Valentine Pictures

The girls love the dresses Grandma sent them!

(Flowers are from Daddy)

Pat and Nancy @ Belvoir

Pat and Nancy visited us Nov 25-Nov 29

Oakley was sooooo excited for them to be here. She and Grandpa spent a lot of time in the play house. Probably more time than I've ever spent in that house. In my defense it is very hot and uncomfortable. Thanks for being a good sport Grandpa!

 And Nancy saved my bacon on Thanksgiving. What the  heck do you do with a 30lb turkey? I was kind of freaking out. But it turned out really good. And we fed the whole neighborhood with leftovers. 

AND Pat and Nancy did all the dishes!! Who are these people?

The whole crew. We had some neighbors over for the feast. 

Gwamma and Gwampa!

And the next sequence of photos pretty much sums up our activities while the kids were awake. Non. Stop.

And while the kids were asleep:

We ventured into DC and waited in a very long and VERY cold line to see the train display at the botanical gardens, which was cool, but maybe not worth the wait. We also checked out the American Indian Museum. Also cool but the "show" in which the modern-day Indians walked around in a circle for half an hour left us for want of.... something. I don't know. It was lacking. But the museum part was cool. 

 

This Lincoln Memorial is made completely out of natural materials! Sticks and bark and acorns and stuff like that.

And I'm happy to report that Pat walked away unscathed!

Gwampa Photos from Nov 14 Reunion

Once again I am constrained to working captions. Here are some of the photos I got (or were taken by others with my camera while I was off checking out the local health facilities). Hope you enjoy--in no good order--just glad I got them to upload at all!

I believe this was the last photo taken by my (Gwampa) hand prior to the Big Fall. I hope my disaster did not traumatize anyone; if Caroline is any indicator I don't think my injury was much of a damper for anyone (Ben "what happened to Grampa?" Caroline "he fell down" Ben "where did he fall down?" Caroline "where the red stuff is" Ben "what's the red stuff" Caroline (without batting an eye) "blood")

The girls were very impressed with the Disney parade of princesses and characters--including the fire breathing dragon.

Preparing for the birthday candidates--Ben and Wendy.

Happy Birthday to Wendy and Ben--it's great to be 22 again.

Back at the Magic Kingdom, the little ones trying to get the sword out of the stone--we'd just watched the movie prior to going to the park that day so it seems they were inspired to check it out.

Resting up after the Lion King show in the Animal Kingdom--actually it was lunch time so James and Ryan were definitely interested.

The girls working on their Animal Kindom badge workbooks--the boys couldn't have cared less.

Preparing to move out--Katie always the political activist (and trashed hand treatment specialist, thankfully).

We got permission to hold church with out family--a rare opportunity for a dad and grampa to preside over one of these events. We are so grateful to you all for making the effort to come to church that day--all the travel and expense. It will be a fond memory for this Grampa for many years.

Steve got the worst of it on the wild river raft ride (or whatever it's called)--in fact, though it's hard to see because it was dark and he had the shakes from the cold, Steve it actually completely soaked from socks to noggin. I thought he'd just fallen out of the raft.

Thanks to Bethany the children always had some project going when things slowed down.

Which is the real Grumpy?

James did not seem to enjoy being locked up with Zurg as much as his cousins. Looks like Jack is explaining the finer points of the Zurg situation to Caroline.



We tried to line up the grandchildren in numerical order--with numbers showing . . . and



. . . and from the front--sorry i did not get Ryan in this one but i think some others of you got some better shots of this photo. What a handsome group!!

I took this one to show Emily reading to the group from a book that apparently did not pique interest in the other girls . . . as they slowly drifted off to other pursuits, Emily was apparently oblivious and pressed on with her reading aloud.

And Uncle Steve was always good for a reading aloud.

Oakley never did explain what was going on here--she was tying a pair of her pants around Steve's head. We hope the next step was not to have him negotiate the stairs--that sort of stuff is reserved for Grampa.



We did watch one Barbie vs the Flying Sorcerer (or something like that) movie that seemed to capture attention.





. . . the attention of most, but not all . . .




The major award winners from the Like Minds tournament. Note neither Gramma or Grampa are among them as they are always poor performers in that game--or maybe they knew what the prizes were going to be and just threw the game.



We also visited Hollywood Studios where we got to see Belle do her thing and also saw the Frozen show. They got Hailey able to go on her first 'thrill' ride in the Tower of Terror and she was from all appearances completely unfazed by the experience. Moving this crew enmass was a real accomplishment--thanks to all for your patience and good humor throughout!

As usual, when things get quiet it's time to start checking. Gramma caught Ryan with his hand in the Nutella jar--up to his elbow--with a big grin on his face even when caught!



And the pool was great once heated up--a good time was had by all. Thank you again for your willingness to get together. Gramma and I are already talking about how we can do something like this again with you all.