Newest Addition

David and I spent Thanksgiving here in Lancaster. Here's a shot of us on Thanksgiving Day.

Two days later, on Saturday, November 29, 2008, we welcomed Avery Noelle into the family. 8 pounds and 1 ounce and a full week early. I'm glad she didn't decide to wait another week either. 8 pounds was enough for me, thank you very much. Here's a few photos:

giving thanks rocky mountain style

Just 4 short weeks until our little darling's due date meant we were home for Thanksgiving. However, "home" for these days was with some dear friends of ours who manage the Rocking R Ranch in Longmont, CO. We had a leisurely morning and brunch at home and then headed to the ranch where we feasted. On Friday we enjoyed the wonderful weather with some good old cowboy-ing and a wonderful Christmas parade on Friday evening in the mountains. During the parade it started to snow and after a deep sleep in our own beds we woke to a white-blanketed world which called three little Hostetlers to come and play. Saturday evening we joined some friends for a brew party (Dwayne brews his own beer in his garage) and it inspired Mark to make his first holiday "mulled beer". Sunday we enjoyed our launch into the advent season at church and a quiet afternoon of football and snowfall.

So much to give thanks for...




PS - As I write this I am enjoying the near end of Aunt Sheila's chocolate chip cake...no wait...I've finished it. Time for another piece.

Florida Thanksgiving

Karen and Joe had 12 for Thanksgiving in Plant City, and, of course, Joey makes 13. Karen is at top right and her maid of honor, Denise is the young lady in the lower left.

Joey is loving solids and he sat at table in his high chair and enjoyed his sweet potato. From the expression on his face one might think they had been laced with rum or something similar.

I will try to post some of our house pictures as Toni requested and also more of Joey.

Pittsburgh Thanksgiving

We were small but mighty in the 'burgh this Thanksgiving. I am including a photo of Helen's plate so that you can all see that we made sure that she ate. Rick was the picture taker, so he did not make any of the pics. We have had a wonderful visit. Rick is safely back in Boston and tomorrow Fred and Helen drive to Jeff and Fran's where Fred will search for the elusive white-tailed deer and Helen will have her boys to look after!

This is our table. No people. Started out to be 2, then 5, and ended up 3. Too busy eating & forgot pics at dinner. It was delicious though.
Some of you know that Chloe was very sick this past week & had to see a doctor & go to Chlidren's Hospital several times for I.V fluids. Diagnosis was viral tonsilitis. She's better now, but Thanksgiving was not much of a celebration for them. Felt bad that they are so far away & none of us close to help.
Haven't done this for so long (sorry) Will try to do better.
Hello to everybody & I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.
Love Sheila & Les

We didn't do so well on the pics this year. Total losers, I know!! We were never all around the table all day except to play a game and by then no one was thinking of pics.

But here are our 3 little Iowa turkeys, Nathan, Madeline, and Andrew, looking only slightly worse for wear.

Aunt Paula, Grandma could not stop going on about your beautiful house and the fabulous decorator you are. Hope you are settling in well. Could you take some pics so we could see too?

She also promised to say hi to the bobcats for me at your place, Aunt Fran and Uncle Jeff. Have you seen much of them? Love the pics of your house we have already seen. Do you feel all settled in now?

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was great. Aunt Sheila/Uncle Les, I heard you had some guests this year. Did you have a nice day?

Miss you all. The holidays just make me miss you MORE!

Love,

Toni

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Hi All!

Don't have any pics here at my office to post today, but wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! Wish we were all going to eat at the same (huge) table!

We have had a busy fall here in Iowa. On the heels of the tragic spring and short summer we had, everyone here is bracing themselves for a winter that we are dreading. You can go anywhere, talk to anyone who lives here and people are overwhelmed already with worrying about what this winter will bring (the last one was the worst in many years!).

Okay enough about the weather - not sure where that came from!

The Hostetlers in Colorado will not be with us this year for Thanksgiving. Lorrie's pregnancy is going well. She's due next month - we may have a Christmas baby on our hands! Anyway, we'll spend Thanksgiving Day at Mom and Dad's (Ted & Sally). Carrie, Matt, and the kids will be there as well. No plans except eat, eat, eat (and maybe slip into a food coma for a while)!

What are you all doing? Where will you be? Let's post some pics of everyone at table like we did last year. It's fun to be able to see everyone celebrating.

