California

The flight to California was another blessed, peaceful experience. Despite the change in plans and the rigamarole to change our tickets yet again, all the swapping gave us the chance to see my Mom and my sister. We hadn't seen my sister in over 3 years so it was a nice treat. We arrived in Sacramento and headed to my mom's about a half hour away. We had dinner with Far Nanny and Papa Scott and spent the night at their house that night.

We had breakfast with my Mom the next morning at a super tasty local cafe and then picked up a few necessities at the store and headed back to the house to get Ella down for a nap. While Ella napped at home with Nanny, Sycely, Lem and I took a trip to the mall to the Build-A-Bear store to make a Hello Kitty with Aunti Mahcoya.

When we finished up Ella was still napping so we headed over to a local park so us girls could spend some time, swinging, sliding, and most importantly, GIGGLING!

We swung by the house and got Ella and headed to have lunch at Chevy's. After lunch we just spent some time tootling around another mall, making fun memories and giving the girls a chance to be "out" as much as possible before our drive to Fairfield that evening. Though it was only one day, I'm thankful that the girls and I got to spend some time with my sister being silly and building bonds.

We got the car loaded up (again!) and hit the road to Farifield where we'd spend the night so as to avoid a long drive to the service in the morning. We stopped in Davis at Papa Scott's work for a short visit (and picked up an ice cream cone for Sycely) then made the rest of the drive. We checked into our FABULOUS suite for the night and got the girls to bed. We had two rooms, each with their own bathroom (one with 2 queens, one with a king) and a living room. So, my Mom and Sycely had the queens room and Lem and I had the kind and Ella had the living room. It was the perfect set-up and everyone had a good rest that night.

The next morning my Mom stayed at the hotel with the girls while Lem and I went to the graveside service. Lem had the honor of being a pallbearer and did his job well, considering he ended up at the front, leading the pack, rather than following everyone else like he thought he'd positioned himself to do! We said good-bye to my family at the cemetary, headed back to the hotel, packed up (AGAIN!!!) and picked up my Mom and the girls for lunch at Red Lobster. After a terrifically tasty lunch we headed back to Sacramento to the airport. Mom helped get us all checked in, return the rental car, etc then we said good-bye and headed home.

One of these days Lem and I are going to take a trip to Napa when we're NOT burrying someone so we can enjoy that beautiful winecountry. We did get to enjoy a blessed time with my Mom and my sister and I'm thankful for that opportunity, no matter how short our visit.

The trip home was uneventful-pretty unbelievable huh? We had some dinner in Seattle, got the girls into their jammies and back on the plane and they both slept most of the rest of the way home. Astoundingly, in the end, Ella slept on EVERY plane we flew on! In the end, we were thankful to be back home 6 planes and 5 airports later. The girls did amazingly well the whole trip and I'm so thankful that God heard our pleas for a peaceful, blessed trip, even with all the surprises and changes we encountered.

Idaho

We'd originally planned to go down to Idaho at the end of May to visit my Grandpa, but his failing health led us to change our travel plans (no easy feat!) Fortunately, Lem was able to use sick leave to get a few days off school so that we could get down there ASAP. My dad was already in Idaho so we got the added bonus of the girls getting to visit with their Grandpa while we were there, too.

From the first moments of our travels, God's hand was truly resting on our trip. Despite the added leg from Anchorage to Juneau that changing our tickets created, it was about the smoothest flying we've ever done since having kids. Adding that extra leg broke the trip up into roughly three two hour segments which worked really well for the girls, giving them a chance to get their wiggles out before they were totally "done" with being cooped up on the plane. And, every leg of our flight down benefited from a nice boosting tail wind that got us to all three airports ahead of schedule. To top all that off, BOTH of the girls slept on the plane, even overlapping their naps about an hour on one leg of our flight down! We certainly did enjoy the blessings of God's traveling mercies upon our family.

We spent much of our time at my uncle's house visitng with my Grandpa and other family. The first day we were there was really the only day my Grandpa was really awake and able to talk. I got one good day of visiting in with him, and he was able to see both the girls and know we were there, but after that first day, he pretty much started to fade-sleeping and not really waking up all the way again after that.

The girls in Mommy's very special chair at Popper's house

(someday soon this chair will come to our house)

Sycely got to go to the neighborhood park (actually this same park was the first park she ever went to when she was just 6 months old!) and enjoyed time on the slides and swings. We did some outlet shopping (Mommy's fave) and took a trip to the Boise zoo with my dad. We also got to enjoy all our favorite eateries: Olive Garden, SONIC-yum!, and Texas Road House.

