Ok, If anybody cares, here are the results of the Christmas movie poll.

With 1 vote:
Love Actually,
Sound of Music.
While you were Sleeping,
Amahl and the Night Visitors,
The Grinch Stole Christmas,
Holiday Inn w/Fred Astaire),
The Preacher's wife (Denzel Washington),
Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus/Meet the Santas

2 votes
A Christmas Story (there were 2 people who had never seen or even heard of this one)
Elf,
Christmas in Connecticut

3 Votes
The Santa Clause (Tim Allen)

4 votes
It's a Wonderful Life
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Miracle on 34th Street - 5 votes

and the big winner----
White Christmas with 7 votes.

Christmas movies

Listening to the radio on the way in this morning, made me think of something and I decided to take an informal survey.
What is your favorite Christmas movie. The one you want to see every year.
I started by asking some of the people in my office (those who don't blog or Facebook- What's with that?

There picks were: National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (2)
Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus /Meet the Santas
A Christmas Story (Darrin McGaven, Peter Billingsly)

OK so now- leave a comment, what is Your Favorite Christmas Movie.

My Christmas Card This year

Just so you know- I never get my Christmas Cards done this early. Some years I don't get them done at all.

It's cold outside....

but we’re
wishing you the
Loving spirit of Christmas
to
keep you warm throughout the New Year

Charlie and Joyce Betz

Created especially for you by
Joyce Betz
2009

This is the newsletter I included with the card.

When I started this edition of the newsletter, I thought it was going to be pretty short, but I quess we did more than I thought this year.

Weather

It seems like we had a lot of snow earlier this year, and the temperatures were really up and down. The first picture was taken January 20.
A lot of the snow melted, , there was even some ground visible, I think the lilacs even started budding. The temperature was above 40 degrees on February 13th then on Valentine’s day it looked like this.

Animals

We have had our share of problems with our animals this year. We currently have 8 horses at our place. Six, are Charlie’s, two of them he got as a rescue, two of them are boarding,
During the summer, one of these horses, had a problem with it’s penis, it would not retract properly, was extremely swollen. One vet, after two visits, told him to take it to Michigan State University Vet Clinic, When he got there the receptionist announced over the loud speaker that the “problem penis horse” was there. They gave him some medication and fixed a sling (thong) to help keep it inside. That didn’t work. The third vet, pushed it back in, and stitched it for several weeks until the muscles could heal and become strong enough to hold it. If that hadn’t worked they would have had to do an amputation. All very strange, but kind of funny too.

Charlie bought several baby chicks this spring, and they were doing well, We came back from our camping trip in June and most of them were dead, he described it as chicken parts all over the coop. He is pretty sure it was a raccoon. We have one hen left, she apparently visits the neighbors and tries to eat the cat food. They call her Ninja chicken.

While Charlie was at the fair with the 4H kids, in July, I took the dog for a walk one evening and he ran out in front of car, and took a big chunk of flesh off his leg, He hobbled around for weeks.
A few weeks ago another horse became ill one evening. It was breathing hard, biting at it’s side, sweating heavily. He took it to the vet, it had become septic and had to be put down. Apparently the stomach wall had a thin spot and it ruptured.

4H

Charlie built a horse arena in the back pasture so he and the neighbor kids could practice their horses. Then he agreed to become a 4H horse leader this year. He had 8 girls in the club. He took them to the Eaton County Fair the first week of July.
It was one of the girls’ first year in horse competition, she was riding one of Charlie’s young horses that had never competed before either. They did very well, she placed in all but one of her 8 events.
He is currently working on expanding the arena. It wasn’t long enough and it gives him something to do.

Springport Township Equestrian Partnership

Charlie spent most of the year working with a committee to write a proposal to build a big equestrian park in the area. They would have been able to hold international horse shows as well as tractor/equipment shows, rodeos livestock auctions etc. It would have brought hundreds of jobs to the area. Unfortunately the Michigan Equine Partnership picked a group on the east side of the county to receive the grant, A disappointment, but the facility won’t be too far away.

