~~ODNEAL FAMILY BLOG~~Port of Readlyn, Iowa

Christmas night in KC we could not find anything open to take everyone for dinner. The hotel suggested Sarpino's for delivery, but we decided to venture out and see if we could find anything open. The one we did find the kitchen was closed so we ended up at the place first considered. Let me just say that the pizza was excellent and Ty ordered 2 lbs. of hot wings and ate every bit of them. Well okay, Dad had one, Kyle had one, Kenny had one, but I think other than that Ty pretty much polished them off by himself. And they didn't even have wet naps, so luckily I seem to carry EVERYTHING you could possibly need in my satchel and I happened to have a couple leftover Red Lobster wet naps. Ty enjoyed the wings, and we all were so pumped for the game Sunday that we really just needed something in our tummies before giving up for the night. Oh yeah, I forgot there is a video of Cole "wrestling" himself in their hotel room on you tube. Apparently they went to bed mu...

We made it through Christmas and our weekend in Kansas City without any issues. Hope everyone had a great holiday and spent it with family and friends as we did. Once again our kids are spoiled and I have to say that Bruce loved his new shotgun that I bought him. We actually think he almost had a Jr. moment as tears definitely were trying to get the best of him when he opened it. I think he might have been a bit mad at me but only for a minute. But we all had a great time at the game and pretty much the whole weekend. Had great food and times. Trying to get a lot done around the house this week since I am off so probably will not post much. Pictures and stories will have to come later. I have to take advantage of every minute that I have this week to do all those things the work week just doesn't allow me to get done. The tree and every sign of Christmas have disappeared from my house (at least to the eye) so today was a good day. And Bruce finished trimming out my laund...

Here is a picture of our tree with most of the presents wrapped and under it. And Bruce told me to cut back this year because our KC trip is our Christmas. OOOPPSS! No really I think I did great at getting stuff the boys had on their lists and needed. I would have bought it for them anyway if they said they needed it. We didn't overdo I don't think. And even though I am usually a "ba humbug" kind of gal at Christmas, I truly love watching people open gifts that I put thought into for them. What fun! And I think our "charlie brown" tree looks especially beautiful this year. The money that I saved on a real tree was well spent towards gifts! Time is short this week trying to get everything done that I need to for the holiday but I am hoping to post. If not I hope everyone that stops by here has a great holiday!

They both like turtles. What can I say???? And yes I think they are dorks but I love them. Have a great Friday and weekend!

Here is Gizmo at our family Christmas last weekend at our house. She is in the middle of the living room under a pile of wrapping paper, boxes, garbage bags of paper, etc. I think she is very lucky she didn't get thrown away with all of the garbage. But now that I reflect on that thought I took all of the garbage out on Sunday afternoon, so I think her chances of making it out okay were pretty good! She always has to be the center of attention and she did herself proud last weekend. Can you believe Christmas is only 10 days away? I haven't done any shopping yet (well a couple small gifts) and will do it all this coming weekend like I always do. We have another snow storm hitting us in Iowa today (well 80% could mean snow or none, right?) so hoping we don't get too much more. Have a good Wednesday and stay warm! I'm sure Gizzy will find a warm place to watch the snow fall!

Here is a snapshot of all of my guys at our Odneal Christmas this weekend. Apparently my "boys" are all looking at me opening a gift and smiling, and Bruce is looking the opposite direction and laughing at something in the other room. I think everyone had a great time and we had plenty of good food. The weather was frightful to say the least, but everyone made it home safely despite the blizzard conditions. We always have such a good time and who can go wrong when people leave all kinds of food and beer at your house? Everyone have a good Monday and week. Stay warm!

These are the finished product of the cut out cookies Taylor & Ashley made for me last Saturday when we did Christmas baking. Tyler helped me frost some of them Sunday night. And here is just a glimpse of all of them. I think I counted 74 or so. We didn't get fancy with the decorating but they definitely taste awesome. Thank you Taylor for a new great recipe. And guess who told me Monday night that he needed frosted sugar cookies for school on Friday? Yep of course it was Tyler. I don't think college kids bring "treats" to class, do they? So I baked one more batch of these but just made them round and frosted them for him to take to school. They weren't near as pretty but I wasn't going to give up the cut out ones to a bunch of high school kids that would just devour them without even noticing! We have our Odneal Christmas at our house tomorrow and I am hoping the weather is kind to us. Everyone have a great weekend! Stay warm.

