Time continues to fly by.   We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.   A long weekend to enjoy here in the states, at least for those of us still working!   Some day I will get to retirement and it won’t matter as much for me!  For now I am looking forward to a short work week.  We will be traveling.  To Milwaukee Wednesday night, then to Kalamazoo on Thanksgiving.  We rented a house again, and will get together with John and MJ, Skip Claire and Denise.   Then some sightseeing for a couple of days!  We will relax and enjoy.   And the same to all of you!

Chris had her second eye surgery and all is well.   The first one was so perfect and this one has been as they tell you to expect.  A little more discomfort and taking a little longer to heal.  But still great.  She is seeing better than she ever has, but will have to wait for it to fully heal before determining the next step.  Since one eye is distance and one eye is reading (as her contacts were) and she will likely need glasses for computer work.  She had her week after surgery examination today and all signs positive.

Not so positive, winter has been here in full swing for Wisconsin.  We have had plenty of cold (which I hate) and last night had 6 inches of wet heavy snow.  We had a little warmup in between the cold and snow, with some rain.   I am not sure that was a positive change, but we deal with what we have!  Now some cold (well below average)  and I see the 10 day forecast shows another warm up.

Take some time to enjoy life, give thanks for our blessings, and tell someone you love them!

Lake frozen and yard covered

wet and heavy! deer tracks on left

We are into November, and it looks like from here on in the temperatures will be going down!   At least that is the 10 day forecast.   We have had some nice days and the yard is in pretty well prepared for winter.    Unfortunately my ATV/plow is not ready to go and it will need to go in for some service.   But I won’t need to plow anytime soon, will I?  We have had a bunch of fun!   This weekend my homebrew club, the Society of Oshkosh Brewers, SOB’s,  held their charity event serving all homebrewed beers, wines, and meads.   And it sounds like we exceeded previous years attendance.  Which is great, we were hoping we could give $10,000 to the food pantries this year.   It seemed like a good time was had by all, and we had a good crowed of happy people!

Chris had cataract surgery today,  and first results are excellent.   Trying to look out from the eye shield on the way home she said she was seeing better than she ever has in her life.   Went back for a check up this afternoon and the doctor said it could be 2-3 weeks before the eye is fully healed and all swelling gone, so things should only get better.   Chris did great.   We will see how she does the next couple of nights trying to sleep, she needs to protect the eye for a week.   And in two weeks she has the other eye done.    And Marie recently had cataract surgery and says she is doing great.   All good news.

I wanted to share some photo’s from Cousin Charles in Switzerland!  He has been doing some hiking and shared some photo’s of the areas we saw this summer.   The views in Switzerland are awesome!  Thanks Charles,  I will include a little of his e-mails that came with the photo’s. (If you click on the photo you should see and enlarged version, I need to use the back arrow to get back to the home page)  Wish I was hiking with you and Walter.

As promised in your blog 2 photos from the top of the Grosse Mythen which I climbed end of Sept. To the south you see lake Lucerne and 4300 ft below the towns Schwyz and Brunnen. We had actually planned to take the boat from Brunnen but as there was no parking space, we drove on the Flueelen and boarded the boat there and passed Brunnen again – this time on the water – on the way to Lucerne. In Flueelen we met Emil who astonished us again with his fabulous memory of the good old times in Milwaukee. To the north you see part of Einsiedeln at the far end.

from the Grosse Mythen

Grosse Mythen

Yesterday I was enjoying together with my brother Walter probably one of the last warm days before winter is coming on one of the surrounding hills. One of the photos you see part of Einsiedeln. On the left you see the inrun of the ski jumping hill and just behind even part of Lake Zurich. You also see part of the Sihlsee with the bridge. On the second photo you see some snow covered mountains. Glad to say that I have been on all of them.

Kleine Amsel 2

Kleine Amsel