Transportation

This was not a good year for our vehicles.
Charlie took his truck into the shop in late winter and it seems like he was without a vehicle for over a month. He had to have the engine replaced. That costs several thousand dollars.
Then the car went on the fritz, it needed, a new head gasket. and that costs $1500. The car was 14 years old, but you can’t buy a new car for $1500, so we got it fixed, and I was without a car for over a week.
A week after we got it back we broadsided an SUV and totaled our car. Niece Michelle, offered to let us borrow her “extra” car, and we bought that one from her. It is smaller and get pretty good mileage.

Vacations

We bought a camper in the fall of 2008 so we have gone on a few camping trips this year. In the middle of May I went to Indiana, it rained on Friday and we woke up in the middle of a swamp on Saturday morning.

On Memorial Day weekend. We took the horses and the 4H kids and their families. Well, Charlie took the horses, I just hung around, and did some of the cooking.

In June we went to Custer State Park for a few days. The park was practically empty but the camp sites are wooded and sort of enclosed so it seemed like we had the whole park to ourselves.

In August we went to Tawas State Park, again with my family. This park is set out on point so there is water on both sides of the park but it was really crowded, but we expected that in August.

In November, just before Thanksgiving we took a short trip to Pennsylvania, the first time in about 6 years. It was good to see several people, although we didn’t get to see all of Charlie’s cousins. We have said that we need to get there more often.

On the Health Front

Charlie was having some trouble with what the Dr. said was “trigger finger.” The tendon locks up in the bent position and won’t straighten out. He had an injection in his right hand that worked for awhile. A few months later it came back, and he was having the same problem with his lef hand. He had surgery on his right hand this fall, and will have the other one done in a few months.
My yearly mammogram showed an unusual spot, I had that biopsied, thankfully it turned out to be nothing.

In April, I went to my optometrist, for a check up. She was concerned because my prescription had changed drastically. I went to my physician that day. My blood glucose level was 260. He told me I had to loose weight, and I started taking metformin. I started the South Beach diet and riding the stationary bike that day. In April I couldn’t walk a block and half without my back hurting, by July I was walking 3 miles. I bought a bike (a single speed, coaster brake, fat butt seat) by the end of October I was riding 5 miles.
As of Thanksgiving I have lost 63 pounds. The Dr has taken me off the metformin, and reduced the high blood pressure medication. I feel great. The picture on the left above was taken in December 2007. The one on the right was taken September 2009

Kids

Shonda finally got a full time job, after several weeks of unemployment last year, working as a bartender at the Eagles club in Charlotte. It doesn’t have any paid benefits, but at least she is working which is more than some people can say.
She has a new boyfriend, Eric. He is currently “between opportunities” but he is getting unemployment like a lot of other people in the state.
Chris’s Hofer, our exchange student a few years ago, came back for a visit. He spent a couple of days with us and spent some time with friends he made when he was here in 2007.
Shonda Christoff

We would love to have any of you come and visit, we have a spare bedroom, and a guest house, (the camper).
Charlie is retired now for 3 years, so he is home most of the time. I have lots of vacation time so I don’t have too much trouble taking days off. Give us a call anytime.

You are more likely to find me on facebook
(Joyce Choate Betz),

I can also be found on Twitter (betzja), although I don’t tweet very often.

You can also see some more pictures at
http://flickr.com, search for betzspt

Hoping everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanksgiving day.

I haven't been blogging much, because I have been using Facebook and I just realized that those of you who are not on Facebook do not get to hear the latest news. Facebook friends can see the blog, as notes on FB. I will try to blog more, but I recommend that you all join Facebook, it is fun and easy (find me as Joyce Choate Betz).

For those not on FB. I saw my Dr. on Monday. I have lost a total of 63 pounds, he has reduced my blood pressure medication, and I don't have to take the metformin anymore. I have to check my glucose randomly, and don't need to worry about it unless it gets up to and stays over 150.

My family all came here for Dinner today (a total of 12 adults and 2 toddlers). I got up at 6 AM, to put the turkey in the oven, I took it out of the freezer on Tuesday it was still a solid block of ice last night. We brought it in the house, but it in a bucket of water and I still had to run water on it to get the giblets out this morning.

