Spring Clean-up

This morning, Velda had two trees cut down that were driving her crazy. They were over five and six stories tall and it was getting dangerously and way too much work to rake up all the leaves and bark. Today was very cloudy with a slow constant rain the whole time they worked.

They arrived a little before 8 and immediately got to work on the eucalyptus tree.

In a couple of hours, they made quick work of the eucalyptus tree.

Next was the large fir tree in the front yard. It was getting too large for the yard and was sending huge roots into the front yard.

Before long, the limbs became a pile of chips.

Velda was busy hauling wood chips to use as a weed block in the flower beds.

Our friend Ken came over and split wood and hauled off two truckloads. Ken is quite a worker bee. I think he is in his young 70's. Puts us all to shame with how strong he is.

Velda was rolling the smaller stumps to save to use for garden stools and climbing stumps for James. This one was too heavy to roll.

And the stumps were ground into sawdust. The fir stump took a very long time to grind down.

You can't even tell there was a tree there.

Waiting for Spring

While the rest of the country is having warmer than normal temperatures, the Pacific Northwest is having cooler than normal (-5 degrees) and wetter days (1.6" above normal YTD). For March, 13 out of 17 days have had precipitation (rain or snow), the rest are plain cloudy.

Most of the trees are turning green - not with leaves but with a covering of moss.

We are looking forward to spring with warm and sunny days.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day from your friendly Chinese Viking Leprechaun...

Yes, I have a wee bit of the Irish in me!

I will pass on an Irish Blessing:

May your home be filled with laughter.

May your pockets be filled with gold.

And may you have all the happiness

Your Irish (or whatever nationality you are) heart can hold!

Now I have to hide because if you catch me, then I have to give you the pot of gold.

What do you expect from a guy who is not quite two?

2nd Generation Toy Usage

This weekend we dug out some of Chris' old toys for James to play with.

James really liked the Duplo blocks.

He needed Grandpa's assistance to put some of the building blocks together.

We found Chris' old wheelbarrow. He was very happy he had one like Grandpa's

He did not want to put it down. James does not know it yet but Po Po has plans to put him and the wheelbarrow to work picking up pine cones.

Who knows how many more generations will get usage out these toys.

Time with G-G

A couple of weeks ago, James' Great Grandma Ruth came down to visit with James.

James and G-G (it is a lot easier for him to say G-G instead of Great Grandma) were headed out to lunch in Kirkland.

James was very willing to show G-G how his fishing pole worked.

Uncle Chris had made some fish for him and Po Po painted them.

They did some reading. James thought he would try it with Po Po's glasses.

And they got to spend some quality time together.

After she left, he kept asking for G-G.

Another Visit to Great Harvest

Two weeks ago, James began calling Velda by her name. OK, it should be Po Po but he can only say Bo Bo. Po Po/Bo Bo took James to pickup some bread at Great Harvest. They get a sample of the bread when they are there.

James loves the bread and cannot wait to tear into the sample.

As you can see, he really gobbles it down. He has no problem eating his sample and then mooching off of someone elses.

And it is soon gone. He is looking and pointing to the counter where the samples are and hopes he can get another slice before he even finishes off the last little bite.

Time with Godfather

Two weeks ago, James spent some time with his Godfather Paul.

James loved showing him some of the balls he played with at Po Po and Grandpa's house.

James was very proud of how he could pile the balls on Uncle Paul and was a little upset if any rolled off his stacked pile.

What we did not get was a picture of James nailing Paul in the face with one of his fast balls. James is developing quite a throwing arm.

Meeting Coleson

Saturday, we were introduced to Velda's niece's (Emily) son Coleson who is 3 months old.

Here's the proud Mom Emily with first time grandparents Barry and Judy.

Judy is Velda's sister.

Grandma Judy and Great Aunt Velda with Coleson.

We all got a turn holding him. Ron said his time was only a nanosecond.

Coleson was a good sport about being passed around and rarely cried.