Hi All:
Well I know it has been a really long time since I have blogged, but I am blogging now. We sadly left Idaho on August 30th and drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming. We stayed at AB Camping. We got up early and finally got to Colby and I was so happy to see the kids. We went out to eat and hugged and kissed a lot.
When we got to Colby, we picked Ella up at school and then we went to the kids house. She was really glad to see MiMi and Grandpo.
When we pulled in, I told Curt…..look how pretty Tania’s flowers and yard looks. Then I said, “isn’t it amazing what getting older does?” Brett and her keep their place looking so good and her flowers are beautiful. I took pictures so I could post them. Her mums are absolutely beautiful now. I am so proud, they take pride in the way their home looks.
That evening, it was really nice outside so we were sitting outside and Ella wanted to throw the ball up on the roof and then when it came down she would bump it. Well Brett and Tania got in on the action, so I snapped some fun pictures,.
We left Colby on September 1st to head to Gunsmoke RV Park in Dodge City. We have been here since September 1st. Curt had several doctor appointments in Wichita and I had doctor appointments in Pratt.
I got to cook for some of my customers. I have made all kinds of cookies, different kinds of rolls and a few meals. It put me in my happy place.
On Friday, September 25th we drove to Howard. It was my 45th class reunion over the weekend…..yes you heard right 45. We went down to see Mama and then headed to sisters.
Kjell, Sister, Curt and I went to Poplar Pizza to have the seafood. Sister and I splurged on the Red Russian King Crablegs. We had to order them special but let me tell you, they were so good. Kjell had a ribeye and Curt had Dungeness crab. We also got sausage, potatoes and corn. It was delicious.
Saturday Curt went with sister and her shooting team to Mulvane to shoot clays. He shot 200 rounds and he had a blast.
While they were gone, I went down to a dear dear friend of mine. We have been friends since 1st grade. My classmate/good friend is Susan Galvan.
We were suppose to be at the parade at 9:50 to get on the wagon to ride through the parade. Well we were talking so much and laughing and talking and talking and I happened to look at my watch and I said, ” We have to go…..we are going to be late.” So we got back in the truck and went up to the parade. It was nice to see some classmates.
My Friend in High School. Linda Sinnett
My Friend, Susan and Ron Roberts. Good lord look at my hair. hahahaha
The guy that is all stretch out is Roger Tindle. Pretty Deanna. Deanna and I have been friends forever…..I would say more like a sister from another mother. When we were little, our parents would play cards or square dance and us kids would play outside. Well I won’t go there about my sister and Mike, Deanna’s brother………That was a long long long long time ago. But I really think my sister and Mike didn’t like Deanna and I much. HAHAHAHA
From left to right bottom row: Susan Wilnerd Galvin; Sherri McDonald Mills Wilder; David Denton; Roger Tindle; Linda Brogan Sinnett; Kenneth Mitchell; Randy Fickle.
Top row, left to right: Deanna McLean Jones; Tim Moore; Ron Roberts. We are still the largest graduating class of West Elk. We had 62 graduate in 1975. Whoop Whoop
There weren’t a lot there. After the parade, Susan and I walked around…..well I hobbled around with my bad knee and we bought a few things, then we sat at a booth for the swimming pool for an hour. When our hour was up and someone relived us, we went back to her house. We were visiting and before we knew it the time flew by, plus we never got out of the truck. lol lol lol Sister called and said they were back, so I said goodbye to an amazing friend and just an all around amazing woman.
On Saturday night, Sister decided to fry fish, fried pickles and fried banana peppers and stuffed mushrooms. She had one of her shooting partners, Paul and his wife, Connie, came down too. They are from Wichita. We had a great time and the food was amazing. There were a lot of wild stories being told. I am not sure if all of them were the truth. Paul, Sister and I did the cooking, then after we ate and all the dishes were cleaned up, we began a game of Mexican Train Dominoes.
Curt was telling a big tale and if you notice Kjell and Paul, I really don’t think they were listening or believed it. In fact they looked pretty bored. lol
I am not sure if Connie is bored or scheming on her next move.
