School pics, Thanksgiving, Tucker

 Sharing the grandsons recent school photos. So cute. 

Colton~Kindergarten

Colton just turned 6 years old in October.

Braedon~Pre-K

 Braedon turned 4 years old in July. 

We sure do miss them. Florida is just too far away. We probably won't see them until June when they come up here for  Kelly's wedding. I am thankful we can talk on the phone and  Skype. 

Getting ready for Thanksgiving around here. Getting things organized, cleaned, making lists, etc.  We will have around 30 people here. It is always a nice time with family and friends.  

 Tucker went to the Aunt Linda's Pet Grooming last week for a bath and haircut. 

Happy weekend everyone.

Be blessed..always

first day of school and baby Eli

Today is Colton's and Braedon's first day of school. 

Colton started Kindergarten and Braedon started Pre-K. 

Here a few pics that my daughter in law, Sabrina shared on fb this morning. 

 

 

While my grandsons are getting big and going to school, my sister's first grandchild, Elijah (Eli), was just born into this world on Sunday.  Congrats to my nephew  Josh and his wife Kari! Also congrats to my sister Lori and her hubby Bill!

  My sister Lori and Eli.

 7 lbs.2oz 

22 inches long

Dan had therapy this morning, it went well, he is making progress. I know he will be so glad when this is all over with.  

This afternoon I have to take Bentley to the vet. He has a  pretty big area on his front leg that is raw..fur is gone, he won't leave it alone, keeps licking it. We discovered it this weekend, I tried home remedies hoping to avoid a vet visit.  Hope it isn't serious or too expensive.  Poor guy!

  Take care, enjoy your Tuesday.

weekend break

Happy weekend!

Dan has a break from therapy and doctor appointments until Tuesday.  I am hoping that he will be able to rest and sleep comfortably and by the time he has his next therapy session he will feel much stronger.  I want to thank everyone again for all of your thoughts and prayers.

My daughter in law Sabrina posted a couple very cute photos of Colton and Braedon today after they got haircuts. 

 

 

~blessings~

 

Sunday Smiles

Happy Sunday! 

Found this cutie on facebook.

Dan is feeling better, but is very tired.  He has doctor appointments and therapy Tuesday through Friday this week. Thank you everyone for keeping him in your thoughts and prayers.

While Colton and Braedon were here, they helped me fill the bird feeders and then we would watch the birds at the feeders in the mornings. Colton especially enjoyed looking at my "National Audubon Society  Field Guide To Birds" and was fascinated to identify birds in the book that we had at the feeders.  I sent him a book just like mine. 

 Colton with his bird book. 

And this is what he had to say about it.. 

"my very own bird book, just what I always wanted. I love it" 

 This was one of our favorites. 

American Gold Finch

Be blessed

August, updates!!

Happy August!! SO much happening here. Where do I start??  I was having trouble with Blogger using my Firefox browser. Finally got that figured out.

Recent events if you aren't on facebook with me is Dan had knee replacement surgery on Friday, July 26th at the Ann Arbor Va Hospital. The surgery went well and he was resting/sleeping when I left that evening to come home. (about 7 pm).  I was relaxing at home, getting ready to go to bed and I get a phone call from the VA hospital telling me that Dan had a heart attack and he was on his way to University of Michigan Hospital for an emergency heart cath. Of course, I took off right away back to the hospital. Fortunately the two hospitals are within minutes of each other.  The heart cath went well, thank God. Dan had a huge blood clot, which the doctors took care of and another blockage of 98%, a stent was put in to open that up. This is his 3rd stent and second heart attack. Thankfully tests have revealed there is no damage to his heart. But he is on a couple new medications for his heart. Dan stayed in the Cardiac ICU until Saturday afternoon, then he was transferred back to the VA Hospital and admitted to the cardiac floor this time. I took this pic while I was waiting for Valet to get my car at U of M.

Dan started physical therapy for his knee on Sunday and he was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, July 30. He will have out patient physical therapy for several weeks, twice a week.  Right now I am his 24/7 nurse.   All of Dan's doctors, nurses, techs, all of the staff at both hospitals were awesome!! I wish I could thank them all personally. Dan is still having quite a bit of pain in his knee and he is tired. We appreciate your prayers for him. Thank you!

