The end of an Era

Today, after 41 years of working at General Motors, my dad retired. The Doraville plant closed today for ever. In the 41 years that my dad has worked for GM, he has many different job, worked as many as 12 hours a day, and 7 days a week. He has worked at two different plants, both of which are now closed. He has worked on holidays, weekends and, worked 1st, 2nd and 3rd shift. My dad has worked in the heat and bitter cold. He did all of this to provide for his family. He worked on the assembly line, walked the picket line and stood in line for his unemployment check (while waiting to be called back from a layoff). Whew! That's a lot of work!

Very cool areal view of the Doraville Plant. (Thanks Evan for finding the two photos above!)

These are the last vans that rolled off the line on Friday morning.

Here is the line empty for good.

And, this was my dad's cube. After many years on the line, he finished his college degree and accepted a position in the training department at the plant. My dad is amazing. As I type this, he is at home reading for one of his graduate classes. This is his first semester in Graduate school!

My dad spent the first evening of his retirement having dinner with us and feeding the ducks at the pond in the neighborhood.

Relaxing Weekend..... Just sitting around

Our weekend was relaxing. Brian is preparing to do some traveling for work and we wanted to spend some time just "sitting around." Yep, that is Ethan sitting all by himself. He started sitting up by himself last week but fell a good Bit. Now, he is much better and usually only falls when Benjamin "bumps" him.

Ethan gets distracted when Benjamin and Shelby are playing and he loses his balance.

Grandmother came over Saturday night for dinner and we went to feed the ducks at the pond in our neighborhood. It is hard to get Benjamin to feed the ducks and not himself. (We really do feed Benjamin -- a lot in fact!)

Be thinking about us in the next few weeks. Brian is preparing for a really big meeting at work. My dad retires this week and Evan is in Boston for vacation (in the middle of the nor'easter and a tropical storm). Evan comes back on Monday night late.

Bath time fun

Since we do not have very many naaaked bath pictures of Ethan, we took a few last night. He loves his bath!

Benjamin supervising (really Benjamin is getting ready to get the splashing started!).

Benjamin is "showing" Ethan how to splash in the tub.

As it turns out, Ethan already knows how to splash!

There will be no bath pictures of Benjamin as a toddler. Since we brought Ethan home from the hospital, Benjamin has refused to sit in the bathtub. We are going on six months. Benjamin gets in, standing. We wash. He gets out. (The bath is over in about 3 minutes.) My hope is that once they can take a bath together, Benjamin will enjoy bath time a little more.

Weekend Review

The weekend was fun and relaxing. We had great weather and spent some time outside. Fresh air always makes a baby sleepy.

On Saturday, we went to Suwanee Days Festival. It was crowded! The boys loved looking at all the people. Benjamin got his first taste of funnel cake and of course he loved it! Here are the boys in the stroller.

Brian and Benjamin at the Weinermobile. The license plate said "lil' link."

On Sunday, Uncle Evan came over to play at the park with us. Benjamin loves to run!

Mama and Ethan just watch all the action at the park.

Last night, our neighbors brought us some fresh picked apples and we gave one to Benjamin today. He took big bites out of the apple. He got very upset when the apple was gone.

Also, thanks to Papaw, Brian and I were able to go out to dinner with some neighbors on Saturday night. Papaw did a great job as the babysitter. (Thanks Papaw!)

The more things change, the more they stay the same

This picture was taken at the beach last summer. Benjamin was 6 months old.

This picture was taken at the beach last week. At 19 months old, Benjamin was still not so sure about the beach!

Running from the Storm

Ok, so we were not "fleeing." We left a few days early because of Ike. He was creating big rip tides and the beach was flying the double red flags (no one can get in the water). It also got very windy and we were staying on the 20th floor.....made me nervous! So, here we are headed home -- the van all loaded down.

This was taken a few days before we left. On Thursday when we left, the tide was at the sand dunes -- the beach chairs had already been moved or they would have been swept out to sea.

Again, taken a few days before we left. The night before we left, it rained on and off and was cloudy -- great reasons to come home!

Hours in the car driving to and from the beach: 16

Number of baths given to babies on vacation: 8

Loads of laundry when we got home: 6

Seeing the boys with their feet in the sand and water: priceless

(By the way, on Wednesday, our last day on the beach, Benjamin got in the water and loved it. Sorry that we have no pictures of it.)

Random Beach Cuteness

So we headed home early from the beach (see the next post for details). Here are a few of the cute pictures of the boys while we were at the beach. It was a great vacation! Brian and I were able to have a date night twice -- Grandmother listened for the boys while we had drinks at a little beach bar. We also were able to eat dinner with Brian's good friend Alex, who was in the area for business. We had not seen Alex since Christmas!

New trick and one step closer to the Ocean

After dinner last night, we went down to the beach. Benjamin was a little more receptive to the sand and even played in the sand. We got this smile at the end!

Yesterday, Ethan got up on all fours and started rocking back and forth. I am sure that crawling is not far away. He is already scooting himself backwards.

Hopefully, today we are getting in the water! Keep your fingers crossed !

Margaritaville

Last night we had dinner at a place you can't go wrong with! We ate at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. Brian and I have eaten at the ones in Orlando and Vegas. A lost shaker of salt dropped from a plane in the ceiling. As we were leaving, Benjamin kept saying "bye, bye salt." He said it the whole way home and even today is still saying it! The adults loved their Margaritas!

More to come!

My Summer Vacation by Benjamin

My feet and dada's feet -- when I agreed to walk in the sand.

Dada and Mama brought me to the beach after a long car ride. As it turns out, I don't like the sand/beach this year either! See me holding on to dada's shirt? I did this last year when I went with Mama, Papaw and Uncle Evan. I love the pool and feeding the birds. The sand feels really funny on my feet and I don't like it! I have learned what the moon is and what sand is.

Me and dada looking for birds!

Me enjoying my breakfast on the balcony. I love our view -- I get to see the sand and water from the balcony!

My View from the Back....

Well, we made it to the beach. The drive was fine, though we had to stop and let a little boy run around a little more often the we would usually stop. We had lunch at a State Park in Alabama. It was nice, but hot! Most of the trip, I rode in the very back of the van. Below is what I saw from my seat. Brian did ride back there for part of the trip. The van sure was loaded down with lost of stuff. I will get a picture of the "fully loaded" van on the way home. Boy, we really love our van!