Smith Visit

We had such a great time with Candace, Scott, Charlie and Laney! They were here for 5 days and we spent most of it doing fun things with the Kirkland's. We went swimming, hiking, picnicking, playing in the backyard and lots of eating. The 4 cousins had a blast together and got along very well. I took a ton of pictures and here are a few of them.

Charlie graduated from pre-school the day they arrived and here she is posing with her graduation hat in our backyard.

 Carsten and Grant took us to see their "fort" under a big tree near their house.

Grant is a monkey in the tree.

 Grant and Charlie leading the way. We made it all the way to the "L" for the city of Lyons on the hill behind Rena and Nathan's house!

 Everything was nice and green from all the rains.

 Grant and Charlie taking a break by the trail entrance.

Carsten and Grant shared their tattoos with the girls. Here they are all "tatted up" and watching TV in the Kirkland's basement. 

More Tiger Cruise Photos

These are not in any particular order but I wanted to post a few more of the pictures that Dennis took on the Tiger Cruise. 

 Craig, Scott and Nathan..our 3 son-in-laws looking at the wide open sea.

 There were some beautiful sunsets over that big ocean.

A helicopter that was part of the air-show put on for the tigers. (There were 1149 tigers on the carrier!!--So many that a lot of Navy folks had to leave the ship in Hawaii to make room.) 

 

 Hey, who is that good looking guy?

 The sailors getting ready to pull into San Diego.

Tiger Cruise

I don't  have time to write much right now but I wanted to post a few of the many pictures Dennis brought back from the Tiger Cruise with our son-in-law, Commander Scott Smith pictured here with Dennis, and Craig Faulker to the left and Nathan Kirkland to the right. What a wonderful thing for Dennis to do this with his 3 son-in-laws. We couldn't ask for greater guys!!

 

Block of the Month Quilt

I won these blocks in March 2009 at the Riverside California, Raincross Quilt Guild and I finally made them into a little wall quilt. I added buttons to make it more whimsical and made a "peek-a-boo" binding for the first time. It looks more narrow at the bottom but it's just my photography. It doesn't look very good on the orange wall but I don't have a better place for it right now.

Spring Time in the Rockies

These two pictures were taken last Thursday. We got almost 10 inches of snow in two days!

 The two pictures below were taken on Sunday (3 days later). Look how green the grass is and some little flowers are coming up in the rock garden!!

Visiting the Smith Girls

 I flew to Fresno to visit Candace and the girls for 4 days. Charlie had eye surgery to correct her eye muscles just 2 days before I arrived. The girls play together so well and love just hanging out together. Charlie's eyes were still pretty red and swollen in this picture but they looked much better by the time I left. She was so brave about getting eye drops 3 times a day -- bless her heart.

 Here is Laney doing what she loves best...being goofy and wearing a wastebasket for a hat!

 Here is Charlie doing what she loves best...coloring and creating beautiful art work.

 Charlie and I made a little doll quilt together. She designed the quilt, cut the batting and backing, I did the sewing and tied the yarn to hold it together. She was very interested and captivated by the project and loves her little quilt.

 Here are the girls riding bikes in the house---what a fun house this is!!

Laney was a maniac riding on her school bus!!  Look out world...here she comes!

First Soccer Game

 Carsten and Grant are playing soccer for the first time. Their team is in white and Grant is on the right with the red sleeves and Carsten is right next to him. It was a very cold day and the other team whipped them but they had a GREAT time.

 Grant is the youngest on the team and had a hard time figuring out what to do. They play with only 4 kids on each team which is much better than the chaos of more kids on the field at this age.

 Carsten is the oldest player and he played most of the game because some of the other kids got tired or just didn't want to play...too funny. Carsten was a little too gentle around the girls. What a sweet boy.

And Carsten does a side kick. It was a pleasure getting to see our grandsons play! We hope to see many more games if they quit getting cancelled because of snow...