On another note..we had our grandsons Colton and Braedon here with us from July 10-20.  My son didn't have the time off work to come up here for a visit, so we met up with them in Knoxville, TN, and brought the boys here to Michigan to hang out with us.  They live in Florida, so it was somewhat of a halfway point. Actually shorter for us, 7 hrs. one way. For them I think it was more like 10 hrs. Then we did the same thing taking them back. We had so much fun with the boys. We took them to the cottage for a few days and did lots of fun stuff around here.

Grandma and her boys

 

 My parents and the boys. 

Click on July photos below. You will see pics from our month of July, 

including July 4th weekend fun.

July photos on facebook.

I  will try to update again soon.

xoxo

pam

xoxo

The latest..

Well, the snow melted after a couple of days. We have had temps in the 40's and most days are sunny. I am looking forward to Spring!
 It seems so strange that we were in Florida one month ago, times flies and we miss our Florida kids & grandkids!! I have so many happy memories of our visit down there.

Here is another cute pic of Braedon, that my Mom took at Disney.

Kelly, Colton and Braedon being silly!

Dan and I have taken a couple days here and there this past month checking out real estate north of here in Michigan. We are looking for vaction waterfront (inland lake) property. Right now we are looking at many different areas, we don't want to be any farther then 4 hours from home. While we were gone last week checking out property, we met up with Dan's niece Rachael and her husband Shawn for dinner at Bennigans in Big Rapids, Michigan. We had a great time!  I haven't been to a Bennigans in years!

Rachael and Shawn live in a very pretty area, lots of woods and inland lakes. It would be great if we find something near them.

Hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day!  Dan had to work 12 hours so we didn't go out for lunch or dinner. But that's fine, we always make sure we spend quality time together.  Even though we didn't have a "date" on Valentine's Day, here is a pic of the gorgeous flowers I got. I am sorry to say that the photo doesn't really show how pretty they were.

  Here are a couple funny pics for you!

Bentley watching TV, he does this quite often!

 I was helping a friends' son with a school project, the little paper character stayed with us and I journaled about it and took pics..anyway, here is a pic I took with Patch.

This photo cracks me up!!!

 Take care

~hugs~

Florida Trip~photos~long

Florida

January 19-30, 2012

Dan, Kelly, Dad, Mom and I had a great time, went way to fast.

This is a diary of sorts, itis of each day, so beware it is quite long. :-) I took many photos, this is just a sample.

Jan. 19~Dan, Dad, Mom and I flew out of Detroit about 12:30 pm. On our flight, the lady sitting next to Dan had a medical emergency, Dan had to vacate his seat immediately and stand at the back of the plane for most of the flight. Thankfully there was a doctor and a nurse on our plane and they helped her. She seemed to be okay after we landed.


We rented a car at the airport and drove to Safety Harbor, Florida to our vacation rental! We were very pleased with the house. Here a few pics.

After we checked out the house and partially unpacked our suitcases, we headed to Whistlestop Bar and Grill for an early dinner. YUM!
Next was grocery shopping at Publix, Mom's favorite grocery store. LOL (private joke). Back to the house to relax for the evening.

Jan. 20~Dan and I pick up Kelly from the airport, she had an early flight, so she got in about 9:30am. We headed to the house to relax a bit.

Later it was lunch at The Cheesecake Factory per Kelly's request!

 Delicious can't even describe how good their food is!

Fried Macaroni & Cheese~one of Kelly's fav's!

We all brought home dessert..cheesecake of course!

This is what I chose...  Pina Colada Cake Cheesecake..fab!!

photo via www.thecheesecakefactory.com

This cake was rich and a very generous portion. I could not eat it all at one time!

That evening Jeremy, Sabrina, Colton and Braedon come over for the evening and we have a cookout, hamburgers and hotdogs. SO happy to see our Florida kids and grandkids!!!! I took so many photos. Oh dear. Speaking as a mother, it is very hard to have your children and grandchildren live to far away.
Here are the boys playing. We got them both remote control trucks. Fun!

Aunt Kelly and boys getting ready to play some games. :-)

Jan. 21~Jeremy&Sabrina had plans for a Monster Truck show that day, so the rest of us headed out for some shopping and some sight seeing.

For our first stop, we went to Ellenton Outlet.

