Grand Chrildren

All posts tagged Grand Chrildren

Saturday ~ December 25, 2020

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 26, 2020
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Saturday!

As crazy and dysfunctional as this year has been we celebrated Christmas in an almost “normal way.”

The kids got tons of presents from their Mom and Dad, from Santa, and of course from two sets of Grand Parents.

Addie enjoyed new selection of rings, which will go with her colorful watch.

Austin waiting patiently for  his turn to open a gift.  It’s a neat tradition.  Each person opens one gift of their choice and then the next person does the same thing until we go clear around the room.  That way everyone gets to see what everyone received.

Joshua shows Julia his new iPod Santa brought him.

Gabby is always happy to show Addie how to play with her new toys.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ May 12, 2018

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 12, 2018
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Happy Saturday!

Yesterday was a fun day.  It started for me with a trip to Anamosa to have lunch with a great friend.  Then back to Dubuque for the celebration of an amazing person and career.

I have three images today and a story.  Remember you can click on any of the images to see a larger more detailed version of the image.

Jeanne has taught special education for 43 years.  An amazing accomplishment given the challenges she has had to face.  Coincidentally we’ve been married 42 of those years and many would say that she has had a good practice subject to perfect her craft.  🙂

I just know that there are a lot of kids over that career that have benefited and have a better life because of her care, concern, teaching, and compassion.  She taught in Missouri for two years and in the Waterloo District for 2 years before we moved to Dubuque and she has been in the Dubuque School System for 39 years.  She retires at the end of this school year after a phenomenal career.

So last week Angie received an email from the School Principle advising her that her Mother was going to be receiving  a special inaugural award that was to be given to the outstanding teacher of the year.  The nominations were made by the students and it was the culmination of a week-long staff appreciation celebration.  There was an assembly Friday afternoon when the award was going to be presented and we could come but had to keep it a secret from Jeanne.  We had to keep it a secret because if she had known about the award she wouldn’t have gone to the assembly.  🙂

So we gathered the grand kids and snuck into the back of the gymnasium where we got to see the whole program and Jeanne’s big award.  There is a phenomenon called cognitive blindness and I used to teach about it at the leadership training I did over the years.  Jeanne was unaware that we were there (even though Josh ran up and gave her flowers) because she was not expecting us to be there and as always she was focused on keeping an eye on her kids.

It was a fitting tribute to an amazing person, teacher, wife, and Mother.  I am truly blessed!

Enjoy your day and be careful.

 

Christmas ~ December 25, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 25, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Merry Christmas!

December-24-2014-1A

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with our family last night.  Santa Clause was way, way too good to me.  I certainly did not deserve all the wonderful presents, but I am grateful for them.

After presents we had a nice dinner and then to church for the candlelight celebration of the birth of Christ.  It was wonderful.

December-24-2014-1B

Then back home to clean up and try to figure out how to use some of the technology that Santa brought me.  It doesn’t come as easy as it used to.  🙂

No images of Joshua today.  He has decided he doesn’t like Grandpa taking his picture.  Gabby doesn’t yet seem to mind.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas today.

Thanks for checking out the blog and be careful.

Saturday ~ February 08, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 8, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Gabby Grace

Happy Saturday!  Fun day yesterday.  I have taken a couple of days off to recharge and I had three projects I wanted to get accomplished.  I got all of them done but not until the end of the day.

My first project involves electronics.   I know enough to be dangerous and that is about it.  I’ve always been fascinated with electronics, but could never seem to wade through the material long enough to gain a good understanding of how things work.   So I follow directions and if the directions do not work I improvise and then I can get into trouble.  Fortunately such was not the case yesterday.  My electronics project took most of the day but when the final piece was in place and I turned it on…   IT Worked!!!!   🙂

Now for the problem.  The whole assembly (that works by the way) has 4 holes that are supposed to allow screws to go into and then, they in turn are supposed to match the 4 threaded receptors on the main housing body.  Well no matter how I turned it at any given time only two holes lined up.  😦

The only alternative that I can see is to drill two new holes and use a screw / bolt combination.  I put the project away to think about that for awhile.

I also had to go to the Hobby Store and the Hardware Store to buy some supplies for a piece of electronics that also needs to be attached to the main housing body but there is no pre-designed  way to receive it.  So I have to take “something” and make it into “something else” to work.

This is beyond the capabilities of my tiny brain.  I will have to do some more research.  That is one of the things I love about YouTube®.  If you have a question on how to do something you can type in some search words on their site and are almost guaranteed that someone will have posted a video explaining how to do it.  Is this a great country or what?

Joshsu Michael

Mark came home last evening to celebrate his birthday (which was on the 2nd) and he decided he would like to have a steak for dinner at home.  So I grilled up three steaks and we had a great meal.

Then Angie and Ben called and wondered if we’d like a Dairy Queen® treat for dessert.  They couldn’t make it for dinner but wanted to stop by and say hi to Mark and wish him happy birthday.

It was really fun to see my kids (yes Ben is my kid as well) and grand kids.  So that was my fun Friday.  A very enjoyable day.

I did go out for a little while and try to capture some winter images but nothing caught my eye.  I’ll see what the eagles are up to today.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Saturday.  Stay warm and be careful.