"Munson Bridge Winery"

What a wonderful Pre Mother's Day, our wonderful husbands took us to the
Munson Bridge Winery
It is absolutely beautiful and a must see in our neck of the woods. If you like wine you have to go and check out their events for the year, you wont be disappointed.
The owners are wonderful and have put their heart and soul into this great winery. They had Jazz music and a wonderful table of cheese and snacks for us to enjoy. The loft of the barn is so rustic but so beautiful all rolled into one. The weather didn't want to corporate with us so we were just a little chilly but with a few glasses of wine I didn't notice the chill in the air any more.

Even the little beagles running around out there are laid back and so friendly. We had a great time and will go back to visit again.


Ladies we sure are lucky to have such "WONDERFUL HUBBIES"

Real Maple Syrup

What a good year for Maple Syrup!
Zach & Todd spent a lot of time this Spring at the Emmerich log cabin making real maple syrup along with Kenny, Tyler, Sydney, Al and Cory.
From tapping the tree's to hanging bags to collecting and pumping the sap up to the cabin, it is a lot of hard work but Zach loves doing it. Here he is skimming the foam off the sap as it is being cooked down to syrup, it is a very long process to make syrup you can cook sap for 8 to 10 hours and it still isnt true maple syrup just yet. After it is drawn off the cooker it is put into tanks and then brought back to Grandpa Rogers house for him to do the final cooking and canning of the syrup.

FYI
You have to cook down 40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of true maple syrup,
and when it was all said and done they ended up with 80 gallons of maple syrup.
You can do the math on how much sap had to be collected to get that many gallons.
Ok I will help you out
3,200 gallons of sap was collected to make 80 gallons of pure maple syrup

It wasnt all hard work as you can see here!
Todd enjoying a little down time with a Captain and Coke


Tyler is even smiling while cooking the sap


Zach being silly with Uncle Kenny


Zach enjoying a group photo with Sydney and Uncle Al
What a nice picture of My Guys!



Next time you enjoy TRUE maple syrup think of the process that goes into making just one gallon

Treasured Memories

How Innocent is this picture?
I love the fact that I have a child that does his own thing and could care less what other people think. I love the fact that he finds his own fun (partly because he is like an only child) and is happy doing it. I have so many picture of Zach being a care free little boy and only wish my mom took pictures like this when my brothers and I were little and carefree. To have those moments caught in time would be so cool to look back on. Maybe that's why I spent hours and hours on scrapbooks that I will pass on to my boys once they are old enough to want to look back at their childhood. I make sure to journal each page on what I was feeling or what they said in hopes that someday it will spark a memory for them to hold onto forever. I moved around a lot as a child and the only real memories I have are of my summers spent in Wisconsin with my cousins. Picking an apple off a tree and wiping it on my dirty shirt and taking that first sour bite of the summer was the best! Or harvesting vegetables from a garden that we all helped plant earlier had to be the best thing ever to a city girl like myself. Yes I spent the whole summer up North and loved every minute. When mom and dad would come to pick us up to return to city it was heart breaking to leave our country living behind. So you can see why this picture of Zach means a lot to me, Innocent and carefree! What more can you ask for as a parent?

I hope you all enjoy the spring weather that SHOULD be showing up soon, and may you capture moments like these that you will cherish for a life time.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I hope you all have a Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is a very special holiday in my family, As far back as I can remember my parents have had St. Patties day parties with lots of family and friends over wearing silly hats and a lot of green beer was involved!

Remember When?

Remembering the crazy Day Care Provider Spring Reception Themes
All eight of us didnt make the 50's/60's theme reception but here are six of us that had a great time dressed as Fonzie! Left to right is
Donna Siedel, Dawn Clausnitzer, Emily Bellendorf, Amanda Perrin, myself, Shelly Paul

We won first prize for best costume as a group




HAWAIIAN ANYONE??

Here we are in our Hawaiian Theme Party Clothes!


We had such a GREAT time in this get up, YES we won first prize!

Left to right
Emily, Donna, Me, Amanda, Jenn Ching, Dawn Clausnitzer.

We laughed so hard when we were handing out the coconut bra's, some are larger than others and we had to find the perfect fit for everyone. Sorry Dawn you are blessed more than others.

It was Shawn's birthday and he had to work at Home Depot that night so after the reception and a few cocktails we decided to go find him and all six of us sang Happy Birthday to him right in the middle of Home Depot, Yes we were still in our Hawaiian costumes. He was a good sport about it and thanked us for stopping in, Even if he didnt hug his crazy mom back I still think he liked it....

Holdiay Pictures

What a wonderful Christmas and New Years we had with family. I just wanted to share a few pictures.
This is Christmas Eve at Cher and Frankies house, it was my mom's birthday on the 23rd and I always get a picture of her and the boys together. Man Zach is getting so tall.


Here are the party animal GIRLS! We were back at Frankie and Cher's house for a New Years Eve party. We sure had a great time playing pool and foosball . Michelle Weinke is on my right, she is a very dear friend of mine. Cher to my left and Maria (my sister in law) is on the end next to Cher. We all get along so well and love getting together. We partied until 4:00 am, I have to admit I am getting too old to be doing that.


Todd and Frankie had to get a shot in before the night was over. I guess I cant get a holiday picture without CAMO in it!


Craig and Maria still in LOVE! Zach looking on in the back.


Michelle and I ringing in the new year


Zach looked so cute in his Irish hat

I hope all of you had a wondeful Holiday with your family, I know I enjoyed my time off with mine

Flu Bug

Zach doenst get sick very often but when he does he is down for the count!
He laid around most of Saturday morning and afternoon saying he just didnt feel right.
By evening he was camped out on the couch with his comforter and pillow watching
"Polar Express" with Todd and I. He didnt even make it through half the movie when he asked for a cold rag for his head and he was out like a light. He slept on the couch until the movie was over and then headed to bed. He woke up this morning still not himself, laid in his room most of the day watching movies and napping on and off.

I hope he is feeling better by mid week when our lives get turned upside down with parties.

This year we are spending all day Christmas Day at home with just the four of us . We will spend Christmas Eve with my family at Frank and Cher's and the Emmerich Christmas will be on Saturday the 27th at Roger and Sue's.

We are very blessed to be spending time with both of our families over the holidays. I look forward to the time with all the kids.

God bless you all and may your holidays be filled with laughter and love.

Hunting season

Shawn's 4 point buck

Shawn shot a 4 pointer this hunting season, it was a huge deer compared to some of the others that were shot. Zach on the other hand was skunked his first year out but that's ok. Todd was very patient with him in the woods and is hoping next year goes better. No Todd didnt get a deer either, too worried about his twelve year old with a gun.

I wish I had some cute pictures to post for you but with two boys and a husband that race cars, hunt, fish, and camp it is going to be hard. Maybe I will get some nice pictures over the holiday season of my guys in nice clothes with no camouflage print or blaze orange in the outfit!! Wish me luck.

Happy Holidays to all of you and a wonderful New Year!

Jack Sparrow

Meet MY Jack Sparrow......

We dressed up for Halloween and went to a private party. There were several pirates there but I must say My Jack Sparrow was the best one!
I was his Pirate Wench and loved every minute of it!!

Until next year
Jack Sparrow & the Wench