Grandkids Make Life Grand!

 

June was a fun month for us!

 

 

 We got to babysit Anna a couple of times. She likes to suck on her two middle fingers, which looks quite funny.

 

 Here's Anna and Grandpa just chillin' out on the front porch swing.

 

 Mandi decided to put Anna's hair in a mohawk for the day. Not too many 3-month old babies even have enough hair to attempt this hairstyle.

 

 Melissa and the kids flew up from Texas the middle of June. Clay went up to Portland to pick them up at the airport, while I stayed home to give the Family Home Evening lesson to our Empty Nesters FHE group (there wouldn't have been enough room in the car for me anyway).

 

Here are all the cousins together for the first time.

 

We spent an evening at Skinner's Butte Park, watching the girls play and visiting with Rob's brother John and his friend, Maria. It was a very pleasant evening.

 

Melissa's got Mira trained well --

she really knows how to pose for photos.

 

 

Legos were definitely a theme of this visit. We gave Mira this set of Rapunzel's tower from the movie "Tangled". The girls put it together, then spent a lot of time playing with it.

 

Clay and Mira put together my Spiderman set. Then somehow Spiderman and his arch-enemy, Venom, spent quite a lot of time hanging around with Rapunzel.

 

We also had a set of Legos that can make three dinosaurs (one at a time from the same pieces). Mira made the first one, a pterodactyl. I don't think she wanted to break that one apart in order to make one of the others.

  

A picnic and hiking trip to Shotgun Creek was planned. I didn't make the trip since I wasn't feeling well that day. But I believe everyone else had a fun time. (They didn't end up hiking after all because of cougar sightings on the trails).

 

The girls took a "selfie" on the way to the park.

 

Danica likes to see how high she can

get going on the swings.

 

 

Now that Neil has a baby of his own, he's not so afraid of holding other babies.

 

 

 Anna was in a good mood -- at least

when this photo was taken.

 

 

Mira really likes "smashed potatoes," Legos, books, having stories read to her, playing videogames (especially Animal Crossing) on the DS, and many other things.

Mira really really really really HATES bugs...really! Whenever she saw a bug (or thought she saw a bug), there was a lot of screaming, crying, and carrying on. Melissa is hoping this stage passes quickly. It's funny that Danica loved bugs when she was this age (and probably still does). Danica would hunt for them wherever we went, and carry one around with her as long as she could.

Oddly enough, although Mira is terrified of bugs, she has no problem with snakes!
Clay took them to a "petting zoo" at the Zany Zoo pet store.

Danica only tolerated the snakes --
she was more fond of the guinea pigs.

 

 

 

 

Calvin is at that age where everything

goes in his mouth -- even boxes!

 

 

 Out of all the toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house -- and there are really a lot -- Calvin's favorite "toy" was to pull DVDs off the shelves to play with.

 

And no visit would be complete without a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with Grandpa. Clay said that Mira actually drives really well, considering that she has to get right on top of the steering wheel in order to reach the gas pedal. 

 

 

I have this photo of me with two of my grandchildren. Mandi took some of me with all 4 of them, but I haven't seen those pictures yet.

 

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Since Danica had left after the first week to spend some time in Portland with her dad, we borrowed Neil's car so both Clay and I could take the rest of them to Portland to catch a plane home. We got passes to go through security and accompany them to the gate.

 

 

Here's their plane being pushed out onto the runway.

 

 

 And there they go!  :-(

Baby Anna

We happily welcome our newest grandchild, courtesy of Mandi and Neil. Anna weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 18.5 inches. She was breech so Mandi had to have a C-section.  They are all doing well.

First, here are a few pictures taken by Mandi:

 

 

And then here are a couple I took a few days ago. Since she wasn't doing anything but sleeping (and we didn't want to wake her up), I only took a few because they all looked basically alike. :-)

 

We love her very much!!

Suddenly It's Spring!

Just when I've given up and think Spring is never coming, all of a sudden it's here. This doesn't mean there won't be any more rain -- it is western Oregon after all. But at least there's now a little more color in our lives. And finally the sunshine coincided with a day off, so Clay and I went for a walk this morning to try out a new camera.

Of course, there were the usual varieties of daffodils:

But our main destination was a lovely "Tulip Tree" (magnolia) that we pass every day on our way to work.

This last picture is the inside of one of the "tulips" (lightened up in Photoshop so you can see the detail).

Happy Spring!

Baby Calvin

About a week after Calvin was born, I got to fly down to Phoenix (Chandler) to spend a week with Melissa and her family. I had a fabulous trip. Everything was perfect. My flights were great; the weather was wonderful (mid-70's is wonderful in mid-November). And of course, nothing is better than hanging out with family -- especially grandchildren! I love them all dearly!

Snow Again??

February 7, 2014:  After that snowstorm we had in December, I wasn't really excited when the weatherman was predicting snow again. It took me 40 minutes to make it home from work yesterday (it usually takes 10 minutes), and I wasn't sure I was going to make it at all. I was glad Arlene said we would close the office today.  I think we got more snow than predicted. It was snowing basically all day until late in the afternoon, paused for a little while, and then started with a light freezing rain, which doesn't seem to be diminishing the snow at all. I went outside once to take my necessary photographs of the snow (I have to keep up the tradition of taking photos of EVERY snowstorm we get), but it was too cold to even go for a walk. It was such a powdery snow that it didn't even stick to the bottoms of my pants even though it was deeper than that, i.e. they weren't even damp when I came back inside.

 

About 4:30 this afternoon, I noticed a post that Neil had made to Facebook. It was a picture of one of our neighbors in his backyard, building what turned out to be a large square "snowman"? I called it a Snobot because it looked like a very basic robot made of snow, but Neil poked fun of me (as usual). I don't know how long he was working on it -- because it was huge! I bet the bottom layer of it was 5-6 feet on each side and came up to his waist. The middle layer and "head" were not as tall as the bottom layer. He had to get up on a ladder to work on it. He finished it off with a traditional-looking snowman face. The eyes might have been tomatoes, then a carrot nose, and perhaps rocks made up the smile? At least that's what it looks like when I zoom in on the photo I took of it. I felt kind of awkward spying on him from our upstairs window. I hope none of our neighbors saw us there, especially when we were taking pictures into their backyard. That's probably not very "neighborly" behavior!

 

 

Over the next couple of days, we noticed that there were dozens and dozens of robins hanging out around our neighbor's yard and also our yard. They seemed to really like the red berries on a plant that had climbed up among the neighbor's tree.

 

 

 
They were very "round". I don't know if they were fluffing up their feathers to keep warm, or if they had really pigged out on those red berries?

 

 

A big limb broke off the tree out front, but luckily missed all of our vehicles. Others were not so fortunate. I've never seen so many branches and whole trees lying around town.

 

 

 

Needless to say, I wasn't going anywhere for a while.