Memorial Day, Baby Addison, & More Pics from Susan's Visit

Good morning from Leila!

We didn't camp or go anywhere big this Memorial Day weekend (though we thought about the holiday campers who braved it out through the area's thunderstorms and tornado watches!).

We did go to Cornell yesterday morning for a parade. Jon's father Bud is one of the last remaining WW II vets in Cornell, so was asked to be part of the parade, riding in a convertible with other veterans.

He wasn't sure about going at first, but after encouragement from family decided to participate. When he rode down Main Street, a crowd of his own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were there to cheer him on.

Pictured at right, below, are: Jon's sister Sally with arm around Michael, sister-in-law Jill (Phil's wife), Bud, Emma, Luke (Sally's son) and Luke's girlfriend (sorry-- I'm blanking on her name).

The parade was followed by a small ceremony in the local cemetary, and a scrumptious turkey dinner courtesy of Jane.

Since we were in Cornell, we took the opportunity to visit Jon's long-time friend Dave DeJongh and wife Shelly, who recently had a baby of their own. Their first child, daughter Addison, was born twelve days after Leila, so the two girls are very close in age. We think there will be lots of fun play dates ahead! Here are some photos from this "meeting of the babies":

It was fun seeing their similar postures and expressions. They like to stretch out but tend to be all curled up when you hold them.

Everything has really leafed out here, in the past few weeks. It's been exciting to watch things come alive this spring-- we've only ever seen our new house in the winter, of course. The melting snow uncovered beautiful perennial gardens that have been filling out, as the season progresses; all we had to do was rake leaves out of the way. We have tulips, bleeding hearts, lillies-- and more types of flowers than we can name or identify.

Jon has been using his Bobcat to expand our back yard. He's also been making trails in our woods. I'm finally getting to see his landscaping skills at work-- when we lived in town there wasn't much space to work with, so he didn't do much more than mow the lawn and trim the bushes. Now he's talking about adding a water feature and building play equipment for the kids.

When Susan and Jonathan were here, we had to laugh because they could see first-hand what their father does to "relax" at home-- work! After spending all day working his main job, plus a few additional hours working one of his side jobs, Jon likes nothing better than to come home and get in his Bobcat.

Another aspect of living out here is that we're turning into bird watchers. There is such a rich variety of birds around here, it's hard not to watch them. When we see something "new", that we can't identify, I try to look it up in the bird book Dad gave me, years ago. Our most recent exciting discovery was a hummingbird-- I saw it sipping out of one of our red tulips.

This weekend the kids and I went for a walk and then came back to our backyard, for a picnic (Leila's first picnic--aw!). Emma took great delight in packing our supplies, which included pop tarts, apples, and cookies. We sat on a blanket and enjoyed the sunshine.

I'll close with more pictures from our recent visit with Susan. Enjoy!

Our Week With Susan

Last weekend we made a trip to Minneapolis, to pick Jon's daughter Susan (my fabulous stepdaughter!) up from the airport. She finished her regular school year, but came to visit now because she'll be taking summer classes and won't come with David for our usual summer visit. But she was able to stay for this week in May, and we were very glad to have her!

The original plan was for Jon to pick her up at the airport while the kids and I waited at home, but we decided at the last minute to all go. We were a little bit nervous about travelling with Leila, but as it was she slept the entire way there. She also slept the entire time we were in the airport. She woke up a little on the return trip and gave us a few smiles, but didn't start fussing until we were home and I was ready to feed her.

Michael and Emma still had school last week, and Jon had to work, so Susan, Leila, and I spent a lot of time together. It was fun having Susan around-- she's 20 now, but much more mature than her age and great company. We had a lot of good conversations and went out walking with the stroller when we could. She held the baby a lot and showered her with love and kisses.

It was a neat time for her to meet the baby, because she's still little like a newborn but more responsive now. The smiling thing, for example, is very recent. It's really just been this past week, when Susan was here, that I was sure those were "real" smiles. So she was able to look into Susan's eyes and they could smile at each other.

On Monday, Susan and I took a drive up to Cornell, to visit her grandparents while Mikey and Emma were at school. While we were there some of Jon's siblings stopped by-- Sally, Ann, and Eric. Susan also visited with her other Grandma (Grandma Sue), and the two of them ended up coming over so Grandma Sue could meet Leila.

The next night we had Jonathan over for dinner. Jonathan lives and works in Eau Claire while attending school for business administration. We had him over again Thursday night, for a cookout in our backyard, so Susan was able to see him a couple of times. Jon grilled hotdogs and brats, and we had a picnic outside. Everyone played "baseball" for awhile, though it was done kid-style with a big plastic bat and a tennis ball. I even took a few swings! Afterwards we had a fire outside and roasted marshmallows. It was really a nice, relaxing evening.

