Winter is here again!

December 14th , 2009 - Our fall is gone, the snow has fallen (about a foot already) and we are getting ready for Christmas. The boys got their first snow day last week and they were very happy. Matthew could not wait to take his snow board out on the hills in front of our house. The snow plowed hills in the church field that is! No Montana mountains here! So we have to find our own snow hills. Nice in the winter and beatiful in the summer.
We have been mostly in the house now on our computers too much. Eric has been finishing up remodeling the basement. He turned amature electrician last week and wired in recessed lighting. We moved our entertainment unit down stairs, the game systems and dvds and it looks great! Just another space to expand into with growing boys. Eric already loves it for his football game get-away. (pictures coming soon to our gallery) Next comes his dream bar. He got his Lienies paddle!


click to enlarge

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I have been working on several websites this month including 2 charity websites - the Humane Society and the Servants of all Ministry who supports orphans from Haiti. I am really proud to help support this one. And then Christmas shopping with my mom when ever I can get out.
And now...drum roll...we are finally on Facebook! Wow talk about overwhelming to see so many of mine and Eric's friends and family out there. We have no friends yet!! So we are clicking on friends as fast as we can find them, hardly believing who we are finding and now they can find us too. It has been wonderful to see and read about all of them again!
Later, Deb




Fall is here - Here come the holidays!

November 9th , 2009 - Already! We've had a beautiful Fall but cold! We must be in Indian summer this week because we hit the upper 60's again. The trees out here were fabulous with the deep reds, oranges and yellows through out the hillsides.

The boys are back in school and hating it. They love their computers and video games too much. At least Eric and I take comfort knowing they will turn into intelligent computer gurus, not geeks, later in life and will make the big bucks from their future careers. Matthew still loves Zelda and sword games. Teddy is a Star Wars Galaxies expert.
Eric completed the basement to the point we can sit and play down there. It has a rustic northwoods type theme going on and is our get-away cabin room. Still need to put up the ceiling though. Next comes Eric's bar which he is collecting items and ideas for.
I'm working at home building websites for area businesses. It's wonderful to be here for the b
oys after school and shopping with my mom! It is great to do my own thing.

This summer we all went to the NW State Fair here in Chippewa, Chaos waterpark for Teddy's birthday, camping at Willow River, camping with friends at Coon Forks, lots of dinners at my mom and dads place, the Cranberry Fest and the Booya Fest. And of course to the apple and pumpkin orchards at the end of summer. Lot's of out door fun! You have to see it out here to believe how nice it is. No big cities, just lots of beautiful country.

Past Newsletters

It's finally summer - kinda!

June 9th , 2009 - Yeah! We finally have green trees again! We started out our spring with our annual camping trip to Callahan Lake Resort up in the northwoods. It was the most perfectly, beautiful camping trip we have ever had. Clear blue skies, blue waters and warm for 4 days. The boys fished and Eric and I relaxed by the campfire. Sora dog even got to come along this trip.

School let out and the boys are thrilled for summer vacation! Play, play, play!
Matthew finally learned to ride his bike and is now fearless on it. Teddy is creating lots of creatures on the computer for his book and future movie.

I have been working on the computer as usual and helping Eric with our basement finishing. We just had the carpet installed today and it is looking great!

Another great addition to our house is the expanded fort for the boys Eric built. Eric figured it needed to be larger since the boys are growing so fast. Now we can all hang out in there this summer. Next...I guess the pool is going up...stay tuned till next time. Deb

Can't wait for Spring!

Feb 20th, 2009 - Ok, so when is the snow and cold going to go away?? We sure have had several cold bouts this winter season here in Wisconsin, so since we cannot seem to get ourselves out of the house to play in the snow (we are just not a winter kind of family) we are anxiously awaiting spring.

The boys sure love their computers and the Wii still and it's been tough to get them away from them when it is cold outside. We did get a bit of a thaw a week ago, so the empty acre next to our house was a bit flooded, froze again, then turned into a frozen skating rink. Matthew has been having fun sliding on the ice along with some neighbor friends and other kids discovering our skating rink. Matthew has also started loving archery and got a bow and arrow set. He has been shooting it in our own archery range Eric made up for him in our basement.

Teddy is in a robotics class at school with his best friend building cool remote controlled robot type vehicles. He had a really fun competition a couple weeks ago getting all smashed and bashed that we went to.

We also decided to add a kitty to our household, we named her Peaches and is Matthew's cat. She is a cute orange and white 9 year old lap cat we adopted from the humane society and she has been a perfect little princess. Sora our dog wants to play with her something terrible, but she just walks by him, with that stare, that she will have none of him till she is ready.

Deb is working at home with the website business and it sure has picked up with several new website designs this month and keeping her busy.
Eric still is quite happy at RCU working with great people there. He just got back from a trip to Chicago for a big business meeting.


Well... we will catch you this spring or when something big happens like we win the lottery or something! Oh well, it is nice to dream!

