PARENTS TO BE
Last November Tim and Kathy surprised us by announcing in a very special way a little one is on the way. At breakfast the morning after Thanksgiving (at Dave and Stacey's) Kathy brought out a gift bag saying she and Tim had an early Christmas present for us. After all we wouldn't be seeing them at Christmas. They spent last Christmas with Tim's side of the family. Imagine our surprise when we pushed the tissue aside and lifted a Christmas ornament out with two cute reindeer sitting on top and written on the front of the ornament were the words "The World's Greatest Grandparents," and "Baby Pine." On the back of the ornament were the words "See You in July 2005"!

Needless to say we were and are thrilled!

Kathy is now in her third trimester. She and Tim know they will be having a little boy. Knowing this, they decided to decorate the nursery in a jungle and safari theme. Robert and I drove down a couple weeks ago to visit and to help plan, design, paint and transform the second upstairs bedroom into a little boy's room. First Tim and Robert painted all the walls in a cheery light color. Kathy and I came up with leaf and vine colors and after a day of planning began the transformation of the nursery by stenciling leaves and painting twisty vines on all the walls. The final touch was to add a cheetah on the wall. Okay it is really a leopard - we are pretending it is a cheetah. The cheetah was trimmed out of a wall mural Kathy had just found and ordered the week before. Robert skillfully papered the cheetah in place. After seeing how great he turned out, Kathy is now thinking about adding a monkey on another wall. Other touches, yet to come, include painting the ceiling blue and adding clouds. Kathy is also looking forward to painting colorful butterflies here and there.

In light of this fun theme, I had to include baby jungle animals on her baby shower invitations and I can hardly wait for her to see all the baby stuffed jungle animals that will show up at her shower!

Nursery Project PHOTOS

TO BE WED

When and how did we find out about Chris and Patricia getting engaged? They showed up Saturday, the 26th of February, to bring Seven over to play with Paris. As soon as we all walked out in the field to let the dogs play, Chris grabbed Patricia's hand to lift it up to show us her engagement ring. He was beaming. So was she. We were surprised.

They had just picked the engagement ring up, had gone home to get Seven then came right over. The previous Tuesday they were both over at the mall because Chris wanted to buy tools. While there he asked Patricia if she wanted to go through jewelry stores. She did. They wandered through several before going into Zales and seeing rings Patricia liked. Chris asked her which one in particular she liked. She said to him, "Are you kidding me, you better not be kidding me. Are you serious?" When she decided on one that was close to what she liked and Chris asked the salesperson what it would take to make it exactly what she wanted, then liking what he heard, said to the salesperson, "We will take it." Patricia was stunned. She thought Chris was playing a joke on her. So on the spot he officially asked her if she wanted to get married. And that is how it happened. The ring had a diamond they liked but not in a band material they liked. That meant they couldn't take it home that day and had to wait until the following Saturday.

I had to tell them more than once, "This is so exciting!"

Now we have another daughter (well okay, officially not until September 17th). She is already calling us Mom and Dad. I do and will continue to enjoy her in our life. We will be spending lots of "mother-daughter" time together in the next few months for she is looking for help with flowers, has asked me to join her and her friends, Jenny and Lila, to go shopping for a wedding dress and their bridesmaid dresses, to make wedding favors, and decorations. I told Patricia when it comes to the wedding cake, between my Mom, Robert's Mom and me, we've got it covered. My Mom is on board to bring her cake decorating supplies when she comes down for the wedding!

We are already preparing for the wedding. Robert has moved the garden four feet to the east so guests, on their way to the ceremony, can easily walk between the Rosemary and new flowers I will plant along the west side of the garden. And Robert has decided to plant a strip of grass leading up to the site under the grape arbor to accommodate Patricia's long wedding dress.

GOING NEAR AND FAR

We have quite a traveling agenda this year! We have already traveled near having gone down to see Kathy and Tim to help decorate the baby nursery. Our far away trips include a weekend in Seattle, a week in Colorado and the best and furthest of all: a cruise to the British Isles! I have big plans for our cruise, this being our second. I felt lost not having more open access to the Internet on our last cruise. This time I plan to pay the $10 a day for Internet service so I can write an ongoing blog of our adventure, complete with pictures. Let me know if you want to be included on my email list of readers.