BACK TO WORRY-LESS LIVING

LIFE
IS
GOOD
AGAIN

                                               Yes, Donna and I are back from a not so pleasant year of major accidents and health problems. It's not just turned around to a regular good life, it become right out enjoyable. So far one of the great years in health, renovations, visits, sport events and new adventures.

                                                One of the premier news came in April  from Switzerland. My brother Toni, and my sister in law Andrea, finally agreed to come and visit us on their vacation here in St Louis. Only for one week, but we take what we can.

Here they are, Toni and Andrea

                                                 Of course this was speeding up some of our planned renovation starting with the laundry room, back deck, garage, kitchen, living room and front lawn.

LAUNDRY ROOM

Laundry and house plant nursery

(new sink, shelving and fresh paint) 

DECK

I am working to spruce up our back deck

Very comfortable

GARAGE

The preparation is the hard work for painting

My garage really needed on overhaul

This is more like it

Like new

KITCHEN

Removing of the old stove

New oven

New pantry cabinet

Old exhaust system

New exhaust, new door hardware and wall decor

I do like the modern wall decor

LIVING ROOM

I ended up painting the living room too

Taking out the old doors

New sliding glass door with built in Blinds

all this with a brand new carpet

FRONT LAWN

After taking down this 65 foot gumball tree,

(storm damage)

the front lawn was destroyed

After a lot of TLC it's starts looking a lot better

                                               Donna and I enjoyed putting all this projects together and we even managed to be in time before the big arrival from Switzerland. We even found some time for party's, mostly at Ackermann acres.

First outdoor barbeque party in 2014 combined

with Eric's birthday

Daniel is fixing all the great food

Grandma had her hands full all day

Home made fresh berry tart for Eric's special day

Luke decided to play basketball this year  and  

Donna and I attended all his games of course 

Luke and his teammates after a big win!

                                       On April 9th I had to fly to Washington DC to renew my passport at the Swiss embassy. My appointment was at 10:30 am and I had to take the first flight out of St Louis at 6 am, meaning, Donna had to drop me of at the Airport at 4:30 in the morning. Since I lost one hour and a 20 minutes Taxi ride to the embassy I was exactly on time. It took ten minutes to take a photo, give them finger prints and a signature. I payed $160 and at 10:40 local time I was back on the street of Washington. My return flight was booked at 10 pm and I was kind of a loss how to kill 9 hours here. The staff at the embassy were helpful with suggestions and I opted to go to the zoo just about 3 minutes away from the Swiss embassy.

To early in the morning, but still managed a smile when she dropped me of

at the airport

Swiss Embassy in Washington

The reception

Entrance to the Smithsonian National Zoo

                                    Entrance was free and the exhibition was great and very enjoyable but not better than St Louis. I think St Louis has a bigger variety of Exotic animals but here at the Smithsonian the most impressive were the habitats of the Pandas, the huge wildlife of the Elephants and then the greatest attraction was the free roaming of the Orangutan apes. They been able to go over the entire Zoo on 40 foot high cables from tower to tower.

Gigantic housing of the elephants

This the tower the apes can get up and down from there secured home place 

A quick glimpse of the Monument on my way back to the airport

                                 I was only on hour at the zoo and I contacted Donna with my progress report and she suggested  for me to go to the airport to try to fly home at on earlier flight. Honestly this would have not occurred to me. So I grabbed  a Taxi back to the airport and 2 hour later I was boarding to fly home. Donna was happy to pick me up at 5 pm verses 11 pm.

 Happy for my early arrival, she drove me to Bar Louie for cocktails and dinner 

                   

                                      On May 15th Donna and I took a trip to North Carolina to be part of the Dedication of  THE CHUCK PRIEST KITCHEN at the Sandhills Community College. 

                                       Chuck is Donna's oldest brother, he passed away in January after a brave battle of cancer. After the ceremony  at the college all of Donna's siblings, family and I drove to Myrtle Beach for R and R and distribution of Chuck's ashes on the beach.

                                        As sad and depressing the reason of this Family reunion sounds, we all had a great time, just like Chuck would have liked it. 

