The Howerter Family Homepage

I am so excited!  I finally get to go to Europe with John.  James and Noella are getting married on November 14, so I get to go to the wedding.  John will be over there working for a week, and then I will fly in on November 7.  We will spend the week sightseeing, and then go to the wedding on Saturday.  We will then head home on Sunday.  We will defiinitely go to Paris, but I don’t know if we will try to squeeze anything else in.  I am happy to see the sights in England and Paris!  I will be flying over by myself, but I don’t think that will be too bad.  I am pretty good at sleeping on airplanes, so I am hoping to sleep most of the trip.  John will be at Heathrow to meet me, so I won’t have to navigate anywhere by myself.  Thanks James for asking Noella to marry you!  Thanks John for taking me!  I love you.

Last week John killed his first turkey out at the farm.  He was so excited!  He called and told me the entire killing story.  He really enjoys telling people, so if you get a chance, ask him about it.  On Sunday, we fried the turkey at  our house.  I had decided that I was not even going to try it.  I don’t usually like things in the fryer, so I did not see any need to try a wild turkey for goodness sake.  Ryan, Sara, Elijah, Josiah, Lily, Jay, Katherine, Don, Wendy, Lauren and Chad were all there, and they all tried the turkey.  They kept ranting that it tasted just like “real” turkey, so I decided to try it.  It really did taste  good.  It had no gamey taste at all, which is what I was worried about.  I was truly surprised.  Another wildlife story from the Howerter’s.

It has been a while since I have posted, so I will catch up on things.  Both Elijah and I have had our birthdays.  Mine on November 5, and Elijah’s on November 7.  John was in Europe that week, so I missed him.  Mom came up on my birthday, and we spent the day together.  That evening we went to the Cracker Barrel with all the kids, and it was wonderful!  Thanks Mom, Ryan, Sara, Elijah, Josiah, Lily, Jay and Katherine for spending my birthday with me.

Elijah had his birthday at Kicks.  Four of his friends came and played video games with him, and three of them spent the night.  He had a great time.  Ryan and Sara were very brave having 5 boys over night.  Josiah spent the night with me and Grandma Nell, so at least they did not have to worry about him. 

Then next morning, Ryan cut his thumb while working on his roof.  It was pretty deep, so I had to take him to the ER.  The doctor thought he cut the tendone in half, so she stitched him up and sent him to the hand doctor the next day.  Luckily, he can move his thumb fairly easily, so the hand doctor did not open it up to do anything.  He has to wear a splint for 3 weeks, but it has not stopped him from going bow hunting.  He actually went that afternoon.  Luckily, it was his left hand, so it is not the hand he pulls the bow with.

This weekend is shotgun deer season, so the boys are all a twitter.  Zeke came over this morning, and they all are practicing at our house this afternoon.  They will head out quite early in the morning to be in their stands before sun-up.  Hopefully, they will all have a succesful season this year.  It is so wonderful to see John, Ryan, Jay and Zeke enjoying something so much together.   Male bonding!

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  . . . .

John and I went to the Wildwood Springs Resort in Steeleville, Missouri, this weekend with Bart and Laurie to see the Amazing Rhythm Aces.  John and I have now seen them there 4 times, and this concert we believe was the best.  We had a great time hanging out with Bart and Laurie too (as we always do).  We woke up Sunday morning to a bad storm and no power at the resort.  It was pretty dark in the building, but they did fix us a fantastic breakfast.  When we got home, we had over 3.5 inches of rain in our rain gauge!  We also noticed that we had a branch fall down and land on one of our swings out in the yard.  The swing is definitely hanging sideways, so I hope it is not ruined.  We sure have had our share of rain and storms this spring and summer.

Lily's first birthday cake.

Today the entire family went down to Collinsville to have our family picture taken and to celebrate the 6 August birthdays in our family (John, Katherine, Sara, Brad, Lily and Jay).   We try to take a family picture every other year, and this was the year.  Haury, the photographer, does a great job getting all 14 of us to look good in the pictures.  The kids did great during the session, but when they tried to get shots of the 3 kids, Lily was too tired.  Jay will take some of them on another day.

After the photo shoot, we all headed to Bart’s for lunch and birthday cake.  Grandma Nell and Laurie had a great lunch ready for us, and of course we had birthday cake.  The birthday people opened their presents, and Grandma Nell and Laurie even had gifts for Elijah and Josiah.  Thanks Laurie and Grandma for thinking of them.  After Lily’s nap, we ate cake, and she had her very own since she is turning 1.  She enjoyed the icing very much, as you can see by the picture!  Thanks Bart and Laurie for hosting us all. 

Jimmy, Glenda, Jessie, Kelsey and Aunt Betty came over, and it was great to get to see the Vickers.  They are only here once a year, so it was fantastic that we got to see them.  Lily really enjoyed JImmy.  He had her laughing so hard that she got the hiccups!

It was a great day, and we had a good time.  It is always fun to get together with Bart and Laurie, and even better when both Brad and Donny are there too!  Elijah and Josiah love to hang out with Donny.  He plays video games with them, so he is definitely at the top of their list!