May Event on Whidbey

Even Grandpa Gary is an artist.

Aren't they cute? Great job everyone.

Reading the answers to the "Name Games".
What ever happened to the good old names like Dick and Jane?

PS.. please do not name your child Peeper Peckerhead.

Rachel is opening the gift from Julie and Sharon. What a cute little stuffed animal mobile. She received many cute things for the new little guy.

I loved this peacock. Hmmm, how can I sneak him into my truck when she is not looking?

Gwen has such an interesting variety of arbors, trellis's and garden art.

Another cool arbor/trellis

Can't you just picture this arbor in full bloom?

I wish that I would have taken more pictures. I was so busy chatting that I would forget about the camera. Darn. There was so many things going on, cool things to see, and people to talk to, that I would get distracted.

Here is my last picture. I had a BAD tummy ache that day, spent too much time in the bathrooms, but gee whiz, couldn't you guys have told me what I had done. This is what I discovered when I got home:


Talk about a blow out!!!

Oh Lynn
So funny. I guess no one looked at you bum. Speedy recovery on the surgery.

Thanks for posting all the pictures of a fun day.

Lynn that's too funny. I guess no one noticed! I didn't even notice on the ferry. Thanks for posting the photos! I'll be thinking of you on Tuesday and sending good thoughts.

Not another one! How do I do that?

Awe, Lynn quit bragging....you are apparently a very powerful lady! Ha

This is so fun looking at the pictures. Thanks for sharing them!!

Lynn, best wishes for successful surgery and a speedy healing in recovery. Being able to breathe freely is essential.

Lynn, the photos of Gwen's garden art/trellis and arbor are great. I enjoyed strolling around those!

Gwen your home and gardens are lovely. Looks like a fun day.

Gwen is such an exceptional hostess and full of creative ideas!!! Her hubby is also a good host, not to mention a good sport . . . I feel fortunate to know both of them (and they're only 7 or 8 miles from me!).

Lynn, wonderful pics - I had to laugh at the one that my daughter and I are in . . . we both stand exactly the same way.

I am glad you enjoyed the picture show. The pictures do not fully reflect the beauty and love that is radiating from their gardens.

Lynn, ROFL on that last one. I didn't notice or I would have told you! (Not that it would have done much good - oh, wait, I DO have pants in every size known to man, so am sure I could have found one pair to fit you.)

You probably did that on the way home somehow. Cuz it's a huge rip and I'm sure we would have noticed!

It was great fun, everyone. I had so much fun getting ready for it and then also the day of. You are all very easy people to have over.

Gwen, fill us all in on what happened to your car while you were gone to your son's graduation - I saw it on Facebook, of course, but would like you to share it here and let us commiserate with you!

It had a huge dent in it.. Jesse said it happened in the store parking lot while he was shopping. Today Jim took it to be repaired and the repair guy, who sees a lot of dents, said it was caused by a foot, someone kicked it.

In the meantime, Jim had found assorted brand cigarettes around the yard, as well as the pop top thingies from soda/beer cans.

So obviously....a party was held in our absence. Of course, Jesse denies any party, etc. He also went to a friend's soccer party, so I suppose it could have happened there. Altho that doesn't explain the cigs or the pop tops. All I know is I sincerely doubt it happened in the store parking lot! You can see where whoever did it rubbed it clean to remove any shoe prints or, if it was done by another car door (which the repair guy said highly unlikely) any paint transfer.

I posted on facebook because I knew Jesse's friends would see it. In the hopes maybe someone would either fess up or someone else who knew what happened would let me know. Which is why I didn't reply to any of the comments people made on that post. If nothing else, I'd like the perp to sweat a little!

They kicked it hard enough that it broke something inside the door. Hence the $1000 bill. We have spent SO much on cars recently. $4000 for a new engine in the mazda about 2 months ago and then $800 for tires and over $600 for something that went wrong with the suburban. This is killing us!

