Easter 2011, Jason & Brenda (Smith) Strike with Jessica, Jamie, and Jacob along our horse fence in the back yard. We took several nice family pictures that day, it was a great Easter celebration, we had chocolate bunnies for everyone!

Happy Second Birthday Jamie!!

JJ's and Briana's wedding was a magnificent time for the family! We pranked JJ with Danny dressing up in a wedding dress, and trying to find the garter... he was such a good sport - JJ AND Danny! Really funny!

I realize that this post is unbelievably late, but I had fallen off the face of the earth during the weddings of June/July 2010. This is a picture of the many, many beautiful ones for this incredible wedding of Danny and Andria. More than a year later I am still obsessing, and stand amazed at the year we have had!

Travis and Barb are working very hard on wedding music that they will be providing for JJ and Briana's wedding. We are so excited to have them participate and anxiously await their performance! They will be playing The swan song.

see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPnyZjqoJUA if you are interested. Also I will try to add it on my music selection on this blog.

So many people working so hard to make this a wonderful day for them! It is so wonderful and the process has been very fulfilling and fun!

Here is the dress/es that I have picked for myself for the weddings. Briana's will be nearly this color, floor length (I chose a taupe as the fathers will be dressed in black tux - with silver/grey vest and tie) For Danny's wedding where I will be MOG instead of MOB (mother of the groom versus mother of the bride.... that makes me smile) I chose to go with the same dress but with a tea length (mid calf) and in a light turquoise color to match the teal blue of the bridesmaids and beautiful peacock theme wedding they have chosen. I finally have an alterations appointment tomorrow for my two dresses - which makes me happy and some of the final details are getting accomplished which should help me sleep! Tomorrow is busy with alteration appointment for me, final marriage counceling session for JJ and Briana (Danny and Andria are already done with this phase) a walk through with the church wedding coordinator regarding details of the ceremony, and an appointment with the Worship leader regarding wedding music during the ceremony. The evening will be pulling a rough draft of the order of service together, and ordering the program paper! How fun!

The preparations have been underway for awhile now... there have been 300 kisses, 300 bookmarks with new address labels on the back, 200 handmade invitations, and much more! It has been a fun process, lots of laughs, giddy late nights to get things accomplished. Briana has had some friends from college come home for a weekend to help - that was wonderful to get to meet these incredible young ladies (at times a little scary!)

The reception will be at Chula Vista, with light pink, silvery grey, black accents. JJ and Briana wants everyone to understand their love for each other, and their love for God.... as more will be explained during their ceremony in June!

Bridesmaides, Build-a-bears dressed like Bride and Groom, cake, friends, presents and fun... sounds like a Bridal Shower!

Brenda decided it would be too fun to have a "high tea" so we broke out the Pope Gosser china and misc antique china cups and saucers, made lots of tea, had great food (Thanks to all that helped!)

Barbara sent many, many roses from Washington because she could not be here... but she is getting ready to come in June!

Guests came with gifts, recipes to share, and sat with Briana while she opened their gifts so that they could explain the gift, tell who they were as some were from the Kortbein side of the family.

From left to right: Renee Renaud (maid of honor) Briana (Bride) Nichol Troyk (Bridesmaid) not shown: Brenda Strike -(Bridesmaid) Barbara Smith - (Bridesmaid), and Andria Garbers (Bridesmaid)

Andria graduated from Eau Claire with her BS - speech pathology and is pursuing a Masters - she has been accepted to UWashington in Spokane and so my sweeties are moving to Spokane. The nice thing is that they are excited, and that they will be close to Barb and Travis as well. It will be nice to have family close by, and we can visit them as well, when we go out west! They are there currently with Trav and Barb checking out the college, looking for apartments, and in general checking out Spokane. Looks like they are having fun.

Engagement dinner party last fall with Andria's parents, and us. Ken Garbers is setting Danny straight - now that he knows his intentions!

Danny is showing his pearly whites?

Engaged! Yes - two in the same summer! Can we do it? Yes we can! The time is now short and Annie and Danny (as I have grown fond of saying) are getting married in a beautiful setting at Riverside Park in LaCrosse which is right next to the Mississippi river - outdoors. So please pray for good weather, yes we have a backup plan. The reception will be at the Radisson in the ballroom... can't wait!

Cute story - Danny (Paul) proposed on Grandad's bluff over looking the Mississippi River in LaCrosse. We are excited to have Andria as a part of our family!

This is the save the date that went out awhile back.

I will add Danny and Andria's next. We are down to dress alterations, music planning, order of service.... its getting close!

Engaged!

JJ and Briana are engaged! They were so cute during this process - JJ had to propose twice cause the first time Briana would not cooperate! He wanted to take her up to a bluff by Devils Lake in WI Dells and she was running late coming home from college - the sun was setting and it was getting dark - she was wearing flip flops and shorts. She did not want to climb the bluff. So like a trooper - JJ changed plans, cleaned up the rose petals, got the Build a bear dressed like a bride that said "Will you marry me" got his friend who was waiting at the top to guard the set up and to take pictures. Onto another day it would happen. And it did - a couple of days later he encouraged her to go to the Dells and climb the bluff! PS: She said yes!

Raccoons are not cute!

Okay, I know that a lot of you think of raccoons are these cute little masked guys. But they are not! They climb fences, even well built fences intended to keep the likes of them out! They will eat chickens... yes I know! First I think, okay - they can eat a chicken - I like them too. But they kill chickens for sport! Ripping off heads, leaving various parts of chickens laying around and not cleaning up after themselves. They are vicious, angry animals. Angry I say, cause why else would you be able to kill and mame seven to eight chickens in a matter of minutes? Twice! So now we carefully pack up the chickens we have left into the coop before nightfall (which means the sun has just barely hit the horizon. They are grateful for the protection of the coop. and so are we.

