A little visit from Birth Grandma's family

So there were some people in town and they stopped in to see us-mostly Ezra-actually I always want to say that but it's just not true. And in truth we love them too.

I could not get a good picture. Ezra moves too fast. This is Ezra's birth Great Grandma. We don't see her as often but she made it to our home for a quick visit.

This is Na-na-bug. At least that what Ezra calls her. (I think her real name is Celina but she lets us all call her Na-na-bug. How are they related? Well, she's Randy's cousin. So I think that makes them...2nd cousins or cousins once removed? Anyway, she's family and we love her.

This is Na-na-bug's mom. Sister to Grandma Kolene, Clista. She made the best Mexican food at our house once. It forever changed my Mexican cooking-despite having grown up in a town 45 minutes from the Mexican border and a mom who served a Spanish speaking mission, her's was better.

And of course Grandma Kolene. Ezra's so lucky. It's not every little boy who gets 3 sets of grandparents. And they came with a lot of other family who adore Ezra too. I guess I can't blame them. We love him too.

Trade shows

Ezra and I took a road trip on the bus to hit a very special trade show to see his daddy in action. Here we are on the bus (which was supposed to only take an hour but really was 2 hours but worth it. Luckily we got a picture early on before Ezra and were a little more tired and grumpy).

Ryan and his partners had a trade show promoting the business. Here are Ryan's other 2 partners. Left is Michael, middle is incidently also named Ryan but to avoid confusion he's going by Ezra's middle name Blake. I guess you could say we named him after Ezra (although I don't think he-Blake [who is really Ryan] finds it as amusing :)

Preparing to be foster parents

We got a bunk bed to make room for foster kids. We thought we'd try it out and see it's a good route for us to adopt more kids.

Ezra loves the bed. He can hang from it, build forts, get way up high and look out the window. What is not to love about it?

Front yard landscaping

Well, I know everyone's been dying to know how our front yard looks by now. It does look a little better than after we first dug it out with the mini excavator but it's still not done. At any rate, these are the retaining walls Ryan designed. He built wire cages and filled them with rocks. A unique and less expensive way to do it. Ryan sold me on the money savings but really he went this route because he's an architect. You can't build a simple wall with the blocks they sell at the hardware store for that purpose. It must be original, a work of art, never been done before on our block. Such is the blessing and curse of being an artist.