As a book lover, an avid reader, and an educator, if I started talking about these issues, I might never stop. I’ll just say two things: (1) The best way to get people to read a book is to ban it; and (2) Legislators, do your job and let teachers do theirs.

While we were visiting Jeff and La’s family, we all wanted to take some family photos. Kyra and I were not feeling our best, and we both needed an afternoon to rest and re-charge before having more group fun. We sent everyone else on their way to scout out photo shoot sites, and they did a great job selecting a nice park not too far away. We took pictures of just about every possible combination of our group members. Here are some of my favorites.

First, the entire family, . . .

. . . then, Jeff’s family (where’s Ollie?), . . .

. . . and then, Alex’s family (ahh, Ollie’s back).

Here’s a picture of Ted and me with three of our grandchildren and Kaitlyn, our granddaughter-in-law, as well as our great-grandson, Ollie.

Here are the grandkids. I love this picture!

We definitely needed a photo of great-grandma and great-grandpa with Ollie. Jeff said he took over 100 family photos during this photo shoot, and this is the only one for which Ollie smiled. He’s sitting on my lap, so I’m sure it’s Gigi magic.

A four-generation photo was another requirement.

The adult men wanted a photo of themselves.

Not to be outdone, so did the women. You can easily see that the women are more fun than the men. 🙂

Last, but not least, here’s a picture of Ted and me. Even after 54 years, he’s still The One.

In late April, Ted and I went to Utah to visit with Jeff and La’s family. This was our last opportunity to be with the entire family at one location now that Alex, Kaitlyn, and Kyra have all graduated from college. Alex and Kyra had already accepted full-time jobs in their chosen fields and were getting ready to move closer to their work places. This was a good opportunity to have a belated recognition of Ollie’s second birthday (March) and to congratulate the college graduates.

We started with some family time at Alex and Kaitlyn’s home. They were packing and preparing to move a week after our visit. You can see packing boxes in the picture below. They are very excited about moving from a small “married students” campus apartment to a real house, with lots of room. It’s a little weird for me to look at my first baby and realize that he is now Grandpa Jeff, holding his grandson, Ollie. Look at the puppy Ollie is holding. We bought one just like it for Hadley last Christmas and she liked it so much, we thought Ollie would enjoy having one as well. He did. Maybe he and Hadley can share puppy stories the next time they’re together.

The graduation card we bought for Alex played “Pomp and Circumstance” (the graduation march) and had wiggling cutouts inside. Grandpa Ted found it easy to entertain Ollie with the card.

A long time ago, I met a great-grandma in a restaurant. While chatting with her, she mentioned that her great-grandkids call her Gigi, as in G-G for Great-Grandma. I decided right then that, when the time came, I wanted Gigi for my great-grandma name too. Last summer, I bought this T-shirt in honor of Ollie, and I finally had a chance to wear it while I was with him.

Here’s a close-up so you can see what the shirt says. It’s so true! (We baby boomers will always be cool.)

During our visit, we all had time to visit with each other, to get outside in the beautiful weather, to play some games, and to have some good downtime together. Here’s one of the downtime moments. Like father, like son?

For dinner one evening, we made individual pizzas. What an easy and delicious way to customize what you want to eat!

One afternoon, we went to a nearby park to take family pictures. While we were there, we took some time to enjoy the park and the springtime weather. Here’s Ollie in a swing.

And here’s Zack, getting out of a swing.

Kyra actually graduated in December, but we recognized the event during our visit. She was our first grandchild to graduate from college. How can we be old enough for that?

Alex and Kaitlyn graduated in early May–a husband/wife achievement. That makes three college graduates and six high school graduates among our grandchildren at this point.

As always, it was wonderful to be together with our family–our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchild. Ted and I are definitely living the good life.

Our family has much to celebrate in a three-week period beginning in late April. We say “happy birthday” to Kathy, Thom, Dean, Theo, and Kari, and “happy Mother’s Day” to the moms. Kathy and Annette joined Ted and me and Kari’s family to share a day of happiness to honor these events. Thom lives too far away to join us, so we filled his place with Dylan’s high school graduation. It was a fun-filled day, and we ended it with dinner at Steak ‘n’ Shake.

Steak ‘n’ Shake has only recently opened for dining in. SnS used to advertise that other fast-food restaurants were “work”-aurants where the customers did all the work except cooking. SnS, on the other hand, offered a true “rest”-aurant experience and served its customers with real dishes at the table. That’s no longer true. We ordered at the kiosk, picked up our food when our party name was called, and cleared our table of the paper food wrappings. Even though SnS has become the work-aurant it used to belittle, the food and shakes were still good. One of the staff members took our picture to save the moment for us.

During our interior update, Ted and I replaced our old futon and wanted a new mattress cover for it too. We found one in an acceptable color for only $20 at a going-out-of-business futon store. Oops! When we unpacked it to put in on the mattress, I discovered that the zipper was hopelessly broken. There were no other identical covers at the store, and I didn’t see any other colors or patterns I wanted online, so I decided to replace the zipper.

