Headed to Wyoming

I'm headed to Wyoming on Saturday. I've been fretting about the flight for a month now. I'd tried to find airports that may be ok even though it's still winter time up north. I fly into Chicago then to Denver then finally to Rapid City. I sure hope the weather holds, the flights are on time and there are no unruly passengers! Tom is staying home to hold down the fort and keep the paychecks coming in. I sure hope he'll be ok for a month. It's really strange....I'm excited to go see family and to meet our new granddaughter, but at the same time...sad that I'll be away from Tom for a month. I guess that's what they call mixed emotions? Anyways, I'm hoping we'll both survive the time apart. This will be the first time since we got married that we'll be apart for this length of time. Wish us luck!

Hope all is well in your little corner of the world!
Michele

A week in our life!

This week our 2 adopted grand daughters have birthdays! I don't know where the time has flown, thats for sure. Today is Clarissa's birthday and she is FOUR! Abby's birthday is Thursday and she'll be THREE! It is so amazing to me that these little girls are 3 & 4 this year. It must have been just yesterday that Clarissa was turning ONE and Abby wasn't even born yet. I know I just blinked my eyes and 3 years have passed. Seems that all our grandsons have had this same thing happen to them. One minute they were little bitty tikes and now they are Handsome Young Men. All 8 of them! Our little Kaitlyn Rose is also growing. Her mom reported that she has graduated from preemie clothes to 1-3 month clothes. I'm getting antsy to go see Kaitlyn and be her nanny for a month! It's a sad time...hard to leave Tom behind for a month, but exciting to go see the new baby and spend time with Aaron's family.

We got to tell Abby and Clarissa Happy Birthday on the phone today! Thanks Angie for calling! We love and miss you all very much!

New Baby!!!! A Grand DAUGHTER!!!!

This morning at Midnight our little Kaitlyn Rose entered the world. She weighed in at 5 pounds 13 ounces and is 18 inches long. Proud parents are Aaron & Cara and the proud brothers are Lane & Brendan. It's at times like this that it is SO hard being SO far away. It will be hard waiting until the end of February to see her! Thank goodness for instant photos sent hundreds of miles in a few seconds!

We are so excited for the new addition to our family!!! Thank goodness we have experience with our 2 adopted grand daughters, Clarissa and Abby...or we wouldn't know what to do with a GIRL... after FOUR grandsons, this will be an interesting and fun change.

What have we been doing?

It's been quite a while since I posted anything. I don't know where this year has gone! This time last year we were in Michigan busy packing up our house for a hopeful job and move to Georgia. Today I'm finishing up the inside Christmas decorations. We got to have Lane come visit for a few days before Thanksgiving. We celebrated his birthday a few days late. It was pretty nasty weather most of the time that Lane was here. We got lots of computer time in, of course. We went shopping and played ball in the front yard. In October we got to have friends from Michigan come spend a few days with us. Thanks for coming Gena & Phil. Then the next weekend we got a surprise visit from John, Sue, Julia, Lily & Shaun. They stopped for a sleep over on their way to Disney World, then on their way back we met them for dinner. It was great!

The weather in Georgia has been crazy lately,from very chilly to kinda warm, sunny to lots of rain. I've never lived anywhere where you may have the heat on in the morning and the air conditioner on in the afternoon.

We both stay busy with our church callings. Tom stays busier than he'd like to be at work and our lives go on.

How are you?
Michele

What we did today!

Well...it was new car time. The lease was up on our Envoy. We have been looking around for a new car for awhile now. After 9 years of leasing vehicles, we decided we should purchase this vehicle so we will be almost payment free by the time Tom retires once again. SO....This is what we came up with. It is a 2009 (2010 Vue's aren't out yet) Saturn Vue. The color is called TechnoGray. Cool! It's great to drive, I could hardly keep my lead foot under 80 MPH. We are excited about the new addition to our family.