Canada June 2009

I cannot go to much longer without blogging about our recent June trip to Canada.... We allowed JJ to come along he is Briana's boyfriend of four years. JJ is a natural... everything. He plays basketball well, he can pick up just about any sport and do it well. Thats why we hate him. Otherwise, he is a kind and gentle soul... thats why we love him.

So- Craig and JJ go to Gander Mountain and get fishing poles etc. We had to explain things to him cause he did not have a lot of experience in the fishing department. But remember I said he was a natural at sports? Yeah, we get to Canada out on Sturgeon Lake (no, they do not have sturgeon in this lake??) JJ makes his first cast and there on the line, a tropy walleye! He prevailed at catching a lot of nice, nice fish this two weeks that we were there!~ what the heck.

The first week was cold and we did a lot of shivering on the boat. The fish were unpredictable, and all over the place. We would try to fish for Northern and caught lake trout, out for trout and caught walleye... very confusing. Thought we were going to starve to death, but thankfully Mom (me) came to the rescue with speghetti, and oher non-canada type meals.

The second week went much better, it warmed up, Danny the fisherman of the century arrived and we finally did the traditional "normal" Canada fishing trip! The lake trout were where God intended them to be so that we could catch them and have a proper fish boil. The walleye were where they were supposed to be, so that we could deep fry them back at the cabin. So- we had to actually manage our fish so that we would not waste any... now that is more like it.

Chickens

Now that it is nearly eight weeks since we had the cute little chicks that so sadly turn into ugly, mean, peck the top of my foot chickens..... It is almost time to take them to meet thier maker, and my freezer. I am gearing up for the one day blitze of taking them to the amish lady that will "deal" with them, so I can pick them up and have them clean and in a cooler. But then I will be cutting, cooking, baking and deboning a lot of chicken. Hopefully, Brenda will be able to help a great deal, but then she gets her breaks... claims of needing to nurse Jamie, change Jessica, stop Jacob from painting my house with mud etc. All in all, I would rather be stirring a pot of chicken broth... than trying to explain to Jacob why Nanna (me) does not want to have all her plants pulled up and stacked neatly by the kitchen door. The other nicer red hens will be happy not to have to fight beak and claw for thier food and water two times a day with the more aggressive - crazy hungery cousins. I am anxious to have just my six (yes I know there were eleven.... another story) red hens to mature and get ready to lay me some eggs in about six months. Next spring we are going to get a more exotic mix of hens from a farm in Iowa... I know! exciting! Then we will get our usual white, ugly, chickens that make you hate them and love them in the freezer chickens. Oh, Why then the ugly chickens? Well, you all know how you cannot compare a garden tomato to a grocery store tomato? Well the same is true for the home grown chicken. So much more "chicken-ey" flavor... and you know what they were brought up in, and fed etc. The cost is about the same as any other organic, free range chicken that you would buy, but I get about 8 pounds of chicken for that price, not just 3 -4 pound chickens... Craig wants me to get some turkeys next year... I think that would be fun.

Chickens

Chickens, Chickens,Chickens! Brenda and I decided that
we did not have enough to do, so we thought we would raise some chikens. I ordered 80 cornish rocks (white, huge ugly ones) and 10 (they gave me 11) cute little red hens for egg laying. Brenda had to deal with the baby chicks as they came in (from the post office no yet...) while she was taking care of the four residents, her two very young children and a newborn.... so we added nearly a 100 baby chicks to the mix. Now, it was and still is very much worth it (especially since I did not have to do it). But aren't the pictures adorable?! This is Jessica and Jacob "holding" the babies. It looks like Jessica was squeezing the fluff off this one, but she was actually very gentle with it. She still asked me today at the Baptism service to go see the chicks. (Which sounded a lot like "stick - with a "t" at the end....)

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley is on his way!

Thank you Rygh for sending Flat Stanley to us! We had so much fun with him. He arrived and spent the first day on our refrigerator before being introduced to your second cousins Jacob & Jessica.

He then ate breakfast with one of our residents of our adult family home:

Off to work with your great uncle Craig where he went all around the area picking up frieght from local factories and businesses. Some of those were cranberry bogs, and cheese factories. These are important industries around here.

Since it was Easter, Flat Stanley ate Easter dinner with the family, Danny & Andria, Briana and JJ, Brenda & Jason (with Jessica & Jacob) Brenda is expecting "new baby girl" in May, also the four residents and your great Uncle Craig and myself (great aunt Valerie!) Well, I need to get Flat Stanley in the mail, so I better get going!

Craig was honored today at a luncheon for his 4th year of consecutative safe driving. Prior he had gotten up to three years of safe driving, had a bad year and now has gotten back up to four years in a row.

To be eligible, a driver must be a full time employee operator who lives and drives in Wisconsin, who drives a minimum of 10,000 miles on public streets/highways. Craig now drives approximately 35,000 (because he now drives city it is not as high). A driver must be nominated for the President's Safe Driver Club by a company official, with 36 months of accident and citation free driving both professional and personally. (So year one is really year four of safe driving....)

After earning membership in the club, a driver must remain accident and citation free professionally and personally for each consecutive year. Any accident or citation the driver will lose that particular year toward accrued continuous membership.

Craig has been accident/citation free for three years, (then another three in the club) then a bad year (we won't get into details) and now the four consecutive years... way to go Craig - ten years total in the Presidents Safe Driver's Club!

We celebrated with an awards luncheon, and a moment out together.