Moving into Fall

It's getting cooler, wetter, and the leaves are slowly turning into the muted yellows and reds that herald the fall season in the Northwest. The Willamette Valley stays fairly green throughout the fall and winter. With so many evergreens in Oregon, that's not surprising. But the grass also stays pretty green, as do the ferns and many other plant species.

Usually this means it's time to move my photography indoors. This year, I'm going to try to do more outside shooting, including a great idea for glamour in the fog that a good friend of mine gave to me. I'm also hoping for a good snowfall in the valley this year, as I have a couple of ideas I'd like to try in the snow as well.

With the arrival of fall, and definitely with the arrival of grandchildren, we've enjoyed going out to Sauvie Island to visit the Pumpkin Patch to choose our pumpkins for carving to let our granddaughter play in fields and on the hay pyramid. This year, we got to take our grandson as well. The only thing that would have made it more fun, would have been to be able to take our other granddaughter along as well. Her mom and dad took her to a pumpkin patch in California where they live, though, and I'm sure they had fun too.

We're going to visit that granddaughter next week. Our son and daughter-in-law think we're coming to see the whole family, but Wanda assures me that we're going there to see the baby. We haven't seen her in about a month (except for on video sharing), and Wanda is getting itchy to hold her again. The period between this visit and Christmas is going to be very difficult for her. It's a good thing Ryker, (our 6 week old grandson) is around for her to cuddle. Of course, it's fun for me too...

Being a grandfather is great fun, and I really enjoy holding and playing with my grandkids. My maternal grandfather died before my mother was born, and my paternal grandfather had very little to do with me, so I've had to wing it. I'm going to try to be as much a part of my grandchildren's lives as they and their parents will allow. Fortunately, they've all been great.

Life Goes On

I got to finally meet my new granddaughter this past weekend. Jocelyn is a little cutie as you can see. She's quite small too, at only a little over 5 pounds in this image. My son and daughter-in-law live in California and weren't scheduled to visit until the end of September, but we couldn't take that, so I bought them tickets to come up for a visit as soon as the baby was okay to travel. It was money well spent.

Now that Makayla is two years old, I realize that I had forgotten how small newborns actually are. You can see how well Jocelyn fits into the crook of her Papa's arm. I had a lot of fun shooting with her and I consider her my latest female model.

Unfortunately, she left yesterday and it will be the end of September before I see her again. It will be interesting to see how much she grows in that short interval of time. Fortunately, we have a web cam set up on the PS3 so we can "see" her occasionally between visits.

We won't get too lonely for little babies, though. We have a grandson due in the next couple of weeks - and it could be any day now. His mom and dad still haven't named him though, so I'm calling him Rumplestiltskin (Rumpie for short) until they do in an effort to get them to make up their minds. It's not working, and I think the nickname, Rumpie, is going to stick.

Makayla did quite well with her little cousin, though she did want her own attention as well. I think she'll be fine with her new little brother as well when he finally arrives, though it's quite possible there will be some jealousy at first.

My son is quite the doting father and both he and his wife are going through that giddiness of being first time parents. It certainly screws a bit with their perspective, but that's true of all new parents.

I do now realize how hard it must have been for the grandparents of my children. When our children were born, we lived more than 1200 miles away from them and during most of their lives, we never lived any closer than 500 miles away (Charleston, SC to Atlanta, GA). We tried to visit often, but it's not the same thing as having your grandchildren close by so you can see them often.

Of course, technology shrinks the world a bit for us - we can see her on the webcam, call just about anytime we want, and we can hope on a flight down to Oakland whenever it gets just too unbearable for us. Still, it would be nice if all our grandchildren were close by home.

Great News!

On Christmas Eve our son gave us a call to let us know we were to be grandparents again. That's right, he and his wife have a baby due sometime in August. Then, a few days later, our youngest daughter called to let us know she is pregnant with her second child and is due in September. So, we're now in great spirits and looking forward to some new babies to spoil.

Babies do grow up so quickly though. Our first grandchild is now 18 months old and walking. Although she still loves to be held, especially at nap time, she's plenty active and prefers to be chased and needs constant amusement. Here she is when she was just one day old and fit easily into the crook of her grandpapa's arm. It will be fun to have a couple more at this age. I guess I'll be able to put one in each arm this time.

Of course, they'll grow up quickly too, but that's all part of the fun.