To Rejoice or Not to Rejoice - That is the Question

Let go with rejoice!  Why?  Well first of all.  I'm so fat!  How fat?  160.7 and blood sugar 125.  Ugg!  Why rejoice about that?  Well... I sure enjoyed getting that way!  How did I get that way?  First there was the trip to southern California to see my daughter Katie along with her husband Ish, toddler Charlotte and brand new baby girl Kamilla.  I loved visiting them.  Charlotte is so adorable and fun and exhausting :)  Kamilla is so very sweet!  I miss snuzzling her.  I know many of you have seen the pics I have posted to facebook but I'll do a little history in pics later.  Anyway... I assure you, there was no dieting in California!  Oh yes... most of that was self imposed.  It's not like they made me throw a pound bag of peanut M & M's in the grocery cart every time we went to the store.  Upon arriving home from CA I found my flowers and gardens in beautiful shape because my Aunt Jane and Uncle Jay where here and took care of them.  I spent four glorious days at home.  Two days catching up from vacation and then the weekend with Amberlyn, Bobby and his girlfriend Bailey visiting.  Then poof!  Back to Woodinville for a week to basically say g'bye to Valley Supply Co!  Yep!  Done!  Wow!  I'm still reeling!  Not only from slowly realizing that I no longer have a job but from all the culinary celebrating.  Pretty much everyone I know took me out to lunch/dinner to celebrate.  That was awesome!  :)  So yes... I'm FAT!  Waaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

I intended to announce my retirement on Monday morning (umm... last Monday morning) but found that I SO did not have time to do that as I had my little almost three year old grand daughter Aubrey with me.  I brought her home with me on Friday so she's been here almost a week now.  I decided that I would not consider myself retired until she goes home as there's not a whole lot of relaxing going on right now :)  But I've realized that this is what it's all about!  Having the time to spend on the really important things like running through the sprinklers with Aubrey and teaching her to sing Jesus Loves Me.  :)  How fun!  And if I look to my own dear mother as an example of how to do "retired" life well then my retirement will never start.  :)  I have not observed a great deal of relaxing going on in her life either!  Well... sure, there are periods of relaxation but they do not typically exceed 10 minutes.  That's about the amount of time it takes for someone's plate to become empty or their coffee to need refilling.  :)  I don't know how she does it!  But I also know that she finds great joy in her service to her husband, family, friends and most importantly to her God.

So what's next?  Honestly I don't know.  I do know that today there are more peas and beets to pick.  There is this little girl who desperately needs and does not want to take a bath :)  Then there is a produce extravaganza at Super 1 in Colville that I want to go check out with Aunty & Unc.  When we come home from that I need to think about dusting the house and making sure the guest rooms are ready for our weekend visitors.  I also promised to find a better bubble recipe for Aubrey's bubble wand.  I'm pretty sure that will take care of today.  And tomorrow?  Well... I'll just open that present when I get to it.

Now that I've told you what I've been up to for the last few weeks I'll show you too...

Here I am on a stroll with Charlotte.  In order to get a little exercise while in CA I took to taking Charlotte out for a "naptime" stroll.  The the sidewalk route through her neighborhood is almost exactly a mile.

The landscape in her neighborhood includes things like this...
                                                                       Cactus

                                                                                                    A beautiful fern tree

enormous century plants

After a short time of walking and looking at the scenery Charlotte would fall fast asleep :)

And wake up refreshed and ready to go!  This is actually the way she emerged from her room one day after her nap... cell phone, sunglasses and purse.  Talk about your California girls!

And then there's baby Kami :)  Oh so sweet!

She doesn't do a lot yet... but some day she will be a wonderful playmate for her big sister who is already anxious to play with her...

Here's Mommy feeding baby Kami

And Mumsey with baby Kami

And my favorite pic of baby Kami with Mommy... 

Yes!  They match!  :)

 And then Aubrey came to visit...

We visited Grampa out in the field working on the fence

She helped Mumsey in the garden.  Here she is
inspecting the grapes.

We did our hair and put our lipstick on together

She played in the creek with Big Lucy, Little Lucy and Tank

She was always ready to feed Daffy

                                                    

She has a new favorite Uncle...

She loved picking raspberries... unfortunately there were very few in the bowl when she was done with them...

Mostly she just enjoyed being outside and soaking up the sun a little...

Well... the end of the story is that I wrote this last Thursday and intended to add the pics the next day but... poof!  It's almost a week later... but that's another blog post!

Ciao!