By Robin GOLDSWORTHY

Saturday was an awesome day and a busy one for us in the Crescenta Valley.
It started out with the annual Arbor Day celebration at Two Strike Park. Well over one hundred people were in attendance despite the wind. Pop-up tents dotted the basketball court, home to exhibits and information on  local groups. Guest speakers included historian Stuart Byles who offered a history of Arbor Day, L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and CV Weekly’s Mary O’Keefe who spoke on the value of volunteerism. OSH donated some trees to be raffled off .
In the afternoon was the luncheon and fashion show for the La Crescenta Womans Club. This is a major fundraiser for the club, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in the near future. This event, too, was well attended as local ladies enjoyed fashions presented by Annie’s Scandal on Honolulu Avenue while dining on tea and sandwiches.
Over on Honolulu was the kickoff of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life that is taking place on the campus of Clark Magnet High School in May. The kickoff – Paint the Town Purple – raises visibility of the upcoming Relay event by painting purple footsteps along Honolulu. In the evening was a mini-luminaria ceremony, a moving tribute to those who have and are battling cancer.
Information on all of these stories will be found in this week’s Crescenta Valley Weekly.
However, while these activities were all noteworthy, for our family the big news took place not in the foothills but at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.
Minutes after the completion of the Arbor Day celebration, my cellphone rang. My son told me that it was time to take his wife, my daughter-in-law, to the hospital as their baby was on her way.
I hung up the phone with a dazed look on my face – I know this because a friend remarked that I looked like the Cheshire cat with a big ole grin. It’s funny, but even when you know that something is going to happen you can still feel unprepared.
Have you ever seen the I Love Lucy episode when Fred, Ethel and Ricky “rehearse” for the moment when Lucy has to go to the hospital to deliver little Ricky? Ethel calmly walks over to the phone to call the hospital, Fred goes to get a cab and Ricky escorts Lucy out the door. But when the moment actually arrives, mayhem breaks out and the three panic, forgetting their jobs. They actually run out of the apartment leaving Lucy behind asking, “What about me?”
That’s sort of what I felt like on Saturday as we gathered family members up to travel to Newport Beach.
But rushing turned out not to be an issue. Baby Ashlynn Loree took her own sweet time in making her debut. Though my daughter-in-law arrived at the hospital around 11 on Saturday morning, it wasn’t until 7 a.m. on Sunday that we had our girl.
It was a long night, too, though worse for my daughter-in-law than for me. Both her mom and I stayed at the hospital with my son. They had arranged for a family birthing suite, so we were able to stay in the room together all night offering encouragement and giving each other a break when needed.
When the time came for the actual delivery, her mom and I slipped out of the room while the doctor and nurses came in to oversee things.
Ashlynn is a tiny tot, weighing in at 5 lbs., 10 oz and stretching at 18 inches in length. For this mother whose boys weighed over eight and nine pounds, she is a peanut.
But wow! What a doll!
Thank you to everyone who has offered congratulations and no – I’m not yet sure what my granny name is going to be. However, I know that it will be heaven whenever I hear it.