melissajoel.com: January 2008

Oma

Our beloved grandmother on Joel's side (his mother's mother) passed away a week ago this day. The funeral was this past Saturday. She was Joel's last remaining grandparent.

She was a dedicated wife to her military husband. She took her three children to Japan and Germany and missed deaths of relatives in America because she was abroad. My mother in law says of her, "She was a good mother, but before she was a mother, she was a wife."

Personally, I had come to know her more from our visits with Annie. "Oma" is the Japanese word for grandmother, and she would tell me a bit about what it was like to live abroad. She loved seeing Annie and when placing Annie in her lap, she would heave and say, "Whew, you're full of rocks, aren'tcha?" We visited on the back porch eating chili or sharing cookies that I had brought while Aunt Nancy took care of Oma's needs during her last days.

We will keep good memories of her smiling face in our minds even though our hearts are weighed down with grief.

Snowy Day(s)

We got several inches of perfect packing snow!

This is Dave the snow man. He's a happy snow man.

Every young one needs an igloo to him/herself.

See how fun it is!

A couple of the sixteen babies we knew that were born in 2007

This is Rachel and Sasha,
two friends that had babies last year:
Michael and Anya.
Believe it or not, the little girl was born 10 lbs!
We are very thankful for both of these little blessings. Michael (Left) is the one I had been babysitting for in Nov/Dec.

A visit from my father--he flew into Weyers Cave!

For some reason the blogger isn't working well, so I am not able to write captions under the photos or re-arrange them.

Anyway, while Baba was here we visited Sabrina in Fredericksburg, before she moved to New Hampshire. We also visited the Luray Zoo, (that picture of Annie with the snake really grosses me out). We had many good times together...going to the children's museum, hanging out at home, eating good home-cooking and eating out. We are very grateful for the precious time we had together!