Frogs and Toad

I have to share this. Charlie came in this morning asking where the camera was. I walked out and saw what looked like a clod of mud or a wasp's nest on the end of a can. As I got closer I saw that It was neither- it's a gray toad.

Then This afternoon he found these: Real frogs in our artificial pond.










I also got an e-mail today from a woman who found some of my family history pictures on filcker. Crossthwaite family pictures. She says she has some of the same pictures. Her great grandfather was our great grandmother's brother. I am in the process of sending her information and trying to add to hers on Ancestry.com.

July 27, 2007

Not a whole lot happening this week. I am on vacation, which means I am taking time off work but we are not going anywhere. Monday, I attended the "Open House" at the Springport Branch Library, not many people there for the open house but the library was fairly busy. I have made a few calls about the library expansion project, reminding people to vote, asking if we can use there names in an endorsement ad. In case you live in the area, and are not familiar with the Library expansion issue. Please check out the library web page. and please support us on Tuesday August 7th.
I went to Lake Michigan with some friends, on Wednesday, not a great day weather wise it was only 68 degrees, according to the bank thermometer, in South Haven. It started raining at about Kalamazoo, and rained on and off the rest of the way there. It was cloudy but the rain held off for a couple of hours, so the kids had fun and we got away and had a nice lunch. The pictures of the lighthouse aren't great but here it is anyway.

Arthur, my nephew has been bitten by the family history bug. His grandfather flew in WWII and his cousin has tracked down a man who was a member of his grandfathers crew so I have been doing some digging for him. I am a little amazed at how much information I came up with from my home computer in just a few hours.

We got a copy of the DVD from Charlie's Whitewater rafting trip, but since I haven't figured out how to post it to the blog yet, I am going to refer you to Youtube for a sample of what it was like. http://youtube.com/watch?v=r_ZAGbWqfqY&mode=related&search=
This is not Charlie's group but it will give you an idea of what it was like.

Oh and one more thing, Charlie has decided to join the 21st century he finally got decided to get a --drum roll please---- TA DA...A CELL PHONE. ;-)

Whitewater rafting and Hornets at home.

Charlie went whitewater rafting, in West Virgina, with the Springport FFA this week. They drove down on Wednesday and rafted on Thursday. and were planning on camping Thursday night and driving back on Friday.
They got caught in a down pour which wasn't so bad while they were on the river, since they were going to get wet anyway. Most of the kids had never been camping before and left all of their bags next to the wall of the tent, so by the time they got back to camp EVERYTHING was wet, so they decided to start back on Thursday night.
I guess all of the kids had a good time, and leave it to us, Charlie was one of the few to get hurt. He got dumped out of the raft and hit his elbow on some rocks, nothing serious but it looked really swollen.
He took a camera but couldn't get any pictures of the rapids because he had to have both hands on the paddles when they went through.

Here is a picture one of the girls took, of him jumping off a cliff.

While he was gone, it was my job to water the horses, while doing that on Wednesday evening I found a hornets nest in the lilac bush, the hard way. I got to close to the bush and must have bumped it with the hose, I only got stung once but boy were they mad. I managed to go out and take this picture this morning. I think it is kind of interesting if I do say so myself.

Happy Birthday

Today is my youngest brother's birthday- if I tell you all how old he is it will make me feel really old, this is the only picture I can find right now. (I'll have to do a more extensive search later)

(This must be my week for embarrassing pictures.)

I am going to let all of you come up with a caption for this one- leave it in the comments section.

Happy Birthday Barry- Love you

P.S. This was just forwarded to me. I don't know who wrote it but I thought it might be appropriate for many of you who read this and if you are too young- you might want to be prepared. my comments are in brown italics

Many of us "Old Folks" (those over 50, WAY over 50, or hovering near 50) are quite confused about how we should present ourselves. Despite what you may have seen on the streets, the following combinations DO NOT go together and should be avoided:

One comment from a previous sender said fortunately they had only seen a couple of these- number 1 and 9 EEEOOOWWW Sorry about that visual. Or all of them for that matter.

1. A nose ring and bifocals
   
2. Spiked hair and bald spots
   
3. A pierced tongue and dentures
   
4. Miniskirts and support hose
5. Ankle bracelets and corn pads or ankle casts
6. Speedo's and cellulite (NO speedo's - ever I don't care how old you are)
7. A belly button ring and a gall bladder surgery scar
   
8. Unbuttoned disco shirts and a heart monitor
9. Midriff shirts and a midriff bulge (again this is not good no matter how old you are)
10. Bikinis and liver spots
    
11. Short shorts and varicose veins
12. Inline skates and a walker (the cause of wearing the ankle cast?)
13. Thongs and Depends

Do you mean like this?

