I hope God understands my words from the last post...I just can't put my feelings into words...and Lord please don't let anything evil twist those words or cause anyone bitterness or resentment toward You...I know your justice WILL prevail, if not in this world then in the next...


Steve just bought a new Trailblazer. ...sigh...not at 0% as we had thought...grrr...I feel like that is a little con game the sales people play...geeez...but still it's a low rate and since it's lower than his stocks are rising he's paying monthly instead of most of it now.

He will finish my car up and then he has finally agreed the time is good to buy a house. Then he still says wait a few months...Micah in 8th grade...but then if we moved Nathanael could have the Mustang and once he's pretty comfortable behind the wheel, if we move before these next few months are up, he can drive himself to school. I found a house today I REALLY like and I really think it's a possibility. I've been looking at many possibilities and I think many are good choices. There is one in S. Fairfield, though, that really I do like...a lot...

There aren't enough words or thoughts to describe the utter hatred I and so many have for those beasts, those selfish, nasty, filthy pigs named Liz and David Carroll and that half-wit of a girlfriend who lived with them. I can't go into detail enough, it makes me unfunctional. Google them if you have to know the details. All I feel is utter and complete rage. I want those people to suffer forever and ever. I am not going to publicize how. I don't feel God wants me to at this moment. But I hold nothing back. I spent parts of today just in tears and my tears don't matter one whit. I don't CARE how I feel. I only care about that little boy Marcus and I ache for him but I would ache for eternity if it would bring him back or erase what he endured. I love him so much. I would do anything and I raise my fist sometimes to God crying Why!!!! Why!!! God will have an answer as sure as he has Marcus now but I am here left raging. So many people are left in tears and rage and utter fury. We want them to turn the Carrolls loose so we can attack them and torture them and humiliate them but that still would never make that rage and hurt go away. If God loves everybody, even them, God has still got to be furious and sad, and so many innocents perish, and Why?!!!! God, Why! Please come back and make it all right again! Sometimes we look forward to God's mercy, and sometimes we look forward to his wrath and I am ignorant but I hope God's wrath and judgment falls. God knows I don't know what I'm asking but for that little boy, God, God, if I were you, God, why! I only hope you went into that closet and scooped up that little boy fast, took him home fast!

School has started with a whimper. The kids proclaim it "boring" but I'm sure that it is uncool to reveal anything truly exciting.

Steve and I agreed to try to stick to a schedule revolving around family breakfasts and dinners. If you know us, you know that family dinners haven't been often enough, though we have them, but we don't all eat at the exact same time, the exact same thing, every night. Well we are going to try.
The family breakfast- now there's a tradition we have actually NEVER done, but let's see how it goes. It's an agricolan one for sure. Well we will just all pretend we're going out to the fields. Steve wants to do the whole bacon and eggs routine, despite his cholesterol (for which, by the way, he no longer takes meds, citing possible liver damage as a side effect).

This is going to be difficult for this family of night owls. I have personally NEVER been a morning person. In fact, I rather detest greeting the smiling morning sun. Bleah. I might enjoy it were I not anemic with such low blood pressure- I tend to eat something, then crash 2 hours later. Well, mornings for me at work are sometimes OK, then sometimes I sleep during my lunch hour. There's a nice park across the street (where I met feral Luna)....I can fall asleep anywhere as long as I'm lying down. Warm rocks are best. :) I once slept several hours on a sunny rock on the beach of Monterrey; I have never slept in a bed as comfortable!

Sorry to digress but this blog is just for my ramblings. Read at your own peril. Owner of blog accepts no responsibility for accidents caused as a consequence of you falling asleep reading it. Preferably on a rock.

Sorry this is off-topic from the pics, but:

I am wondering WHAT those parents of second grade girls in that Thai school are thinking... are they thinking "My school hired a child rapist/killer to teach my kids..." "Why didn't they do more of a background search?" After all, he DID have a record of child porn. And he still gets hired on at a school as long as it's in a different country. Wake up, people. Distance doesn't matter anymore. Background searches ought to be available from Nome to Cape Town. How many little girls has that guy molested and/or killed in Thailand and elsewhere in addition to Jonbenet.

