Tyler Troyer Memorial Clubhouse

Last night we went to the dedication of the new baseball clubhouse at West Albany. Michael Thorp has poured his heart and soul into making this clubhouse a tribute to Tyler and a wonderful place for all the West Albany baseball players to enjoy. Beautiful inside and out, it was the front page story in the paper today. You can read it at http://www.democratherald.com/ . There is also a photo gallery you can click on and see some pictures that show it better than mine do, including a picture of Dave talking to the coach.

Here is Dave peering at the display cases. Venisa's lovely hair is also in the picture.

Will, Craig, Carol and I went out to dinner at Applebees with Dave before he headed back north.

Camping with Canadians

My nephew Steven, his wife and four children from Ft. St. John, BC made their way down in their motor home and joined three sets of their aunts, uncles and cousins at South Beach on Friday. They were all wearing matching t-shirts that said "I'm not perfect,I'm Canadian - and that's close enough!"

We were blessed with sunshine and wind! What fun to watch children play on the beach - especially to see a two-year-old explore and discover! Over the years my kids have buried each other in the sand many times, but I have never seen such a thorough burial as these kids did. They started out in a little pit that was already dug when they got there. It took Nick and Duane quite a while to fight their way back out!

Will flew a kite with a little help from great-neice Katelyn and great-nephew Stanley. After flying this one a while, he decided to go to a kite store and get a better one. Somehow, he managed to get three of Steven's children along for the trip to the store and a kite-flying stop at the beach. I figured he'd come back a little frazzled, but those Canadian kids are delightful. He actually said it was fun!

Little JD loved the sand so much. He discovered the horse shoe pits made a wonderful sandbox. However, he didn't want to just play in the sand, he needed to experience it fully. I happened to be the one watching him at the time, and when he tossed off his coat and then his shirt, I made no objection. He threw his body in the sand and decided that still wasn't good enough, the pants had to go too! He cavorted nearly naked in the sand for quite awhile in spite of the chilly wind! He is an adorable busy boy and he certainly doesn't mind getting a little dirty! Once again it was confirmed to me that little boys are some of God's most delightful handiwork! Especially when I don't have to clean them up!

In fact, families are another outstanding evidence of God's genius. I can't imagine life without lots of aunts, uncles, 6 brothers, 3 sisters, all the in-laws, neices, nephews, cousins, etc. It doesn't seem that long ago that Steven and his brothers and sisters were little children who loved to wrestle with Uncle Will when they visited from Canada. Steven remembered that the first time they visited after Will and I were married, Will told them that when we were ready to have children, we were going to get them at K-Mart!

But this morning we lined up the kids for a final picture and said good-bye. They are heading down the coast and we will see them on their way back north later this week. It is so much fun to be a part of this big family with all these cute little kids! Actually, the big kids can be pretty fun too! And of course the weekend would have even been better if more family members could have been there. We missed all you guys!

JD, Rachelle, Kayla (Venisa's friend), Katelyn, Venisa, Duane with Penny the dog, Nick, Stanley, Eric, Molly

Babies, Babies

I became a great-aunt for the 21st time last night. My neice Jody gave birth to a baby girl, Jenna, a little after 8 p.m. Yikes, I just realized I don't know the middle name.

Jody's sisters were in the delivery room with her, so after I got off work, I picked up my 8-month-old great-neice Lucy from the hospital. For some reason no one seemed to excited to have her in the delivery room. Lucy wasn't too excited to be with us for awhile either. Nick was about to cry along with her.
When I fed her a bottle, she was fussing a bit while she drank it. Will said, "What's the matter, did you put baking soda in it?" She sat up, turned around to look at Will, and burst into loud wails. She did not appreciate him insulting me! After awhile she got used to us and enjoyed herself. We loved having her.

Then today I could hardly wait for my lunch break so I could go visit Jody and the new baby at the hospital. I finally got there and the nurse informed me that she was not having visitors just then, she needed to rest. So I had to wait til after work. When Nick and I got to the third floor, no one was at the nurse's station. Of course I couldn't remember the room number I had been told earlier. So we walked down the hall peeking in all the rooms with open doors, which were all vacant. We turned around at the end and encountered a nurse. I asked if she knew which room Jody Troyer was in. She looked at me blankly and I quickly corrected myself. (It's been less than five years since she got married and changed her name.) This kind nurse said she was just going to Jody's room, so we followed her. Upon entering this room, I cheerily called out, "Hi Jody, it's Aunt LeAnn." I was shocked and appalled to behold a strange man occupying the first bed in the room. When did hospital rooms become coed? When I could see around the nurse to the female occupant of the room, she was also a stranger! Whew, there were two Jodys on the third floor today! I was so relieved when I went in the correct room and the first person I saw was Jody's husband, and he was not occupying a hospital bed!
As you can see, Jenna is very cute. She slept like a baby the whole time we were there, which wasn't long because they are getting lots of visitors! Brittany came just as we were leaving. She came and visited Lucy at our house last night too. We love babies and there will never be a shortage of them in this family!

