Quartzsite

Jane's Jewelry

2012-02-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

A month ago we drove over to New River Arizona to visit some friends that we met on the cruise. Ken and Jane were good friends of Kitty and Larry who went on the cruise with us last Fall.

When we met, Jane and I hit it off like we had known each other for years. She is a zany fun talented lady. Anyway, she gave me a bunch of her old jewelry that she asked me to bring back to life. You know how that is…an old favorite or two that shows wear and tear or just needs something to give it zing again. So off and on, between making other jewelry I have been working on her necklaces.

I was going to post it on my petalsoftjewelry.blogspot.com site but then decided that is for stuff I am selling – this is just stuff that I am re-doing and returning it later to its owner. I didn’t take pictures of the first group I sent back to her. Most of them were simply shortening the chain and fixing the clasps etc. But I did want to show you what I have done. I will add several pictures of the same necklace so you can see different views

Before we get to Jane's jewelry though, here are my creations to match her blouses... lavender and creme

This necklace was created for this wild and zany shirt

This sweater was my inspiration for the necklace on the right

Finally now we get to Jane's jewelry that I repaired or added to:

This necklace was made up of blue tones only - thin square capiz shells...you can see the blue still there but I added a round shell to each link made up of the same capiz shells but of all different colors. I kind of rainbowed them from the middle out.

I am waiting for an order of additional round capiz stones in hot pink to add that color to the mix as Jane has a blouse that has designs of blue, hot pink, yellow and green that we are trying to match. I changed the closure from a lobster claw to a magnet closure for easier on and off. I also added shells to the matching earrings

I loved this necklace - it is worn collar style...right up close around the neck. It had a pale peach colored ribbon that connected the flowers to the lobster claw closure at the back of the neck. The ribbon was dirty and frayed so I removed the ribbon and added a double row of brass toned chain that now closes with a toggle.

The necklace didn't have any earrings to match so I made a pair with pearls and crystals the same colors as the flowers around the neck. Because the necklace is so 'busy' I made the earrings simple, although I did add some more lightweight chain to dangle at the bottom. Note the design of the ear wire itself. I loved these when I found them. I wish I had bought more of them!

I added this picture as it shows a LITTLE of the chain at the back of the flowers.

Jane bought this necklace down in Florida but decided later she didn't like it - it didn't have enough pizzazz, so I added the dichroic glass pendant with matching earrings.

If Jane doesn't like this I will just have to try again.

This next necklace I created myself for a blouse that she just got and needed to find jewelry to match it. The blouse is a very pale lavender with cream lace...

So I picked crystals that were the same tones as the blouse along with burgandy pearls, antique gold elongated beads, and white stone beads that were a creamy tone like the lace on her blouse. I matched it up with a striped dichroic glass pendant that I wire wrapped with antique gold and normal gold wire twisted together. It turned out beautiful. Again, If the color and style don't match her blouse the way I am thinking it will I will just have to take this one back and try again...I am thinking it MAY be too heavy for the blouse.

Another Busy Week

2012-02-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Its been a fun and busy week. We have been enjoying increasingly warmer weather ...it was 80 degrees here today!! I think yesterday was just as warm but we spent the day four wheeling and were shaded by the roof of our razor all day. I can't sleep right now so I am up on my computer at 1:30 am listening to the coyotes howl!! Seriously!

Let's see - last Friday we drove to Blythe, California, with Ed and Jo who are from Longview, Washington. We found a fun produce stand and bought all sorts of fresh lemons and tangelos, lettuce and tomatoes, pistaschio's and dates! Then we went to KMart and to Albertsons....much better prices than here in Quartzsite. Blythe is just 28 miles from Quartzsite.

Sunday we drove to Dave and Rhea's winter home in Yuma to watch the Super Bowl. Betty and Don were there too and we had a fun time - Rhea had been cooking all day long I think and Betty brought some yummies and so did I. (I took a small basket of dates and cut them in half, removing the pit, and then spread cream cheese on them and topped them with a half of a walnut. Delish!! We got the idea from the samples at the produce stand in Blythe. I normally don't care for dates but combined with the cream cheese and nuts they were great. So we visited and ate and visited and ate...the guys watched the ball game while we visited some more. I was/am still gimping so they babied me along but I helped out where I could. Finally about 9:30 pm Ed and I left and drove over to the Homewood Suites where we had a room reserved....and wonderful, wonderful, they had a BATH TUB!!! After weeks of just showers I was able to soak to my hearts content and it sure felt good on my sore knee.

Monday morning we found a store about a mile away that rented wheelchairs and got one for $15 for the day and went to Mexico for the day. We met Rhea and Betty and Donnie for lunch and had a fun time looking at all the stuff for sale. Bought a few things, not too much. Most snowbirds go for the dentists or eyeglasses or prescriptions. It seems like they have the same merchandise for sale year after year and most of it comes from China...not Mexico!

Back to Quartzsite that evening and then we hopped up the next day and headed into town to do our laundry. Ed carried all the bags of dirty clothes in for me and then he went looking for stuff to build a wind break (for those days that are warm except for the cold north wind) and I crutched around filling the washers with clothes and soap and bleach...then on to the dryers....it seemed like it took all day but we finally got home with clean clothes, towels, sheets etc

Wednesday was crafts day for me and Ed kept busy with odd jobs all day long. Thursday we met our group of 4 wheelin friends at the guard station coming into LaPosa South campground where we stay with our rigs loaded onto trucks and trailers and headed East on Interstate 10 about 30 miles away. That was at 8:30 in the morning so we were all well bundled to keep warm because it was still in the 50's when we got the bikes unloaded and headed down the trails. I should say all of us were well bundled except for Edward who was in his short sleeved shirt and knee length jeans! I got cold just looking at him!

We went back into the KOFA Wildlife Refuge and saw some gorgeous country. Here we are heading up a hill with Jo on her Polaris right in front of us.

Lots of thorny trees, bushes and Rocks....that is what we see everywhere we look around here in this Desert of Western Arizona.

I took several pictures trying to get the three or four machines all in a line going up this hill but the sun was right in my face and I couldn't get a good shot...so again, just Jo.

I thought this escarpment was interesting - also the fact that it continued on in front of us across the road made it even more so!

Looking down at a desert canyon as we drive along the route.

One of our stops at an old cabin built in the 30's - one of the few cabins built with wood in this area from long ago. Most were built with the easiest materials at hand...which would be ROCKS. There were 10 rigs with 12 people in our group.

Kathy and Carolyn - getting ready to go check out the cabin.

Just a beautiful mountain

or should I say cliffside

We got to see lots and lots of Saguerros, Palo Verde trees, Yucca plants, paddle cacti, Teddy bear choya, plus a few yellow flowers and lavender flowers! By the time the day was over we had taken off the coats and hats and gloves and sweatshirts and were down to jeans and t shirts - nice weather for four wheeling in February. We traveled a total of 70 miles on bikes over some really rough but beautiful terrain. It was 5:30 pm by the time we got back to our trailers. My poor knee was just aching from all the jouncing it got over those rough roads....and that was from JUST sitting in our side by side. I wouldn't have been able to go if I had been driving my own ATV.

This was last months trip - you can see we were bundled.

The Ocatilla have blossomed and now their fresh new leaves make them look so pretty - they are still covered with thorns though.

A view up the hill

I took these pictures from my 'front porch'....I wanted to get the skyline all lit up just as the sun is going down. This is the view looking East.

This is the view looking West....it is beautiful

This is our yard. As you can see, Ed has spent a lot of time laying out the driveway (hence the rock lines) and it lights up at night with our solar lamps. You can see Ed and Jo's trailer ---they are are nearest neighbors to the South of us.

...this is the 'wash' next to our trailer...I just hung a hummingbird feeder in that middle tree yesterday as the hummers are starting to show up.

Just another view....you can see that we are well spread out here but we get together with our neighbors almost every day with different activities at the group Tent (BIG) ...dances, parties, TV, movies, karaoke, crafts, etc.

Next time I will take pictures of our trailer and 'front porch' or rather big mat that we set out chairs and chaise lounges on.

Anyway - that was the pictures (plus some) of Thursday's big ATV ride - we left our trailer at 8 am and got back home at 6 pm, so it made for a long day. I figured that I probably redamaged my knee with all the bouncing and jouncing but my knee felt better the next day than it has in a long time!!

Friday morning we got up, ate breakfast and headed in to town to the 'QIA for their local swap meet and Ed set up his two generators that he is trying to sell plus his motorbike he wants to sell. I added some necklaces and watches. There are so many people here making jewelry that it is really hard to sell any necklace sets but the watches were popular. I sold four of them. Ed didn't sell anything.

Ed went over to K&B tools to get what stuff he needed to build us a five foot tall windbreak to go in front of our trailer while I went after groceries and the mail. We met back up and headed back to the trailer about 2 pm - it was so warm in our trailer we immediately had to open all the windows and vents and the big back door to make it livable.

Today was a relaxing day - reading, making a new necklace, visiting with friends and then going over to the big tent tonight to see War Horse. Goooooood movie!! We thoroughly loved it both of us -- I cried the whole last 30 minutes of the movie.
'
Tomorrow is church and Monday I need to go find somewhere to get my nails done and then Tuesday is the poker run (ATV ride) over in Brenda. Should be fun.

Friends

2012-01-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

I truly expected that our stay down here in Quartzsite would be quite relaxing and somewhat boring. I knew for a fact that I would be chafing at the bit to get home and play with grandkids and visit with kids and friends. Plus my visits with dad would be far and few between.

Not boring...no!! In fact I told Ed yesterday that we needed a couple of QUIET days with nothing and no one but us .

We got back to Quartzsite on Friday the 6th of January, and yes, Saturday we did veg, except for going over to the tent for our daily gab fest at 4. Sunday was church and Monday and Tuesday were all day ATV rides. Wed I went to our ladies craft meeting at the tent where my good friend Patty from Bear Mtn taught us how to make bird feeders/solar lamps out of clear glass jars, bowls, ashtrays, etc. Mine turned out cute.

Then we headed over to New River, AZ to visit with Ken and Jane that evening where we stayed until Saturday. Home Saturday and we went to church on Sunday again. Monday ATV ride and then I hurt my knee Monday night. All day Tuesday in Parker at the ER/instacare facility at the hospital where I got x-rayed and examined and finally issued big knee brace and crutches. Wednesday was a quieter day ...didn't go to craft day. Thursday was the beginning of the WinterFest activities - it was a fun weekend with a Wild Wild West theme. We started it off with a poker run ...there were 27 of us on ATV's following the trail that Ed and I and Patty and Gary and Robert and Melvina had laid out on the Monday I was injured. We had hung blue and white streamers from the bushes and trees to mark the trail. Everyone started at the tent, signed in, paid their $5 fee and drew their first card. About 8 miles into the trail (mostly across the desert and through some beautiful washes) we stopped at the first station and drew a second card. Another 8 miles we ended up in the mountains West and South of Quartzsite at Deer Run - a fun spot on a popular trail, where we drew our third card. By this point I had a 2, a 5 and a 3. Your dad had a pair of 10's and one other card. Back on the trail again down the mountain and over to one of the old stone mountains that dot the area (original pioneer dwellings....built with rocks and mud as there was no wood around) now falling down...for card #4. I got an 8,,,your dad got a queen. Then the last leg of the trip was back through the washes and across highway 95 to La Posa South campground and back to the tent for card #5. Ed's hand ended with the pair of tens. I picked up a seven. We were actually a little bit excited about my hand because there were two prizes, one for the best hand and one for the worst (and lowest) hand. I had a chance at winning the lousy hand!

Friday we had a weiner roast as a group and then a sock hop that night (no I didn't get to dance, not with my knee!! But at least I could hobble without the brace and the crutches.) Everyone brought munchies to share and we had some fantastic old 50's and 60's music...and the winners of the poker run were announced...and yes!! I WON!! for having the worst hand in the group

;-P But hey, I won fifty bucks!!

Saturday morning we all met for biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We carried our own hot chocolate as the other choices were coffee or tea. At 1 in the afternoon one of our neighbors gave a good basic class on how to protect and clean up your computer. We actually had 29 people show up at the tent with computer, hot spots, cords, and plugs---I was afraid we'd blow the generator but it held up just fine.

At 6:30 that evening was Casino night where we all paid five bucks for a handful of monopoly money and spent the evening having fun. I played poker bingo which is fun and easy and there were about 7 other ladies that played the whole evening with us. I won three hands and lost lots more. There was a costume contest for the best "western" dress and some of them had really gone to a lot of effort and made some beautiful dresses. We had cowboys and indians and dance hall girls. Next year I will do better costume wise but with a bum leg so I couldn't go shopping at the local salvation army store and no sewing machine to make something with, so we simply wore normal clothes.

After the games at 9 pm we took our winnings (and whatever was left of our losings) and spent the next hour in the middle of an auction for all sorts of fun stuff that was donated for the cause. I donated a pair of my feathery earrings, a couple of necklaces, a couple of watches and a pair of foot bracelets (more on that later). We had a great fun time with that.

Sunday morning we went back over to the tent for another hot breakfast of eggs and sausage and potatoes - delicious. Then Ed and I went back to the trailer and got ready for church and headed in for a wonderful Sacrament Meeting. Ed watched football games all day Sunday while I waded through 25 pages of paperwork on dad's VA application while writing up an email to send to Kelly and Jeff telling them what to do with it when they got it! After I finished that I pulled out the ward history and added the last three items (that we had been waiting a week for !) and emailed it to Ed so he could print it out for me so that we could mail it today too. Except Ed's mouse and mousepad has been going out and it died totally and he couldn't print anything out. So I punted - I emailed our counselor in our ward bishopric and also the stake historian and told them I was emailing them the written part of the history and mailing them the pictures and would they please put them all together when they got them. That worked.

So Monday, today we left our trailer at 11:00 am to head into town - generally a 15 minute trip but with the big show opening up this weekend the traffic was backed up the full three miles from Quartzsite to the entrance to our campground. So we crept into town and went to the post office - the line was impossibly long and I refused to wait the two hours it would have taken to get up to the window to buy the envelopes and have them weighed. Instead we drove down the street to the grocery store where we bought three manila envelopes and I put the VA paperwork on the grocery scale to find out how much it weighed and put my own stamps on everything and took it back to the post office and dropped it off. That only took us an hour and 45 minutes !!! The traffic is crazy in this one horse town right now.

Then we met up with Kitty and Larry who are spending tonight with us and then heading on North. We have Chuck and Donna from Bear Mtn who are staying Thursday and Friday with us before they head back to Idaho. At happy hour tonight Dave and Joyce said when things slow down with our schedule they want to take us out to dinner and Larry and Kathy invited us over for some games one night next week....we still want to go over past Brenda to find where Donny and Betty are living so we can visit with them....and Susan and Dell still want us to go down to visit with them in Mesa!

Ed and Jo are already making plans for the four of us to do some major sightseeing this summer in Washington where they live and then down to Bear Mtn for a few days and then to the mtns of Northern and Southern Utah......

we are supposed to be bored!! Things are simply getting busier and busier although we have to say we ARE HAVING FUN!!!

2012-01-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

Thursday January 5, 2012 -picked up dad and went to visitthe lawyer, Eric Barnes. He is an ElderCare Lawyer and I was very impressed with his manner and knowledge. He is going to help us set up dad’s trustfrom a revocable trust to an irrevocable trust so that we can apply for VAbenefits for dad and still able to sell the house when in order to continue to keepdad in the assisted living.

After taking dad back to his apartment Ed and I headed Southtowards Quartzsite. We stopped for the night in Mesquite. My cousin Brenda got us a really good deal ona lovely room for the night at the Eureka and then to top it off she took usout to dinner !! Talk about servicewith a smile. Bob and Maysen joinedus.

Friday - We woke up at 6:48 am (Nevada time) and got up andgot rolling so we made it to Quartzsite about 3 pm. Our little trailer was sitting there safe andsound just waiting for us. Everyone atthe circle welcomed us back.

Saturday we could have gotten up and gone back into town forthe QIA (Quartzsite Improvement Association) monthly craft sale and booked atable for five bucks but we didn’t – we just begged. It got up to 75 degrees – no wind….gorgeousday. We laid out on the chaise loungesand read for quite a while.

Sunday – Church – always feel so young among thatcrowd!! It’s great. Then we went on a fun ATV ride with a bunchof other people that afternoon. Therewere a total of 12 rigs – about 16 people altogether. Fun but we had a cool wind blowing from thenorth so we stayed bundled up the whole ride. I got out to hike to the top of a little knoll and somehow walkedthrough a bunch of teddy bear cholla and had stickers all over my shoes. Even sticking into my feet. Ed had to drive the four wheeler to the topof the hill to pick me up as I couldn’t walk. I climbed into the razor and spent the next 30 minutes pulling needlesout of my shoes and socks (plus the three Ed pulled out of my feet…OW!)

Monday – went into town to wander through the open air shopsin Tyson Wells. I wasn’t going to buyanything except a set of new sheets (I took my others home before Christmas andwashed them and forgot to bring them back) Well – of course these guys are all getting ready for the rock andmineral show so they all have rock beads ….cheap. I had to buy a few here and a few there andI’ve noted where I want to go back to. Too much fun.