Kelly and I both bought a purse in the Coach store! After shopping we headed to Tarpon Springs, it was a fun day.

Ate lunch at a nice Greek restaurant in Tarpon Springs, Hellas Restaurant.

 Our waiter was very charming and paid extra special attention to Kelly calling her "Angelina" and paying her all sorts of compliments. I had to take a pic of them before we left.

Jan.22~DisneyWorld Magic Kingdom! Need I say more? It was fun day, gorgeous weather and lots of memories made. We were all exhausted by the time we dragged ourselves out of there about 9:30pm.

I have a TON of Disney pics!!!

Jan.23~ Well, Kelly had to leave the afternoon of the 23rd, she could only come for the long weekend. So, we tried to make the best of our time with her. Colton and Braedon were with us now spending a few days! YAY, grandma time! So, Dan, Kelly, the boys and I went to an aquarium and then out for lunch.

Then we had to take Kelly to the airport. BOO HOO! I hated to see her leave, it was so nice hanging out with her. After we got her safely to the airport we headed back to the rental house. Our rental was about 20 minutes from airport. Dan is stopped to turn left into our driveway, turn signal on. The second car behind us hits the car behind us, that car gets pushed to the side of the road and then that same car hits us in the rear!!! Oh my gosh, we couldn't believe it! The boys didn't even realize what was happening and we did not get hurt, THANK GOD! The woman who hit both cars totaled her car..a Mercedes, she was not hurt. The guy that got hit behind us hurt his neck and back and was taken by ambulance. Apparently she wasn't paying attention. Oh boy. Dad and Mom were in the house, came out, helped kids kids and all our stuff out of the car and into the house. One of the fire rescue guys came to the house and talked the boys to make sure they were ok. What excitement! Dan and I drove the banged up rental back to the rental agent at the airport and got a new car.

Jan. 24 -25~Hung out with Dad and Mom and the grandboys at the house. Lots of fishing, sitting by the pool, playing games, just hanging out time.

Jan.25~Enjoyed time with Colton and Braedon all day. I love being a Grandma!

Jeremy came that evening after work for dinner. He took the boys home later that evening.

Jan. 26~Dan and I drove to Webster, Florida to see Dan's Uncle Don & Aunt Jewell then we drove to Clermont to meet up with my friend Diane and bring her back with us to house for a couple of days.

Jan.27~All of us went to visit a friend, who lives in Clearwater,for a couple hours on  it was a nice visit, sitting outside enjoying the nice weather. We ate at Joes Crab Shack for lunch, love their coconut shrimp!

When we got back to Safey Harbor, we walked on the pier and in the downtown area.

We found the cutest cupcake place..
Pick Your Poison Cupcake Cafe

Yes..cupcakes, beer and wine.

I chose the Key Lime Cupcake.

:-)

We had a relaxing evening at the house, Jeremy and the boys came over and hung out with us for a couple hours after he got off work.

 

Jan. 28~ Spent the day in Johns Pass What a great place!

We had dinner at PJ's Oyster Bar in Indian Rocks Beach. Best Seafood ever!!!

I had crab cakes and fried oysters, Dad had steak and lobster, Dad had grouper, Mom had lobster and Diane had crab cakes and fried oysters.

My plate..

Here is Mom's...

We had another relaxing evening at the house.

We finished a puzzle we had been working in the evenings.

Mom & Diane

Jan. 29~We took Diane back to Clermont. This time Dad and Mom came with us. After we left Diane, we went back over to visit Uncle Don and Aunt Jewell and have a cook out. Two of their daughters were visiting from back home in Michigan. We had a great time!!

Jeremy, Sabrina and the boys came over in the evening to hang out. We ordered pizza, just had a laid back evening. Took more pics! It was very SAD seeing them leave that night. I wish they lived near us. It is very hard having them so far away. All I can say is that the Lord has given me the grace to accept it, God is my comfort.

Jan. 30~Packed up and left our vacation rental home. Flew out of Tampa about 12:10 pm. And thankfully it was an uneventful flight!  My brother in law Bill picked us up from the airport in Detroit. He also took us to the airport, thank you Bill!

We are now Home Sweet Home. It seems like the whole time away went so quickly. wow.

 ~blessings~

Pam