Lane Ross Dot Com

It is hard to believe, but we are actually home again and it is wonderful! It is amazing that so much has happened and it is even more amazing how quickly it has all happened!

We are so thrilled with our new home and we feel as though we are finally settled. There are still many things we need to do and there are still many things to buy on our ‘needs’ list, but we have made great progress!

As I have said before, we could never be where we are today without our faith in God, our wonderful family and our amazing friends! Faith, family, and friends have brought us home!

Please come and see us whenever you can, but until then, here is a little peek at our new home (and of course I included a couple of pictures of our precious Claire!):

Our new home!!

The back porch--ready for a cookout!

Our new bedroom~

A view of the living room....

One of the guest bedrooms~

Randy's study

Claire is ready for school!

"Thanks for coming to see Mimi and Papa's new house!"

My, oh, my……what a roller coaster ride this has been!! It is amazing how many twists and turns life can take while you are traveling this road of life! I am so thankful for all of you who have been with us on this journey and have continued to love and support us! I bet there are times you wonder what in the world is going on, but hopefully, like us, you believe that God has a plan and there is a bright and beautiful future ahead!

One of the bright spots in our lives continues to be our precious granddaughter, Claire! It is amazing how quickly she is growing and what a delightful personality she has developed!! We celebrated her 2nd birthday this spring and enjoyed every moment with her as she showed her delight in each guest and with opening each gift.  She is certainly a social child and it is so fun to spend time with her! She has lovingly named me Mimi and Randy has become Papa, so we are thrilled! I have even talked to her via Skype and it makes my heart happy to see her sweet little face!

As most of you know, there has been another bump in the road since the fire, but we’ll get through it!  For those of you who may not know, I fractured my hip on May 6th and had emergency surgery that night. I had been having a wonderful day with my little guys from my class as we celebrated ‘Super Kids Day’ at school and I guess I thought that meant I could fly! I was running with the kids and somehow tripped and propeled myself onto the concrete basketball court. I was taken by ambulance to the Midwest Regional Hospital where I was greeted by our good friend, Dr. Johnny, and then was met by another good friend and orthopedic doctor, Chris Jordan. The surgery was a success—I now have 3 screws in the femur head and am on 6 weeks total non-weight bearing with an additional 6 weeks of semi-weight bearing to come. So…..I am using a walker and have to hop everywhere, so shopping is out of the question! My fingers are getting really good at finger shopping and hopefully, I will be strong enough to do some actual shopping before too long.

In the meantime, the progress of the house has kept me excited and I am anxious to show you some pictures of the house in progress. I will try to keep in touch a little better, so keep checking back! Who knows……there may be pictures of us moving in before too long!

Birthdays are so much fun!

Mike, Claire and Lindsay--ready for the big day!

Uncle Daniel--ready to help!

Construction begins......March 2011

It is getting exciting now!

An inside view.....

We'll be home soon!

March 12, 2011

March 29, 2011

Precious family and friends,
As most of you know, we recently lost our home of 28 years in the March 11th wildfires that hit Choctaw and its neighboring community, Harrah. It is all still hard to believe and it is amazing that a lifetime of love and memories can be changed to ashes in just moments! We are thankful that no one was hurt and we know that those memories continue in our hearts and the love will continue to grow because of all of you! We do believe that God is a loving God and that he does have a plan for us—obviously in His plan, we will be made stronger and we will recognize how blessed we are to have each of you in our lives. Your love and support, whether it be through hugs, phone calls, emails, texts, cards or unspoken prayers, has given us courage to face the future and deal with whatever is necessary to go on with our lives.

We are currently living in a very nice rental home, not too far from our old house and as I drive by each day on my way to work, I am amazed at the progress that has been made on the new house! My original guess was that we would be in the new house by Thanksgiving, but who knows? I could be celebrating my 57th birthday by sitting in a rocker on my new front porch! Wouldn’t that be wonderful! People are amazed that we were able to choose a house plan so fast, have the debris cleared so fast, and be building at this point, but when you have thought about your dream house and you are married to a Ross, decisions can be made quickly and they are ultimately good decisions!  I hope it won’t be long before I can show you a few pictures of the new structure! It will be beautiful and I know that there will be many more memories made in this new home!

