Monday nights with Brayden

are never dull. Tonight was no exception, after school he and Tanya colored while I fixed dinner, we got to hear about his upcoming trip to California. He's very excited-hope the next 34 days pass quickly for him. I made him his favorite white cheese pasta (Penne with alfredo sauce) and had green grapes on the table. He said, "I want grapes, too." "No problem, go for it," says I. So he picks up a bunch of grapes, probably about 2 pounds, then says "Look I'm strong." Tanya says,"let me check out your muscles" and squeezes his upper arm. He says, "They're new. We got them at Price chopper!" (Our grocery store) Had a very good laugh over that one! If I'd known I could get muscles at the grocery store, I've picked some up long ago! After dinner we went outside, thankfully it wasn't raining, he played in the sand, ran up and down the fence with the boxer next door, played with the kick ball and pulled up "acorn trees" (I have millions, literally.) then he dissected them and made up stories about how they weren't really "acorn trees, but the tail feathers of striped coyotes." Really where does a 4 year old get this stuff? He's a hoot!

A girl and her Prince, Daddy!

Nora and Steve.

Nora couldn't figure out the red-eye flash on the camera! She is quite curious and active!

A happy girl!

Little Miss Nora, age 6 months. She is tall but tiny ( at least to this Granna who is used to picking up Kolby whose 30 lbs, or nearly!) She began rolling over at 6 weeks and now crawls and pulls herself up! I think she may beat Daddy's walking age of 9 months!

The Goodman-Fines family

Steve, Candice and Nora, a happy group!

On to happier things!

Just home last night from the Washington, DC trip. I don't know when it happened but flying is no longer any fun! The trip itself was great fun. Seeing Steve, Candice and Nora, spending time with them was just great. Nora has grown so much since last November! She still looks like an elf, though!

I managed to stop off at one quilt shop and buy a few fat quarters and a piece of white on white for projects on the list. No new patterns though, not buying those for a while. I'm trying to finish things already on the "To Do" list and not begin anything new.

The four of us went to the National Aquarium Tuesday after a lunch of crab cakes and shrimp! It was a really nice visit 6 or 7 levels in a glass pyramid, admission included a 4-D movie and the dolphin show. 4-d is an experience. The dolphins are always a treat!

In Memory Event

This photo shows the Memorial for Larry in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial panel 11W, that being the panel covering the years 1969-1970 when he was in Vietnam. It was a very nice ceremony, difficult and tearful. As Steve said "Dad's funeral part 2." You can view it here. I just watched a part to see if you could see and hear me and for some reason the sound wasn't on for our side of the name reading ceremony. Larry was third from the end as they were read in the order they were taken from us. You can see me, and Steve behind me-great tall person that he is, but you can't hear me. So, this is what I said: "Master Sargent Larry Fines, United States Air Force, retired. He served with the 35th Security Police Squadron in Phan Rang, Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. He passed from complications of exposure to Agent Orange." We could say what we liked, briefly, and if a cause of death was given it was almost always Agent Orange.

Off to Washington, DC

I'm off to Washington, D.C. bright and early in the morning. Well, I'm flying into and staying in Baltimore, MD, I only plan to go into DC on Monday for the Memory Day event. I also want to see the WWII memorial and the Air Force memorial-both new since I was last in the capital. I'm waffling about taking the laptop with me, I don't want to deal with it and security but I could use it in the evenings even if the Motel doesn't have an internet connection. I may be out of touch until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll post some piccies when I get home anyway. The best part of the trip is that I get to see Steve, Candice and Nora, YEAH!

What's blooming!

The lilac bush in my backyard has fully opened in the past two days, you can smell it yards away, I love it! So does Kelsey who often rests in it's shade.

April finish

Just finished my first baby quilt of the month, probably because it is for a baby shower that's today! Machine pieced and hand quilted-my finger is sore~!

About the tour

In spite of my best efforts blogger has published this backwards please scroll down to older texts and then to the one entitled A Virtual tour of My hometown, I hope and begin reading there

Gail

Nearby Kansas City is the home of many wonderful things: a world class ballet, symphony orchestra, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It is also the home of the Royals, major league baseball team, the Chiefs, NFL football team, and the Wizards professional Soccer team. Independence has a minor league hockey team, the Mavricks, and on the Kansas side you will find a minor league baseball team, the T-bones, as well as The Kansas Speedway of the NASCAR circuit.

All in all, I think you would find my part of the world very interesting and that's before we hit the quilt shops!

In keeping with my love of history, I thought I'd show you the Midwest Genealogy Center. Recently voted one of the top 10 centers in the US I spend many hours there, I consider the staff my personal friends.

Considered a part of the Bible belt we have many, many churches. This is the temple of the Community of Christ Church, it is affectionately called the "pigs tale" because of the spire which is visible for many miles. The inside of the spire is stunningly beautiful and resembles the interior of a sea shell. Perhaps a bit odd in that we are days from the ocean.

Accross the street from theBingham is the National Frontier Trails Museum . I was a tour guide and Education coordinator here for several years, this is where my blog and email name of "trailteach"comes from. Independence was the jumping off point for caravans of trade goods to Santa Fe beginning in 1827 and later of pioneers headed to Oregon and California. Talking about these people, how they lived and what they did is something I enjoy so much I'm afraid I might become boring. I 'll try to hold myself back!

This House is called the Bingham-Waggoner estate for it was once the home of Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham. the suare room on the very top is all window and is directly above the stairways, in summer the open windows draw the hot air up and out and even today not much air conditioning is needed to keep it cool. I especially like the walk-in ice box and the snaps in the wood floors to hold the rugs in place. On the grounds of the estate you can walk around some wagon swales, depressions made by the passage of many covered wagons on the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico or later to Oregon and California.

The City of Independence is the county seat of Jackson County and like many county seats in the US it has a central square with the courthouse filling the middle. This courthouse is no longer used for the business of the county but does house the courtroom Mr. Truman used when he was a judge. While the Square has fallen on hard times some new and interesting businesses and eating places have opened recently.

On our way to the Courthouse Square we'll pass by the William McCoy home one of the oldest buildings in town.

The next stop is the Truman Presidential Library where you can see exhibits that deal with the decisions he made while in office. Wear comfortable shoes!

First up on our tour of interesting places is the home of our most well-known resident, the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman. I would love to take you on the tour as I have never been (shrug) but I understand that the kitchen cabinets are painted a particularly horrid color of green!

A virtual tour of my hometown. I hope.

If you take a map of the United States (minus Alaska and Hawaii for this effort) and plunk you finger down smack in the middle you should land somewhere quite near a largish city straddling the state line between Kansas and Missouri, called (oddly enough) Kansas City. Just a few miles to the east is my hometown of Independence, Missouri where "the trails start and the buck stops."

The land here is made up of gently rolling hills covered with trees and undergrowth, so thick you can't walk through is unless there is a path. Oh, watch out for the poison ivy! We get about 40 inches of precipitation yearly, snow in winter and hard thunderstorms in the spring and summer. High temperatures in the summer can top out over 100 degrees F and in Winter below 0 degrees F. Right now we are heading into what the weather folks call the severe weather season, meaning the potential for tornados, large hail (grapefruit sized sometimes) and damaging winds. When the summer comes the humidity may get so near 100% without rain that you can feel you are breathing water! Along with that come gorgeous days of sunshine and blue skies that just make you want to stay outside from dawn to dark. It changes all the time and causes the weather people lots of trouble with their predictions.

Signs of Spring

Spring has arrived, I think. Signs are every where. Lots of really green grass, the trees are beginning to show pale green and the flowers are coming up. Even George, the toad, is showing himself!