Buried in Photo editing!

I stood in the fountain to get this one!

Hope everyone is doing well. I've been buried beneath a 1000 photos from Saturday.  Which to use? Which to delete? Which to Photo Shop?  The wedding was beautiful. Haven't downloaded Sabby's birthday Party yet. It's taking me longer to do things this week. Including visiting my blog friends.

Katie is definitely moving to Lake Tahoe. I want her to be happy so I'm working with it.

I posted a quick wedding photo. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

Fun with the Grand Kids

The last few days have been busy and fun with extra grand kids visiting. Sabby turns 7 next week and her birthday party is Sunday. Saturday Carla and I are doing the photography at a wedding. We're really excited about that. So I'm resting up for all the excitement coming.

Meanwhile, I'm posting a few pictures.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

April 16

Aunt Kathie with Izzy & Sabby (Aunt Kathie let them wear lipstick!)

Thursday night we had a Small dinner party - sort of- We met Katie's friend - the one moving to Lake Tahoe. Aunt Kathie came over at my request and couldn't help herself.. Putting on a crown and letting the girls wear lipstick. Uncle Rob came of course too. They behaved reasonably well... Better than I did. During the course of the evening, I told Izzy to change her clothes - She turned around, pointed her chubby finger at me and told me to "top it".. I'll cry when she can say her S's.. So the guy seems like a nice guy and didn't flinch when I told him I don't trust him with my grand daughter... Welcome to my house.

Thursday started out with a day at the park, meeting a blogger friend. Michelle, My world. I don't know how to do the link but she's on my list of blogs I visit. She's an amazing young woman with three little ones. They are adorable. It was cold Thursday morning and I'll never forget Diego, without his jacket because he offered it to his little sister. Michelle, stay with the photography. You have a gift --- to say nothing about the camera I wanted to steal from you! I love your pictures. Your babies are a great reflection on you... (hey!!! didn't Bill Cosby say that years ago on one of his records?).. dating myself.

It's not often you meet someone who turns out just as you'd hoped they would. I'm also looking forward to meeting Michelle's family. Her dad, Jose is also on my blog list.. Joe Cool's blog. Their family is enjoying California right now!  Hope they're having fun.

How will I say good bye to you little Red.

Yesterday, after preparing for hours for an appointment with a young couple about to be married... they cancelled... So... I took a nap. Today was spent meeting Lyndsey in the middle of nowhere with Izzy and Makayla. I'll miss those guys. They're coming out next weekend for Sabby's birthday party.

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for taking the time to  read my blog today.

Gran & Pappys have a full house; for now

Pappys is teaching Makayla how to play baseball

Izzy meets the "boys"

We had a full house last night and it'll be fuller tonight. Katie's cooking for a friend and her Aunt Kathie and Uncle Rob will be joining us along with Ricky.

In June, our home will be much emptier. Ricky is moving home to Ca late May and in early June, Katie is leaving us to move to Lake Tahoe. 

Yep, Lots has been going on in the background these last few months. I'm not sure how I'll say good bye to Katie and my Red Head. Hopefully you won't read about me in the news... kidnapping my grand daughter and going into hiding. Sabby is excited because she's going to live in the snow. Gran only worries.... and grieves

P.S. What a difference 31 years makes.. We celebrated 31 years together yesterday! 

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

P.S. No trip to Sedona this week after all

Three Grand kids this week.

We had a wonderful Easter at Carla's mom's house; wonderful day, views and people to celebrate with. True to form, Izzy and Sophie's Easter Dresses were stained with punch or markers before we even left Lyndsey's house.

We came home yesterday with an extra two Grand daughters. We're planning some fun and craziness this week and hope to go on a picnic up in Sedona - at Red Rock State Park. I've seen it in the summer, the winter and now the spring. We've arranged to take Sabby out of school a couple of days this week too.  One of my hopefuls is to visit a fellow blogger nearby and take the kids to a park nearby. I may not be posting or visiting as much as I'd like for the next few days. Hope all is well with everyone and that our Easters/Passover Celebrations were good.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today. 

 P.S. the ones we brought home... Makayla and Izabella. This summer, we'll be brining Madison and Conner out. Sophie just needs to get a little older first.

Easter and EAsters Past

1982 - I made those dresses

Easter 1981

Easter 1986

Easter 1986 

Holy Thursday use to be spent at a special mass. Beautiful service, celebrating the last supper, the institution of the priesthood and all. Well I don't do that much these days.

In the morning, Katie, Sabby and I are headed off to CA to celebrate Easter in Southern CA.

I am so glad today is over, I should be sleeping but I think when I go back to bed, I will sleep o.k.

I'm looking forward to spending a beautiful Easter Afternoon at Carla's mom's house chatting with friends and family. I'll miss Ricky and Paul.. I did (at Ricky's insistence,) prepare an easter basket for him. It sits on my kitchen counter where he'll see it when he comes in to have Breakfast with Paul before they both set off to work.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today. Have a wonderful Easter, Passover, great spring weekend.