In case you missed the story on the local TV channels or you missed it on CNN, here are some pictures of the house after the fire…….it is amazing!

Randy and Daniel-surveying the damage!

Garage--hot water tank and reserve water tank

Living room fireplace

Standing outside of Daniel's bedroom area

View from the back patio

We do have so much to be thankful for........

A tough day, but we will survive!

Amazing.....is that all that is left?

Front entry

Mike--searching for anything!

Daniel thought he had found some trophies!

Searching through the ashes.....

Using a screen to sift for jewelry....

A treasure??

Thank you to our Farmer's agent and claims adjuster!

The clean-up begins....

Our appliances...

Our temporary home.

The house of 28 years is gone.....

but a new day is dawning---New Beginnings!!

Christmas party with my FFF high school friends, Gail, Donna and Terri.

Oh, my! It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas have come and gone and the new year has arrived! It has been another wonderful holiday season and I am once again reminded of how blessed I am and how important family and friends are to me!  I hope that this holiday season has been special for each of you and I pray that 2011 will be filled with the blessings of love and good health!

This holiday season was filled with many activities with family and friends. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration and enjoyed being with my parents and both of my brothers and their families.  Christmas Eve was spent with the Nicholson family and Christmas Day with Randy’s parents and his sister and her family.  We had such a good time being together and were reminded many, many times of the true reason for the season!  We also enjoyed every moment with Claire! She added so much happiness and sweetness to the holiday~her precious smile and sweet little laugh brought smiles to everyone around her!  Ahhh……the true magic of Christmas as shown to us through a child. What a wonderful way to celebrate  Jesus’  birth!

As you see, I have attached several pictures so that you can have a little peek into our holiday celebrations. I hope that you enjoy them and I hope that 2011 will be a wonderful year for each of you!  Talk to you soon!

Claire was enjoying her pots and pans music at the annual S&B party!

Our annual S&B Christmas party at Sharon's---always fun!

Lindsay, Mike and Claire at the groundbreaking for the new Town Square.

 

Randy and I with Claire at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Ol' Granny and Grandpa Randy sharing a laugh with Claire.

Great Grandpa was enjoying the soup as much as Claire!

Claire enjoyed her new doll stroller!

Claire gets a little help from Uncle Dan.

Claire liked her new wagon.

Claire was enjoying reading a story to Lindsay!! Pretty sharp!

Michael on Christmas Day~

Merry Christmas, Daniel!

Another holiday comes to a close.........It has been wonderful!

Well, here it is, the end of summer vacation! I cannot believe how quickly the days and months have passed since I left school in May! I would love to have a few more weeks of vacation, but as the pages in the calendar are turned, it is time to go back to work!

This has been a wonderful summer! I really didn’t undertake any major projects, so all in all, it was very restful. I was able to piece together two quilt tops for myself and did make a t-shirt quilt for my Goddaughter, Natalie, from her mother’s t-shirts. I also found time to make a few jewelry pieces and just really enjoyed every day!

We were able to spend quite a lot of time at the lake with family and friends, which was very nice. Precious little Claire became a ‘lake baby’ and seemed to enjoy the time at the cabin as much as we did! She wasn’t happy with her lifejacket, but she enjoyed just about everything else!

Sweet Claire--16 months old!

I did make  a trip to Seattle, WA with four  fabulous friends for a few days early in July. We had decided that we needed to re-connect with each other and this trip certainly helped us strengthen those bonds of forever friendships!  We have been friends since junior high and high school, but had drifted off into our own little worlds.  This trip was the most wonderful thing we could have done to re-establish our friendships with each other. Within minutes, we realized that we needed each other back in our lives and have decided that our get-together would become an annual event!

Fabulous Forever Friends 2010

Seattle was absolutely beautiful and we enjoyed filling each day with a new adventure! We traveled throughout Seattle leaving laughter and smiles everywhere we went! I think we may have left several people longing to become a part of our group—now known as the FFF! What more could Fabulous Forever Friends want—especially when we all turned 55 this year? 

Giggle Girls with their Gurgle Pots!

