Pure Joy

Wow. It has been a long time since I have posted. True confessions: the last blog took me over a month to complete! I suppose I am wordy. I also seriously considered putting to death the whole blog thing for reasons I won't go into now.....but here I am again.

I had the most incredible ten days since Amy and the girls came to visit. I am SO thankful that I got to spend time with my daughter-in-law and the granddaughters, and they are GRAND!

Where do I start? It was great to have an adult female to TALK to! I miss that. We spent the whole first day of their arrival here talking, I think. Christian came over on his birthday and a couple of days later to see his nieces and they absolutely LOVE him! On Wednesday, my mom--the girls' great grandmother, came over and we went out to lunch and shopping for the girls....Then later Amy and I attempted (and succeeded somewhat) to work out --not an easy task with an infant that LOVES to be held! While I was still working out, Amy took the girls outside to the pool and Chloe decided to jump in! Of course, Amy had to jump in after her, baby and all! Then Barry and Petra came to visit on their way home from visiting her dad in Tallahassee. It was great to see them and to be able to show off my granddaughters!

The rest of the visit was a blur of Arbonne presentations and going back and forth visiting the relatives....speaking of which, Amy handled with grace. Relatives often times come with baggage. It may not always be pleasant and I don't like thinking of it as a duty. I like thinking of it as doing what Jesus would do.....The great-grandparents were so happy to get a little visit......and that made me happy....

This past Monday was Amanda's birthday! Even though she had celebrated at her Uncle Jon's on Saturday, we got to help her celebrate some more. We drove to beautiful International Mall in Tampa and then met Uncle CJ (as we call him) and a friend at Malibu Grand Prix for some race car driving (good practice for Amanda, huh?) and putter golf. Later that evening, Amanda got to drive my van--okay, so it was only a few feet! Hey, she did great! (Baby, you can drive my car!)
On Tuesday night we had dinner and birthday cake at Sonny's, one of Amanda's favorite places to eat.

What can I say about baby Halle? She is sweet and beautiful, so angelic when she is sleeping, so cute when she looks up at you with her big blue eyes and smiles. And she loves me to sing to her! What is she, CRAZY? No, she really likes it when I sing! Maybe she isn't that discerning yet...but I loved holding her and singing silly songs to her...

Chloe made me feel like a real grandma! We baked cookies together. She helped me make salads and waffles and pancakes.
She helped me wash dishes. I let her take bubble baths while I watched her play with Mr. Whale and Pongo and a toy giraffe and she let me snap pictures, lots of pictures. She went with me to the gym and played contentedly in the play room. We counted lizards on the way. We went to the playground. We walked Grandma Nette's dog together.....We watched Tom and Jerry together. And I felt the joy of being with children again. Yes, it reminded me of my own children when they were little and how much I miss that. God is so good to give us a second chance in our grandchildren.....A teenager growing to young adulthood; a toddler, smart and cute and so full of love, and an infant, innocent and sweet....how blessed I am to have been able to experience all three this week!

Of course, my apartment felt empty after they left....but things have slowly returned to normal--whatever that is! I miss them so very much. Who would have thought that you could pack so much grandparenting into such a short time (well, probably Amy--thanks, Amy!)

Do I have regrets? Anybody who really knows me knows the answer is YES! I regret I didn't take 100 more photos, that we didn't get to go to the beach (just ONE more day!), that I didn't get 1000 more hugs to last me until July.....