Grandma Anna visits!

I'm writing this Saturday evening, before Cub game #3 when life is still filled with hope and optimism. We shall see how long that lasts.

Grandma (Sime) visited this week. It's hard for me to give her that name since Grandma Sime is an entirely different person to me. Perhaps we'll have to call her Abuela in honor of her expatriot status. Regardless, it was a wonderful five days and not only because Mom put in some back-breaking wor in our jungled mess of landscaping. She was a ruthless pruner, causing Joe to go out today and buy a chipper. Really, he was just looking for an excuse to buy one more power gadget. Our compost pile will be so happy.

And to make the visit even sweeter, I won a three-way cribbage game and a scrabble game... it so rarely happens that I beat Joe in both, and this time I had a witness!

Calla's new word this week are water ("waaa") and "woof" (as in the sound Chloe makes). Today, she signed and said something fairly close to "book," which isn't surprising given how much she likes us to read to her.

Of course, we couldn't let Grandma go without several visits to our favorite park...

Going down the big slide all by herself... where did my baby go?

Playing peek-a-boo in the tunnel at the park's play gym.

Reading a book - Chloe had to be in on the fun, although I'm not sure she gets the joke.

Grandma and Grandpa Cheatwood arrive this coming Wednesday and Aunt Jeri, Uncle Russell and cousin Josh arrive on Friday for a short visit. So much fun to have such a wonderful family!

OK... 45 more minutes of hope and optimism. Here's to hoping for the best in spite of common sense...