And now the rain I counted on to water everything I planted today is not forthcoming. sigh

Aw, that's too bad. And nobody thought to hide their cigarette butts. That's too funny. I'll post something on your page asking why you're not outraged . . .

Oh no Gwen - sounds like your place was a scene. You'd think they would clean up the cigs and pop tops! That happened to me a few times as the kids grew up. My husband would always get the traditional professional gifts of bourbon, etc and we didn't drink much except for wine so the bottles would sit there year after year. The kids would have a party when we were away and they would use part of the booze and replace that amount in the bottle with water. By the time the younger kids tried to do the same thing the bottles were 99% water. And they thought we never knew - dummies! Once my daughter had a party and made the mistake of heating the entire pool instead of just the spa, and then forgot to turn it off, so when we came home there was steam rising from the pool and it was 100 degrees. Then she said it wasn't a real party because there wasn't live music! I remember being so livid at the time, but now we all laugh about it.

They also tried to light the fire pit. I guess we should be grateful the house didn't get burned down.

I think kids do these things so we'll be happy instead of sad when they go off to college/move out.

Even tho I cried, when the middle child went off to college, it was a happy day in my life. He put us thru so much grief. Decided to be a drug dealer at one point. I had been thinking, Oh, isn't that nice, Tim has made new friends, because all of the sudden there were a lot of kids showing up at our house. Didn't really understand why they didn't stay long, but still, wasn't it nice? The next thing I know, the other two kids are coming to me saying they're going out for a while because dad is upstairs yelling at Tim for selling drugs. (Jim couldn't yell if his life depended on it.) Dad recognized the signs; I don't ask how he knew. Tim didn't even try to deny it, just told us this was what he decided he would do with his life. My son the drug dealer. So proud.

This is why I love plants. They never treat you like this. They may refuse to grow up, they may grow up and become unruly, but you always have the upper hand as long as you have a pair of loppers in your hands.

I guess we'll have to say that you parents have earned your wings . . .

My mom always said, "You pay for your raising by raising your own."
Mine didn't do much wrong though.

I fondly think back to the advice given to me by an older friend, "Pinch their heads off while you can," referring to children, not flowers (!).

LOL

The plot thickens. Just found out there was a party here Fri night. His gf was here, and I had specifically told her mom we'd be gone and she was not to come over. I just came home and she's here and I told her to call her mom to come get her. She's a sophomore and he's a senior. She's a darling girl, but I just do not like the age difference with these two.

Also, for who knows what reason, the soccer party he told me he was going to Sat afternoon was a lie - there was no soccer party. Now why would he lie about that?

At any rate, he's grounded until further notice.

Update - He just came down and 'came clean' with everything but the car door which he continues to say he doesn't know what happened.

He lied about the soccer party because he thought we'd make him go down to Oregon with us if he had the whole weekend avail. I don't know why since he knew we couldn't take the dogs and couldn't leave them with anyone else. Perhaps he had already told the soccer lie by then and decided to hang with it.

At least he's not arguing with me for grounding him.

Sounds like he's in need of some boundaries and some good old fashioned ditch digging . . . coming clean after you've been caught isn't quite the same thing.

Kids kids kids! Sylvia (the one many of you have met) dropped out of high school and was in trouble with drugs (mostly marijuana, but also some cocaine). I thought I had somehow screwed up immeasurably and had to get some counseling to set my mind straight. As you can see, she turned out to be a really nice woman - responsible, compassionate, etc. Her oldest daughter really got into trouble with meth and other things. We all thought we'd lost her, but she came back home and went through treatment. She is now married and the mother of a two-year-old.

Miracles do happen - don't lose faith, Gwen! Just keep working with those plants!!!

Sylvia turned out great! Does she have kids to drive her nuts? I always thought grandkids were the best revenge.

And I have to say, ex for the drug dealing thing, none of my kids have ever been as bad as I was as a kid. I just never let them know any of that! I was awful to my parents (they deserved it tho I'm pretty sure) and I did so many things behind their backs. Difference was I never got caught or in trouble. I was lucky.

