The Willow Tree: Going...going... GONE

The branches are gone....only the trunk remains...

Our friend Andy cutting up what's left of the trunk.

Andy's son climbing up the massive stump...reminiscent of years ago when Adam used to climb the tree at that age.

There's so much sky now without the tree there.

Killing my children's childhood.

That really sounds bad. Killing my children's childhood, but it is just an end to an era. We finally took down the GIANT willow tree in the front yard.

Over the years the flower garden and landscape has changed. Now I need to know what to do with the front of this house again. The birds planted a Lilac in the middle of the cedars. I want to take out the cedar trees now. Looking for ideas.












You now know why I don't blog. It takes to much to figure out how to put the pictures where I want them ... how I want them. I am annoyed now and need to just get this thing posted. There must be an easier way. I have so many more pictures to tell the story but can't decide how to do it. so... there it is.

MOM, I BLOGGED FOR YOU! Kira don't laugh at me.

computer lab at school

Nothing to say but Hi!

HI MOM! and Kira.

I'm at work computer lab...oops

time is up
bye!

LOCKS OF LOVE

Well on January 25 I cut off 10 inches of my hair to donate to Locks of Love. Seeing that my hair grows so fast by next year at this time or Feb/March it will have grown back. I had my hair cut last year around Feb.

So I hope YOU like it....who ever YOU are. Kira, Mom?

Oh and I just got my birthday card from MOM the day before my birthday. SURPRISE!!

THanks Mom! Love you.

Okay, there is a reason I don't post. I don't write well and don't have intersting stories. My spelling is horrible and my editing is even worse. I want to post pictures with the story to help show what we are doing but.... I never can get them to be in the order I want. I don't know how to move them around on the page to make it look right. So .... here goes.

Christmas was realy great here at the Chatfield family home. The house was still a mess but liveable. Adam came from Staten Island on Christmas Day. He and his friend, Nicole drove here after spending Christmas eve with her family. Kira and Cj spent Christmas in Ohio with CJ's parents. But knowing Adam was in Rochester they came back from Ohio on Saturday the day after Christmas to see Adam.

Ray was supposed to work at ADT Security Services on Christmas Day but finally found out he was able to get the day off. We had a great time with everyone. Ray and I sang at the Christmas Eve service at church and came home. We were able to sleep in on Christmas morning. Adam and Nicole got here about 4 pm and we had dinner, Ham, Pineapple dressing, Applesauce and I can't even remember what else. Since my diverticuosus started acting up a couple of weeks before I was on a restricted diet and antibiotics. Nothing tastes good on when you take antibiocitics. blaaaaahh . After dinner we went to the movies to see" Sherlock Holmes" and saw Christine Difonzo's family as they walked in. "OOOOOHHHH HI!!! and this is Nicole!"

We went home after the movies and opened presents at 9:30 PM the latest I have ever opened presents. Oh yeah, we tried to go to the 5:15 movie but could not find 4 seats together so we returned our tickets and bought new ones for 6:30 and then went and sat and waited for the next movie to start.

SATURDAY(The Day after Christmas): After Ray and I went to Praise Band practice, Sandy & Steve Wall came over for lunch. We normally go out after practice but I knew Kira and CJ would be there soon. Kira and CJ got to our house directly from Cleveland, Ohio around noon. We all had dinner.....AGAIN.... Ham, Pineapple dressing etc. Kira & CJ opened and exchanged presents with Adam and Nicole ....we all sat around.... until we decided we need to DO SOMETHING! Since Nicole is allergic to dogs and Luna and King were both here she needed medicine. So....all six of us went to Wal-Mart. It was crazy. We all had a good time. Kira and CJ need to get home to their kitty cat because someone was taking care of her while they were gone. But before they left we all went to Henrietta Hots. Nicole had her first "garbage plate".

After we got back from Henrietta Hots, Adam, Nicole and I played cards - PLAY NINE. Later Adam started playing "LIGHTS OUT". He is really good at it.

Oh and I forgot to tell about MY Gift ..... I wanted a Cherry Limeade from Sonic. Since Kira would be near one in Ohio and Adam would pass one in Binghamton the race was on to bring me a Cherry Limeade. Adam went on Christmas day and Sonic was closed. Kira while in Ohio got one the Day before Christmas. She ordered it with No Ice. then put it in a soda bottle and decorated the bottle. So Kira won. I put it with some crushed ice when they got here. It was great.

Sunday, Adam and Nicole went to church and all of us sat together during the 11 am service. We went to Applebee's for lunch with Sandy and Steve Wall, Adam and Nicole, and Ray and me. We had a great time talking about all the things Adam has done around Henrietta. Nicole said kiddingly, if her parents had known this about him, she would not be able to date him. LOL!!

Sunday after lunch Adam and Nicole packed up their stuff and we all went to Lyndonville to visit Kira and CJ at their house. Everyone had a great time. We played the game "Things" and of course Adam and I always write the same answers. We took some family photos.

Adam and Nicole left to go to Rome to visit his cousin, "Little" Paul. The plan was to visit Gran'ma in the morning and go for breakfast with her before starting back.

But when they got up in the morning there was a foot of snow on the ground and still snowing so they decide to get started back to Staten Island. That trip took him 7 hours. No snow just bad traffic on the turnpike.

I loved having everyone here for Christmas. It is the BEST Christmas we have had in a long time. The only way it could have been better was if Gran'ma could have been here too with us.

Adam and Kira are such loving children and they realy love and miss eachother. Nicole is so sweet and seems to make Adam very happy. He really seemed contented with life. Even if life as given lemons...he is makeing lemonade with them. It was really great to see him.

I can't wait to go visit Mom in Rome on New Year's Day!