"Merry Christmas from The Dyes"

Dec 26th, 2008 - Wow! Summer sure blew by and it was a real nice one. We did a lot of sitting in our yard just enjoying the warm air, sitting by the fire sipping margaritas and watching the numerous types of birds flying in. We sure have to keep up with that bird seed.
The boys are not into sports, but we sure are proud of them getting so technically savvy and turning into computer wiz's. Teddy is writing his own book and has several chapters completed. He wants to turn it into a movie and become a movie producer. Matthew sure has a talent with his imagination with art and creating sword and light saber fighting plays.

Now school is in full swing and Teddy has started out as an honor student again and Matthew made the merit roll. We sure are proud of them. Teddy has a cool robotics class and video game design class in 6th grade and really loves it. Matthew is doing great with reading, math and art work with narrations.

Mom and dad are doing great and still loving it out here. Mom has a great new friend with Goldie next door. Dad finally had surgery on both his knees and had them replaced. He is finally recovering with therapy after a couple complications. He is finally up on his feet and we all swear he looks taller and straighter. That is a miracle in itself. Dad loves his doctors and are so amazed over the great care they get out here.

Eric is doing great in his job at RCU and so happy he went back. He finally has a good supervisor who appreciates him and a great office environment.
I am still working from home building websites for area businesses and hoping to hire a couple sales reps soon. I am starting to expand into family websites too.

Well the snow is here and the cold is here and we are hibernating in our house. It amazes me how the people here in Wisconsin love winter and cannot wait to go ice fishing, snow mobiling and sledding. I think it is finally spreading to us and we will start the snow sledding thing next week. Matthew can't wait to get outside in the snow and play with Sora dog.

We had a real nice Christmas with mom and dad over. Mom and I made so many christmas cookies we are giving out trays to neighbors. Now we are getting ready for Matthew's birthday party at an area hotel to go swimming at their mini water park. It will be real fun.

We sure hope you are all doing well and would love to here from you! Email us here if you would like: contact us

We wish our family and friends a great New Year!

Love,
Debbie, Eric, Ted & Matthew

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Our Newsletter!

Aug 6th, 2008 - We thought this would be a great way to share news with family and friends the new "high-tech way" via the internet. Since I have started my new website company, I figured I better find the time to get ours out there too.

We've had a great summer so far! Teddy and Matthew have been very happy to be out of school. They have been playing on their computers, playing with their Wii, doing anything Star Wars, having friends over, swimming in the pool in our yard or just plain being lazy.

I have been working at home for the last several months after finally getting out of that dreadful job at the newspaper. I just started up my website development business to do on the side at home, then maybe go back to work in the fall.

Eric has just started his new position at RCU (this time with investments) and very happy to be back. Everyone at the credit union has been very welcoming to him. We can't wait to go to the Christmas parties again.

Mom and Dad have been out here for over a year now and keep saying how they love it out here. It is great to visit with them anytime we feel like just popping in. They live just across the street, 4 houses down and it's very convenient. Mom loves walking to KMart which is just a couple blocks away and dad sure loves riding his John Deere lawn mower around all their property. They even love their neighbors which is a real plus for them. They also added a pup to the family, a female schnauzer named Bay-lee. She is super cute and loving.

We had a heck of a cold winter this year and we were all looking forward to this summer. Summer is finally here and it's warm! Our favorite thing to do is work in our yard, have a barbeque, and then sit around the fire pit Eric made and just relax in our yard at night. We are fortunate enough to have a great park like yard with large trees and allot of room for the boys and Sora, our Beagle dog to run around in.

We have done a little travel this year, just because how busy we seem to keep ourselves. We went to Disney World in Florida in February and it really was magical like they say. Mom came along with us too. We got to see Aunt Francis and Uncle Eddie down there for a bit which was really nice. It was amazing at Disney World! None of us wanted to leave. We can't wait to go back in a couple years. See our Disney picture gallery here.
We went camping on Memorial Day weekend as usual to our favorite camp ground at Callahan Lake Resort. The boys always hit records catching the fish there. We love the fresh air and sitting by the water right from our camp spot.

We made a trip to St. Paul for Teddy's 12th birthday July 25th. We all went to the big Star Wars exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum. That was great! They had original props from the movies, a special effects Imax movie and even had characters walking all around. Matthew finally got his FX lightsaber he wanted so badly. We took Mom and Dad and Teddy's best friend along too. We took some great pictures there and you can click here to view them in one of our galleries. We stayed over night and swam in the motel. We then went to the Minnesota Zoo the next day to make a full weekend of it.

So now it is August and we are waiting for school to start. Matthew loves to play out Star Wars and Zelda character roles. Teddy or should I say Ted is going to the middle school for 6th grade and Matthew is going into 3rd. They have grown like weeds. This is Teddy's year and he shot up fast and is already as tall as me. They are trying to get in as much computer time, playing on the Wii, playing anything Star Wars and just doing nothing until school starts.