When I was getting out the Christmas decorations from the attic I came across a box of vases from our oldest son's graduation party. My friend had etched some design and our last name on them for table decorations. So I grabbed the big one and decided to make an easy table decoration for something different this year. I had some old bulbs that weren't being used on the tree, and some new small ones that I bought this year. I just filled it up and put a doily under it on the table. It looks pretty awesome. Ty did knock it over one of the first nights and broke a couple of the bulbs on the tile, but luckily I have plenty more where they came from. I'm not very creative so I always enjoy it when I can find something around the house and turn it into a nice decoration. Maybe I should just walk through my attic more often. I do still need to decorate the extra bedroom even though Kyle is the only one that stays there and we can't really call him a guest since it ...

I really think even my SIL Sharon might be impressed with the photo on the left of this collage. I took these through my dirty window in my kitchen. I was a little impressed with how they came out. I wish I could tell the squirrels apart because they are so fun to watch. This last weekend one about did a face plant on the ground but caught himself on the railing of the deck. I get so much joy out of watching the birds and squirrels. Even last night I had to fill the feeders and put a new cob up for whatever squirrel buddy decided to show up. I have our family Christmas at our house Saturday so may not post anything else until after that. So much to do and so little time! Everyone have a great week.

Yep it takes alot of stuff and work to get ready to go deer hunting. But I think Bruce and Kyle had a good time together hunting all weekend. There were four in their group and they filled two tags and that is all that they got. The good news is they didn't leave for the whole weekend and spend money on a hotel room, and really didn't spend anything more than their licenses and some food to bring costs. Actually I picked up the food for them so it kind of was a very cheap weekend of fun for them! I got our tree up and the house half ass decorated for our Odneal Christmas this coming Saturday. I think everyone is happy from the weekend, although I know my "boys" would have liked to have shot a couple of big bucks for the wall. Well, there is already one up on the office wall upstairs and I am pretty sure there wouldn't be room for anymore anyway! I'm just glad that they had fun and everyone made it home safe and sound. There were 6 Iowa shooting injurie...

This picture is from last year but this is kind of what it looked like out my work window this morning. The sky was more pink however. I took a couple of pictures with my cell phone but for some reason couldn't get them to save. Looks like we will finally be getting some of that white stuff. I think we are in the 4-7 inch range according to the news. So either we will get a foot or hardly any! Kyle & Bruce are deer hunting this weekend so I plan on doing some Christmas baking and getting my tree up and decorated. Yep, the "charlie brown" tree will be back again. It looks like nice all decorated and much easier than a real one. So hoping everyone has a great weekend. And if you are where the snow hits I hope that you have someone to shovel and/or snowblow for you. I'm not sure when Bruce will fit that in with deer hunting. Oh well. I don't need to leave the house for anything so it will wait I guess. Have a great Friday!

***I apologize ahead of the time for the length of this post.  It is long and you have been warned!****  So last night I decided I had not printed ANY of the 3,000,000 1500 pictures that I have taken all year long.  Yes, I said ALL YEAR LONG !  Well at least I haven't ordered any since almost the beginning of the year.  So when I sat down on the couch to relax and watch some TV I decided to upload them to Shutterfly so I can at least then log on and go through them all when I have time and get them ordered for scrap booking this winter.  You see I have no excuse for not ordering pictures like every month because I always do a prepaid plan to get the best price.  And I usually always have a free shipping code.  There really is no excuse.  I just plain upload from my camera almost every week and leave them sit on the laptop.  And it is not because I don't have time or can't make the time because obviously I upload pictures all of the ti...

For some reason I didn't take a ton of pictures on Thanksgiving Day like I do any other time that the family or friends get together. I guess I was having too good of a time eating and other stuff! So a few of these are mine and the rest my FIL (thanks JR) sent to me. I think the only people not in any photo are David and Sharon. The photographer never wants to be photographed duh!!! Anyway I am now trying to get into the holiday spirit for Christmas. Picked up some new ornaments and ribbon and some candy canes last night at Menards. Does that count? And we talked about the tree but it is still in the attic. Oh well. Bruce and Kyle will deer hunt this weekend so I will pretty much have free reign of my house during the daytime and plan on doing a little baking and ALL of my decorating. I usually spend at least a whole day baking but we just plain don't need all that yummy chocolate and stuff around here until February or better! So I am just doing some for the famil...

The Thanksgiving holiday is over, the working out hard to take care of all that I ate has begun, and now thinking of getting ready for Christmas. We have our Odneal family Christmas at our house on December 11th and it will come up fast. So I was sitting at my work desk today after the long four day weekend, and I looked up at my wall calendar as I do every morning to make sure of the date and realized what day this is. November 29th. My Momma's birthday. She would have been 74 today (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am off a year or something) were she still here with us. So I said a prayer and wished my Mom a "happy birthday" and went on with my day but thought of her often and looked at her picture on my desk many times. I hope she got a big piece of birthday cake and some ice cream up in heaven. Because if there truly is that wonderful place she would have definitely deserved to be there and is watching down on all of us. Hopefully with more smiles o...