In a comment on the last post Troy said:
"Oh...and where are you pictures of your cousins...especially the good looking ones who were always wearing horned rim glasses, striped pants, poofy plaid shirts, and -- worst -- dickies"

Do You mean something like this? I don't have a date on this but I am thinking about 1975? You better protect me if your mother and sisters come after me on this one.

Quiet Week

It has been a quiet week, not much happening. I have uploaded a bunch of pictures to Flickr. Some Family History pictures and some other photos I have taken over the past few years. Go to Flickr.com and do a search for betzspt ( I put that “tag” on all my pictures to make them easier for you to find.) I'll be adding more soon.

Keep smiling

Family Stuff

I told you a couple of days ago Charlie woke me up to go to work on the 4^th because he forgot it was a holiday. Well he woke me up again yesterday (Saturday) and asked me if I was going to work, I told him no it’s Saturday and he said it is? Geeze- these retirees have no idea what day it is.

I had a great time at Jordon Keeley’s wedding yesterday evening, the Sunset ceremony was lovely, and the water skiing bride and groom were unusual and entertaining. I got some pictures but most of them are not very good, but here are a few of them. I will post more on flickr. Click the link and do a search for betzspt.

The best part was getting to see family members we don’t get to see very often. Joe, Troy, Cheryl, Jeff and Lauren. All the kids, who are growing up way to fast. Oh yeah Lois' friend Marsha.

I am sooo glad all of you have such a good time picking on me about my “unfortunate ankle incident.” I swear I think it does run in the family. At least I found out who made the anonymous comment about crawling to the car. I won’t tell you who it is because she obliviously wanted to remain incognito but her name starts with Debbie. : -) And yes, I did drop salad dressing on my shirt- I swear my mother makes me do these things. She would have had a great time, or should I say she did have a great time.

Emily and Christian asked me who I was, I mean really! Just because I only see them every 3 or 4 years. You would think they would remember ME. Troy said he told the kids who everybody was on the way up, and told them to write it down, but Emily thought that was too much work or something.

I told her she didn't have to write it down, I have all of my family history information on my computer. I can e-mail it to you as a gedcom file if you have a genealogy program or pdf but it is 119 pages. I can also mail it through the post office if you will pay for copies and postage. Let me know.

When I started this blog, I sent the url to lots of people but I don't have everyone's e-mail address so if you know of anyone who you think would be interested please tell them about it, and please make comments, so I know someone is reading this, it is fun doing the writing, but it is more fun hearing from all of you.

Birds and Buds

It 's Friday but yesterday seemed like Monday most of the day. I hate two Mondays in one week. If thats not bad enough Charlie woke me up at 6:30 AM Wednesday and asked me if I was going to work. I rolled over said, "NO its A Holiday" he said it is?

Lots of things about birds this week, I am not sure why.
A week or so ago on his webpage, Arthur, my nephew- in-law, said he had baby Robin challenge him to a “duel or something." Well we had a pair of Robins build a nest in the tree just outside our south living room window. The nest is only about 5 ½ feet above the ground, I walked under it yesterday and the adults tried to dive bomb me. Later I found out why; the baby was ready to leave the nest I found it on the East side of the house hopping around and flapping it wings a few minutes later, luckily neither of the cats or the dog found it. I tried to get pictures but I am not fast enough. You will have to use your imagination and I know some of you have will have a wonderful picture of that, especially with me hobbling around with my ankle brace. Now the nest is empty and the robins are no longer guarding the tree so it is safe to walk or even sit under it.

I was driving by the Grand golf course today and just off one of the fairways at the west end of the course were two sand hill cranes. Cool.

On Tuesday Charlie went out to feed and water the pheasants and found 31 of them beheaded. Something got into the pen, it could have been an owl, or weasel or racoons. He found a couple of holes in the top of the fly pen. He thinks a couple more got loose, because the dog caught one, but Charlie rescued it, and he saw one that he couldn’t catch. We think we heard it last night in the horse pasture. He mended the holes, and so far the rest of them are OK so far.

We bought some plants for around the house too, one of them a dark red, (burgundy) lily. The pink lily we have had for a few years had huge buds, but seemed to take for ever for them to bloom. We planted the new one and it was almost like they exploded over night.

Our project for this week was a new water feature next to the deck in the front of the house. The birds are drinking from it already and it is not quite finished. Here's what it looks like so far.