Tuesday July 3

I had one-a-day out looking at the CSA garden. Beautiful morning. Sam was jumping happy when friend, Phillip came to let him off his tether. I went to Dad's about 8. Diane had come in last night. Linda came to spend the day with Diane. They went through Mom's closet and moved Dad's clothes into the main bed room. Sad day. So nice of daughters to do it together with Dad. I read two article for class. I worked n flower garden. Denny has felt a little better. He is using the lap top in the living room. After he took his pain pill at 11 he slept through until almost 5. I headed to Dad's for hot dogs and fireworks. Missy watched Abby and Isaiah and they joined us for hot dogs. At 7 we went to Laura's to pray for youth in New Orleans. Burr Oak Pictures This is a funny one. First of all look at the lovely picture of me. What a forlorn little girl. Then look at the young man beside me. Last weekend I was walking to the old school house with his older sister. She was telling me where Harley lived now. That made me remember and on the way to the school I said," Your brother Harley was the first boy I ever kissed." Jackie laughed and said,"Your brother Craig was the first boy I ever kissed." Oh the romances of the Old Burr Oak School. The second set of pictures is of Craig and Jackie, of course. Ya gotta laugh.

Monday July 2

This am I got up and made cream cheese coffee cake to take to Laura's for prayer time for teens at Challenge. It started at 7. Stuart and Phillip were there. Stopped at Howards. He's hoping Diane and boys come today. The lawn is really getting long. I worked on Summer school class most of the am. Missy helped me do in text citing. Uffta!! The instructor is slow to grade submitted assignments and so I don't have any idea how I am doing. I've submitted 6 so far. She has graded 3. I had a dentist appointment at 2. I started to get crown for my root canal. Later this afternoon,Denny took a shower. He is being a great patient. Mark W. stopped to visit him about 3. Missy went to get a recut at Mary's at 3 and took 3 kiddos. They took suburban to Warren's. Phillip and I planted asparagus. YEA!!! Burr Oak pictures Halloween party: Once again Faith marches to the beat of a different drummer... and a strange one at that. You maybe can't pick me out. I am a very happy one...big smile...Red smile... big nose...Red nose. Plastic face. Jean is quite a bit short than I. Jean is standing to my right. Becky was the pretty little girl with a beautiful doll at doll and stuffed animal day at school. For Halloween Becky is the pretty little girl with a beautiful dress, fancy gloves and a special hat/ crown. She's a princess, I'm a clown. Go figure. Craig and Gail are on the horse. I think we used to have a black pony. I kinda remember him nipping me. But this horse might be someone elses, too. They might just be sitting on it for pet day. But I did use to ride a pony to school. I will post a picture of the ponies that Marlene, Kathy and I rode to Burr Oak school sometime soon. Sure you can hardly wait.

Sunday July1

Burr Oak School Pictures are more from Pet day. Craig is second from left on dog group picture. Then you see birds, bunnies, and chickens. July 1 I picked flowers for front of church. Stopped at Howards then took grands in for donuts...made sure to use the tongs :) After church I brought Laura home and Jensens went with Howard to Omelets in IG. Laura ate with us. Naps later in afternoon. I weeded asparagus and put some much down. At 6:30 I headed in to Catholic church to listen to a concert. Carol G. gave me a tour around new church building. Torgrudes came to visit Jensens.

Saturday June 30

It was Hawaii day at the Burr Oak country school the year that state joined the United States. We had a bulletin board. My sister Nancy had a college friend Kay Koweeki come and talk. She also showed us how to the hula. I am following her with every move. I look quite good, don't you think? I wonder why every one else was taking so long to turn around. And my hands are in just the right place. Sister Gail was serving pineapple to some who came for a program. Sister Jean was the pineapple queen. If you look in the background, you can see little Keith and Mom Bernice sitting behind him. Soo cute. Friday June 30I went to Howard's about 8 and had a piece of toast with him. Denny is using knee scooter pretty well. Mark S. stopped and visited with Denny for about 45 minutes. Really nice of him. I stressed out over citing my paper in text. Linda and Dean stopped by dad's and got the built in cupboard from Julia's. They stopped over for a short visit. Jensens came down for a quick visit before they got Stephen and Laura to babysit while they went out for their anniversary. I weeded the three rows of flowers in the garden while Laura and Brooks hung out with me.

