New Year's Visitors

Oliver was getting ready to go back home to Des Moines, Washington when I took these pictures.  They spent 3 days driving from Gilbert, Arizona to our house after spending Christmas with the Glaus family.  They rested a full day and then packed up and went on home.  Oliver is holding a little teaching clock that we gave him.  I told him to smile big and he did the bat boy look.  We tried it again.  He is a fun kid.

I Like Surprise Visits

Today Traci came to Oregon City to visit with her sister, Cyndi who is moving tomorrow to San Diego, California.  They surprised me by calling and then coming over to visit for about an hour.  Kaleb came and Tag Grossnickle, his cousin.  Cyndi brought little Jaiden, too.  It was a very nice hour and it could have lasted longer and it would have been fine by me.  The new kids to our place got to see the singing snowman.  Jaiden and Tag got to wonder if they liked the dog or not.  Rose was a good girl for them.

How Many Ways to Say Rain

The weather forecaster has lots of ways to say rain these days: rain, showers, scattered showers, 90% chance of rain, etc.  I'm snug and cozy in the house, though I did go out this morning.  It's just a good day to stay inside.  Where are my neighbors and their big motor home?  They left yesterday for 4 months to go down south. Hopefully not to California or they are going to be disappointed.  Rose still wants to go outside, though.  She goes to the door, looks out,  turns around and goes and lays down. 

More of the Cutest

Here are the cutest 8 grandkids you could ever see.  I know, you think your kids/grandkids are the cutest . . .

Josie

I can't believe we didn't take any pictures of Josie or her parents while they were here.  We did get a professional portrait done, though.  Isn't she the cutest?  I'll post the pictures we got of all the kids together.  They are also the cutest.

Holiday Happiness

Family was abundant at Thanksgiving.  We visited, cooked, ate and shopped for Christmas--it was so much fun. I loved the time spent together and getting to know Josie much better.  I can still hear her singing in the car while we were driving.  What a joyful, generous little spirit she is. 

Then they go home, and it's too quiet.   We did make a fast trip to Joy's to celebrate Oliver's birthday.  He was so much fun.  We went with them to their ward Christmas Party, and he wore his Christmas pajamas since SisterMoberly wanted all the kids to wear them if they could.  He had one party after the other and was excited about it all.  We spent Christmas Eve with Heidi's fun family.

We did make some Gingerbread houses, and the girls modeled their Christmas pajamas.  

The Wednesday before Christmas, all the grandkids who live here spent the night with me.  Kaleb spent the afternoon with Papa while the girls and I saw, "Tangled".  It was a chick flick: we were all crying and oohing over the romantic hero.  We came home, ate pizza, and all piled into the car to see Christmas lights.  The girls asked me to turn on the radio and they sang along to Chrismas songs.  They sing very well, even Kaleb.   When we were looking at the last of the lights, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" came on and Elizabeth said, "That's the perfect song." 

Grandma loves having the grandkids over.

Family Reunion and Moved Again

We got back from Missouri. We had a great time with Dale coming for about 4 days, and then all of us going down near Branson to a spot on Bull Creek in Taney County where the Meadows Schoolhouse is. We turned off of a highway and it looked to me like it was where 3 long driveways converged. It was all slighty uphill. We were following Willard who had already turned around about 4 times. He stopped his car in the middle of the 3 dirt "driveways" and said, "I can't remember if we take this road (pointing left) or that one (pointing right). The sign just said "Goodnight Hollow". We went to the right and lo and behold, once we went up the hill we were on a regular road. We were looking for a "low water bridge". Willard said if we saw that, we were in the right place. We did see it and we also saw that the other road that went to the left came to the same place, so it didn't matter which road we took. We crossed the bridge and went a ways more and came to the schoolhouse and cemetery. The family was already gathering. Esther had a wonderful time seeing the nephews and cousins. There were about 25 people that came,since it was not an official reunion. That will be in 2012. Esther said she could look down the road where it curved and the trees obscured our view of anything beyond and just imagine her home there. It is where she was born and lived in her younger years. She did not want to drive down there because she was afraid it would be different than her memory. I doubt it from what I saw. It seemed unchanged and it was lovely there.

Esther had one day to rest when we got home and then yesterday afternoon and evening we moved her to Vineyard Place. She is now in apartment 126 and she loves it. I can't remember ever seeing her happier. It did my heart good.