Day One

The day actually started out early as Meysa got up to make sure she didn't miss the good bye! Aimee headed out the door at 4:30 and Meysa and I went back to bed until 6am. After breakfast, it was time to tackle the girls' hair. Not sure I will ever get good at this but the girls do tolerate Grandma's efforts! Here are the before/after shots!

Not too bad, if I do say so myself! Just don't ask how long Lauryn had to sit still! Good thing she doesn't tell time yet!!!

Then it was Meysa's turn! She was really cute and kept telling me "grandma, you aren't doing this right. I guess Mom needed to show you how!"

This little girl is so photogenic and her hair could have looked really bad and still it would be a great picture! Her parents are going to have gray hairs when this little one is a teenager!

During Wyatt's nap, we painted toes and fingers! It was fun and I was much better at this than the hair stuff!

We have a craft project for every day while Mom and Dad are gone. Today's fun was with FLOAM. This concoction is a mixture of modeling clay and foam. It was crazy stuff to work with and we are wondering how it's all going to turn out!

After dinner it was popcorn and Monsters vs Aliens! Baths have been taken, jammies are on, blankets are in tow and we are enjoying ourselves! As I type this all is quiet and everyone but me is asleep. Time for a bath and some reading!

When Mom and Dad are away...

Grandma gets to come and play! Ryan and Aimee have decided to take a much-deserved, much needed break to Hawaii and I have the privelege of spoiling (now did I really say that?!) 4 grandkids. I'm sure we will have a blast and Mom and Dad will come back refreshed and I will go home....tired but blessed! More to come on day one.......
Mr. Wyatt

Mr. Ayden

Miss Meysa

Miss Lauryn

This is the before picture......what can I say but these are great looking kids..no bias here!

Now what?

I do believe I need to be better about heeding my nudgings! A couple of days ago, I was working on updating my checkbook in Quicken and checked my email. In one of them was an article about backing up your computer's data with a company called Carbonite. I decided I should investigate it as I have over 6,000 pictures stored on my computer and external hard drive. Well, I didn't do that and continued to work on my documents. It wasn't but 20 minutes later and my entire screen became very pixelated and the computer shut down. I restarted in safe mode, discovered my files and pictures were still intact and sighed a big sigh of relief. I have told Greg in case of a fire, grab the hard drives, computer and dog and get out!!!!! I can replace everything else, but not my family or pictures. So having my pictures still on the computer has given me smiles :D.

So off to Geek Squad I go - they now have my computer! It will be over 3 weeks before I get it back and I will have to reinstall ALL of my programs (maybe this will be my incentive for CS3!!) (Sorry Aimee, but I'm grieving!!! He, he!)

If I had backed up my stuff online, I would have only had my computer in the shop for about 2 weeks (guess it's not a simple fix for a video/graphics card replacement in a laptop!) and been back in business. Plus I wouldn't have had to pay $$$$ to have them pull the data off the hard drive before they opened it up.

Since I spend a considerable amount of my evenings on my computer with my photoshop program, I keep asking myself "Now what do I do???!!!!" Stay tuned!!

And these.....

are a few of my favorite things!

• Taking pictures of fall colors
• Spending time with my son and his wife
• Laughing and sharing stories!

This is the arboretum at the University of Idaho. Unfortunately, the hard freeze during the previous week really ruined the trees; they are just going to turn brown and not the brilliant fall colors they usually are!

Andy's favorite pastime - watching wildlife....in this case the ducks! This is a familiar pose with him. Watcha thinking????

These ducks were hilarious as we watched them frolic in the pond. It was an afternoon of laughter!

Andy and Teresa sitting by the tree...love this!

It really was a fun weekend, but way too short.....thanks for a great time, Andy and Teresa!

Proud to be called....

Grandma and Mom! I had the privilege of helping to take family pictures for Ryan and Aimee! I love spending time with them and their family. The best part of having my boys is enjoying them as adults and being a grandma....I truly believe God made me a mom so I could be a grandma!!!! Now I know what I want to be when I grow up!

Harvest...then clean up!

Once again, it was harvest time and this is the final picking of our bounty. Some things did well; others not so well. It was pretty disappointing to not have good peppers this year; guess we'll try them in a different spot next year!

After picking, comes the clean-up! Lucky for us, our neighbor has a nice trailer we could stuff with our mess and haul off to the compost place. It was nice to be done with it all in one trip.

As much as Rusty likes being outdoors while we work, we wondered what the heck he might be thinking as he watched us clean up! He cracks us up!

Always flying!

Late in September, our community celebrates the Hops and Heritage Festival. There are lots of activities and visitors to our small town and it really is something! The local balloonists turn out in force - this year there were 4 of them - to fly on Saturday morning. After we stuffed ourselves on pancakes we spent some time just admiring these large flying objects. What fun!