Friday June 29

It's pet day at Burr Oak school 1958. Gotta love geese with Faith and Gail. Then there is Tom Webb's pet in a jar...turtle? Minnow ??Bug?? He may have found it in Burr Oak Creek before he came to school. I love it!!! (Diane call when you see this picture.) Then we see Donnie W. with a turtle for sure. And Sheila Meer (Now she just goes by Sheila) has a pretty bird in a cage. Info From Friday June 29 I visited with Asher and Wes before they got in the car with their mom Erin to see cousins in Denver. I got to hospital about 9. Bossy nurse said we were going to be dismissed. Denny was just too good of a patient. Excellent on crutches, now taking oral meds, Blood pressure is higher that after surgery. Pretty much the forced us out. I went to get scripts about 5 and we left about 6. Matt had thought about bringing boys to Omaha, but Kane wasn't feeling the best. Luke and Karen had thought they would stop on the way to California, but Denny was just wanting to get home. Ride home in pick up was way too bumpy Denny thought. He is settled down in bed. Meds at 8:30 Waiting for next meds at 12:30. He calls it nasty pain.

Thursday June 28

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KANE!!!! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH 111 I was up about 6:30 and had my quiet time in the back yard. Coffee and everything. About 8:30 I had toast with Kathy and headed to the hospital. The parking lot was full. Last night when I left the parking lot had about 4 cars. I surmise that this is a same day surgery place for the most part. Denny's ankle still was feeling no pain. The nerve block was still in effect. They said it would last 12 - 24 hours. It has been 30. Most say he should be thankful that he still can not wiggle and feel his toes. He went to physical therapy and did well on steps and with crutches. The big news on TV was the okay of Obama care. There was soup, stir fried vegetables, and smothered pork chops with sauce while Denny ordered from the menu. It is very nice hospital, the man calls it "room service" when he brings Denny's meal. I worked all day on the assignment due July 2. I have to make a one page informational sheet about Cornlea De Lange Syndrome. It needs 3 cites and needs to be in text and bottom page citing. Oh I don't like to do thing that I don't know how to do for sure. Gary and Kim came about 6 for a visit. They were about to leave and Kathy and Rory came to visit. About 9 I rode with Rory and Kathy to Hannah's home. They were have a quick birthday party for Lydia with their life group. Erin and Adam were spending the night with Kathy and Rory. They had rented out their home for 3 nights. They have done it 4 four times in June. Lodging is at a premium in Omaha with the college world series and Olympic swim trials. I imagine they make pretty good money. Erin say she cleans a LOT. It takes her a year to be ready to do it again next June. Rory has made their garage into a huge family room complete with a full wall TV projector. I tried to finish up summarizing some ideas for the paper due July 2. It will need work on our Dell computer at home. Burr Oak School Picture is of a field trip in elemetary school to the county court house/ or libray. I'm the cutie with the gum ball cheeks. In the next pictures we hac doll day and stuffed animal days in September 1958. I was 7 years old. I have known for a long time I march to the beat of a different drummer. This proves it happened early in my life. I didn't have a pretty doll. BUT Gail had gotten Jocko for her birthday in June. Somehow I talked her into letting me take Jocko to school. The neat thing about him is you can dance with him. There are elastic bands that hook around your feet to keep him in place. SO when pictures were taken I got to have mine with the boys. The "pretty doll" girls had their own picture. There are more picture examples of strangeness in my past that I will share. I got a kick out of them. Laugh out loud.

Wednesday June 27

I got up about 6 and went to the yard to pick 30 lilies, 10 status, 30 asparagus greenery, 10 Cleome spider flowers, and an assortment of 30 other flowers for 10 share croppers to make their own arrangement. I watered some plants and went in to shower. Denny and I left for the Midwest Surgical Hospital 7915 Farnam in Omaha about 8:30 with the pickup. He figured it would be easier to ride home in after surgery. We checked in and did paper work. By 11 I was leaving and Denny was getting his anesthetic. Surgery was at 12. They were serving lunch from 11- 2 so I had a hot soup and a sandwich before sitting and waiting. Dr. Fitzgibbon came to talk about 2:45. The surgery went well. He put about5-6 screws in his ankle bones from the bottom of his foot up. Then added a couple more for good measure. One came down diagonally from the top of the outside ankle bone and another diagonally down on the inside of his ankle. I will try to post pictures of the x rays when I get home. As Rory put it,"It looks like a bad construction job." that just kept adding screws to make for sure that board would stay in place. I went up in room 5 on second floor to wait for Denny to get back to the room. They had to wake him up on recovery room about 4. He took his high blood pressure medicine this am. In surgery he had low blood pressure. He was pretty groggy. The hospital serves a guest meal with supper for the patient.I stayed until 8 and then headed to Whitney's. I lay down in their hammock in the back yard. They were at a video program at church. The way of the Master. Kathy stopped at Chipolte for supper for them. We visited til about 11. Burr Oak School The first picture is of dad, Maynard Newhouse, when he was a teacher in Burr Oak. The second picture is of Dad when he went to the Burr Oak school. He is the boy with the shut eyes kind of in the middle of the picture. I hope to replace the school building pictures with some pictures of Denny's X rays.

