Curtis' Rules

Last week Curtis spent a few days with my parents. Here is my Dad's transcriptions of his experience playing games with Curtis.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought I'd talk about Curtis, you know, our one and only grandson who is almost 5 years old. He answers to Curter, Bud, Buddy, Junior, even Curtis.

We had him for a few days prior to Christmas and I must say, the kid has an addiction to TV. He watched a DVD of old Tom and Jerry cartoons until he knew them by heart... or at least I thought he did. I managed to get him outside a few times and we played until I got too cold to motate.

He likes to play board games so we did that as he brought each one out to the dining room table. We played Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Backgammon (his way), Checkers (also his way), and Chess (with a totally new twist).

As he set the board with Chess pieces I asked, "Do you know how to play this game?"

"Uh-huh," and then proceeded to set the black pieces on the black spaces and the white pieces on the red spaces and in random order. I've learned to 'go with the flow' because I seldom have a chance to win when playing grandchildren.

Then he rolled the dice! He counted the dies and moved one of the black pieces in some wild motion and placed it on a black square with another black piece!

I had to ask, "How do you play this game?"

"Roll them and count the dots." I did.

"Which one do I move?"

"Anyone." I moved one of my men to another space and all was well.

He tossed the dies and counted the dots and moved a third man onto a preoccupied space. It was now one of those games where there are no rules until he needs a rule to trump anything I do and benefit him. I decided to "try the rule book."

I rolled the dies and counted the dots, six. My bishop was handy so I slipped him to the far side of the board right next to his King.

He straightened up and said, "Good move, Papa. Now let's go play some ball."

Dec 27

Twas two days after Christmas and I look forward to cleaning everything up. The house will seem so much bigger! Karen is spending 4 nights with my parents and we will pick her up Wednesday when we go over to help my Grandpa move into my folks' house. He will stay there either until he's given the All Clear from his heart surgery, or indefinitely.

Grandma is at a home that is over 6 miles away from town and isn't all that cheery of a place. We looked at 2 other places on Saturday and if one of them has an opening, Grandma will get moved there. Poor gal slept for 22 hours straight the other day. Hope she wasn't all drugged up, but that her brain was really tired. This one place is so beautiful, the residents have their hair done up, and the home smells good!

We went and saw "Alvin: the Squeakual" on Friday night and we rented "Julie & Julia" last night. Both are very good movies and I recommend Alvin for the whole family, and J&J for the over 15 crowd. (nothing bad, just the handful of swear words).

Curtis wants to watch The Pink Panther DVD from Auntie Kim. See you later.

Wise Doug

I can't get these in order, so use your imagination. Merry Christmas!

... a little rain must fall...

Into every life, that is. I have never feared dying. It's the getting old that is scary. when I was younger, it wasn't the aging/sickness/disease part of it. It was "I don't want to get wrinkly and ugly." Views change on that when you start getting close to 40.

I now do not fear aging... I view my octagenarians in my life as beautiful people. Those wrinkles and gray hair hold so many stories.

I have many beautiful old people in my life.

1) Grandpa Cecil. He is 88 and amazing. He has survived prostate cancer, World War II, his brother's death, and 2 weeks ago he came out of open-heart surgery and is healing nicely. He adores his wife of over 65 years and has dedicated the last 10 years to being her sole caregiver. Two months ago he decided he needed help and they moved into an Assisted Living Facility. Thankfully it was done before surgery was required. Today he was forced to make another decision... move his beloved into a nursing home. Her care was too great for the workers at the ALF. He will stay in his room until the end of the month where the caregivers can watch him, then he will move in with my parents.

2) Grandma Delight. I loved being with Grandma Dee. She taught me how to make rhubarb pie and chicken & rice. I loved getting a hug within her plump arms. She loved to sing. Old age has affected her body and mind. Her legs don't work and she's confined to a wheel chair. Helpers have to move her from seat to bed to toilet. Her mind is confused and she repeats herself often. Today her words were almost incoherent. As she left the ALF and went to the NH, she asked, "Cecil, where am I going? Are you going with me?" This separation could be as painful as during the War.

