OurYear in Review

This year has proven to be an exciting but challenging one for our family. It has been a year since we’ve moved into our house and we are so happy to be back in Maine and reconnecting with our family and many of our friends. It has been an adjustment for me especially to go from 3 years of not having a lot of people around me, working from home, cooking dinner every night (because I had time!) and having the time to do whatever I wanted to do for the most part. I am now working outside of the home (and loving it), I have daily contact with my kids and close family and of course time for my new granddaughter, Avery. In between all of that, we have continued to improve minor things around the house and help the kids with various projects at their houses. We are going to be going to Florida in late January to visit with Danny's parents. It will be nice to have a little down time and spend some time together. One of our favorite things to do in the summer is walk on the beach so hopefully we'll get an opportunity to do that while we're in Florida. We don't get too much time for just us lately. It seems like we had so much time to spend alone together before we moved back to Maine, that we've forgotten a little bit about us. We are planning a big project in the house next year. I've decided that my bedroom is just too small and I'm too spoiled to deal with it anymore. Danny came up with a great plan to complete the basement downstairs (which is 1/2 done already) and move our bedroom down there. It will be a HUGE master bedroom and we'll expand the bathroom down there too. Danny has adjusted well to life outside of cable (thank GOD!!) and stays busy with his job at IDEXX. Our favorite thing to do is hang out with our family. We are thankful to have such a busy and rewarding life and are blessed that our family remains close.

Dan and Tiffany are doing very well these days. For those of you who haven’t seen their blog lately, things are moving along smoothly. They have finally received the “You are officially waiting” message from the adoption agency. It’s hard for people to imagine what goes into the adoption process. The red tape seems endless! They are truly in love with Ethiopia and they could not imagine getting their baby from anywhere else at this point. They belong to a Yahoo group for people adopting from Ethiopia using the same agency. They have learned a lot of valuable information from this group. They’ve attended some adoptive parenting classes this past fall and have also learned a lot from that.
Dan and Tiffany are looking forward to putting the baby’s room together over the next several months. Since they don’t know if the baby will be a boy or a girl, it might be a little hard but I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it work. They are going to make awesome parents! I cannot wait to see them walk through the airport with my grandchild in their arms. I’m sure it will be a very emotional time for all of us. The wait time for a referral is 1-6 months. Most likely we are looking at late summer though so by this time next year, I will be flooding this site and your emails with pictures of both of my grandchildren!
It helps to know that we have a lot emotional support from our families and friends during this process.

Melissa and Gavin are doing very well. They have fallen into their new parenting roles with ease. Melissa was lucky enough to take more than 3 months off to be with Avery. She will be going back to work at the beginning of the year. Gavin’s sister Gretchen will be watching Avery for 3 days during the week. Gavin’s schedule will allow him to be home with her for a couple of days during the week. He does a great job with Avery and I’m sure as she gets older, she’ll get to do lots of things with her Daddy when they are together during the week. Melissa is dreading going back to work because as all mothers know, leaving your baby to go back to work is very hard emotionally. They are lucky enough to have a family member be able to watch her so Melissa and Gavin are thankful for that. Okay….now on to our lovely little granddaughter Avery Grace: There is truly not one person or thing on this earth that could have prepared us for the way we feel about her. She has brought a new light into our lives and has changed my outlook on everything. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives. She is my first thought when I wake up in the morning. I think that having our kids so young was a good thing overall but we didn’t have time to enjoy them as much as we would have liked because we were struggling to be a responsible mother and father at such a young age. Now that we are older, we are able to re-live all that we missed in a sense. She is truly a joy to both of us. I love her when she’s screaming and laugh at her when she is mad and straightening her whole body out because she doesn’t want to be burped. I think only a grandmother could laugh though. It amazes me that she has already formed such a distinct personality. We cannot get enough of her and look forward to watching her grow in the coming months (but not too fast!).