Everyone has gone home. They all seemed to enjoy themselves and most said they ate too much, as evidenced by these pictures. Some took home left overs, That means I will have less temptation tomorrow. I did eat some of almost everything today. I checked my blood sugare at 5:45, about 1 1/2 hours after I had a piece of pie, ant it was 37. I little high, I knew it would be, I'll eat better tomorrow and it should go down.

I hope you all had a great day and if you are going out shopping tomorrow, be careful, you are braver than I am.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Halloween

A few of you who are my friends on FaceBook have already seen this, but I think it is cute and thought I would pass it along to my friends.

One of my cousins said:
Forgot to get a halloween costume for saturday.... gonna have to whip something together like my mom did when we were young; wait my mom usually put some flannel on us and one of my dads hats and called us hunters... i dont have any flannel : (
The comments were: (without names)

From me
You could throw a sheet over your head, that was always a good one for me.

Wear pj's rosy your cheeks up, 2 pigtails and a pacifier-easy baby outfit!mao...like when my mom had me wear the boys football pads "here is your costume, you like football, and it will be warm"

from her sister:
Lol, I remember that. Go to Goodwill, get a poncho, make some horn rimmed glasses out of cardboard and go as Ugly Betty.

Ok now your turn. Good last minute costumes that don't cost much.

Catching up.

It has been a while since I offically posted anything on this blog. What can I say? Nothing has happened worth blogging about. I am still losing weight but not as fast as this summer, I still have several pounds to go but I am down 4-5 sizes (depending on the style) in slacks, only 1-2 sizes in tops.
I have been busy this week teaching staff and public classes at the library. The new information system we have migrated to is, as with most things new giving some people fits, but I think it is a better system, and once they get used to it everyone, the staff and public will be happy with it.

We have a new horse, one of the girls down the road bought a buckskin and is boarding it with us.

One of the other girls has been diagnosed with N1H1. I hope we don't catch it.
Will write more later.

Before and After

I thought it was time to update my profile photo but to get the full effect you need to see the before and after so here it is December 2007 and today.









I still don't like the full shots but here are a couple of them. The one on the left was taken in 2006, the one on the right was taken today.

Feeling Better

I am finally feeling better, still not 100% but getting there. Throat still hurts, but I have no fever.
I have not exercised since Thursday, I have lost 6.6 pounds since Friday because I had trouble eating very much. Not really the way I wanted to loose it but I'll take it. Hope I don't gain it all back next week.

Charlie had surgery on his "trigger finger (left hand), and an injection in the right hand today. It went well, and very quick. We didn't have to be at the surgery center til 9:30 and were out by noon.

Just finished walking 3 miles. It took an hour and half, which is kind of slow, but considering that I haven't done anything for 6 days and am still not real chipper, I guess it's not bad.

I lead such an exciting life. Type to you all later.

Sick

I feel like crap. Sore throat started 5 days ago. Got antibiotics on Friday, that didn't help. Had fever (102) and chills all weekend can't swallow, one tonsil is 2x as big as the other, white spots on throat. Saw the Dr. today. Got script for a different antibiotic to start tomorrow. Now I have heartburn.

Good news. Lynn says I have lost 54 pounds, ( thought it was 51) Blood pressure is down, he decreased meds. OK I'm done b****** now.

Thanks for listening

Triva

While we were on vacation we stopped at a restaurant at Foote Site Village, called Desi's It had pictures of old movie and TV stars all over the walls, and I mean ALL over. One of the pictures was of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Roy's sidekick, but none of us could remember his name (I said Dale Evans but they said not the other guy) . We remembered that he drove Nelleybell, but not his name . Charlie said Pat Butram. That sounded close, but not just right. I didn't have a chance to look it up til this morning. You can find the answer at classic TV westerns. Before I tell you the answer, did you remember who it was?

Ok, Roy's side kick was Pat Brady.
Pat Butram was Gene Autry's sidekick and may years later was on Green Acres.

Of course this brought up other Side kicks and other shows we used to watch on Saturday morning. Does anybody remeber Jingles Jones (Andy Devine) I also found out that he also played "Cookie" in some Roy Rogers movies. How about Sky King, and of course the Lone Ranger, and Sgt Preston of the Yukon. What others do you remember? Let me know either in the comments section or on facebook.