Tuesday – another ATV ride – this time we hopped in thetruck with Ed and Jo and my Ed and Patty and Gary came along too and we went tothe Brenda Valley just to the East of Quartzsite about 13 miles. Gorgeous ride– pretty country…so much more interesting than just the hills and desert andcactus of Quartzsite.

Wednesday – our weekly ladies craft group got together andwe made the glass birdfeeders like we bought in Idaho last summer. I made a cute one but instead of a birdfeederwe put a solar lamp in it so it will be a night light. Now I need to go to the garage sales and swapmeets and find some cheap crystal plates, ashtrays, sherbet bowls etc. to makesome more. I think I am going to showJeff and see if he wants to make and sell them at his farmers markets that hegoes to. I don’t think we will stay homelong enough this summer to do it ourselves. After the class was over we hopped in the truck and droveEast to Phoenix and then North up to New River to meet up with Ken andJane. We will be staying here for threenights!! They are such fun people.

We may not be resting but we are sure having lots and lotsof fun!

Thursday January 12…We are staying with Ken and Jane intheir RV…we headed out after breakfast to see the trail that Jane and Ken havebeen working on here at their RV park. Jane is one of the most creative people I have ever made and she hadcome up with so many cute ideas for the walking trail. In fact, they park their trailer here at nocharge in exchange for the work they are doing on the trail. She has made dinosaur island, and frog hollowis in the plans. There are pixies andgnomes and alligator’s and bigfoots all along the trail. It will take them several years to get it alldone. I hurt my knee walking about aweek ago just before I headed down South – pulled a muscle and have been verythankful for the hot spot heating pad Mauri gave me for Christmas as it fits undermy knee at the bend just perfectly. Ithas really been bothering me the last few days and after our hike completelyaround the RV park I barely limped back to the trailer. I have tried to keep it elevated. Tomorrow I am going to try cold on it as the heatthat really helped the first part of the week isn’t helping it know.

We went into Cave Creek, AZ for lunch at a fun Mexicanrestaurant and then walked through a fun store called the City Dump!! It has all sorts of yard and house art – it wasfun to walk through it but it didn’t help my knee any. We headed back to the trailer for naps and reading and thenthis evening we watched Jeff Foxworthy and his group…hilarious. Finished off the evening with lots ofvisiting and then a trip over to the hot tub. Fun day!

Quartzsite in November

2011-11-30T21:10:00.001-08:00

We got here Monday and the temperature was 74. It has gotten warmer each day...today it was 79! The wind did pick up but at 10 pm tonight it is still 65 degrees outside. I don't know if the wind is bringing in a storm or not...we still don't have our DISH set up so we haven't been able to watch the news.

If you look closely you will see the 'friend' that came to visit today...a baby tarantula. Probably and inch and a half in diameter. Surprisingly enough I didn't immediately smash him...I took his picture instead.

I'm sitting here on the chaise lounge and this is the view I have. Lots of rock and dirt and cactus!

A better view of the greenery!

Tomorrow we are going on an ATV trip with a bunch of friends. We are driving the truck South (with the Razor in the back) to the stone cabin halfway between here and Yuma and then we will four wheel into the back country down there. It should be a fun day. Its supposed to be windy but warm. We have a lunch packed and are looking forward to it

The Cruise

2011-11-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday October 25 we hopped on the cruise ship at the Ft Lauderdale port and headed out to sea. We headed to the Bahama's first of all to a gorgeous island called Half Moon Cay. We got there and immediately signed up for the sting ray excursion. They took us about five miles from the port to a quiet little bay where we got to snorkle and swim with some wonderful sting rays. I was amazed at how soft they were. We got to feed them baby squids! We swam with them about 40 minutes - saw lots of colorful fish and sea cucumbers. Then they took us back to the beach where we soaked up the rays for about 3 hours. The sand was the softest finest sand I have ever experienced. Almost like sugar but not so sticky.

I had to add all the towel art that we enjoyed each night as we got back to our rooms after dinner - that plus chocolate candies ...

I loved it how he used my sunglasses with most of them!

Cool rabbit

I guess crabs don't wear glasses!!

Then we headed to Key West - we spent Friday and Saturday night there. We got chased back to the boat both nights with HEAVY heavy rains. Here we are on the trolley ride through the streets of Key West Saturday night. This is the famous Green Parrot restaurant in Key West. This was the beginning of a 7 hour day that included a one hour tour of Key West, and a six hour catamaran trip out in the ocean. We started with a nummy breakfast of quiche and juice and muffins as we rode out eight miles to the barrier reef where we snorkeled. Ed jumped off of the side of the boat into the water while I took the easier route of climbing down the steps into the ocean. The seas were somewhat rougher and the water wasn't as clear as we had hoped for. Within 15 feet of leaving the boat I watched as a six foot long SHARK swam right in front of me. I quit moving (DUH!) and thought ..what is the difference between a dolphin and a shark (I really wanted it to BE A dolphin!) but then I thought, no way is this a dolphin...it is so sleek ...but he wasn't the least bit interest in me....I kept looking behind me to make sure he didn't turn around and come after me but I didn't see him again. The guides told us that if we ran into something scary we only had to swim faster than the guy next to us ;-D...but there was no one close to me! So I continued swimming over to the reef and thoroughly enjoyed all the gorgeous brightly colored fish. They had warned us that we may see jelly fish and to stay clear of them. These didn't have a REAL bad sting ...it would only hurt for about 20 minutes. I saw three of the ethereal floating jelly fish - pink in color. I swam away from them but thoroughly enjoyed them.

After we left the reef then they took us over to mule island where we got to kayak - saw some gorgeous birds and learned a little about the flora and fauna of the area. We also swam in the ocean but with the strong waves we didn't stay out long. They set up lunch for us then - wonderful salads, everything was delicious including the four inch fresh shrimp - a huge bowl of them - yuuuuummmm! Then they raised the sails and we sailed for about an hour. We had hoped to see dolphins too, but there were none to be seen. They took us back to the port and we got to walk through Key West about a mile back to the boat. It was a seven hour tour - we left at 8:15 and arrived back at port at 3:30 - what a fun fun fun day.

Here I am heading back to the ship with my towel slung over my shoulder.

Another day at sea (they were the relaxing days while the days in port were busy) Then we landed at Grand Turk, part of the British West Indies. Here is the view of the beach from where we got off the boat. We had time to go and grab a bite to eat at Margaritaville - the only place to eat, before we caught the van to a spot on the other side of the island. It was another beautiful beach. They proceeded to teach us how to SNUBA...another great experience. We were able to swim right down along the sea floor about 15-20 feet down. Ed and I are now talking about maybe taking scuba lessons.

Did you know that Grand Turk island was the landing area for John Glenn!! They had an interesting display. You can see Ed standing with our swim bag in his hand. We were finally able to buy a few souveniers for family members here at Grand Turk. We had planned on buying them at Key West but got chased back to the boat both nights with heavy rain.

So we had another wonderful day at the beach - both snuba'ing and snorkeling and shopping at the little native stores.

One more day at sea and then back to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday morning. We ate escargot and frog legs and all sorts of wonderful meals. We met a lot of warm and wonderful people and make some fantastic memories.

Parrot Island

2011-10-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sunday we got together with Ken and Jane and headed to Miami to see Parrot Island. It is a nature park with all sorts of Islands. Kind of expensive but not when you realize that alot of the monies go to research to help many of the endangered species of birds and animals there.

As we headed into the Serpentariam we saw this cute pirate ship heading out into the ocean with a full load of passengers.

Somehow the pirate ship loses a little of its reality when put in front of one of the MANY high rise apartment buildings right on the ocean front.

This is the serpentarium and we figured it would be a show about lizards and snakes but actually it was a fun active show that took us around the world with all sorts of different animals - from monkies, to alpacas to lemurs, to the Everglades Alligator.

This little guy had just pulled the elastic out of his workers hair - he really like playing in it!

He was really just adorable though

Did you know Lemurs JUMP?? They are amazingly agile. And soft - one of the handlers walked around the whole crowd brushing us with his long tail

After we finished at the Serpentarium show we walked through the park looking at all of the beautiful displays and fun animals. This was a stream running under a bridge we walked over - we could see a Blue heron under and through the trees but couldn't get a good picture of it. As we stopped and watched the heron we realized the turtles and gar fish were gathering in the water under us

It was as if they were waiting for us to feed them. So I bought a quarter's worth of food and boy - it entertained us for a half hour -

Ed took this picture - the turtles head is just above the water after he ate one of the food bits

This is a sausage tree!! there are some fascinating trees and flowers and bushes in Florida

We got to feed the parrots

If you look in my hand you can see the cup of nectar I fed him with

This is Jane and Ken who went to Parrot Island with us - fun fun couple - good friends of Kitty and Larry who we invited on the trip

Fun picture of the three of us (grin)

I am surprised these guys don't weigh 20 pounds each, they were greedy little buggers!

Cute picture of my boyfriend!

Loved the soft cream coloring of this cockatoo

Isn't this one gorgeous

I am hoping that these flamingoes will look better if you double click on the picture - they look washed out here but were a fantabulous coral in real life

We had a fun fun day. Yesterday we spent at Haulover Beach in Miami - we are sitting in the lobby of the hotel right now waiting for the shuttle to come and pick us up and my camera is lost in the depths of my suitcase so I can't download those pictures yet.

So long for at least a week until we get internet access again.

2011-10-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

We flew to Ft Lauderdale on Monday Oct 17th - it was warm but very overcast. The humidity didn't seem too bad. It was rainy when we headed out to dinner that first evening but not too bad. You can imagine our surprise when we watched the news that night and saw the coverage of the tornado that had hit in Ft Lauderdale. We didn't worry - its a big city...until Ed got online and discovered that the tornado had hit less than five miles away from the Hampton Inn we were staying at! I guess all in all about 20 homes were demolished. A few people were injured but thank Heavens there was no one killed. About the time we were trying to go to sleep I heard a low rumbling outside and jumped out of bed expecting to look out the window and see another tornado heading towards us and it was barely raining...it was a truck going down the street.

Since it was too rainy the next morning to go sightseeing or to the beach we decided to drive down through the Keys. It was a fascinating drive. It took us all day long but was definitely worth it.

This is one of the many bridges - we are heading up and over the bridge to another key. I had no idea there are that many different islands...some are big and some are teensy.

This is one of the teensy ones~

I just noticed the date is wrong on these pictures. This was Tuesday the 18th. As we drove through the many keys we found it was difficult to see past the 8 foot tall wall of greenery that was growing - actually large bushes that totally hid either ocean (or gulf) or houses. We got pretty good at picking out the larger islands very quickly by the quality of stores along the highway. If they were rundown and dilapidated looking then it would be a little island. If there were nice stores and banks and hotels then we could see that behind all of the greenery there were streets and homes.

There were some gorgeous homes right on the ocean - I can imagine the cost of property anywhere along the keys. One thing we did NOT see were any beaches.

I heard that the keys got about 21 inches of rain Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. There was water standing everywhere we looked.

If you look closely you will see that 10:28 am that morning the temperature 78 degrees. By 2 o'clock that afternoon it was still looking like this (heavy heavy rains) and 84 degrees. Everytime we stopped the car to get out we expected it to be cold but it was soooo warm instead.

We Finally got to Key West about 3 1/2 hours later - found a cute little restaraunt and had some fantastic sandwiches. We walked down Duval Street to the end - Ed took a picture of me in front of marker showing the most farthest South point of the continental United States. Of course - that picture is on HIS camera. There was a little bitsy beach with actual sand there...but we figured they probably brought it in.

So then we walked back to the car and drove the last two blocks a different direction to the end of US Highway #1....note the green mile marker showing "0". We finally got back to the hotel about 8:30 that night ....long day!

Wednesday morning it was still rainy so we called Ed's brother Allen and got the phone for our niece and her family. Melissa and Beau moved to Naples Florida this last Spring. Looking at the map of Florida we realized that Naples is almost straight across the state from Florida. We talked to the Manager of our hotel and he said it would be a straight shot due West across the State. He said it was not a pretty drive and we just looked at each other and said - how many times have we driven across Utah or Idaho. We talked to Melissa and decided we would aim for about 5 pm. We had some time to kill before we headed to Naples and with the wet weather we wandered through a huge mall in Ft Lauderdale.

We drove the two hours due West across Alligator Alley (didn't see a single alligator the whole day!!) and had a fun visit with Melissa and her girls and Beau. Avenley and Paisley very quickly as another set of grandparents. They had a beautiful apartment and wewere quite impressed with the areas of Naples that we drove through.

We took them out to dinner at Moe's which is very much like Cafe Rio only without the barbacoa pork ---but it was delicious anyway. We had a wonderful visit with all four of them and they seemed tickled that we would take the time to drive to Naples and see them.

After dinner we headed back to Ft Lauderdale and got back to to hotel about 9:15. Long fun day.

Thursday we checked out of the hotel and headed North to Palm Beach where we had reserved a cabin at a resort. It was sunny and in the mid seventies and it was hilarious to hear the complaints of all those around us concerning how cold it was!! To us it has been just perfect - not too hot, not too cold.

Thursday was quiet and Friday much more busy. Friday night I got to go to a 'gong temple' and have a sound wave relaxation therapy. It was relaxing and quite beautiful. I lay on a massage table with a huge gong on each side of me and the couple that did it created some gorgeous tones with the gongs. I could feel the stress roll out of my toes!! Quite interesting.

Saturday Kitty and Larry and Ken and Jane and Lee all showed up at the same resort. We knew they were coming. All of us are from Utah - and we are all going on the cruise together. We will all head back to Ft Lauderdale tomorrow - the cruise is on Tuesday. We haven't decided what we are going to go do or see tomorrow - it would be nice if we could find an LDS church to go to.

More to come....

Three Wonderful Weeks on the Mountain

2011-09-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

WARNING - LONG LONG POST - NO PICTURES - camera didn't work!!!

Aug 23 – Tues. I am writing this Wednesday morning and as I look at the date I realized that I missed my Leah’s birthday. She turned one yesterday – Tuesday….it matters not that I have already given her her present and that I talked to her mama on Monday….but I should have called her yesterday and wished her a happy birthday. I have done this all my life …overlooked or forgotten or spaced off special days for special people. I so wish my brain would work better. So happy birthday darling girl!

Anyway – I wanted to sit down and write a few lines every day while we are up here at Bear Mtn. It is paradise here – so quiet and peaceful, birds singing and hummingbirds zeroing in at the bird feeders. It is our special spot – Ed's and mine. No interference from the world here….no TV, no radio, no cell phones, no racing here or there. One thing that is going to change is no texts, thank heavens. I do want to hear from the kids when they have to get a hold of us. Those I love to get. We will get the new booster antennae set up first thing. It would have already been done except Ed is not feeling good(he is fighting a cold) so he is moving a little slower.

We got here about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. We unloaded most of the truck –or I should say Ed unloaded it and sat it in the trailer and I unpacked it and put it all away. We had a full truck load – clothes, food, solar panel, clean towels and sheets, fresh water, plus new dishes and stuff that I have bought, one plate at a time so I can set a pretty table here on the mtn. They are square shaped Corelle ware with a pretty brown and green leaf design across part of them. I’ve got the big plates – during this next while I will buy the bowls, mugs and small plates that match – service for four.

After I got the trailer shipshape then I went out and sat on our deck with Ed and read for a couple of hours. Ed bought me a lovely outdoor chair rocker that is so very comfortable with part of his Cabella’s gift card that he received as a retirement gift from MTC.

I fixed a yummy meal of funeral potatoes and ham with Monkey Bread and corn. After washing the dishes afterward we went on about a mile walk around the camp to see who was here – there aren’t many of us. Dee is just down the road from us and Dennis has moved to the tent site where Terry and Dan used to be. I don’t know if Dennis is here alone or not. Tina is here also. Anyway that is it – just the five of us on the mountain.

I love it here when it is this quiet. We didn’t swim or go in the hot tub today because of the boil I have. But it started draining (FINALLY) somewhat Monday nite and lots on Tuesday, so I know it is getting better – once it cleans itself out and closes back up and is no longer hard and hot and swollen it will be healing. At that point I won’t feel like it might be contagious…I would hate to share a staph infection through sitting or swimming in water.

Wednesday August 24

It’s been a marvelous day today. I slept until 9 am this morning and it was already 60 degrees outside. I started cleaning – sweeping the deck and the carpet on the deck until all the leaves and twigs were gone. Then I went around my whole trailer and washed all the windows outside. I gathered all the hummingbird feeders in and made up some sugar water for them and refilled the one outside our window that we can watch when we are sitting at the table eating. I got the new feeder out and unpacked and filled it. I took these two outside and hung them and then I took the third one and sat down outside and painted the white flowers red….it seems like the hummers always ignored this one and I decided that it was too plain. So I brought up a little paintbrush and a small bottle of red paint and painted the white flowers red. It made it really pretty and within 15 minutes of rehanging it I had a hummer!! I found my birdseed and filled that feeder too. What a fun morning. I also got out the grape lights that I found on clearance at WinCo…five clumps of grapes-- green, purple, green, purple, green, each with ten big grapes on each clump with a light inside of each grape. I wrapped them around a pole by the deck and they look cute during the day and then at night we turn them on and they are so fun.