We all feel that this year has been a year of milestones for our whole family. It’s nice to have the love and support of so many people. It helps to keep us grounded and appreciative. Although things are never perfect in our lives, the good far out weighs the bad. We are truly lucky to have had such an awesome year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

We had a pretty quiet day today. We ate at my mother's house and then went to Melissa and Gavin's house to visit. They had Gavin's family over for dinner. It was a long day and I'm glad that it's over. I'm very exited to roll into the Christmas season now! Deidre and I will be out early on Black Friday with all of the other nuts out there. We both love being caught up in the madness! Let the shopping begin!

Does life get any better than this? This will probably always be my favorite picture of Avery!

Long Overdue Blog!

I finally figured out that today makes 6 weeks since I've done a blog! It just so happens that my darling granddaughter Avery is 6 weeks old today....hint hint. I have been enjoying being a grandmother and cannot imagine my life without her. Melissa and Gavin are great parents and are very much at ease with her. Her first two weeks were pretty quiet. She slept a lot. She has since gotten a little feisty here and there but is still a really good baby in my opinion. I am completely in love with her and on the days that I don't see her, I miss her so much. I can't imagine what I'll do when Melissa goes back to work and I don't see her as much as I do right now. I had the opportunity to babysit for a few hours this past Saturday night while Melissa and Gavin went out to dinner. I told Melissa that I wouldn't babysit unless they went out for at least three hours. Melissa was a little sad leaving her but I'm glad that they got out to relax for a bit. Dan and Tiffany were over to visit that night also. As you can see from the picture below, Tiff was not happy that she wasn't feeding the baby. They make the best auntie and uncle and I'm sure they'll be Avery's favorites!
On the adoption front....
Dan and Tiffany have FINALLY finished all of the necessary documents for the adoption. They are going to be fingerprinted next week and then hopefully by the end of the month, they will be officially waiting for their baby. The wait will be a long one and will require a lot of patience on everyone's part but we all know that it will be worth it. The waiting has proven to be pretty tough so far and the wait could be up to 18 months so keeping busy is a must at this point! Dan, Tiffany and I are all part of a yahoo group for people who are adopting from Ethiopia through the adoption agency that they are using. It's pretty interesting and you can find out lots of information, sometimes good and sometimes not so good but we all look at it daily at least once and check out all of the posts from the other members of the group. They are also now receiving updates from the adoption agency which tells them how many kids have been placed and how long people have waited and when the travel dates are for the people who have referrals for kids and will be traveling to Ethiopia. I am looking forward to having another child to love and spoil rotten!

Our little getaway........


Danny and I went to New York City with Dave and Deidre a couple of weeks ago. We had a good time and walked many miles. We saw a lot of things and did lots of shopping. We also went to see the musical Hairspray which was excellent. Before we left for the trip, Dave had gotten a piece of metal in his eye at work and refused to go to the doctor before our trip. As you can see from the picture below, things got a little tough for Dave. He is wearing my sunglasses.

Another baby on the way!!!!!

We had a baby shower for my niece Tia this past Saturday. Tia was home from Virginia for several days so I thought it would be a great time to have the shower. We had a good turnout and she got a lot of nice gifts. She is working on moving back to Maine before the baby is born. It will be good to have her and the baby here in Maine! She is having a little boy (although the little is in question.....her belly is pretty big!) and is due in February.

We took the rare opportunity on the day of the baby shower to make my mother sit down for a picture. If you know my mother, you'll know how hard this was to have her agree to it!

Holidays are coming right up! I'll try much harder to keep up with the blog and post lots of pictures.

Introducing our granddaughter.........

Avery Grace Stone

Avery arrived this morning, 9/26/07 at 7:37 am, weighing in at 7 lbs. 5 oz and is 20 1/2 inches long. Melissa had a very long hard labor but came through it beautifully. She looked forward to her epidural when she got to 5 centimeters. The epidural didn't work!!! To make a long story short, she had no pain relief until they finally made the decision to replace her epidural at 9 centimeters......kind of late but well worth it to Melissa. It actually allowed her to sleep for a couple of hours until she reached 10 centimeters. Melissa was exhausted but Avery wasn't waiting any longer and arrived on her own time. She has lots of dark hair and big hands and feet. Melissa, Gavin and Avery are all doing excellent!