Update on the Dogs

Since this picture was taken two months ago, it's not necessarily a good representation of the current size of the collies.  Shane, our border collie, is the black and white, Barney, is in the blue Collar and Hondo is in the red collar. I'll preface this post by saying two things.  First,We love our dogs VERY much, the antics of Barney and Hondo have brightened up our lives beyond measure. Shane is our wonder dog.... Really he is. Second... I have to question, pretty much daily, our sanity in acquiring TWO collie puppies on the same day - brothers no less, and to ask daily, What the hell were we thinking!

The puppies are house broken now.. (probably shouldn't say that) but as far as being in the house unsupervised, uh NO.. They are continually getting into one waste basket or another and bringing out whatever they find.. NOT o.k.... Barney (who still falls when trying to jump up on the bed - which is against the rules now) will grab the toilet paper on the roll and walk all over the house, pulling the paper with him, literally emptying the roll.  They have chewed up ALL of our patio furniture, I'm talking the not the cushions which I knew about and knew I could fix, I'm talking the wicker - the backs and bottoms of all the chairs. One of them - the one with the brown nose - digs.. Never had a collie that dug.. We sat outside Monday evening, until I was SO p.o'd at the damage I had to go inside.. Barney - living on the wild side,  tried to chew on me as I sat on a chair he'd already chewed to destruction.  I know Sandie, we should have used hot sauce to keep them from chewing.. Who knew they'd go beyond the pillows.

I'll end with a story on how awesome Shane, our border collie is.. This is not the first time he's done something like this, rather it was just the confirmation of what he has been doing.. Yesterday, I was at my computer doing work on some photos. My computer is at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen, down two long hallways.. Shane came up behind me "whining" and bumping into me trying to get me to move. I ignored him after patting his head.. About 10 minutes later, I heard Paul scolding the collies (yet again) and went out to find out what their latest terror was. .  They'd gotten into the trash - Paul's fault for not closing the door and pulled their treasures all over the family room.. Our Border Collie, Shane, had been in my office trying to get me to come out to stop them.. Isn't he a fabulous dog!  Now I know for sure, when he's barking like crazy facing the house, he's really telling on Hondo for digging...

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

P.S. We really do love Hondo and Barney, we really really do and it's o.k. (I guess) that our once nice backyard, looks more like a junk yard  lot now.  With holes and dirt where grass once stood.  Really

Shane is exhausted from policing these two.

Happy Birthday Makayla

Gran and Pappys Love you we love you we love you we love you!

We can't wait until next week when you and Izzy come to visit.. Pappys has a WHOLE lot of plans for your visit.

Happy Birthday honey!

Gran

The Wall

The moving wall arrived in Buckeye this week, at Verrado (a master planned community here in Buckeye) High School. Paul went to see it in CA several years ago and wanted to see it again. It wasn't quite as big as the wall he saw in Orange Co and didn't include the casualties from 65-67. There were other war dead remembered, including the thousands we've lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paul's orders were changed 5 days before he was leaving for Vietnam in a political move by Nixon. He along with 5,000 other men had their orders changed from Vietnam to Germany. My brother went, my brother in law went. 

Paul doesn't want me posting his feelings about this on my blog and I'll respect his wishes... I'll post my own thoughts.

Walking by the wall, looking at all the names, and thinking of the 58,000 dead young men, the children they never had, the grand children they never had was a bit overwhelming and brought back a lot of memories along with my own tears. What a waste of life.

I came of age during the war. The back ground music of my life was also the background music of the war. Listening to those songs yesterday, looking at the dates on the wall, My senior prom, my graduation date. While I was growing up and experiencing high school, these boys were dying.  I can still see my mother saying goodbye to my brother during a rainstorm at El Toro, the week before Christmas in 1967. That memory was burned into my brain and as a mother, I wondered how she got through that day and the next 18 months. My father didn't say much during this time; but in the days before 24/7 news, dinners consisted of Walter Concrite (sp) Chet and David, etc. as though by watching as much of the war news as he could, my dad would keep my brother alive. In the spirit of full disclosure, let me say that we were republicans and I believed that crap about the domino effect... I felt guilty being a girl.. Safe from the draft.. My brother volunteered. So did Paul.

Today we say thank you to young men in Uniform; my husband talks about getting out of uniform as soon as possible when on leave, not wanting the abuse of the "Peaceful" war protesters. A friend was spit on at an airport, interrupting his first meeting with his 12 month old daughter. Hearing the words baby killer, butchers were not uncommon at airports. Seemed to me people would go to airports JUST to do that.

Peaceful? Not to me.

