My yard in full bloom

When we came home from Virginia and went in our backyard, we were overwhelmed with all the color. All of our irises were blooming!!!!! I have about 20 different varieties. We enjoyed the color for over a month. Then the peonies came out and now the roses are blessing our yard with color and fragrance! I love spring and summer.

Enjoying a bit of history in Jamestown, VA

After a few days visit with Sean in Chesterfield, VA, we drove about 1.5 hours to Jamestown, VA and explored the park there. It was fun to climb on all the "pirate ships" as Kyo called them. We learned quite a bit about the first settlers to this area and had a good day. Our favorite was the musket shooting I think.

Life is good when grandkids are around

After a few days of relaxing and work at Sean's, we all ventured off to Williamsburg to Great Wolf Lodge. This was an amazing place. The lodge was all decorated in a "wolf/timber" theme and there was a huge inside waterpark. We all had a blast, and even more of a blast watching Kyo and Mcrae have fun in the water. Kyo loved the water slides and Mcrae loved the water all together. It was a great couple of days.

We had a blast in Virginia in May

The last few days of our trip, we all ventured to Washington DC to go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, National Zoo and La Madeleine's (the best cafe for tomato basil soup!) It was 2 picture perfect days. Our first day, we went to the National Space Museum and saw more planes than I knew ever existed. The highlight for us was the Blackhawk, still the fastest plane in the world. I also enjoyed seeing the Space Shuttle Enterprise. A few places were a little restricted because Dreamworks was there preparing to film Transformers 2. We were able to find out that the Blackhawk will be one of the transformers in the new movie. We also caught site of a bit of the car "Bumblebee" in the parking lot, but due to security we weren't allowed anywhere near it.
Here's Kyo, Grandma and Papa at the space museum.
This is the space shuttle Enterprise. We were amazed at how big it was.
This Blackhawk plane will be one of the transformers in Transformers 2 movie. We were able to see them set up for the filming that evening.


The next day we went to the National Zoo. The kids were great and the grandkids were, too! I had never seen a Giant Panda before or a Kimodo Dragon. Very awesome. I'm not sure if we had more fun watching the animals or watching the grandkids have a great time.


Kyo was fascinated with this huge Kimodo Dragon. There really are such things as dragon's, he discovered. I wouldn't like to come across one of these anytime soon.

Two cool dudes in their sunglasses...papa and Mcrae

Kyo has the knack to enjoy anything anywhere. Here he is hamming it up for the camera! He loves to have his pic taken.

Here's one of 3 giant pandas we saw. They are the cutest and the favorite animal we saw that day.

Aren't Grandkids Wonderful!!!

Well, after seeing our new grandaughter, we ventured to Virginia to see Sean, Jin and our other 2 grandkids. It was Kyo's 4th birthday, and he wanted to see Papa and Grandma for his birthday, so we surprised him that morning! Here are a few pics of his special day. He picked strawberry cake with vanilla frosting and chocolate icecream. What a funny kid he is. So talkative, cute, smart, cute, loves to play Mariocart with daddy and papa, cute, cute, cute!!





Here are some pics of another of the world's cutest kids, Sean's newest addition, Mcrae. I can't say how much fun we had spoiling him this trip. Actually, we went to many places that he didn't have much choice but to be held most of the time. Poor kid never got to lay down most of the days on our galavanting. But he was so good natured and happy! He's 6 months old now, is darling, has 3 teeth, is darling, laughs and shows his dimples, is darling, and a pretty easy going kid.





I've always heard how great it is to be grandparents, but it's just something you have to experience! We are so grateful to be an influence for good (I hope)in their lives and to make them feel loved...not that their parents don't do a fantastic job of that on their own. But we do feel bad when K cries on the phone when we talk to him, cause he wants us to come back:( They love the extra attention and we are oh so glad to give it!

Our New Granddaughter is here!

After a phone call on Mother' Day morning from Noelle to tell us she was at the hospital after being in labor all night, we hopped in the car and drove to Spokane to share in this exciting event. After 36 hours, and an emergency c-section, Brynnley was born on May 12. We were lucky enough to be coming up the hospital steps when Adam called, and we were able to see Brynn and Noelle just a bit after she was born. Noelle was a bit groggy, but she recovered very well during the next week.

What good parents they are already. I never heard them complain about being tired, night feedings, or soreness from surgery. And poor Adam even slept on a hard, short couch for several nights, just to be with them both. I'm glad they let us share this time with them and that we were able to help. We sure had fun!





Grandma and Grandpa Lambert with sleeply Brynnley




Here's Noelle with her new little girl several minutes after Noelle awoke from her surgery. And proud daddy was
so excited to show off his newest girl.

After several days of recovery, Noelle was ready for a little outing to the park to take pictures of their new little family. Of course we were happy to be the photographers. The cutest family ever, but then we are a little biased. Brynnley was amazingly alert for only a few days old.
Here's Brynn having her first bath. She didn't like it much, but Adam and Noelle seemed to enjoy it.




Granparenting is the best. Now we get to go to Virginia to go see our other grandkids and spoil them, too.

More Australia and Fiji Pics

Some our kids have been bugging us to post more pictures of our Australia/Fiji that we took for a month in February-March. Hope you enjoy them.!

On one of our first days in Sydney, we ventured to the Blue Mountains. We were following the map and ended up in an open glen where grey kangaroos were leisurely feeding. They weren't tame, but they didn't mind if we got this close. What a thrill for us to see them out in the wild.

We stayed in Sydney for 5 days and explored the area. I must have taken 50 pictures of the Opera House and Sydney Harbor bridge, so here's just one of them.


After 5 days in Sydney, we rented a car and ventured up the coast all the way to Cairns. It took us about 12 days to do it. We made lots of stops and explored small towns along the way. Try as we might, we never spotted Crocodile Dundee, but we came close! Here is Dave trying to play the digeridoo in a cultural park called Tjupakai. He did a better job than I did.



On the way to Cairns, we stopped at a koala santuary, where they house and care for injured and misplaced koalas. We learned a lot about these cuddly creatures.

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Since it rained the whole time we were in Cairns, our liveaboard to the Great Barrier Reef was cancelled. So we ventured back to Fiji early to do some more scuba diving, rather than sit around a hotel room in Cairns. This time we were on the island of Viti Levu and we were in a small town called Pacific Harbor. We went on a shark dive one morning, and I can't explain the feeling I got when this 18' tiger shark swam right past me. Thank goodness he had already had lunch!

While on the shark dive, we saw about 8 species of sharks, including this bull shark below. He was a big fella also, but not as big as the tiger.