One finished. One begun.

Happy Saturday to you, my friends.  This has been a busy week here in Spokane.  Mandy was in Portland from Sunday night until Thursday when the movers finished loading the truck after 3:00 p.m.  She drove here after that and arrived late Thursday night.  It was an incredibly stressful week for her, especially since, right at the end, the movers dropped Brad's desk down the stairs and not only put 3 holes in the wall, they broke the desk.  Luckily they have a wonderful friend who repaired the holes and painted the wall Friday morning.  The movers will be responsible for either repairing or replacing the desk as it was a very nice one.

The house closed yesterday morning and as Mandy says, they are officially homeless.  Meanwhile, Grandpa and I had a great time with Piper.  We played, shopped and generally had fun during those four days.  Mandy really missed her but said it would have been much more difficult with her there.  Naptimes and mealtimes would have been interesting with a houseful of people.

I even finished Piper's new Wonderful Wallaby sweater.

She likes it a lot!

 I tried it on her Friday morning when she woke up and she didn't want to take it off!  Here she's waving hello.  :-)  But....Grandma messed up.  I thought it looked small when I was knitting it.  The brown one I made a few weeks ago I made in a size 4 so she would have room to grow.  This one I made a size 2!   That's the size she's wearing now but it won't fit her for long.  I'll be making her another one in a size 4 as soon as I finish........

....this one.  I started this today for her Mama. Would you believe this is the same exact color yarn as the one that Piper is wearing in the above picture?  The lighting is ridiculous.  The sweater is the rusty color above, NOT pink!   Mandy wanted them to have matching sweaters so I will definitely be making another one for Piper.  Dennis thinks I should make and sell these now that I have the pattern down pat.

Mandy couldn't take any of her plants with her.  The movers won't transport plants so I've inherited them.  This is a lilly of some sort that is on my patio table.

This is a "money plant"?  I've never heard of one before.  It was Brad's Father's Day gift last year.  I have it in our guest bathroom since it did so well in their bathoom.

I think this is just a plain offshoot of one of my plants.  I do really like the bowl though.

And this is the one that Mandy really wants me to keep alive.  It is the plant she got from her Grandpa's funeral about 16 years ago.  She was completely a Grandpa's girl.  She really wants to retrieve this plant someday and is pretty sentimental about it.  Please pray I don't kill it.  I don't have a great track record with plants.

She also gave me an African violet that I forgot to photograph.   I couldn't believe all of the things that the movers wouldn't move.  Lots of food.  Batteries.  Garage stuff.  Cleaning stuff among other things.  They even had to get rid of all the batteries in the flashlights, etc.  I guess if they were driving their cars cross country they could have loaded everything in them, but since the cars are being shipped they had to give away or throw away everything because all personal items had to be removed from the vehicles.

This week Mandy flies to Washington D.C. on the 4th and back here on the 14 to househunt.  Guess who gets to keep Piper?  WE DO!!!  Yippee!  She's such a sweetheart.  Here she is this afternoon playing on my ipad.  She's one smart cookie and knows how to work one of these.

We spent most of the day at the lake today.   Grandpa had another migraine so we left before dinner.  Two migraines in a week.  I'm hoping it's just the change in the weather patterns and not something more serious.  It has cooled off tremendously here this week and we're having rain sprinkles right now.

Monday, Labor Day, is our 36th anniversary!  We don't have any big plans but maybe we'll go out to dinner somewhere.  We haven't even talked about it.  Our entire life lately has been revolving around that little girl in the above picture and her Mama.  I don't want to give up one moment with them until they move away.  Dennis jokes that he will need to get me some medication for that time.  I'm trying to be realistic and upbeat about it, but I am a Mom and Grandma and I don't have to like it do I?

I hope you're all having a great holiday end of summer weekend if you're in the US and a great weekend in general if you live elsewhere.  School starts here on Tuesday and you can feel the excitement when you're in the stores with families shopping for school supplies.

Blessings always,

Betsy