Babysitting Brendan

We got to babysit my great-nephew Brendan last night for the first time in ages. It was a nice sunny afternoon until we took him to the park behind our house. It started to sprinkle, but he didn't care. There was so much to explore and clean up. Yes, I said clean up. It bothered him to see the bark chips out of place – spilling out onto the sidewalk, on the grass, on the steps to the slide. Brendan would not go up the steps to the slide without cleaning them up - picking up bark chips one at a time and throwing them down. Nick reached down and swept them all off with his hand! What fun it was to watch a little boy run around and play again!

It's a rough job cleaning up all these bark chips from the grass, but somebody's gotta do it! I gracefully saved myself from a nasty fall when I was backing up taking a picture and stumbled over the black boundary of the playground area.

I hope I’m not in trouble with Jody today. Mr. Sarcastic Bear was out at the house, and Brendan pressed his hand and heard a few less than polite phrases that I certainly hope he doesn’t repeat!

When Jody returned, we looked at the pictures from the playground on the TV. Brendan was jumping up and down cheering when he suddenly stopped and said to himself, "That’s too loud." Then he had to say one final loud "yay" before he settled back down! A self-disciplined child – just amazing!

Ever since the birth and toddlerhood of my baby brother Tom when I was a mature teenager, I have believed little boys to be just about the most delightful creatures on earth. It is really too bad they can't still be that cute and fun to be with when they're teenagers.....

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Last night as we were returning home from our monthly pinochle party around 11 p.m., we noticed Eric in the drive-through window at McDonald's. So we thought it would be fun to pay him a visit. We pulled into the drive-through and Eric's voice came through the speaker sounding very professional and mature. "Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?" Will hemmed and hawed a bit, then said, "Uh, yeah, could I have a million dollars?" Eric's response was very prompt and polite. "I'm sorry, sir, we just ran out. Is there anything else I could get for you?" We were bringing home leftover homemade cookies I had taken to pinochle, so Will said, "Would you like a cookie?" Eric was a bit hesitant this time. "Uh...Okay." He had not recognized Will's voice and was relieved to see us when we pulled foward. He said it is not uncommon for people to ask for a million dollars but no one has ever offered him a cookie before! So we left cookies for him and his co-workers and headed on home!

Spring Break is Over

It's back to the grindstone this week after living it up last week. On Thursday morning, we met up with two other RV family friends at K-Mart parking lot. This time, I was the one that got the message about the meet time so no one could mess with me- 9:00 a.m. Last summer, Will and the boys told me it was a half hour earlier than the actual time to ease the tension Will feels about not always being 15 minutes early. It was the first time we were ever first! We were neither first or last on Thursday, just right. We were joined later in the day by my baby brother Doug and his family, making four families in all.

We went to Mt. Hood Village, an RV resort near Zigzag (where we traditionally go for pizza on Friday night). It was chilly and rainy, but Will can overcome that. He rigged up some tarps on our awning that were the envy of all our camping partners. (I can't believe I failed to get a picture of the finished structure!) The ample supply of multi-purpose ball bunjee cords he has were quietly coveted by everyone else. Once the tarps were neatly in place, we gathered around the propane heater and felt like we were really roughing it, safe from the blowing rain. The last evening it was nice enough to have a big outdoor fire.

The place has a big lodge with an indoor pool, hot tub, pingpong tables, pool table, and big screen TV. The kids didn't run out of things to do. They even shot hoops outside a few times between showers. We adults did grown up things, such as visiting, ham radioing, finessing the ham stick, improving the tarps, reading, taking walks, and most importantly, game playing. Will is notorious for his enthusiastic participation in games. Our friends had the electronic version of Guestures, and we were warned that the word would be visible to the opposing team after it was guessed so we could be sure the correct word was acted out, because apparently the father in that particular family has occasionally misread the word. During Will's first turn, he marvellously acted out "chocolate" - the look of ecstacy on his face as he ate the the invisible chocolate bar he had just unwrapped was inspiring. Unfortunately, after we guessed correctly, we learned he should have been acting out "calculate". It was also worth playing the game to watch him act out "flirt". We even stopped laughing long enough to eventually guess correctly.
Here you see Will improving his "ham stick" one evening. (Notice the head flashlight he is wearing. For some reason, people love to make fun of that. Although one person who made fun of it after the last camping trip showed up wearing a new and improved version of it.) He was never satisfied with the ham stick's performance compared to the dipole, on which earlier in the week he had conversed with someone in Japan! I wondered how they were able to communicate. He tried to tell me that the radio waves are able to translate languages, but I'm pretty sure the truth is that the Japanese person spoke English.

So now the fun is over for awhile. But life is full of little surprises. Like when I sat down at the computer today, there were six pieces of chocolate that look like they came from someone's Christmas stocking. Score! Now there are three pieces!