Visit to Portland

I had a wonderful visit with Sandi and Scott last week with their cute baby Mannix. I was able to overlap my visit with Nancy and have a nice visit with her, too. And let me tell you, Nancy and I wrestled the baby carseat and won! We got that thing in there so tight, that I wouldn't like to be the one to try to remove it. Mannix is a darling boy--very good natured. Attached to his mother. He likes to hear Sandi's voice singing. She's a very calm mother--doesn't seem panicky like I did with my first baby. Scott is very helpful and supportive. She's lucky to have such a sweet husband. We were able to make a large clothing exchange--Nancy bringing me clothes for Ginny, me bringing Nancy clothes for Adam, and both of us bringing baby clothes for Sandi. We had a really great visit with Granddad. He's so fun to visit. He sang several songs for us--including one about a natural base that was quite clever. My favorite was a cute story he told us about when Grandma and he had taken the kids camping. I guess there were several families around a large campfire, and he and grandma got out their recorders to play duets. I loved this, because Trevor and I like to play recorder duets, too. Anyway, he said everyone appreciated their music except for a young Sam and Katie who were terribly embarrassed that their parents would play music in public. This I could also relate to, because Emily and Max are embarrassed when I sing in public, also. We looked at some pictures of grandma, and updated the family bible with Nancy's and Sandi's new babies.
After Nancy left on Friday morning, I got busy and tried to do a few things to help Sandi--some cleaning she wanted done and also I wanted to stock up their fridge and freezer with easy dinners and lunches. I felt helpful, and I think she was glad to have some jobs done. This kept me busy since I wasn't able to hold Mannix very much since I had a cold.
Sandi showed me some guitar chords and I have been really practicing. Guitar is really fun--maybe I should get a better guitar and take some lessons. I'm getting pretty good at "Today" and "Down the Way".
I had a great visit, but was also glad to return home to my own cute family. Trevor and kids really missed me and had prepared a very nice welcome home with signs on the doors that Max had made and a yummy vanilla cake with strawberry sauce that Emily had made. For 30 minutes when I walked in the door there was a barrage of children hugging me, sitting on my lap, and telling me all the stories of things that had happened when I was gone. Whew! My head was spinning as I tried to give everyone enough attention! Anyway, it's good to be home. It's taken me all week to catch up. Plus, our dishwasher broke, so it's hard to keep up on dishes without it. And, I've been trying to catch up on laundry plus take down all of our Christmas decorations. I'm finally starting to feel caught up, though. Also, now that I'm home, I'm commencing a new diet in earnest. Back to counting calories and daily exercise.
Here are some pictures of my visit!