I'm a perfectionist (I know you could all tell that by looking at my garden LOL) and I expect perfect kids and a perfect husband. I know I'm not the easiest to live with. I have a hard time even living with myself. And I'm perfect!

Oh well. He's been helping up a storm. Just got a last minute call that Jeff's gf's dad, who is in the area, is on his way over for dinner. That was at 5:30 pm. So Jesse and Tim got to pitch in and help wash dishes, vacuum, etc. Jesse went to pick up two pizzas I ordered, I managed to get a salad together out of several old bunches of lettuce, opened a bottle of Chardonnay, and am now awaiting their arrival.

Wow - some of you have really been through a lot with your kids. Mine just did all the usual teenage stuff so I feel lucky. I was worried about the youngest for a while because he was smoking a lot of weed in college but he said he quit because he didn't want to flunk out of Berkeley. I figured if he graduated with honors in four years he was ok. I worried about my three youngest (all boys) because when their father and I were going through a divorce they were junior high age and younger. I expected the worst but they were ok. I have no idea why some kids get heavy into drugs and some don't. I was a very permissive parent so it wasn't that I set a lot of rules. When I was divorced I had to swallow a lot of anger in order to make sure they had a good relationship with their father, who had no idea how to be a parent. I also think the fact that there are so many of them was good because they all kept an eye on each other. But who knows? What's the secret? People often ask me for advice about kids but I don't like giving it because everyone has their own style of parenting, and really, I have no clue. Sometimes I think it's just luck.

Gwen, it was Sylvia's oldest, Rachel, who got into trouble with meth and is now a parent herself, a highly responsible young woman (and she, her husband, and my great grandson - Sylvia's grandson - live with Sylvia and her husband . . . talk about revenge!!!). Sylvia's youngest is just finishing her freshman year at college in California, living at home with the whole bunch.

My youngest, though a real pill about school, was never in any kind of trouble.

I do think much of it is sheer luck.

I think kids are who they are when they are born, and it's our job to just do the best we can with them and guide them as they grow. After reading about the party at Gwen's and the experiences of Carole, I feel a lot better about my son's C in physics and recent ticket for kayaking without a life preserver. (Yet ANOTHER example of thinking mom doesn't know anything...boring old stupid, safety conscious mom. ) :)

Kayaking without a life jacket is a ticket??? What's next? I really don't like rules/laws aimed at protecting myself from myself.

One of my sons got a ticket for riding on the handlebars of a friend's bicycle on his college campus. He had no idea it was against the law. Several of his friends witnessed it and said Ben was polite to the cop but the cop was verbally abusive and called him a spoiled college kid. A warning would have been nice, but I made Ben pay the ticket because I thought there was a lesson in there somewhere. What Ben learned is that this cop was so hostile to him that if he had not been very polite and kept his mouth shut he might have been hauled off to jail. A valuable lesson I guess.

Mom's get accused of so many things! Boring! Stupid! Old-fashioned! Over-reactive! Uncool! Then they have their own kids and all of a sudden they think you're a genius and the nicest person on earth.

If my parents were alive (and in good mental health), they would say I was absolutely no trouble at all - until I ran off and got married just before my 18th birthday! LOL - they probably would have preferred a little trouble to that silly decision (although I wouldn't re-do things because I have my wonderful daughters from that young marriage).

Melissa, your words are perfect - "I think kids are who they are when they are born, and it's our job to just do the best we can with them and guide them as they grow." I am going to share that concept with people when they are hard on themselves for issues with their kids.

I agree Melissa. I think you can make your kids crazy if you wanted to, but basically they are who they are. One of the tricks I learned when I had teenage drivers is when one of them made me angry (didn't happen very often) I would quietly say "put your car keys on my desk" and then I would leave the room. OMG they would be kissing my feet.

Seeing the real person in each child is a blessing for everyone.