Tuesday June 26

Didn't go to coffee at Dad's this am. I worked on my four assignments that I needed to complete by Wednesday night. At 10 I picked flowers for the widow's luncheon and took them up to Arthur. Then home to work on assignments. At one I had an appointment to have a X ray at the hospital. Mandy was working the 7 - 3 shift. She shared what was left of her lunch with me. Dr. Luft said the boot stays on for another 3-4 weeks then another Xray. If not okay, a cast for 4 weeks. He said it was my call if I wanted a cast now. I said I would decide by Monday. My thoughts are... can we have two of us casts? How would that look? Do I want to take the chance of being in this boot for 4 more weeks and then a cast for 4 more weeks... It might be better to bite the bullet and just get a cast on. BUT two pairs of crutches??? I'm thinking may be he could put a cast on to stabilize the ankle area, the I could wear my boot and walk with it. I suppose the cast material isn't strong enough to take the weight. I came home and worked on assignments. Denny came home after getting organized at the bank to be gone 30 days. Mandy and Howard came over for supper. Mandy had grilled the chicken that Denny had bought at Trader Joes. Phillip was at an extension meeting. We ate out on the deck. Before going to bed I submitted the last assignment for 676. Burr Oak School The pictures are of the Burr Oak School. It has been remodeled into a home. There were 25 of alumni for the tour, get together, and picture. Four Newhouse siblings, three Snell sisters, 2 Dotzler sisters, and 2 Hovden sisters. Plus other brave souls who came with out the support of siblings. The one picture is of BO school when Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in BO. It was replaced in 1929 with the school house that still stands and is now a beautiful home.

Monday June 25, 2012

We left for Omaha about about 8:00. Mandy had just gotten off work and she slept as Denny drove. We met with 2 doctors. One would have done the ankle replacement. It was decided that the ankle replacement was not a good idea for Denny. It would not increase the movement of the joint because it had lost much of it's range of motion. Dr. Fitzgibbon was in charge of doing the ankle fusion. We left the office and went to Trader Joes to shop for fun. On the way home the Doctor called and wondered if we could have it done in two days, on Wednesday at 10:30. Sure! Denny went to the bank to talk to higher up and let them know he would not be able to work for 30 days. That leaves the Arthur office a little empty because Deb is gone to Alaska for two weeks. Good staff will come in and work. I took Anabel and the Prius to get the tire fixed. Then we went to the softball game. We got there for the JV game and part of the varsity game. At home I started to look at the number of assignments that were due on Wednesday, the day that Denny is having surgery. I worked on class work until about 2 am. Burr Oak School The pictures are from BO weekend. My family went to BO school. Bruce was the only one of the seven that didn't go to the Burr Oak country school. Keith was in Washington DC presenting something. Gail had knee replacement surgery last week so she didn't make the trip to northeast Iowa. The next picture is my good friend Mugs. We went to school at North Winn until eighth grade and she went to Decorah. The next picture is of Beth. She was in eighth grade she went to a cheerleading camp with the varsity cheerleaders in Minnesota. It was kinda funny, Beth and I both had yellow tops with yellow shoes. We were laughing about the clothes we wore 45 years ago. We both said we had outfits that had yellow shoes. The next picture is people who were within 2 years of me. Some were two years older, some were two years younger. Either way that these are the people who attended Burr Oak Country school with me.

Sunday June 24

Up at 6:30. Craig was working out in What's New putting Burr Oak School information back together. He had many pictures of Jaerdis Olsen's enlarged and is putting them in plastic pages. I took some pictures of the old black and white pictures and hope to post some on the blog. We went to community church on the lawn of the Master's hotel in Burr Oak and stayed for pot luck. We stopped at Delbert's pond before heading back home. He has a paddle boat, 2 water trampolines, a fishing dock, a 3 feet deep swim area and a cabin. Pretty cool. I studied and Denny drove the whole way home. Denny stayed in Arthur to work at the bank and I came home. Remers were visiting Jensens and enjoying the pool. I caught up on my one a days in the CSA shed. It was fun to watch boys jumping on the tramp. We had a great weekend just getting away and seeing family and friends from long ago. The redone school house was so awesome. It just is good when people can preserve old buildings instead of tearing them down.

