Baby Paige is Born

Last Friday I was planning to fly to Southern California for a baby shower for Erica. But, our plans changed when Paige decided to be 4 weeks early. She was a petite 5 lbs. 4 ozs. and 18 nches long. It was such a treat to see her at the hospital instead of having a shower with lot of gifts. Well, the shower would have been wonderful, but I loved going to the hospital and holding Paige. I also got to spend time with brother Zachary and also a visit with Kevin, Katie and their three kids. It was a very busy and fun weekend. Welcome Paige.

These are the hospital pictures

This is my visit with Kevin and Katie

Women retreat at Asilomar 2012

The First Presbyterian Women's retreat is always at Asilomar in January, but this year was just amazing weather. My friend Fran came from Bend, OR to join us at the retreat and my friend Kathy was our other roommate. Kathy and I biked part of the 17 mile drive. The we joined friend for lunch in Pacific Grove. We went to see the Monarch Butterlies. We walked on the beach and went to Spanish Bay to listen to the bag pipper and have a glass of wine. Oh yes, and the retreat was wonderful too. In fact, the retreat was outstanding. So, here are some pictures from the weekend.

The Cabin at the end of 2011

We had a great visit with the Kevin Smylie family at the cabin. It was sort of our New Year's trip, but we came home on Dec. 31st. Last year the Smylie's made this trip and they had lots of snow and ended up taking more than 24 hours to get home since the grapevine was closed. Claire was a few weeks old at the time. This year the weather was beautiful. We did lots of outdoor play. We threw rocks at the pond (which was frozen, but the weather was warm). We went to Manzanita Lake and fed the ducks and explored. And I think Kevin and Katie made it home in a lot less time. I love pictures more than words, so you can see that we played hard, made gingerbread men, played Mario on the TV and Jump Start on the computer. It was great fun. See for yourself.

Did I mention that today (Dec. 30th) was DB's birthday. A low key celebration.

Water play is always good to keep babies happy.

Kevin is determine to break though the 4 inches of ice at the pond.

A very tired baby.