After lunch we headed up to the pool to play – however I had to stay out of the sun due to the sulpha drug I am taking for ten days, and out of the water due to the infection in my ‘boil’. So I laid on the chaise lounge in the shade with a book and had a nice afternoon. A couple from Canada had stopped in to camp here for a week and we all had a great visit. Nice couple. It’s still real quiet up here this week – just about eight people around. I enjoy the busy noisy weekends with all our friends but I also enjoy the quiet of the mid week days too.

Ed is still not feeling really well – his cold seems to be getting better but he still has a sore throat and lots of coughing. But he is relaxing a whole lot so that should help him –(we decided after that he may have had a touch of walking pneumonia!

I started making my first charm necklace tonight – mainly got it laid out and planned in my brain. Hopefully it will work well.

Thursday August 25 – Woke up early (for me) about 8 am and set about making a good breakfast for us – scrambled eggs, bacon and toast plus hot chocolate. Ed is feeling really miserable and I was hoping that a good meal would help him get over this cold. I pulled everything out of the pantry and moved shelves around for a more optimal use. Then I went out to the truck and got the new shelving system for our bathroom closet so we didn’t have to pile sheets and pillowcases and towels on top of each other – we now have four handy shelves in that closet – still giving us room for robes, coats, jackets and other clothes. Great!!

Then I went outside and started weeding the hillside – the West end isn’t getting the water it needs and was full of weeds. I then planted the ground cover I had dug up from our front yard…I filled five 32 oz drink cups with plants plus one 8 inch pot. I still haven’t decided where I am going to plant the 8 inch pot full as we have to figure out why it’s not getting water like it should. All this time Ed was sleeping. He felt so rotten that he told me that if he didn’t feel better by tomorrow he was going to have me take him to Boise to the doctor!! That’s when I realized he was sick. I fixed lunch – bacon and tomato and cheese sandwich and he took one bite and said he just couldn’t eat anything. About 3 pm I left Ed and went up to the pool and played volleyball with the couple from Canada and another new couple, John and Gayle from Parma. Come to find out their whole family is LDS and they have a daughter heading to Florida on a mission on the 6^th of Sept!

For dinner tonight Ed had a cup of Ramen noodles – the closest thing to soup that I had in the trailer and I ate his sandwich that he couldn’t eat at lunch time. After dinner tonight Ed seemed to feel better – he got up and sat on the deck with me as I read and we watched the hummingbirds come to the feeders and the flowers. We have three different hummers and two of them are pretty nice to each other. But when #3, the meany shows up he chases the other two away. The regular birds haven’t found my feeder with birdseed yet. I think tomorrow morning I am going to go up and scatter a bunch of birdseed around on the ground….of course then the turkeys will come and eat that – we will see.

About 8 pm we took our chairs and walked down to Dee’s and sat around the campfire at his place and visited with Tina and the two other couples that are up on the mtn right now. Tomorrow is Friday and the park will start filling up with people for the weekend – it will be fun to see and visit with everyone. Oh and the stars were gorgeous tonight.

Friday August 26: Here we go again – I didn’t realize it until right now that it was the 26^th – Jerod turned 14 today. I will try and send him a text message tomorrow wishing him a belated birthday. Wow these kids are growing up way too fast.

Spent the morning pulling weeds, planting the rest of the ground cover and working on a necklace. Ed is feeling so very much better which seems nice. I spent about an hour sitting in the dirt digging out the fire pit area with a hand shovel and then Ed finally (!!!) shows up with a big shovel and finishes the job in about ten minutes!! Oh well – I felt like I was helping anyway. We are going to bury the washer machine tub we found in the Layton park next to the rock wall – about 9 inches deep. Then we will lay paver stones on the ground around the front of it – should make a nice fire pit for us. We still need to find a 55 gallon drum lid to make a cover for it – that is required fire protection here on the mtn

Went up to the pool about 2 – Susan and Del had just come it – haven’t seen them since May so it was a grand reunion. A few other couples have shown up too – spent the afternoon swimming and reading and floating in the water – so nice. Talking to all our friends too. We invited Wayne and Jannie to come over to our place tonight about 7:30 ---I got out the fruit and cheeses and salami’s that I bought at Harmon’s before coming up. They stayed and visited until 10:15…it was such a nice warm evening – it is 75 degrees outside right now!! Bedtime.

Saturday August 27 – what a fun busy day. I got to sleep in as Ed went hiking up to Monkey Rock with Jannie and Wayne from Canada. I will go with him next week but I hike very slowly and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Jannie – she is thin, wiry and full of energy. Ed got back about 10:15 and said he wanted to go up to the hot tub so I decided to walk up with him. Once we got up there we found ourselves in the middle of the planning for the nights activities - a ladies night out where the men were to serve the ladies the whole meal. About noon we walked back to the trailer and got some lunch and then went back to Susan and Del’s to meet with Del and find out what he needed us to do. I told Ed, hey, this is for the men to do but he insisted that they had asked him to bring me to help too – I thought maybe my job would be to visit with Susan while the guys did all the work. HAH!! They had us go up to the lodge where Ed and I spent the next three hours peeling, quartering, and slicing cucumbers and green onions very very very thin!!! For the cold soup! Then I proceeded to make salad for 35 – sooo good! It had the lettuce, spinach and other greens, plus sunflower seeds, candied pecans, craisins, chopped red onions, chopped chicken, and feta cheese. All mixed together with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Of course I got to rip, tear and chop the mixture of greens, plus all the chicken too! Then everyone else (they were busy making kebobs) left Ed and I watching the mixture of rice (it had several different types of rice in it) cook. At 4:45 Ed got the green soup mix out of the refrigerator and carried it down to Susan and Del’s lot where the dinner was held – while I carried the two big bowls of salad- we had already sent or taken everything else before that. Ed returned to the kitchen so that he could bring the rice right at 4:55 pm.

They had moved the tables from the deck at the clubhouse and set them up by Susan and Del’s place. They had decorated the tables with white table clothes and cut black and white hound’s-tooth print fabric squares with various cardboard bottle holders with colorful (fake) Shasta daisies coming out of the bottlenecks.

It looked very festive. I sat down with Sherry (her husband was sick all day Saturday so he didn’t make it to the party) and Chuck and Nancy and Ed and I. When Ed showed up I helped him put on his cuffs (the cufflinks were made out of screws, washers and a wing nut all painted black) and he put on his black tie so he would be properly dressed as a waiter. Fun! The first course was frescetta bread with different toppings …one with hummus, one with a thin slice of Swiss cheese topped with a dab of cranberry sauce and the best one was marinated feta cheese - all three were delicious.

Next came the cold soup – All the ingredients had been pureed together and then refrigerated. Just as they served it they added the thinly (very very thinly) sliced green onions and cucumbers. We have been promised recipes next weekend!

Course three was the salad – everyone loved it!

The fourth course was the main course….a vegetable shish kebob made up of red, yellow and green peppers, onion, zucchini, and yellow squash, and a choice between a beef or a chicken shish kabob. I chose the chicken and Ed chose the beef so we could taste both meats. They had been marinated in different sauces – the beef was good but the chicken was to die for.

The fifth and final course was dessert – Asian yogurt with honey with mixed berries and a chocolate stick and a white sugar stick.

It was a fantastic meal. It left us full but not stuffed. The waiters carried out their jobs with panache. Del had planned the whole thing with Ron helping him – he planned each and every dish, bought everything, hauled it up to the mtn and then supervised the completion of the whole party. He was even the one who ironed the tablecloths. Susan said she did very little to help – it was his party and he wanted to do it!!! What a fun evening. The jokes were fun, the skits were fun, the door prizes were fun…all in all a great time.

Sunday August 28. Last night we all decided that the summer was getting away from us and that we hadn’t had a communal breakfast yet. So we were all told to show up with whatever we wanted to add to the collection by 8:30 am and we would eat at 9. This time of course it was the ladies doing all the work but it was fun to work together. I brought hot chocolate mix, a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon. Patty had the bacon cooking on two skillets and Natalie was working on hash browns. I helped cook the bacon and we put it in a pan and put it in the oven to keep it warm. We blew a fuse as we had too many electric frying pans going at the same time!! As soon as I finished with the bacon I turned that skillet off and went over and started cooking the scrambled eggs – it was across the kitchen on another circuit. J As I cooked the eggs, Lori started in on cooking the French toast – she used the leftover frescetta bread from the night before and dipped them in egg batter with a bit of cinnamon in it. Others had brought orange juice, a big package of fresh raspberries and cinnamon rolls….we got the paper plates and plastic ware from the kitchen along with butter, syrup, jam, salt and pepper shakers and ketchup.

So we feasted again. The kitchen in the clubhouse is easily big enough for five or six cooks at a time. The only difficult thing is be careful and use the potable water for anything that someone might eat straight. We also would put a little bit of Clorox in the dishwater.

I spent another hour cleaning up the kitchen – right down to helping to mop the floor but it was a fun morning. Then Ed and I got on the four wheeler and rode back down to our trailer where we promptly took a nap. Right after noon we headed back up to the pool area where I got pretty good at playing volleyball! In the swimming pool so it makes to real difficult to move too far at a time to get a ball coming at ya but loads of fun. Of course my team lost both games!!

I stayed in the shade most of the day as I am finding myself burning really easily with the sulpha drug I am still on. Tonight will be the last of them thank Heavens! I feel like the ‘boil’ is finally clearing up – I stayed out of the pool and hot tub until 48 hours had passed from the last time it seeped water, blood or pus. Once it dried out on top I figured I couldn’t pass the staph infection to anyone else so it was safe to go back in the water.

Now the mtn is just about empty – Dee is the only other person up here. We are heading up to the hot tub to visit with him in about half an hour. We love the fun busy times and we love the relaxing quiet time too.

Monday August 29^th thru Tuesday Sept 4! Quiet week and busy busy fun weekend. Another new couple from Baker Oregon showed up last Monday and stayed a couple of nights. She was very very quiet but by the time they left she had started opening up. We enjoyed them. Took them on the hike up to Monkey Rock. Ed took his GPS and found that it is exactly 2 ½ miles ….a good 1/3 of that is very steep uphill and another ¼ is very steep downhill. I take THREE bottles of water with me to keep hydrated. During the week we got the fire pit finished, the waterfall cemented, a new flower garden created. Every morning we spend working on our lot and every afternoon we spend up at the pool. Wed and Thursday were very cool – it started warming back up on Friday so the weekend was comfortable but I could tell it was September. I am sooooo not ready for Fall. Brent and Kathy got here Friday afternoon and we thoroughly enjoyed having them stay with us for the long weekend. Kitty and Larry were here from Southern Utah, Randy and Rosemary from Bountiful and Don came (Lucinda was in Spain!!) with Lee. Lee cooked for the two of them all weekend in a Sun Oven!!! We are going to see if we can find them online. They would be fun to have.

Saturday evening there was a tailgate party at the pool at 3 in preparation for the big Bronco’s game that night. Boise was playing Georgia. There were parties going on a three different places that had tv’s and we could hear the cheers everytime Boise made a touchdown! Lots of good food –

Sunday evening we had a delicious meal cooked by Jerry and Shirley – just $5 a couple. Again – lots and lots of good food! Monday morning we did another ‘group’ breakfast. Busy weekend – lots and lots of people for the Labor Day weekend. Monday by 3 most everyone had left….there were only about four or five couples left on the mtn. Tina had a family party with her two daughters and their husbands and her three adorable grandsons. It was fun to meet her family. Susan and Del stopped by Monday evening to give me a gardening lesson on the different plants in our hillside and how to care for them. Al and Lori stopped in on their way home from a fun resort in California that they went to – got the rest of us excited about going there for a visit. Lori’s dad was retiring after 63 years of driving a milk truck –he started at age 12!! Last night at 10:30 he was bringing his last route to a close and so she had me help her make a big banner that said “Happy Retirement Buzz….it’s great that you quit before the milk curdled!” They were going to hold it up as he drove into the yard on his last run and let him drive through the sign.

So quiet on the mountain again today. We only have a week left of our idyll… We are going down to Boise tomorrow to buy the food for Ed’s retirement dinner that we are cooking for the group on Saturday – we are going to dutch oven a complete meal. We will go to Meridian and visit with Susan and Del at their house…wash my sheets so I can leave the trailer with a clean set on the beds; and hopefully get our emails too!

Wednesday – Sept 7: Drove to Meridian today and went and visited Susan and Del at their lovely home. We got on the computer and caught up with our emails and washed one batch of clothes and then after they were dried and folded we went to dinner with them at a fun Mexican restaurant. We sat and talked for a couple of hours and finally they headed back home and we went to Winco’s and bought groceries for the dutch oven dinner to be held on Saturday.

Thursday and Friday – quiet days on the mountain – we wire brushed the deck and painted the whole thing a warm pretty brown – it looks great. I finally decided to use my phone to take pictures with so I could add them to this blog and when I sat down to download them onto the computer I realized I have lost the USB port that holds my mini card from the phone. So I can’t use the phone for a camera either. No luck either way. Spent another nice afternoon at the pool – didn’t even have to vacuum it as Dave from Idaho City vacuumed it before we got up there. So we lazed around the pool. Friday evening I went to the board meeting and listened carefully to the plans for the club. We made a great big sign that said “to retirement and Beyond….Congratulations Ron and Ed!!! Ron retired the first part of June and Ed retired the end of June. Ron didn’t know we were making the sign and including him in Saturday nights’ celebration.

Saturday morning, while Patty was at the trailer visiting (and Ed was busy with the macerator pump and black tank) Dee showed up asking for help up at the commons ground, as Dean had showed up with the big tent. We were trying it out for size to see if it would work for a new clubhouse. We have been trying to decide (as a club) whether or not we wanted to stick build a new and bigger clubhouse or put up a tent that we could have drop down sides on and a few heaters that would give us a place to meet and play when the weather is bad – I was all for the new building itself until they explained that it still wouldn’t give us a club house during the winter as we have no parking areas big enough to hold the 20 or 30 cars minimum that would show up for a winter party. Rethinking the clubhouse to simply extend the summer fun two or three extra weeks in April/May and two or three extra weeks in September/October plus rainy summer days – the tent 20x40 feet – would do fine. Anyway we had about 8-10 people show up at the commons area and Dean showed us how easy it is to set up. After the tent was set up we relaxed up at the pool until about 2 when Ed and I went back to the clubhouse and started slicing potatoes and chopping onions. We headed up to the pool and played a wild game of pool volleyball until about 3:30 and then we headed back to the commons area . Ed started the briquettes while I went in and started working on the salad. I had lots of help with slicing tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad and vegetable tray. Someone ran back to their trailer and grabbed another can of olives to go with the two I had brought it as we all decided that the platter was lopsided and needed more olives. That’s how we work together on the mountain.

I had previously gone through my jewelry and put together decorated bags with different necklaces and earrings and bracelets and watches. I put about $40 worth of jewelry in each bag. I set them all up on the lid of the hot tub for a silent auction. I started bidding at $10 per bag. I donated all winnings to the club and we auctioned those bags at $20 and $25 per bag. Ed and I made about $140 for the club doing that.

The food turned out delicious although the chicken took awhile to get done. We dutch ovened chicken, potatoes (with bacon, onions, and cheese), green beans (again with the onions and bacon) and then had a huge salad plus a huge vegetable platter. Donna had some left over French bread that she turned into garlic bread to go with the meal. Then Ed made his famous beer scones which we served with whipped butter and either honey or jam. DELICIOUS!!

As this was also the Volunteer Appreciation dinner – the club honors all the volunteers for the summer at this meal… and since everything on the mountain is done with volunteers it is a special night. Everything from thanking the officers and committee members to thanking Alan for macerating the waste from the pool outhouse to thanking those who watered the lawns and mowed the lawns and replaced the bad Trex around the pool with new Trex and built stairs and etc and so forth.

They had chosen several items from the mini store in the clubhouse and set them out and had drawings through the whole dinner for door prizes. I had offered one necklace out of my box of older necklaces. That was the first item chosen. The next ticket we called was new lady and she joined Sharon sorting through the box to find something she wanted. Sharon looked at me with a question in her eye saying “there is only supposed to be ONE item from this box isn’t there?” I nodded but mouthed to her quietly that “I would donate two necklaces .“ We had a marvelous time and everyone loved the whole evening. Afterwards we cleaned up and I was sooo tired but then they hollered out for a NIGHT volleyball game – so I went up and joined them. I’m a lot better than I was when I started playing at the first of the summer…but I still miss a lot! However since we are all playing for fun no one cares who wins or loses. The water in the pool Saturday night was probably 86 degrees – it felt wonderful. We played FIVE games!!! Finally about 9:30 we quit. I went back down the stairs and found Ed sitting at the campfire visiting with a bunch of people. I slept really well let me tell you!!

Sunday was a quieter day – very relaxing. We did manage to get enough people at the pool to have a fun volleyball game from about 1 until 3 when everyone said “time to go home!!” Chuck and Nancy invited us over to their trailer for elk steak that night – ymmmmm.

