First birthday party

Chase turned one year old on Feb. 11, and we enjoyed
watching him eat his birthday cake (quite neatly, I thought)

Herm & I gave Chase an easel. Megan (math teacher) is writing
math equasions to get him started.

Christmas 2 of 3

Our Christmas this year came in three parts. First one happened at Thanksgiving in CA with Eric's kids since they are going to Japan. Christmas part two was on Christmas day at Jennifer and Brian's house. Here's Chase "riding" on Jen's Great Dane, "King".

The family voted on having finger food for our meal, so here's Brian and Andrew working at the grill checking on the fruit kabobs. The menu also included shrimp, hot wings, crab quiche, three kinds of cookies and a yummy caramel/apple bars.

Chase enjoyed ripping open the presents and chewing on the paper.

Jennifer got books that were on her list.

"Just what I always wanted!!!!"

"More presents?"

(There were more gifts given, but my camera ran out of batteries. :-( so I'll have to get pics from Andrew & Jen.)

Kids just want to have fun!

So far, Molly hasn't minded if Chase tries to get close.

We celebrated Christmas with Eric's kids at Thanksgiving since they'll be in Japan in Dec.

Sarah is the climber in this family.

Noah and Jordan

Pizza with the kids

We arrived in Oceanside for our Thanksgiving visit on Wednesday which gave us a chance to take 4 of the grandkids out for pizza while Eric & Sachiko went out for dinner and a movie. Our philosophy is to let the kids order what they want. Herm and I got vegetarian (shown above), Maya wanted mac & cheese, Sarah got chicken tenders, Jordan wanted Hawaiian and Noah wanted Gouda cheese pizza. While I don't think the cheese pizza was Gouda, J & N shared theirs with half cheese and half Hawaiian.

Note the cheese as Noah lifts his piece off the pan. It was very good!

Love self-serve frozen yogurt!!!!

When we were in CA in September, we were introduced to self-serve frozen yogurt. It's everywhere and lots of fun for the whole family. There are lots of different franchises, but they pretty much all operate in the same way. First you pick out a cup (two sizes), then you put in the yogurt.

Next, you decide what kind of toppings you want.

Then you weigh the concoction you made and pay 39 cents per oz.

Here's what our family came up with. I had pumpkin spice with brown sugar glazed pecans.

Noah, Jordan & Maya are enjoying their yogurt along with Sachiko and I. Molly is under the table waiting to lick out the containers. Herm is taking the picture, and Sarah was along, too, but is not in this shot.

My car, "Cherry"

After Herm had purchased his Honda Goldwing, I told him when we bought a new vehicle, I wanted to be the one to pick it out. So when the "Cash for Clunkers" deal came out, we decided to trade in our 1980's Ford Ranger pickup for a new car. One of my most favorite cars that we have owned was a Nissan Sentra, so I knew that would be one to consider this time around. My dad was a "Chevy" man, so I felt I should at least look at them, plus I went to the Honda dealership. But I really liked the 09 Sentra, so we bought this one. My 3-year-old preschool class nicknamed it "Cherry". While in CA for Thanksgiving, I had the grandkids down there pose in it.

Thanksgiving 09

Herm & I drove down to Oceanside, CA to celebrate with California family.
Eric got the job of carving the turkey.

The rest of us enjoyed the eating part.

In Salem, Chase celebrates his first Thanksgiving.
Besides turkey and mashed potatoes,
he got to teeth on the turkey leg bone.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving in Salem on the Sunday before the holiday.