Kids and Dogs

This weekend I "baby-sat" Kris' babies (Dora and Lilo), and also had Kaiya and Teague over on Saturday. What a full, crazy house that made! Kaiya is very taken with her canine friends (much to her mom's dismay, I think - especially if it involves any "kissing"), and had an absolutely marvelous time bossing Lilo around. Lilo is a big goof-ball, but she's also very VERY patient with Kaiya. Dora pretty much puts herself out of harm's way. And Teague just watches the whole parade. I've come to the conclusion that it's actually easier with all of them there at the same time, they keep each other so entertained!

And I love, love, LOVE Teague's whole sticking out his tongue phase (well, it's probably a phase - but how do you know when it hasn't ended yet?) ... isn't he the most adorable thing?

Biggest Loser

I've already posted this on Facebook, but I'm so tickled I'm putting it here as well. At work we have a "Biggest Loser" contest going. We each put in $5 per week; the winner each week gets $3 of it, and $2 goes into an end-of-contest pot. For me, the money, while nice, is not as motivating as 1) the competition; and 2) the fact that everyone knows your results (although not your actual weight). So this is a good thing for me in my weight loss efforts. Also, I've been able to run again, after being sidelined for a couple of months after toe surgery. So ANYWAY, back to my tickle - I lost 5.2 pounds this week, and 11.2 so far in three weeks. Yay for me! Seven more weeks to go ... hopefully I won't stall here.

Camels

OK ... this is kind of strange, but there are three camels that live just around the corner from me. I don't know what the deal is, because sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not. Perhaps they're part of a traveling circus - who knows. One of these days I'm going to go and knock on the door and find out what the story is.

Las Vegas

I spent a great weekend in Las Vegas at the first of the year, celebrating Jerry's birthday. And it just so happened that Steph and Mickel and the kids were on their way to Disneyland at the same time, so we were also able to have a fun dinner at Maggianos (a restaurant I was first introduced to when they lived in Milwaukee). We also saw the Criss Angel show ... a bit of a disappointment. His TV stuff is much, much better. But, he signed a 10 year contract, so I guess he has time to polish it up.

We stayed at the Red Rock Resort, which I had never been to. It was a great place, though quite far off the strip (and that was mostly a good thing). It's also very close to the Red Rock Canyon (of course), and in all the times I've gone to Vegas, I had never gone there before. Jerry took some great pictures.

It was a treat to get Kaiya's take on the whole Disneyland experience, once they returned home to Utah. Of course, the main attraction was the Disney princesses - most especially Cinderella. The second day they saw Cinderella (who actually remembered Kaiya from the previous day), Kaiya was wearing her Cinderella dress.

Belated Happy Birthday to my Krissy Lou

Well, I missed a shout-out to my darling baby girl on Friday, when she had her 27th birthday. I'm afraid she pretty much missed it herself, as she was absolutely drowning in finals for her Masters degree. What a way to spend your birthday. I did call for my usual "this is the time you were born" call, but her phone got wet and was not working, so she didn't even get that. Ah, the perils of having a Christmas-time birthday. At any rate, Happy Birthday, darling girl - your celebration is yet to come. Kristen, you are my best Christmas present EVER!!!!

Queen of Everything

I have long joked that my title is "Queen of Everything," but in doing some goofing around with genealogy stuff, it turns out that it's not far from the truth! The longest line I am able to trace goes back to the year 80 AD (can you believe that??) with a guy named Godwulf, who lived in Asgard, Asia or Eastern Europe, and includes many generations of Kings and Princes of Wessex, Kent and Mercia. A couple of lines go through William the Conqueror and his son, Henry I, King of England. I found numerous lines (some crossing at the same people - in particular, John Ferrers, Earl of Derby) with royalty of Finland, Bohemia, Sweden, Scotland, and my favorite, Queen Swietoslava, Queen of Sweden, Norway AND Denmark (born in 970 AD). That's very nearly the Queen of Everything, isn't it? Oh, and another King of England.

So you know I will now be insufferable with my claim to the title of Queen of Everything.

Banana Banana

Banana Banana. That's my new name. We were talking the other day about the kids possibly calling me something besides "Grandma" ... because they have so many of them! I said, "How about Nana?" and that was pretty much the end of it. Well, the next time they came over, you can see what Kaiya took away from the conversation ...



This apparently evolved from Nana to Nana Banana, and finally, to the grand prize winner. I guess this is pay-back for all the years I have called Stephanie "Anna Banana" (for no logical reason, in her opinion). If it were another child, I would accuse Steph of coaching, but I do believe that Kaiya came up with this all on her own.