She CAN Say Gigi!

As you probably know, my mother has determined that she will go by the name "Gigi" for her grandchildren. This is undoubtedly inspired by my own grandmother who goes by the name "Mimi" rather than the traditional Grandma, Nanny, etc. While I was pregnant, my mother stewed for a while on what she would be called and finally was inspired during a long car ride by an another occupant whose initials were GG. Of course, when it comes to names for grandparents, sometimes the best laid plans go astray. For example, I christened my grandfather "Pampa" in my attempts to say Grandpa. And as the oldest grandchild, nobody was there to argue with me and so it stuck. Anywho, we've been curious to see if we can get Calleigh to say Gigi or if not, what it will turn into. I'm happy to report that it appears she will be able to say it as evidenced by this video. Now we just have to master Grandma and Grandpa...


On Friday, Calleigh and I made a little trip to our property management company to turn in our 60-day cancellation notice of our rental agreement which expires in September. As I've said, we have had a VERY bad experience with Russell Properties so this was a no brainer. We're either going to manage the property ourselves or we're going to sell it. When I saw the dilapidated office in which they were working, it did absolutely nothing to restore any part of my confidence in Russell Properties. It looked half run down and upon entering their suite, I could see into the offices and saw stacks and stacks of messy paperwork all over the place. I turned in my notice and couldn't help but be worried it would be lost in some of those stacks so I made sure that the receptionist gave me a copy with a date stamp and her initials. As I was leaving, I asked the receptionist if the direct deposits had been made yet as I hadn't received my rent yet. She gave me the blankest of looks and said I'd have to ask someone else. That just reaffirms my decision to dump them.

On Friday evening, Duncan picked Shannon up at the airport. She's back! She starts work tomorrow although the first three weeks she'll be doing classroom work. Megan will be arriving on Wednesday as she starts next Monday. We're not sure when David will exactly get here - - sometime after his graduation on August 3.

At church, we had Sabbath School in the much nicer bigger room. In this new room, they put up a big cut-out of Jesus. Calleigh seemed quite taken with it and spent some time just staring! After church, we came home and had lunch. Shannon didn't join us right away for lunch as she had gone to third service with Charlie Cutler.

Today Duncan went on a long morning bike ride with his parents while Calleigh and I took naps. Afterwards, we headed to First Watch for brunch. As usual, there was a wait for a table so we sat outside. Now that Calleigh is walking around, it proves to be a bit of a challenge. She wanted to walk around everywhere in her little crocs (don't worry - we won't let her go on an escalator). As she walked around, she would greet people coming out the door with a "Hi" and friendly wave. As for the food, Calleigh continues to amaze us all with the quantity of food she consumes which included puffs, a bunch of crackers, two scrambled eggs, about 12 cherry tomatoes, fruit off my plate, and a whole banana. She likes to eat but at least I can say she doesn't eat any junk.

This evening we headed over to Ron & Elaine's for a Elaine's famous salad bar. Shannon was able to get her first taste. Ron showed us the new baby swing that they got for Calleigh. They haven't hung it up yet but preparations are under way. After supper, we went outside and blew a bunch of bubbles for Calleigh and she learned another new word - - "bubble" which she pronounced perfectly. Although she does eat healthy most of the time, I must admit she had her first mini eclair which she seemed to enjoy very much. Who can blame her??

In closing, her is a picture of Calleigh from this afternoon. Duncan and I were in our room getting ready to go to First Watch. I had the blind open and Calleigh obviously spotted it and wanted to look outside. As I turned from putting my pants on, I saw her standing there as you see her in this picture. To get close enough to the window, she figured out that she had to put her feet in Daddy's shoes!