This was a very emotional experience for me to watch my daughter going through such a hard night and then watching Avery be born. Words can never describe the feeling. She is beautiful and I cannot wait to spoil her rotten! She makes a perfect addition to our family. We've all decided that she's definately a keeper!!

Sofia Mae Andrade Has Arrived!

I had a very interesting weekend as you can see from these pictures! As most of you know, my little sister Lisa was also expecting a baby. She and Melissa are two weeks apart in age and their babies will be about two weeks apart as well. Lisa had what I would consider a dream delivery. They induced labor beginning at 9:30 pm and Sofia was born at 4:43 am. Boy, if we could all have it that easy! Lisa did really awesome during labor and delivery. No yelling at all which as some of you that know her would know that Lisa would have no problem telling someone if she was the least bit irritated with them. Felipe was such a trooper and did a great job. He is such a proud Papa. It was great practice for me and an awesome experience.

I am now ready to meet Avery!! It won't be much longer. It's exciting to have new babies in the family. Melissa is out of work now on modified bed rest. It looks like Avery will be making her appearance before her due date of the 29th. If Melissa hasn't gone into labor by her 39th week, they will be scheduling an induction. Melissa and Gavin had a Jack & Jill given by Gavin's sister Gigi and her husband Matt on Saturday night. It was a very nice shower and they received lots of great gifts.

One More Month.......

Here's the latest picture of Melissa and her belly. Her due date is September 29th so that means only one more month to go before we finally get to meet Miss Avery Grace Stone! We know of course that this could come sooner or a little later but none the less, we are all getting anxious. Melissa has been feeling good but she has been getting a bit more tired as expected of course. Her weight gain has been below 30 lbs. and has slowed a little bit lately. We finally made it to the Carter's outlet in Freeport last weekend and were really happy to find all kinds of really cute clothes for more reasonable prices than we've paid for some of the other stuff we've bought so lookout Freeport, we'll be back soon!
Avery's room is almost complete.....just a few finishing touches to go. The room is very cute. Melissa and Gavin have done a fantastic job putting everything together! Danny and his friend Tim built a new shelf for Avery's room and Danny has been working hard to get it completed. Melissa got the idea from Pottery Barn Kids. This shelf is almost an exact duplicate and costs much less to make. Here is a picture of the shelf at it's present state......He's almost finished, he just has to paint the roof and attach the back.

I'm very excited to be able to be with Melissa and Gavin at the hospital when Avery is born. I was so young when my own kids were born and don't remember a lot of details but I also did not watch them as they were being born. I know that this will be very special for me to watch her come into the world. I'm not as excited about watching Melissa go through labor but I'm confident that she will do really well. She is a real trooper when it comes to being in pain or being sick. She's just quiet and wants to be left alone so I'll be the one sitting in the corner stressing out unless she needs me.....lol. This is all subject to change of course so keep watching the blog because I'll post as soon as Avery is born and probably tell all of you how beautiful she is and how well Melissa and Gavin did! They are going to make great parents for Avery!

A Lovely Sunday Drive........

Danny and I took a drive to the Rockland Lobster Fest with our best friends, Dave and Deidre this past Sunday. It was a gorgeous day! The Lobster Fest wasn't all it was cracked up to be (no pun intended) but we still had a good day. It's been a while since Danny and I have been able to just get out for the day and relax. It's always entertaining to listen to Dave's theories on different subjects. For any of you who have had these types of conversations with Dave, you all know what I mean. For those who haven't, I've attached a very short clip below to give you all a little sample. Click on the link below to see how Dave provided some of the entertainment for us on our drive. (Sorry it's sideways but you'll get the idea) You'll have to click on it twice.

Melissa's Baby Shower.......

We had a baby shower for Melissa this past Sunday. It turned out to be a warm but nice day overall weather wise. Melissa received lots of really nice gifts from everyone. It was great to see you all! We are now on a countdown for baby Avery! I'm sure the time will go by a bit more slowly than it has up to this point. Melissa is feeling pretty good but starting to get a bit more tired lately. So far I would rate this an easy pregnancy....
The picture above is a diaper cake that Lisa made for Melissa. It had almost 200 diapers and the inside had lotions, powders, wash cloths and a few other needed items. It was very cute!