Lane, Donna, Nicole, Terri and Gail

Claire continues to amaze me! She is such a delight and brings a smile to my face every time I am with her or even think about her! She is thrilled with other children and is overjoyed with discovering that her puppy is ready to play at any time! At this point, she runs instead of walks and is becoming better and more skilled at feeding herself. Her language skills are obviously developing quite well as she has become quite a talker!!  I cannot imagine where that comes from!!

Hey, everyone!

Claire and her baby!

What a sweet little girl--feeding her baby!

Randy and I decided to stay at our place at the lake for a week this summer instead of going on a dive trip. We had a great week and enjoyed many visitors. The temperature stayed in the 100′s, so we were grateful to have the boat and a beautiful lake to help us stay cool. Maybe we will get away to the Caribbean next year, but for this year, staying at the lake was just want we needed! I guess the term ‘staycation’  works for us!

Lunch at Barnacle Bill's with Mom, Dad, Daniel and David

The Gene Boys-Dad, David and Daniel

I hope that your summer has been beautiful and restful! I am looking forward to those cooler fall days as I am sure you are, too! Until then, stay cool and keep in touch!

Seattle sunset--so long, summer vacation!

Hey, Everyone! We hope you are all staying dry and are keeping your head above all of this flooding water! It is amazing that there can be so much rain! I am so thankful that we only received 4 inches—I cannot imagine what those people are doing that received close to 10 inches! We did have some flooding in our yard and our neighbor lost most of his garden which makes me very sad. Downtown Choctaw flooded everywhere and Randy and Daniel are dealing with the flooded state owned buildings and facilities. It is quite a mess! 

I think our boat would work in our side yard!!

You cannot see where the driveway ends or the yard begins---what a mess!

We did have a wonderful weekend at the lake before all of the rain began! It was Claire’s first visit to the cabin and she had a wonderful time! She seemed to enjoy everything from the time she woke up in the morning until she went to bed in the evening. What a delightful little girl! I hope you can tell from these pictures how much fun we had with her!

Claire enjoys her food! Of course, I loved the bib!

"See, I can do this myself!"

Modeling suit #1

Sweet family!

Claire found a new friend!

"See, I said that I could feed myself!"

"Hmmmm, I wonder if pickles would be good with my yogurt!"

"I am sooooo funny!"

"And I'm cute, too!"

Claire had fun no matter what was going on!

Grandpa taught Claire how to drive the boat!

Modeling suit #2--too cute!

"It's been a good weekend--time for my beauty sleep!"

As you can see, it was a fun weekend! We look forward to doing it again—soon!  Take care and check back when you get a chance! Good-bye for now!

Wow! School has finally come to an end and summer vacation has begun at our house! It is amazing what an attitude change occurs when I realize that I can actually think about what I want to do instead of what I need or have to do! I am looking forward to some quiet time with some quilt projects and hopefully some relaxing time at the lake. I am sure that these next few weeks will fly by!

We have had several special events since I had written last winter. The biggest and most important one being that we celebrated Claire’s first birthday! It is amazing that she is now one year old, is walking everywhere, and is eating regular table food! She is very interested in everything going on around her and does not seem to miss a thing! Her sweet smile and laugh just makes my day and I treasure every moment that I am with her! As others have shared with me, I agree that being a grandparent is one of the most special feelings in the world!  

Claire Alexandra Ross

What a happy baby!

Ooooh! I am the photographer now!

 

Claire is enjoying her cake!

April 1, 2010 Claire's first birthday!

Presents are fun!

"My own purse!"

Michael and Lindsay both finished out another good school year and are enjoying their break from school. Both of them continue to work on their Master’s Degrees and hopefully, the end will be in sight, soon, for both of them. Daniel is starting his third year working for the State of Oklahoma and recently passed his GMAT test to be accepted into graduate school this fall. He plans on getting his MBA and hopes to complete his degree within the next two years.

Randy is still struggling with his hip problem and is hopeful that he will be able to return to his ‘normal’ routine soon. He was able to go scuba diving in Cozumel over Memorial Weekend, but is now dealing with a little set-back. His original surgery was quite successful, but it may be that the hip is continuing on the deterorating slide. He remains in good spirits and doesn’t seem to let those crutches slow him down! It looks like it will be campaign time again next April, so I am sure he will be working with a full calendar!

"See, I can do it all by myself!"