Back from Vacation

We, Charlie and I, just returned today from 6 days at Tawas point State Park.
Spent time with my brother, sister and brother-in-law. Didn't get to spend time with the younger members of the family because they all had to work some of them couldn't come until last night or today and Shonda couldn't come at all and I had to get back for an appointment.

Having grown up and vacationed in Michigan, I have been to alot of places, but some how missed the Tawas area.Tawas is a nice park, right on Tawas point, so you have the bay on one side of the west side of the park and Lake Huron on the East. There a The campsites are pretty wide, but not very deep, and it was pretty crowded even though there were 10- 15 sites open each day.

The weather was good, it rained but not until evening, yesterday was absolutely beautiful.

Charlie and I went up the coast and stopped at to Iargo Springs, this is a picture of the steps going down to Iargo Springs this is a picture of the stairs going down to the Springs, and the sign.










These pictures are from the overlook at Iargo (by the way Iargo means land of many waters)











There were even more steps down to the river from the lumberman's monument that we visited yesterday.











I also got a some decent pictures of the lighthouse and the sunset. If I ever decide to start
painting again I may use them as models.

Chicken Fat

Hey it’s only been a week since I posted last. I'm doing good.

Most of the time I agree with Jenn, usually what I do doesn’t seem to blog worthy.

I lost 4 pounds last week, but gained 2 over the week-end.

We have been having a discussion at work about exercise and fat etc.

I remembered a song called Chicken Fat or Go you Chicken Fat go (by Robert Preston) in the early 60’s for the President’s council on Physical Fitness.

Only 3 of us say they remember it, but I thought would share with all of you. Just for fun

This is the first one I found, just the song and a power point presentation

This one kind of what it looked like when I was in school, except that we only had 12 kids in my class. I am not sure I could do the whole 6 minutes now,

But I probably could do this version

This version the little cartoon just makes me laugh. It reminded Jean and I of a dance we used to do call the

Stuff

It's been a month since I updated. Time certainly does fly. Haven't updated because I couldn't decide what to write about.

Here is a picture I took at Tom and Kathy's on the fourth.

Chris, came from Switzerland. We took him up to Houghton Lake to see Dick. He spend several days with his friend from school, Joel, and spent 3 or 4 days here.

Charlie spent the second week in July at the Eaton County Fair with the 4H girls. They did pretty well. A couple placed first in their class. One of the girls who had never done this before with a horse who had competed once or twice, but not a fair placed 8th, and one of the girls placed 2nd on one of her events. It was a looong week from Saturday through the next Sunday (9 days). I worked all week.

Then Charlie took Chris to the Airport on the 22nd.

Other news. I have lost a total of 40 pounds so far, and I walked 3 miles last week and yesterday. A few months ago, I had trouble walking a block.


The corn is starting to tassel and here is some I thought were kind of nice cool of new silk.


















Took a camera on my walk this evening, actually I took the camera to take pictures of things I noticed yesterday but did not have my camera with me.

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion yesterday, my mothers family, the Gilberts. Descendans of Ile and Mable Gilbert. We had a great time. Of course not everyone could be there, we did have 4 generations, and to my best calculation is that we had 80 relatives there.

Does anybody know how many Great great grand kids there are at the moment?

We took family group pictures, which was a major production in itself, and tried to get pictures of each generation but, we did not get the Great Great Grand children because some of them were napping.

I sent an e-mail to several of you, but just in case you read this and don't get my e-mail. I need names birth dates and parents names of our fifth (5th) Generation, The Great Great Grand kids,
so I can up date our family history book.

Here are a few pictures, I have also put the family group pictures, on Flickr.com. If you do a search for "Gilbert Family Reunion 2009 you should get 9 pictures, if you do a search for betzspt, you should get all of my pictures.

Here are a few that are not on Flickr.

8-80 days and cow plop

Apparently I need to explain some things about Springport's 8-80 days for some people.

Barry asked: "sounds great, what exactly is 8-80 days?"

