Fire outside Heber/Overgaard, Arizona

Just wanted to let you know that Paul left this morning to go up to see how close that fire is to our property. Stay tuned for updates as they come in.

We're getting closer to the due date... Here's the May bump photo

2 more months of bump photos to go and I know they are getting anxious for Izabella to get here.

Found a picture of dad's graduation from high school

Look at those eyes!  Happy Father's day dad!

Happy Father's Day Dad!

We just got back into town today and after unloading the vehicle, I dropped in on mom and dad to wish dad Happy Father's Day.  Neither one of them felt like cooking, so mom and I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and got us some dinner.  We did the most unusual thing at mom and dad's house... we used paper plates and ate out in the living room watching the golf and news.  Went outside to see dad's "farm" and got 3 tomatoes.  He still have tons on the vines that haven't gotten red yet.

We recently found out that one of our cousins has passed away

Cecelia Abbott (1936 - 2010)

Cecelia White Abbott, age 74, passed away in Palm Bay, Florida on October 28, 2010. Born January 9, 1936 in San Diego, California, she attended High School at Point Loma and graduated from Woodbury College, CA.

She met her husband and noted Malacologist, Dr. Robert Tucker Abbott. Together, the Abbotts were very active in the Astronaut Trail Shell Club (Florida East Coast), judged numerous shell exhibits all over the state of Florida, and went around the world in 80 days gathering data for a Compendium of Landshells book.

Following the death of Dr. Abbott, Cecelia became an active member of the Sea Bean Society and traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico for her last major collecting expedition in 2005.

Some family investigation

Last night I decided to go on ancestry.com and do some family history searching.  I was amazed at how much I found, including this photo of my grandparents' wedding certificate for Cecil and Anna White.  I already have the actual wedding certificate of my other grandparents, Clyde and Inez Vasey.

I also found a copy of a census taken when my dad was 1-1/2 years old.  At this point, he was the youngest member of the family, Douglas and Leroy had not been born yet. I will post that picture on future posting.

I think Paul and I are fully recovered now.

What are we recovered from you ask? Well let me tell you the adventure of owning two dogs, one which is still a puppy and loves to explore.

Last night, I had just got out of the shower when I hear one of the dogs screaming in pain. I run to the living room to find my husband under his lazy boy chair trying to get Moka out. She has her head stuck in between the mechanism that moves the chair out and back and the wood frame. Everything we tried to do to get her unstuck wasn’t working. A couple of times we thought we had lost her because she would go completely limp.

Our pulses are increasing, our panic is escalating, and we are getting frantic. In the meantime, Coco is screaming and barking at Moka to get out and quit screaming in pain (I think that is what she was saying).

So now you can imagine, Coco is barking/screaming, Moka is screaming in pain, I’m screaming in helplessness, and Paul is almost in tears screaming that he is trying and nothing is working. I finally had to take Coco to the bedroom and close the door, which may I say, she did not like in the least.

Nothing's working, so I suggested that we go ahead and use the saws-all and cut the chair, which Paul had already given some thought to it. So off he goes, while I’m holding Moka up so that she is not in a position to break her neck, and he brings in the saws-all and cuts the wooden frame that holds the chair together. My hero!

Poof! She’s out. As soon as she gets free, Paul rolls over and lays there exhausted, I sit down and almost start crying in happiness, Moka is kinda like in shock and just sitting there looking at us, and Coco is still in the room screaming and barking. Finally, I get up and let Coco out and for the next two hours Coco would not let Moka alone. (At this point, I finally get dressed…)

Izabella's room is ready...where is she?

I just looked at Tiffany's blog page this morning, and here is a picture of Izabella's room.  I am in awe of their decorating talents.  This looks like a page out of one of those decorating magazines.  I know that you could have gone to Tiffany's blog to see the picture, but I just had to post it here on mine.

Have I mentioned lately how nice it is up north?

Yes, that says 70 degrees.  We had lot of wind which kept the temperatures low, and we couldn't go fishing because it was too windy.  It was a perfect weekend to do weed cleaning around the property. Yes, that is Paul weed eating the weeds with Gpa's gas powered weed eater.  It works great!

 

Of course Coco had to supervise and "bark" out orders the entire time.  Meanwhile, Moka could care less, she just wanted to explore.

I wanted to share a funny moment...

My niece, Tiffany, as you know is 8+ months pregnant.  She was at my sister's (Tamie) house (her mom) last week and wanted to go out onto the patio to see Tamie's vegetable garden.  Well, unbeknownst to us, the patio door is not accommodating to pregnant women (or very very large people).  I thought you might get a giggle out of this photo (check out how Tamie has enhanced it).

The baby's room is coming along beautifully!

With help from Tiffany and Daniel's bestest friends, Jaro and Brittany, the baby's room is, I think I heard, done. Now where is the baby? Oh yea, let's not forget that GMa helped a "little" in the painting.  Check out the "brush" she's using to paint with...

Sharing a quiet moment together...

Here are some photos of Coco and Moka together quietly on the bed... it didn't last though. At least they sat still long enough for me to take their pictures together.

Back up in Overgaard!

A few weeks ago, Paul and I brought our trailer back up to the property in Overgaard, Arizona.  It sure is good to be back up in the cool country now that the temperatures are warming up here in Phoenix.

This was taken at 5:00 PM.  YES!

It sure is nice to be back among the trees again.

It's been a busy time since I last posted

Tamie and I had decided once we found out that Tiffany was pregnant, that the baby needed to have a Coach item of her own. So we plotted and decided that a baby blanket with a Coach scarf would be perfect.  I bought all of the material and stuffing  plus ordered the scarf and kept putting it off until the week before the baby shower.  Needless to say, I spent many late nights putting it together, but it was well worth it.  I even put Izabella's name in two places on the blanket.

 On Saturday, Tiffany had her baby shower.  It was a blast.  There were 43 people in attendance and it took over an hour for Tiffany to open all of the baby gifts.  The photos above were taken at the shower.I knew Tiffany was spoiled but I think Izabella will out do her mother in that category.  Tiffany got a lot of wonderful gifts, one of them is a baby monitor with screen.  I"m not sure if they will ever take it out of Izabella's room.  Izabella will be in her teens, and the baby monitor will still be in there.  Dad will want to keep an eye on her.

Here's a photo of Great Grandma White sitting in front of the large table of gifts that Tiffany got at the baby shower. Now you see why it took over an hour to open the gifts.  Once the shower was over, and the gifts were put into several cars, they had the fun job of trying to figure out where to put all of the clothes Izabella got.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of all of the gifts taken from the cars and put in Tiffany and Daniel's living room. 

 

Here's mom sitting at the shower - she's looking pretty good for a great grandmother.

Geraldine is the cake baker and designer in the family.  This is one of her creations -
I think this is absolutely beautiful.  She totally outdid herself on this one.  Hated to have to cut it.
If you haven't guessed, pink and green and brown is the color theme of the shower.

GGMa is holding a large baby bottle filled with chocolates.  We all had to guess how many chocolates were in the bottle to win the bottle and chocolates.  GGMa was the closest, with a guess of 2 more than the actual number.  

Can you tell she was excited?  Her and GGPa are chocoholics.  

They are going to use the baby bottle for their change as a college fund for Izabella.