Whelan's Wheels (go round and round, round and round): TAH DAH

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

TAH DAH

Whelan's Wheels is delighted to present.....

Paige Elizabeth L Whelan

("Princess Paige")

Isn't she a beauty!

There was lots and lots and lots of waiting .... for Grampa Rick (who still hasn't decided what he wants to be referred to as!), Vovo and Vovo and Uncle Tim

Oh so many hours of pacing ~ I wonder how many miles Rick really did pace yesterday

Congrats to both of you .... and Rick, by the way for those of you who don't know, was sure he was having a grandson! Everyone, and I mean everyone knew it was a granddaughter but Richard didn't want to know the gender. Imagine how challenging it was to create a quilt for Paige when Rick didn't want to know if it was a blue quilt or a pink quilt? (NO I was not going to make a yellow or green quilt for this baby).

Gramps first glimpse ~ above, and below, passing Paige from one Grandfather to the other!

Above, the proud Mom and grandmother and I admire the beautiful bundle of joy, and below the maternal grandparents (Roy and Betty). If you can enlarge the photo you will see both Roy and Betty have their thumbs between their index and middle finger - imitating Paige, which is a Portuguese sign of good luck according to them!

Three big happy smiles above and below Uncle Tim (who is about 6'2") holding all 20", 8lbs 14 oz. of his new niece. Edit ~ Uncle Tim "the gentle giant" is 6' 5"!!!

Congrats to all .... and welcome to the world Paige Elizabeth L Whelan born February 23, 2009 at 6:40 PM

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: uncle who the giant???; February 27, 2009 at 8:31 AM

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This is our story ~ and we're sticking to it.

Our attempt at a blog - quite scary isn't it?

We left MA in early October, 2007 after I (Tracey) retired September 5 as an executive assistant for a software developer and Rick retired from his job on October 1. We passed papers on our house September 28th and off we went. We traveled down the east coast to the Florida Keys ~ where we planned to spend three nights but 17 nights later had to leave our site because someone had reserved it a year prior! We then stayed in northern FL for another month and headed off to meet our Marine returning to the San Diego area after his second tour "over there". We spent several wonderful weeks realizing why grandparents get tired easily! After the San Diego area we headed to the "low desert" (certainly a new phrase for us) of CA and into western AZ .. and decided it was finally time to start the blog we'd talked about since August or so!!

So many wonderful things we saw along the way. And the people, oh the people. I have said so many times to Rick the best part of this journey has been the people. So, so many people with so many interesting stories. Think about it - think about the stories YOU have and multiply that by the many many people we must have met along the way ~ particularly a social person like Rick .. we met a rattlesnake milker in Sweetwater, TX, we met the camp hosts in the Keys who summer back in NH ~ talk about the best of both worlds! We met the female police Sgt. at the Sweetwater Elks whose son was also in Iraq at the same base as my son. We met people in Slidell, LA who survived Katrina and had a great attitude and a smile on their faces and were proud to share their local cuisine with us. We saw the Blue Angels, purely by chance, in El Centro, CA. Or the "campground" where within an hour of arriving our house had been hit three times by golf balls! Or the Elks lodge in Indio ~ the sweetest, bike riding, bartender ~ I just wanted to pack her up and bring her along on our adventure. Not to mention the aerial tram while we were there, the warplane museum for Rick who does NOT do aerial trams! The Salton Sea ~ WOW just WOW. We stayed in the lovely little town of Wilcox, AZ - there was just something about that town. How about Pensacola, FL where the Elks Lodge on the beach is now built high, very high, off the ground! Or what about Huntington Beach State Park in Murrels Inlet, SC - talk about beautiful. What a great place that was to spend our first Thanksgiving on the road with good friends - that was something to be thankful for, for sure. Our first Christmas and New Years in the Keys!! WOW. The love and support of a dear friend in FL while Rick had to fly back to Boston and we dealt with all that entailed with unexpected follow ups back in FL .. how fortunate were we through all of that. Not to mention having the new trailer outfitted in Myrtle Beach and staying at what a week or two a year is the Broken Spoke? Or the kind and soft spoken LA Police Detective who is on the gang unit? So many people, so many stories. And there is so much ahead. The people .. did I mention how wonderful the people have been - all different walks of life .. so many personalities, so many stories! I have said many times ~ I need to pinch myself every morning to be certain it REALLY is happening to US! We are so grateful.

Click here to see our pictures on picasa