Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Christmas Photos of All Girls 2009

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When one has kids, you always look forward to having Christmas pictures taken either with Santa or family or with other siblings or family members…Mine has grown up and the picture taking is no more…but the most fortunate part of my life are my grandbabies when the holidays come around…So when pictures are posted to where we can see them, I am very excited cause now I can look at that picture and capture it for my own use…We were lucky this Christmas that the grandbabies other grandparents took the girls and their other 2 grandkids to Walmart to get their picture taken for the Holidays…For that I am grateful…For one, the youngest daughter, Misti, and her family, hubby, Chad and daughter, Laurianna, flew from Sicily to West Virginia for Thanksgiving and a few days in December and for two, Richard and I had to go to Orlando, Florida to work and can not be around for most of the holidays…With the picture capturing, Richard was able to make a few extra separate Christmas photos for our desk, or for the other family members or friends…Richard also made the extra  photos with the different Christmas backgrounds for the other grandparents to enjoy…

b jp (1) Our eldest granddaughter, Kayla…She was 5 1/2 years old…

b jp (2) Our second eldest granddaughter, Brianna…She was 4 1/2 years old…

b jp (3) Our third eldest granddaughter, Elizabeth…She was 2 3/4 years old…and finally,

b jp (4) Our fourth eldest granddaughter, Laurianna…She was 11 months old…

All grandkids-bothsides-11.22.09a Thanks to Bruce and Peg for taking all of their grandkids to have their picture taken…Without this picture being posted on Facebook by Sarah then we would not have seen such a great picture of all the kids…The other 2 grandkids are on Peg’s side of the family, her daughter’s children…They are MJ and Kylie…What a great group of kids…

Gulf Pines, Milton FL Fun

IMG_7443 It’s special moments like this that make taking pictures fun..Brianna and Poppy (Richard) are playing.. Bri was suppose to be relaxing, watching tv, but then she wanted Poppy to lay down with her..I’m not sure who started the tickling..IMG_7448

IMG_7467 Playground fun..Brianna and I headed to the playground that the KOA Gulf Pines has in their campground..It is a very nice playset..The area is covered by mulch and sand..There are a couple of animals that are on those springs that goes in to the ground..Brianna ran for the slide..Needless to say, the one thing we didn’t think about was the possibility of water being at the end of the slide, on the slide itself..Brianna found out on the long spiral slide that at the bottom of the slide was water..IMG_7469

Brianna wanted to take off her pants right there at the playground but I told her that her pants would dry and that she can’t take them off…She waited a bit but realized that they would be alright…She continued on to riding a pretty yellow pony…It looked like she was riding in to the sunset…IMG_7472

IMG_7481 When pony time was over, Bri found a quacky duck to ride…What fun she had bouncing around on the duck…After riding the duck for a while, it was time to go back to the playground set…Brianna wanted to find out if she could run up the little straight slide and found out that the slide was very slippery…She had a blast just trying to go up the slide…IMG_7490

Bri would try to climb up the slide and wound up sliding back down the IMG_7493slide…

On the other side of the stairs is a spiral continuous ring..Unfortunately, I could not get the pictures of her bringing her arms and feet over to the rungs of the spiral ring and she would walk around the spiral rungs down to the ground…My little shadow would also climb gray steps that you can not see on the other side of the blue tunnel… IMG_7484

After our playground escapade,  we decided to go for a small walk around the campground…We took a few roads to head towards the rv and on our excursion, Brianna found a small garden wall to walk around…Do you think she might do good in gymnastics??  She does like to walk around the wooden beams…IMG_7506

Getting on our way down the road, Brianna came upon some poles that she liked to swing around…and can this girl sing…While swinging around the poles, she was singing some song that I never heard of before but she was just going to town, singing as loud as she could…If only I could have recorded her…

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IMG_7515 Can you name that tune????