Mini Vacation to New Hampshire

I don't know where the summer has gone! It's almost August. It is still plenty HOT in Georgia, but thankfully I can stay inside in the air conditioned house! We got to go to New Hampshire from July 17 until July 21. Tom's sister Jean got married on Saturday, July 18. All of Tom's siblings were there and most of the nieces and nephews were also there. It was wonderful seeing Jean on CLOUD 9! Her hubby Russ seems like a very nice guy. We stayed at Fifield Inn (as always) John, Sue, Julia, Lily and Shaun always make us feel right at home. Tom's sister Mary, and her daughter, Molly also stayed with us at the Fifield Inn. We love getting to spend time with them. Tom's cousin Mary and her hubby Angelo from Scottsdale, AZ also flew over for the wedding and we got to spend a good portion of our time there with them. On Sunday,the 4 of us went to Hampton Beach where we met up with Jean & Russ and chatted with them for a few minutes. It was Mary's first time back to the beach in about 30 years. Tom & I love to eat seafood at Alan's, it's right off the beach and we can enjoy the water while we eat. Monday we got to spend the day with John, Sue, Julia, Lily and Shaun. We went over to the river where Sue's parents live...they all enjoyed sliding down the slide into the river, and I enjoyed watching them have fun in the water. Then it was off to the ice skating rink where the kids had skating lessons...I enjoyed the cool air in the skating rink. Like I mentioned, it was a mini vacation...we didn't get to stay for long...but we packed fun and adventure in the few days we had. It's nice to be able to hop a plane and be somewhere else in a few hours.

Thanks John, Sue, Julia, Lily and Shaun for letting us come visit! Good luck Jean & Russ!

Photos of our 2 oldest grandsons!

I finally got some NEW photos of Kacy & Kyler, they are Jason's sons. Their mom texted these photos to me...and thanks to my 13 year old neice teaching me how to send cell photos to the computer...I got them here. You just HAVE to love modern technology! =) I'm SO excited to have some new photos of the boys!


Kacy & Kyler


Kacy


Kyler


Kyler & his cousin

Michigan Trip

We headed to Michigan on May 14 and got to stay until May 18. What a great time we had! We were priviledged to get to stay with our adopted family...the Roger's. It was SO wonderful to get to spend time with them! We also got to go see Steve graduate from Michigan State College of Law. Heather also graduated, but didn't walk. It was great getting to spend time with him and his fiance, Heather. Graduation was Friday afternoon and then we got to go to dinner with Steve and Heather and a few other invited guests. Then on Sunday we were invited to a Sunday Brunch hosted by Steve's mom.

Thursday we spent with the Rogers and had a birthday party for Aaron and Danny.

Friday was Graduation up in Lansing.

Saturday we went over to the Jewell's house and surprised them...They had NO idea we were in town. Doug was smiles from ear to ear and Dinah was just beside herself. I'm glad we got to stop and see them. We also dropped in on the Brumbaugh's and spent a bit of time catching up with them and just enjoying the visit. Then it was back to Roger's house for an afternoon of just hanging out. Saturday nite we enjoyed dinner with the Richardson's.

Sunday was brunch at the Gandy Dancer in Ann Arbor. Then we ran down to Blissfield to spend an hour with our good friend Cil. We missed the chance to get over to the Hansen's house and spend time with them. That was the saddest part of all. But we did see Jenny, Paxton and Dana on Saturday and Thayne and Shelby at Church on Sunday.

Monday was our last day in Michigan. We spent it with Angie and the girls. Angie had flown to Utah for her sister's wedding on Friday and got home late on Sunday. So we made the most of the time we had with her. Lunch on Monday was at Logan's. Matt came over from work, it was a great lunch! Then later on Monday we went to Haab's in downtown Ypsi for an early dinner with friends from the VVA. John & Jane Kinzinger, Phil & Gena Hecker and Roy Hall all joined us for a quick bite to eat before we flew back to Georgia.

It was a quick trip, but very enjoyable. We missed seeing many people, but are very thankful for those that we did get to see. It is so nice to be able to hop a plane and be back in Michigan in under 2 hours. Even though I really hate the hassle of flying, it sure was wonderful to get there quickly!

Happy Birthday DAD!!!

Today is my Dad's Birthday! I hope you had a good day Dad!

Love you very much!
Michele

Blog vs Facebook

I just wanted to comment on these two things. When I started this blog, I don't really know what I expected. I've really enjoyed doing the blog, even though I really don't care to write. Makes no sense, I know. It has forced me to practice writing out my thoughts and events happening around me. So that is good! The one thing that has really disappointed me about the blog, is that there really was not alot of feedback, or maybe feedback just didn't seem to come as quickly as I'd hoped? I don't know. So that has been the one drawback of a blog.

Now, on to Facebook...I'm HOOKED!!! I spend way to much time playing Farm Town on FB. The difference between FB and a blog, is that you have almost instantaneous comments from any number of people on FB. It really is NICE! AND, you can also have conversations with people from all over the world. That is what is really nice. Even my dad is on FB now. And I got to type to him one night. That was really fun!

Last Sunday while Dawn was still in Utah, we even got to chat (type) for almost an hour. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with her and catching up.

SO? While blogs are nice for writing history type things...facebook is like an instant message quickly! They both take time and I'm really glad that I have that time!

How is everything in your corner of the world?
Michele