Monday – we got up and had breakfast and relaxed and read – we were the only ones on the mountain except for Machelle….it was so quiet. We fixed ourselves a lunch and went on a four wheel ride4 over to a pretty little valley on the other side of the canyon that has been closed off for several years but was recently reopened. We read, ate our lunch and did some shooting. Then we got back to the swimming pool by about 2 pm. We had the pool to ourselves the whole day. I read and floated and drank my Pepsi. We swam and thoroughly enjoyed the pool. Finally about six we headed back to the trailer, had some supper and started packing up so we would be able to leave early Tuesday morning. I realized in the middle of the packing that it was the 12^th of September---Ethan’s birthday. I sent a text message to Kris to tell him Happy Birthday. During that three weeks we missed 5 of our grandchildren’s birthdays. Oh well – they had their presents already, so that’s the important thing. I changed the sheets on our bed so we could come back to clean sheets. We both ended up having a shower after we got all packed so we could climb into those clean sheets with a clean body. I think that is the first time Ed has used the shower in our trailer. It is so little and narrow. He always goes up and soaks in the hot tub and visits and then uses the showers at the clubhouse where he has room to move.

We are on our way home …hate to see our idyllic vacation come to an end! It has been wonderful. We are going to go up to Monte Cristo with the kids next week so we are still praying for warm weather.

Goodbye Grandma Bea

2011-04-15T10:44:00.001-07:00

My byline for sometime has been, Remember the dash. Beatrice Lowe Willden, 1924-2011...the dash representing the years lived.

Grandma Bea filled her life with fun and love and laughter. Even better, she shared that fun and love and laughter with everyone she met.

I met my future mother-in-law one cold February morning in 1967 - about 7:30 in the morning. Ed brought me in the house and said "Mom, this is Susan...Susan this is my mom - I will see you this afternoon when I get done with Guard". ...and he left!! I was petrified...but within two or three minutes I realized there was nothing to fear.

His mother was so full of life and so full of fun - we had a grand day. His sister Colleen showed up with her baby Gina, and the three of us laughed and talked and had a ball. They talked me into wearing Colleen's prom dress for the National Guard Ball that evening instead of the formal that I had brought with me. I always said that I fell in love with his mother and married Ed.

Watch out Heaven....grandma Bea has arrived! Never, not once did I not feel welcome when we went to Beaver. Always she folded us under her wing and made us feel loved and appreciated. My kids LOVED to go to grandma Bea's because of the love and joy she shared with everyone. My kids had a one grandma they were scared of, especially when they were little - and then they had Grandma Bea with her teasing and loving way.

I don't remember Bea ever really losing her temper - even when she had all six of her kids and all their spouses and all their kids running around in her little house. Imagine, if you will: Her sons (by now, all grown men) wrestling on the living room floor, with Colleen and all of her daughter in laws with a baby in arms sitting around the living room, and all the grandkids running in circles literally - from the kitchen thru the bathroom, the bedroom, the livingroom and back into the kitchen chasing each other and yelling and teasing each other again and again and again. The noise level was off the charts and we would all visit and laugh and talk over and above it all! That little house just rocked. Bea was Aunt Bea to most of the kids in Beaver ...that turned to Grandma Bea as those kids grew up and had kids - she loved everyone. You never went anywhere in a hurry with Bea, because everyone had to stop and talk to her and get teased about their latest escapade.

I loved Grandma Bea like a second mother - she was the best mother in law anyone could ever ask for. She treated us as adults, gave advice ONLY when we asked for it, and loved all of her 'kids in law" as if they were her own.

The world is a little grayer now that Grandma Bea has gone. She returned to her sweetheart Cecil on what would have been his 90th birthday. I can imagine the reunion on the other side of the veil with Cecil and Colleen and Randy waiting to welcome her. Her parents and siblings that have already passed on. I remember watching her with her brothers and sisters at a funeral back in the 60's. There were a bunch of them and they were lining up for a picture and you would have thought they were all 9 or 10 years old - the teasing, the devil horns, the poking and playing around. I wasn't sure we were going to be able to settle them down long enough to get a picture. So much fun and love and laughter.

I forgot to bring the cord to my computer and so I am sitting in the lobby of the Comfort Inn here in Beaver using their computer and internet to write this so I can make the juice in my computer last until we are ready to go back home. I will have to go through my pictures and find some good ones to add to this blog.

Grandma Bea, Beatrice, Mom - I love you and will miss you - you have been a major influence in my life for a lot of years now-even from a distance. Keep an eye on us all from up above - thank heavens we have you as a mom forever. You taught us all how to live our lives to the fullest and to 'remember the dash'....you filled yours well

Just a Walk in the Park

2011-03-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Its good to be home and walking again - I missed it while I was gone and then had a Dr. appointment on Monday morning so Tuesday was my first day back at the park and was it gorgeous. It was the morning AFTER that huge snowstorm. The snow was so heavy.

I actually remembered to take my camera and I probably took too many pictures but every time I turned another corner it was just too beautiful to not snap a picture

what a spring snowstorm can do!

Yes - this is at the Layton Park
Winter Wonderland!
A bend in the River
The same bend but a few feet further where the rocks create a mini rapids
All the ducks were farther down the river - and they WERE HUNGRY!!
I love the lacy look of this one with just a bit of the blue sky peaking out

A snow laden tree
More of the lacy creations of a snowy morn

Green tree trunks

The walks were cleared and everything was so peaceful!

Isn't it gorgeous?

Quartzsite 2011

2011-02-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

We have been down here in Quartzsite since Thursday afternoon. It stormed the first several days but now it is trying to warm up; - We went to Church on sunday - I still feel like I am one of the youngest women there!! I was talking to one lady that used to live in Kaysville and I asked her if she went to Davis - she said yes, but didn't graduate as she got married instead. She would have graduated in 1946...that was a whole year BEFORE I was even born!

We went on a fun four wheeling trip yesterday with our friends that are already down here - there were about a dozen people and about 9 vehicles. Quartzsite is ticketing people that are riding double on normal 4 wheelers because of the sticker on the machine that says we shouldn't do it. We have our razor that of course rides two people but we also have my Suzuki and we want to be able to have kitty and Larry ride on it!! I don't know how we are going to handle that.

Today is supposed to be 4 degrees warmer than yesterday (probably about 65 NO WIND!! There is a good breeze blowing but there is not a cloud in the sky! Beautiful!) I am sitting at the laundromat right now (we could have waited a few more days before doing laundry but I wanted to check for emails!!) As soon as I get back to camp I am going to find a lounge chair in the sun!!

Tomorrow all the ladies in our group are going to carpool up to the Blue Water Casino outside of Parker and go to lunch and then to a movie!! FUN!

Not too many open air stalls left - we definitely missed the big shows ...oh well, less temptation to spend money.

We are enjoying ourselves and watching lots of movies so far because of the cooler weather.

We are missing you all but excited to have this vacation!

My bathroom to be!

2011-02-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

I don't know why it has been so difficult to blog lately!! I keep trying to figure out what I want'/need to share with the world and my life has been pretty much so so for this year. I haven't flown anywhere or done anything extra special - just life.

However, things are coming up. Ed mentioned the other day that he is planning on starting to re-do our bathroom in March. He wanted to know if I thought we should replace the vanity and top - along with sink. We have been 'going' to redo the floor with tile since 2002 when we came back from Texas...every year we have talked about it and planned it - it needs it badly with a big split running through the laminate flooring. But it was so easy to put off -

NO LONGER>>> YAY!!!
Since we started planning way back when I have wanted to go with a warm brown slate tile. Probably the 12x12 size. With a cream colored grout.

we feel like it would match the cabinet shown here (I don't know why it copied over so teensy) but this one has 2 drawers and three cabinets - in a warm pecan. We have just begun to start looking though - we know we don't want a cabinet like we had before (even before it was painted green) and we don't want white or really dark wood - the room is too small already. When we saw this cabinet we really liked it.I really really really want a stand alone sink - it sits above the vanity with a solid slab of granite under it. I liked the look of this clear glass sink but there is another one amber in color that would look gorgeous with the colors we have picked out for the room.

This is the color of the granite that we want - it picks up the colors of the vanity and the floor.
When we get back from Arizona we will pull out the old tub and start chipping out the old tile around the tub because it is all white. We will replace our 28 year old tub and toilet with a new ones that are colored 'biscuit' I want to put the same tile that is on the floor on the walls around the tub - probably using the 6x6 tiles...and I would like to put a couple rows of decorative tile in there too.

Of course Ed will do the tiling with my help. I know we will paint the room too before we do much of anything but I don't know yet whether or not I want to tile up the walls or just do a mopboard of tile. We will see. Then we get to pick out faucets and towel bars etc.

We are trying to get our house all shipshape before we retire and run out of money. This should keep us busy all spring!!

Updated ...Just call me spoiled!!

2010-12-21T20:11:00.000-08:00

Since I am doing the 12 Days of Christmas for my kids and our parents, Ed has decided to do the 12 Days of Christmas for me!! WOW!! He said he basically has taken my Christmas wish list and added to it but he has added in a big way!!

Day one - my new 34" tv
Day two- a new bra from Victoria Secret
Day three - we took my rings to Kay Jewelry to replace the missing smaller diamond
Day four- a new freezer
Day five- a new magazine for my pistol
Day six - a new alarm clock
Day seven - a spin toothbrush
Day eight - $50 gift card at my favorite bead store - Avery Beads!
Day nine - another alarm clock (Ed says one is for our trailer in Boise and the other is for our toy hauler)
Day ten - two Christmas CD Albums - one by Susan Boyle and one by Kenny Chesney (All I Want For Christmas...) I loved them both
Day eleven - $50 gift card to Kohl's
Day twelve - I figured at this point I would have ONE present to open on Christmas Day - NOT SO!!
Ed had wrapped up a Kindle;
plus a leather cover for it with attached light,
another alarm clock!! :-D...this is the one for MY bedside
a gift card to California Nails
a gift card to Forever Shoes
a set of shooting ear muffs - you can hear people talking but
it protects your ears when the gun is shot

We had been talking about replacing the freezer and TV for months but I love the way Ed has pulled it all together! He laughs and says this way he doesn't have to wrap anything - but he did!!!!

I told you I am spoiled !!

I gave Ed his own Kindle, plus leather cover, two shirts, socks, a fun Christmas tie, the shooting ear muffs, old spice, and a large Craftsman tool chest on wheels that he really wanted.

I think that this is the last BIG Christmas we will have since he will retire this next year and we will have to go on a budget again!

We as a family had a wonderful Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the on the Sunday after Christmas we drove to Orem and Leah was blessed - then on Monday we got to go see the Lights of Layton with Shawn and Kris, Cade, Makae, Ethan and Jace - and then we all went out to dinner afterwards. So we had a marvelous and wonderful Christmas

Fun stuff at the Boutique

2010-11-26T18:43:00.001-08:00

All week long I have been posting to my Petal Soft Jewelry blog spot getting ready for the Boutique - this time I am going to show you some of the stuff from the other Vendors.

These cute little boxes are picture boxes... The Christmas ones are really special because when you open it there is a little Christmas tree inside. Plus lots of 'petals' where you can paste pictures. $10 each for the Christmas boxes...$8.00 each for the generic picture boxes.

These are accordian picture books. Some are made with Christmas paper and others are Halloween and many are school books and some are just generic.

When you undo the bow and open the book you have accordian pages that will hold pictures.
I believe these sell for $6.00 each

Joan Meldrum makes these adorable Scripture totes - This one is made of faux leather. Each of them are line with double pockets inside.

As you can see she has quite an array of them - all sorts of choices. I think they would make cute little diaper bags or fun purses too! And best of all they sell for only $10

I hope to see you at the other half of our boutique - tomorrow, Saturday, from 10-2

A Day in MY life!

2010-10-26T16:58:00.001-07:00

What a day! I was going to facebook this but I decided there was NO way I could get it all in the 465 (or however many) characters permitted. So here goes:

Went for my 2 1/2 mile walk with Cheryl at the Park in the snow
Voted
Went to Home Depot and bought a new toilet seat
Went to Avery Hill Beads and bought some new silver beads (FUN!)
Spent 2 hours at the Doctor's office
went to Ross for Less and took back the toilet seat I bought there yesterday cause it wouldn't work right
went to Michael's and bought a 14 kt gold chain to make another necklace (I got out of there with ONLY that one item...miracle!)
went to America First and deposited the checks from Saturday's boutique
went to Kim's fashions and bought some jewelry to take apart for beads
made a gorgeous brown chunky necklace and earring set
chopped up tomatoes and onions and cilantro and canned 7 pints and 2 quarts of salsa!
and its only 5:45...I still have supper to fix!

All that and it wasn't even a go see dad day!!! Plus we had a tankless water heater installed today! WOW

Meal in a Bag

2010-10-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago there was an interesting article in The Standard Examiner about a book describing a fascinating method of food storage. The premise behind the book was that instead of (or in addition to) the long range method of storing wheat and rice, etc., that we should also store the food that we use everyday. The author came up with about 100 meals that she could store 'in a bag'.

Kecia and I decided to order the book and try bagging up some meals. She brought Emma and Leah up to my house on Monday and was going to bring the makings of 2 or 3 meals and I was going to organize the makings of 2 or 3 additional meals.

She called me at 9 am that morning and said that she had everyone bathed and dressed and fed and was starting to pack the car but had decided that she wasn't going to be able to bring the meal stuff - there was just too much to pack just to get the three of them here. I told her fine, I would have some food ready to bag.

This is what our first two bags looked like. The first recipe we took directly out of the book. I had all the different ingredients already in my fruit room It is called "Roast Beef Dinner" and consists two cans of chunked roast beef (I had bought a case of the beef a year or so ago when I had gone to the Ogden Cannery and helped can the stuff!), one can of beef gravy, one package of potato pearls (we pulled all the air out of the bag we sealed it in with my Seal-A-Meal machine - that was really handy), a can of vegetables and one bottle of water. The water was to reconstitute the potato pearls. We then scanned the recipe from the book and stapled it onto the bag

We put an expiration date of 10/11 - one year from now. The recipe also called for powdered milk but that was just to make the instant potatoes with and I used potato pearls. Each meal will feed about six people and costs about $5 - and comes with however much bottled water needed to reconstitute it or boil pasta in.
This is the other main meal - tuna noodle casserole. It has a can of tuna, cream of mushroom soup and evaporated milk. I need to find some packets of dried cheese to put on the top of it. We also decided we need to buy some mini packets of salt and pepper to add to each meal. Since this was a meal of my own imagination, we simply wrote out the instructions on the outside of the bag. Once we use a 'bag' we will refill it - when we get the plastic bags with better handles on it we will attach a CD sleeve to put the instruction in and we won't have to refill the bags with the same meals. We can refill the bottles of water though to replace what was used in the meal preparation.
The third meal we did was a breakfast. We seal-a-mealed quick oatmeal, added ziplock sandwich bags with sugar and cinnamon, added six packets of hot choc mix and you can see the two bottles of water - I need to buy one more bottle of water to add to this meal to give the water necessary to make the oatmeal AND the hot chocolate.
Here are the three bags we put together. We are looking for better bags that can be reused again and again. I put these three in my coat closet by my 72 hour kits so that if there is an emergency I can grab them and run - and eat a lot better than what I have in my 72 hour kit...not only that but have enough each meal to share with others since there is only Ed and I.
One of the most exciting things about this whole thing was that this was stuff I already have in my food storage - I just needed to organize it. This is what was left over from the food I brought up from the fruit room before I decided which recipes I wanted to sack up. I have cans of chicken and a box of Brown Rice. I have a spaghetti dinner with a vegetable. I have cans of whole potatoes... and I have packages of beans and rice which in and of itself is a complete protein...

The book is full of simple ideas that I can make up into meal bags or I can just take some of my own tried and true recipes and organize them also. Now I just need to start moving things around under my stair well to give me some shelves to store these meals in. Then when I can't figure out what to fix for dinner I can just go downstairs and 'grab a meal'!!

Kec and I had a lot of fun putting these meals together and plan on doing more together and separately in the future. I think it would be fun to get together with all my girls and make up some meals. And it could be a really fun Relief Society Activity too.

Our Mountain Spot

2010-10-04T00:00:00.001-07:00

All summer long you have heard me say "we're going to the mountain"...and off we go, just Ed and I to enjoy each other's company...no phone, no internet...just time away from the hectic lives we lead, enjoying the beautiful mountain retreat. I am not complaining about my life as I truly am spoiled but there are weeks that I am so stressed with constant going going going and running running running and doing doing doing that I NEED my down time to survive. We belong to a private campground in the mountains East of Boise. It is a camp ground literally built on the side of a mountain. We have a fun swimming pool to enjoy, a beautiful commons area covered in grass and surrounded by pine trees (mainly Ponderosa pines) and a club house with a big deck to have parties on. We love the people we have met up in Idaho... our only complaint is that it is so far away from home...5-6 hour drives, depending on whether or not we are hauling a trailer behind us.

This is what my flower garden looked like before I went to work on the weeds.
There are some pretty flowers planted long ago, but it is so inundated with weeds you can't appreciate them at all
I got me a pair of working gloves and a fantastic little hand shovel and went to work. This year I cleaned out the weeds and next year I plan on filling it with flowers! I think I enjoy this because here in Layton the yard has always been Eds - this flower garden in Idaho is mine!! YAY! Now I need to learn about plants that don't take too much water, although we do have access to all we want we don't want to waste it as there is a whole mountain full of people using the same spring!
Frank and Cat said that they have tried planting grass across the street from here several times...but it never took. I think that's because all the seed blew across the road and landed in the flower gardens. The normal weeds weren't hard to get out but the roots on the grass system was a bear. I got blisters on top of blisters this summer cleaning all the grass roots out of the beds.