IMG_7540 More walking beams…

 Ourside our rv is nothing but sand, dirt, leaves and mini acorns…Brianna wanted to go out and dig…I saw no problems with that and she even got a plastic spoon for digging…I wonder what she was making to “pretend” to have a bite…*L*

IMG_7554 In the evening around 6:30pm, Brianna gets relax time and she picks out the movie that she wants to watch in the bedroom…However this time she wanted me to take a few pictures of her posing…She is a bit of a ham but had fun posing…

The one thing that Brianna wants to do while we are here at Gulf Pines KOA is play miniature golf…So far the weather hasn’t quite been cooperative but hopefully this weekend, if no rain is in the plans, we are hoping to go play miniature golf…The KOA looks like they have a really nice golf course…But Brianna don’t like to hit the ball in the hole several times, she likes to put the ball up close to the hole and hitting all the balls in to the hole…It is fun to watch and I hope that I will have some pictures to post by the weekend…More pictures will come as our visits to this campground and Sunset King come about…(Jan. 26 – Feb. 9, 2010)

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Laurianna at 11/12 Months Old

There isn’t much to tell ya about our youngest granddaughter, Laurianna, who lives in Sicily…We had missed seeing her, our youngest daughter, Misti & her hubby, Chad around Thanksgiving, 2009…We had left to go to Florida and we couldn’t go back to West Virginia to see them…but thanks to Misti who posts pictures for us to see and then I can put in my blog and print for home use…There are several little stories that can go with the pictures that I have seen…

spaghettios2 dec 2009 Laurianna is now sitting in a high chair and for one of her meals, Misti gave her some spaghettios…Now for most older moms, we know what that will do…There should be no carpet under the high chair nor any furniture cause spaghettios will land any where and every where…Down on the tray, down her belly and I know, down in her diaper…I had seen the pictures and made a comment to Misti to make sure she had the bath water ready…According to Misti, the tub was ready andspaghettios3 dec 2009 she put Anna in the tub, diaper and all…

Along came Christmas 2009 and Laurianna was taken to see Santa Claus but I do not know what they call Santa in Sicily…The look on Anna’s face is priceless…santa pic late nov. She is looking at this man dressed in a red & white suit with a long white beard wondering who he is…It is priceless like I said…Her daddy was holding her at home and she had on this very cute little red & white Christmas outfit…Oh so cute…You can tell how proud her daddy is of her…xmas 2009 One of the best pictures is one of Laurianna reading a book, upside anna reading dec 2009 down…She looks so intense in reading and one would love to know what she was thinking while she was reading her book…Another great photo is one where Anna is inside of a box…I love when little ones like to climb in to things and have fun…but the way she sits makes my knees hurt…Nothing like little ones who are so flexible…

The Ravens are in the Playoffs and they were playing the New England Patriots on 1.10.10…Brandi, the eldest daughter, had given Misti one of the Ravens outfits that was bought for Brianna and then handedAnna in Ravens outfit 1.10.10 down to Lizzi…Now it was time to hand it down to Anna…The size was 18 months and Misti said it was big on her but she had the Ravens spirit…So awesome…

On January 20, Laurianna turns 1 year old…The time sure did fly by…I remember when she was born…The theme for her was Good Luck Care Bear cause she was a good luck baby for Misti to be pregnant…Laurianna’s party is on 1.17.10 and Misti decided to make a practice Anna's 1st b'day practice cake 1.12.10 cake as a trial run…It turned out very well except she said that one of her kitties kind of ate some of the icing but to me it looked fantastic…I can’t wait to see the real cake on this Sunday…Whoo hooo!! 

Happy 1st Birthday to our wonderful and beautiful granddaughter, Laurianna…Misti had also asked me/Richard to make a birthday invitation for her 1st Birthday…I got to do that and felt like part of the party even though we are miles away…Everything little thing counts…Thanks Misti & Chad…1st b'day invitation 2 jpgPlease give Laurianna a huge birthday hug and kiss and tell her we love her…We love you guys too..Hugs and Kisses to you both too…

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 came very fast this year…but the best part is that our Christmas is usually going all year long…What do we buy each other?  Pretty much whatever we really want when we see it…and if we can fit it in our rv…Before Christmas, a few things were already bought for our birthdays so it made it a bit more difficult to find something else…Richard saw a Mickey Mouse statue with all the Disney characters written on Mickey’s body…With our discounts, he bought it for himself…Marketplace While out at Downtown Disney, I saw a Christmas Tinkerbell ornament that I really wanted and Richard wasn’t around so I bought it…but we still try to find one thing that we can give one another…I was really going to be surprised to see what Richard got me and I was sure he was going to be surprised what I got him…