On Friday Mom and Dad came by for a visit, after stopping over at Aunt Margy's. Mom let me look through some fabric that she has so I could make color selections-- she's making me a quilt for our bedroom. I'm excited... we haven't had one in awhile, and now I'm old enough to appreciate it better. Laurie learned to quilt, but for some reason I never developed that interest myself. But I love the finished product!

When it was time to take Susan back to the airport, we decided that everyone would go along again. We set out early Saturday morning, so were tired when we left but otherwise seemed okay. About an hour into the trip, I started getting really sick; more than my usual car-sickness. This was just coming on me when we stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast... I didn't feel good and couldn't eat anything, but was surprised and happy to see my cousin Ann Richter, her husband Randy, and son Craig (who is about Michael's age). Ann actually came out and hugged us as we walked through the door-- what a surprise!

Ann is one of my Aunt Margy's daughters, and has always impressed me with her warm, friendly disposition. They live in Amery, but were travelling when we met them (I forget which town we were in). The picture above is Michael and Emma with their son Craig.

Anyway, after the McDonald's, I kept getting more and more sick. I had to stop and use the bathroom a couple of times along the way, and it started to be a concern whether we would get Susan to the airport on time. We did make it, but it was close. We dropped her off by the check-in door, and while she was still outside our car, saying goodbye to everyone, I started throwing up. I felt like I had the worst flu I'd ever had. My body was achy, I was cold and hot, and my stomach was just wrenching. I've had a cold for awhile, so in between vomiting had to blow my nose and cough a lot. Misery! And very poor timing.

The ride home was dreadful. Poor Jon drove while I sat next to him and threw up in the diaper bag. The miracle was that baby Leila slept the whole time-- all the way to Minneapolis and back again. We made it home, and I went straight to bed. Once I was out of the car I stopped throwing up, so motion sickness must have been aggravating my flu. Still, I spent the weekend mostly in bed, able to take care of the baby but not do much else. I'm better now but still not 100% and haven't regained my appetite yet.

I hope this illness doesn't get passed on to Susan or any of the family we visited with this week!

Meet Oscar the Bragg Pup; Susan's coming!

This weekend the kids and I went to Rhinelander, for a long overdue visit. It was an eventful time to be there, since Laurie, John, Jim, and Bill were also up for the weekend. A fun bonus was that Mom and Dad had adopted a new golden retriever puppy, just days before.

Right away Laurie and John took charge of the name selection process, and some creative puppy names were proposed. One popular favorite was Mr. Bo Jingles-- a very clever name, indeed. Other suggestions were Whiskey, Caramel, and Hector, but in the end, Mom and Dad vetoed them all and came up with their own name... Oscar.

Michael and Emma had a blast playing games with their aunt and uncles. First they enjoyed a highly competitive two hour-long croquet game. Emma was shown how to knock her opponents' balls (she's a natural at that). Everyone took turns playing Stratego with Michael (who gleefully out-manuevered each challenger). Uncle Bill even taught Mikey and Emma how to play Scrabble, which led to Emma having the glorious moment of using up all of her letters in one word, for 90 points (go, Emma!).

We had a birthday party for John, along with a fabulous ham dinner and two birthday cakes, courtesy of Mom. Saturday night we had a bon fire-- after some effort. Unfortunately we also needed (and were given) a fire safety lesson from Dad.

The weather was nice enough all weekend to spend lots of time outdoors, and we enjoyed walking the dogs in the woods. Laurie had brought along Mingo and Lilly, though I had left Coco behind in Colfax at Jon's request (he had to stay home and work this weekend, and wanted company). It was sometimes challenging to get little Oscar to follow the group (he kept wandering back toward the house), but overall he did a good job of keeping up with his Bragg-Valaskey "cousins".

This was Leila's first visit to Rhinelander. She went for one stroller walk with us, but mostly spent her time indoors, curled up on people's shoulders. She's one month old now. As you can see in the photos, her eyes are still blue and her hair is still spiky. She is sweet and good-natured; we couldn't love her more.

Next weekend she gets to meet her big sister, Susan! Susan is flying in to Minneapolis on Sunday, May 10th, and staying at our house for the week. She's seen the Colfax house already, since her and David were with us in December when we were first shown the place. But she hasn't been here since we moved in, and she hasn't met Leila yet. So we're very excited

to have her coming.

We'll make a point to travel to Cornell at least once during her stay, as she probably won't be coming for a summer visit this year (though we still expect David).

Have a great month of May!!