Saturday June 23

We were thinking about going to Country Express and called Jean. Bruce asked us over to his place for eggs and potatoes. The acreage looks great with lots of newly planted trees. We watched deer from the deck. Nancy, Jean, and Arlan are staying there two nights. We went to the church basement to get on the hay wagon about 9:30. 12 - 15 of us rode the float. Denny thought they had a really long parade. After the parade we visited with Mugs and Wayne. We watched the narrator/guitar/fiddle players while we ate. They had games for the kids, tug of war, 3 legged races, At 1 we went to the church basement for the alumni program. It was real nice, About 5 spoke. Afterward we toured the redone school house. It was amazing. After the building was a school house, it was a dairy barn in the basement and hay was stored upstairs for several years. Then a potter bought it to use as a studio. Then Ellen and Michael Vance bought it. They wanted a place for their daughter who has been in the service to locate in NE Iowa. It looked amazing. They kept the hard wood floors but pretty much gutted it otherwise clear up the the roof. The East side of the building was transformed into a galleyway kitchen and living room. The West side had diagonal walls put in making two unique rooms. The foyer/entryway was the dining room. Pine railings went to the upstairs where the master bedroom was. To me that was the most amazing. I didn't know the school house had an attic/space that could be transformed into a second floor master bedroom, bath and area for office and exercise. What fun to see the transformation. We went back to church where Craig had ice cream for everyone. We helped pick up the basement with Craig. Beth Underbakke came late and we asked for a quick tour of the school house,then down to Barney's. About 6:30 Denny and Arlen headed to Decorah to get brats and vegs to grill for supper. We ate out on the deck. Beautiful night. Kathy T. and Beth joined us.

Friday June 22

Quick stop at Howard's. Mandy and I get right on getting a hose to water the roses. Missy is taking Michael to register for classes in Boone. Mandy watched the little ones at 8:15. I work on assignments and submit 2. I take Denny's phone into Arthur and stop at Marian S. garage sale. Then to take flowers and CSA greens to Sue. They sent hamburger home with me for Jensens to use to feed the teens that help with CSA. Thank you Goodenows. I buy a few groceries and take the car through the car wash. Beth and Stephen came over to swim. I vacuumed out the car and started to pack it for the trip to Burr Oak. E&A helped me before they took rest time. I tried to catch up on the blog while they rested. Denny and I left for Burr Oak about6:30 and got there at 10:45. Craig had forgotten we were coming so I am glad I emailed him to remind him. Denny and I sat out on their deck before heading to bed. Beautiful night.

Thursday June 21

Uffta!!! I just deleted a post I spent 25 minutes on. Faith, I can't believe you did it. Oh, yes, I can. Some days I'm not very much ahead of the students I teach. Evan was up early helping his mom pick edible pod peas. Denny and I stopped at Dad's before Denny headed to Arthur to work. I told Howard that Bob was coming to help with planting around 11. At home I picked liles for the CSA share pick up this afternoon. I headed into IG and got 15 asparagus plants at Pamida. Then to get my teeth cleaned at Patera, then to interview the Ida case worker for my SS class. I was home by 11. Bob was a life saver for me. Between Mandy, Bob, and myself, we somehow talked Howard into having the roses planted between the bushes. Bob planted 4 red knock out rose bushes. He dug up two bushes to throw away and he relocated one bush. I was so thankful. Mandy went inside and made sandwiches and cut up fruit. About 1 we took lunch to the CSA shed and ate it there with Bob and Howard. I went back to pick up tools and Mandy stayed to hang with AB&E. When I got home I started to read for SS class (plus I took at nap). At 5 Mandy came over and brought ingredients for pizza on the grill. She and Grands tried out the full pool. Glen L.came for CSA and helped trouble shoot the workings of the pool. Dad came over and we ate out by the chicken coop. CSA pick up continued as we ate outside. After supper Jensens and Johnsons sat out by the fire pit and enjoyed the beautiful, still night. Later Mandy put nail polish on my fingers and toes. I felt so pampered. After she left I worked on 2 assignments for SS classes until 1 pm.