The grass is going to be an ongoing problem along with the suckers from the wild roses and the various trees around, but if I can stay ahead of the game I can win!! It will just mean spending at least an hour or two every week pulling weeds.
This is a corner of our toy hauler when we went up to the mountain in 2007. We parked on someone else's lot and enjoyed their gorgeous view of the mountain. They had a nice deck overhanging the cliff. We won't be able to do that as we have road and fence right in front of lot - but we have great plans to beautify our little corner of bear mtn.
This is a view from atop the mountain across the canyon looking down on part of Bear Mtn. Mainly you can see the roads traversing the side of the mountain/ I believe the swimming pool is just to the left of the first tree - more than halfway up the 'tree' (the light blue spot). We are WAY across the canyon looking down.
This is a picture of the pool - they heat it with a combination of solar panels (thats the long black stuff you see above the pool) and propane. There is a nice grassy area at the top edge of the pool hidden by the pine trees. Although we have running water and electricity we do not have indoor plumbing (except in our individual trailers), thus the cute little biffy in the lower left hand corner of the picture.
Another view from across the canyon - quite a bit closer. Our trailer is the one to the right of the tree trunk. You can see Frank and Cat's trailer to the left of ours. There are a couple more trailers hidden in the trees - the road zigzags up the mountain side.
Here is our 'new' 2003 Wilderness trailer sitting on the lot. There is a lot of work for us to do to make our lot as pretty and refreshing as many of the older lots are. The open ground at the fore- front of the picture is 'common ground' between us and our neighbors, Frank and Cat. We are going to either plant grass to share, with a fire pit in the middle of it (so we can invite all our neighbors over for an open house and cook s'mores) or we are going to make a 'patio' of flat rocks - again with the fire pit. The hillside behind is going to be terraced so that we can plant flowers AND tomatoes and squash and strawberries...it has to be terraced because it is so steep - but by the end of next year I hope to post a before and after picture showing how pretty and green it turns out.
This picture was taken in August of our old trailer...Ed has been busy leveling out the area - I have one of the most sunny spots on the mountain and I am thankful for it. I love the warmth of the sun. It will be greener though!
This is looking to the East of our trailer - there are two trailer lots on the same level at the end of the road. You can see the outhouse for our level, then there is a beautiful lot next to it that has got so many flowers and bushes planted on the hillside right outside where the door of the trailer would sit. You can see the car and edge of the trailer for Don and Lucinda who live 'at the end of the lane'. The road up the hill takes you to Bobby Lee and Elizabeth's spot.
Another view of our barren hillside that will next year be blooming!

These pavers came out of the unused sand box in the back yard (the grandkids can play in the sand around the swingset now) We are going to use them to make steps up the side of our big hill so we can terrace it and put in a drip system to water the flowers and plants we are going to plant.
i took these pictures this weekend - the sumac in front of my door (across the road) is simply beautiful with the fall colors. The rest of the mountain is just starting to change - but this tree is so striking - and notice please, the absence of weeds!.

another view!

The sumac with the mountains above it

Some of the daisy's I found when I finally got all the weeds cleaned out of the flower gardens.
I think right now Ed and I are being very selfish with our time...but after years of raising kids and working, we are now at the point of our lives when we are ready to retire and boy WE ARE READY. Our little spot at Bear Mtn is OUR spot...just the two of us. We hope to do some more camping and four wheeling with our kids and grandkids with the ATV and the razor and the toy hauler too. The first few years of our retirement I don't know how often we will be home...one or two weeks out of the month maybe. Of course, some of these plans will depend on my dad's health. We hope to go to Germany next summer with Donald and Bonnie, and also head up into Oregon and Washington in our trailer. We figure that when we are sightseeing the North Western states we won't want to haul a four wheeler around so our new trailer will work perfectly. And at some point we want to go on a mission.... probably the fall of 2012.

Our Trip to the Columbia River Gorge

2010-09-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

Ed had a Central Region directors meeting in Washington at the Skamania Lodge right on the Columbia River. I got to tag along and was so excited to do so, as I had never been in this part of Washington before, and had never been in Oregon before either. We were going to fly to Portland on the day after Labor Day and then fly home on Friday. We decided to drive instead so that we could see more of the country (and spend some more time at our favorite camping spot in Idaho)

Ed had spent the week in Philadelphia and his flight got him home at 11:00 am on Friday - we had everything packed in the car and ready to go and headed out by 11:3o! We spent Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, camping in the mountains just north of Boise, Idaho. Tuesday morning we headed West to Oregon. It was a beautiful drive - the rolling hills of Eastern Oregon were golden and so soothing. The mountains between LeGrande and Pendleton were lovely. And then we got to the Columbia River and the Gorge.

Gorgeous is the only word that describes that whole area. Miles and miles of driving down past this huge river - being fascinated by the fact that

So here are the pictures -

A gorgeous view from the Vista View looking West toward Portland down the Columbia River Gorge
Turned slightly to my right and took this picture looking up the Columbia River Gorge
Out on a walk at the Skamania Resort with a friend Kris - I was about to take a picture of this beautiful moss covered log when she offered to take a picture of me with it. Since Ed never (hardly) ever takes pictures of me, I said go for it!

This is the view up River from the Skamania Lodge
I am standing on the second floor balcony taking this picture out the front window of the Skamania Lodge
Looking over the same balcony towards the foyer and the front doors of the lodge
HorseTail Falls

We headed up highway 30 to do some sightseeing and this is the first of a whole string of marvelous waterfalls. This one plunges about 280 feet straight down from Horsetail Creek. Ed mentioned that a 'creek' that puts out this much water in Utah would be called a river in Utah!
This is called the Multanomah Falls and it is simply gorgeous!! It falls almost 648 feet total with the main fall being 580 feet down to a small pool - a rock bridge has been built for tourists to get closer - and then another 8 feet farther down. We hiked up to the bridge but didn't hike all the way to the top of the ridge. Then we hopped back in the car again and drove to two more falls but didn't take pictures of them.
Here is Ed leaning back to get the whole fall in one shot!

This is the Bridge of the Gods - about 5000 years ago there was a huge earthquake and rock slide that came down and created a land bridge from shore to shore for hundreds of years. It slowly wore away until all signs of it were gone and the Indians always talked about the Bridge of the Gods. So a bridge was built in the same area only above the water - part of the bridge lifts up so boats can pass under. ..and it was named The Bridge of the Gods. It is a toll road and it cost us $1 every time we went back and forth across it. One side of the bridge is Oregon and the other side is Washington.

Some how these pictures are out of sequence - this, again is the Multonomah Falls...from the top down to the pool and bridge

and from the pool area down to the next level...from here the river turns left and contines on down a slide of rocks. Beautiful
I first saw the mossy trees here and had to get some pictures. You wouldn't be able to trust that old adage that moss grows on the North side of the trunk so if you got lost you could find your directions by looking at the moss.
These are the Cascade Locks built across a portion of the river - there is another 2/3 of the river on the right side of this picture where there are three dams built right next to each other. I would have loved to have seen this river a hundred years ago before the dams were built every 20 miles up and down the river - smoothing it out like a large lake between dams. The locks are here to help the barges and boats move from one water level to the next

This is the paddle wheel boat we got to go on for a dinner cruise up and down the river on Thursday evening with Ed's coworkers. His big boss was there and when Scott told me Happy Anniversary, I told him that I thought it was very nice for his company to treat us to this wonderful vacation for our 43rd wedding anniversary!
On the dinner cruise looking out at the pine covered hills - the weather was very comfortable - it rained quite often but it wasn't cold.
We had a marvelous four days in Oregon/Washington. For our anniversary on Wed the 8th we took off and enjoyed the waterfalls and then went to Tod's chick'n n dumplings for some of the best dumplings we have ever eaten!! It was in Troutdale and it finished off a wonderful day of celebration!

Learning to Shoot

2010-08-07T01:23:00.001-07:00

This month I went with Shawn and Ed to an all day training class to learn how to handle a gun. I had taken the class and earned my concealed carry permit but knew that I needed to learn how to handle a gun properly. It was one of the hardest things I have ever in my life done, mainly because I COULDN'T do it!! Eight hours of nonstop training and I was still struggling to get my gun out of the holster!
Most of the morning we spent learning safety and practicing different ways of standing and shooting. Mark is checking here to make sure that I have the correct grip on my pistol
Ed took me out the week before the class and bought me my own Smithfield Arms 9mm pistol. I had been having elbow and finger knuckle pains for several months and I wasn't sure that I could even cock the gun because of the weakness in my hands and arms. Shawn switched pistols with me the morning of the class as his SM 9 wasn't as tight and difficult to operate because he had used it lots and lots before. Mine was still very stiff.
Here is Edward shooting around corners and under "cars"Mark is saying (for the umpteenth time) 'keep those thumbs together'!
This was actually at the end of the day, one of the final exercises where we were 'playing' like we were firing around a parked car or other obstructions. I was really proud of my moves as I went from a standing position to rolling onto the ground and firing and hitting the target and then moving back into a kneeling position as I continued to fire. Then I attempted to stand back up and knelt on an empty shell casing....owwwww....all training went out the window as my old age caught up with me - trying to stand up, get off the casing, waving a loaded pistol around...those poor instructors had their hands full with me!Most of these shots were taken in the afternoon as we attempted, one trainee at a time to shoot on command at different targets, while taking cover behind the barrels. Again - once I got the pistol OUT of the holster and get the RIGHT grip I did okay. But time after time I would attempt to pull the pistol out of the serpa holster and not hold it right because of the angle of the holster and the gun would refuse to fire. Once I checked my grip and held it the right way, I was able to fire and hit!
Got him!
here's Ed firing. Shawn took the pictures.
Aim, shoot, fireI am not sure at what point Shawn took this picture but I am really really close to tears here. It seems like I am a total clutz with no ability to LEARN! All day long the instructors had drilled the same stuff into my head, grip the pistol correctly - grip the pistol correctly...and I kept forgetting to do it. I was so disgusted with myself at the end of the day and any and all confidence I had in my ability to learn something new was totally gone. I figured that if I ran into a bad guy and had a full two minutes to pull my gun from the hoster and get my grip right then I could probably hit him!!

However, I told Mark at the end of the day that I WOULD BE BACK! I knew now what I needed to practice and how I needed to do it. Once I overcome the holster draw and get my thumbs together I will be back to show him that I did learn a lot from the class -

And, Mark is using me as his poster child....even old ladies can learn to shoot http://www.realworldpds.com/default.html

MAYBE! Actually, throughout the whole day once I got the right hold of the gun I was a pretty good shot.

The Week of the New Carpet

2010-05-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures and downloaded them to this blog site two weeks ago - but never finished the post. So here it is. As you all know we recarpeted our house at the end of May. And I love it - I am finding myself DI'ing a whole lot of stuff that is just plain clutter - pretty clutter but clutter never the less.

This is the living room with the old carpet - it really wasn't in terrible shape, at least in the livingroom but I had NEVER liked the color - when I bought it at RC Willey's it looked like a pale mauve but when I got in home (in 1994) it turned gray...literally! With the white paint on the walls it looked awful. When we bought our new living room set in 2002 after returning from Texas we put our large beautiful area rug on top of it and its looked fine for the last eight years. But I was tired of it and it was past time to change.

It still has a lot of good wear in it though and happily it is being recycled in Glenn's new studio in Orem... whatever is left over there we will probably give to Dirk to use in front of his new trailer to give the kids some good play area when they camp places with sticky weeds and broken glass like we had in Beaver Memorial weekend.
above picture and below picture - Our bedroom - with all the furniture moved out -

Extra bedroom upstairs - that carpet really really needed to be pulled out and thrown away
above and below - our poor kitchen the night before the install - Shawn came and helped us move all of our livingroom furniture and the kitchen table into the toy hauler.
Then we moved all the bedroom furniture into the kitchen!!

May 25th - the guys showed up at 11 am and put down the red pad!
here they are out in the street where they rolled out my new carpet to cut it to size!! Luckily we don't have alot of traffic on our street!
the carpet is down in the livingroom - and they are working in the bedroom now with pieces of carpet and pad just laying around. I really don't understand this picture though as it looks like my curio cabinet is in the living room and it was actually in the kitchen - I don't know how it got into the picture!!!!
New carpet - so pretty - in the pictures you really can't see the beautiful pale dusty green color that it is!! It looks almost like my old stuff but it is a much prettier color in reality - you will have to come see it!

Ira came over and helped Ed move the furniture back inside - what would we do without our kids?

I have rearranged the furniture also besides decluttering and really love the living room now. I now that today's 'style' is leather and painted walls but I love my flowered furniture and matching droopy drapes. And I am thrilled with my new carpet. The bedroom is all put back together also and NOW I get to start on moving my office upstairs and putting the extra bedroom in the basement - still lots of work but its surely worth it!

Kecia wants to win this!

2010-05-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

This looks like a fantastic deal - good luck Kecia...I put it on facebook and here...now what do I do?
Kecia wants to win this mixer -

Bosch has always been known to have some of the best products on the market. Kecia I wish you luck.

This is the link to the site http://dealstomeals.blogspot.com/2010/05/free-bosch-mixer.html

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

2010-05-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy - Trying saying that three times FAST!!!

Its also called an EGD (now I know why!) and I am scheduled to have one on Friday afternoon. Since the CT scans and the colonoscopy didn't show any problems this is the next test the doctor is coming up with. They will sedate me (I don't know if they will take me all of the way out) and I can't have anything to eat for 16 hours prior to the scope - then they will insert a thin flexible, lighted tube called an endoscope down my throat. Hopefully I will just have a slight sore throat after. Maybe they will find the answer.

One positive thing though - it is time for my 6 month lab test for my diabetes - Friday morning after I've fasted for 10 hours I will go up to HAFB and let them draw blood and then Friday afternoon I will go have the EDG - I will only have to fast ONCE!

Meet Alex

2010-04-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

I took Ben and Simon to mama and daddy and baby Alex at the hospital yesterday - we lasted maybe 20 minutes....Ben was very shy of the new baby as we walked in. Da was holding Alex and Ben immediately stepped back closer to me ...didn't know what to think. ..so I suggested tht he might want to set up on the bed with mama...his eyes lit up and he said YEAH! So up he went - mom took Ben and I took Alex. I got to check Alex out - talk about one solid little guy - I'm still not too sure how long he was but he truly handles the 9 lbs 5 oz without any problem. Ten toes on the long Willden feet, soft brown hair, didn't get to see the eyes. He surely can pull some faces though!

This is my favorite picture - you can tell from his ears that he isn't premature - such a softy!

Another good frowny face.

The whole family -this lasted a few minutes, long enough for me to shoot a couple pictures with Dirk's camera and a couple with mine. Then the boys wanted down. they got tired of running in circles around the room (although the room WAS twice the size Glenn's was at the Provo Hospital!). Then they discovered the push buttons on mama's bed and that was the beginning of the end - about the time they had mom folded nearly in half we decided the visit was over!!

However, today Dirk was giving Ben a hug and telling him that he was going to the hospital to see Mama and Baby Alex Ben held up three fingers - and said "three boys!!"

You gotta admit they make cute kids!! Congratulations Dirk and Da. And, Melinda, you better get your rest while you're in the hospital cause you are going to have your HANDS full for the next couple of years!as I unloaded the pictures on my camera I found several cute ones of Emma from when I stayed with her after Glenn's accident. I loved the poignant look on her face in this picture!

old pictures

2010-04-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

my dad Merritt has had this picture for some time and has puzzled and puzzled over it. He knew that the oldest boy was Wallace, his father, and going down in age would be Theron - he really thought that the five year old was Clinton and the baby Uncle Bill, but couldn't figure out the seven year old - Peter was younger than Clinton not older. After examining the picture very closely I can see that both the 5 and 7 year olds look very very similar - I think that the picture is indeed Louis and Mary's five sons - Wallace, Theron, Clinton (age 7) Eldon Peter and Lawrence Dewayne (Uncle Bill)
This is the picture I lost somewhere between scanning and my blog - does anyone in the family know who this is?
This is a picture of me (Susan) and Kecia Lynn at Merrilee's wedding in 1982 when Kecia was about 19 months old.
This is a picture of my Grandmother Viola Yates Nielson and her oldest son Legrande (who went by Dan). They are picnicking in front of an old steam engine that was used for threshing - this picture was probably taken in 1920 or 1921
from left to right - great grandpa Louis Nielson, grandpa Wallace Nielson, great uncle Marlen Nielson with dog in wagon, Great Uncle Theron Nielson. The man kneeling in front of the wagon is Gerhardt Hansen, my Aunt Marie's uncle.
My Uncle Evan thinks this is a picture of my grandfather Wallace Nielson
Uncle Evan told me that he remember's his mother showing him this picture years ago and he believes that the lady is the rocker is his Grandmother Susan Isadore McCarthur Yates. The baby on her lap would be his mother Viola Yates Nielson and the girl standing between the two ladies is Aunt Dora (Grandma Viola's older sister, Susan Isadore Yates Bradfield). The other lady is Aunt Mary McArthur Mathews, sister of Susan Isadore McCarthur Yates.
Legrande Nielson, Darnae Nielson, Harlan Nielson, Evan Nielson, Wallace Nielson, Merritt Nielson, Larry Nielson and Sterling Nielson. This picture was taken in front of Grandpa Louis and Granma Mary Nielson's Leamington home at the time of Grandpa Lou's death in December of 1947
Merritt, Harlan, Darnae, Aunt Beryl, Grandpa Wallace, Legrande, Grandma Viola, Evan Nielson, Sterling Nielson with Larry in front. The two girls are Great Aunt Della's girls - Carole and Diane King.
My cousin Debbie Linge Frehner - her mother was a sister to my dad - my Aunt Jeannine

feeling better

2010-04-16T18:57:00.001-07:00

I don't know if it is a week of eating toast and and bananas and drinking gatorade and herbal teas...or the antibiotics but things are looking pretty good. I can't say, by a long shot, that I am better, but things are looking up. I really really really want the antibiotics to do the trick and I DO NOT want them to find something bad (like cancer) in my colon....so we will pray that this is gonna do the trick.

