CA Coast

These pics should be posted bottom to top but I am not going to take the time to swap them out. We had a wonderful weekend at the coast for a mini-family reunion and memorial celebrating the lives of Jeremy's Great Uncle Phil and Great Aunt Peggy. It was great to see the extended family and spend some time at the ocean.

Family bath time after getting soaked at the ocean

Playing in the waves, it started as avoid getting touched by the waves and moved onto just get drenched!

No pics but I was sitting well up on the beach and watching, at one point Kate got behind me so I had to turn and see where she was and of course that is when the one rogue wave came up and soaked me while my back was turned! We all needed baths after this fun adventure.

Jaydon was in the other car but we got to stop at Stanford University and do a quick little visit on campus, it was beautiful and very cool.

The arcades was amazing, this whole square filled with arches on the buildings.

More beach time!

Thanksgiving Visit with CJ and Judy

We lost an amazing woman the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Great Grandma Jimmie went peacefully at her home with her husband of 65 years nearby.  She was such a lovely woman who cared so much for those around her. She was generous, warm and funny.  I can remember many holidays enjoying wonderful food she prepared being surrounded by the love of family in her home.  While it is always hard to lose a loved one it was time for Jimmie to go home, she lived an amazing life and was loved by so many.  Thank you Grandma Jimmie for being a positive role model in my life and the lives of my children.

Grandpa CJ and Grandma Jimmie at Thanksgiving in 2014.

We got to head down to visit Great-Grandpa CJ and Aunt Judy on Thanksgiving morning.

Aunt Judy spoiled the kids with snowman pops, juice and cookies!

A great picture of Grandpa and me.

All of us doing the self timer picture (even Buffy was looking at the camera).
It was great to see CJ and Judy and we are thankful we were able to spend some of our holiday sharing and remembering the love of a great woman.

Our weekend trip to Leavenworth

We love our Leavenworth weekends.  Aunt Mary and Uncle Phil are terrific hosts and we always have such fun.  This trip took us to nearby town of Cashmere to see the 9/11 memorial and walk around the town hunting for gnomes.  The kids had a great time on the gnome hunt and it was a pretty powerful memorial!  Then we hit the 59er Diner where we found another praying mantis bug to pester and enjoyed great burgers and shakes.  This trip included not one but two shows put on by Leavenworth Summer Theater, Beauty and the Beast was incredible and Singin' in the Rain was well done just not quite as stellar as the first.  We thank Mary and Phil for babysitting all the kiddos while Jeremy and I enjoyed the shows (no pics of them of course).

Taking part in the memorial

A piece of the tower

Onto the gnome hunt, they had little footprints leading all through town and a number of little doors for the gnomes to live in.

Finding our friend Mantie

Enjoying our meal and the shuffleboard

Kate found Uncle Phil's socks, while Keeloch watched.

Ed's Funeral

After a wonderful evening celebrating Ed with our family we also enjoyed going to his funeral and celebrating his life with others who he touched.

Here are some not great photos of the hand out that included some great stories

Ed's favorite song was Home on the Range.  So during the funeral I couldn't help but get this video of the crowd singing the song while we all put a couple of Legos together and then passed them to the next person and then it continued until Mary, Jim, Jack and Phil looked to put the whole thing together. It was buried with Ed and was quite a special way to remember him.  I will say it was funny because my sister and I without knowing it had both grabbed a Lego tree to add to the structure because we loved building houses with trees with Ed.

Jaydon did a great job sitting quietly and patiently through the whole hour and a half, Lucy was good but I had to entertain her in the back area most of the time.  With about 5 minutes left of the service Jaydon finally tired out and fell asleep in his dad's arms. 

Ed Baker Memorial

Ed Baker was one of the most wonderful, caring, compassionate men I have ever known. When I talked about my big family Ed's name was sure to come up and people would always ask who was Ed.  It was sometimes a bit of a difficult question because Ed was just Ed, as my cousin mentioned at Ed's funeral, it was almost as if every family was just supposed to have an Ed.  Ed was a man who had some mental limitations and my aunt and uncle became his caretakers over 35 years ago.  So for as long as I have been in the family, Ed has been in the family.  Ed has always been around playing Legeos or the harmonica and kindly warming the heart of every member of our family by loving us and being an adult kid who we could play Legos with all the time! I am very blessed to have seen my kids play Legos with Ed as I did and there will definitely be a big void at family gatherings, I think we will probably have to have the Lego table out still just as a remembrance.

So after 103 years of being on this earth Ed got to fall asleep and rest peacefully.  It was a wonderful way for him to go because he was fearful of death (as any child of 5-6 is) and this way he didn't have to worry or be afraid and I can hope he was having great dreams of playing Legos with his family!

We gathered at Ed's house for a memorial Saturday night and had a fun time telling stories and playing with Legos and eating his favorite meal - Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Lucy thought it was tasty!

Britt, my cousin who grew up every day with Ed is teaching in Korea and had to join us through skype but she managed to snag some KFC even over there and enjoy it with us.  

The Feast

Jaydon met a new friend

Playing with Legos in honor of Ed

We built a Lego structure where everyone added a couple pieces!

Jaydon and dad playing with the Lego train

Telling some stories and sharing our memories

Lucy and Grandma playing with Legos

Aunt Mary and Phil

Jim and Jaydon

Jenny and L

At the end of the night while we were all talking I peeked into the other room and found Jaydon like this.  He glanced back a little nervous that he might get in trouble for being up on the table but in reality it was just such a wonderful way to see him taking part in what Ed loved!