Aunt Ruth

My Aunt Ruth celebrated her 90th birthday on July 18th and the weekend before her children (Nancy from Arizona and Betty from Wichita) and their children had an open house at her church in Chanute. It was so wonderful to have the family together for a happy occasion. Aunt Ruth is my mother's sister and one of three remaining children in the family. Her sister Shirley came from the Kansas City area and her brother Larry came from Georgia. My brother came from Washington State, and my daughters came from Texas and Oklahoma so there were a lot of memories shared and the camera were used constantly. Groups were formed for photos and you felt like you were a celebrity as there were at least six to eight cameras going off at once. :) Some cousins ended up introducing each other during the photos as the age difference was quite large in some groups.
Thank you Nancy and Betty for a wonderful day! And I hope we are back together for her 100th birthday!

This is my Aunt Shirley, Uncle Larry and the birthday girl - Aunt Ruth

These are all first cousins - age range is mid 30's to upper 60's. :)

Uncle Larry and my brother Gary were thick as thieves while growing up - more like brothers than uncle and nephew.

And of course our family - except for son-in-law James. He had just started a new job and wasn't able to come.

I won!

Unless you have tried to do it - you have no idea how hard it is to get the triplets to all three look at a camera and have a good expression on their faces at the same time. One is always interested in something else or has their eyes closed. Today we went to Exploration Place and the girls were by the rocking horses so I tried getting a picture. Of course they were way too busy to let me get a good picture until I said "do I have a rose on my nose?" (read a lot of Dr. Suess this last three weeks) They all three stopped and looked at me very intently trying to see the rose on my nose and I finally got a great picture.

Prodigal Brother comes home

My two weeks, give or take, of spring cleaning were for two reasons - the place really needed it and my brother and his wife came for a visit. They were here for my aunt's 90th birthday celebration (which will be another entry)
We had a good time - watched the triplets take swimming, babysat them one night, watched their t-ball game, went to the trailer in Oklahoma and went to Botanica the day Susan Peters of KAKE tv and a sponsor gave the new children's garden a check to buy books. If you watch KAKE, they have commercials showing that day and you can see all of us in the crowd. All of us = Stacy and her kids, Laura, Gary and Becky, Jimmy and his family and Dennis and me.

This is the glider that my folks had for as long as I can remember.

Sea World

We took a trip in June to Sea World with Jimmy's family and had a great time. It was pretty warm and the last day there Lily started coming down with the cold that Izzy and Audrey had before we left so that was a damper. The motel we stayed in was one of the nicest ones we ever stayed in - big, roomy and the free breakfast was the best!

We took a walk along the beautiful River Walk in San Antonio and rode the boat around the river.

Jimmy and Izzy are in the last car. Audrey and Lily were riding another ride - Lily wasn't tall enough to ride this one and Audrey chose to ride the one with Lily

Retirement

My last day I did very little work - mostly had a good time. My department had a nice lunch for me and a lot of people dropped by to say goodbye. The triplets and Maranda came up to see everyone and my kids sent a beautiful flower arrangement - the only time I cried was when I saw it. It was amazing.

WOW! Where did this summer go?

I retired June 9 thinking I would have plenty of time to update this blog every week. Right. That didn't work out quite the way I thought. This has been the busiest summer I can remember and most of it has been a lot of fun. My reasons for not updating:
1. Trip to Sea World in San Antonio
2. Cleaning house from top to bottom for company coming
3. Company came! Stayed a week or a few days - it was a revolving door here
4. Trip to Chanute for a wonderful 90th birthday celebration for my Aunt Ruth
5. Trip to Texas to spend a week with Laura, Stacy and Jessica doing lots of fun things
6. Babysitting the girls while the folks went out of town
7. A week of intense cross stitching that produced a finished project for the fair (been on the stand two years)
8. And Grandma day care has been busy since August 1st and will continue a few more days.

So - going to post some pictures of the summer and hope that catches me up.