It is so nice to feel good though - even when I do have an attack of diarrhea (like after drinking two bottles of barrium for the CT scan) I don't feel exhausted and tired and headachy and miserable like I did before because of the gatorade. I didn't think I would EVER EVER EVER choose a bottle of gatorade over a can of pepsi but I have been doing it all week! Amazing!

Still Feeling Rotten

2010-04-11T00:27:00.001-07:00

It is 1:30 in the morning and I don't dare go to bed because every 20 minutes or so I need to run to the bathroom. I am low on energy - tomorrow I am going to go buy a whole bunch of gatorade to help restore the electrolytes...and Monday I am going to call the doctor for another appointment - there is no way I can wait until the 23rd (when they are doing my colonoscopy) to find out what else we can try to help stop this infernal diarrhea. The antifungal drug that I was prescribed for the Candida helped really well for one week - and since then has been coming back worse every day - Wednesday and Thursdays were my worst days so far. Today I felt pretty good - but tonight things are not good.

I will only eat toast and drink lots of liquids tomorrow so that I will be in good shape to go to Provo on Monday - I very much want to go see Emma and Ben and Simon....so I have to make sure I can do it....I have also decided I am going to halt my walks in the mornings - I have only been walking one and one half miles instead of the normal 2 1/2 miles and that still leaves me in awful shape for the rest of the day. I am going to see if I don't wear myself out first thing in the morning if I will have more energy for the rest of the day.

this is probably too much information (or TMI as Jamie would say) but I wanted to give you all an update as to what is going on STILL!

Thanks for your comments

2010-03-30T23:09:00.001-07:00

I really really appreciated your thoughts and your comments and your feelings and your ideas. They were great. It is midnight and I am up with illness again - I will be so glad to have this all fixed!!!!

I heard you all and it looks like we aren't going to all agree with everything but that is a normal family so this is what I have decided - (this is not a democracy, it is a benevelant (sp?!) dictatorship!)

1 - we will have the Sunday or Saturday evening dinners with just a couple families at a time - that seemed to be a positive for everyone. I will probably pull names out of a hat to see who gets invited with whom. I agree that smaller groups means better conversational flow.

2 - Gifts - Mauri hit the nail on the head with the thought that a gift is my way of saying I love you. I enjoy finding things that will be appreciated and enjoyed. I disagree with Kris that you can't buy a decent gift for $15. I hate giving cash....that to me is no gift at all even though you may disagree with that. I will go ahead with doing it my way this year at least and see how it goes - spoiled aren't I!!!

3- Family parties - we will continue to have them...it is totally up to you whether you come or not. I will not stress or be upset if you choose not to - that is your right and your decision.

I loved the ideas of others taking the chance to be the hostess or to plan 'activity' type parties - I think that the hostess should be in charge of the paper goods and the drinks and then that leaves enough of the rest of us to have a good meal.

-We will continue to have our annual Easter Party, Mothers Day Party, Kris always does her kids's party since she has 3 birthdays in June, our 4th of July party, our day after Halloween party (that way you can trick or treat with YOUR kids in your neighborhood and then come celebrate the twins's birthday on Nov 1 and show off your costume that night too!), and I will continue to have my Christmas Eve party - we will have the nativity... I hope... I missed it so much this year. That takes care of birthdays for April, May, June, July, November and December. We WILL not leave out February, August and September....maybe we can combine the August and September birthdays - we will see how it goes.

We will attempt to keep things to a low roar and learn to use our indoor voices when we are all in the same room with each other - that goes for adults as well as kids. I feel it is important to share these times together as family - to let the grandchildren enjoy their cousins.

It seems that If I don't plan the parties, they don't happen (it is almost April and we haven't gotten together since December) - I love it when you guys say - "we need to have a party" ....we need to get together -

I guess in reality Kecia is in charge of our first organized activity party - we will call it a moving party! She just needs to tell us when they figure out the date. (Glenn will really need family to help with this one as he can only sit and tell us what to do and where things go - he will not be able to lift or carry or anything like that. He will probably lose his mind!! )

I love you all so very much and I thank my Father in Heaven for each of you every day - I am thankful for the friendships and the love - and the joy you add to my life.

Glenn's truck

2010-03-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

I tried to download this video to facebook all evening last night once I realized I hadn't posted it correctly in the first place. That didn't work so I decided to blog it and then once its on my blog I can facebook it from there. This is Glenn's truck after the accident. Kelly is taking the video and you can see Shawn taking still pictures. Glenn is very blessed to have survived this accident. The Lord was watching out for him that day.

If Ever I start to feel better

2010-03-21T23:07:00.001-07:00

I've been gonna write this post for weeks but I haven't felt good for weeks and so it keeps getting put on the back burner.

There are a couple of changes that I am thinking of instigating so I want to put them out there for all of you to read and think and pray about.

#1 - due to the fact that within the next year Ed is going to be retiring we are actually thinking about being a little bit more thrifty. Therefore I am going to be cutting down the amount of money I spend on birthday presents to about $10-15 per adult each year. The grandkids will get a little more - $25 each since the family keeps adding a couple more of em each year. I love to buy gifts ...but I have to learn to spend less. Sorry

#2 - Because I have been either out of town or SICK I have missed our family get-to-gethers for birthdays so far this year. I apologize to Glenn and Melinda so far...however, again, due to the size of the family getting together is getting somewhat out of hand.

I have been contemplating different things that we could do and the idea that keeps coming back and back in my mind is having Sunday groupings of Ed and I and a couple of the kids and their families at a time. In the summer time having the whole family over at one time is fine cause there is lots of room to spread out but in the cold weather or rainy weather we are sitting on top of each other trying to listen to five conversations at one time.

So how about if I pull two names out of a hat and call them up and say you and yours are invited to dinner at grandma's house on either a saturday or a sunday afternoon. If that date is not a good date for one of the families then we would put your name back in the hat and invite someone else. That way we could have a much calmer relaxed visit with all of you over a period of a couple of months.

What do you think? Let me know. I really wanted to do this for Glenn and Melinda since they had birthdays in February but we were gone the first half of Feb and I started getting sick the first part of March and I'm still sick. I wouldn't just do birthday combinations but to me that was a good way to start it. Once I got sick the last thing I have wanted to think about was having people come over so I could cook for them - unless of course you want to have a cup of spearmint tea and a piece of toast with me!!! Then come on over.

I love you all - I know that we love each other and want to see and visit and talk to each other and I am trying to figure out a way to do that that doesn't drive us all batty.

with all my love

mom

ps - Easter is coming up and Grandpa Merritt is going to have his annual easter egg hunt in his back yard on Saturday April 3 at 1 pm. Shawn has agreed to take family group pictures to replace the pictures on Grandpa Merritts walls with some up to date pictures - for Instance, Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katy as a group - Tonya and Brett just had a new family portrait done but it is already a year old - another one would be fun and we could coordinate the sizes of the pictures. In my family Kelly and Jamie are the most up to date but my grandkid pictures need to be done individually - for MY wall. So lets all plan on showing up looking pretty and get some good pictures taken that day. We are even trying to figure out how to photoshop a picture of Cade into the group picture!! Whatever works!!

Grandkids

2010-02-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've never finished my Quartzsite blogs but thats okay - I had a very busy week last week and it was a good week - I got to see and hug everyone of my grandkids except Cade last week. I guess I need to sit down and send him a hug in the mail!

Monday I went to Provo and helped Kecia and Glenn move into temporary home - Kecia says she is NOT moving until after this baby comes though! -- Emma was at Aunt Da's all day and I didn't get to see her until about 6:30 but she was so excited to see GRANDMA!!!! She is so much fun and has such a personality - as we drove downtown to dinner she reached over and petted my hair and said "pretty"...that was after spending hours loading and unloading boxes - such a soft little gesture to say I love you.

When Melinda brought Emma home she brought Benjamin and Simon with her and they stayed out in the new van...so I ran outside to get some hugs and kisses before they headed back to Lehi. Ben just grinned and was so cute. I talked to them aobut their new van and Simon's eyes just lit up and he said CAR! In fact he is saying all sorts of words. Da came out to the car and I mentioned that to him and she said yeah, he is ...say Mama...and Simon says Maaaaa .....meeeee and he grinned that cute grin that just melts your heart. Not to be outdone I said 'say grandma' and he grins again and says MAAAAAA! So that is who I am this week.

Thursday morning at 7:15 Jamie showed up with the twins and I got to watch them for a few hours. I didn't need to feed them as they had eaten just before coming and Kelly took them home to feed them before ten. But I got to play with them and talk to them - they don't sleep all morning now - they are awake and looking and playing with toys. I have added a cute video (maybe two, I'll see how long it takes to download them) at the end of this blog.

Thursday I went to Lifeline and got to publicly tell Makae that I loved her. I tickled Ethan's back and gave him a hug at the meeting and winked at Jace. After the meeting I got to go up and give Makae a big hug. That night she called me to set up a date to go shopping for Christmas - we settled on Monday at 1 but then Kris told me on Saturday that she couldn't do that until 3rd phase. But it was fun to talk to her on the phone and I guess we will wait to buy her Christmas present for another couple weeks till she makes 3rd phase.

Friday I drove into Ogden and stopped in at Mauri and Ira's - Jerod was home sick so I got to give him the small bag of amethyst rocks for his rock tumbler. He hasn't used his Christmas present yet but hopefully when it warms up and they can set it working outside where the noise doesn't drive them crazy he can start polishing up some of the rocks he has. I guess I didn't give him a hug cause he had the flu but I got to visit with him for a minute. Then Ira came upstairs and we talked for almost two hours. Caleb and Joshua came home from school and I got to talk to them for a minute too, and give them both big hugs. Caleb got the leftovers from Adrie's last hair color job and his hair was a gorgeous dark warm brown that set off his eyes just beautifully. He likes his hair just a little long and cute - its like the beatles wore - long but not too long. Joshua had his hair cut short and cute and he headed out to go play with a friend but I got another hug first. I sat and visited with Ira and Jerod and Caleb and finally had to head home since Mauri and Adrie still weren't there.

But they showed up at my house for a bit Friday evening and Adrie and I had a great visit. She is going to run track and that sounds like so much fun. She was getting her hair colored the next day and was trying to decide what color to go. I agreed with her that red with gold streaks would probably look really really great on her.

Then finally on Saturday I got to see Jace again while Kristanne headed to Draper to visit Cade. He played in the hot tub and watched tv and played with his game boy. Grandpa Ed had waited to take him with him to drive to Centerville and take the razor in for a check up but he didn't want to go. That was fine. He stayed home with me and we had a good time. I made him cookies but didn't realize until too late that he didn't like peanut butter cookies. Next time I will try chocolate chip.

Quartzsite #2

2010-02-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

Quartzsite – Blog II

Monday, January 26, 2010: Ed left yesterday morning for Phoenix, flying from Phoenix to SLC to Chicago. When he called last night he said it was 26 degrees when he got in the car in Chicago – he will be ready to come back to Arizona for sure. For grandpa and I it was a lazy morning – I fixed breakfast and did the dishes and then we both went outside and soaked up some sun. The temperature didn’t get above 58 but sitting in the sun and out of the wind feels really nice. When I got up to go inside to get ready to go into town that afternoon I left my jacket sitting on the chair and my cell phone hanging in the chair pocket, figuring that when I grabbed my jacket, I would grab my cell phone too. As I was getting my shoes on, grandpa brought my jacket inside – I told him thanks and put the jacket on and grandpa laid down for his nap and I forgot totally about my cell phone. I hopped in the razor to go do some laundry and head to a fun bead store I had heard about.

Halfway to Quartzsite I realized that I had forgotten to get my cell phone and I had promised to call grandpa about 4 pm. It was 2:30 then and so I figured I would just do the laundry and head back to camp. I was driving down an ATV trail that ran parallel to the highway, cussing the big bumps at each ‘wash’ where they had pushed the sand off the road and partway up the wash. I went up one particularly steep bump and as I crested the top of it there wasn’t any more hill!! Sure enough, I high centered the Razor!! So I got out and found a stick about two feet long and an inch in diameter and started digging out the back wheels and under the main part of the ATV. I dug for a good 15 minutes when a border patrolman came by and saw me digging away and stopped to help. He had a shovel and we both dug for another five minutes when another border patrolman came by and we decided that if they pushed I might be able to drive off the hill – yep, that worked. I thanked them and headed on into town – but at that point I realized that the trail had more ‘cliffs’ in it – so then I drove alongside the road – Ed had said that I should follow the trail until the highway speed slowed down to 35 – which meant about five miles of trail first. I spent another 15-20 minutes trying to find my way around on the trails and over bumps without running into more cliffs. I finally made it up to where the speeds were slow enough for a highway legal ATV and then it was easy going after that. I got to the Laundromat and got my four batches of wash going and then got out my computer and got online – free internet!!! Great! As the clock inched closer and closer to 4:30 I started worrying about my dad wondering why I hadn’t called him at 4 like I had promised. Finally I facebooked Kecia and asked her to call - then I finished folding the dried clothes – once batch was still damp so I put an extra couple quarters in the machine. By the time I got everything dry and folded and put in garbage bags to keep the trail dust off the clean clothes it was almost 5pm - Here I am standing out in the parking lot turning my computer on to see if Kecia had agreed to call grandpa. NOPE! So then I facebooked Kelly because he had also commented on something I had said – I asked him for the same favor. Then I packed up my computer and got in the Razor and headed back to camp. I tried a different trail this time and found a lovely gravel road heading due South – I followed it for miles and miles as it turned slightly East toward the mountains….more and more and more! The sun was dropping farther and farther in the sky and I didn’t want to still be riding in the dark. Finally I saw a trail heading South again and I took it….pretty soon it was going West and then North – I finally came out in the campground to the north of us – I had gone in an almost circle. That campground is where the 35 mph in town started!!! So I drove across the highway and tried the trail on the West side of the highway – again it started really good and then took me back to the main road! UGH!! Finally I got past where I had high centered the machine going into town and got back on the trail and got back to the trailer in the dusk and the cold….it was almost 6pm! It had taken me a whole hour to drive 8 miles! Poor grandpa had been so worried – I had promised to call at 4 pm and here it was 6!! My cell phone was still sitting out in the chair waiting for me!

So I put the laundry away and fixed dinner and we watched “Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion”. We enjoyed it – lots of old time songs.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 – We both slept in this morning. Yesterday’s trip had really worn me out! We had to go into town again today for grandpa’s PROTIME test – to check the level of Coumadin in his system. I had already decided to ask the camp hosts HOW to get into town. So after lunch we both bundled up and headed out – when I stopped at the gate house I asked them which trails were viable since the rainstorms. They said probably to go all the way up to the mtn and then find the connecting trail North – ugh. Or else I could go West across the highway almost to Tyson Wash and take the old El Paso road north. I then mentioned that my ATV was street legal – with seat belts and horn etc and they said – then you can take the main road – if you have a license plate and insurance you can drive on the road. I said, “But I can’t go 60 mph and they said – that doesn’t matter – you are legal”!! So we headed due North through town and to the clinic. We got there along with a whole lot of other people there for the same reason. They do ProTimes on Tuesday and Thursday from 1:30 to 3:00 pm ONLY. So we got in line with the rest of them – dad’s level was too low (his blood is too thick) – they faxed the results to Dr. Lee and I will call him in the morning to find out what we need to change the Coumadin levels too. This means he will have to go in for another test next Tuesday again – we were hoping to wait two weeks between tests. Quartzsite has a beautiful new clinic in town with a full time doctor - its four times bigger than the old clinic was. And there is a pharmacy on the back side of the clinic. It’s amazing to me that it has taken this long to get a pharmacy in Quartzsite – this year is the 44th year that the rock and gem show has been held – 44 years of getting bigger and bigger with all these old people here (and Ed and I are some of the younger old people!!) and no pharmacy within 20 miles!!

After we left the doctor’s office we drove through the back roads of Quartzsite to get back to main street and I finally got to the little bead shop I had heard about. I left dad in the ‘car’ while I ran inside – they had some nice prices and some pretty beads – I only had ten minutes though so I didn’t buy too much. I got a some real pretty strands of malachite, and goldstone and a couple other natural rock chips too. We stopped for a hamburger at McDonalds and then headed back to the trailer. I kind of kept an eye on the traffic behind me and when there were several cars I would pull off to the side and let them speed by so I could stick to my 40 mph. Grandpa was tired and took a nap when we got back – I read.

