Open House - Visit with Retama Family

Anissa's open house came off without a hitch (pretty much) and she had lots of family and friends come to celebrate this special day with her. As usual she arrived looking beautiful and so grown up.
Lots of food, perfect weather and special people. I think every one had a great time and I know Anissa was thrilled with the day.

Well there may have been one that we're not sure if she had a good time.

Our little Delilah wasn't looking like she was to thrilled
Probably a good thing we couldn't read her mind.

The week seemed to be busy doing every day things. Monday Anissa and I did a little shopping for the bridal shower. Darrius comes on Tuesday evenings and spends Wednesday with us. We went for a walk and had to take a picture of Darrius and Pepper. They have become inseparable on these days and it's so fun to watch them.

This picture says it all

Today was a full and fun day. Our little town has a event called Yankee Doodle Days every year. It goes for three days with events for kids, a beer tent for the adults, food tent and entertainment each night. Today was the parade, which our town seems to have lots of. If there's a reason, there's a parade. I forgot my camera but what a wonderful time watching so many different things going down main street Kids had their bikes all decorated, the Shriner gave us a great show on their little bikes and cars, marching bands, cheerleader groups, of course our own Uncle Sam leading the parade (who happens to be in his 80's and known by everyone in town), a 1950's county police car along with their rescue boat, ATV's, and especially the County Horse posse. Oh and of course the fire engines blaring their horns which signals the end of the parade.

After the parade we needed to run in and pick Darrius up and drop Anissa off at her job. If we'd of known this parade was so big (normally a 10 minute one, this was 45 minutes) we'd of gotten Darrius earlier. But next time we will. He and I went downtown to check all the things out while he spent the afternoon with us while his mom and dad took his half brother up to a football camp that was having several colleges there.

Than around 4PM Dale and Mark Bruss came for a Retama Happy Hour and dinner. After dinner Dale treated us to ice cream at the new Cold Stone Creamer here in town, yum. We also met them yesterday up where they are staying in Ionia and had a nice lunch at a local place and did a lot of catch up on what's happening.

So right now we are sitting in our living room waiting for the fire works to start. One of the nice things about living in town is we don't have to leave the house to see the fireworks and again this town loves to shoot those things off over the River.

So with that note I'll say that's about it for this week. Till next time.........

Open house prep, rose bush, peppers saloon trip

Lots of phone calls, emails back and forth with Brandi and trips to the stores, but I think every things ready for Anissa's Open House tomorrow. Now if the weather would cooperate. They were calling for high's in the 90's but that has been changed to the low 80's. But the bad news is the chance of rain has increased, but hopefully it will be over by party time. If not we are under the pavilion so that will help. More comments and pictures next week on the big day.

So what pictures do I have to share with you this week. Oh, I've got to show you the rose bush that friends Lon & Pat brought us last year for a house warming gift. When we left for Texas I wasn't sure if it would survive the winter but look at it now.
Looks like I need to get to the garden center and get a trellis.

Wednesday will be our weekly Darrius day's. Brandi dropped him off Tuesday evening so he could spend the night and all the next day. Darrius and Pepper had a great time racing from one end of the yard to the other, playing with the hose and when grandpa and Darrius played soft ball Pepper made a great retriever.

Unfortunately, one was ready to quit and watch TV and the other wasn't.

One day Larry and I walked down to the local library and got our card. They have a nice eBook collection that Larry can use on his Kindle. But what I was excited about is they now have access to the website Ancestry.com. Some of you know that I've been interested in our family history and use to belong to this website. But it was really getting expensive for the time that I would use it so dropped it several years ago. Soooo once this weekend is over I told Larry I'd be making the two block walk to the library and spending lots of time there.

The only other picture to share is of Pepper. We took her over to a groomer in town here for a trim. Ah I don't think the groomer and I were on the same definition of "trim". When I walked in Pepper was barking her head off (which is not like her) and one look at her and I knew she was probably giving the woman Hell.

It's taken a few days to get use to the new Pepper and I'm sure she will be cooler with the shorter hair cut but I miss my puppy face little girl.



