Trips to Chicago and Lafayette

Two wonderful weekends - Courtney's patriarchal blessing and Cole's baptism were reasons for travel and so enjoyed being with kids & grandkids. We were so pleased that Pat & Amber were able to stop to pick up Mom on their way to the baptism and John (alias "Uncle Truck") went with Harry, Levi, Natalie, and I. It was a great time.

More Grandkids - Visit

More Grandkids

We had Chuck & Amy's kids for a couple days while they took a short "no kids" trip for their anniversary. As always there's no getting around playing in the garden when you come to grandpa's house.

The Joys of Summer

We've had a wonderful summer - a week with grandkids here. Levi's 6th birthday celebration. No pics, but I spent a week at Hugh & Shanna's in North Carolina with Katie & Leo while Simon underwent a successful operation to repair a hole in his heart.

Harry, Hal and Tyler did a major project of pulling up our brick sidewalk out back that was overgrown with weeds and widened and reset the walkway with a weed barrier and sand underneath. It's great - adds so much to the back garden path.

We had to do another chocolate fountain while all the kids were here and Pat & Amber brought a slip 'n slide that the kids loved.

The kids worked hard weeding & thinning the garden and we put in a good sized pumpkin patch by laying down newspapers and then covering it with good topsoil. They are up and growing already. Good work kids!

Chocolate Fountain

We tried out our chocolate fountain yesterday.  I bought it on Christmas clearance 2 years ago and never had the courage or ambition to try it until yesterday.  Yes, it was fun and yes, it was messy but worth it.  Our friend Brittney joined in the fun.  Sam's comment said it all, "I happy."

Andrew and Sabrina

We were glad we had the chance to go to Marquette last weekend for Andrew and Sabrina's wedding.  Here are a couple of photos of the wedding to prove we ventured into the UP.  It was a beautiful wedding.

Griffin is ONE - and Loves Cake

Annual Easter Egg Hunt

As in most years, we had our annual Easter Egg hunt.  With more grandkids each year, the event starts to take on new proportions.  This year I numbered all of the 150 plastic eggs and George devised the plan for hiding the eggs.  He, Bump and Pat had maps George had prepared from aerial views on Google (though a little outdated) and each of them had a group of numbered eggs and an assigned area to hide them in.  Kids were released in waves by age (youngest first, of course) to scour the backyard for the eggs.  After the tally, we were missing one "golden egg" (with money inside) and about 3 other eggs.  The kids did a final search and found the missing golden egg after much hunting.  Tyler came up with M2 and the $10 for his efforts.   Harry gave some "rules" which we expected nobody to follow.  They were not "serious" rules but some of the kids took it to heart.  Things like, "If you see some eggs that are really easy to find, just leave them there so that Uncle John can find them."  We had to dispel that rule and encourage the kids to pick up the ones out in plain sight by the house.  Nice to see such principled grandkids.  The kids were also encouraged to make up their own rules.  Logan said that nobody should take eggs out of someone else's basket and all agreed that was a good rule.  

Pat and Amber needed to leave Saturday late afternoon, but the rest stayed overnight and we took up a whole bench at church.  George stayed home with Seth who had some major intestinal issues so we were missing a few.  I would have to say "a good time was had by all."  I would also say that grandpa and I were so tired that we took a 2 hour nap late afternoon yesterday after everyone had departed.  I am not used to that level of activity and I guess it's a sign of getting old.

Signs of Spring

The Birds Have Returned

The Gold Cart is Alive and Well

Kensi and the Crocuses

The Year of the Seed Starting