Abby Turns 10!!!!!

I can't believe that my baby turned 10 this week. I remember looking at her in bed with me on her first night with a panicky feeling running through me thinking,"I am in charge of this. If I don't feed her she could starve." Well, she no longer wants to be snuggled in bed with me and I did manage to feed her for 10 years now with out forgetting.

She wanted a Webkinz party this year and we had 8 little girls spend the night. WAY to much giggling! WAY too much screaming! WAY too much flitting from one thing to another! Here are some pix of my effort making a "Wheel of Wow" cake!

Family Pix

I know I have not posted in a LOOOOOOONNNNNGGGG time but, as most of you know, I have had health issues. I'm doing better so I thought I would share the awesome pictures that my friend Megan Duerksen took.

GRRRRR!

The @#$% cat came back, BUT...he is not longer alowed in the house, just the laudry room and goes outside during the day. A happy compromise!

In Mourning (not)

What a crazy couple of weeks this has been! I am finally getting around to updating my blog! I'll post more pix of our life but wanted to convey some sad (not really) news. Our retarded cat is gone! After he peed in one of the kids rooms for about the 47th time, we decided to bannish him from the house during the day and let his in at night. We let him out a week ago and he has not returned. I am sad that the kids are sad, but am rejoicing that the only animal in the house(besides my children) is a Guppy named Lucky. Life is good!

First Day of School=Clean Slate (and clean desk)

Today was the first day of school and I was reminded that one of my favorite things about teaching is the fact that there is a beginning and an end every year. You get a "do over," a chance to look back and say, "that didn't go so well. I'll do it differently next time." It is also great that we get 2 months off for the "teacher amnesia" to set in so that by August you are saying, "last year wasn't so bad, I can do this again."


These are my before pictures. Before kids come and mess everything up...before I have meetings all the time after teaching all day...before I get too sick and tired of looking at those 4 walls and say, "Forget it! I'm going home"...before things get totally out of control and crazy!



You will notice that my desk is clean (this pic is also to remind me in April that my desk is brown underneath the mountains of paper and supplies), everything on the kids desks are neatly placed where they need to be AHEAD of time, and my group tables are free of clutter. You might also notice the Pepsi which I cracked open at 7:00 this morning!



I am hoping to take an after picture in May. It will be fun to compare!

County Fair

I am so proud of my kids for their fair entries. The Harvey County Fair started on August 1st and the kids entered in both 4-H and open class.

Tyler entered his honey and got a blue ribbon. He also participated in a 4-H archery tournament the week before the fair and qualified to go to the state meet in September!

Abby was the overall 4-H quick bread/muffin champion for her banana muffins. She also got a purple ribbon on her chocolate cake. On her crafts, she received 2 blue ribbons. She also did well at the archery tournament the week before but is too young to go to state. Maybe next year!

Sweet and Sticky Harvest

Saturday was "Honey Harvesting Day." It was exciting and a lot of work (for Eric and Tyler, not me). It was a really good harvest with about 220 pounds of honey! For those of you who don't know how honey is harvested, here is the Wenger version:

First, they pulled the frames from the hives and replaced them with empty ones. They used the smoker to calm the bees. It doesn't calm all the bees and they get pretty mad when you try to take their honey so I used my telephoto lens and kept my distance.

Eric used an uncapping knife to uncap the honey cells. The knife is not sharp, but is very hot.

Then the frame is placed in the extractor. This one hold 2 frames at a time and is cranked by hand. The frames spin acting as a centrifuge and honey goes to the bottom of the cylinder.

When the extractor gets hard to crank, the honey is strained into a bucket. The strainer in the bucket gets out the wax chunks and stuff.

It is then poured into jars or bottles for consumption or sale.

The final product!

For those of you interested, the prices are as follows:

6oz. bear - $1.50

12oz. cylinder - $3.00

1 quart glass jar - $12.00

Beaver Lake Vacation

Well, we are back from vacationing at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. We had an awesome time. Here are some pix of our fun.






All this food for 11 people for4 days. Oh did I mention that included 2 teenage boys?!

The first day we were there the deer came right up to our cabin. We were within about 10 feet of them.

Tyler and Abby tubing!

Yes! I tubed too!

Lots of fun at the water fall! That water was darn cold! If you look at Tyler jumping ( the 1st one on the left) you can see that he went in face and chest first. It knocked the wind out of him but still did it 2 more times.

Tyler tried water skiing for the first time and got up. We were all so proud of him!

Cedar Lodge, back view

View of the sunset from our deck! Stunning!

We had such a good time. We are definitely going back!