I literally could not have pulled the shower together without the help of Deidre and Nicole. Deidre is always game for helping me out whenever I get in over my head with a project. I could never ask for a better friend than Deidre. She has always been the most loyal friend that I've ever had. She and Nicole spent the night so they could help me get everything ready. The picture above shows them painting faces on the baby cupcakes that we made. I think that Nicole may have even had fun with us two "old" ladies! The picture below shows the final results of the baby cupcakes. We also managed to carve out a watermelon in the shape of a baby carriage for fruit salad. The food was a success!

It's A Girl!!

Let the shopping begin!!

I was absolutely shocked today to find out the Melissa and Gavin are having a baby girl today. To be honest, my bets were on a boy but I'm very happy because it really didn't matter to me either way. Anyone who knows how much I love to shop will know how much fun this will be for me. Everything looked good on the ultrasound. It still amazes me to see all of the advances that have been made since I had babies. I loved seeing Melissa and Gavin today and how excited they both were. It was a great experience for me. Knowing the sex of the baby somehow made it more real for me.......emotional......ok.........I teared up when the technician said it was a girl. I am beyond excited. Her name will be Avery Grace Stone. I will be Nana (although that's a debate with Gavin) and Danny will be Papa.

I CANNOT WAIT!!!

Our Week - We've had a pretty busy week. Danny had last week off and worked on tearing down the shed and doing other cleanup projects from the storm damage. We are making a bigger shed so we had cement poured to expand it. He'll be working on that as well as many other projects that need to be done. Just think, in a few weeks we'll be opening the pool. Geez, it was snowing a month ago! Danny left on Thursday to go to North Carolina on a fishing trip. He had a great time and came back with a great tan from being out on the water. They fished about 45 miles out to sea. He did pretty well not getting sea sick and caught an awesome mahi-mahi as you can see in the picture! He and the guys that he fished with ended up eating it for dinner. He came home late Sunday. Melissa's 26th birthday was on Sunday. I cannot believe that she is 26 already. It's funny how time flies as you get older. It seems like yesterday she was running around with her jelly belly doll. Melissa, Tiffany and I took the Downeaster to Boston on Saturday for some shopping and good food. We met up with Karen who spent the day with us. We came home exhausted with sore feet from all of the walking. Tiffany actually has many blisters to show from her day in Boston. We stopped to buy her another pair of shoes but the damage was already done. By the time we got back on the train to come home, Tiffany's toes were so swollen they looked so sore. Melissa actually did better than Tiffany and I and I was concerned about her walking too much and getting too tired. She is doing well. We'll find out the sex of the baby on Wednesday. I'll let them make the announcement on their blog first. I have a tendency to get excited and spill the beans before they want me to but it's their baby so they can do the honors. I'm just hanging back...........for now ;-)

On Sunday I had a cookout here at my house. We celebrated Melissa's birthday and Mother's day. As you can see, Stephen helped me out with the cooking (since Danny was not home yet) and Dana cooked up the second round of food. We had some great food. Ryan was leaving to go back to Iraq so we were all happy that he was able to join us also. It was nice to get together with my family and have my mother be there as well. It seems like we haven't done that in ages. I'm hoping for a warm summer with lots of sunny days so we'll be able to enjoy the pool.
We have tons of projects planned for the summer and I'm sure there will not be a dull moment. Over the next couple of weeks we need to try to get the shed rebuilt and do some yard projects as well. I'll post again soon!.......OK.........I'll post this week as soon as the ultrasound results are in!

Aftermath and Progress

We finally were able to find someone to cut the tree that fell across the septic system, the pool shed and the fence. As you can see from this picture below, there were some big branches driven into the ground from the force of the tree falling. One in particular is giving us some headaches. Danny has been unable to get it out of the ground. He has dug down to the crushed rock on top of the septic system and it still isn't budging!! This is going to be a tough one but we'll figure something out.