Not sure what sister is doing but Paul is being his ornery self. lol lol. Poor sister, she doesn’t have a clue what he is doing but she will know now. lol lol lol
Kjell is going to make a move that I don’t think I am going to like. Look at those mischief eyes…..Oh yes……he isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks…….The Cat is out of the bag now. hahahaha We had a great time and it is always hard to say goodbye to my sister and my mom….but we did and headed back to Dodge. When we got back home on Sunday night we were tired but we had such a good time.
One morning, when I raised my window shade in the kitchen, our neighbors had a motor home and they had 3 or 4 dogs. When I saw this I yelled at Curt to come look and I had to get a picture of it. It is a little hard to see because of the screen but you will get the picture. To me the caption should be:
Why did I not get to go this time. Well fine……when you are not looking…I am driving off….that will teach you to leave me in the motor home while everyone else is on a walk.
The next weekend, we got together with Rex and Janie Schmidt, some of our best friends. We drove out to their hunting lodge and we had hamburgers and hotdogs and chips and it was absolutely delicious. Then we played pitch and Janie and I won both games. Oh how we love these two crazy people. We always have a blast when we are with them.
On Sundays since we have been back, we go to church, then go eat at the Blue Hereford, then go to our best friends, Raymond and Cozette’s (Cozy is my name for her) and we play dominoes. We have more fun. But one Sunday, we celebrated Raymonds birthday a day early. Cozy surprised him with an ice cream cake.
Curt looks like he is caught doing something he is not suppose to do and Raymond looks as ornery as can be knowing he was caught too. lol lol
Oh how I love this lady. We have so much fun.
Cozy looks like she is giving Raymond a good talking to and both guys are not paying any attention to her. hahaha
We sure have fun with these two people. Cozy and I get really tickled playing dominoes and all of a sudden, Cozy will say,”Toot Toot” and I respond with “Bawk Bawk”. We miss them a lot when we are traveling but it has been so nice to see our friends.
Sunday at church, Jana announced, our church was going to put on a reverse Trick or Treat and a Truck and Treat on Halloween at the church. None of us knew what reverse Trick or Treat was. So what it is: First, Jana orders all the stuff and then there are volunteers for certain jobs. So on the reverse Trick or Treat, several of us made up 350 bags of goodies; popcorn, hot chocolate, candy, etc. Then there are several that will deliver these sacks to every home in Bucklin. We also made up sacks for HillTop House residents and for Children’s Church. We worked from 1:00 to 4:30 on a Saturday. It was a lot of work but we had so much fun.
Pastor Jeff and I worked on this as a team.
Vicky, pastors wife, put batteries in all these little flashlights
Britt was here to help as well. Her and Sylvia had an assembly line going.
Curt was working on the HillTop house bags and had some help off and on from the kids..
Nathan was helping Vicky with the flashlights.
Jana was making sure everyone was on their tasks. We even had some of the chidden to help and Britt’s dog was helping.
Sylvia was working on the children church bag and she would have off and on help from the kids. We really had a great time and we got it all done. I just love our church and our church family.
Monday we went to Colby to stay with Ella while her mama and daddy went to work. They didn’t have school and the daycare was not open this day. So we got up at 4:00 am and we were there by 8:00. Tania called me and said she tried to wake Ella but she was sure she went back to sleep. When we turned off the interstate, I said to Curt, how much you want to bet she is up and wired because we are coming? He said, I am sure she is. Well we pulled in and I opened the garage and the kitchen door opened and she squealed…..MiMi……we hugged and kissed and she saiid, “I think I want to make pie crust first. lol. I said, “okay but let me get everything unloaded.” So we got everything unloaded and I told her I wanted to sit down and go through all my mail. So she went and got it and I let her open all the packages and boxes, while Grandpo and I went through the mail. When we had all that picked up and loaded, Ella and I went into the kitchen to start cooking. We gathered up all the ingredients we needed and we were lacking a few things, so we got in the truck and went to Walmart. Ella had some money she wanted to spend and she knew what she was going to buy. I got a electric buggy cart and Ella sat on my good leg and she drove. lol. We went in to get 2 things. 2 THINGS. Well, that didn’t work. We ended up with several things. I would say stop stop stop when I saw something I needed. So we had went though all the Christmas stuff and we talked and I said, “honey, we need to get home if we are going to get everything done before mom gets home.” Ella said, “Well Mims, don’t be saying stop stop stop. Let’s go get the batteries and go directly to the self check.” lol. So that is exactly what we did. Instead of the cheap little toy she wanted, she bought LED lights for her bike wheels. She bought one and I bought one. She said, “Do you think Grandpo would put theses lights on my wheels while we are cooking?” I said, “I bet he will do that for you,” As we were walking to the truck with our purchases, She then said, “MiMi we came here for 2 things and look what happened.” I said, “I know but oh well.” We got home, and she was telling Grandpo all about our Walmart trip and sure enough Grandpo read about the lights and he went downstairs and outside to work on her bike.