3) Grandpa Chauncy. He's only been my Grandpa for 15 years, same as 4) Grandma Lucile. They have so warmly welcomed me and our children into their family. I wish I knew more about them and hope to learn even more. Grandpa is 95 and Grandma is 88. I am so thankful that they are both healthy, relatively speaking. They still live in their home with a bit of help. I adore these two people. They have hearts for loving on people. I have never heard them say a negative thing about anyone. They are people you want to be like when you grow up.

So... I look at old people differently now. There are stories and lives lived in those wrinkles. Wisdom and advice in those gray hairs. As a lovely song says,

"Lord I want to be just like You, cuz they want to be just like me. I want to be a holy example..."

To my Grandparents, two of whom probably will never see this, I love you. Thank you. And if someone loves me half as much as I love you all, I'll be blessed.

Cowboy Curtis

The Princess Alexa Foundation

Wanted to help get the word out about The Princess Alexa Foundation.

http://www.princessalexafoundation.org/index.asp

Since halloween costumes are now 50-75% off, I'm getting involved. I bought 5 costumes today in prices ranging from $3.50-5.00.

Sweet little kids getting chemotherapy for cancer get to dress up and imagine their lives differently for a short bit.

Meet Candy...

Our new puppy is here!! Curtis has settled on the name Candy. Let me tell you a story about it all....

So we go visit the house on Wednesday where the puppies lived. Mama had 10 puppies and 3 had found homes already. We visit all the doggies and Curtis is in heaven. We direct him towards the brown dogs since Maggie was black and we have 2 black cats and 1 black cavy. And I knew we wanted a girl. So we look at the 3 brown dogs and decide it's good. I tell the man we'll be back to get one after I check with Paul. I decide to stop by today on my way out of town and let them know we'd be back. Curtis and I pull up... and there are no dogs. Come to find out, the man decides to give up on finding homes and was heading to the humane society with all the puppies but the one like we wanted. So wife calls him and says, "Bring one back." We said we'd be back after we buy puppy food and a collar. As we are leaving, a man pulls up and says he, too, wanted a puppy! So the wife calls her husband again and tells him to bring another one home.

When we got back, there were several puppies there. She said they decided to wait one more week before taking them in. She told me the man wanted the lighter brown one and I said it wasn't a problem, so we pick the caramel one. And now we have Candy, and Curtis said, "Does she know I'm her Mama?"

I have to admit... I'm pretty excited too. :)

Novembrrrrrr

The cold has hit!

But really.... Paul is a wonderman! He fixed my dishwasher.

We went and looked at puppies today. Oops.... puppies are too cute!! Some day one will probably be ours.

Actually, the only reason I'm posting today is because Paul fixed the blog sign in so it's no longer under his name so it should be easier to update. If anyone is listening...

Until next time America.

School Year

We are well into our school year. Karen and Krissy are both doing well. Krissy's first progress reports showed all As with one B. Pretty good! She is also doing well in volleyball with her first game tomorrow.

Karen hasn't been sent to the principal's office yet, so that's always good news. Karen's cavy Abe got bonked on the head or his eye and we made an emergency run to the vet. He may lose his vision, but he'll be fine overall.

Curtis will be dismissed from speech therapy next week. I'm also not having him go to preschool since I am not working. We'll continue to work on letters and number recognition and him writing his name. He has already lost two teeth and was excited about the tooth fairy's visits.

creepy crawlies

I just had an unnerving experience. I went out to get our pool towels off the clothes line. We just toss them back up there for the next time we need them. There were 5 kinda stacked on each other. So I go to pull one off.... and there are about 50 wasps just hanging out in a fold. It's pretty cool today (well, only 81°) and they weren't active. I grabbed the can of wasp spray and soaked those suckers down. Then watched them fall. It gave me goosebumps and creeped me out!

Life is Good!

