He Is Here!!!!!

I opened my email this morning and read that " it's a boy."  His parents went to the hospital in the middle of the night and he was born at 3 am today.  Andy, our oldest son, is the dad and his wife Patricia were so surprised to have him arrive a week and a half early.  They had chosen to not know if he was going to be a boy or if they would have a girl.  I think they will keep him.

Our son did call in the late morning then as they had not slept all night.  I am sure Andy crashed somewhere in a chair before he called.  Needless to say we were so surprised and are so very happy and proud too.

I shared this photo of our new grandson on my Photo a Day blog.  I wanted to share it over here too as it is such a great photo.  He probably isn't 7 hours old here.  He was 7 lbs. 8 oz.  and 23 inches long  for those who like to know the stats.  He will live with his parents in Arlington Heights, north of Chicago. It may be a couple of weeks before we get out there. We will be so glad to see our newest member to the family.

We are with sunshine and warmer weather today.  No wind to blowing this snow around.  I did make it out to shovel the walks and need to address the back yard walks for the dogs to walk on.  I had created a path for Button in which to go outside for business.  I usually have to do that scooping during the snow storm and then the very first thing in the morning so the little short legged guy can get to his favorite bathroom spot in the yard.

On the opposite side of such a happy day is also some sad news we received on Friday.  A distant cousin of mine who I was close to, had tragedy hit his family. We attended school all the years together and my father being first cousins to his mom, we have kept track of each other even though neither one of us live close to the homefront. Jim and Jenny live on the southern border of Arizona. Their son passed away on Thursday and it has been such a shock to the family.  He was in his early thirties.  Even though I didn't really know my cousin's kids well,  I knew all of the family members from Joshua's grandparents and uncle and aunts and of course his mom and dad.  It just broke my heart to hear of his death. One becomes physically distraught and depressed in an instant from such unexpected news.  There are just not words that can be said to share what one feels about their loss.

It is the weekend and being stuck inside is not a bad think when winter is really upon us.  It restricts the need to really going anywhere and I just wants to just stay in and watch the birds feed and the squirrels scamper and steal food. I like watching them as two of them pile on to my feeder and fill their pouches.  Then the dogs send them scampering away to the nearby tree.  Thanks for stopping by today.  Grandpa will sign off here for the very first time.  I am going to have to get use to that Grandpa thing.