May all of you and your family have a great Thanksgiving day with loved ones. I snapped a picture of one of my pumpkin pies with a fresh flower centerpiece that got delivered to me at work and I brought home. I will be bringing this to my beautiful SIL Sharon's house tomorrow rather she wants to put it on the table or not! I have many things to be thankful for this year as always. My kids and husband are my number one priority as usual. I love every minute that I get to spend with family. Especially every single memory made at the river all year long. How can anything be better than the time spent with family? I cherish every memory that we can make now, as I surely miss my parents all of the time. Make the most of your day with your family and friends, and eat that piece of pie that you think you shouldn't. We all only live once and should live every day as if it our last! So tomorrow I will be having that piece of pie with whipped cream, and a pumpkin bar. And n...

So very happy that it is a three day work week, but also more important the fact that Kyle decided to come home and spend his week with us. Well his roommates were leaving the house so he decided to stay at his "real home" with Mom, Dad and Ty. And we are very glad to have him. Even though he has to work each day. At least he will get Mom's home cooking for supper each night and gets to bond with all of us and the kitty's. See Gadget checking out his stuff he brought home in the photo. They (the cats) always have to check everything out that comes into this house. I think they think that they rule the roost or something. Who am I trying to kid? The cats definitely rule this roost! Now if I could only teach them how to clean their own litter box. Now that would be some kind of awesome. Then I might actually let them rule my roost!!!! Here's to a short work week for us and a long 4 day weekend. Hope you all get a short work week and long weekend too!  H...

Today Taylor turns 20. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday to a very special gal. And I apologize for Kyle that he didn't wrap your presents. I told him that I would have done that for him! But I know that you didn't really care about any of that. You are certainly pretty easy going and that is one of the things that we love about you. I hope your day is very special and fun, and I am so glad that you came over and we got to practice up on our winter Wii bowling skills. We will totally trash the boys this winter if we get a little more practice in. Look out suckers!!!!!!! We love you Taylor and hope that you have a great day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

I am so glad that these two still like to wrestle around the living room and beat each other up when Kyle gets the chance to be home on the weekend. Even though Kyle has some weight on Tyler, he seems to be able to hold his own pretty well. They always are laughing and having fun while beating each other up. As you can see in the background of the picture Bruce is cracking up on the couch. Even he will take a minute out of a football game on TV to watch his "boys" whooping ass on each other! Everyone have a great Friday and weekend!

Even those of us with husbands that are carpenter's/woodworker's sometimes have to buy items to fill our needs when our other half has absolutely no time to make what is needed. I have been piling up my scrapbooking stuff when not in use in a corner of the living room, or hauling it out onto the front porch every night when I'm done. Not fun. So Bruce was going to build me an armoire for all of my stuff to match the TV stand that he made me last year for the living room. Well lets just say that he finally admitted he just isn't going to have the time anytime soon to do that. We saw one in the Menards ad two Sundays ago that he said resembled what he was going to make and it was reasonable, so we went and after he approved  it I bought it. That was a week ago and I just got it filled up this last weekend. He still needs to adjust the doors that are out of wack a bit, and it isn't solid wood by any means (and was a pain in the arse to put together), but it wi...

Yep this photo of Gizmo in one of her favorite spots has nothing to do with this post really. I just played with the picture and thought it turned out nice. She always wants to lay in front of my sink on the rug mainly because there is a heat vent there, but also because she just wants to be wherever we are and I am ALWAYS in my kitchen. I always tell her that I'm going to step on her but so far she has been lucky and I haven't. But seriously what a pretty cat. So the reason my Tuesday will be happy is that I have a date with Kyle and am looking forward to it. Do Moms ever get sick of having a "date" with their college kid that they don't see often enough? Anyway I should want to avoid this one because he needs some groceries, and I offered to take him and get some and also take him out for dinner. Oh and we also need to do some birthday shopping for a special someone while we are out and about. So I am sure that it won't be a cheap outing, but I ...

We had Tyler's football banquet last night and even though I always dread having to do these social things I always have fun talking to friends and always proud by the time we leave. There was a variety of food as always, Coach gave his not so famous usual speech and recognition to coaches, players, cheerleaders, etc., and then there was a slide show. Now we start a season of high school basketball. That will be a change for us since Tyler hasn't played basketball since grade school. We are kind of more wrestling fans but I guess that will change this year. We told him that his All-District Academic award was more important than his varsity letter. He already knew that but lets hope it keeps him working to get those good grades so he can bring one home every year! Have a good Monday and week!