So much to be thankful for this year again! As for me, top on my list are my family, my job, improved health, and all God's blessings that I tend to take for granted too often. I'm also thankful for my wonderful memories of you all as I was growing up. Those memories now seem to me to be from someone else's life.

Does anyone remember if we ever spent a Thanksgiving at the river??????

Love to all,
Toni

been a while

We have finally wrapped up our summer of pretending to farmers and canning season is officially over...the canners are put away, every last jar (including the additional 5 dozen I had to purchase) is full, my upright freezer is maxed out.

October is our favorite month around here and we try to celebrate it all month long.

New Neighbors

Dad (Jeff) asked me to post for him. They were up at the new place last weekend and some of the neighbors came by to say hello.

This was the first time they met these two members of the Bobcat family, but the builder/contractors claim they've seen four of them. No word yet from the Bear family. Guess they're not as neighborly.

Ace in the Hole!

Last month David experienced what most golfers spend a lifetime dreaming about. He had a HOLE IN ONE! But David was playing solo that day, and who would believe a golfer playing by himself? Lucky for him, there was a guy on the next hole who witnessed the whole thing. The above photo is of the par 3, 159 yard, hole #7 at Hawk Valley in Denver, PA. We're hoping his luck continues and our next blog post is announcing that we've won the lottery.

Al's Big Adventure

Al and I had the good fortune of joining Sue, Terry and Chris on a trip to VA Beach to visit Dan. While we were there, Al decided he wanted to jump out of a perfectly good airplane! He went on a tandem jump and the neatest thing about the whole experience is that Dan jumped at the same time! Al says it was just awesome. We had blast those two days and had a great visit with Dan the Man as we call him.

Sibling Reunion

Letter From Helen

Hello All!

Grandma wrote this a few days before she left here. Iowa is a lonelier place without her, I can tell you that! Sally flew home with her on Saturday.

In true Helen fashion, although I have scads of lovely writing paper at her disposal (not to mention plain notebook paper!) she chose a used Sudoku puzzle page to write her blog letter on. (On a side note, please don't laugh at the puzzle - I'm trying to learn sudoku and I JUST DON'T GET IT!!! It's probably not even right!)

Hope you can all read this. I think if you click on it, it will enlarge and you can read it better. If not, let me know and I'll figure out some other way to post it.

I hope everyone's summer is going well. I'd love to hear what you all have been up to. I have more pics to post and will try to get to them soon.

Kelly & Steve, you are still on our hearts and in our thoughts and prayers and we love you. Wish we could help in some way. If we can, please tell us how!

Love,

Toni

and then they were six

So...I guess Mom kind-of already spilled the beans but we too are looking forward to a baby and will be six sometime around Christmas.

We have made it successfully through our first trimester and the boys are particularly looking forward to momma's "big fat tummy"! Ethan already talks to "baby hos" and informs us that it will be a girl. There are new questions every day. This should be an interesting pregnancy!

How's Karen?

Can someone give us an update on Karen? She is due soon, isn't she? We're praying for you in Iowa, Karen and Joe and Baby!

Love, Toni

Planck Baby

Greetings! As many of you have already heard, we are expecting a new Planck family member. Our due date is December 6th. Here's the first photo of the little one, taken at 8 weeks on April 28th.

We're a little concerned beacuse of the early resemblance to an alien. Not quite sure what we've created! We're through the 1st trimester with little to complain about. Hopefully the next 6 months will be just as smooth.

Memorial Day Weekend In Iowa

Last Friday evening Ted, Sally, Toni, and Helen went out to Toni's cemetery (http://wmpcem.googlepages.com/) to see all the flags and flowers. These not so great pics were taken there.

Unfortunately, this was the last nice day we've had since Ma has arrived. It's been very stormy and miserable. Many of you probably saw the news last week about the tornado that hit near us in a town called Parkersburg. That's about 30 miles from us. The devastation is unbelievable! We are very thankful that we were all safe here in Waterloo. However, they are forecasting more of the same type of weather for us in the next few days so we would appreciate your prayers for safety!

Will try to post more pics soon. We're having technical difficulties here, but will try to straighten them out soon.

Ma sends her love to all of you.
Love,
Toni

New York City!

David and I visited New York City this past weekend. The weather was perfect and the trip was flawless. We managed to squeeze a lot into our one-day stay. The main reason for the trip was to catch a Yankees game. Here we are:

After the Yankees game we went to the "Top of the Rock" at Rockafeller Center. We had some amazing views on such a clear evening.


