Lovin' Life at Summit Lake

Update on my Grandbabies

Thanks to my darling eldest daughter my blog is getting back on track. Here is just a few pictures of a few of my grandbabies. It seems we can never get them all together, but we will take what we can get. I feel very blessed to have such beautiful, amazing babies in my family.

SURPRISE!!! I'm Back...

David, Sally, Mickey, Gary

No matter how old you are there's always room for Mickey in your life. We recently enjoyed several days in the "Happiest Place on Earth" prior to our Spring break cruise with David. This was one of our last trips with David living under our roof so it was a bitter sweet moment before we headed off with all of our friends to sunny Mexico. Our favorite ride is Space Mountain forever and always (at least that's mine). I like the classics but David and Dad go for the modern big thrills (ie tower of terror & California screamin).

PS~ I am really going to try to stay on top of documenting our life now that I have a tiny bit more time and a much better computer that I hate for different reasons...

SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT. We will try and do better...

A lot has happened in the last year for the Poe family. My problem with blogging is that I wait so long between posts because I have so little spare time, that when I go to post, I have a hard time remembering how to do it. Lately, I have taken an increased amount of razzing from the family so I thought I would try again. They convinced me that I only need to start from now and not try and go back to recount the last year. I will say, however that a few noteworthy events have occurred in the last year totally worth mentioning. First, we have added to our family by 2 grandsons; Garrett, born last July to Becky & Marcus, and Sam & Melissa's newest addition, Nigel, born this April. They are both such a delight and that makes 6 amazing grandsons now for the Poe's.

The next wonderful event was the baptism of our sweet son-in-law, Marcus Fleming, Becky's husband. It was a very special day for us to share with their family in North Carolina last January. Just a few weeks after that marvelous event, Marcus left for Afghanistan for what has turned out to be a 16-month deployment. We love him, miss him and pray for his safety and well being every day.

And finally, we are in the process of building our home at the lake after wading through the permit process for many years. It is framed, plumbing is in and the electrical is being worked on right now. I have picked out cabinets, tile, window trim, and hardwood, plumbing fixtures and just about anything else you can think of. Our garage is packed full of great stuff waiting to be installed in the new house. Don't worry, I will be sure and attach some great pictures of all these great things in our life as well as some not mentioned. And, I will also try and do better about keeping up to date a bit better.

Home sweet home for the moment - this is our cute and cozy guesthouse we built a couple of years ago... can you see all of our belongings awaiting their new home? Check out David's sweet ride - the 1990 Honda civic... that bad boy gets 40 mpg, not bad on the pocket book

The new house! Expected completion date - Holidays 2009

Baby Nigel, Sam & Lissy's second son born April 23rd 2009, a wee one of 6lbs 8oz and 19 inches long. I had a wonderful visit with them shortly after the birth.

Garrett, Becky & Marcus' second son, born July 8th, 2009 - he was an itty bitty one, I can't believe he is almost 1! What a cutie.

Marcus' baptism in January of 2009, it was such a wonderful event to share with their sweet family. We miss Marcus SO much!

THE FOURTH OF JULY 2009 -

We had an incredible 4th this year - Perfect weather, perfect company (except missing Becky and her boys tons), and exceptional food, always a formula for success! We enjoyed playing in the water and even snuck in some decent ski runs amidst the onslaught of boaters on the lake, s'mores and campfires at night completed the joyous event. It is incredible to live in such a wonderful country and enjoy the freedoms we do. We are so grateful to all those who have and are currently serving in our military and sacrifice so much to do so. Next year we are excited to celebrate with a new house and new deck... we can taste the BBQ already!

Our all-star football player, this was about "take 100" - the QB (aka Dad) was advised to stick to volleyball

Floating - Mom's favorite past time and quite possibly what all the Poe women do very best at the lake

The Eld Inlet Ward annual 4th of July breakfast - a delicious way to start off the day

Kaleb and Owen enjoying the campfire - these boys are too cute and have a great time playing together

The ladies enjoying the late night campfire and conversation

A special note - my daughter Melissa helped me with this entry... a note from her - "Mom canNOT be to blame for her lack of blogging, for some reason on their computer it is VERY hard and EXTREMELY uncooperative. Perhaps until their electronics are upgraded we may have to wait for more posts, lol. So, we should probably lay off the razzing, because if it were this challenging for me to blog, I wouldn't update mine either!"

DISNEYLAND TRIP (Again)

After gymnastics season, we had the privilege of visiting Disneyland again, this time with Jason & Mariah and their little ones. Kaleb's dream was to see Cinderella, which was magical (sorry no pics). The weather was much improved and we had a wonderful time enjoying our kids. We are season ticket holders to the "Happiest Place on Earth" and look forward to a few more visits this year. It is nice to be able to get there for free with Gary's fun new job (Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant).

This is a grandma's dream come true. Two sweet grandson's at Disneyland (actually Goofy's house)

This is truly the kind of reaction we all hope the kids will have. Jaren absolutely loved Winnie the Pooh. We did too, to be honest.

This one made Mariah's trip complete. A ride over to Mark Twain's Island with a special passenger. Capt' Jack was amazing.

This was a fun playground for the little ones in California Adventure. Kaleb enjoyed it immensely

And, again, every first comer needs to have a pair of "Mickey" ears. How cute are these boys?

Winter Sports Season

We had a busy winter as usual. Sally was into her fourth season of coaching Olympia High School Gymnastics. We had a good season in a competitive league. We traveled around the state as usual and had success at league and district.

David also participated in his first season of boys swimming at the high school and really enjoyed it. He is not exactly a natural swimmer, but improved tremendously as the season progressed. He is excited to do it again next year.

This was one of the pictures we had taken for the front of our "fundraising card". Very creative.

Coach Poe, with some of her gym girls. They are so much fun!

The girls all dressed up for our awards banquet. It is always so amazing to see them outside of the gym. They are quite lovely, huh!

Even Owen got involved in David's swim season. He really wanted to get in that water. It was nice to have Sam, Lissy & Owen attend a meet.

David and a couple of teammates after a meet. He really enjoyed the season and is looking forward to next year.

CHRISTMAS TIME

We had a wonderful surprise when we found out that Becky had returned early from Iraq, and even better, she was pregnant, and due on July 19th. We converged on Shirlee & Dusty's home for the big event and had a family trip to Disneyland planned for a few days after Christmas. Unfortunately, poor Shirlee was ill with her recent In-vitro procedure and our trip was without she and Dusty.

The weather in Los Angeles was unseasonably cold, but we still had a wonderful time with Sam & Owen's first experience in the "Happiest Place on Earth". We look forward to going again, and making sure Dusty and Shirlee are with us too.