I am the oldest of 8 grandchildren on my mom’s side of the family and growing up, all of us cousins were very close, especially the five oldest girls — Hayley, Maribeth, Krisanne, Laura and Me. We have many fond memories of birthday parties, holidays and just playing in our grandparents backyard, building forts and having ’secret club’ meetings.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, the wind was calm and the poppies are in full bloom here in the Southern California desert! It was the perfect day for a short drive out to the poppy fields with Hayley, Laura, Maribeth and our Grandpa. Because Maribeth is in the Army and stationed in Hawai’i, and Laura has been going to college in Iowa, it’s a rare occurrence that we get together with our Grandpa for a visit, so we wanted to make it special. Unfortunately, Krisanne is in Alabama going to school so she wasn’t able to spend the day with us. But, I know she reads this blog… Krisanne, I want you to know you were missed!

For some reason, being in a huge field of poppies makes everyone want to jump.

From left: Hayley, Maribeth, Grandpa and Laura

Hayley jumping again.

Laura , Maribeth and Hayley. Poor Maribeth just had ankle surgery so she couldn’t quite get the air that Hayley and Laura.

Bubba Ho-tep psp

… She couldn’t keep up with the frolicking either…

Of course, we had to take some time to get some portraits… Here’s Hayley.

Maribeth.

Laura.

The Poppies.

What a great day!

Happy Friday, everybody!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 8:30 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.