happy birthday to our dads

Jay's dad above, welcoming a past neighbor who stopped by to visit, and my own dad below with John and Dan in his arms, being teased in about 1983.
 

Grandpas truly are the best.

Wishing you both a very happy birthday.

Lucky for you, we are. Very lucky indeed.

Love, Jay and Val and Everybody

strange conversations: abraham lincoln

Okay, so last Thursday at lunch, we were talking about Abraham Lincoln.   

The kid is six, and she said, "Aber-HAM Lincoln. Aber-HAM, and now all I can think about is ham. That's such a weird name."

????

I do love kids, and wacky things they say is one of the best parts of being around them.

The little sister who is three, almost four said, "Yeah, somebody shot him in the head while he was watching a show."

This is true.

The six year old asked me is this true?   

It is, sadly.

"So was he a good guy or a bad guy?"

Well, history has definitely claimed him as a very good guy. But at the time, a lot of people were very upset with him.  Some people even hated his guts, thought he was the end of the world.

They both nodded.

Then we did the dishes and went outside.

Whee.

However, his name has never made me think about HAM before.  Oh my goodness.

Love, Grandma

 

another weekend at the lake

It was cloudy and warm. They had fun, came home Sunday night covered in bug bites, not sure what bit them, probably due to the geese up and down the shore.

Here's John pitching, his oldest kid catching, another cousin at bat--tennis balls and a plastic bat. When that catcher had his turn at bat, he swung it too hard and it bent and hit him right in the face!

He was fine, but Good LOR-ed!  

Doing nails:

Warming up after swimming:

Everyone was gone by noon, John's family to baseball in the cities, and Heidi's sick of the drab weather.  Jay mowed and I cleaned.

Then we took the dog on a boat ride. The clouds cleared and it was warm, the lake smooth.

This is a cabin not far from ours where we rented many years.   My parents and her sisters, and brother and parents, and we also, would rent cabins together at a resort for Memorial Day weekend.  My sister would too, and my brother sometimes, other cousins.  Or people would team up and stay together.

Weather on Memorial Day is super unpredictable, but we persevered and had so much fun.

This is the cabin my mother's parents used to rent.  It had a sunken bedroom and a dramatic, dark red lamp with a lady's face on it, or the carpet was red, maybe not the lamp?  I don't know what it's like in there anymore, thirty years later.   My grandpa passed away in 2008, Grandma in 2012, though it feels like I just talked to them yesterday.

I know it's a thing people always say, but how do the years cruise by this fast?

This is the cabin my parents rented, right near the woods and the swamp. At Memorial Day the swamp is incredibly loud, full of peepers and frogs and toads.  My dad loved the racket, recorded it as restful music.

Anyway, it was a lovely boat ride.  

 

And then we came home, and storms are passing through, wild clouds, road construction, roads closed, crazy drivers, and the whole room here is glowing and golden as the sun sets.

Onward to Monday.

Love, Val

sweet puppy

This sweet guy turned five.

Happy Birthday, love all of us

boat ride

 Love,Val

father's day weekend

It was beautiful and cool, would have to go into the sun to warm up.

Kirsten brought the stuff to make potions.  They had so much fun with this.

And that was the end of Saturday night.

Pretty soon bedtime.

Love, Val

more hot weekend pictures

Alicia's grandma was here for the weekend.  This picture is Alicia's mom and grandma floating, but snapped just as their heads overlapped in the frame.

Dan skiing. I took a video, but it is pretty bouncy and jumpy, and I don't know where it saved to.  I will find it.

 

They're working on hamburgers for the Jack's Basket picnic.

Jack's Basket is an organization that provides support to families welcoming newborns with Down Syndrome, which can be an unsure, intimidating time in a family's life.  They do fantastic, reassuring

work and have fun doing it.

The kids table:

The other table, plus others scattered in lawn chairs and on the deck stairs:

Here are her cousins, a rowdy crew:

And here she is.

When her sister saw her fresh incision after open heart surgery she pondered for a moment and then asked, "Did a tiger scratch her?"

Ummm, no.  That did not happen.  (There are no tigers roaming the halls of Children's Hospital.) 

Life can be confusing. Or not. 

It was a great weekend, so hot at first, so that when the sharp winds hit, we were only grateful for any breeze of any kind.  Today was much less oppressive, but summer has surely arrived.

June, you sneaky devil, hiding out in May and then arriving with a big, "Ta-DA!"

We'll take it.

Love, Val

 

hot june weekend

 

Love you all, MOM aka GRANDMA