Refreshed...Kinda

For those of you who know me know that I don't really like massages. I know, I'm a total nut job! Well, I went for my very first proffessional massage on Tuesday at the EveryBody Shop in Hesston. Abby had won a 30 minute massage and gave it to me for Mother's Day so I reluctantly made the appointment. It was overall a mildly enjoyable experience. The head and face massage was great and the rest was OK. It was painful at times and a little weird having someone I don't know in a quiet room massaging me. The lady that did it was great and I'm sure she is very good at what she does. It just wasn't my thing! I doubt I would do it again. Now, having a pedicure with a foot and leg massage...I'm in!

Boring Task=Procrastination

I am taking an online course this summer to move up on the pay scale. It has to been one of the most boring classes ever and I just started. I got my first assignment last week, a 3 page paper critiquing a content achievement test and evaluating its use with English language learners. Doesn't that just grab your attention and make you want to dive right in? NOT ME! I read that and almost cried...really. It's been a really long time since I've done any collegiate writing. It's hard and honestly I don't like things that are hard. It was kinda funny, though! I opened the text book for the first time and the quote that began the entire book was from Oprah Winfrey and said,

"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity.

Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand."

I guess it's easier for Oprah to "find a new way to stand" when she's wearing really cute expensive shoes! I thought maybe buying a cute binder with matching tabbed dividers for the class would make this pill a little bit easier to swallow...it hasn't.

Shopping With Abby

Today Abby and I (Tyler is still at camp) met Eric for lunch and on the way home we did a little shopping. I saw some tops that were a little more trendy (and low cut) than I usually buy. They were cute so I decided to try them on. I took 2 and went into the dressing room. Abby came in with me (my first mistake). I tried on the first one and it was way too tight and not at all flattering. When tried on the second one (see above), my darling daughter exclaimed, "That looks cute on you, mom. You can't even see your fat rolls!" With a compliment like that I had to buy it. She will not come into dressing rooms with me anymore.

Webkinz

My daughter is totally obsessed with Webkinz. She now has a grand total of 15 of them. For those of you out there that don't know what Webkinz are they are beanie baby looking animals that come with a code that you enter on the computer to "adopt" you pet. You then decorate its room(s), feed it, clothe it and play with it. You can earn "Kinzcash" to pay for all of the online stuff by playing their games (which, I must confess, are pretty addictive). This is all virtual so you don't actually get any of the stuf (except the little stuffed animal). Everyday Abby has to do "dailies." These include, but are not limited to, spinning the Wheel of Wow, checking to see if her pets need fed, do the wishing well and mine for gems at the curio shop.

When Abby acquired a Webkinz Cocker Spaniel she was trying to think of a name for it. She thought for awhile as we walked out of the store. "I know," she exclaimed, "I'll call him Cock!" I calmly said, "Umm, no." "Why?" she asked, "It's short for Cocker Spaniel." That it is, however, I delicatly explained to her that it could mean something else that is not so nice. She settled for Butterscotch!

Sayin Good-Bye To Rescue Heroes

For many years, when my son was younger, he was obsessive about police, firefighters, "ambulance guys" (as he called them) and wanted nothing more than to be a firefighter someday. He had an entire squad of Rescue Heroes (action figures that went around rescuing people). He had helicopters, a jet, the Aqua Command Center, Rescue Tower, numerous land, water and lunar vehicles and too many "guys" to count.

Tyler decided at 13 that he no longer needs them and is selling them at our garage sale. Being the sentimental (i think "mental" is the key part of that word) pack rat that I am, I'm having a hard time parting with them and they are not even mine! They were so important to him for so long and maybe, in a way, I'm mourning the loss of the little boy that has somehow become a teenager(sniff sniff).

"Hi, I'm Kristi Wenger and I'm a packrat"

This is where you say, "Hi Kristi." Anyway...I'm getting ready for my second garage sale in 2 weeks. I know, I must be clinically insane. We are cleaning out our basement with the hope that we will be moving to the country in the next few months. It is just unbelievable the crap that I have save for the past 30-some years. What's even sadder is that I still can't part with most of it.

This (plus what I havn't carried in from my van) is what DIDN'T sell at last week's garage sale. UGH! It is now residing in my craft room. This is NOT conducive to creativity!

The things I found that I have saved all these years:

A handful of my baby teeth (kinda gross, huh?)

My Holly Hobbie doll (Actually, come the think of it, it may be my sister's. Jill, if you're reading this...I think I found your doll!)

Every certificate and concert program from middle school.

A china tea set my grandma bought for me at Alco when I was 6. We drank orange soda from it!

I know, I'm completely hopeless. Is there a good 12 step program for this?

Miracles Do Happen

My children were cleaning the kitchen and did a marvalous job with minimal fighting. Truely a modern day miracle and worthy of a photo!

I'm Baaa-ack

I'm coming back to blogging! Maybe this will be my summer thing. Maybe more...Anyway, I will add more tomorrow!