Never a dull moment with these two (three) goofballs…!

We were headed out to pick up a digger and decided breakfast was in order!

Leftovers: My second favorite part of Thanksgiving.

First is always the extra time with family❣️

Got some leaf chores done over the weekend :)

The back porch across the streeet.

My mom is fully responsible for the loss!

We had fun playing games at Josh and Steff’s house over Thanksgiving break

I liked the way the light hit Stef’s rolls.

I may be partly responsible for the loss past weekend…

Julie’s turkey from this weekend. Wow, just WOW!

We are going to test these claims…!

It’s hard to resist someone who wants to be with you every minute…

A remanufactured engine on the way back into my Jeep.

Pulling off the oil pan…

Yeah, this stuff isn't supposed to fall out of the bottom of an engine when you take off the oil pan… That is a disintegrated piston laying there on the shop towels… I think I know what was making the noise!

A pretty, Fall neighborhood evening.

I little post ride silliness.

We had a good time hitting the fields, the hills, and the bogs.  We even got to break out the winch when this guy got high centered.  Good memories together. 

Starting a ride with Andy…

We pulled into the park on a crisp Thanksgiving morning.  Andy just jumps in and starts unloading.  He does most of the work these days. ;)

We needed some gas after breakfast

So Andy goes to buy a drink and comes back with THIS!  It's a fun holiday tradition of ours.  It's fun that he's treating us now❣️

Andy’s new to him car looks good in Andy’s old spot :)

He was coming over to help me load up the ATVs for some fun this past weekend.

Playing around a bit with phone astro photography.

I need to use a better mount next time, but this was my initial proof of concept using a 30 second exposure.  Orion in hiding in the tree on the right side.  I think the fuzziness in the stars is movement in my tripod.  

Making ransom notes is fun!

The prompt was, a warning to your children.  This is what Laura put together.  I can't imagine who she would be talking about.  But I kind of like the name Uncle Chaos for myself…

Fun with games at my mom’s house.

Cheyenne is showing us the narwhal move in Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza…!

This was as close as we could get to all my mom’s grandkids for Thanksgiving❣️

We all enjoyed food, fun and fellowship Wednesday!

Susan even had all her kids in town for a few moments. :) It was good to see Zac and Emily again.

This sight greeted us for Thanksgiving at my mom’s

Her neighbor does a nice job on their Christmas decorations.  Don't forget that Jesus is the real reason for the season. He is our one path to salvation.  

I like brooding fall days :)

Now that Christmas is fair game…

…I can enjoy our ministry of collecting show boxes to spread the Gospel to children in need.  Plus, it makes a pretty picture ;)

Zoe all ready to ride with me

And sitting there patiently like a good doggy.

Can you touch your toes?!

It’s safe to celebrate Christmas now :)

Obligatory visit to the gift shop ;)

 

We had fun celebrating Susan’s 50th birthday!

Larry even arranged for Zac and Chloe to surprise her. We enjoyed a meal at Der Dutchman. 

Andy’s using my parking lot to try and sell his old car

Now that he's got his newer car, he doesn't need this one any more so he put it out at our street for sale last weekend.  He did a nice job of getting it all cleaned up and looking nice.  

He had three people in line to buy it by yesterday, and had two offers including one with cash in hand for it last night.  Today we'll sign the title and he'll hand it over.

The first step in getting a remanufactured engine…

…is to have a buddy in the club that has an old junk engine tucked away in his barn.  He offered it to me if I was willing to come pick it up.  This is nice because it keeps me from having to pay the core charge, plus I'll get to keep my old engine in case I want to do something with it later… I dropped the core off at the shop and also got to say hi to the Jeep too. ;)

One of Julie’s baby jumping spiders.

It has been really cool to watch her pet jumping spider lay her eggs, hatch them, and tend to them. This crop all flew the nest earlier this week.  They're sooooo tiny.  You can barely see it on the end of Julie's finger.  The mom already remodeled her nest and laid a third egg sack.  God's amazing creation and creatures are so interesting!

The sound and look of Andy’s new knife are on point :)

 

We saved Andy’s knife…

He bought this one used, but it wasn't sharp. By that I mean, it had never had an edge put on it from the factory, it only had the original rough chamfer.  So we set about patiently working it until we were happy with the results.  In the end, it's more than razor sharp, nicely polished, and looks amazing!  It was fun working on it with him, but certainly a little nerve wracking diving into hitting his new purchase so hard with the stones…!

Cool sliver crescent moon.

It's kinda crazy what you can capture with your phone while walking down the sidewalk these days!

Taking Julie out to one of our favorite celebration spots.

I love the way the son was hitting David, Laura, and Susan❣️

These tree sugar gum maple trees always reminded my dad and mom of the three of us.  Back in the day, they were three different heights too.  These days, we're all full grown. ;)

Andy has all the latest modern conveniences now

Celebrating “I Love You Day”

I think I found a really nice bouquet for Julie in celebration of a holiday I made up when we first started dating.  The good news is, she thought too.  Even the kids have picked up the tradition in their relationships. :)

When you watch the slo-mo…

…slugs to crazy things to giant gummy bears… This was a random video of some custom turbine shaped slugs Julie thought I would like to see.  She was right, hahahaha.

We had fun hanging with Andy while he worked out his new (to him) car deal❣️

He managed to buy this 2021 Toyota Camry from Josh.  It's in perfect condition with a great service history.  Josh offered a generous deal and Andy decided to jump on it!  He's having fun moving into it, connecting his gadgets, and learning the features.  

One of my new all-time favorite lines…

…"It seemed to knock the gummy bear worms right out of him!"  Yeah, those little squiggles off to the right are gummy worms that were inside this bear before his encounter at the range, hahahaha.

The spikes work great to keep the birds off…

She's looking at it like, "Why bother?!"…

It was fun to have both of them wanting advice at the same time. :)

The sunrise looked nice over the Delaware River

Waking up early the next morning.

I needed to get home in time for an appointment at the bank with Andy.  He's trying to buy a new to him car from Josh. :)

I was recording the moment my Jeep Wrangler TJ 2.5L engine wrist pin failed…

 If you have the spare seven minutes you can enjoy the saga of me starting out to limp home, getting breakfast, and killing my engine before I even made it a half mile to the highway. Then began the adventure of figuring out what was wrong, and arranging for a trailer and taxi to make the 180 mile trip home. Nothing very exciting here, but now you know how to get yourself home if you need. Grand total with taxi, on-way (2 days required) rental and gas? Less than $500… :(

Looking out my 8th floor hotel window.

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge spans the Delaware river and looks over into New Jersey.  

I only spent on night in Philly

But I sure enjoyed the city skyline views while I was there!

You HAVE to try Philly Cheese Steaks when in Philadelphia…!

I like how they just call them "Steaks".  These two shops sat diagonal across the street from each other in South Philly.  There was a nice view of the Philly skyline off in the distance too.  Geno's and Pat's are renowned for their steaks, competition, setting and proximity.  I liked the picture of a Steak on top of Geno's place…

What am I supposed to do with this?

City driving is sometimes a little crazy… The map was saying turn right.  There are one way signs pointing both directions, you obviously can't turn on red (TWICE).  There is no left turn… 

It turned out that two (slightly diagonal to each other) streets actually met right at this intersection (from the right side).  So I had to cross the first one, then turn on the second. It made for a moment of confusion, and a funny picture too.