Miss P has teeth!

The adorable girls...

Jack's last T-ball game was Wednesday!

Jack had his last T-ball game of the year on Wednesday. We watched and had a lot of fun and took a trip to Dairy Queen afterwards. Fun, fun, fun!!!!! Jack has a good arm and a good eye. We look forward to years of baseball!!

Moths!

Check out the luna moth that paid us a visit. Beautiful. It hung out on the kitchen window for awhile and then moved on.

The other moth visited us at the lake. It was on the ground.

How I spent my summer vacation. By Luke.

I was put to work on the farm! Cleaning chicken waterers, hauling supplies, doing dishes, mopping, mowing, berry pickin', you name it, they made me do it!

The lake was fun - notice how low the water is!

The lawn mower is from Woodgate!

New Guinea Babies - 19 of them!

The Guinea babies hatched the middle of June. They start out adorable and quickly turn into gangly teenagers, then back to their ugly-adorable full grown selves. They eat tons of bugs - we haven't had a tick yet!

We hatched 10 in the incubator Dave made and put 10 eggs under a broody hen. When our eggs hatched we put the keets under mom and she took over. The hen is "Broody Mama" - she hatched out 3 chicks last year. She is a great mom!

Our Guinea mom decided SHE wanted babies too, so she is sitting on her nest of 20 eggs which are due to hatch the last week of August. Guinea moms typically aren't the best - hopefully she learned something from Broody Mama!

Parker's Baptism

Little Miss P was baptised today at St. John's Church in Northfield. The ceremony was very nice and Parker looked beautiful in her outfit (knit by Great Grandma Rose 26 years ago). Her sponsors are Kenzie and Sam, Nicole's sister and step-sister. Afterwards everyone came to our house for lunch. Nicole made a fabulous cake ~It was a great day.

Some new pics and a Chicken Movie!

Little Miss P holding her bottle. The picture has been cropped for your viewing pleasure (and mine!)

It's garage sale time! Latest Best Find - a Scooby Do costume for Jack. 3 Bucks. Yup, 3 bucks.

The Chicken movie! I love my girls and they love me.

Easy ones

Here's an easy one:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTSN&cp=qmc1jn66tss4&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=26886398&encType=1

Next one:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=r08whn7pfdp8&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=11353546&encType=1

Next:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=pjt1695pjmkp&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=5801783&encType=1

Now they will get more difficult....

Luke scores!



Good luck on this one - I wish we could zoom in more. Bird's eye is not available. Turn on "labels" if you need a hint....



http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=45.802848~-89.716222&style=a&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Where in the world???

Good job guys! Here's the next one:

My money is on Luke!

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=rgjrvk7696hb&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=6258935&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Where is this? Identify the location. First in a series.

Here's the challenge - click on the link - it's an aerial view (bird's eye view) of a location the Hoffmans are familiar with. Where are we? Once you click on the link, you can change the view by hitting the rotate buttons when you are in the "bird's eye view". This is awesome.

Ready?

Set?

Click. If you have trouble clicking, copy and paste the address below.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTSN&cp=r29nff7n4sxc&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=24675346&encType=1

First one to comment with the correct location wins!!!

Happy Easter!!!

Winter and a Turkey...just passing through

this is what it looks like outside right now.....

Sunday, April 5

Happy Birthday Diane!!!!

this is what we woke up to this morning....


The joys of living in MN.....

Check out this Tom passing through. We never know what we'll see when we look out the window. One of the delights of living in paradise!

Parker's First School Picture

Look at the deer!

Click on the picture to see it larger. I count 6 deer. How many do you see?

The chickens watch the deer run through the valley

Another Parker Video

Parker

Just discovered the VIDEO function of my camera...

I'll get better at this video stuff I promise!

The kids visit

Jack and Parker visited us last night and stayed over. What a pair of cuties. Jack made a fort/nest/kids couch using all the pillows and cushions in the house and that's where he slept last night. Jack likes to take a bath in the big tub with lots of Mr. Bubble so that's what he did this morning.

Miss P loves being in her "play seat". She is really getting good eye/hand coordination. Check out her bunny feet jammies.

She ate a big bowl of rice cereal and 8 ounces of milk before bed at 8 o'clock. She got up for a refill around 2:30 then went back to sleep until 7:30 this morning. And LOOK! Her hair is getting longer (fuzzier). And she drools just like her Dad did when he was little.

Yvonne Abraham: True companions

Yvonne Abraham: True companions
By YVONNE ABRAHAM, Boston Globe
February 2, 2009

BROCKTON, MASS. - They met in 1947, at the Kresge's store on Main Street. Joe Norek managed the restaurant. Dot Whiting waited tables.

He'd just spent five years as a Navy cook. He was done with war and boats and being alone. They were both 37.

He was Catholic and she was Episcopalian, and neither was interested in going over to the other side. So they said "till death do us part" twice: first in a Protestant church, then in a Catholic one.
And every Sunday, Joe went to Mass at St. Patrick's and Dot attended services at Trinity Episcopal in Stoughton.

They made a good life together. Dot was crazy about bowling and bingo. Joe loved to park himself in his beat-up turquoise recliner, listening to the Red Sox and Benny Goodman.
They saw Niagara Falls and Amish country together. They loved salty food and Lawrence Welk and "Guiding Light."

In their 40s and 50s, they raised their daughter, Laurie, her arrival a miracle after a string of miscarriages. In their 70s and 80s, they helped raise their grandson Brian, after Laurie's marriage ended.

The decades piled up, and still Joe and Dot were walking around the neighborhood. Their 90th birthdays came and went. Longevity made their sweet, unremarkable relationship into something miraculous.

Joe knew how lucky he was that his wife had chosen him, but Laurie had never heard him say it out loud. Not until a few years ago, when Dot got frail. It began with a broken hip, then came strokes, then heart congestion. Dot moved to a nursing home. Joe went to see her every day. I love you, he told her, again and again.

A year ago, Joe got frail, too: He was in and out of hospitals, recuperating in the same nursing home as his wife, his bed a room away from hers.

A few weeks ago, as Dot's life was ebbing away, Joe contracted pneumonia. He died on Monday at 6 p.m. He was 98.

Laurie and Brian went to see Dot the next day. She had pneumonia, too. It's OK to go be with Pop, Laurie told her.

And so, on Tuesday at noon, Dot died too.

Maybe Dot was just waiting for Joe to go before she did, as her minister said at the service, where both Catholic and Episcopal clergy prayed. Maybe Dot wanted to spare her family the suffering of grieving twice, as Laurie believes. Maybe the way they left this world, just 18 hours apart, is a miracle, as Brian sees it.

Two coffins draped in white sat side by side at St Patrick's church. Not even in death did they part.

© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.