We are here to serve

I just finished, Bob, doing the Opa duty for Rebecca and Chris by watching Alice and Ruby for the weekend while Jane was at Kara and Tim's wedding. As exhausting as it was, it was a lot of fun to be with them. Ok, I am again stretching the truth... it wasn't a weekend, Jane left Saturday morning and Rebecca and Chris showed up to sleep at our house and pick up the girls late Saturday night... but it seemed like a whole weekend as tired as it made me. Alice and Rudy were a dream to be with, and I don't mean a nightmare. We cuddled, played games, changed blow-outs, found out Alice loves baths, after said blow-outs (did you notice that was plural), ate PBJ sandwiches and mac n cheese, raisen bran, watched ELF together as well as Rescuers Down Under, built the tallest building in all of Mill Creek with the legos, missed Jane a lot, found out that Alice likes having her diaper off and asking to sit on the toilet but that she hasn't figured out when or what is supposed to be deposited in the toilet verses the carpeted floor (don't tell Jane). I helped Ruby and Alice discover chololate-banana milkshakes which they loved dearly. I also discovered that the girls are far better behaved for me than anyone else as they were perfect angels, just as I knew they would be. Maybe next time I will be able to keep my sanity beyond 18 hours... of course, I could have done it longer if Jane had been there to do 90% of the work and I just got to play. Isn't it funny how we men get all of the fun and somehow disappear when there is any sign of trouble? I'm sure I wasn't like that when our children were little, or was I?

Wow, here are three mountain men out on a weekend get away... this is the afternoon before the blizzard hit. This is (l-r) Bob, Jeff and Jordan; who were the only mountain men brave or strong enough to go. We were in the mountains in north central Oregon near the town of North Powder.

Bringing in the Sheaves

Our task for today was to clean out our grow boxes and get it covered with black plastic so we will not have unruly weeds taking over next spring. Ahh, life will be easier. Along with that comes the last of the harvest, our CARROTS! More than we have normally harvested, we are quite excited about the abundant crop. We also learned that the carrots are much tastier when harvested after the first frost, which we had last week. So without knowing it, we did something right! We will do some freezing and give some away. Carrots anyone?

Can we do this?

Wow, after several days of trying to do this... I think we have arrived but we just don't know where. We are enjoying being able to keep up with the blogs our children have posted and to be able to see the maturation of our grandchildren. In our perfect world, we would love to have each of our children and their families nestled closely around us, somewhat like it was with Jeff, Mary, Sarah and Nathan for that 1.5 years. Our hearts yearn to be able to in some way be able to be a part of our grandchildrens lives, but not to be too intrusive. As we study the Old Testament and review the inspiring stories of the Patriarchs and prophets of old, we feel the need to let our family know of the miracles we are experiencing and the love we have for one another. As far as pictures... we will do our best. We are however excited to be able to do this and see what evolves! Dad/Bob