It's amazing that he was actually allowed to teach in Boulder until he was asked to leave not because he was a child molester but a poor teacher. I am thinking he probably had molested a LOT of kids before he got to that little girl and molested many after, too. The laws re pornography and child prostitution are fair well unenforced in countries like Thailand and hey, to much extent, the USA.

I am still praying for little Marcus and hope he hasn't fallen into the hands of such a predator.

Dan, Dad, Dave, Tracy, and Maria say hello.

Hayden, Mom, Dave

Hayden's just precious.

Micah and Bill wave hello while I ignore the camera.

Nathanael "Weird Al" Bonnell:)

worst nightmare

Prayers needed!

A little autistic boy Hayden's age wandered off after his foster mother collapsed in a park near here yesterday, and has not been seen since. They didn't know he was missing until she woke up and asked "Where's Marcus?" Apparently that was about a half hour window.

So now people are out searching and please pray for this little guy!

Marcus Fiesel is his name. Foster mother had some kind of seizure and she's also got both his older and younger sibling. What is going on that she's in charge of kids if she's having seizures??? I mean that's nice and everything but shouldn't someone also be looking after her? Was she driving? What is going on!!!

Crowduck had the best weather yet. It hadn't rained for a long time but we brought it with us. The result is that the mosquitoes hatched on the day we left for home. :) So I have no bug bites except I received a slight bee sting on my "the Finger" finger. The whole place, including Bug Beach, was pleasant, good-smelling, breezy. The backwoods ban was lifted shortly after we arrived.

Some days the bass just jumped into our arms, he he.

Some of us were noisier than others and there were the usual scrabble and poker tournaments every night.

There was drama sometimes...goes with the territory, I guess. And serious talks, too. And some heartbreaking moments. Most things were good.

I will try to get more pix here.

OK blogger bites but I managed to get it to take 4 of the Crowduck pix...will keep trying.

Dan and Tracy
Ellen, and to the right,(I'm surprised you all haven't turned to stone) Yours Truly
Nathanael in the Duck Duck boat

big fishy fishy

having trouble posting photos....dommage...

Welcome to Kenora. Yes, it really is that beautiful here today. Breezy and mild (about 75F I'd say). If all of August is like this in Kenora, I'd rather come this month instad of June and/or July when I'm usually here. :)

However, next time I'm here may be without the extended family. Mom says if Dad continues in the state of mind he's in, she's through travelling with him. I asked about the trips to Amsterdam and Hawaii- she said she has opportunities to get away from him in a group setting, so she may enjoy that more. I said she's welcome to hang with the rest of us and Ellen is here so she doesn't have to be around him all the time.

Dad LOOKS better- has lost about 30 lbs.

We came up separately- Dan, Tracy, Steve, Erin, and me. Dave, Maria, and the 3 little ones will be here tomorrow. I think I will swap or have someone swap places (or have Mom drive) with my kids' places in the vans.

But darned if Kenora isn't the nicest I've ever seen it. Everyone, tourists and residents alike, is out and about- there is some kind of regatta or similar festival going on.

Rolling through the Illinois plains and seeing the lightning off in the distance, I just am reminded of how much I love the farms/corn/ flat lands. I love every place on this planet but the midwest country with the endless sky, and in the summer, is the best.

Micah just called me at work- he's sitting in a van in Carleton. Micah says Grinnell (visited yesterday) is "futuristic-looking". Then he said there were only "like 20 guys in the university and lots of girls." I said, "Well that sounds like fun for the guys," and he says, "Not really, all the girls are fat and have zits. NOT that that matters." LOL How sensitive for my 13-year-old cutie to say it doesn't matter. :) After all, we'd be paying 40K a year for his brother to be educated, not meet Ms. Right, and if Ms. Right is fat and pimply, so what....! :) Yes, looks play a part in attraction but NOT in making friends, according to Micah. That's an amazing amount of maturity in a 13-year-old.

Next is MacAlaster. So far now, it's been Denison, Kenyon, Otterbein, Grinnell, Carleton, and MacAlaster. Dad says, "All those are good but he ought to apply to the Ivies." He has gotten mail from all of the Ivies and well, it can't hurt.

It's about 105F here and 72F there. I was surprised Micah was sitting INSIDE a van by himself and he said, "It's cool here."