The Howerter Family Homepage

The weather is getting cooler, and the leaves are beginning to turn.  Fall is my favorite season, and I hope that it is a nice, long fall.  Enjoy the colors and cooler weather!

John and I are in Orlando. He had a conference here this week, and, for my birthday present, he invited me to come along. His just asking me to go is gift enough! We flew down separately Sunday night, and we leave tomorrow (Thursday). He of course travels on the corporate jet, and I am flying Southwest. It is not so bad though. Mom took me to the airport in St. Louis, and John was waiting for me in Orlando. He will drop me off tomorrow, and Mom will pick me up. I have enjoyed myself even though I am by myself during the day. (You are never really alone at Disney.) I have slept in, read, laid in the sun, shopped and walked lots. We are staying at the Dolphin Resort which is at Disney, but not run by Disney. I can certainly tell. Our room smells musty, and it is certainly not geared toward family here. It is filled with dressed up businessmen and kind of stuffy. I have actually walked over to the Boardwalk, Yacht Club and Beach Club each day to be immersed in all things Disney. John and I toured a model vacation club home at Boardwalk, and when the gal said “Welcome Home”, it just made me feel so good. It is crazy, I know, but I swear it is true. We always make fun of their continually saying “Welcome Home” when we are here at vacation club, but I must miss it.

We head home tomorrow, but we are actually coming back down in a week with Mom and Zeke and Carol. It will be good to be back in Disney quality again!

A very amazing thing happened yesterday at our house.  Ryan, Sara and the kids were over, and we were all outside.  Elijah asked Grandpa John if he would give him a ride on the tractor.  We were all in the barn when John and Elijah got on the tractor, and John started it up.  The tractor started to make a horrible banging sound!  John quickly turned off the engine, and we all looked at each other.  He tried it again only to have the horrible banging start again.  It sounded like a piece had broken off in the motor and was banging against the casing.  John took off the one side of the casing, and there was a dead mouse stuck on some cable.  Although this was pretty exciting for the boys, it was not the cause of the noise.  John then took off the casing on the other side of the tractor and looked in.  Pretty soon he said, “What’s that?”  He stuck his hand in and felt something cold and clammy.  He looked in again, and said, “It’s a snake!”.  We could not believe it, so we each took our turn looking in.  Sure enough, you could see the head of the snake as if it were posed just looking out with its mouth open.  It was obviously dead, but it was still pretty creepy looking to me.  Elijah and Josiah thought it was pretty cool though.  John got some tools to try to get this snake out.   We were all a little worried that the snake may have damaged the fan or broken something.  John grabbed the snake by the tail, and he was able to pull it out in one piece.  It was about 4 feet long and pretty chopped up.  It was coiled around the fan.  John threw it in the woods, and he started the tractor up.  It ran fine, so off John and Elijah went for a ride!  I don’t know what it is about these snakes, but they keep turning up in the most inconvenient places.  Life in the country is  . . . .