I believe those years and the years that followed were dark days for America, whether we believed in the war or not, we treated our Vietnam war veterans horribly. I was glad in the 80's when Jane Fonda finally had to give up her tour of American malls with her work out clothes, I think because the war veterans for the first time I was aware of, fought back and demonstrated at every mall. I was struck yesterday, with the understanding that while Americans were ignoring their plight, "putting the war behind us", Our veterans were taking care of each other when possible.

On a strange note (to me anyway), On a sign with myths and facts about Vietnam,I read,  1,072,000 young men served in Vietnam, over 13,000,00 in the 2000 census claimed to have served "in country".. Now I wonder, why so many who did serve don't talk about it, feeling shamed by their fellow countrymen so many years ago (John Kerry), and so many MORE who did not serve, talk about it all the time..

 

Sorry to be political, though it really isn't political to me. It's the indecency of the way we treated young men (boys some of them) who's only sin was joining the military (or being drafted).

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

The Elusive Family Photo

For most of my adult life, I'm been in search of a family photo. Over the years, we've had a lot of attempts. This first one was taken on Easter 1960 in Torrance California by a family friend. It's the only one I know of, taken of all the Welstead kids with Dad. Every Easter and Christmas, Dad would get one of mom and us kids - either on the stairs or on the bridge in front. This is one of only three photos that I know of, of  the "Entire" Welstead clan.

The family grew by 17 new people before my parents died in 1998.

Family is fluid, growing and shrinking with each new marriage or divorce, the birth of children, then grand children, the death of family members. I've learned in my quest for the perfect family photo is that 1. Paul wouldn't go to a professional studio for years - (in fairness - it was expensive) so most of our family photo efforts involved Paul and the kids. I've added three by marriage kids and one is no longer a part of the family. I've decided to ask "significant others" to stand at the side of photos, making it easier to eliminate them when the time comes.... We'll see.  I thought I'd share a few attempts at family photos with you.

This one is from Knox Log ride in the late 80's or early 90's. It's not really a family photo since Rob wasn't there. but I found it in my search and it made me laugh so I'm posting it.

This one I used for our Christmas Card in 1998 Paul would go along with a prof photo in Tombstone.... Go figure

Christmas cards were almost late in 1999. I got this family photo at our family christmas Party at Kathie's.

This family photo was taken at Lyndsey's wedding so I could use it for our Christmas Card in 2004.  Some of you may notice there's an extra child in the front next to Madi.. That is my beautiful niece Brianne. One of the worse things you can do is ask a child to get out of a picture. I sent Christmas Cards out that year with an extra grand daughter on them!  Since this was taken, the guy on the right is no longer part of  "our family". I can't delete him without deleting Sabby and that I WONT do.  Just an observation... No one notice Paul's sunglasses and two.. Weddings aren't really all that great a place for family photos.. Who dresses up like that on a regular basis.

This was a lame attempt on Christmas 2004. The kids are cute, Paul, Victor and I am missing. Several family members have their eyes closed.

Here's an infamous one.. Sun Spots KILL a picture; My sister Kathie took 50 and only a few came out.. What is so hard about getting 13 people to look at the camera at the same time.. You'll notice... It's NOT just the kids looking around. On a great note, Rex made it into this one.

This one is a favorite of mine; and includes all of our grand kids.

Here's another favorite.. Sophie's changed a lot though.

Some day I will post all of our Bella Union background photos from Tombstone. This  one is a favorite one from 1998.

There are more of course. Several I took of all four kids over the years. I've had a LOT of tries at getting all the grand kids together, most of them not so good.. (collages maybe?)  Maybe I'm late to the table, but I've finally learned that families, like our family photos are fluid - growing and shrinking over the decades of a "family's existence"; then splitting off into new branches.. I'm not on drugs (don't think) but it's boggling my mind today and I thought I'd share it.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

April Spring is here

Spring Flowers on the side of I 10

Now is the season, to sadly put away my favorite clothes. Jeans, Sweaters and my boots and pull out the summer stuff. It's too hot for jeans in AZ beginning sometime in April-May through September. I want to go find some lightweight and cheap summer type skirts and shirts.. Then I remember my weight and how'd I'd look in them... Sooooo, I guess I'll just sadly put away my winter clothes ... except until July .. for trips to Southern California where it's very cool at night.  heavy sigh...

That's the sound of me bracing for 4-5 months of 100+ temps...

I know many people still have snow in their yards.. But I'll sigh heavily and pout anyway.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today.

April 1st... What a GREAT DAY

April Fools Day... For me, at least for the last 28 years... doesn't mean Practical Jokes, It's Lyndsey Annemarie's (Annie Ree)'s birthday. When you were two you told my boss to shut up, now your kids are telling you. Makayla has your love of drama, the wizard of oz and many TV shows you two share together. It's also like being in the room with you again on Christmas Morning with her excitement at hers and everyone elses gifts. Izabella has your precociousness and I like to call her Gran's Revenge! Sophie has your stubbornness and your beautiful smile. 

My April Fools Day Baby and such a big part of my life's joy. Happy Birthday honey.

Love Mom