Some of my favorite people!

We've been busy with family, and I haven't posted for awhile, but was downloading some pictures. Here are some of my favorite from the past few months:

Katie (5-28)

Jack is cool! (5-28)

Beniah (5-25)

...not a people, but I like this pic of one of our roses.

Beniah in the bathtub...

Beniah and Donny sharing a bath

Beniah and Donny

Donny meeting our big old doll (6-5-09)

More coming.....

We love being grandparents!!

We just had the most wonderful beach trip with our family -- all of our kids and their families! 3 days and 2 nights of fun and chaos, laughter and sleeplessness, silliness and love!! The weather was beautiful, so we were able to enjoy being outside, but we also had two great houses to use while we were there -- all 19 of us.

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Here we are with our grandchildren -- a rare photo opportunity since one of them lives in Singapore. Most of the family hasn't seen Aaron since he was 4 months old, and after he and his mom and dad go back home, it will be a long time again. How fun it has been to get to spend time with him and get to know him.

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All of these little ones are so precious, and we are enjoying each of them. From left to right, there is Beniah (Timmy's) -- 7 months old; Donny (Kim's) -- 24 months old; Evie (Kim's) -- 2.5 months old; Katie (Beth's) 17 months old; Jack (Beth's) -- 3 yrs, 6 mo; Aaron (Danny's) 3 yrs, 4 mo.

Home Sweet Home --- finally!

We are happy to say that we are finally in our new home!! After being told the closing date would be March 27, it didn't really finalize so that we could move in until April 15. We had moved out of our apartment on March 31, and camped out at Kim's house for the interim period.
Here are some pictures that will show you a little of what we're enjoying:

A lovely English garden in front.

A view of Mt. St. Helens from our living room.

Here are Donny and his "Papa" enjoying our deck on a warm day.

the living room with lots of windows, looking out at trees and nice landscaping.

We still have hundreds of boxes in the garage to be sorted and settled where they belong (some to go away forever we hope! We have too much stuff!!) But the house itself seems fairly settled and is ready for company. So do come!!

Timmy and his wife Heather and little Beniah are living in the daylight basement for the next year or two, and they, too are working on getting settled.

I just want to say that it's nice to finally have a home again!

The Grandchildren

Here are some recent pictures of our 6 precious grandchildren. We are so blessed! And we're so enjoying each of the little ones. We only wish we could see Aaron more often!

Everlyn Holly Rose Shire - born April 1, 2009 (Kim's)

Beniah - now 5 months old (Timmy's)

Katie - now 15 months old (Beth's)

Donny - now 22 months old (Kim's)

Aaron - our Singapore boy was 3 in February (Danny's)

Jack was 3 last December (Beth's)







Like father, like son!! (Timmy and Beniah)

Comparing 15 month old Katie and 5 month old Beniah -- not a lot of difference -- except that Katie is more petite.

Katie, Beth, Jack, Beniah and Timmy

Beth and Auntie Jo with the little ones

It's a Girl!!

Everlyn Holly Rose Shire joined our family today!! She was born to Kim and Andy Shire at 12:36 on April 1, 2009. She weighed in at 5 lb, 9 oz, and was 18 inches long, and as you can see from the following pictures, she is as cute as can be!! We now have 2 grand-daughters and 4 grandsons -- all very precious!

Daddy Andy and his little girl

Big brother, Donny. He wasn't as thrilled as the rest of us.... He was more interested in the equipment in the room and running in the halls than he was in his little sister. He doesn't know that his life has just changed drastically!

Auntie Jo holding her sweet neice.

Grandma Marie and Grandpa Jim

This is the house....

I thought it was time I put some pictures of the house we're buying on here for all of you who are wondering about it. If things go as planned, we will be closing the deal on March 27 and could be moving that week-end. Right now it appears that it's going to happening, but there is still a chance that something might happen to delay or stop it.

here is the front of the house -- carport on the left and entry way through a sun porch.
a very nice deck looks over the back yard.

sunporch...

living room

this is the family room in the daylight basement.




the door with the flowers is the door to the...

Bomb shelter! (It makes a good storage room, as well as a topic of interest).

The carport and garage (which we plan to close in and make a room out of).

So there you have it. We think it will be a good place for us, with plenty of room for our family to visit and be comfortable, and space for overnight guests, etc.

Do come visit once we get settled.

We'll keep you posted on how things go.

Birthdays are for the Birds!!

For my birthday this year, we went to Long Beach for a night. I love the beach, and though it was very cold out there, we had to go walk on the beach for at least a little while. This first picture should have told me something.... even the seagulls were all 'hunkered down' because of the cold!

There was a flock of hundreds of birds hovering near the edge of the waves. We enjoyed watching the patterns of flight they made.

I tried to join the flock, but they rejected my friendship and removed themselves from my advances.

It was SOOOO cold!! Here I am with only my eyes showing, and I was still freezing! It was the wind chill factor that got us. We didn't stay out very long. The interesting thing was that we could drive on the beach, so after returning to the car, we drove out where we had been walking, and found it a lot more comfortable!!

After a nice dinner we went back to the motel room and settled in to watch a movie. It was just starting when the electricity went out -- and stayed out for about 45 minutes. Luckily I had my flashlight and Jim had his computer to add light to the room. we were glad when the lights came back on before we were ready for bed because we were envisioning everything coming on in the middle of the night and waking us. We did get to watch the movie after all.

On Friday morning it was kind of rainy over there, so we did a little shopping in Long Beach gift shops, then headed home. But on the way we met Kathy at Longview and she treated me to lunch for my birthday. Nice!