Waking up on Christmas morning is awesome…I can’t wait to see what Richard got me…Our Disney bag wrapped gift are hidden in 2 spots…Well, maybe not hidden but are put away…On my portable table is a really romantic computer generated Christmas card…I read that card and then went to get out Richard’s gift bag…The bag that Richard handed me was very soft…Was it a very soft Tinkerbell tee?  MMMMM!!  Nope, it was the Cinderella’s Iced Castle blanket that I IMG_7042 have been wanting since last year that is a special promotion at Disney Parks when you spend over $40…Most of the time we do not spend more than $20, cause of our discounts so the blanket was out of our reach…but we had friends in and during one of their shopping sprees at one of the Disney parks, Richard must have gotten them to purchase the blanket…What a surprise…It is soooo soft…and gorgeous…but what Richard didn’t realize too, is that he “was giving me” the Tinkerbell Christmas ornament that I had purchased earlier…So I unwrapped it IMG_7046 and showed him…He loved what he got me…hahaha! The wings light up… I handed him his present and he liked his Pirates of the Caribbean towel and a 2009 engraved Mickey Mouse ears Christmas ornament…which can be hung all year long…What a wonderful Christmas…IMG_7045

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This year I didn’t put up many Christmas decorations cause we have been very sick this month of December…but we did have our little Mickey Mouse decorated optic tree on our living room table…Our IMG_7041 stockings were hanging on the slideouts…A few little Christmas ornaments were put around to give a look of Christmas in our little home…Our plans on Christmas was to go to our friend’s house for dinner and share in the day…We arrived at Bob and Donna’s home around 1:30pm… After we pulled in to the drive, Donna’s daughter, Jenna, son-n-law, Chris, and 2 grandkids, Kaleb and Kamryn, arrived…We all walked in to the house and I put their present under the decorated IMG_7052 Palm tree…We hugged and said Merry Christmas…Today was going to be a good day except for us being sick…Donna was making a wonderful dinner and the table was set…The ham smelled very good along with the baked bread…Richard and I took a Dutch Apple pie with Cool Whip for dessert…Dinner was ready and we all sat at the table…It all looked so good..Ham, twice baked potatoes, corn, green beans, rolls/bread and I can’t remember what else…The ham was so good…Dinner was over and everything was cleaned up…Now it’s time for IMG_7055 everyone to open up their presents…After the presents were all done, it was time to celebrate Kamryn’s b’day…The b’day cake was brought out, we all sang to Kamryn and more desserts and snacks were brought out…It was a fun time…but as time went on, I was starting not to feel well…Around 6pm, we started to head home…

The best part of my Christmas Day were the phone calls that we received from our kids…The phone calls are always the best presents for me…It makes my day…In the morning, I talked to our son, Josh, our almost daughter-n-law, Sandy…We had received a call from Brandi and her girls but I hadn’t listened to the message yet…but later in the afternoon, I listened to the message and it was so wonderful..Brandi and the girls were singing Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, to us on the phone and it brought tears to my eyes…It was so adorable and cute…Another call I got was from our youngest, Misti…That really made my day…It is always great to hear from the youngest cause she lives in Sicily and it’s tough to hear from her cause I know it cost for long distance calls…but to be called on a holiday is always special and great…Thanks to all my kids for calling on such an important holiday…That is the greatest present of all for me…I love you all very much…Hugs and kisses…

So our Christmas ended in me being really sick when we got home…What a rough night it was…but overall, it was a Fantastic Christmas…

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas like I did and to all my friends and family  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Some Old Scanned Pictures

Today while going through my Pictures file, I came across some scanned pictures of my dad, George Reely and my grandma, Elva Shaffer..After I left home in December 1975, 6 months after graduating High School, I had a lot of angry feelings toward my dad…A lot of people do not know how I was treated by him when he was with other women…When he was by himself and it was just us and him, the times we had were great…But after my son was born in 1977 and we moved back to the Baltimore area, I felt that I needed to get over my anger towards him and let him see his grandson…There weren’t to many times that we saw him…Most of the time he wasn’t home…But as I look back now, I wish that he was still alive so he could enjoy seeing his great grandchildren and grandchildren…I know that Brandi and him would have gotten along great cause they both like to play pool…A lot of summers I spent time with my grandma up in the Heights on Boston Street…I had a lot of good times there..Family was always nearby…I could play with my cousins when we all were out of school…I also found some old pictures of my dad…He looks like a gangster…Wanted Dead or Alive…The pictures aren’t all that great and not straight when I had scanned them…I believe I must have been in a hurry to just get them scanned…

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The top row of pictures are his gangster looking photos…I came across these in some old photos that he had…The one to the left in the second row is my dad and his brother, Uncle Ted…He was my favorite uncle out of my dad’s 8 brothers and sisters…The one to the right on the second row is my dad, Grandpa George, and my son, Josh…This was taken approximately in the summer of 1978…The bottom row was taken at the Inner Harbor, Baltimore and I have no idea what year it could have been and the bottom right is before my dad died in Sept. 1989..