This evening grandpa read while I made a necklace and three back pack charms. I have started making little beaded charms that hang off of purses or beach bags or back packs. Hopefully they will sell well. Grandpa has now gone to bed and my neck and shoulders are aching from bending over doing beads.
Because we ate in town I didn’t have to make supper tonight – about 8 pm I suggested maybe some popcorn and grandpa said he would make it. So he went outside in the dark to start the generators – I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to tell him NO – you can’t ….so I sat inside the trailer and worried that he would have some problems – and he did. Evidently when he bends over like that (to pull the cords on the generator) his left knee sometimes gives out. I guess he landed on the ground but got himself up and got the generators going – I was almost ready to go out and check on him when he came back in.

After he made the popcorn he said something about going out again and turning off the generators. I told him let’s leave them running – they should be running out of gas pretty soon – Ed put gas in them Sunday evening and we’ve had them going for three nights now on the same gas… I suggested that we let them run out of gas tonight and we would put more gas in tomorrow. Grandpa asked if Ed had left the gas can out and I said yes. He said okay, we will refill them tomorrow. It wasn’t even two minutes later when he stood up and started putting his coat back on – I asked him where he was going. He said “to put some gas in the generators”. I sweetly said, let’s just wait till tomorrow, okay? He thought that was a good idea.

Wednesday January 28 – lukewarm – felt good to sit out in the sun as long as we were away from the wind.

Thursday January 29 - Drove into town in Razor to go to Relief Society and worked on Humanitarian projects. The sisters meet every Thursday from 9-12 and quilt, and make teddy bears and stuffed yarn balls, and picture books. I worked on the picture books, pasting pictures onto pages which we then inserted into plastic sleeves – ten pages (both sides) to each book. No words – only pictures. Each page covered one subject – mtns, or oceans. or domestic animals, or wild animals or children at play, or music etc. Nothing Americana or religious, etc, nothing scary, and no adults unless they were interacting with children. Thus the picture books can go anywhere in the world and can be used to stimulate a child’s imagination. Then I found the salvation army – I bought a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt that I am going to cut apart and make an apron with on Wednesday – with Patty’s purple hat group. Then I stopped at the big tent craft sale – mostly it is the same vendors that were at the RV show!! (And Saturday the same vendors that are at the Antique Car show!) But there was one booth that had necklaces – I bought some just for the beads. As I was paying for them I overheard another lady say that there were bags of broken necklaces for $1 each. So then I bought a couple of those too. I went back to the trailer and started making backpack or purse charms with the beads – I have made a bunch of them to sell at the Purple Hat Sale this weekend.

Friday was a quiet day – sitting out in the sun (away from the cool breezes) reading and making necklaces. I have made four hats hoping to sell them at the Purple Hat sale too. I have made necklaces, charms, and hats – hopefully there will be someone there to buy something!

Saturday – January 30 – I had to run into town again today to get some oil for one of the new generators. I stopped at the big tent sale again and the jewelry lady was still there – I bought $12 worth of broken necklaces and made a bunch of stuff with them tonight. The weather was GORGEOUS today. It got up to 70 degrees and the cool wind was just a really slight breeze. SO NICE – in fact we almost had to move our chairs into the shade!!!! Tough life!! It’s about time. I wouldn’t feel bad if it stayed like this for the next two weeks.

Its 3:30 am and I haven’t really slept at all yet tonight – its because my neck and elbows are aching so badly – too many hours spent playing with jewelry and I am bound up tighter than tight. I finally gave up and grabbed my computer and will catch up on things before trying to sleep again.

Sunday the weather was gorgeous again - the cool wind blew a little more than yesteray but it was still really nice. Its monday now and cloudy and cool breeze still - only up to about 62 but still quite comfortable.

Quartzsite 2010

2010-01-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

2010 Quartzsite trip

January 15 – Picked up grandpa at 12:45 and brought him back to my house so we would be ready to go as soon as Ed was ready to go – he got home about 1:2O and hooked up the trailer and we were on the road by 2 pm. Grandpa Merritt sat in the front with Ed until we stopped in Nephi and then he got in the back of the truck and took a nice hour long nap as we traveled South. We stopped in to see Grandma Bea when we got to Beaver and she looked and sounded great. We visited with her for about 30 minutes and then left her to enjoy her dinner meal. We headed on to her house and turned on the heat in her house and unhooked the trailer and then went up to Arshels for dinner. After dinner we headed back to her house and left grandpa with his pajamas and pills and toothbrush – he was tired and figured he would just go to bed. We then put on a movie for him and headed back to visit with Grandma again for a bit. We had a fun visit with her and then headed up to see Kevin but he wasn’t home yet so we drove out to his station and caught him there - Grandpa was still watching the movie - Ed finished watching it with him and I read for a while.

January 16 – Ed got up early and took the truck to Kevin’s and got four new tires put on the truck. By the time he got back Grandpa and I were up and had eaten and were ready to head out. I had told Grandma Bea that we would go back out to see her before we headed south again but Ed said NOPE – we need to get on our way. We did stop for a second at the cheese factory and bought some cheese and then we headed south. We stopped at Aunt Eleanor’s to put water in the tanks where it was warm enough to keep from freezing. It was a beautiful day in Mesquite and we enjoyed our visit with Eleanor.

We then headed on down the road, stopping for fuel at the Indian reservation about 45 minutes out of Las Vegas. Grandpa decided to take a nap so again he got the back seat – he woke up just in time to see the skyline of Vegas before we headed up to Railroad Pass. I had figured we would go as far as Needles and then get up the next morning and come the last ways into Quartzsite but Ed insisted we keep on going. Grandpa said fine – just get my pain pills out – so we did and he took a couple of pain pills and went to sleep. He woke up in Parker and I realized that he had taken too many pills – he should have just taken one – he staggered to the rest room and back to the truck. The pain pills were a generic Lortab I think – so two of them would be waaayyyy too much. I also realized then that he had been taking his Coumadin pill when he was in pain because it was a heart pain and he thought that it helped stop the pain. Scary – I have tried to explain to him that he MUST NOT take a Coumadin when he is hurting – only one Coumadin a day – I don’t think he took any extra Coumadin pills but it is a possibility!

We made it to Quartzsite by 9 pm and found our spot just waiting for us. We left grandpa in the warm truck while we unloaded our new Razor and all the stuff piled around it, got the rug laid out and the furnace turned on in the truck. The trailer warmed up quickly. Then we brought grandpa in while I blew up his air mattress and put the foam pad on top of it and got his bed made. He got into his pajamas and went to bed – we read for a while and then did likewise.

January 17 – Sunday was a beautiful day – it got up to 78 degrees. We sat outside in the sun and read for a while after we got dressed and ready for church at one. Church was good, although we only stayed for Sacrament meeting as grandpa can’t handle much more than that. When we got back from church we had some lunch and then grandpa took a nap and Ed and I went for our first ride together on the razor. It was so fun – by five pm though the air was cooling off but Ed got a jacket out for me and we kept going. By the time we got back to the trailer grandpa was back up. Ed and I read and I set a game the game of solitaire up on my computer for my grandpa – he can’t read and we don’t have TV so I was glad when I found something that would keep him entertained. It would have been a looonnnnggg four weeks if he just sat and stared at the walls all day.

January 18, 2010 – It rained all night last night – I guess yesterday was the only warm day we are going to have this week. We will see, but this storm is supposed to be a big one that goes on for days. I got grandpa out for a walk – maybe a 100 feet and back – I told him when we got back to the trailer we would go for a ride on the razor. He said “don’t I get a nap first?” …and he was serious. So we went into the trailer and pretty soon he decided to lay down for a nap. Ed and I hopped in the truck and ran into town to look for some stuff that Ed needed for the trailer. It is normally a 6 or 7 minute drive into town and it took us 25 minutes to get there due to all the traffic. I don’t think we have ever seen so many people here in Quartzsite!! Lots and lots of trailers all over the place. After he had checked out the one store he had planned on going to we walked over to the big tent – that’s the big show that is going on right now – the big RV tent sale – we wandered through it for two hours. Bought some fun stuff and wished we could buy more. Wandered through a couple of gorgeous fifth wheel Toy haulers - WOW!! Pure luxury. By the time we got back out to the trailer I figured grandpa would have been worried sick but he was just busy playing solitaire. I fixed us some dinner and we decided to watch a movie. Ed went to turn on the generator and it wouldn’t go – we think it is a bad solenoid in the generator. Dang!! Guess we will go to bed early tonight! Ed will have to run into town tomorrow early in the morning and figure out what needs to be done to fix it.

January 19 – woke up to rain and it rained off and on all day. It was in the high 50’s and low 60’s but wet and rainy – much warmer than Utah but when three people are living on top of each other it needs to be high 60’s and low 70’s so we can sit outside and enjoy the weather. We read and knitted and lay around all day. When we pulled into the campground on Saturday night we noticed that there was a sign saying no water available. Their pumps were broken. They got them up and running so Ed spent an hour filling up the blue 7 gallon totes and getting our trailer filled back up. He keeps busy.

January 20 – the sun is shining today so after breakfast we got dressed warmly and headed out to go riding. Grandpa Merritt didn’t want to go – it’s going to be a long four weeks with him just sitting – he can’t read, he’s too tired to go for a ride, he plays solitaire on my computer a little bit but mostly just sits. Ed got up early today and went into town and checked out generators. It’s handy having the big RV show and tent sale going on since he can compare Honda generators to several different ones and find the best deal all in one spot. I think he is going to go buy two 2000 watt generators tomorrow and hook them together and then when we get back home we will take the trailer back to Sierra RV and get the built in generator fixed. Ed has wanted to have a backup generator available so now I guess he will have them. It will be nice when we have TV again – I hate to see my grandpa just sitting and staring.
The ride was a cool one – it was 56 degrees outside when we left the trailer. I drove my ATV and Ed drove the RAZOR – We rode about 19 miles --its amazing how many side by sides are out in the hills now – we see almost more of them than regular ATV’s! The temp was up to 59 by the time we got back to the trailer. Grandpa had stayed behind and had a nice hot shower. By the time I got back I WAS ready for a nice hot shower but the water was just lukewarm…Grandpa said he didn’t use much water but he did use all the hot water and Ed’s full tanks were down a quarter of a tank!! I think he just forgot how long he was in the shower!

I spent the afternoon with a fun group of ladies who were quilting. They put me to work with them. Fun afternoon. It was part of a group that camp out here in La Posa South. Now we are back at the trailer – the North wind has been blowing all down and the sky is mostly covered with clouds – it is supposed to rain again tomorrow.

January 21, 2010 - it rained all night last night…when we got up this morning there were streams running down the gully behind our trailer. It is raining today too - It is too wet for Ed to buy the generators to get them set up so we will be another day without electricity as far as watching movies goes. Thank heavens for our solar panels – that keeps our cell phones and computers charged …and the batteries to run the lights at night. I had a shower and fed the guys and took the truck with our laundry and headed into the LDS chapel here at Quartzsite. Thursday morning the sisters meet to work on humanitarian projects. They had three quilts on, were setting up a fourth, two sisters were on sewing machines binding them and three more sisters were on sewing machines creating the tops for even more quilts! There were two people stuffing knitted balls and one table full of ladies gluing pictures onto paper creating books!! Busy place – had a good visit with several of the ladies. I only stayed for an hour and then headed to the Laundromat in town. When I got there I thought – gee I should have stayed at the church house – it looked like EVERYONE in Quartzsite decided to come in to do laundry!! I had to WAIT for a parking place!! Once I got inside I only had to wait about five minutes for some washers to open up – I took my $20 over to the change machine and it poured out quarters!! Someone hollered “we have a winner!!” I laughed and admitted the odds were lots better here than in Vegas. I got all four washers going and then read for a while. When it was getting close to having the washers finish their cycle I went in stood in line so as to be ready for a dryer when some opened up. I got my clothes out of the first three washer s and realized the fourth one wasn’t working. So I got my other clothes in the dryer and going and then found someone to help me with the #4 washer. He got it going for me but it was still going by the time the clothes were dry so I had to take a chance on getting another dryer when they were done – no such luck. By that time people were four deep waiting for the next available dryer so I folded all my clothes including the wet ones and headed back to the trailer. It was raining even harder when by the time I got back to the trailer – don’t know why I was in such a hurry to get back home. I fixed lunch and it has rained and blown and rained and blown all afternoon. The rain and wind is shaking the trailer as I type this. The temp did get up to 57 today – its back down to 53 at 5 pm….gonna be a long cold night. I know, I know – that is lots better than whatever it is in Utah but it’s getting downright scary!!! The trailer is just rocking back and forth !! WOW!!

The storm finally settled down about 5:30 – what a relief – all of us just sat in the trailer and stared at each other wondering if we were going to be washed away.

The generator in our trailer went out the first Monday we were here. Finally on Friday we went into town to the big RV show and Ed bought two 2000 watt generators that he can work them together in a parallel format – so he gets 4000 watts…but they are small enough that I can lift them and start them which was necessary with Ed leaving for a week and a half.
So we have power again to run the TV and the microwave. We have been recharging phones and computers with the inverter hooked up to the batteries recharging on solar power which has been nice!

Grandpa went with us Friday when we headed to the big tent. Ed had already picked out the generators he wanted to buy so grandpa and I wandered for a short while through the tent. Grandpa bought a little chair cane – it has an umbrella handle and then a small seat that folds up when not in use as a chair. It’s a handy thing and helped grandpa walk over the uneven ground – and then when we headed back to the truck he was able to stop = open up the chair and rest for a few minutes before going on. Friday was a cool day with lots and lots and lots of clouds but no rain thank heavens. The wind was from the north so it felt good to be inside the tent. We headed back to the trailer for lunch and a nap and reading. I pulled out the DVD that Dirk and Da gave grandpa for Christmas. We thoroughly enjoyed watching their cute video clips throughout the year of Ben and Simon. For some reason the sound would cut out at the middle of the clip but we still enjoyed it.
Saturday was a pretty day although still cool with the winds blowing. Grandpa and I drove into town in the truck and found the medical clinic and I went in and asked them about a protime test for dad on Tuesday. The nurse said we needed an order from his doctor – so after we got back to the trailer we called the doctor’s office and left a message asking that the order be faxed to the clinic. While in town we went to the library – grandpa found a book in large print to see if that would help his reading. We hit the grocery store for a few things and then headed back to the trailer.
Sunday we woke up to ice on the windshield but it got up to 61 degrees and the wind was very mild. Dad didn’t feel good so he stayed home from church – when we got back he seemed fine. Come to find out, he woke up with a pain in his back and it scared him because he didn’t know what it was. After we had left for church he rolled over and the pain moved to another part of his body. When he investigated he found that the big link in the floor that we tie our ATV’s down with that usually lay flat was sticking up and that was what was causing the pain. He is really frightened of anything different with his body right now and so he panicked. He was kind of shame faced about it when he told us what had happened, but I told him I understood his fear. He doesn’t know what to expect after this stroke and anything different is frightening. After church we sat out in the sun and soaked up some rays – it felt sooooo good finally. Then we headed into town to refill the propane tanks ( Ed wanted to make sure we were full up on water and propane and that the black and grey holding tanks were empty before he headed to Phoenix on Monday to catch his plane to Chicago) and had lunch at Carl’s Jr and then came back to the trailer when grandpa took a nap and Ed and I hopped on our razor to go for a cool but fun ride. For dinner we had the Omaha Steaks and twice baked potatoes and apple pie deserts that Ed’s boss gave us for Christmas – the steaks were so tender and delicious. Grandpa was even able to eat the steaks without any problem! So Yummy!
We watched “The return of Zorro” last night and that was fun. Ed got everything together so he could get up early to head out and then we all went to bed. Edward left this morning about 7 am – he called about 10:30 from the airport – he said he thought he was going to make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare but then got caught up in traffic – an accident had happened and it took him 45 minutes longer than he had planned to get there. Then as he went through the screening he set the beepers off. He emptied his pockets wondering what in the world would have set it off and low an behold he still had his clip from his pistol in his pocket. The gun was left back at the trailer but without thinking he had picked up the magazine and put it in his pocket. Needless to say, he got the royal pat down and luggage search. He said they were really nice about it though and he has left it there in their storage to pick up when he comes back through next week. – he still made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare!

Grandpa and I are sitting in the trailer watching the temperature go up – as soon as I finish with this we are going to go on a walk – hopefully he will be able to go farther than the 100 feet he has done before – with his cane and little chair – I am hoping we can make it over to the dumpsters so I can dump our sack of garbage. We will see. After lunch he will have his nap and I will head back into town with the rest of our laundry and then I am going to find a spot that sells findings for my necklaces as I need just a couple of different things. Hopefully I can down load this onto my blog –though it will make a LONG blog but at least everyone will know what is going on.
Oh – the large print really helps – grandpa is now able to read for about an hour at a time – even longer when he puts the 4x4 gauze pad over his left eye so it doesn’t jump all over. I think he is enjoying the time – sometimes I feel like more of a babysitter but he is doing better every day. The stroke has done more damage than we thought – but there is improvement and that is all we can ask for.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-31T11:43:00.001-08:00

We had a fun Christmas Eve with all of the family last Thursday evening. Jamie and Kelly came late because of other family parties and Melinda didn't get to come at all because she had bronchitis - we missed her. We tried our hand at fondue and decided we need a lot more practice - I over heated the chocolate and the cheese was stringy ... so they didn't look very pretty but they tasted good - and I MISSED the yummy artichoke dip that Da was going to bring. It was an interesting Christmas Eve - every year I work hard to find just the right story or program for our family Christmas Eve and then every year we have the Christmas Story done by the grandkids. Well this year I just plain couldn't think of anything to do program wise, so we decided that we would just get together and eat and visit and then do the reinactment of the nativity.

