Another picture of Ha Ha Tonka State Park in Missouri.  Alice and I just loved the ruins with all the beautiful shadows.

More shadows atop Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

This is like the front patio at the ruins of the house.  It overlooks some magnificent scenery.  There is a spring in the gorge below which we were told emits 48 million gallons of water a day . . . that's per DAY!!!  That's a lot of water.  It was beautiful.  Pictures of the spring to follow.

This is in HaHaTonka State Park in Missouri.  This was a large home that Robert Snyder built to rival the huge castles in Europe.  It must have been grand.  But, alas, it burned down in 1942 and then became a state park in 1976.  I guess that explains why our folks never took us to see it when we used to visit the Ozarks every summer when we were kids. 

I actually took this aerial shot of the ruins, not from a helicopter, but from a poster we ran across in the Ozark Maid Candy store.  The lady behind the counter was sure that I'd want to spend the $9.95 to buy the poster, rather than just have a snap shot of it, but this is fine and filled my purpose to a T.

On our most recent "sister trip", Alice and I stayed in a lovely cottage at the Lake of the Ozarks.  Alice's bedroom was situated in a small loft above the rest of the cottage and I just loved the way these lacy shadows crept across her bedroom wall as the sun moved in the afternoon sky. 

Click on the picture and then the F11 key and see if you can find all 6 butterflies.

I thought I was getting a picture of two butterflies at once, but upon closer inspection I can spot 6 of them.  This was taken on my recent Sister Trip with my sis, Alice.

I just got back Wednesday evening from a trip to Scottsdale, AZ where they were giving a tribute to Mike and now tomorrow I'm going to be out of pocket again for the next 5 to 6 days.  I'm going first to San Antonio for a couple days with my son and daughter-in-law and then we'll all be off to Houston to celebrate Thanksgiving with my husband's brother's family.  It'll be quite a large gathering and I think we'll have a really good time.

This is a picture of the back side of a corn crib on Quinsippi Island, which is just a couple miles from from where Alice and I grew up in Quincy, IL.  Back in early October that's one of the places Alice and I visited while on our annual "sister trip". 

We had an appointment for the pest control service to come give us our quarterly spray job today and I almost canceled it, but then decided to go ahead with the job.  At the appointed time a young man . . . about 25 . . . came to do the work, and I couldn't help noticing that he reeked of cigarettes, so I said to him, "You DO know that those cigarettes will kill you some day, don't you?"  He sheepishly said, that yes, he did realize that, so I said, "So what could we do about that?"  To which he answered, that he should really quit smoking.  I told him I thought that was an excellent idea, and that I was sure glad he thought of it.  Then he politely excused himself to begin the bug spraying process.  About 20 minutes later when he finished he returned to collect the fee and said, "My condolences for your loss".  I asked him how he knew I had lost someone, and he said he had noticed all the potted plants out in the back yard and all the pictures of flower arrangements on the dining room table waiting to have thank you notes written. He said that his wife had died of leukemia in May of 2004 and that he had a 4 1/2 year old daughter to take care of. 

I'm not sure what it did to his schedule, but we spent the next 20 minutes consoling each other, and I told him I'd pray for him to have the strength to quit smoking so he could live long enough to take care of and enjoy that daughter of his and someday her children.

My son calls that "God prepositioning his assets".   

Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

You know how statistics say that most women will outlive their husbands?  Well I thought we'd be one of the exceptions to that rule.  My husband was so full of life and energy.  I used to say he ran on static electricity.  Although he only slept an average of 4 hours a night, he still had boundless energy and enthusiasm.  That's why I firmly believed he would outlive me.  But such was not the case.  He died from an aortic aneurysm after 11 hours of surgery.  He was a wonderful man, a good husband and father, a good provider and was loved by many many people.  When the funeral home asked me to provide them with 20 or so pictures of Mike I found plenty, and he is smiling in all of them.  I didn't see a single one as an adult where he wasn't just beaming.  He lived his life to the fullest and wrung out every drop of fun and laughter he could from it.  His motto was "Life is Good" . . . and for Mike, life just got better.  He's with the Lord now and wouldn't come back even if given the chance to.  See you on the other side, honey.

To see the slide show of  pictures shown at Mike's funeral, go to: http://www.mem.com/movie/movie.asp?ID=1047493&mm=0 

and then just wait for the slide show to start.