happy birthday, aaron

 It's his birthday today!  Twenty-one!

He's been staying with us this summer, and it's been a lot of fun.  The kids were excited about his birthday.

 We had cake again late in the evening, plus butter pecan ice cream.  You're a good sport, Aaron. 

Thanks for the all these years of friendship and fun.

I hope twenty-one is amazing.

Happy Birthday,

Love, Jay and Val and Everybody

happy birthday, alicia

 Cake time on the beach, so many candles in the wind for you and your birthday buddy Mom.

 Beautiful day, beautiful weekend, perfect, wasn't even too hot or too windy, just about perfect.

 Gifts! If these fit weird, I do have the gift receipt on my dresser.

 The child was into it, a trusty assistant.

 Back to swimming.

A couple from the past:

 I think we recognize that child, and also these others:

Happy Birthday, my dear, our sweet beautiful Alicia.

We are all so lucky you're in this family.

Love forever, Jay and Val and Everybody

babysitting at heidi's

 This week we went to her house because our house was all torn up with the family room floor being put down.  The floor sander was loud and the varnish a bit stinky.  So we did this instead.

It was a pretty fun week.

 Here we've got the Barbie camper and Barbies outside.  My Barbies always loved going on camping trips in the back yard.

 This sweet old dog was overjoyed to see me and Julia and stuck with us all day long, didn't want to miss a thing.

 And the floor is done.  Kari and Julia had a sleepover there on Thursday night.

And that is the end of that. 

Love you all, Mom aka GRANDMA

flying kites today

 This was a blast.  Kirsten bought these kites and Shopko and away they went.  There was a breeze straight off the lake in this part of the yard.

We have tried a few times to fly kites in the field out back, but the trees surrounding create weird currents.  This had no weird currents, just a straight mild wind.

 In the pink shirt is Kirsten's childhood friend Kellie. She spent the weekend with us too, and it was easy-going and delightful. So much fun to be together.

 Maria and her Boss Baby niece:

 Once they were up, we were led by the kites across the road to the lake where there were fewer trees and no power lines to worry about.  The minion kite did get stuck in a tree at one point, but was saved by some miracle.

I thought it looked pretty hopeless, but with a bit of patience and coaxing it came loose again and flew to the end of its string.

 I went back to the cabin to get a couple more kites I knew we had, but they were badly tangled on top of the fridge in the front porch.  A couple baby life jackets were tangled up in that mess too.

Ugh.

I gave up and grabbed the new Superman kite in the front closet and brought that over.

Superman! To save the day!

Anyway, it was very fun.  So much love, MOM

pictures from the weekend

 We walked to the dam.  It's the same, but it was nice to take a walk.

 They swam for a little while, but it was cool and the lake was rough.  It was nice in the back yard, but so windy at the lake.

Saturday night we went to the Mexican restaurant in town for Julia's birthday.  It was great--food delicious, friendly people, pretty fast for a group of twelve.  I'm looking forward to eating there again.

 Here's where I told her to smile!  You're fourteen!

 We wrangled them babies through a meal.  It was a dicey proposition, but they did really well.

 And then we came home and had cake again before the little girls were tossed into bed.

Happy Birthday again, Julia!

Love, Mom and Dad and Everybody