AWE.....He's so cute!

My newest nephew, Austin Williams Eichelberger, or AWE, was finally born on October 21, just missing my birthday by days. Despite his extra 11 days in utero, he was unable to best his older brother, Collin, as the biggest baby in the family, he was a measly 9 lbs 1 oz, a full 7 oz smaller than Collin. But size certainly does not diminish cuteness! We were so grateful that Krissy and Austin were able to come up and visit us on Thursday and to retrieve Collin. Collin had come to stay with us for a few days while Krissy and Austin got to know each other on the outside. We held the tiny baby, and took pictures. I had fun taking pictures of Allie and Austin's feet. They were just so tiny! Allie did a great job of helping with Collin. They really bonded while he was here. She was like his little mother.

Going to Grandma's House

As a child, going to Grandma's house was always fun. She lived in LA, about 6 hours away from where I grew up. It meant a long drive, sleeping in the office, playing with the wooden games, and always crowding around the pump organ to gently play the little finger songs that we were allowed to play. There were many memories at Grandma's house. It was always there, but it never changed.
No longer. Instead of going to Grandma's house, a small piece of Grandma's house came to me. After a few years in a nursing home, Grandma has come to realize that she should sell the house. My dad (along with his siblings) spent 2 weeks going through her possessions and dividing everything among children and grandchildren. I didn't think there was any bit of a possibility, but the old pump organ came to live with me, along with a wooden game, a painting done by her and a few other trinkets. It looks lovely in my front room. My favorite part is when I open the organ, I get a pleasant whiff of "Grandma's house."

Giants, tall trees or river crossers?

Jeff's sister Jill, has been up in Sacramento doing training for her upcoming tour in Iraq. Near the end, she had some down time, but couldn't leave for more than 24 hours at a time. That was a little short to come down and visit us, so we arranged to meet her halfway. Only Jeff, Allie and Gabe were able to go, but they had a great time. They decided to camp in Visalia to break up the 6 hour drive there and backinto two days. After they found a campsite, they discovered that Sequoia National Park was only 20 minutes away. So off they went to walk with the Giants. They loved being in the park, among the tall trees, and even a sprinkling of snow on the ground!
The next day, Jeff, Allie and Gabe played on the shore of the river. Jeff was just relaxing and soon discovered that Allie and Gabe had crossed the river! Getting there was not a problem, they just hopped from rock to rock. Getting back an hour later was a much bigger problem. They had opened the gates from the dam above, and now all the rocks were under water! It was a bit of a cold operation, but with Jeff's help, they made it back safely.

Generally speaking, it's General Conference

We went for a whirlwind trip up to Utah to attend General Conference. We left Friday at about lunch time, so the kids missed a little bit of school. We arrived at my Aunt Vicki's in Provo not too much longer than we estimated despite needing to change a tire in the middle of Utah. We spent the day visiting family, and the BYU campus before retiring to Tooele for the evening.
Sunday we were up to watch conference on TV and eat conference cake of course! We left Tooele around 11:30 to attend the 2:00 session of conference. We loved stopping by the temple on temple square. It was crowded! It was refreshing to see so many people crowded around the temple. Inside the conference center, we sat in the balcony seating. The kids loved being there, I think their favorite part was watching the cameras move up and down and trying to guess which camera was broadcasting to the screen. It was wonderful to be in the presence of the apostles and prophets, even though they looked like little ants from where we were sitting. I really enjoyed listening to the messages that they gave and the sweet spirit that prevailed throughout the conference center. It was really special to be there with my family.
After conference ended, we immediately left for home and arrived home around 1:30 am. Life went back to normal from there, we were off to seminary at 6:30 that morning. It was quite the whirlwind trip, but I am so very grateful that we had the opportunity to go and enjoy this experience.

One Busy Week

The weeks are becoming busier as all of our activities are beginning to start up again. Gabe is in volleyball, and Maddie's fencing classes have begun again. Girl Scouts started with a great activity to the California Pizza Kitchen and Jayd already has two fall baseball games over and done. Cub Scouts is up and running, I am going for another year in that organization. Then when you add back to school nights, and a couple of personal items, they all start to be busy weeks!
This week had two highlights. I assisted my dad with his cleanup of Grandma's house. My Grandma Reeder has decided that it is time to sell her house. She has been living in assisted living for about 2 years now. So my dad came down for about 2 weeks to go through things, help divide, distribute and clean. I came home with Grandmas sewing table, and the parlor organ, along with several books and knick knacks. I am thrilled to get them and have spent the week trying to assimilate them into my home.
The other highlight was Jayd's Eagle Scout Board of Review. He passed the review and is officially an Eagle Scout. I am very proud of him. He worked very hard to complete this achievement before he turned 14. I am so happy for him.

Tour, What Tour?

So for our first kickoff cub scout activity, I planned a tour of the local firestation. This requires some preparation because you must determine which shift is scheduled for the day you want the tour, then find out the next day they will be in so that you can call them and make a reservation. You can't really change the reservation, or call to remind because it is always a different shift that is there, and communicating small details like a cub scout pack coming to visit apparently isn't very high on the priority list. So I made the reservation with the correct shift back in August. I gathered my cub scouts, and did opening excercises right on the driveway of the fire station where the firefighters were washing the truck, then stood expectantly with 9 smiling little boys and looked at the firefighters. Eventually they noticed us, but didn't really invite us to do anything, just smiled and nodded. So I hesitantly asked about our tour. Tour? What Tour? was the reply. Apparently the shift that was scheduled for that day was away at a brush fire and this was a skeleton crew pulled from other stations. Oh no! Luckily, they were a good bunch of guys and were willing to give us a tour anyways. You could tell he was showing us and doing things on the fly, but I don't think the boys cared. They got to see the bunks, the kitchen, the office, and the fire truck. They held a nozzle, walked through the back of the truck and watched the firefighter get dressed in 47 seconds. With about 5 minutes left, they got a call, so they all hopped in the truck, honked goodbye, turned on the siren and drove away. The cub scouts thought it was the best trip to the fire station ever!

Can you count to eleven?

I could bore you with more pics of Disneyland, but I thought the better of it. So instead, I will go with another date entry. Yesterday was 9, 10, 11, so we had a minute long celebration. at 7:08, we celebrated counting to 11. In this picture there is one, two, three, ...etc items up to six, bringing us to a total of 11 (7:08, 9-10-11) Can you figure out the other items? Answers are in the post below/previous.