Kiddie Parade

We live in a small town. Every summer there is a parade with floats, old cars, horses, etc. But before the main parade the kids have their own "kiddie Parade". This year our granddaughter, Sierra, was marching in the kiddie parade with the rest of the kids that had gone to "Small Notes Music Camp". (See earlier blog from June)

Sierra was timid. If you watch the video, you'll see that her mom had to walk with her.




My husband's wildlife club had a float in the main parade. Here is a picture of it:

Red Hats

My mom's Red Hats group got together at our cottage on Wednesday.
We marked the road to our cottage with red balloons.

What a fun bunch of ladies! How's this for a perfect "girls only" day? We started out with a salad potluck at our place, then we walked up the road to Melody Boder's place. Melody is the daughter of one of the Red Hatters. (She is the only one in the pictures that isn't wearing red and purple.) Melody served us desert (on china) and flavored coffee. While we ate, she played the piano for us. Wow, she plays beautifully! Here is a short sample of her music......by the way, she composes most of her music. This song you'll recognize. Listen for a moment. You'll understand why I was awe-struck:

Song:

Old Time Religion

Melody gave us a little red gifts of CD's. Some of the ladies even received little Red Hat gifts. Melody's mom got Red Roses. (I should have gotten a picture of that.) Then we all walked back to our place and took pictures.

You can find out more about Melody on her website:

www.MelodyBober.com


and you can purchase her CD's at


www.lillenas.com

Chinchilla

Today Jess brought a chinchilla over for Sierra to see. Guess who wants a Chinchilla now.

DuBord Backyard Get-Together

1^st Annual DuBord Family Party

Wednesday, July 18^th, 2007

We started out sitting around the deck area talking and eating. The rest of the evening we played:

• Horse Shoes
• Bocce Ball (new to most of us)
• Norwegian Golf

The temperature was perfect after a hot day…it had cooled down just right. The sky was clear. The lawn games were a hit. Everyone stayed busy and had fun. The party ended when it got dark and the mosquitoes came out. Most of us had used the new bug spray that doesn’t feel oily, but the mosquitoes seem to find all those areas that you didn’t spray, like your forehead. It was a weekday evening so 10:30 was a good time to quit anyway.

It was suggested that we do this each time that Bekki and Jason come home.

Click here to see the pictures that I took:

http://barbspictures.phanfare.com/album/333840/478978#imageID=21820114

A Day at the Zoo

My granddaughter, Sierra, loves the zoo. This week my daughter, Jamie,
invited me to go to the zoo with them.

Sierra's favorite animal is the horse.

They always end their visit by riding the carousel and checking out the gift shop.




What a nice way to spend a day with my daughter and granddaughter!

Christmas Card in July

Our son, Jason, and our daughter-in-law, Bekki are currently here from Denver. So our family got together for supper. We realized that we might not all be together like this before Christmas, so........... this would be the only time we could take a picture for Christmas cards. So here it is folks........... a preview of our Christmas card picture, taken in July.

Running Thru the Sprinkler

Remember when getting wet was this much fun?
This is my granddaughter, Sierra and her cousin Zak.
They're both three years old.

Shingling the Garage

Our house was shingled years ago but we never got around to shingling the garage. Well..........finally it's done! Dave stripped the old shingles off on Friday, July 13th and our son-in-law, Ryan came over Saturday and shingled the whole thing in no time flat. (He does this for a living.) I helped.....ha, ha.......I carried a bundle of 5 shingles to Dave. Dave handed them up the ladder to Ryan and Ryan nailed them down. Ryan was so fast that it took him the same length of time to put them down as it took me to get another bundle. It looks nice. (So why didn't we do this ten years ago?)

4th of July

We had a good 4th of July again this year. We always get together at the lake with all the Grovers. This tradition probably started before I was born. About twenty years ago, we started taking a yearly group picture. One of the walls of our cabin has of most of the pictures displayed on it. They are fun to look at. It's fun to see to compare one year to the next. This is the picture that we took this year.

Fun Funeral?

Last week I went to a funeral with my mom. Joy, a friend of mom's, died. I know that this sounds disrespectful, but I really enjoyed myself. We sat with a couple of my mom's life-long friends. These gals have all belonged to Homemakers together since I was born. Being with these women and listening to the reminiscing took me back to my childhood. This is a picture of my mom, Edie (in the middle) and her two friends, Betty and Norma.

Summer School Field Trip

On June 27th, I drove a bus load of kids to Cash Wise for a tour.

Cash Wise sent home a goodie bag with each child containing fun things like magnets, pencils, candy, pop, and more

The kids had a good time. Thanks Cash Wise!

