Kathie you will have to get Lucie to pose too - tell mama to wear the same outfit!
Here's a good one of Sally and Dan:
And one of Alex and Gigi after a long day of Cahokia hiking and company hosting (Lisa Murphy, Dave Ganz and Ed & Maria one after the other!) When I get home I'll be able to post the Cahokia photos.
xxxxxx Karen
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Here's a photo update of what the Hoyer's have been up to over the last year:
Winter Break to Buffalo
Spring Break, Ohio River Tour I (Cincinnati/Louisville/Evansville)
Day trip to Port Huron - St. Clair River near Blue Water Bridge to Sarnia, Canada and beach on Lake Erie to avoid the summer heat
Hammond 'Thanksgiving in the Summer' get-together before Bob and Norma Thayer moved to Portland, OR
Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful time at Danny's but I forgot my camera so... no photos!
Instead here are some I intended to post from the weekend Jill & I spent at DeKoven at the end of October.
St. Francis in the DeKoven garden
Karen and Jill at DeKoven
Looking out to the lake
The chapel
Our rooms -- the former nunnery
Odd sculpture - double bass with a alligator head
It was an Episcopal Women's Retreat and we both enjoyed the time away -- the content of the retreat was good too tho we agreed it was better because we both went. The main guest wrote a book listing all the women quoted in the bible and outlining their stories. Later, we killed it on the Bible Women Jeopardy game -- Jill got all the answers and we got a lot of laughs. Like when the answer to "she put her baby in a basket on the Nile to protect his life" and I answered "Miriam! I mean -- Who is Miriam's mom?" The moderator said "The answer is Moses' Mother" -- and Jill & I answered in chorus "she was Miriam's mother too!" Also when he asked, "She told Barak that a woman would be victorious in the battle" and I shouted out "Who is Michelle!" (The real answer is Deborah, Judges 4:9, this was of course, October when we all still thought Hillary would win...) The other ladies called us "the sisters" and wanted to know why we knew the bible so well.
Jill posted her Star Wars crochet but here are the ADORABLE bears she made for the Lawrence Hall Christmas Party. Also a photo of the bags I decorated for her: they are "ditty bags" that the Seaman's Institute to stuff with knitted hats and toiletries so I used tattoo designs...
We are looking forward to seeing all of you at Christmas time and catching up with your news. We are doing as best we can what with worries about the future of our country, not to mention anxiety about school (both kids) and lack of work (me). Love to you all, Karen
...in a galaxy as far away as the western suburbs of Chicago....
Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt
Chewie and Han
Darth and his henchmen
Ewoks
Looks like Luke and his dad moved!
The twins
Yoda and the Androids
As Dave Barry would say, Yoda and the Androids. What a great name for a rock band!
Looks like I should take a photography class. Oh, well, it was fun making them even if they look a little goofy.
Thank you all for your cards/gifts/prayers for Gigi's confirmation. It was a lovely ceremony, Gigi read beautifully, the bishop's sermon was moving and best of all, Jackson didn't have to work so he could be there too! There was a blessing of the new garden and a ceremonial "dig" for the construction of the accessibility lift. Here are some photos (and hoping this works since you asked Jill...)
xxx Karen
I've been teaching a bit this winter so I thought I'd share a bit of my notoriety. Our new Events Coordinator, Elizabeth (who worked outside with me last summer) apologized profusely that is was on the Fox network, but I figured the local news station was not quite so adamantly Republican (agh...the slippery slope of fame!) Rubén's favorite part (yes, he repeats it quite often) is when I say, "It doesn't really grow in soil, it grows in Australia mostly." So now we know there's no soil in Australia!
note the new title, Thanks Elizabeth!
Here's a couple of stills, just so you can see my gurning (what did ya'll call it at NCSA, Karen?)
That was in February - Rubén made the plaques for the ferns and it was quite a successful set of classes even though I myself would never hang something like that on my wall. Urgghh...think of the mold growing behind the plaque - yeechhhh!
Rapture about the "Brie-L-T" at the Cafe - I couldn't think of anything else since I never eat there!
In January and February I also did a lot of Terrarium classes and they were hugely popular. In this one Wash U students in an intensive had to make a model of their sustainable urban landscape design. Elizabeth took some very candid shots - this is the only one where I only look mildly ridiculous. Look how rapt my audience is!
Washington University Sustainability Class - Terrarium Final
Two weeks ago I did the first half of a Seed-Starting Class on Vegetables and Herbs and yesterday I did one on Flower Seeds - aargghhh, that was difficult to put together. I had to do lots of research since I haven't started flower seeds much since I started working for Bowood - laziness? worker fatigue? or maybe that 30% discount? Anyway it was a smaller group so I made most of it hands-on and they were really happy to go home with some flower seedlings-to-be.
I'll probably do a Gardening for Kids class if it is approved (yes, I hear Lucie laughing) but the season is starting and I'm now the "Plant Specialist" - Christine and I are the only "originals" left, so I'm the one currently making up stuff to tell the customers. We also have a new operating system so I'm updating all the info for inventory - this system has a place for pictures too so I am patting myself on the back for saving all the photos from when I made the signs - it seemed a silly thing to do but with infinite storage space...and now I find I've an easier job of it. We have to be grateful for being hoarders sometimes.
It is sunny this morning, so I managed to get a picture of the flowers.
I am glad to see this one blooming, because it was supposed to be evergreen but it kind of turned brown and people on the internet said that Lithodoria is difficult to grow. I also have a pot full of Johnny Jump-Ups. I planted them back in January just for the heck of it. It was still kind of cold out, so I didn't thin them like I was supposed to, so there are quite a lot of them. I guess soon it will be time to plant some tomatoes!
Not much new happening in California. But Mom mailed my cats some little knitted mice, so here's a picture of Jupiter hogging both of them:
He likes them because they are just the right weight for tossing around. Ziggy liked them too but he's not interested in playing by himself for very long, so he ceded control of the one I tossed to him to Jupiter after batting it around a bit.
It rained a lot today, which is pretty unusual. It's been drizzly the past week, but today it rained constantly. Fortunately, I got all my chores done before it really started coming down.
I got a couple of new origami books, so I've been working my way through them. One of my friends suggested I put the pictures on Instagram, so here they are. Making the pictures square actually works well for these. :)
Lots of fun.
Worth the 2.5k miles!
Thank you all for your cards/gifts/prayers for Gigi's confirmation. It was a lovely ceremony, Gigi read beautifully, the bishop's sermon was moving and best of all, Jackson didn't have to work so he could be there too! There was a blessing of the new garden and a ceremonial "dig" for the construction of the accessibility lift. Here are some photos (and hoping this works since you asked Jill...)