After a rough start, my school year ended very nicely. It was a good year with many sweet students and I am looking forward to this next year. I ended the year with 12 students and will start next year with 12 students! I teach special education, and this is a pretty big number, so it will keep me busy. I did enjoy taking some quilting classes and jewelry classes in the evenings, so it was a nice mixture of activities.

Enjoying the groundbreaking at First Christian Church!

We are very excited that our church is moving forward to building our new activity center. We had the groundbreaking ceremony for the Jeanette Clemons Activity Center about two weeks ago and the projected finished date is December 2010! Jeanette was my close friend who lost her battle with cancer a year ago and this is such a tribute to her life! We are thrilled and know that the center will reach out to many people, not only those in our church, but those in the surrounding community!

As I said earlier, we are looking forward to the summer months and I will try to post pictures more often.  I hope that you enjoy these pictures for now!  Happy Summer!

"Good bye, for now!"

Randy and I took our parents to the Mannheim Steamroller concert and enjoyed every minute of the evening!

Happy 2010 to all of you! It is so hard to believe that another year has come and gone! I hope that your holiday season was wonderful and that you enjoyed being with those people in your life that mean so much to you!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving and Christmas and were so glad that we were able to be with family and special friends for many of the holiday celebrations.  This year was a little unusual for us, but it was still filled with the many blessings that Christmas brings and we were surrounded by those we love~~who could ask for more?  As always, it was wonderful!

One  change from our traditional holiday celebration was that Randy spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas on crutches!  He  is still recovering from  hip surgery that was done in Kansas City in November and continues to stay positive about a complete recovery. The most recent x-ray looks really good and we hope and pray that the bone is regenerating and Randy will be walking without crutches before too long!  It has been a long time since November 9th!

Another change to this year’s celebration was the arrival of the historic Christmas 2009 blizzard! We always wish for a ‘white Christmas’, but this was a little more than we had wanted! Thank goodness most of our family had made it in before the storm hit, because it certainly caused a lot of difficulties! We actually had over 13 inches of snow and it arrived in a blinding, white-out event! We had several encounters with deep snow where we had to dig out and push the car just to get it moving! The roads continued to be treacherous for several days, so we did have to cancel some of our plans, but it did give us lots to talk about and created many memories that will not be forgotten!

Daniel helped us out by shoveling out our front porch Christmas Eve~amazing!

It is now the 7th of January and we still have snow on the ground and now have windchills of temperatures below zero! It does make you wonder what is going on with the weather these days, but since it is Oklahoma, we know that we just have to sit tight and it will change before we know it!

Well, I do hope that you are warm and cozy in your home and that you have many memories of this most recent Christmas to make your heart happy! I also wish for you a wonderful 2010~~may you find much love and happiness! Until next time……..

Daniel enjoyed his birthday gifts even if the Twins didn't make the series!

Mike and Claire~ready for Thanksgiving!

What a little cutie!

Mike, Lindsay and Claire December 2009

Claire enjoying the wonder of Christmas!

Oh, what fun we had last weekend!!! Randy and I traveled with a group of friends to Las Vegas and had a wonderful time! It is amazing that after several months of anticipation, the trip has already come and gone!

It was a fast Saturday through Tuesday trip, but we packed it with many shows and activities–some even included gambling! We took in four shows and enjoyed every minute of each show. We knew we were on a fun trip when our adventure started with a limo ride to the hotel! It only got better from there!

Randy, Sandy and Tammy~ready or not, here we come!

On Saturday, we went to the Terry Fator show and were amazed at his talent. For those that may not know who he is, he is a ventriloquist that is able to sing and do impersonations that are just unreal. He puts on a fantastic show and even has a theater named after him.

Randy and Johnny~this is the life!

Immediately afterwards, a few of us went to the Jay Leno show and thought we were going to pass out from laughing! He was hysterical and afterwards, he even wandered through the crowded hallway to greet people. As you can see, Sandy and I were lucky enough to have our picture taken with him! We also enjoyed the Cher show on Sunday and were amazed that her voice is still strong and she can still put on quite a show. Our last show was a group called the Fab Four. As you may have guessed, it was a group that impersonated the Beatles. They looked and sounded absolutely great and we had fun being a part of the show.