Below is a picture of the shed and fence damage. The shed is actually twisted. It's hard to see in the picture but the force of the twisting caused a window to bust out of the shed. The pool cover has several holes in it and will definitely need to be replaced. At this point, our damage is up around $8,600.00. The insurance company will only cover up to $500.00 to get a tree removed (and that's only if it does property damage). Try getting a tree that size removed for less. It was an eye opener for us!
We've seen a lot of other people with much more damage than we had so we feel lucky but it's a lot of work to get all of the work done and get estimates. I can't imagine how people with worse damage are dealing with it.

I scream, you scream......

No, you are not seeing things.....and yes, this person is indeed my daughter in law getting her dog, Maggie and ice cream from the ice cream truck that comes by their house. Maggie goes crazy when she hears the truck playing music. This dog could seriously have her own television show.

Pregnancy Update......

Here is the most recent picture of Melissa and Gavin. I cannot believe how big her belly is getting and she was only 4 months pregnant in this photo! We find out the sex of the baby on May 17th. She is feeling pretty good overall and hasn't had any big issues...just the usual, being tired and a few headaches. She has been lucky so far.

Planes, Trains and Boats...

Melissa, Tiffany and I will be taking the Amtrak "Downeaster" to Boston on May 12th. I'm looking forward to spending the day with them. We will probably just do the usual, shopping and eating of course. Danny will be flying to North Carolina to meet up with some friends to move a boat from North Carolina to Florida. They'll be doing some fishing and relaxing along the way. I think this will be a great little get away for both Danny and I.

Deidre and Dave will be going to Florida this coming Saturday. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun for them and give them plenty of time to just kick back and relax. I'm jealous! I wish we were going! Have fun guys!! I'll post again soon.

Sisters and Cousins

On Sunday, I hosted what I ended up calling (for some strange reason) Cousinfest. Well, it was actually just more of my female cousins getting together. We had a great turnout. There was only one cousin who had to work and could not make it. We had more food than we knew what to do with....(yes, even us!) I was especially pleased to see my sister Debbie come and make an appearance. It meant a lot to me that she made the effort. We made a few frozen drinks although nobody was really in the mood to drink much and told a few good stories. I created a family trivia game which ended up being a lot of fun. It's great for us to get together without the usual family craziness that sometimes tends to happen in our family. I'm hoping that this allow us to get to know each other a little better as adults and be able to stay in touch. Here are a few more pictures from our gathering.

Back row: Jamie, Cindy K., Patty Ann, Corina, Karen and Cyndi D. - Middle row: Debbie E., me and Cheryl D, - Front row: Lisa M. and Lisa D. (missing - Debbie B. & Andrea)

Back: me, Cyndi, Debbie E., Lisa D., Debbie B. Lisa M. and Corina in the front

SISTERS

Me, Lisa and Debbie

Cindy & Cheryl

Corina and Karen

Cyndi & Jamie

Lisa & Debbie

I'm still working on a picture of Patty Ann who doesn't have any sisters. I didn't get one of her but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to post it for everyone to see!! I'll post again soon. We have lots of baby showers and other events planned for the summer so we'll probably do this again in August I'm guessing. I hope we have another good turnout! I'll post again soon.

Rain, Wind & The Lake!!

I guess the weather is definitely in charge lately. In a matter of 10 days we've gone from warm and sunny to fourteen inches of heavy and wet snow to our latest visitor from Mother Nature. This first picture is a view down the road in front of our house. As you can see, the tree that we have talked about getting cut down (because we cannot see coming out of the driveway) is being taken care of by Mother Nature. See my earlier blog for pictures of this same tree with broken branches from the winter storm last week. I started out my day by driving down the road and seeing a small river across the end of my road that had a couple of cars sitting in it. I was amazed at how flooded the intersection was. They were in the midst of closing it down so of course I turned around. After getting to the intersection at the other end of the road, I was stopped and they were going to shut the whole road down. I called Danny (who had already left for work) and suggested that he might want to work from home because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get back home later. These are the only two ways to my house. Meanwhile, I went to work and planned on seeing how the morning went. Danny went home and called to tell me about the branch when he got home. Here is some of the damage from that branch:
















