Things are going way too fast...

How can so many things have changed since the last time I wrote on here? Jamie has had another baby, Ty has graduated from college and moved to Austin, Lee has graduated from college and move to Austin and my darling little Chloe' not only became engaged to the young man in the photo, but we've planned and had a beautiful wedding. I guess the biggest change has been the lose of my father. A year ago we didn't even know he had cancer and now he's gone.

I don't think we realized how normal he made our family feel until he was no longer sitting among us. I missed him at Chloe's wedding, at my nephew's wedding and when I turned 50 in August. How can life change so fast? I miss you Daddy!

We have a baby.

Her name is Annabella and OMG she is darling. We got to go see her last weekend in San Diego and I must say I fell in love. Jamie and Kallan are getting along great, but still a little nervous with her. It was fun to watch. We ate out, spent a whole afternoon watching Ty and Lara take pictures of her and went to the zoo. Ty is the first one in my family to meet Jamie and they seemed to hit it off.

Europe was....

...oh so much fun. I think this is the first two week vacation I have ever had. I'll post a few pictures, but wont say a lot about the trip, other than it was fabulous!! I've seen lots of pictures of all these places, but nothing compares to being there, eating the food, drinking the wine or our new favorite "grappa". It's only our favorite because of the warming sensation you get from drinking it. The taste compares to a really low grade tequilla.

Tom was charming the whole trip. I may go into with drawls. Everyday was spent walking around holding hands, laughing and exploring.

Clemintine

Leaf once referred to as "the bird from God" is now known as "devil's spawn". He had to be moved to his own cage because he kept mauling Clemintine. He let him self out at will and seemed to like being perched on light fixtures better than being in his cage. The last time he got out, he put himself in with Clemintine. May she rest in peace.

Leaf....the bird

As I mentioned in my last post, we named 'the bird from God' Leaf. Since that time, Leaf began pecking the feathers from Clemintine's wings and we've had to separate them.

dead animals

I just had to share this story. These are the things that truely fabulous Mother's Day are made of....
I don't know if you guys knew, but in Feb. our bird Josey(at one time was Joseph...a whole other story) died. I'd like to say we were devastated that our pet of 8 years had past, but she was really just not a very nice bird. However, the girls and I had built this really cool cage, so when Chloe' asked what I wanted for Mothers day, I told her I wanted a new bird. She got me a beautiful pair of Diamond Doves. They were darling. Unfortunately, after I'd gone to bed our dog Addie decided she wanted to give me a bird to, so she jumped on the bed and layed one on them on my pillow....after she was done playing with that is. I told Chloe' how sorry I was that had happened and that we would have to get another bird to keep the one that was left company. A couple hours later, Chloe' looked outside on our birdfeeder and saw a green parakeet. I told her that was our bird from God and we spent the next several hours trying to get close to it with no luck. When we got up Monday morning and it was 40 degrees, I was sure we would never see that bird again, but sure enough, there it was at the feeder. Tom got one or our old wire cages out of the garage and put seed in the bottom. Throughout the day we had a large assortment of birds in the cage...and finally our new bird "Leaf" flew in cage....how cool is that?