Golden Wheat Chapter Christmas Party

Today was the annual Christmas Party for the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR), Golden Wheat Chapter.

On the stage at the front of the auditorium are the raffle prizes...

And the door prizes...

Ella #2 Welcomes everyone and introduces Dan Snyder and his wife, who plays beautiful Christmas music for us, and suggests we come and go for snacks. She then offers the opening prayer.

Ella #1 Graces us with the Gospel reading in German and English

It was wonderful to see so many had joined us for this gathering.

We were honored to have Dan Snyder serenade us with Christmas songs, many sung in German. He finished with a beautiful rendition of "O Holy Night"...

Dennis called Karen to the front of the room under the guise of drawing door prize tickets, then began talking about someone being honored at the Kansas state convention revealing that the person honored was Karen!

A very pleasant surprise for Karen...

Then the drawing of tickets for door prizes began.

This was followed by Ella #2  Sharing of the origin of the song "Twelve Days of Christmas" and audience participation of "Twelve Days of Christmas" while sung by Dan Snyder. I didn't get pictures of these as I was helping Santa get ready...

We only had two young ones for Santa to bring presents for this year...

One was not so sure about the whole process...

But warmed up to Santa a bit when he needed his help to open his toy...

You're never too old to get your picture taken with Santa...

Or sit on his lap...

Last but not least was the drawing of tickets for raffle prizes.

Another wonderful Golden Wheat Christmas party!

Have a Very Merry Christmas

and

A Blessed New Year!!!

Women's March ICT

My daughter and granddaughter (the older granddaughter couldn't attend because she just had surgery on her ankle) walked with me in the Women's March in Wichita KS on Saturday, Jan 21, 2017.

  There were people there representing a very diverse array of humanity, Equal Rights for EVERYONE! Here's a copy of the schedule of events.

From time to time a group would break out with a chant and attention would turn their direction.

Many signs and many pink pussy hats.

The walk started out slow, it takes a while to funnel that many people down a sidewalk.

See the white dot to the far right in the picture below? That's a drone that circle above us for a while. I saw the guy land it on our walk to City Hall but don't have a clue who he was. Couldn't see that he was affiliated with any media. I have seen and pictures or video surface from it yet.

Carry Nation made a showing, hatchet and bible in hand.

We couldn't get in where we could hear the speakers and we were starting to get really hungry. So after hanging around a while we decided to head on back. The granddaughter does love the chocolate IHOP pancakes. 

I attempted to find video of the speakers. The Facebook events page has plethora of pictures from the march in the discussion section and someone said there was video of speakers there also. I have only found one.

In a Facebook post there were complaints from another state about the March not being focused enough. This is my response to that:

"In Wichita KS the only focused issue was RIGHTS... Equal Rights, Civil Rights for EVERYONE. We think this is focused enough. It's not ME, ME, ME! That's Trump. We had Rainbow groups, we had Suffragettes, we had BLM, we had Latinas with wonderful chants... and that's only a few. THIS is what the march was about. :)"

I am very proud of the unity shown at the Wichita Women's March. Would love to see this grow.

And now a message from the national organization:

Thank you to the millions of people around the world who, on January 21, came together by the millions to raise our voices. But our march forward does not end here. Now is the time to get our friends, family and community together and MAKE HISTORY.

Join us in launching a new campaign:
10 Actions for the first 100 Days.

Found a video at the Trust Women page:

https://www.facebook.com/trustwomen/videos/10153688996207185/
(I couldn't get the embed link to work)

Christmas Greetings

I've done a Christmas photo shoot with the grandkids every year since 2011 that I've shared on Facebook. I thought this year I'd see if I could get the Photobucket slideshow to work here. There are 50 pictures...

Merry Christmas

&

Blessings for the New Year!

A Smiley Birthday

The Princess Knight has a new handle, Smiley. Grandpa has been calling her this for a while and Princess Knight has kind of retired. So Smiley it is!

Watching a movie and waiting for the party to begin.

Cake and cupcakes await.

Equine themed plates and napkins.

Pizza for the party with two pieces set aside for dad.

Mom giving brother a bite of pizza. In the background Gr-grandma and Aunt Missy inspect the kitchen island rebuild that Aunt Shandy did.

Big brother on the couch watching a movie and eating pizza.

The party guests have arrived and everyone gets pizza.

Movie time.

Smiley with her birthday cake.

Cake closeup.

How many candles? 12?

BLOW!
(Note the hat on Aunt Shandy's head. Smiley was not happy, told her she was going to steal it.)

Mom and her frosting antics. At least there's no face in the cake and only frosty on the nose.

Cupcakes and ice cream for everyone.

Smiley cleaning up her face.

Time to open the presents.

Candy and fun stuff.

Somebody knows her, she loves her candy canes.
(Note the hat now on Smiley's head. Smiley is a happy camper!)

Nail decorating.

Bracelet making.

Nutella from Gr-grandma.

A Diamond Sword!

And cash.

She said read the card. It's a really funny card. Human bean, get it? Human being.

Hanging on tight to the Diamond sword and the cash while keeping an eye on the Nutella. All coveted presents. 

Dad made it home in time for cake and presents. Little brother is all partied out.

And there went the Nutella, get the thief use your Diamond Sword!

Another Happy Birthday, Another Year Older!

Have a WONDERFUL year Smiley, next year you'll be a TEENAGER!!!