AZDonna

As everyone has heard, I have a new grandson! Andrew Lewis Reed was born June 12 at 10:12 a.m., weighing 7 lbs 6 ozs and was 21 inches long. His proud parents are Brian and Carrie. Andrew is adopted … a “chosen” baby … grown in the heart instead of Carrie’s tummy. His birth mother is a 24 year old girl who was originally going to keep Andy. But as she began to calculate her finances and the cost of trying to be both mom and dad to him while working and getting her college degree, she realized he would be much better off placed with a loving and Christian two parent family who could afford to meet his needs (and many of his wants!)

Andrew’s is an open adoption; they will have contact with Ashley as the baby grows up. They met together before he was born to work out a “covenant” agreement, and at that time Ashley expressed her desire to breastfeed. Carrie is a strong advocate of the advantages of mother’s milk, and so they mutually agreed that Ashley will pump milk for Andy for the first few months. Carrie made the first “milk run” when Andrew was 6 days old (Ashley lives about 60 miles away) and picked up about 30 two ounce packets of frozen milk. Andrew has taken to it voraciously.

We’re told his father had red hair, but so far Andrew’s is dark brown. He has fine features, blue eyes, a beautiful nose, and the sweetest disposition of any baby anywhere. In his first week he was held by at least 30 different people, as all the relatives, friends and L.I.F.E. staff paraded through the hospital and later the family room to see and hold this new little star of the show.

Nathan is as excited as any big brother could possibly be. He wants to hold him, give him his bottle and decide when he should be put in his cradle for a nap. He will wiggle toys and wind up music boxes whether Andrew is awake and in the room or not. He is happy to bring diapers and wipes when Andrew needs changing, but stops short at getting his own hands into the dirty work. 😉

Lauren doesn’t seem to notice Andrew yet, but Carrie says she loves to watch other babies that are doing things. So we’re sure she will begin to show interest as Andrew gets bigger and starts moving around. She’s such a sweetie and is in a very mellow stage of her development, so she’s easy to have around with a new baby in the mix. I’m sure things will be challenging when one or more are sick or fussy, but what family doesn’t deal with that?

I’m trying to get in as much holding time as I can this week because I”m leaving on Friday for a summer road trip to Portland. Glenda and I are going up to see Alice, and driving through Boise to spend a couple of nights with Robin and family. I’ll blog along the way. As you are aware, when Glenda and I get on the road together, we have lots of adventures and getting lost is sure to be one of them! (Do you think I should consider buying a GPS before heading out. 😉 )

Here’re some pictures. Enjoy, and feel free to lavish compliments!

Just a few hours old

Proud new mommy & daddy

Nonna’s first look

Ashley & her grandma give a tearful goodbye

Nathan holding Andrew for the first time

(I’m not sure if Andrew is crying or yawning. We’ll give Nathan the benefit of the doubt and say yawning.)

Lauren checks out Andrew’s fingers

Nathan helps with the bottle

Heather holds Andrew.

(Don’t know what was wrong with the camera settings. It’s not Heather. She looked perfect!)

Nathan was never far from Andrew the first evening.

The blog police have been after me, but honestly I haven’t had anything exciting happen lately worth blogging about. (Actually, there is family news — a new baby boy on the way — but that’s Brian and Carrie’s blog story, so I’m waiting for them to spill all the details. However, if they don’t write something soon, I’m going to butt in and do it myself! hint, hint Brian!)

But last weekend I suddenly remembered I haven’t blogged about my new computer. After 12 years with my freebie system that I got from Intel, it was time to replace that old HP. I am now the proud owner of a sporty new Dell Studio desktop, with a Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, 500GB of hard drive space (I’ll NEVER fill a tenth of it!), a R/W DVD drive, and a 21.5″ wide screen HD monitor. It’s a beaut!

Daryl got me all set up when it arrived (a couple weeks ago) and even came over again last Saturday for a maintenance call to tweak of some of my settings, etc. While he was here, I had him help me move some heavy stuff and reprime my washer hose (yes, again!). He’s so handy to have around!

We took Richard’s advice and signed me up for Mozy backups. I have too many photos to back them all up on the free deal (2GB), but I thought I could back them up on DVDs and store them that way. I guess I need to store a copy somewhere besides my house to be really safe (in case of fire or something).

Since regular season TV has ended, I’ve reinstated my Netflix account and am catching up on all the movies that were released this year that I haven’t seen in the theater. I did pay the ticket price to see “UP” yesterday morning in the theater, and I loved it. It is the sweetest love story of an old couple, and a very exciting adventure, too. I admit my fear of heights did creep in once or twice while watching Carl and Russell swing from the garden hose 30,000 feet in the air. The last scene is priceless! I teared up … yes, over an animated flick! Go see it, everyone.

