Sunday Dinner

Andrea and her children were here for the weekend. It was so nice to see them and visit with them. My favorite part of the visit was the dinner table.

Popo came and we had Sunday dinner together. It was fun to talk to the kids about "going out" and "going with" and "being in love". To Matthew who is sixteen, going out was a group activity. To Luke, who is 12 it meant something altogether different. To Asheligh, who is six. going out meant kissing. That sent Andrea into a frenzy!

We talked about first crushes. It was fun to find out that Grandpa Wagner's first crush was Annie Romney, his first grade teacher.

I have always enjoyed family meals around the table. Those are times that we have shared thoughts and concerns. We have shown affection to each other by actively listening to our family members. In so doing, we have learned about each other. It seems that these media saturated times are taking some of that away from us.

Alamosa's in a bad way!

Hey... can you believe how scary it would be to not have any water to eve basically bath in? My gooness, I take many things for granted!

Andrea

We're off to Longmont tomorrow

We are going to Longmont tomorrow for the wedding of Tonya Martinez and her beau. We'll be coming right back to be with Popo for Sunday. He really did not want to be alone on Easter Sunday.

This Martinez family are wonderful people that Betty and I met when we were working as missionaries in the Spanish branch in Longmont. They are from the part of Mexico where I served my mission almost 40 years ago. Seeing people from Torreon is as exciting as seeing people from Manassa.

We'll be staying the night with another Martinez family. They are from Honduras and have become really close friends. We always enjoy visiting with each other even though at times, we get lost somewhere in the language barrier. Sometimes understanding the words doesn't help understand the message that's being conveyed. The one thing that we do understand is the love that we feel for each other.

It's hard to accept the fact that we cannot turn the clock back, and we can never go home to the home of our childhoods. It's fun to reminisce and share memories, but we are where we are and we are when we are.

Beware of gifts

A small USB mouse seemed like a super gift. It was a bit small but was easy to pack into my brief case and take with my new notebook. I struggle with the touch pad on the bottom of the keyboard. I keep ending up in places I didn't intend to go.

I started using the little mouse pretty heavily because it was a good substitute for the touch pad. I started waking up in the morning with a horrible pain in my right thumb. Before long it started feeling weaker. I talked to a physical therapist and she told me that the pain, weakness and numbness are symptoms of corpal tunnel syndrome and that it could be caused by the small mouse.

I am back to using a full size mouse and the symptoms are abating. Hopefully I'll be back to posting more regularly on the blogs again.

BIRTHDAYS

I checked the mail on Thursday evening for the first time in a month. THAT ISN'T GOOD! Ashleigh had three cards in the mail for her birthday that was a month ago! So she didn't get her cards until Friday night when we got home from school and work. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPSSS.

She was very excited to have her birthday cards. The Hannah Montana card has been played 1,000 times. She purchased a hello kitty ring, earings and a glitter roll-on with her birthday money. We also purchased a book.

Matthew turned 16 ON FRIDAY!!! He spent the evening with an old friend. They went to a convention. He'll have to tell you about that. He was at his Dad's early in the evening and we picked him up in the morning.

We made a play date with Betty Ann when Ashleigh called to thank them for the birthday cards! We'll be headed to Colorado Springs on Saturday March 29. We are excited to see the new Vance family home! :D

The houses that we have called home

When I first got out of the service, Andrea and Robert's mother and I lived at 3 West Cheyene Road. We lived there when Andrea was born. The house at one time was a luxurious single family dwelling. It was converted by someone into six separate apartments. When we first lived there, it looked like a huge log house by the side of a babbling brook. When we lived in that house, Terry Golly and Dale Walters were our neighbors and close friends.

When Andrea was just a few months old, we purchased the house on Montrose Ave in Stratton meadows. When we moved in, the house was a bit run down and had no grass. Over the years, we added a lawn and garden and planted grass. We lived there for a lot of years.

We went through a divorce after being married for 13 years. When I was looking for an apartment, The best option I could find was 3 West Cheyenne Road. The house had been given a face lift and was no longer a Log building, but the inside was largely unchanged. I got a job managing the apartments to pay for the rent. I actually lived in the same apartment where we lived when Andrea was born. When the opportunity presented itself, I moved into a different apartment in the same building. Mom came and lived there with me for a year. I lived there when I met and married Betty.

Betty and I soon moved to a home on 31st Street. It was cute little 2 bedroom home with a nice large yard. We lived there when Larry and Jeanette moved back to Colorado from Texas. They stayed with us for a short while as they got settled with a new employer and found a home of their own. I think at that time, the three oldest were with them.

One day, while out walking, we saw a home 1 block north of where we lived that was for rent. It had 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a two car garage, a covered patio and a small yard. We lived there when IBM closed the plant in Colorado Springs and we were transferred to Longmont, CO.

Our first home in Longmont was a duplex with 2 bedrooms and a very small living room and a kitchen. This little place on Collyer was just too small.

We found another duplex on Martinez Street. We liked it a lot better, but it had electric heating. It was really expensive to keep. While we lived there, Andi came to live with us. The yard was so small that I could mow it in about ten minutes. If we barbequed in the back yard, it was almost impossible to talk over the roar of passing trains.

We eventually bought a brick home on Fairbanks st. It had four bedrooms and an attached garage. It was here that we lived when Robert came to live with us. It was here that we lived when Matthew was born and when Andre got married.

Not long after Robert left home, we bought a house one block north of the Fairbanks house. Does that sound familiar?

We came to Colorado Springs to be closer to Betty's Dad. We lived on Mesa Road in the house of our dreams, but it was too large and to expensive to maintain.

We just recently moved to our current home on 30th Street. It's about a mile from the other house. It is considerably smaller, but it's adequate for our needs and we are learning to love it.

Ashleigh,

"Ashleigh,"

the document starts out saying. Ashleigh is requesting that I play her in her little homework game. She plays Ms. Danzl. She plays her well! She's a good little teacher!

Miss Ashleigh, aka Ms. Danzl, said that I received a 10 out of 10 possible. But I had to retake the test because it had to be in her format. I was playing around too much waiting for her to speed up! ;-) She did VERY WELL! Now myself, not so much!

The red marks are where I should have had more space and the sentence is upside down because she demaned that I filp the page over and write my sentence on the back. I demanded that we use one whole side before flipping over! This is our compromise, I flipped and folded, so that we'd use the entire front of the paper.

Ashleigh being cute while playing in the lavatory. I've always loved this picture of her!! She's so sweet, and her blue eyes are mesmorizing to me! The flower was a cute little excesory!

The picture above is when we were visiting Nebraska for Jeff's Grandfathers services. Their family home was relocated onto a farm, and looks like it belongs there! It's so cool that their home was recycled like that! I were allowed to visit! That was a fun family history adventure I was allowed to share with them! Ashleigh wouldn't leave this poor dog alone!

Being silly one evening!

The squeezing of poor little Mika! Mika is tolerant of Ashleigh's loving!