special day

I got to go in the hot tub today. I asked Paul to watch Camille for a while so I could take a dip....and in I went....with Jonathan, and Suzanne....Suzanne who chanted, "Gingerbread house, Gingerbread house, "....the whole time, and Jon, who is just Jon.....I found myself wanting to complain, then I thought, hey, I had a nap today, then I went in the hot tub....I have to stop complaining.....so, I went in the house and thanked Paul.....Then, as the afternoon wore on, we heard some voices, and the stomping of feet on the deck....it was my sister and 5 of her daughters. They came in for a visit, and we decided to go out to Chinese......here is Margaret with her friend Mel, who is spending the night....for some reason, scooping ice cream was hilarious.... Here is my oldest brother's daughter......she is one of 10 kids...she went with us, too....she is lots of fun...her icecream matched her shirt....

Here is Claire, one of my sister's girls, and the namesake of Charlotte Claire....

Abigail.....and Audrey, another of my sister's girls....

Jon with his diet pepsi....the best part of the meal for him....

Sonja K.

Bethany, who is spending the night, and my Kathryn......they are very good friends....Bethany has 13 brothers and sisters, so she fits right in at our house.

Suzanne Eleanor.....happy girl.

Here is the whole gang, except Abigail, who arrived a bit later. Yes, Jon was the only boy.....(Sam is salmon fishing, Aaron is in the Adirondacks, Joe was home, Ben at work....)(Emily, Mariel, and Molly are also in the mountains.)




This is the group that rode in our van....we sang Bingo, By The Rivers of Babylon, and Amazing Grace, to name a few....do you notice Jon's steering wheel? He usuallly brings one everywhere.

Here is a shot of my Joseph, Mr. Softhearted, understanding, funny, helpful, ect...but I try to tell him that he looks like a rough guy......I mean, if you saw this boy, you wouldn't believe that he is such a good kid.....oh well.....and that child in the background: Evelyn Joy...

Okay, here is Miss Camille in action.....

She loves the rolly thing on the top of here, it makes noises when she runs her hand across it....she likes to stand and try to take steps....slow down, baby....stay small....

So, I have had a very nice day. The kids got to bed much later than I would have liked, almost 10:30....but they went to sleep as soon as they got in bed. Hard to believe with all the mountain dew and diet pepsi they had....and hot tea, too.

You know, it has been over 5 years since I had Robert William, my poor tiny baby, stillborn at 6 months. He was due around this time. So, of course I think about him. I remember after he was "born", everywhere I went, and everything I did seemed unreal. And I looked at other people a little differently. Because I didn't know if the cashier in Walmart was suffering a loss....I wondered if other people just looked normal, and were just crying inside.....it was like that after my parents died, too. It made me more merciful towards people....I mean, that grumpy lady may have just had to put her dog to sleep or something, I don't know..... Right after my mother died, which occcured early in the morning, on a Friday in July two years ago, my sister and I were exhausted. I mean exhausted. We had been up at the hospital with her until 3 in the morning, and not realizing that she was so close to dying, we went home...I got in bed around 5, and my brother called a few hours later to say that she had died....we went to my dad, of course....then, after making arrangements, and shopping for her burial clothes, which is a whole other funny story, my sister and I stopped at the grocery store on the way home. My cashier gave me a really hard time about something stupid. She just wouldn't drop it. I finally told her, "My mother just died this morning, can you just leave me alone?" ....and I met up with my sister, we were leaving the store, and she had told her cashier the same thing.....we felt like the world should show us some mercy.....

On and on I go. sorry......missing someone, though, is awful. I miss my parents. I look normal (sort of), act normal (sort of)....but I miss them. It is just a deep deep sadness. I look at my Sonja with the reddish hair, like my mother's.....and Chinese restaurant was my mother's middle name...maybe that is why all this is stirred up again.....she would have LOVED to be there with 14 of her grand-daughters, and one grandson, and the girls' friends and my sister and I. Just LOVED it......