P6250631 These photos I have no idea of when these were taken…As you can see the second row on the left, that was taken back in the late 1950’s about the time of when I was born or early 1960’s…The one to the right, second row, is a Thanksgiving dinner sometime around 1972 with my dad’s girlfriend, Ms. Em…She was a very nice lady from time to time…My dad loved decorating up the yard for Halloween…It was always spooky when he would dig a hole in the ground for a vampire box and come out of it to scare people…He would always dress up as a vampire to give the awesome effect…The beatnik to the bottom right is my dad…I found another picture of me as a baby and him dressed the same way, so this picture had to be taken summer 1958..As you can see, my dad was skinny as a rail and who should I take after, my mother…Drats!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These pictures to the right are of my grandma…She lived in a not so good part of Baltimore City…She was on food stamps and we walked every day down to the grocery store or to the corner drug store to get a fountain soda…Then we would walk back up the hill to her place and rest along the wall so she could catch her breath…We, my brother andP6250633 I, would spend the whole summer with her from the time that I was 9 years old until about 13 or 14 years old…She would curl my hair with a curling iron that had to be heated up on the stove…We would play cards all the time and watch tv…but when I was bad, I had to go to a bush and pick out a switch that was going to be used on my butt…Of course, like all kids, a small switch would be picked out…Needless to say, that didn’t work…but it was rare that she would use one on us…I don’t know what happened to the relationship we had but all I remember is that she had to go live with my aunt…and then I remember being told that she died…I’m fortunate to have a few pictures of her…This grandma is my dad’s mother…I don’t have any pictures of my mother’s family except for a few pictures of my Uncle Rick…As for grandparents or another uncle, there are no pictures that I have…I have memories of a grandfather on his death bed and he would not pass until he saw my brother and I…We talked to him and then he passed…I remember crying…

This is my house on 1919 Tyler Road…I do not know the year of this picture but I know that it changed a lot after I was born and was growing up..My dad worked with drywall and he knew how to build walls and tear them down…I never knew what my house would look like when I got home from school…but I do believe that this house was in the late 1950’s, after I was born, or around the early 1960’s…Tyler P6250637 Road was one of the President streets not far from Dundalk High School..Up the street was Minnicks Bar and Lounge and a little corner store where lots of goodies could be bought cheap…The house was next to the railroad tracks…The train would come through every night but I would sleep right on through the night…The garage in the background in the second photo was turned in to a recreation building with a bar, pool table, bumper pool table, ping pong and darts…I had a lot of fun playing pool and other games back there…My dad built a cement above ground swimming pool when I was about 10 or 11 years old…That was very interesting..I hope to one day find some more pictures of my house and how he changed it…The upstairs wall didn’t have a window but he put one in and that was where my bedroom was while my brother’s room was on the other side of the house upstairs…Unfortunately, I have  a lot of good memories with a lot of bad memories within this home…

My dad had a slew of brothers and sisters..I think about 9 or 11 in all…so I had lots of cousins…It’s a shame that I never really was able to stay in touch with them…Someday on Facebook, if I can remember their last names, I may be able to get in touch with them…or I can just ask my brother, Philip…There was one uncle that was my favorite…but he went to war over to Vietnam and when he came back, he was never the same…It was such a shame and I missed him terribly and how he was before the war…P6250635

I’m very lucky to be posting these pictures…To all of you who keep in touch with relatives, keep it up…I now wonder if I should try a little harder to speak to my brother…It’s been years…

Brianna’s Visit of 4 Weeks – 9.28-10.25.09

IMG_2559Richard and I were lucky enough to be able to bring Brianna, our 4  year old granddaughter, back to VA with us for a few weeks.  We have been very lucky to have a daughter who enjoys that we like to bring one of the granddaughters with us to wherever we are at.

Unfortunately for Brianna there wasn’t much going on here at the campground.  All the festivities have gone astray since Labor Day weekend.  All the kids went back to school and during the week, it was just Brianna and I in the crafts room.  Every day I had to make sure that I took some dvd movies that she would enjoy watching, over and over.  Her favorite dvd movies to watch were Shrek and Shrek 2, Alice in Wonderland and sometimes Tinkerbell.  Most of the time she would watch Shrek 1.  Crafts was another one of her favorite past times.  During her stay with us, I think she must have done over 3o suncatchers to take back home.  Brianna did a couple of wood projects and she made a paper plate pumpkin that we could show other guests how to do for little ones.