I splurged once again (yep for $3.99 a bouquet definitely worth it!) and bought myself an Aldi's flower bouquet for my countertop. It has the coolest flowers. My photo doesn't do it justice because I am not a photographer, but I play one for fun! Kyle came home Friday afternoon to game it up with Tyler, so that was my happy ending to my day. I was coming home from town and getting groceries when I saw a glimpse of Bruce's truck and trailer on the roundabout in my rearview mirror so I called him. He didn't see me but he told me Kyle brought the Exploder home to us. Woo hoo! Now we just need to find someone that is interested in a 97 Exploder with deer dents in the door and a going out transmission. Shouldn't be a problem, right? It has been a good vehicle for Kyle for 5 years so we cannot talk too bad about it. He loves his new Galant and I was excited today to see that insurance on that is only 60 some dollars more every 6 months than the liability. How...

This is our beautiful great niece Emily from Colorado on Halloween.  And yes she is totally adorable!  And such a character.  Cannot wait to see you again next summer Emily and your "bookini" of course!  Love and miss you guys!  Everyone have a great Friday and weekend.  Sounds like Iowa is in for some changing weather.  I'm not sure I can handle seeing that white stuff yet so lets hope they are wrong!

Happy Veterans Day to all of you military service people.  Thank you for serving and fighting for our country.  My Dad was in the Navy and I believe served in what he called the Korean Conflict.  Not sure if that is what they all refer to as the Korean War or not.  I have my Dad's Navy wool jacket that I always say I am going to wear in winter and just never have yet.  It is still in very good shape.  I guess I should get it cleaned and wear it.  I bet it is very warm! Also a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to two of my nieces Heather and Ashley .  Hope you both have a very great day.  I know that I don't have pictures on the laptop of you guys so you will just have to deal with it!!!  If you even see this post. But do something fun or make your husbands take you out or cook for you.  Yeah that would be cool.  Let me know how that turns out.  No, on second thought don't.  I don't need to know! To everyone else have a great T...

Here are some better pictures of Kyle's new car taken in the daylight. So far he loves his new car and is so much safer not having to deal with that slipping transmission on the Exploder! It rides pretty nice and has a lot of room inside. And thank goodness he found the trunk latch inside because I just couldn't believe he didn't have a button like me to push to open it. Of course I doubt he will use his trunk as much as I do or needs the trunk button much. But at least he has one! PHEW!!! That might have been a problem for me. I am strange like that. Everyone have a great Wednesday!

Could we ask for any better November weather in Iowa? I almost hate to say that. Yesterday when I walked out of work it was 65 degrees. And it is November 9th in Iowa. I realized tonight that I didn't post the pictures from the actual carving we did of our pumpkins on Halloween. So here is some pictures of the happenings. Of course Bruce decided not to carve one with us but Kyle, Ty, and I had fun doing it together. And I think they did turn out very nice this year. Even though as we speak I should be putting them out with the garbage tomorrow because they are looking pretty sad out on the driveway! Everyone have a great week. And we will take this warm weather for as long as mother nature decides to give it to us! Because as we all know way too soon for our liking we will be seeing that white stuff. SHHHHHH!!!!! I don't think Bruce has the tractor or snow blower ready yet. We need a little more time!

Well my brother Rick called Friday night and had shot (bow season) a deer that he wanted us to have (he only keeps one per year so we get any others that his group gets and don't want), so Bruce went after work today and picked it up. It was a 7 point buck, but apparently a very small buck. Well, we had an awesome supper tonight. There just isn't anything like fresh deer steak on the grill. I would eat that over filet mignon any day. Yep I said that. And Bruce was so worn out after that I will be bagging up deer tomorrow along with running some to Edgewood to be processed. Thank you Rick for the deer meat, and cannot wait to have some more deer bacon for breakfast! Hoping Bruce and Kyle each get one this December also. We can never get enough! I love them ( the deer) as long as they aren't in front of our vehicles! I guess we are some of those people helping slim down the over populated deer around. Please deer stay away from not only our vehicles, but also...

Here is Kyle's new purchase. The Exploder (as we call it) has a major transmission problem and I get regular text messages from Kyle telling me he "ALMOST DIED today" in it so I guess it was definitely time for him to purchase his own new vehicle. And that he did. It was rather dark when I snapped pictures tonight but I think he got a great vehicle. It is a 2009 Mitsubishi Galant. Very nice. And he bought it from big brother Cole who just recently went to John Deery so that was a plus too! Very glad that I don't have to worry about him pulling out and not being able to go anywhere in front of other vehicles. Mom will sleep better now. And Dad too knowing that us sending you overseas with your own credit card when you were 12 created an excellent credit rating for you! Were you even 12 or did you turn that when you got back? Oh well. I'm glad that London taught you how to shop and use that credit card, and bring Mom and Dad home some very nice souvenie...