So that's about it for this week. Till next time.....................

Yard Sale - Birthday Party

Well Larry had his 2 week check up on his eye and everything was fine. Back in a month than Dr said they would do a six month check up. Ah that would be in February and we sure won't be here at that time of year. Guess we'll have to talk about that one.

The only other thing we've been doing this week was getting ready for a yard sale on Friday. I can't figure out how we could possible have anything to sell when we haven't had a house in over six years. But we did fine things and with Nadene (DS), Bob & Diane (DB & SIL) and Stint (SIL) we had lots of fun.
We were lucky to have perfect weather and having this tent cover really made it comfortable to sit under. We closed up shop around 4PM, boxed what was left and that all went to the Hospice House's store.

The nieces stopped with their kids and I was able to snap a couple of pictures of them.

Here's our little Lucie. It looks like Pepper is trying to convince her to play ball.

Adrienne was enjoying her doughnut. Course when there's food around the crumb picker upper isn't far away.
None of us made a killing on the sale but we all had a good time.

This afternoon we went over to our great great nieces (yes it was hard typing gr-great, even harder to admit it) birthday party. Little Delilah Michelle turned 1 year old. What a cutie.
Here's one of our gr-gr nephew Cooper and Delilah. Coppers about a month younger but probably 10 lbs heavier.

So that's it for this week. The next few days will be busy with last minute to do things for Anissa's open house next Sunday. So far weather is showing 80's and sunny, perfect for a Park Party.

Till next time........................

Graduation Day for Anissa

Well our beautiful Grand-daughter Anissa reached one of many milestones in her life. Last night she became a 2012 Graduate of Waverly High School. The commencement was held at the Wharton Center Performing Arts on the MSU Campus. It was an exciting evening of watching our little girl go across the stage to except her diploma.

Unfortunately even tho this place has wonderfully comfortable seats, they kept the lights down as if there was a concert and all the pictures came out dark and hard to see. Plus each student was only allowed eight tickets which was a bummer that other family members weren't able to attend. As most of you know we have a rather large support group when it comes to family accomplishments (not to mention very vocal) so it was a shame they couldn't be there for Anissa. And because things were very hectic in the hours before (lets just say our girl earned her "Most Dramatic Award) and after the event some how everyone missed getting a picture of Anissa by herself in her cap and gown.

I do have one picture as she was standing to move to the stage.

She's hard to see but she is the last one in line.

Anissa with mom Brandi
And one of the family

Congratulations Anissa, your one beautiful special young woman and Grandpa and I are so proud of you.

So as for the rest of the week. We had a very warm (I won't call it hot) Memorial Day here. Temp's in the 90's and a sunny day. Two days later we were back in sweat shirts and the heat turned on. It got down in the 30's one night and a cold rainy day followed.

I was suppose to have a yard sale here last Friday but with a high of 50 we canceled it and hopefully this Friday will be better. One of the nice things about advertising on Craigslist is being able to post the last minute.

Other than that the week was pretty calm and basically staying inside to keep warm. I did get upstairs and started going thru all the tubs that have been in storage for the last six years. We need to get things sorted and moved into a walk in storage room up there (sounds better than it is, just a room off the bedroom that was added over the kitchen) so I can start working on painting the two bedrooms up there. One we'll finish as a grandkids/guest room and the other will be set up as a train room. Larry still has his Lionel Train set and he has always wanted to set the track up with villages etc. This will be a good project for him and Darrius over the next few years.

Now that Graduation is over we're on to finish the final plans for the Open House in two weeks. Hope for good weather because it's being held at a city park.

Puppy note: Renee' and Brian came up from Ohio for the graduation and they brought along their dog Devon. Pepper was so excited to have another puppy to play with but alas Devon is a bit finicky and doesn't do the "play" thing. We took them out in the back yard and was able to get a picture of them.

Pepper tried to play keep away but Devon just wasn't having anything to do with it.
Not sure what they were looking at but it entertained them both

That's it for this week. Till next time...............................