So Ella and I started making pie crust. I really don’t have to do much when we make it because she can pretty much do it herself. She wanted to use cookie cutters on the crust so she got down into the bottom drawer to get them. I told her to pick out the ones she wanted but she had to wash them really good first and then dry them. I was busy working on a pie shell and when I turned around to see how she was doing, this is what I saw. I grabbed my camera and took these pictures. I laugh every time I see them. On her head is a bowl cover. hahahahahahahahaha
When we were done with the pie crust, she says: “Mimi do you think Grandpo and I could go to Arbys and get a sandwich….I am starving….I haven’t had anything to eat yet.” Oh my gosh….we were so busy that I didn’t even think to feel the child. I felt horrible. I said,”You go outside and ask him and see if that would be a good thing to do.” She said, “Well he loves Arbys MiMi.” And she is right he does loves Arbys. So out the door she went and in just a few minutes here they both came into the kitchen with the announcement they were headed to Arbys. lol. When they got back and they were through eating, we put a chicken in the pressure pan and we were going to make homemade noodles to freeze. I wanted to help out Tania a little bit. Bless her heart she doesn’t get home till 6:00 and she just hates to think of something to cook for supper so I brought her 4 meals and put them in the freezer for her and I deboned the chicken and froze it with the broth. When we began to make the noodles, I asked her to crack the eggs in a bowl and if by chance she would get an egg shell in them to pick it out and then put the egg into the mixing bowl. I was separating eggs to just use the yolk. Now let me say this, Ella has been cooking with me since she was 3 years old and this child can crack an egg, separate an egg and never get a shell in them. Well, this day it was different. Every egg she cracked, she was picking out shells. I finally said,”What is the deal with you today? You never get shells in the eggs.” Without skipping a beat she says, “I know MiMi, it’s either the eggs or I am off my game.” Oh my gosh I thought I would die. She never looked up or stopped what she was doing. So we got them all mixed up and when we took all the dough out of the mixer, she said, “MiMi that’s going to be hard to roll out”. I said, “Well not really because I have some new attachments that hook onto my mixer.” So I showed her how to attach it and how it worked and she pretty much did it by herself with me making sure she didn’t get a finger in the roller. Then I showed her the cutting attachment and she did all the cutting of the noodles. She said, “Mimi this is so much fun and so much easier than the old way”. And she is right. I love these attachments..
Ella took a couple pictures of me:
We finished all of our baking and Grandpo got her bike all done and when Brett and Tania got home she was really excited to show them all we did and explain it all in detail. She was so excited about her bike and the roller and cutter. Oh how we love spending time with this child. She really is my heart. But so is. her mama and daddy. Gosh we Love this family……FAMILY IS WHAT LOVE IS ALL ABOUT.
Today, I had to have a Covid test because I am having a procedure done in the hospital at Pratt on Monday. Then I will have to have another one done a week before my knee replacement surgery on December 8th. Let me tell you how all this went down:
I had so much anxiety by the time I went in to have it done I was shaking all over. The respiratory nurse told me to take deep breathes and to calm down. So she said hang on to me and try to relax and breathe deeply. The respiratory nurse was so nice. She told me to tell her when I was ready…..I wanted to say….LIKE NEVER..but I didn’t. I told her to go and she put this long Q-tip up my nose and I think clear to my brain. Very uncomfortable. She got the Q-tip thing to where she wanted it to be and then she had to move the swab in circles for 20 seconds. It burned and made my eyes water. I am so glad that is over!
I hope you have enjoyed what we have been up to since being back in Kansas.
Until next time:
The Wilders
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