Nylon zippers can be “repaired” by simply sliding the zipper pull downward on the zipper. Problem #1: In this case, the zipper teeth were so far out of alignment that the zipper pull wouldn’t move. Problem #2: All along the length of the zipper, the nylon coils were so badly bent that the zipper could not possibly move smoothly in either direction. Problem #3: The bottom end of the zipper was completely separated, making it impossible to ever match the teeth again.

This is what might have happened to cause such extreme zipper damage. (1) In the factory folding/packaging process, the zipper was sharply folded in a variety of places. (2) Someone bought the mattress cover and unzipped it to put in on their futon mattress. Because of all the sharp bends in the zipper teeth, the movement of the zipper head caused the teeth to separate. (3) The buyer returned the mattress cover to the store without mentioning the damage. (4) The store re-sold the mattress cover–to us. Luckily, and thanks to my mother, I’m an expert seamstress.

I bought some black zipper-by-the-yard (color choices were white, brown, and black), ripped out the damaged zipper, and replaced it with my new zipper yardage. I don’t think I’ve used the zipper foot on my sewing machine since I bought it. All zipper feet are based on the same design principle, but this one is awesome. It’s the best zipper foot I’ve ever used! It sits very comfortably on the fabric and effortlessly guides itself along the zipper teeth. I wish I had another zipper-style project to sew because it would be fun to use the zipper foot again.

It didn’t take long to finish putting in the zipper. Then it was time to put the mattress cover on the mattress. Voilà! We now have a new futon with a new mattress cover.

As part of our interior house update, Ted and I decided to replace our many-years-old baker’s shelf in the kitchen with a nicer piece of furniture. We shopped, and we shopped some more before we finally selected a cabinet that we liked and that would fit in the corner. Then we eagerly looked forward to its delivery.

Included with the delivered cabinet was a duly checked and signed checklist–for bed parts. Huh?

The delivery men brought the cabinet in, removed the protective bubble wrap, laid out the parts (shelves, doors, legs, etc.), and discovered that the 12 screws needed to attach the legs had not been included. “Hardware” was checked on the list, but “Legs” does not appear. We had the unmentioned legs, but not the checked-off hardware. Go figure! Here’s the cabinet, standing on the floor with the legs waiting to be attached.

One of the men called the boss man, explained the problem, and told us they would send someone out within the next two weeks to attach the legs. Okay, things happen. Everything will be fine in two more weeks. Or will it?

As promised and scheduled, two more delivery men arrived–without screws. I offered to let them select screws from our collection, and I made the alternate suggestion that they could go to Home Depot to purchase new screws. “No,” they said, “we can’t do that.” Apparently, the screws have to be the manufacturer-provided screws or the store’s responsibility for assembly becomes null and void. I would have attached the legs myself, but Crate & Barrel would not allow us to pick up the cabinet to save the delivery cost. Instead, they charged us $250 to deliver and assemble it. For that, I decided they could work this out themselves.

Ted followed up with a call to our salesperson to explain the situation and to express our disappointment that we’d had two delivery/assembly appointments and neither one had the screws needed to complete the assembly. Ted mentioned that we were disappointed at receiving this kind of service from a reputable store. To make up for the problem, the salesman sent us a $200 Crate & Barrel gift certificate. That made us feel a little better while we waited another two weeks for the next two delivery men, who arrived with a surprise.

Instead of bringing 12 screws and a screwdriver, they brought a replacement cabinet. Again: Huh? There was nothing wrong with the first cabinet; it simply needed screws to attach the legs. However, Team #3 not only had the replacement cabinet, but the screws as well. Whoopee! They attached the replacement legs to the replacement cabinet and, three delivery appointments after we bought the first cabinet, we have a cabinet standing on its legs.

Insert happy ending here.

Scrolling through photos on Ted’s phone, we found these good memories.

It was fun to celebrate Hadley’s first birthday with her in 2022. It was even more fun to spend time with her and her big brother.

Sefton decorated his waffle. Creativity abounds!

For his graduation dinner, Maggiano’s presented Sky with a complimentary dessert sampler. It’s pretty obvious that Sky enjoyed the treat.

Our grandchildren are growing up so fast! Dylan, our sixth grandchild, graduated from high school in June. During his junior and senior years, Dylan spent part of each school day at the Lewis & Clark Career Center preparing to become an electrician after graduation. The photo below shows the 2023 graduating electricians-to-be. Dylan is standing on the right (green shirt).

Typical of Dylan, he chose a low-key celebration. For years, he made it clear that he didn’t want a big party–he only wanted the family to go to Dairy Queen to celebrate with a large dip cone. So that’s what we did, and here we are, waiting for our DQ treats.

After his graduation, Dylan was hired by a local electrical contractor as an apprentice and has started working in his chosen field. Of course, he needed a car to go to work. He used his savings to buy this new-to-him Honda Civic. Wow! He’s a graduate, he has wheels, and he has a career-path full-time job! Yes, our grandchildren are growing up.

Congratulations, Dylan. Grandpa and I are very proud of you.

Today, we are again under an air quality alert due to drifting smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Visibility at its worst was less than three miles. Our air quality is rated “poor,” indicating that everyone, not only people with special health issues, should avoid outdoor activities. Given the current conditions, is it necessary to ask . . .