Things are going very well for us. I'm so thankful to Jesus for that. Our family got to enjoy a week at the coast, courtesy of Paul's Cousin Julie and family. They lent us their beach house (rough, eh?) and we were 4 blocks from the sand. It was Curtis' first time and he loved it. The weather was gorgeous the first 3 days and sunnier than we expected. The last 2 were cooler, but still very nice. We traipsed down to Seaside and Astoria a couple days. We ate salt water taffy, fudge, calamari, shrimp and other tasty bites.

We spent our week and shared the house with Uncle John, Aunt Chris, Cousins Emily & Ellen, Aunt Kim, and Grandpa Keith and Grandma Jessie. We had a great time all being together. And the best part: no GameBoys, Wiis, cable TV or computers!

So Julie... if you are reading this: THANK YOU! It was such a blessing to have the time off and to use your house. You saved us oodles of money since we could cook our own food. And it's also been several years since we've had a real vacation, so we greatly appreciate what you did for us. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Karen flying her first kite.


at a lighthouse at Cape Disappointment
Curtis doing the Lighthouse Boogy
Our family.
Beautiful sunsets captured by Paul

Emily & Curtis
Karen digging in the sand
Krissy
Curtis' first time to see the beach



School begins in 2 weeks. Krissy will be in 9th, Karen 5th and Curtis will go back to speech group.

My parents return from Africa in 5 weeks.

Paul's garden is going great and we have eaten some great produce.

My Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Craig, Cousin Cleighton and his new wife Natalie came up from CA for a visit. It was our first time to meet Natalie. It was so good to meet her.

Sneaking up on July

We are nearing the final days of June. The middle of summer is approaching. The hot days will finally arrive. It has been hot enough for this Mom's minimum requirements to hit the city aquatic center. I think Curtis went down the frog slide 100 times. Last year: zero.

The big news is that we have a new daughter. Krissy is 13 (birthday is in August) and going into the 9th grade. She could be with us for a long time, so start Christmas shopping now! We're breaking her in fast: she gets to meet the Steeles next weekend in Ontario. I tried to prep her by showing her family pix on everyone's blogs, but Paul said that doesn't really show her anything. Curtis likes her but can't remember her name. Karen likes her, too, so that is a bonus.

And speaking of fostering, we have decided to no longer do the littler ones. Five years and up. So on July 18 we will be having a very large yard sale. I have 17 (yes, seventeen) totes full of clothes from Karen and Curtis, plus cloth diapers, toys, shoes, blankets, that we will be pricing and hopefully selling. I am going to keep just one tote for each kid of special things for them to take with them. I have about 5 dresses from when I was a baby and I'm sentimental enough to do the same for my kids. It'll be so nice to get those clothes out of the attic. (And stroller, car seats, diaper bags, kick-n-play) Whatever doesn't sell will be donated to the Foster Kid Closet at DHS (so they can give clothes to newly picked up kids).

Paul finished up Stage One of the Fence Project. Not sure when there will be time to do Stage Two: South Side. Our neighbor is quite impressed with Paul's handy work. In our surveying of property lines, we did find out that the prior neighbor owners put in sprinklers about 9" into our yard. Since we are so kind and loving, we did a hand-shake agreement to adjust the property line our way to be in-between the sprinkler lines. Sure beat being mean and telling him to move the sprinklers!

This is a 'wild' squash. It sprouted by itself amongst the flowers. We're letting it go to see what it will do. I figure it'll be ironic if it produces more food than the 'real' ones in the garden.
I know there is housework awaiting. I did get through all the totes and checked to see what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to give away, and what needed to be tossed. Then helped mow (Karen started, Paul finished). Got laundry on the line. Put out lunch, cleaned up lunch and started the dishes.

OH yes... Krissy brought her cat with her, so now we are up to 3.

The Fence

At the moment, the blog gods are not allowing me to move my pictures around. So they are very out of order.

Our berries are ripening. Joe & Abe are helping with the weeding.

With Mrs. Bolland

Last Day of School. She's mad at me because I accidentally got sunscreen in her eye.

Karen receiving her awards:

again

pitching in the last game


at third base

This week we are having a Staycation... Paul is off of work and we are staying at home. Paul is fencing.