IMG_2804 Another one of her favorite things to do was to play Candyland, Dora Candyland.  Bri got it for her birthday and we brought the game down to the campground with us so that we could teach her how to play.  It was always fun to play cause when she didn’t get the “ICE CREAM card”, she thought one of us (whoever was playing with her at the time) was cheating.  Had to explain every time that the game is according to how the cards are flipped over and that there was no cheating allowed in this game.  She would get disappointed and say I don’t want to play anymore but we always finished out our game.  Richard and I wouldIMG_2796 play 2 games each with her and just have a blast.  I do miss playing Dora Candyland with her.

Brianna, as always, loved going for her golf cart rides.  Every morning she would wake up and the first thing she would ask her Poppy is "Can we go for a golf cart ride?”.  Here it has been cool and damp in the mornings so there was no chance of going first thing in the morning.  After the sun came out and around noon or so, Brianna and Poppy would go for their golf cart ride.  According to Richard, he would take his camera sometimes and he would try to get a picture and all he would hear is “Poppy” and then she would knock his arm.  It took him DSC_7479 a while to realize not to take a camera with him.  But they did make a  stop once or twice at the playground.  Brianna knew exactly where the playground was located and she knew where all the roads led.  He would ask her where she wanted to go and she would always point the way to the playground.  How smart is she? 

IMG_2787 Brianna loved to help out the guests on Saturdays of October.  She enjoyed watching guests do tye dye shirts or socks.  As a matter of fact, she always wanted to help them work on their shirts or socks.  Brianna would help me give the guests paint brushes and water.  What a great help she was.  For the Halloween weekends, we had to do some decorating.  One of our things to do was to put up window clings on the big windows up in the crafts room.  What a great help she was. IMG_2488 Brianna put up most of the window clings.  Then we worked on the orange & black streamers.

The best thing that I liked about Brianna is that she was very friendly.  She also knew her way around the crafts room, the spider room, the cafe, the store/office  and the comfy room areas.  I had no fear of where she would go.  She knew not to go out the doors.  She could also watch the big screen tv downstairs in the movie room.  The thing she always did was to get herself a miniature golf club and a golf ball and hit the ball around.  The unfortunate part of her stay was that we never got a chance to play miniature golf cause the weather was always so bad.  Too cold, chilly, rainy or damp.  It sucked.  But we will have next summer when the girls will be here for a whole week staying in a cabin. 

At the Restaurant (1) The one thing we did do was go north on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Rte. 52 south in Va. We stopped by the Lakeview Restaurant right next to the Parkway ramp.  It was lunch time so Richard, Bri and I had a good lunch before going north.  We had a little bit of fun in the restaurant booth.At the Restaurant (11)   After lunch, we headed north on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We were hoping to see the beautiful foliage that every one was talking about.  We drove for miles and really couldn’t see too much foliage that was beautiful.  Most of the trees were already losing their leaves and colors.  But every once in a while, a beautiful tree would come in to view along with the landscape of the houses, barns, or other buildings.  The one place we were going to go to is Mabry Mill.  It use to be an old farming place and was now turned in to a tourist place.  The day was beautiful, sunshine, IMG_2838 and no rain.  We all got out of the truck and started walking.  Brianna was having fun outside.  All over the field, there was old farming equipment, an old barn, an old mill, old house and other older buildings.  There was even a moonshine area.  After walking around and getting all the pictures we wanted, we stopped by the restaurant.  The first thingIMG_2900 that Bri sees is the ice cream freezer box and on the front of it is a push-up cone.  She goes outside to ask Poppy is she could have a push-up.  So we waited while she ate her ice cream.  We finished our walk back to the truck and got more pictures.  Now it was time to head home.  IMG_2903

On Sunday, 10.25, Brianna went home.  We did take the girls out for breakfast to the Lakeview Restaurant.  After that, we came home and started to get her things packed up and in the car.  The girls spent a little bit of time in the crafts room finishing up some crafts or doing a few crafts.  About 1pm, it was time to pack the girls up and all their stuff.  Everyone came back to the rv, the girls got a freezie pop before leaving.  It was time for them to drive off.  We waved goodbye and after they got up the road, Richard and I headed to the deck of our rv.  We both were crying cause they were leaving.  Sure do miss them.  We can’t wait until next summer for the whole week of them staying.

We Love You All and Miss You All.  All our hugs and kisses.