A Day of Good-Byes

Today was a hard day for our family. It was a day of saying good-bye. We started this morning by saying good-bye to my children. The visit was fun, and it is amazing how they have grown into adulthood and busy lives.

Then we went to Faith's gym and she got to see her coaches and friends. She had lunch with coach, Amy Inge, at Taco Bell where they share the love of carmel empanada's.

I also got to see my best friend, Cyndie Dosser, and share the laughter and gossip that we so enjoy being together.

The hardest good-bye was to our 16 year-old Rottweiler, Thomas. We had to put him to sleep today. Last night, all the kids took turns taking pictures with him and telling great stories from their past. I got to be in the room with him and he died with my arms around him telling him how much he was loved and what a great dog he was.

Tomorrow we fly back to Tampa where Gregg gets ready to leave for the White House. It is such a great honor and we are very excited for him. I am just not looking forward to another good-bye.

The many faces of Dominic during lunch

"Dominic, what do you want for lunch?" His response, "hmmmm."
Kali told him to do "evil eye" and he growls

too cute for words....

Jerky

I thought I would explain the video. My son-in-law Jesse was playing a joke on Griffin with some jerky. It taste normal for a second and then it burns like nothing else. He had tried a very small piece but then we dared him to eat a huge chunk. Being a college student he was up for the dare and I had the milk ready. I don't know what was more funny, Griffin who was trying to maintain as his face was turning a shade of red and his eyes watering or Jesse's laugh who had me dying.

VIDEO moved to bottom of the blog.

We finally decorated the tree!

I am not one to usually complain but trying to get a day when all the kids could come back to decorate the tree, was like trying to pass a bill through congress. I really thought our tree still might be bare on Christmas. Friday night, they came in groups so eventually they all had a chance to be here and decorate the tree. This was the first year I sat back and enjoyed watching them decorate and bring up past stories on ornaments they found. I also realized that we have so many ornaments now that we might actually have to get more than one tree...

How time flies...

It seems like just yesterday I was going to my oldest daughter Kali's preschool programs. Today, I had the opportunity to go see Austin's preschool Christmas program. He was so cute singing, "I wish you a Merry Christmas." The program was short, maybe three songs in all. Which is great for 3/4 year old's. I don't know why, but I had a hard time not choking up...maybe distant memories.

Thank You

I just wanted to thank Marissa Dosser for fixing this irritating blog. She was able to take out that annoying gap and put back the music box. So a big THANK YOU to MARISSA DOSSER.

Suz

Frustration

I am sorry, but I have not quite figured out this whole "blogging" thing. For some reason after my last post, the rest of my posts went to the bottom of the page and there is a huge gap. For the life of me, I can not figure how to move it up. In the process of try to move things around I deleted many cute things that took me so long to add...go figure. So to all that have come to check out my newest adventure...please be patient.
Thanks

The Perfect Tree

We have been taking the kids since they were little to go cut our Christmas tree. It is a tradition to go get hot chocolate and carvan out to Bob's U-Cut. Our family has grown and we had to take three vehicles out there. It was still snowing and was so beautiful. It was a chore to try to keep my camera dry and still take pictures. I had planned on taking our family pictures today but it was snowing way to hard. We still had a great time and our son Griffin, who never gets his hands dirty, took his turn cutting the tree. Of course, Jesse couldn't resist and stuffed some pine pieces down his pants as he was bent over. We came back muddy and wet but with a beautiful 8'ft tree. The prices are so reasonable, we only paid twenty dollars. We will have our tree decorating party on Monday evening.

It's beginning to look like Christmas

Birdseye Creek

Mountain

Today I was woken up by Faith's phone call. "Mom, you need to come get me, it is snowing really hard." She stayed at her girlfriend, Lauren's house, and they live in Rogue River on the top of a mountain.

It was beautiful driving out there as the snow was coming down in big fluffy flakes and the fog was lying on the mountains. It really started to feel like Christmas with the snow falling and the Christmas music playing on the radio. We made it out there no problem, there were trucks putting salt on the roads. It was a nice start to my morning.

Uncle Elliott teaches Dominic the word "Bubbles"

Dominic is 2 years old and is learning new words daily. Elliott found a bottle of bubbles and started blowing them. Dominic thought this was the neatest thing. Elliott kept telling him they were called bubbles. Within minutes, Dominic was repeating Elliott. Now every time he sees Elliott he wants him to blow bubbles.

Back Home

We arrived back home to chilly Oregon on Wednesday evening. The moment you stepped off the plane the air was crisp and smelled of wood. As we drove to get something to eat, I amired the Christmas lights glowing amoung the dense fog. In Tampa looking at the lights we had the windows down and it's 80 degrees outside, just not the same feeling.
It has been so fun being around the kids and catching up on all the latest gossip. Our grandson, Dominic, is a hoot. He is so animated in everything he does, like when he says, "Thank you" he places his hand on his heart and bows. It is so dang cute! I am looking forward to Sunday, as we are going to cut our Christmas Tree and take family pictures.