Each year, L.I.F.E. holds a fund raising golf tournament. One of the raffle events is a “ball drop”. Folks can buy numbered golf balls which are then dropped from a helicopter over one green at the golf course. The ball that falls in or closest to the hole is the winner. The first prize is a 46″ flat screen HDTV. Last year I bought $500 worth of balls, but didn’t win anything. I entered again this year ($500 worth), and guess what? Yep, I won the TV!! Daryl and Derek came over today to set it up for me. You might say I spent $1000 on this, but you would be wrong. I helped provide therapy services for more than 300 children with disabilities, and happened to win a TV in the process. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I was sitting in my family room last night around 9:00 and suddenly heard a huge whoosh and the sound of rushing water. I thought it was outside the window and I briefly wondered what my neighbors were doing. I sat there a minute, then got up to go look out. As I moved past the laundry room door, I realized the noise was coming from there. I opened the door to an erupting water fountain gushing from the back of my washer. Eeeek!!!

I tried to turn the faucet off, but it was stuck fast. I grabbed three towels from the rag bin there and threw one on the floor at the carpet edge, and another one over the water fountain, and tried again to turn the faucet off. Stuck fast! I ran to the garage and grabbed a screw driver and back in to try to use it as a lever. Stuck fast!! I ran to the kitchen to grab a pair of pliers out of the drawer and back to the gusher. All this time, the water was spewing forth all over the room, hitting the ceiling, cupboards, doors, dryer, floor… (It was about this time I started to cry.) Finally I was able to begin to budge the faucet handle. Several hard turns and it was off. I felt like a drowned rat!

It took four beach towels, three soaked rugs, sweeping water out the back door and thirty minutes of mopping before the floor tiles showed their faces. Then I called Daryl. He must have heard the despair in my voice, because he immediately assured me swapping washer hoses was an easy fix and he would come over on Saturday to help me out.

Most of the time, I do pretty well on my own, but there are a few times in life I really miss having a husband. Thank you, Daryl honey.

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I took the first picture after I had been mopping for a while. I had to post the other one taken a week ago to show I don’t always look so bedraggled.

This past Saturday, I got to do pottery with Glenda. It’s really, really fun, but takes years and years of practice to do it really well. Just getting the clay centered is very difficult (as you’ll see in the video). I realized after I edited the clips together that I should have put the clip of me first so everyone would think I was doing really well until they saw how good Glenda is. Now when you see her first and then me, it’s very obvious I am just a beginner.

Glenda helped me straighten out and finish up my bowl. Here it is ready to dry, be trimmed, fired, painted and glazed, and fired again.

The weather outside is delightful; a fire would be so frightful! Since we’ve got places to go, let the sun glow, let the sun show, let the sun glow!

Things have settled down at work, but there is still an undercurrent of impending layoffs coming again next quarter. I’m still trying to live very frugally, because a dollar saved this month is a dollar I will have when there is no salary coming in.

Jocelyn, Eric and Liam came out for a visit from Wisconsin last week, and Don and Betty drove over from California. They brought Shelley as a surprise for her two sisters (Joce and Heather), and she stayed with me, as well as the Weisses. Little Liam is a cutie patootie, it was great to meet Eric, and fun to catch up with Jocelyn and Shelley. I think it’s been over 10 years since I’ve seen either one of them. We all had a great visit!

My **th birthday was yesterday. Thank you to all who called and/or sent birthday wishes. I have been sick all week (~strep throat and double ear infection), so I did not go out celebrating last night. All that can wait until next week when I am fully well and not spreading any ugly germs around. I started feeling sick on Friday night while Joce, Eric and Shelley were still here. I cannot figure out how I did NOT give it to them, but they all went home healthy … and claim to still be well a week later. After five days in bed, I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. I’m feeling much better, and have gone back to work, but I still sound like a foghorn.

My sweet sister-in-law had surgery this week and all went very well. I won’t go into details as it’s not my story to write about, but the doctor is hopeful the test results will be much better than originally expected, and that treatment will be much simpler. We have been and continue to pray for that.

As happens every March, UA played in the NCAA basketball tournament. This year’s invitation was a real shock-a-roo, as they had a pitiful year without Lute or much team stability. But they squeaked in, and as a Cinderella team, claimed the only Pac10 spot in the Sweet Sixteen. Unfortunately, that’s where the Ball ended, and they turned back into pumpkins. Louisville spanked ’em good, and sent them home with shattered slippers. The media says we can expect an announcement on a new coach as early as next week, but the next few years could be rebuilding ones for the program.

This beautiful spring day is beckoning me, and I think I will take a little walk.  Before I go, I want to encourage everyone to click on over to Rock The Budget and make a $5 donation to help special needs children continue to receive services that the state budget cuts have taken away. Thanks, peeps!