Merry Christmas!

To those seeing this on Facebook or on my blog, may you and your family have a happy and safe Christmas, and a great 2017!
— “Rhubarb_Runner”

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!

There’s another mouth to feed in the Runner household!

Belle is a 4-yr old Dachshund/Miniature Pinscher mix (Doxie-pin). She loves car rides, barks very infrequently, and is a better fielder than Delmon Young ever will be. And K is already her best friend.

Merry Christmas everyone from the Runner family!

Halloween Costume

Managed to come up with a Halloween costume this year…

no, it’s not too soon!

Sorry, it would not have been worth it to cut my hair short as well.

Halloween, Incognito

With October 31^st almost upon us, I thought I’d post a few costume photos from the past, fwiw. These are not highlights (good God, no!) but just pictures I happened to have found lying around…

Halloween 1973
Bro Al on the left and me, just about ready to take to the car and do havoc on the neighboring farm homes.

Halloween 1980
First year of college, taken in Livingstone Lord Library at Moorhead State University. Most all of 2^nd floor of Nelson Hall marched through Dahl Hall and other buildings (to Jeff Lorber Fusion’s “Monster Man” blaring on the boombox) squirting anyone with squirt guns if they happened to open their doors.

Halloween 1983
Senior year at college, doing my best D.P. Gumby impression.

Halloween 1985
OMG, how embarrassing! An aluminum bat?!

Halloween 1986
This was just after US News & World Report reporter Nicholas Daniloff was held in Russia on spying charges (notice press pass tucked into hat brim). The key to all good photos is to hold an impressive pose.

Interestingly enough, the hat and trenchcoat have been my typical “costume” for the past several years, mostly because their convenient, warm, and still just as scary!

Enjoy your Halloween night, kiddos…

A New Year’s Eve with Family Out the Wazoo!

On the event of nephew Paul II’s New Year’s Eve wedding to Alyssa in Tulsa, the Runner family joined a mass family migration to south-central US. Besides a beautiful wedding and some great quality time with family, this was the first gathering of all of the grandkids in one place – quite a trick!

ALL the grandkids; K is in the gray dress towards the back, and a dapper Paul II in military formal

Merry Christmas!

Hope you’re all having a great Christmas! After a couple days of rain, we finally got some snow before noon today, so we are having a white Christmas after all.

It’s a tradition at the Runner family to make spaghetti for supper on Christmas Eve, yet our schedule didn’t look too promising this year, so the ever-thoughtful K decided that we would instead go to Fazoli’s for a late pasta lunch instead.  We are nothing if not adaptable!

After a busy afternoon of helping out at some of the church Christmas services and singing in the choir, we joined a nice gathering of friends at the Griffiths.  We eventually made it home to open gifts and get some well-deserved sleep. It’s been a wonderful holiday.

Oh, and among other great gifts, Mo & K framed this year’s Homer Hanky for me. Looks like I’ll have to update my blog banner sometime.

2009 Homer Hanky

The Ghost of Halloween Past

Halloween means, among other things…jack-o-lanterns!  I’ve managed to photograph all the jack-o-lanterns carved each Halloween (more-or-less) since our move to the St. Louis area in 1990. Here’s a year-by-year inventory:

1992: well, Mo outdid me with her large jack-o-lantern in the middle

Bowling Season Begins

As mid-September rolls around, it brings the advent of…bowling season! No, not the Brunswick/Dick Weber/foot-fault bowling — Osage orange lawn bowling.

At the treeline, in the back corner of our property, stands a tall Osage-orange tree, loaded with Osage oranges.

no, not the small dark red dogwood tree, the one above and to the right of it