Grammy's Forgotten Christmas Present

This was so funny and I had to share this story! Yesterday morning Lilly (my five year old granddaughter) called me on the phone. She told me she still had a Christmas present for me that they forgot to bring to me. So I asked Lilly what it was and she said "I can't tell." I said "but Christmas is over." Lilly said she still couldn't tell me what it was. So I changed the conversation to what Lilly was doing and then I said to Lilly "I bet I know what you had for breakfast." Lilly said, "What." I said "I bet you had cereal." Lilly told me I was right and then she wanted me to guess what kind of cereal she had. So I took a lucky guess and guessed Lucky Charms and Lilly told me I was right! Well I told Lilly that I knew everything (ha ha ha) and she said to me "well if you know everything then you should know what your Christmas present is then." Well I took another lucky guess and said "I bet its a book" and Lilly said "wow you are amazing." Then she said "its two books." So when I hung up I was all excited thinking they really did forget to bring up a present for me and I was wondering what two books I got. I always make a list of books I want at Christmas time for my mom, and Amanda saw the list too, so I figured oh it must be books from my list that I want. Well a couple hours later I was talking to Amanda (Lilly's mom, my daughter) on the computer and I told her about mine and Lilly's phone conversation and Amanda told me not to get too excited about the books and I asked why and Amanda said they were Lilly's own books that she wanted to wrap for me for Christmas. So I was laughing and laughing and Amanda said "they are both Lilly's Halloween books," ha ha. So here I was all excited about new books, ha ha. So that is the story about my forgotten Christmas present from Lilly!

The Yellow Bird and the Rainbow

This is my bird feeder in my front yard. If you look in the grass you will see a yellow spot. That is a little yellow bird that has been coming to eat at my bird feeder.











Look at the sky and you can see the rainbow. This appeared one day after a thunderstorm.

The Horseshoe Curve

The Horseshoe Curve here in Pennsylvania was a favorite family picnic spot while I was growing up. A lot of times my mother and I would get together with my grandparents, my aunt, and little cousin and take a picnic and walk up the 100 steps to have our picnic and maybe see a train if we were lucky. Sometimes I would go with my parents in the hot summer evenings to walk up the steps to the top of the Horseshoe Curve. Once at the top my parents would sit and enjoy the breeze from the trees surrounding the Curve while I wandered around looking at the sights of nature. It wasn't very often we were lucky enough to see a train but when we did it was very exciting. The engineer would blow the whistle and always at the end of the train the caboose man would be waving to us. It was very exciting when I was a child.

After my husband and I were married and had our first child we used to take her to the Horseshoe Curve so she could enjoy the walk up the steps to watch for a train. It is always so exciting to hope to see a train after walking up all those steps! Later, after our other three children were born into the world we took them to walk the steps and hopefully see a train. The kids always had so much fun trying to count the steps! After the walk back down the steps there was always an ice cream treat from the little food stand at the bottom.

Walking to the top of the Horseshoe Curve used to be a free activity that families could do when there wasn't always money to go places. It was a nice place to have a picnic or just to go to sit at the top and enjoy the cool breeze on a hot summer day. If you couldn't find anything to do there was always "Lets go to the Horseshoe Curve and walk to the top and maybe we will see a train go by."

Now the Horseshoe Curve has been remodeled. There is an incline you can take instead of walking up the steps. This is very nice for the people who are disabled and cannot walk very far. But the thing that bothers me is there is a fee now to walk up the steps to the top of the Horseshoe Curve. I can understand paying a fee for the incline. But I cannot understand why after years and years of being able to walk to the top for free why there is a fee just for walking.

Now I have a four year old granddaughter who has never had the chance to walk up the steps to get to the top of the Horseshoe Curve and watch for a train. It is no longer a free place for families to enjoy picnics or just a walk. People with large families who cannot always afford to do things have one less nice place to go because of a fee that you have to pay.

After all those years during my childhood, and after having children of my own it was always such fun to have a peaceful place to go to enjoy for free. Sure you should pay to ride the incline but I wish we didn't have to pay a fee for the walk to the top!

Barbecue Beef Cups

I made these Barbecue Beef Cups for our supper today. They turned out pretty good. All you do is brown a pound of hamburg in skillet until cooked. Drain and add 1/2 cup barbecue sauce. Set aside. Next grease 12 cup or two 6 cup muffin pans. Then using one tube of refrigerated biscuits (10 biscuits in a tube) you put one biscuit in each cup and press onto bottom and up the sides of the muffin cups. Then fill with the hamburg and barbecue sauce mixture. Last top with shredded cheddar cheese and bake at 400 for 10 to 15 minutes.
These were really good and my kids even liked them. They came out of the pan real easy too. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll answer.

Just Learning

This is my very first blog entry. I am just learning how to do things here on blogger so this will be a short entry. I just want to find out how things work on here and then I will be able to blog away ha ha. Things on here seem confusing right now so I'm going to go investigate more.