That would be our fence and pool shed. As you can see, this is a really big branch. It slammed down across our septic system and tore through the fence and completely shifted the shed, busting open the door and breaking a window. We are not sure about the equipment inside yet. Our snow blower, lawn mower, pool equipment and lawn furniture are in there so I guess once we can get in there to see, we'll know what we're up against. Meanwhile..........yes there's more.......Danny took the dogs out down through the basement and things looked dry. Less than 30 minutes later, there was water pouring into the (finished!) basement. We have a lot of unpacked stuff down there like pictures and of course my prized dining room set! I came home after sneaking through some barriers to get here. Dana came over and brought his sump pump for us to use. This brother of mine.....ya gotta love him. He's always there when we need him. We used a squeegee (sp?) and a push broom along with the sump pump and worked on getting the water out. This pumps 30 gallons of water per minute and it ran for about 90 minutes.....that's equal to about 2700 gallons of water out of our basement! Boy, am I glad that I suggested Danny work from home. My dogs were crated in the basement. For those of you who know me....that would not have been a good situation for me to walk into! We had to take everything out of the basement and move it to the garage.....so much for me unpacking.....I'm throwing a lot of it out! My family pictures were okay and the dining room set didn't fair too badly. Some of the other furniture got wet but I'm not overly worried about that. Here are some pictures of what we have always wanted.....a lake in our backyard.....well.....not one that threatens our home but I guess this is the next best thing:













































Danny and I were just talking yesterday about how lucky we are to have come out of the last six months and have landed on our feet so well.
So....do we still feel lucky? Yes, we really do. We are lucky that we were able to come home. We are lucky that the dogs didn't get too stressed out. We are lucky that we didn't lose anything significant. We are lucky that the tree didn't land on the house. We are soooo lucky to have such an awesome and supportive family who are always there when you need them most. We are so lucky that our kids are all home safe and sound and nobody got hurt. And....we are lucky that we have insurance. :-)

HAPPY SPRING!

NOT!!!!!!!!!

Boy, I was getting pretty excited when we were finally getting some warm weather these past few weeks and then out of nowhere......BANG! We get hit with this damn snowstorm that surprised us all. Danny was out of town that night. We got 14" of very wet heavy snow here at my house. We have huge pine trees in the front yard and very big limbs came crashing down sometime in the middle of the night due to the weight of the snow on the branches. My neighbor also has a couple of big pine trees and his were worse. I slept like a log (no pun intended) that night and never heard the limbs snapping off the trees. At some point in the night my neighbors tree had a very large limb fall across the road. They had to use a chain saw to cut it up.......all of this while I slept (in the front part of the house) and never heard a thing. I guess it's a good thing they all fell away from the house. If they had fallen where I was sleeping, I guess I would not have known they were coming anyway. In any case, what a mess this storm made. I got up that morning not knowing how I was going to manage to get out of my driveway.....Danny had put the snow blower in the shed (over a hill) because he didn't think we'd need it anymore this year ;-) I ended up shoveling two tire paths out of the driveway to get out. Since Danny was out of town for the rest of the week and I was not in the mood to deal with the mess, I had the driveway plowed. Bub and Tiff had no power that night so they came over and spent the night. He shoveled the shed out and used the snow blower for the rest of the yard. I hope it's truly the last storm this year. I'm ready to see what it looks like under our pool cover! We never did get to actually see it. I'm ready to haul the mixer out!!

The Baking Babies

We had a really nice day on Easter. We ended up having twelve people over. Despite the fact that I am not considered to be a cook, everything came out pretty good. Nothing was cold or too dry so that's all that counts I guess. My wonderful son is becoming quite a cook as you can see from above. He made some fantastic homemade rolls. They were a big hit. Tiffany made her now famous coconut cake (also seen above) which everyone loves.....as you can see, Dana REALLY was impressed! There was not a crumb of either one when everyone left for the day. There was however an angel food cake that Ann made (she made two) with some strawberries and whipped cream. Danny and I managed to take care of that too. We didn't want anything to go to waste!

Danny has been traveling quite a bit lately. I'm hoping that things quiet down a little bit and we will be able to enjoy the spring and summer. I'll post again soon!