We had a wonderful although short visit with everyone.


Susan gave birth to Wesley Lyndon Hall. He was 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21 inches long. A C-section was needed.

Bebo and Melanie are going to visit his relatives in Maine in a couple of weeks. Melanie has come down with a mild case of shingles and is on antivirals for a week. Anyone that had chickenpox as a child can get shingles later in life.

Megan and Derek are in Chicago this weekend visiting friends. Megan will turn 21 on the 11th!
She is having a "quiet" party in A2 with a few friends. Mom and Dad are not invited.
Later in August Degan/Megek are going to visit Jason and Leanne in WA for a week.

Kara and Joel and fam are in Vancouver for 2 weeks for Joel's sister's wedding. They will swing down to visit Jason and Leanne before coming home.

The munchkins have big appetites for trouble and food too.
Chris is working 11am to 7pm at the Wendy's near her home. She and Jim are going to Megan's 21st birthday party. ----- Without us. ---------- Hope they can all have fun. ------- Without us.

NEW NEWS!!!

Michael and Carolynn have a new baby boy named Lucas Harleigh. He is 8 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches. He has lots of black hair and seems to be a mild-mannered, happy baby with long feet.

Aunt Lisa just has a couple more tasks to complete before she goes in for bariatric surgery. The left side of her heart is so enlarged they said she could die instantly if anything happens. Her knees are in such bad shape, they have to be replaced but they can't do the surgery for at least 2 years after the bariatric surgery. So she will be getting cortizone shots in the knees every 3 months until then.

Angela is reading now and even helps Tommy with the hard words.
Jessica is taking vocational classes in high school and working part-time.
George has to take 2 classes during the summer cause he failed them.

Susan still has a bad cough from a cold she had a month ago. The cough is so bad that she pulled a muscle from coughing in the middle of the night. They prescribed vicodin, so she feels no pain now.

Grandma had a colon polyp removed and is waiting for the results.
The wheeze she had x-rayed is just calcium deposits in the lungs that many people develop from living in Michigan.
Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland area is ranked #24 out of 25 of the worst ozone levels in the country.
Chicago is #20, Detroit is #8 in short-term particle pollution.
We are surrounded by pollution! AAaaagh...!!! I can't --- br....eathe....

Melanie and Bebo are in Hawaii for a friends wedding. The air in Honolulu is some of the cleanest in the country.

How aggresive are you?

Finger length is linked to testosterone and estrogen exposure in the womb. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-10/bis-aft102004.php http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1658552,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4314209.stm http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070523/sc_livescience/fingerlengthpredictssatperformance http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4202199.stm index ring Grandma same same Bebo same same Melanie X Megan X Christina X Kara same same Randy 1/2" Mom X

Bebo and Melanie Engaged!

David(Bebo) Seward asked Melanie Bui to marry him and she accepted. A summer 2008 wedding is planned.

Easter Plans

The forsythia are in bloom and the grass is a brilliant green. We've been enjoying balmy weather until today. It's in the 20's and is expected to stay that way for 4 more days!

We have a fantastic feast planned for Easter dinner here.

Standing rib roast, scalloped potatoes, Grandma's bunnies, ham roll-ups and deviled eggs, Aunt Tara's potato salad, lemon meringue pie and assorted other goodies. Mmmm-Mmm.

Megan is going to a Ben Folds concert in Ann Arbor Saturday night and won't be home until after 2:00am. Christina is going to wait up for her so they can color eggs all night.
They will be of no assistance in the dinner preparations whatsoever, but the eggs will be beautiful. I hope they wake up in time to eat. Back in my day....I already had a kid or two. I was coloring their eggs for them.

Randy and I have been spring cleaning. Emptying cupboards and closets and donating and tossing lots of stuffs. Yes, tossing, Randy is willing to part with things a little easier now. We are making progress and you can even see some of the shelves stuffs have been covering for years. Too bad you all don't live closer so we can pawn stuffs off on you.

Randy interviewed in St.Louis last week and again with teleconferencing this week. He respectfully declined the job because they wouldn't budge on the pay.
Next week, he has a teleconference interview with a department in Roanoke. We are excited about that one.
He's really waiting for the one from the UofV. A carpentry, cabinet-maker position.
He'd love any job connected with a university because of the good benefits.

Carolynn and Susan are big-bellied and we are all ready for a herd of youngsters to show up for future family gatherings. Looking forward to massive egg-hunts.

Megan's back from NY

The big news is that Megan made it back from NY safe and sound. Yeah!!!! We are very pleased that she didn't get mugged or worse. She brought her friend Derek home for the weekend, after Derek & her got back from NY. He must be very brave because he went out to Cecile's parents with us.

I am working on the first checker board to sell on e-bay. If you see it tell people about it. It should be ready in another week. I'll keep you posted.

We are getting ready for spring. Cecile has seeds coming and we are going to start them in the basement with grow lights. I have to build a raised garden and use up some of the compost. The other summer projects will include finishing the brick patio and installing a new window in the computer room. We aren't real sure what we want to do about adding on to the house, so this year, nothing big. I might be putting some more shelves in the family room. Remember to put the 3rd week in June on your calendars.

Vindicated!

We beat that dratted couple of rascals Christina and Jim at Spades last night.
Last time we played, we set them right off the bat and sped ahead full force. They played sure and steady and beat us by one point at the very end. :(

Last night, we played after feeding them crab and shrimp and while sipping on Long Island Iced Teas. We set them right off the bat and again at the end to win by a whopping 40 points. YES! We are vindicated.

Randy has been purging and consolidating his file cabinets to make more room. We have decided to organize all our "stuff." Anyway, he keeps hauling out little goodies to show me before he throws them away and I grab them back and say we should keep them.
Things like old report cards and old blueprints he drafted. We can't get rid of those.
We definitely can't throw out the 4 molars he had pulled sometime in his 20's. (They are huge, roots and all -- great archaeological find.)
It's hard to get him away from his Pirate game. He enjoys pillaging and sword fighting and the bilging and sailing.
He became a citizen on a different island from the one he started on and lost his shack. His pet rat was in the shack at the time. So he had to go back and find his rat and claim him. The rat had been wandering the island all alone with no name until Randy found him curled up, sleeping on the floor of a store. Happy reunion. Randy picked the little guy up, named him, and hasn't put him down since. :)
Now he is out pillaging in order to make enough pieces of eight to buy a shack to call home on his new island.
I've been reading books. Last one I read was called "Breakpoint" by Richard Clarke. It's set in the near future and deals with cyber attacks, transhumanism and other technological gizmo's. Pretty cool reading.
We're going to visit Kara and Joel and Aidan and Theo and Auntie Mo in early February. Can't wait.
Love Mom

Cruising the Web

Super cool! Great Site!

http://www.thetrailermash.com/10-things-i-hate-about-commandments-comedy/

Just what you need to waste more time on the computer.