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Embrace Turkey & Trimmings

Grandson, Nick, and his girlfriend, Céline, joined us for Thanksgiving. I am so grateful for family who come all the way from Switzerland to share time with us!

(See the bottom of the post for numbers 2-9 explaining the rest of the photos. Try to guess what you think I may say about each before you peek down there!)

2. Neighbor/friend, “Whooter” (Greg Winden, came at 8:30 am to help Bob prepare the smoker and to help me put the finishing touches on the turkey. I am so grateful for such caring, generous folks. We are blessed to live in this “hood!”

3. Thanksgiving is a day to be shared. I am thankful for those who joined us to make the day festive.

4 – 5. There’s Whooter helping Bob get the bird in the smoker. And there’s the turkey ready to be carved. I am grateful for Whooter’s tip: stuff the turkey with chunks of apple and orange! It kept the meat so moist! Have you ever done that with your turkey or baked chicken??

6. That’s our friend, Kathy, with Nick & Céline, and our pastor/friend, Mary Grace enjoying a few before dinner refreshments on Thanksgiving Day. Those hors d’oeuvres are part of Thanksgiving “trimmings”!

7. Meantime, in Switzerland our daughter, DeAna was having her own reasons to give thanks. Duchess (Pipo’s queen cow) gave birth to a healthy calf (a future queen for sure) and we gave thanks for his gift of naming her after our De! The calf ids (Diana – pronounced Deanna in French)! It’s quite an honor!!

8. That’s SureShot Lake … frozen over and dehydrated. We gave thanks for the fun of driving up there yesterday, but we’re disappointed to see how low it is. Those dirt mounds out there generally are under water!

9. Most mornings I start my day with a very special “Good morning” and a picture of the sunrise with prayers from my friend, Lisa, in S. Carolina.

Do you have a special friend who prays for you daily and greets you with his/her sunrise? If so, you are blessed indeed! I know for sure that I am!

What else contributed to your day of turkey and trimmings? I’m still celebrating… just finished a bowl of turkey soup made from the leftovers. Yum!

Enjoy your Saturday night, my friends. See ya Sunday. When I count my blessings, you’re right up there with the turkey!! Yup, part of the trimmings!

Bob & me on our 59th anniversary-
It’ll be 60 in February!!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week, too. Can’t let this weekend pass without telling you how much I appreciate your visits here. Posting on WordPress is one of my favorite hobbies – and it wouldn’t be worth a darn if it weren’t for you. God bless you! Thanks for commenting and telling me a little about those things that count on your list of blessings.

Bee well!
See ya tomorrow (God willing)…
Love,
JanBeek

Written

on November 27, 2021

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Birthday in Big Sky

Travel with me from Ennis, Montana to Big Sky and back. Let’s celebrate my great-granddaughter’s first birthday!

It was a beautiful blue-sky, puffy cloud day. We left in plenty of time to get to the party by 1:00 PM. But, 23 miles out of Ennis, we ran out of gas!

The nearest gas station was 23 miles back where we came from!

But luckily, we had friends who lived just three miles from where we were, and my cell phone was still in a working range. So I called Nancy and she sent Marty with 1/2 gallon of gas. It was enough to get us back to Ennis. He followed us to make sure we’d make it. Oh my, what good friends!!

There’s the birthday girl, my great-granddaughter, Sienna, with our granddaughter, Hope. We were supposed to be there at 2: It was almost 4: by the time we arrived, but no one had eaten all the cupcakes yet!

Sienna was too busy eating Cheeto puffs!

The party was in this gorgeous setting right on the Gallatin River.

We had BBQed hamburgers before heading back home. We went the “other way,” through Four Corners rather than through Gallatin Gateway to avoid the road construction that delayed our arrival at the party.

The ride home was along the Gallatin River and through the Canyon that separates Madison and Gallatin Counties. Beautiful scenery!

The sky clouded even more as we returned home to Ennis, but the rain held off. It was a beautiful day – and a treat to celebrate Sienna’s #1 birthday with her.

Do you have grandchildren or great-grandchildren?
Do you get to celebrate their birthdays with them?

Thanks for joining me.
See ya tomorrow.
Have a Happy Saturday night.
Hugs, JanBeek

Written

on June 6, 2020

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Will You Be My Neighbor?

Two For Sale signs went up in our “hood” this week.

That Mercer sign is for a 7 acre parcel right next door to us.
We could be next-door neighbors!

The ERA sign is at the end of the cul-de-sac – just a stone’s throw away – down where you see the telephone poles in the first photo.

See, there’s our house up there – just beyond the sign. Aren’t you looking for wide open spaces and Big Sky, fresh air and a friendly, cheerful, inclusive neighborhood? Here we are!! You can build your dream house right here.

This beautiful home with the best neighbors imaginable, Rex and Penny, could be your neighbors … besides us, the Beekmans with the robin babies in our back yard. Hey, look closely! That one on the right has her eyes open!

This nest is on this porch where I am sitting right now with my laptop, Rita and Robbie are coming and going, feeding their babies, paying no attention to me! I love it!!

The nest is in the shadow just left of the small bedroom window. My chair is in the sun with my tabletop in the shade. I have a bird’s eye view of the robin activity.

This morning was a beautiful, sunny. warm, still day – perfect for a walk in Lion’s Club Park by the Madison River that is less than 5 minutes from us. I met a couple of TOPS friends and we walked around by the river, the baseball field, the playground…

From this view of the river, there is a bench, a painted sculpted fish, and a gorgeous view of the Madison Range across the valley.

Come go for a walk with me. There are benches along the way, picnic tables, barbecue pits, a baseball field and a playground. Young children usually flock here. But, I was early. They started to arrive as I was leaving.

On the way to the post office after my walk, I passed another For Sale sign. Our friend, Niel, died recently after a long battle with cancer. His cozy little house in town is for sale. Maybe you’d prefer this. You’d be on a smaller lot in a more modest neighborhood downtown. Look at this lovely place. Interested? Call the ERA number on the sign at the top of this post.

Your neighbors across the street have this lovely tree – and these beautiful opium poppies. What a great little town our Ennis, Montana is!!

Driving home from there, I took the golf course route. Here’s the scene just a mile from our home:

They keep it well maintained and lots of our neighbors love getting out on the course on a day like today.

Peaceful, beautiful, clean, clear, friendly …
… what more could you ask?

Oh, I forgot to add there’s a darling little lake at Lion’s Club Park where the kids can fish and keep the trout they catch. The Madison River has a “catch and release” policy to preserve the natives. And there’s an old tractor at the park where the kids can climb and pretend FARMER. We have a lot of cattle and wheat farming in our Madison Valley.

But it’s best known for the Madison River and the fly fishing.