Known forever as Chuck's Kitchen

Tim,Carol, Ben, Donna, Jane Gary

at the ceremony

Chuck's favorite team UNC - 

a Carolina Blue 

ceremonial cake for everybody

The Dedication

Cake served by Chuck's wife Becky and his brother Gary

Ben, Miranda and Carol

Great tasting food in Chuck's honor for the whole family and his friend's

Most the food was prepared by Becky and one of her friend's

Stressed but content after the tossing of the ashes

brother Tim and wife Carol

with the back to us is Miranda

A morning stroll at the Beach

Party time in our room

Tim, Carol, Lisa and Tye with Donna up front

Carol, Lisa, Tye and Gary

Gary, Tye Miranda and Ben

and of course Jane

Vicky, Donna's cousin and best friend came by for the day

to reminiscing about all the latest news.

            

                                                  There is two more event I like to share before the awesome visit of Toni and Andrea from Switzerland.  Our talented grand kid Jacob was invited together with his marching band to play the national hymn before a Baseball game of the Cardinals against the San Francisco Giants. Naturally this is one event we could not miss.

Good times before the game

Jacobs other grandma Renee, Brian, Donna, Windy and Luke 

                                     I was disappointed, that the picture I took of Jacob playing didnt came out. you have to take my word, it was pretty spectacular having your grandson playing down at the playing field. 

                                     Finally before my next blog entry of our visitors from Switzerland, on June 15th we drove to Kansas city to attend the wedding of Jeff and Casandra Collier. It is the son of Nancy Collier, a co worker of Donna. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding and afterward we joined a cocktail party with hors d'oeuvre and a sit down dinner. 

Casandra and Jeff Collier

approximate 250 invited guest going town the steps to the gazebo

Jim, Darla ( Donnas boss) and Donna

Jim, Darla, the Lady in blue Nancy ( Jeff's Mother) and Donna

SOON TO BE POSTED

8 DAYS WITH

TONI AND ANDREA

ATTEMPT TO A HEALTHIER LIVING

                          The first two and a half months of 2014 went by relatively fast and quiet, of course we had some regular events and a not exactly boring life, lets recollect:
                          There was Donna's birthday January 20,  a super bowl party January 26, and February 11 my best friend Tony Lucero came to visit us for a few days, then we had our anniversary March 6, also we attended every one of  Luke's baseball game on Saturdays in March and  enjoyed Jacobs concerts.
                           Beside all this we had the best winter I can remember here in St Louis. Plenty of snow! We also enjoyed watching the Australian Open and the Olympics from Sotchi.
                            Of course we had lots of great, rich gourmet food with butter, cream, breads and sweets and the cocktails, beer, and wine where a little bit in excess. That is where the thought of healthier living came in. On his visit, Tony convinced us in trying to drink some fruit and vegetable juice daily. The result  a little bit later.

I love fresh snow

Wishing for a lot more to come and getting ready to clear the drive way

This was the forth time I had to shuffle in the past weeks

My favorite Job and only activity this Winter

Just a beautiful sunrise, viewed from our living room window in the middle of February

Super bowl Party

Jacob, Luke and Grandma are more interested in there electronic 

than in the boring and disappointing game

Brian's expression tell's it all

the Broncos got destroyed  by the Sea Hawks and Luke 

collected his winnings

Olympic opening ceremony

entrance of the USA team

and of course the Swiss

Since Donna was not feeling good on her birthday

 we had  her party 3 weeks later

We all had a fabulous time and Eric and Karla 

joined in on the celebration.

We had plenty Bacardi and some good wine

Due to some big storms we also lost our tree in the front of the house

It also happen to be the tallest tree in the neighborhood.

I made a blackberry chocolate cake for our anniversary

Of course we had lots of visit's from Eliana

and nitro

He stayed with us for a week when Daniel, Gina and Eliana 

vacationed in Cancun.

One of many of Luke's basket ball games

Luke is waiting for the ball

                            As I said in the beginning, here comes our new healthier living attempt. On Tony's visit, February 12, he give me some private training in juicing!! First we went to the store and bought a state of the art juice machine and then he came up with some recipes.

                            After a shopping trip to the grocery store he demonstrated me how to use the machine and how to produce some great juice. I am grateful for that training session and by now I am already an expert with my own recipes.

My new Juice machine

This is the preparation of 2 breakfast drinks an 2 lunch drinks

A Machine, easy and simple to work and clean

All the solid stuff discards in to the bag and you can use it for your compost!

The final product.    Delicious!

                       We are doing this now for a little bit more than a months and I  feel good about it. I am less tiered and the best part, I lost over 10 lb  without exercising.