As my Kindergarten homework last night I had to make a scrapbook type of page "All About Me". I also had plans to go to the movies with Sandy Wall and friends to see a chic flick " All About Steve". Movie started at 5:10 pm. I got home late from school..due to buses being late the first day. So I had about 30-40 mins to do my project. I was working on PrintMaster and it crashed before I got to save it all. SOOO I left to go to the movie at 5:08 pm. Enjoyed the movie and afterwards went to Macaroni Grill for dinner with everyone. I knew I did not have enough time eat but ordered anyway a chicken ceasar salad. Enjoyed half and took half with me for lunch today. Went to church for 8:00 pm meeting to go over songs for Christmas play. Went home around 9:15 and started working again on my project....starting over, of course. So by one minute after midnight it was finished and I was tired after my first day of Kindergarten. I took the project to school today and shared it with the students. They learned very quickly my name it Mrs. CHAT-FIELD with the reference to Talking Meadow....the children called me constantly all day today. Yesterday they did not even talk to me...and today...Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield, Mrs. Chatfield.

Summer Vacation part II

Hummmmmmm, Where do I begin? The second half of our Summer vacation started on Tuesday of the second week. We went to Brockport to drop off a video of my last year student to her mom. Then we headed out...down Route 19 south to Route 20 east to Geneva. We then headed down Route 14 on the west side of Seneca Lake.

We thought we would go to the Finger Lakes, to the wineries. But Ray only likes grape juice and I don't know that much about wine. So after stopping at only one place, Fox Run and realizing we had no idea what we were doing we went down to Ithaca and back up Rt 414 and over to 96 and to Taughannock Falls State Park near Trumansburg, NY.

We spent the night and had a nice campfire and roasted marshmellows and ate hot dogs. In the morning we met a family from New Jersey with 3 children who loved King. So the mom went and got her cup of tea and came and sat down at our picnic table to talk with us. There was one family next to us who were Korean. The young boy kept telling us how his "father never trusted this kind of dog". The kid must have told us 10-20 times how his father did not trust Rottweilers. But the dad came over once just to be sure his son was not "bothering" us. So as I cleaned up the breakfast dishes Ray was out with the kids. They were yelling and making noise...but I recognized they were singing the Muppet theme song. Ray did not recognize it.

King had a great time ...he loves to ride and sleep.
He is happy as long as he is with us.


We got back on the road and headed to The Catskill Mountains because Ray had never been there before. I had been on a 8th grade field trip when I was in 9th grade. I went as a student teacher to Frost Valley to study earth science. So we went on route 79 to 38 and then followed route 17 through Binghamton to some little roads in the Catskill mtns to route 47. We found the Frost Valley YMCA camp on Route 47. We stopped and took a picture of the information board and a picture of the Castle there.

Ray thought the Catskill Mts were boring and we headed back up Route 28 to Delhi and Oneonta untill we got to Interstate Route 88 and went back toward Binghamton. We were looking for a place to stay the night and went to a State Park but when we got there it was "CLOSED ON TUESDAYS AND WEDENSDAYS" Who does that? What a crazy thing to do. So it was raining and cold and we needed a place to stay...we also needed new windshield wipers so we stopped at Walmart to get some. We then stopped at Long John Silver's for dinner.

By the time we got to the next campground, Pine Valley RV and campground was closed. They closed at 8 and it was 8:15 pm ..dark, cold, raining. The lady who ran the place saw us turning into the campground so she got in her car and came and opened up to regester us. and we went to our site and went to bed...no campfire that night. I was able to get on the intenet for a few minutes to post a status on Facebook and then go to bed. In the morning there were too many bugs outside with the damp air they just swarmed all around our heads. They were teeny tiny knats. yuck. So we decide to to to Cracker Barrel for Breakfast. yeah!! After leaving Cracker Barrel we decide to follow Rte 11 and guess what???? We saw a SONIC on Rte 11 in Binghamton. Too bad we had already eatten and were not hungry.

We followed Rt 12 up through Norwich, Sherburne and into New Hartford. We stopped at a garage sale just before New Hartford. Ray now knows how to ask me if I want to stop some place...If he asked, "Do you want me to turn around?" I would always say, "no". BUT if he asked me if I "wanted to stop there?" I would concider it and sometimes say "yes". I know, it's weird. We stopped at a fruit stand on 233 in Westmoreland and got apples, cheese and pears. Then we stopped at Mom's house in Rome, but she was not yet home from Alaska. So we decided to go to Whetstone Gulf up route 26. We got there around 5:30 pm. and...the Ranger station at the gate was...CLOSED. It said they were closed from 4:30 pm- 7:30 pm. Campers could go pick a spot to stay and come back at 7:30 to register and be prepared to move it the spot was taken or reserved for someone else. So we picked a spot and cooked HOT DOGs again but this time with buscuits wrapped around them. YUMMMM.

At 7:30 we had a great fire going and had to MOVE. We picked an "administrative spot" or Handicapped spot. In other words we were not good enough to have that spot and had to move. We moved and had to start another fire...with what we had left of wet wood. All it did was smoke the rest of the night.

In the morning Mom called ....she was home and we went to Rome to see her. We got there at 11 am and hung out with mom. Went to Teddy's for lunch and while we were there a person was interested in looking at our camper...that is FOR SALE. She said she was not ready right now to buy it, but in about 6 months, maybe.

We drove home in the rain and dark from Rome. We made home by 11 pm.
Took the truck to Randall in Victor to have tailgate fixed, it would not stay shut after removing the camper from the truck. We picked up my car at Saturn after the hood cable was replaced, then had Praise band practice on Sat at 10. Sunday had church. After church ate at Wendy's with Sandy Wall and went to the State Fair to see Jeff Dunham. GOOD TIMES.
Drove home in the DARK AND RAIN again.