Besides the usual sight-seeing, we also saw some unsavory things, like a guy defecating in an alley and an Asian kid peeing in the subway station. Ahhhhhh, New York, New York. Here I am looking for rats in the subway station. We saw quite a few. David fed one a twizzler. (Sorry, no photo of that...)

All in all, it was another sucessful adventure!

The Great Gulah Has Landed

Well, Grandma has arrived safe and sound here in sunny Iowa. Dad flew with her to Cedar Rapids and Mom picked them up there. They had a good flight. Went to Toni's and unloaded her stuff (which is considerable LIGHTER than past visits!), and then over to Carrie's to say hello. Nathan talked her ear off the whole time and tried to get her to play Parcheesi (he's been practicing and is determined to beat her this year!), Madeline showed off all her new ballet moves, and Andrew tried to get her to play video games with him. Then back to Toni's to unpack and head to bed. She was a tired camper. We both got up about the same time this morning, and she said she slept like a log.

We have some activities planned this weekend, so I'll take some pics and post them. Hope you all are well. Love the grad pics, Aunt Sheila, and the house pics, Aunt Paula! Keep 'em coming!

Love to all -
Toni

Ma & Julie

Thought since I'm getting good at this, I'd add one more

Grad & party afterward

The group is at the party afterward. Couple people missing, but we were all there

( I had problems posting these. Be advised)

This is really Megan's graduation

Megan graduated summa cum laude from Kutztown 5/10. She has a job already. 8th grade English at Signal Knob Middle School in the Shennadoah County Public Schools. Yes not far from Julie & Al. Big party in York afterwards. Fran, Jeff, Ted, Ma, Julie , Al, etc in attendance.

Megan's Grad

This is a visit at the Noel's when Fred & Paula were visiting.

Raising the Roof

This is how our soon to be home looked as of today, May 7. As you can see, we have quite a view. The right side of the second floor is not done yet. They have moved the flag up each level as they are able to.

Better Late Than Never?

Hope better late than never is an acceptable phrase for my very late contribution. I have greatly enjoyed reading up on what everyone has been up to and hope everyone continues to post. Over the past few months (probably closer to a year) since Toni has initiated this great idea, I have spent my time either at work, in school or studying. Nothing all that interesting to post. However, in about a month I will be spending 10 days in Russia (Moscow & St. Petersburg) as part of a course in my MBA program. I am very excited because it will be the first time I will be traveling overseas...and to Russia of all places. Never thought I would ever go there. So I thought I would familiarize myself with this whole blogging process. The picture is of Peter & Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg... one of our sightseeing stops.

Take care & keep them coming!

Easter in the 'burgh

We had a wonderful weekend until Sunday when Karen had to leave and Paula got sick. Until then we had a wonderfully blessed time with family and friends.

Karen was much blessed at a shower for her. The cake bore a reminder of her and Joe's bridal dance, "That's Amore,"

Karen has decided on a jungle theme for her nursery. Here's a sample.

Then we had our annual egg coloring--at the Bowman's this year. 25 of us colored, critiqued, etc. Next pix shows part of the gang.

My nephew Scott's two girls are learning the facts of life (!) from a close up examination of Karen.

The last pix shows Giuseppe's (think his name will be Joseph John III) first field trip to the Carnegie Museum to see the dinosaurs on Saturday. We told him all about it.

Toni, I am really trying!!

easter weekend

We spent Easter weekend in Estes Park, CO just outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park...one of our favorite places. A friend's friend (who turned out to me my high school jv softball coach and 9th grade math teacher...strange!) allowed us to stay in their vacation home (with 3 other families... 8 adults, 11 kids) free of charge. None of us have family in town and it was a nice way to spend the holiday weekend...together.

5 of the 10 boys present for the weekend

Easter worship service

boys and rocks are inseparable...big or little makes no difference...rocks or boys

Owen goes for the biggest splash

our own easter bunny

FOUND THEM!

The gang's all here
(notice the one pink spot...Audrey is the only girl of 11 children!)

Easter Diners

Happy Easter! We had a nice gathering here in Lancaster. Here's a pre-dinner shot of the group. Don't we all look hungry?

Of course, who really cares about dinner when there's dessert to follow? In the following two photos, take note of which side of the table is eating dessert and which side of the table declined.




Alright, alright, since Aunt Sheila and Uncle Les will be checking up on this, I suppose I should confess that we ALL had dessert. The older generation went with the traditional pie and ice cream while the youngsters chose cookies and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And it was all delicious! Happy Easter!