She had her very first swing ride on this same swing 3 years ago

Always her favorite, the penguins REALLY loved her and showed off their swimming skills

Grandpa tries his hand at navigating the double stroller

The morning we were supposed to come home I got a phone call from my dad around 7:15. He told me they thought Grandpa was going to go real soon and if I wanted to be there I should head on over. I threw on some sweats and headed to my unlces (he lives just across the main road so it's a real short trip). Within 15 minutes of me getting there my beloved Grandpa took his last breath. I'm so blessed to have been holding his hand when he went home to be with Jesus and to be back with my Grandma again. I will never be able to express the importance of the influence this dear man had on my life. I truly would not be the Godly woman I am without the direction he gave me growing up and I'm so grateful for all the sacrifices he made for me.

That development, of course, changed our travel itenerary (AGAIN!). Kudos to Lem for handling all the dealing with the airline for me! Instead of flying home that day, we instead would be staying in Idaho another 4 days then flying to California for 2 days, then finallly flying home. We had a couple days before the funeral so we did some more shopping (we all needed something to wear to the funeral since we hadn't packed for that) and lots more eating. Why is it that when someone dies EVERYONE feels the appropriate thing to do is the bring the family COOKIES?!

We had a viewing the night before the funeral; by that time Nanny Kate had arrived so we had pizza night afterwards. The funeral went well and was a nice tribute to a very special man of God. The next day we flew to California so we could attend my Grandpa's burial/graveside service.

April Update

What a whirlwing things have been around here the last month or so! Pardon the chaos as I try my best to get you all up to speed...

April turned out to be a super busy month for all of us. I had my usual skating lessons, Governor's Picnic meetings, board meetings and the like. Additionally, I started my coaching session with the pageant director and have ALMOST mastered my pageant walk. I now have all four pieces for my pageant wardrobe as well.

April also brought Week of the Young Child. WOYC is a National Celebration that focuses on appreciating those who work with young children, the policies that support early learning and highlights the importance of the early years. I oversee Anchorage's local celebration and this year (again) AAEYC teamed up with our church to host a Family Fair with lots of free, fun, hands on activities for kids. This year we had a proclamation from the Governor's office (big surprise, huh?), the Mayor's office and a resolution from the Anchorage Assembly supporting WOYC. I even got to go the Assembly meeting, receive the resolution, and speak about WOYC, all on live TV! Our event went off without a hitch and hundreds of children were able to have some fun family time while their parents got ideas of simple ways to support their development.

The Mayor's under there somewhere...

Sycely and Scarlet had a great time enjoying all the activities

There's lots to report on the Ella front: she's now weighing in at a whopping 15 pounds 2 oz-just under 5th percentile, but she's over 27 inches. So she's still outweighed by her peers by about 4 pounds give or take and she's still a tiny little Roo Bug, but she seems to be maintaining her figure by being continually active. She's mastered pulling up to standing and she's pretty much always standing in her crib calling to me when she wakes up. She's saying some words now, "Mama" and occassional "Da Da," "more," "hi," and "mapp-o" (apple.) She's uses her little index finger to point at everything which is stinking cute and she's really gotten a knack for tactile books and knows all the spots to feel in each of them now. She's eating lots of new foods and is making her way to finger/table foods now. She LOVES peas and green beans, peaches and rice cakes and give her some freeze dried apples and she's happy as a clam for 30 minutes.

My morning alarm clock

Ella's 9 Month Photos

Sycely has been really developing her visual representation skills and has done some pretty spectauclar artwork or late. Last week she held up a finished painting to me and said, "Look Mommy, it's you and Daddy when you got married." She'd even given Mommy a veil. She's also still pretty stoked about the volcano and we're still working on her volcano project. She's still completely enamoured with her little sister and is quick to let anyone (even strangers) know that Ella is her little sister and that it's fun to be a big sister. She's even started helping feed Ella bites once in a while and her favorite is when Ella eats prunes-go figure!

Lem was only able to help with the nominating committe at State FFA Convention one night this year since rearranging our travels to Idaho (more on that later) had us flying out the second day of convention. At least he got to be there to get them started, and techinically he still hasn't missed a convention in like 15 years.

April also brought sad news regarding my Grandpa's health. After completing both chemo and radiation the doctors determined he was losing his battle with Lymphoma and that there really was no treatment left for him. So, they began working with a wonderful team of Hospice workers to keep him comfortable and cared for so he could stay home at my Uncle's and not spend his last weeks in the hospital. We made arrangements to go down to say Good-bye and, God willing, our travels and our timing were a perfect blessing.