Sandy and I were thrilled to meet Jay up close and personal!

I forgot to mention that we stayed at Caesar’s Palace and thought we were royalty—it was fabulous! We had dinner at The Palm’s Restaurant one evening and then made it to the historical Battista’s Hole in the Wall Italian Restaurant our last night. I cannot wait to try out their cappuccino recipe as it was the best that I have ever tasted!! We also enjoyed the accordion player’s version of “Boomer Sooner” played especially for Bob! Thank goodness, Bob remembered his manners and handled it all just fine!

You mean this wasn't the REAL Elvis?

Randy, Johnny, Carann, Bob and I made it over to the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and were thoroughly impressed. I could not believe after all of the years scuba diving, Randy, Johnny and Carann were still impressed with the sharks that were on display. The trip over there was quite an ordeal, but it was well worth the effort.

I also enjoyed the Billagio Hotel’s candy counter and chocolate fountain. They had the most beautiful fall decorations—the animated talking tree was unbelievable! How fun for the children that were there—can you imagine a tree that talks??

My first encounter with a 'talking' tree!

It really was a special time for a special group of friends to be together. We certainly missed the physical presence of our friend, Jeanette, but we felt as if she were there with us in spirit. We used this weekend to celebrate her life and her gift of friendship to each of us. There was a closeness between us and are all looking forward to making this an annual event!!

Good times~good friends!

Bob and Carann

Thanks, Randy, Johnny, Sandy, Tammy, Bob, Carann, Pam, Ertel, Mark and Melinda for a great time! I can’t wait for the next time!

Randy, Lane and Johnny

Mark, Ertel and Pam

Tammy, Sandy and Melinda

Good friends!

Do we have to go home?

I guess so!

These past weeks have been very busy for us as I am sure they have been for you, too. We have slipped away to the lake a couple of times, but we seem to be too busy to get up there as often as we would like! One weekend, Randy practically lived at Oktoberfest and then another weekend was spent teaching a scuba class. We also had a great time celebrating Dad’s 75th birthday. We were supposed to do that at Oktoberfest, but due to some rainy weather, we had our own Oktoberfest at our house. It was fun and I look forward to Dad’s next 75 years!

Dad enjoyed celebrating his 75th birthday!

Obviously, he had a good story going about something!

Mom, Claire and Maymie were also part of the birthday celebration.

Kevin was the big winner when we played 'Left-Right-Center'. Who needed Oktoberfest to have a good time?

Grandpa Great and Claire sharing a fun time!

Claire and Aunt Tracey are ready to work on the fence~

Ol' Granny and Miss Claire

This past weekend, we were finally able to help Mike and Lindsay get their stockade fence built. We are so grateful to everyone that helped both weekends that we worked on the fence. As some of you know, we have had their dog, Abby, living with us since Claire was born and she is ready to go home. One attempt had been made to build the fence a few weeks ago, but we had to wait until this past weekend for the final ‘okay’ from the homeowner’s association. Once the permission was granted, it was ‘fence time’ again! Many hours of hard work and sweat helped to make a beautiful fence and a family reunion will happen soon!

Two beautiful girls enjoying a beautiful day~~Amber and Claire!

Miss Claire entertained us all while the fence was being constructed, so it was well worth the effort to have another opportunity to see her sweet little smile and listen to her little giggle! She is such a delight and is growing so quickly! She has one little tooth coming through right now and is enjoying her nightly little dish of cereal. It is hard to believe that she will be 6 months old tomorrow! She is able to roll from front to back and back to front, and is figuring out that she can move around quite a bit with her little army-crawl technique. It won’t be long until she is crawling all over the place~~I imagine that Abby will have a part in that adventure!

Fence building--hard work! Thanks, Uncle Dave!

Mike working on his fence for Miss Claire and Abby~

You've got to be kidding!! All this work for that little thing???

Now that's what I call a 'real' fence!

I am going to post some pictures so that you can see a little part of our life lately. It is always hard to decide which pictures to post, but I think that I picked some good ones this time. Enjoy the pictures and maybe you can even imagine that you were here with us~~we sure wish you were!! Take care and more later!

Claire was one happy little girl~~so much fun to be with everyone!

Okay, Daddy and Mommy ....is the next project a swingset??