SURPRISE, SURPRISE! LOOK WHO'S HOME!

Wow. I can't believe it has been 4 months since I posted on my blog. How boring am I!?? ROFL Well, let's see if I can bring you up to date.

Ok, in April we learned that Sally, my youngest who has 2 daughters, a son and a step-daughter, is pregnant. She is very excited but knows that this will be the last one for her. We also just learned she is having another girl, which she was hoping for. The name that tops the list as of this moment is Emmalyn. Her grandmother's name was Emmajean, so baby will be semi-named for her great-grandmother. :) She is due the week before Thanksgiving.

In May I finished my mini-re-do in the kitchen. Not like a remodel, unfortunately, just new paint. The cabinets and island got all new paint, I added all new hardware, including matching hinges, bought new dishes and a gorgeous set of hard-anodized cookware. *LOVE!* Plus I purged, purged, purged and ended up taking three BIG boxes to the Senior Thrift Center here in town. How I managed to get all that stuff in this microscopical sized kitchen, I have no idea.......no, I take that back. I am an extremely good organizer, that's how I managed to fit all that stuff in there! Regardless, I'm glad to have out of there all that I don't use anymore so it worked out. I'll post pics of the "new" kitchen later.

Also in May we learned that Randy's mom has Parkinson's. We lost his dad to Alzheimer's a couple of years ago, so this was rather upsetting news at first. What we didn't know was that Parkinson's has two different types, apparently. The type that affects the younger person, such as what Michael J. Fox has, affects the nerves, thus the uncontrollable shaking for example. And a type that affects the older generation. This type affects the brain and is much more easily managed with medication. Randy's sister tells us that mom has already shown considerable improvement with medication, so we are very thankful for that. She has always been very active, continues walking every single day, (though not as far as she used to before she had both knees replaced last year then fell and broke her hip) keeps busy in her flower garden, etc. and is in otherwise great health for a woman of 80.

The second week of June we headed over the mountains to see the fam. We had not yet seen grandbaby number 10, Logan, who will be a year old in September, so the trip was long overdue. We were also there to build a new deck on dd, Cyndi's house, which turned out beautifully (pictures later), and to see my mom and dad who live just down the road a mile or two from step-son and DIL. We were gone for nearly three weeks, and believe me, as much as I enjoy my family, that's just too long for these old folks to be away from our cozy little home!! When we FINALLY hit the road to come back home, we had Grace and Jeffery with us. :) Boy, were we glad to be home.

We had a lot of fun with the kids here. Grace, 6, and I hardly got any scrapping done, though we did play in the new and improved scrap room almost every day. We also did a lot of shopping, so now I've got to get down to business and actually use the goodies we bought over the past month or so! LOL. Jeffery, 13 now, if you can believe that, worked with Grampa Randy to earn money to pay back mom & dad for a textbook he lost. Still he spent a lot of time at the park and the library, and met a couple of girls whose email addresses he went home with. ;) Grace was the perfect little sister about it too, telling her mom on the phone that "JEFFERY LIKES GIRLS!" LOL!!! They stayed with us for a little over three weeks and just left yesterday. I'm already bored. LOL

Which brings us up to date. :) I did get a page scrapped and a couple of cards made and will post pictures later on Scrapendipity's Blog. I'm just awful at keeping up this blogging thing. Sorry!

Hugs to all
Shar