Grandma's Big Birthday

The beginning of 2010 my Mother, Carol, officially retired from her job with GE ReInsurance. She's been enjoying the time off by catching up on some projects around the house, creating more of her beautiful art work and portraits and I'm sure driving Ray insane...

Last week Mom had that big birthday, 65 years young. We had planned to originally visit them the end of March during our school districts Spring Break but since we started homeschooling we decided we could go anytime we wanted. So we headed down to Kansas for Mom's birthday party on March 20th. Turns out we surprised her by having it the night before with close friends and family. With the big KU game being on the 20th we just couldn't do both of course! Turns out we probably could have...

The day before we left Mom got a phone call from my Sister, Kris, in Washington state that she was surprising Mom by coming in for her birthday. Kris brought her two youngest children, Anna and Mimi, with her and they stayed for 4 days. Anna is 8 years old and Mimi is turning 1 year soon. Boy was Mom's house full! Mimi had a lot of fun playing with Audrey (my Step-Sister's daughter), who is also almost 1 year old. Watching all these little one play sure brought back memories...

So below are some of my favorite pictures from our short trip. I didn't get the camera out much but did capture an afternoon playdate with the little ones... too cute! You can find more of the trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/princesrealm/triptokansas


Mimi, Kris' youngest daughter

Anna, Kris' oldest daughter

Mom early in the morning. She doesn't like having her picture taken either...

Kris moving fast

Anna enjoying the warm sun

Isabela actually posing for me

Mimi crawling around the family room

Legos a favorite toy of every kiddo!

This is Audrey, Rachel (my Step-sister) and Justin's daughter.

The babies playing

The dancing bunny was a real hit

See legos are favorites!

Audrey and Mom

Then someone let the babies play with cards... they were everywhere!


Audrey reads the newspaper

Then no one else can...

Mimi liked the rings

It snowed 8" or so while we were there. Poor birds didn't know what to do. Robins were all puffed up the size of softballs.

On the drive home we stopped at our usual rest stop for a break and to move around a bit. The girls just had to play on the playground equipment.

Even managed to get a couple of posed shots. No they didn't consult each other before they got dressed that morning. They just happen to were the same shirt...

Rather pleased with this shot!

Action shot...

The girls decided to race each other to the tree and back

Guess who won...

Then they raced to the car.

Isabela decided to watch a movie on her netbook. For some reason Nick loaded 'The Butterfly Effect' when he loaded some movies for her. She was watching that and the squeaks and intakes of breathe were amazing. I thought she was gonna pop off that poor sock monkey's head at one point. After awhile she decided to watch something else. I think it was Pixar animation...

Rhianna was typing her report on the Greek God Poseidon and comparison from book to movie (Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief). She typed the whole thing while I was driving.

Andrew's Visit

So Andrew had the opportunity to drive up from KS to visit before he headed to final training and overseas. He came up February 4th just before the big snow storm hit KS. He stayed until Monday before heading to Omaha to visit his Dad and then back to Grandma's house in Olathe. Nick decided to go with him to say "hi" to everyone and that meant that Andrew had to bring him back at the end of the week. They brought Claire, Andrew's girlfriend, back with them on Friday, February 12th, for a quick visit over Valentines weekend. Andrew and Claire left Sunday for the long drive back to KS. He then had to leave for a training base in Oklahoma (I think it was that one) for special final training before heading overseas. He leave within the next month and we all will miss him terribly! I am so glad he had the chance to visit! It was wonderful seeing him and meeting Claire again. Below are some pictures from both visits...


The kids all in Nick's temporary bedroom (the guest room) playing games and having a great time!

Yes, I was busy distracting them...


Nick giving me the usual response when trying to take his picture.

Nick usually has several games going at once on the dual computer screens, laptop and TV. Kids and their technology!

Isabela taking pictures on her phone and Rhianna hanging in the background.

OK so since I had all 4 kids in the same place at the same time I wanted to get a picture - something nice. Ha Ha !! As usual I took more than 40 pictures and I think I only got one decent one. Reminds me of the pictures I took at the lighthouse the last time Andrew visited Illinois...






As you can see I didn't get one of the 4 of them and the atmosphere disintegrated dramatically! Went from bad to worse... I guess I'll have to use the goofy ones for the Holiday cards and pictures on the wall.

Did get a halfway decent one with Claire and the kids. She's such a sweetheart and bravely ate the breakfast I made before they left. She ate the fried egg even though she doesn't normally eat eggs. Brave child - Nick told her! I love my children!

Then the boys got goofy!

And tried to drag the girls in...

Took a couple of shots of just Andrew and Claire. These turned out well I think! Especially with their siblings being ornery behind me!



Well that's all she wrote for the Valentines holiday. I hope you had a great one and were able to celebrate the love in your household! We sure did and the minute Andrew and Claire left we all missed them terribly. Sarah, Andrew's dog we adopted, was the most heartbroken. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he heads overseas for his Army tour. We'll keep you posted on his progress and hopefully news of his home coming soon!