Easter 2012

I spent Easter with my daughter and her family.  We had a nice ham dinner (I'm not a fan of ham, but it was actually really good) and then we all went outside for an Easter egg hunt.  It was a pretty warm day out, and so beautiful.  One of the adults hid the eggs and we let the little ones search for them first, and when they were done the adults found the rest of them.  My youngest granddaughter was funny because she kept going up to her uncle and saying she wanted more eggs, and she would reach into his sack and take his.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see my other kids or my grandson for Easter, but I will get to see them all very soon. Yay!  We did do face time on my phone so I could see and talk to my son, grandson and daughter-in-law.  My grandson is two years old and he gave me some kisses and a big hug by wrapping his arms around the ipad (lol).  He also counted for me, sang the alphabet song, and danced to a couple of songs.  He takes after me...loves to dance!  It's so cute how he says, "I love you, Nana"...always adds Nana at the end.

Here are my granddaughters in their Easter dresses.

So cute...she's sharing her sucker with her sister.

The little one has so much hair and it's always covering her face.  She had a barret in but took it out.

There's her face!

Counting their eggs...

Oh where, oh where did the little eggs go...

Somebody is tired.  I think she had a little too much candy.

The girls were actually pretty darn good at finding the eggs.

Here's my daughter with her daughters!

And here I am with my granddaughters.

 

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Another Trip to California

I made another trip to California to visit my son and his family.  I took this picture of the salf flats as we were landing.  From up in the sky they look so colorful and like a beautiful work of art.

The main reason for going to California was to babysit my grandson while my son went to work, since my daughter-in-law was heading out to Colorado to ice climb.  Yeah, sounds scary doesn't it?  We all got to spend some time together before she left.  I'm happy to say, she made it home safe and sound.

My friend from high school stopped by with her husband and son and we went to the Fish Restaurant by the wharf in Sausalito.  Here's me with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.

   Here's the rest of the gang while we were waiting for our food.

My grandson is such a happy little boy.  He's very inquisitive, knows his alphabet and numbers, loves puzzles, books, and Super Y (which I knew nothing about before, but sure do now!).  He sleeps in a twin sized bed now and still loves to be read to every night.   

 I love this little guy so much.  He was so cute at the airport when he broke away from my son's arms and ran to me as soon as he saw me coming through the gate.  He was calling out to me...nana...nana!  It melted my heart.

Elmo Birthday Party

I recently went to California to celebrate my grandson's 2nd birthday.  It had been a few months since I've seen my son and his family and it was a long anticipated trip.  When my daughter-in-law picked me up at the airport, my grandson was looking at me from the back seat of the car and said, "Nana".  It sure made me smile. :)  I got in the car and gave him a big hug and a kiss, and a present, and couldn't take my eyes off him the whole way home.

Here is my grandson watching Elmo on his daddy's phone. 

I was there to see my grandson get his first haircut.  Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience for him! 

After the haircut, we went out for dinner and my grandson got to ride the train at the mall.

My son's a video game producer and one day soon, his son will be playing this game with him. We went to my son's work one day and my grandson loves to ride the elevator when he gets there.  As soon as he stepped off the elevator he started calling...daddy...daddy...daddy!  He got everyone's attention as they looked out of their offices and said 'Hi' to him.  Every corner he turned and down every hall, he called for his daddy. It was so cute.  My son said he heard him as soon as we got off the elevator.  

Party time!  You should have seen his face when my daughter-in-law came home with the Elmo birthday cake and balloons.  He was bursting with excitement!

He loves Elmo!

I love this little guy!  He's such a happy, good-natured little boy. 

We went for a hike up Mt. Burdell.  There were some incredible views up there.

Can't wait til the next time!

It All Started in Eighth Grade

I can't believe I am 55 years old! The past 43 years have flown by, just like my 8th grade social studies teacher told us would happen on our first day back to school after summer break.  He asked us if we thought summer vacation went by fast.  Pretty much everyone nodded their heads in agreement.  He then went on to tell us something that would stick with me for the rest of my life.  He said that the next two years of junior high school are going to go by very quickly, and we will suddenly find ourselves a half foot taller and sitting in a high school classroom.  Then before we know it, we will be walking across the stage at graduation, wondering where the years went.  When he said those words, I remember feeling kind of sad.  I thought, well, this is just HIS opinion.  I vowed that I will be different...I won't let that happen to me, I will make time go by slowly.  I didn't want to grow up and graduate already.  I was still just a kid!  My social studies teacher was a middle aged man, obviously a smart man in my eyes, and he had experience in this matter because of his age.  He went on to say that as we get older, life will seem to go by even faster with each passing year.  Boy, was he right.  I walked out of the classroom that day with the intention of proving him wrong.  Unfortunately, before I knew it, I was standing on stage at graduation waiting for my name to be called, and I realized my social studies teacher was right on.  And here I am now, just a few short years later, and I'm already 55.

