuff. I am sure we will have alot of shoveling to do tomorrow once it is light and the snow has stopped. As we watched the snow fall, the girlz had some fun with some new toys and other accessories!!



New Squeaky Toys



Risky Business Dog