8-80 days is the local summer "festival." It is called 8-80 days because there are things for everyone from 8 to 80. They have pedal tractor pulls, frog jumping contest, Pet shows, cow plop contest, tractor pull, horse pull, belt sander races. The typical summer festival stuff.

Then Arthur said: "Cow plop contest? I have to see this one."

For the cow plop contest they make a grid on the ground in some kind of enclosed area, Springport uses the tennis court, people then purchase "a square," at the end of the day, they put the cow in the tennis court, and whoever purchased the square where the cow drops its "plop" or "pie" wins half the money.
Not the same as a cow pie tossing contest, where I have heard contestants throw dried cow pies.

Springport 8-80 days

Charlie's 4H group rode their horses in the 8-80 days parade today. It was a beautiful day, and there were lots of people. Some years there don't seem to be very many, this was a good year.












































Charlie had to have the farrier (horse shoe-er) come this morning before, they could go to the parade, to put a pad and shoes on one of the horses. The "girls" apparently were having her do sliding stops in the arena, yes Charlie has told them not to, and it has worn one of her back hooves down to the frog (the soft part of the foot in the center) The poor horse was in so much pain she couldn't walk yesterday afternoon, her back legs kept collapsing.

They do have roping and speed competitions where the horses do need to do sliding stops, but they have special shoes, so it does not wear down the hoof.

I am on vacation this week, but I don't think we are doing anything, or going anywhere.
Next weekend- the Gilbert Reunion. See some of you there.

Vacation

Just got back from a camping trip to Fort Custer State Recreation area, in Augusta.












I have been there before, but Charlie had not. I had it confused with one of the other camp grounds where we had camped.
Some of the sites at Custer are a little samll, but most of them hav a lot of wooded space between sites. On Thursday about noon while the guys were off doing something, I drove around the park there were only 13 sites occupied. The first week of June, before school gets out is not a bad week to go camping if you can manage it.

We got set up on Tuesday and Charlie and the dog went for a walk. I was alone at the camp site and heard, in the distance, what sounded like somebody pounding on a tree with a hammer. It got closer and closer, then I saw it a huge Pileated Woodpecker, I went to get may camera and it was gone by the time I got back, but this is what it looked like. The sound it makes when it is peeking at a tree is really loud. Like I said like someone hitting a tree with a baseball bat.

While I'm talking about birds, I don't know if I have every mentioned this site before, but it is really cool, it has great pictures of birds, and you are able to hear the song, or call.

Ed came on Tuesday and went to gather fire wood he came back with a piece of wood about 8 feet long.
He and Charlie took a long time to cut it up so it would partially fit in the fire pit. We never did figure out what kind of wood it was, but it was really hard, and didn't burn very hot.

While we were gone, something got into the hen house and got several of the baby chicks, Charlie found parts and pieces of at least 7 chicks and we think a duck it got a duck because we haven't seen it around. Charlie thinks it was probably a raccoon and says he his going to sit out with his gun tonight and wait for them.

In the strange critter happenings category.

• A neighbor down the road said he heard a cougar in the woods in back of his house. He said the horses and dogs were all upset. He called a few nights later and said it was out again. We went out and heard nothing from our yard. We drove down the road and definitely heard something but it did not sound like a cat, or a dog, maybe a mad raccoon.
• A couple of other neighbors, said they have seen very large tracks that looked like dog track but had claw prints. One of them had a 40 pound bag of dog food carried off, leaving a trail to the woods.

Week-end happenings

It has been a quiet week-end. I rode the exercise bike yesterday morning, I did laundry and grocery shopping on Saturday.

This morning I increased the exercise bike to 35 minutes.

A few weeks ago, Charlie bought some chicks and 2 ducks. He put the ducks in the pond a couple of days ago, but they ran right back to the chicken park.

Today he let them all out into the yard. The chicks apparently think the large ducks are their parents. They want nothing to do with the big chickens.

















Several years ago I planted some Lily-of-the-Valley on the North side of the house. They have always come up, but I don't think they every had any blooms. This year they are finally blooming.










I am not sure where this little purple one came from, I don't even know what it is, but I thought it was pretty.