First year of high school.

Halloween and Other Stuff

I packed up the leftovers from my yard sale last Saturday and called Big Brother's Big Sisters because they are scheduled to drive through our neighborhood this week. I made a little cash, and donated the rest. Saturday night I went to a Halloween party and I'll post a few pictures of that, along with some pictures of my grandkids in their costumes. I went trick-or-treating with my granddaughters on Monday night. The weather here is great now, and I love it! I got my new 4S iphone in the mail and got that going the other day. It has a cool feature, called Siri, which is like a personal assistant. I've been experimenting with what Siri can do the past couple of days. You just press a button on your phone and give voice commands.  Siri will even type a message or text for you, and send it. I'm not really into the newest gadgets and apps, etc., but this IS pretty cool. I haven't taken any video with my phone yet, which I'm sure I will be doing this upcoming weekend for my grandson's 2nd birthday. Tonight I went to a polical fundraising event at my neighbor's house. His friend is mayoral candidate, Greg Stanton. There were lots of people there, and lots of food, and lots of wine! My kind of party! Tomorrow I have an early morning flight to California to see my son and daughter-in-law and grandson. As I mentioned earlier, my grandson is having a birthday, and I wouldn't miss it for the world!    

Ramblings

I am joining forces with my neighbors this Saturday and doing what I thought I would never want to do again, which is, have a garage sale. I spent the past two days getting out everything I didn't want and tossing it in the garage, where tomorrow we will tag and set up everything.  I hope it's worth it! When I wasn't getting stuff ready for the sale, I was doing yard work.  The weather has cooled somewhat, which made the task much more tolerable.  Because I was doing a lot of bending over, my legs got a little sore, and I was feeling the stiffness in Zumba class tonight.  We did something different, in honor of Halloween, and we learned the dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller song.  It worked out good for me since I was feeling kind of stiff!  I don't believe I've ever done that dance before, and it was a lot of fun.  Everyone made pretty good zombies! lol  I am tired, but before I head to bed, I'll post this beautiful picture I took of the clouds...............  Goodnight!

                                              

Oh...Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun!

My granddaughters were over for a few hours today and one of their favorite things to do is pretend they are talking on the phone. Then we watched 5 episodes of Dora (in between, I caught some TV coverage of Hurricane Irene). We painted 'ningernails', did this little piggy 8 times...twice on each girl's toes, played ball, ring around the rosie, colored, played matching game, read a story, rough housed, tickled, counted, cleaned up spilled milk, washed crayon marks off the chair, wiped a runny nose, played with necklaces and tiaras and little people toys, and ate breakfast, twice, oh and we can't forget that poopy diaper! Nana's tired. But I wouldn't trade it for the world!

They are 3 and 1 1/2 years old.  It just amazes me how much kids at this age know, and how quickly they learn.  It is so fun talking to them and watching them.  I find myself smiling all the time.  Well, most of the time!

Back In Chicago Again!

I've been staying with my daughter in Chicago for the past week and driving to the suburbs every day (except Saturday) to go visit my mom. The drive takes anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half each way, but it's worth it to see my mom. And boy, is she happy to see me!  Almost as happy as I am to see her. It's been great being with my daughter, too. We've been doing the typical things we do when I am here...shop, work out, run along the lakeshore, and work out in the fitness room.  My daughter is really into fitness and I am too, but I usually slack off when I'm 'on vacation'.   My daughter still likes to take her mom out, so we went out for a cocktail one night. We almost didn't get anywhere though because all the cabs were being hogged by the Lollapalooza crowd. In a couple of days I'll be driving to the Quad Cities to visit more family and friends. I will be staying at my sister's house for 3 nights.  She and her husband are selling their house and it may be the last time I get to see it. 

This job is not for the weak stomach.  No, it's not Spiderman!  I don't know how these guys can be up so high, just dangling from a cable.  He was on the 13th floor here.

Here's my wonderful mom.

I could stand to see this view everyday on my jogs...well, except for the cold winter days.

Like our shirts?

My daughter works in the Unitrin building.  If you saw the Transformer III movie, you will recognize the building next to it.  One of the highlights of last year was when they blocked off the streets and filmed the movie. 

Of all the photos I've taken in Chicago, I don't think I've ever taken one from this vantage point. 

With my youngest daughter. 

Here I am with my mom and two of my sisters...

I see this view everyday when I drive back to the city from visiting my mom.  I took this picture because I liked how the sun was reflecting off the buildings.

The streets and sidewalks were filled with people for the Lollapalooza music festival.