HAPPY BIRTHDAY 5 YEAR OLD!

Photos on the Grandkids blog

ANOTHER STORM!!!

This was before our latest storm.

The parking lot doesn't look all that bad.

The drifts are over our neighbors' window.

This neighbor just returned from Florida!
She is glad to be home too.

THE LO-O-ONG WINTER IN THE COUNTRY

Today was the first time we have been to the farm since 2010.

We had some things we needed to get
and it was a lovely day for a drive.

Things look a little different from the last time we were there
with so much more snow.

THE LO-O-ONG WINTER IN TOWN

I wonder if that snow pile behind the van will last until June!

That's my friend, Doreen, who walks with me.
There is a lake behind that pile of snow,
but we haven't seen it from the street for quite a while.

It's a good thing we don't need anything from the baby barn!

Valentine's Day

It's not really a "normal" Valentine's Day around here.
This morning Paul had surgery done on his forehead...
I didn't go with him because I was sick with flu during the night.
Right now,
he is hurting and I am coming around.
It is snowing...
we have books to read...
and it is cosy in our house!

And more importantly,
"God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life."
John 3:16

The pump organ

When we were at the Museum of Appalachia
we saw this pump organ which was EXACTLY LIKE OURS,
except that ours was in better shape.

We had ours for YEARS! It was given to us by Florence Olson, but it had orginially come from Hattie Esterly. We knew both of these ladies years ago in Minneapolis and they are both with the Lord now. One day Mrs. Olson called and asked Paul when he could come and pick up his organ. He said, "What organ?" She said that he was the only one who played it and he could have it. Well...he went for it right away. That would have been in the 1970s!

Here it is on the day we gave it away.
We need to down-size, and found that Wes & Rebecca Burns love pump organs. They would go to Kings Landing (a village here in NB similar to the Museum of Appalachia) especially to play the pump organ in the church there. So it was fun to pass the organ on to someone who will enjoy it.

It isn't too hard to move (of course I didn't do it), because the top lifts off.
We know that Wes and Rebecca will make beautiful music on it. We wish we had a CD of them playing piano duets!

Antiquing & Bowling

What a fun day! These kids are good antiquers.

More museum stories

On our way to the museum, we passed through beautiful Asheville, NC.
We had been there before, during a more moderate time of the year.

At that time, there was a flea market on a main street of town.

Everything was so pretty covered in snow.
We had never seen a McDonald's that looked like this.

Then we started through the mountains on our way to Knoxville, Tennessee.
We couldn't understand why the traffic in the right lane was just crawling along and no one was traveling in the left lane. So we pulled out into the left lane. We could certainly change again if there was an accident ahead. We found out that (1) the road was not plowed, (2) people in that area do not have good snow tires like we have and (3) they don't know how to drive in the stuff. A van pulled out and followed us all the way in the left lane. We found out later he was from Wisconsin! The roads were not good! And we had some whiteout conditions! It would have taken the crawlers forever to get through there. There is no place to stop and no where else to go. We were glad when we arrived at our destination north of Knoxville.

This was the schoolroom set from "Christy" at the museum.

This was Christy country.


One whole room was devoted to a man who has gone around the area for years letting people know that they must be saved.

This is a model of his home.

We enjoyed the unusual musical instruments!

toilet seat guitar

ironing board electric guitar

bedpan and gourd banjos

Museum of Appalachia

Back to our post Christmas trip...
After we left the kids, we took a little side trip to Tennessee. We had been told about the Museum of Appalachia and wanted to visit it. It was WONDERFUL and we hope to go back at a different time of the year. It was a COLD DAY, so we were able to experience just a little of what living in Tennessee would have been like in January.