Bad Weather

We might have had a tornado pass over head last night around midnight. (June 17th, 2007) There is a swath of damage in town. Trees are down all over the place, streets are blocked. Our patio stuff was all rearranged. Our HEAVY outdoor grill was moved about 8 feet and replaced with our upside down patio table. (They traded places.) The storm took a piece of the neighbor's tree and planted it vertically in our yard. (See picture) There is a 5th-wheeler on it's side. One house had 2 shutters blown off .....each from a different side of the house. This was not a straight wind. Waylan Starr says that because of the type of damage and the path of damage, his theory is that the tornado was just over head and didn't touch down . Too Close!

Click here to see some pictures taken around town.

ND Boy's State Awards Ceremony

I understand that soon I will be able to publish video on my blog site. That's great! My son, Jason, and Neil Litton did this "um-pa-lah" dance during the awards ceremony for ND Boy's State and I recorded part of it. (This video should really embarrass them, hopefully. Hee Hee.)

*OK, I just tried uploading the video and the site isn't ready to take it yet (This is a new feature that's still in draft).........I'll get it to ya later. Until then, check out this picture of Jason & friends getting their 10 year award. You can also click here for more pictures and videos:

http://barbspictures.phanfare.com/album/303334/423920#imageID=19106771

School Board Election

Lexie,
Jodi,
Barb (Me),
and Nan











......................On June 12th four of us spent 12 loooong hours working the school board election. We sat all day in an elementary music room waiting for voters. Actually 33 voters did show up (not counting us)..........which averages less than 3 people per hour. Did I mention that the room was windowless and freezing cold?

We dug in the lost and found and borrowed a couple sweatshirts to deal with the temperature. To deal (unsuccessfully) with the boredom, we dug in the cupboards and found some really bad home movies of kids in plays. We ended up playing hangman on the chalkboard.

Actually it wasn't quite as bad as I'm making it sound. There was a lot of food, reading material, and conversation. It's just that twelve hours of sitting is a long time.

I will do it again next year. (Why? I look forward to it every year. I'm nuts)

Valley Fair

On the last day of school I drove a school bus load of kids to Valley Fair. We all had a great time.

Small Notes Music Camp

My granddaughter, Sierra, attended Music Camp this week. She had a lot of fun and learned some social skills. The kids had a wonderful teacher, Vickie Milbrandt, that "sang" books to them, taught them how to move to the music and how to play kazoos.

Easter 2007

Easter was different this year. Highs and lows.....

High: Christ is Risen! How wonderful to have Him as a loving God, father! That he died for us, for me. What awesome love!! Then He rose again and is ALIVE! My Father, my God! I am so thankful!

Low: This is the first year since the kids were born there were no baskets to fill or eggs to hide. I never got around to decorating for Easter other than my computer wallpaper.

High: Jamie, Ryan and Sierra did meet us at church for breakfast and then church. That felt good! Sierra looked so cute in her Easter dress.

Low: No kids home for Easter dinner.......weird feeling.

High: My mom and Dave's folks came out and we all had time to talk....something that usually doesn't happen when kids are around.

Low: I didn't hear from Jen. I left messages on her phone, but she never called.

High: We (Mom, Addie, Dave and I) had a looooong talk with Jason on the phone! (It's a good thing we're both on Verizon...ha ha) It's the first year he hasn't had an Easter basket.....he's 27 years old.

Visit to the Capital Building

On March 20th, I took a busload of kids to the state capital building in Bismarck. This is a picture of the kids and the govenor. What an interesting day! The Cass County Reporter published this picture. Neat, huh?

Nashville ESP Conference

Nashville was fun! The weather was gorgeous!
(Big difference from the snow back home)

I learned a few things. One of the sessions that I attended was called "Enhancing Communication by Blogging." As you can see, I'm putting my new found skills to work.

I also added a few words to my vocabulary ......... like: privatizing and living wage.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel. Beautiful! Fancy! My only compliant was that we were always waiting for the elevators. There were 950 people at the conference, so you can understand why the elevators were overworked.

I met some fun people. We checked out some Honky Tonks and I ran into Elvis Presley. He sang a song to me.

We checked out the Ryman Auditorium. I got up on stage and sang a song.

We went to Coyote Ugly Saloon. The bar maid told all the women from ND to get up on the bar. I refused. After all, someone had to hold all the purses and record the moment in pictures!

We were treated as royalty!
We dined at the Aquarium.

We rode in limos.

We visited the awesome Grand Ole Opry Hotel and went to the Grand Ole Opry.

What an experience!

We had some free time on the last day. Our ND group split up. I went with a couple gals on a tour of two plantations. We had a tour guide that sang to us. What fun!

Memories..........

I have many more Nashville pictures to show you. Check out my online photo album: http://barbspictures.phanfare.com/album/232692

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from Barb

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