We waited for Jamie and Kelly to bring their babies so we would have a baby Jesus and then we decided not to do the nativity at all - we had a fun time visiting and eating and thought that would be sufficient. But we missed the nativity --- it isn't what you call spiritual because the kids don't practice it in advance or anything - but it is definitely one of our family traditions... and it was missed. It also is a break in the talking and eating and I missed the chance to stop and take a moment and appreciate the reason for the Season -- the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The evening felt incomplete because we didn't 'do' the spiritual part of it!

Another reason that the evening was incomplete was because we were missing Makae. We did get to see her though - a bunch of the family all headed down to North Salt Lake for a 2 pm visit with her. It was a wonderful chance to hug her and talk to her and watch her get excited over seeing many of the family that she hadn't seen for two months.

We also got to see Makae on the Tuesday before Christmas - her whole group put on a very fun musical program for us - This is Makae singing with the girls at Lifeline. She seems to enjoy the staff and the students and has adjusted to their routine very well. She is learning to make some good decisions with her life right now and she is in our every prayer.

It was so fun watching Shawn and Kristanne's boys lovingly hold their new little cousins. All three of them were so excited to be holding a baby. Of course the babies were the hit of the party with everyone - here we have Ethan and Cade holding Taylie and Brayden. Taylie even looks a little bit like Ethan!
Here's Cade - in his fancy new jammies which he LOVED!! With a sweet Brayden
Taylie and Brayden were held and held and held that whole Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - they had to be exhausted after having to entertain all their aunts and uncles and cousins and gramma's and granpas!!
Jace was really excited to try and hold Brayden. At first I held Jace as he held Brayden but it didn't take me long to realize he did a good job holding the babies. So we sat him on the floor and let him go solo. We had a fun evening with everyone - there is nothing I love more than spending time with my family. It gets a bit BUSY in my little house when all of us are there but there is no cure for that problem - its only going to get worse as the families get bigger. I am still waiting for my kids to buy me a bigger house!! ;-D

But we had a lovely evening and then the next day Ed and I got up early and were on the road to Lehi by 6:45 am so we could be there when Ben and Simon came down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.

This picture of Benjamin is priceless - the look on his face is exactly what Christmas morning is all about. The excitement and thrill of a new train set! One that he could make go all by himself!

this is our own version of Godzilla - as soon as Simon realized he could make his train go foward and back, he had to get in the middle of things - literally!
Here's Ben watching Da as she sets the train back on the track again - I bet Dirk and Da wish they had a nickle for every time they have had to do that in the last week!
Benji got a normal looking train and Simon got the 'front-runner'....it didn't take him long to figure out how to get the little person in the train out and then he discovered he could make the train go on the carpet as well as the track...the rest of the time we were there he was driving his train all over the carpet. We tried to get Ben and Simon interested in their gifts but nothing doing...all they could see was TRAIN!!

After we had spent 45 minutes at Dirk and Da's house we got back in the car and headed to Provo where Kecia had been waiting patiently (???) for us to arrive. She woke up Glenn when we pulled up (he was glad to get to sleep in an extra hour!)
this picture should be very last --- I had been taking pictures of Emma and her trucks - there she was running back and forth in her jammies and her high heels and watching the trucks go = she was sooooo excited. Then I looked over at her mommie... sitting there with her hat and scarf on, her stack of presents in front of her and holding up her new saute pan in HER jammies and with her new high heels on too! Like mother , like daughter!
Note princess Emma's glass slippers - she didn't want to have anything to do with her new princess dresses and jewelry and crowns but she put on her new high heels as she chased back and forth watching the trucks going.
She didn't touch the trucks or the tracks - she just ran back and forth and back and forth saying truck truck truck
Like Ben and Simon - Emma was so excited about her tracks and trucks she was not the least bit interested in the presents we brought or any of the other presents under the tree - she would look for a second and then back to the 'truck, truck, truck'.
This was what was waiting for Emma when she first came into the living room - a whole box full of princess dresses and high heels and crowns and jewelry ... NO THANK YOU, NOT INTERESTED.....TRUCK ......TRUCK.....TRUCK!

Thank you Kecia and Glenn and Dirk and Da for sharing Christmas morning with us. Ed just decided on Christmas eve that he wanted to watch the little ones and see and feel the excitement of Christmas morning. I wasn't too sure about it (after all, I didn't get to open my presents until 11 am when we got back home!!)

Christmas Day was a fantastic day as we got to spend it with the people we love, watching the excitement on their faces as they opened the gifts that we had lovingly picked out to give them. Christmas is such a special time - as we drove down South that morning we saw a cross walk above the freeway where someone had taken cups and created the message in the fence that said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS"

Mauri and Ira and their sweet kids got to our house about 12:30. Grandpa was anxious to give them all rides on the RZR but it was sooooo cold and his hopes of pulling them on their sleighs over behind the church house on the lawn there were dashed because of the ice mountain between the lawn and the parking lot. After they left I got a half an hour nap (which is a good nap for me) and then Shawn and Kristanne came with the three boys. While they were still here Jamie and Kelly and the twinners showed up. We had lots of good food all day long and again, lots of love and laughter. About five pm we followed Shawn and Kris down to Kelly and Terrie's house to see grandpa Merritt - All of Kelly's family were there plus Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katie Jo - so again, we enjoyed the love and laughter of our wonderful family. Teresa and Jeff added so much fun to the group.

Ed and I were getting ready to leave when the phone rang and it was Chase calling from North Carolina. Kelly put the phone on speaker mode and we all sat around the table for an hour chatting with Elder Nielson. It was great - and it was a marvelous ending to a marvelous day. As he bore his testimony of Jesus and all that Christ did for us I couldn't help but feel an even closer tie to my Savior.

People complain about how commercialized Christmas is but I love it because it gives me a reason to put smiles on the faces of the people I love the very most. Christ is the reason - we ARE celebrating his birth day - Thank you Jesus for inviting us to such a wonderful birthday party!

Tonya, Brandy, Bobette

2009-12-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

Here you go Brandy - your very own blog!! Cute pictures I think. Ed took these pictures at Jill's funeral in July. It is a fun grouping of some precious women. This is MY favorite of the three of you. You can simply right click and save it onto your computer. Then you can save them on a disk and take them to walmart - or you can download them right to wal mart and just go pick up the pictures when you are done ...or you can have ME send them to wal mart in your name. Let me know if I can help you/

Making Wreaths!! What Fun!

2009-11-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

Kecia and I and Jen all showed up at Jamie's house about 11 on Thursday morning with gobs of red and green ornaments (don't say balls around Jamie!) , red poinsettias, red and green ribbon, plain wreaths of various sizes and also a garland or two. We had four glue guns, and lots of wire too. Mauri and Melinda and Kris we missed all of you.

Of course first of all we got to ooh and aahhhh over the babies - they were sound asleep though - and certainly not the least bit interested in all the craft goings on!

this is a very poor picture of Taylie but I wanted everyone to see the pretty sparklies she has in her ears! so sweet!

Brayden was sawing logs too!

I thought she was going to wake up after the first flash went off - she stretched and opened an eyeball and then promptly went back to sleep.

Kecia found a wreath online at Lowe's that she fell in love with - green wreath with red and lime green ornaments. She put out the suggestion that maybe we could make it for less than it would cost ready made - I don't know if any of us 'saved' much money but we sure had fun copying it.

Okay - this is a the stuff I brought - now four times that with ornaments and ribbons and wreaths from each of us. The table was almost too small and Jamie had the leaf in it!!

My finished product was totally different than what was online - but it is ME - lots sof sparklies!

This is Jen's but of course she hasn't pulled the ribbons up tight yet - so we don't really get to see the finished product here,

This is Jamie's and it turned out really nice - their ribbon was a metallic red and added a whole different look than

Kecia's whose wreath has sparkly green ribbon in it. I apologize for the sideways picture - my new camera has a pretty good program to download the pictures with but the program decided that this was the correct way to 'show' the picture and I didn't realize it until I got it downloaded. Now if I were really a good mom I would delete this picture and put in another picture that was sitting the right direction and pull it down into place....forget that!! turn your computer sideways!
Here is another shot of my wreath. I have it hanging on my front door - and its not even the middle of November!! My poor Thanksgiving wreath is feeling really put out right now!

To finish off this blog I put in the video I took of Emma and her reaction to the babies.
So - we had a great time - I left before Kecia got her garland all decorated but I am sure it is gorgeous too - all of us can give ourselves a good pat on the back!

Halloween 2009

2009-11-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

Jamie told me to steal the picture off of her blog so I could show off Taylie and Brayden's costumes. When Jamie first mentioned what she wanted her babies to be on Halloween and mentioned maybe dying their hair blue (!!!) I offered to knit some hats for them. I found a bright blue eyelash yarn with a sparkle in it and the hats turned out perfect. Then about a week before Halloween Jamie said she had searched everywhere for red jammies (and they don't make them in size 3 months sizes - maybe for Christmas but they weren't out YET) and so I told her what kind of fabric and how much to buy and I already had an old pattern and I went to work on the outfits. So here they are - THING ! (Taylie) and THING II (Brayden!)

Saturday evening we had a terrific Trunk or Treat at our WARD - lots and lots of cars and candy and kids - it was great fun and the weather was simply perfect. This is a picture of Rachel Hatch and her husband and daughter Tailee - Fred Flinstone, Wilma and Pebbles at your service!!!

This last year of school is getting a little bit too stressful for Tucker Hatch - our 17 year old next door neighbor.
This is a picture of Moore's JAWS car = with the shark tail and fins and big teeth, the music drumming in the background and the kids had to put there hand into the jaws of the shark to get their candy. What a hoot.
I took a bunch of pictures at our family Halloween party but lost my camera half way through it so I didn't get a good picture of Adrie Anna or Ben or Cade Darn it all. all three of their costumes were fantastic.
Mr Simon Clown without the hat -mama's littlest baby for six more months - hurrah!

Fancy transformer - I think it is Bumblebee
Emma Lynn - I don't know what she is asking grandma for her but its about the only full face picture I got of her.
Chico the vampire dog - he looked so cute - he wasn't too sure he liked the cape but he totally dispised the hat. He is such a sweet baby - and he adores mama mauri although adrie can talk him into sitting on her lap too.
This is a softy picture of missy Emma - or should I say Tinkerbell - she looked like a dolly and as it was her birthday celebration too (going to be two on the 13th of this month) she received a stroller and a stool from grandma of which she loved both.
Scary Ira - we told him he should keep the black hair and the eyeliner - it looks pretty cool.
Here's our 'Cop Caleb - we better behave or he'll drag us off to the station - today is his birthday - 7 years old
Here is Jerod looking pretty scary - I told his mom she needed to feed the poor kid more!
Ethan (also 12 years old) was Toad from Nintendo - he looked pretty cute!
One of our birthday boys - Joshua also turned 7 on November 1 - he is a transformer and has a gun that he got for his birthday that shoots nerf bullets but is also a transformer!
=

Cute picture of 12 year old Jared in his skeleton costume. I like this face much better! It has a sween smile!

One of the birthday boys - Caleb was seven years old on that day - last year we started the tradition of celebrating halloween and birthdays on their birthday November 1 - that way they all get to go trick or treating the night before and then the next day we get to see them in their cute fun outfits.

Simon - age 18 months - Here we have a darling clown that wasn't too sure he wanted to be in costume and really didn't want to wear the cute top hat. Mom didn't even have to paint his cheeks - they are always that rosy!

Fun Halloween this year - Kecia and Melinda and I went to Garnder Village to the Witches Night Out and it was so much fun!!! We were more enthralled with looking at all the gorgeous outfits and hats that we didn't even buy anything!! I immediately came home and started looking for stuff to upgrade my hat...which I did - and this is it. By next year I want to have a sparkly purple and black dress with a long cape, striped socks and comfy witches shoes. (that's gonna be the hard part!)

Hawaii - part two

2009-10-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off updating about Hawaii because I have SOOOOO many pictures to choose from - sometimes I think longingly (!!) of the olden days when every picture you took was carefully monitored because film got expensive and then you had to pay to have it developed. Today we just snap snap snap - one afternoon at the beach I took 150 pictures of the clouds and sun and sunset!!! Now I get to pick out one or two of them to put on the blog...OUCH!

here I am playing Shawn - but of course my little camera doesn't do nearly as well as his nice one and my little brain just put it on auto and shot the picture - but it is still a beautiful water lily

The whole road to Hana isn't this lush but a lot of it is!! Gorgeous drive even if it took 4 hours to drive 52 miles! We came home the back way so it only took about 2 hours -

We stopped at a Botanical Garden on the Road to Hana - it was gorgeous. It was a very hot and humid day because the trade winds were not blowing. But still it was worth our time to wander up and down all the paths - I liked this picture because it incorporated part of the water lily pond and yet you could still see the ocean.

Another view from the botanical gardens with the road in the middle of the picture and the blue ocean beyond.

I didn't realize I picked out so many pictures from the botanical gardens - the pathway on the left took us up and down all sorts of trails with plants and trees from all over the world.

Just a soft pretty flower on a tree - I must be partial to soft petals - thus petal soft jewelry!

We were amazed at the pine trees growing right next to palm trees - but once we stopped at the gardens we realized that the pine needles on the tree were very short - this is a branch on the pine tree and if you look at it up close you can see the little pine needles on the long skinny branches. They were very soft to the touch

This picture is for Cheryl - everyday we walk at the Layton Park and feed the black swan. At the Westin Hotel in Lahaina there was a beautiful black swan - very friendly, always ready to eat out of your hand. There was a white swan with a black neck too! The flamingos you see at the far right are real - I was standing right in front of the check in desk when I took this picture - I had a roof over my head but the pond itself was open to the sky, with gorgeous plants all around - the koi in the pond loved to be fed too - they had certain times posted so the children could come and feed the birds and the fish. There were also gorgeous parrots and two cockatiels (sp?)- one was white and the other birds were all very colorful.

This is another view of the same pond - I just moved back farther under the roofed area and so the picture is more shaded. So the black swan is in the shade and the flamingos are still eating. You can actually see one of the parrots on its perch at the far right of this picture. They loved 'talking' to the people.

More beauty to come...

Hawaii

2009-10-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening we went to downtown Lahaina - where the giant Banyan tree is - it fills, literally a full block with all its roots reaching out everywhere - I am leaning against one root here - the coloring in this picture and the next two are due to the lighting in the square - it was dark out and the pictures turned very green. Of course I had my camera set on auto but we couldn't figure out how to adjust the coloring differently.
Here's Ed - in front of the main trunk. They have really cleaned up the square and all the extra roots - it looked like it had gotten a good haircut (the tree, not Ed)
This is the main tree in the middle of the square and then the roots go out from there to other full trees and they are ALL connected. We wandered through lots and lots of cutesy stores - there are lots of jewelry stores, art stores (gorgeous art and statues), lots and lots of t shirt stores and then there are all the abc stores which sell a little bit of everything.

Earlier in the day after Ed got off of work we walked down the beach about 1/2 mile to black beach and went snorkeling. The water was warm and visibility was pretty good (not nearly so clear as the big Island four years ago). We got to see lots and lots of striped fish and very colorful fish and then we saw a BIG turtle swimming underwater. WE watched it for quite a ways - it would come up for air every five minutes or so and then dive. We also saw a sting ray swimming along the bottom of the ocean - the water was probably about 20-30 feet deep there so we were well away from any danger. There was a cliff about 60 feet high where people were jumping off into the ocean but we just watched ! If was fun. Then we headed back to the hotel room and showered all the sand off and took a short nap and then headed for downtown Lahaina.

I spent a couple of hours sitting on a chaise lounge next to one of the five swimming pools at our Hotel. Sometimes I was in shade and sometimes in the sun depending on where the sun was and which palm tree was doing the shading.
Wednesday evening - view from our room as the sun was setting - just before we headed down to the Luau - you can see the rows of tables in the center of the picture. The MTC Luau was held there and it was terrific - the poi was so nummy - they roasted a whole pig (although I am not sure i appreciate seeing my food so realistic!) but we got a piece of the skin - it was crisp and hard but delicious - they had all sorts of Hawaiian food for us to enjoy. I am sure MTC paid big bucks for the meal and the entertainment. The program was a history of the islands with fantastic dancers portraying Samoa and New Zealand and Figi and Tahiti and Hawaii. It lasted a good hour plus - ending with a fantastic fire dance with not one but four men up on stage dancing with fire. Amazing. The singers sang the Hawaiian Wedding song and they had everyone get up and dance to it - a nice memory for Ed and I.
Same view as before only ten minutes earlier.
A waterfall pouring into one of the swimming pools
some of the gorgeous landscaping here at the Westin Hotel in Lahaina

The view to the East from our balcony -lush greenery
The beach and ocean view from out balcony
Another one of the pools from our balcony - the orange umbrellas line the beach front - out in the white sand of a fantastic beach
He really was enjoying himself but of course when I try to take a picture he goes solemn on me. We are on a catamaran with about 35 other people - all from MTC. It was great fun - about a three hour ride out into the ocean with the sails filled with a slight wind. It has been a hot week as the trade winds haven't been blowing - very humid with just a slight breeze - the locals are all praying that the trade winds will start blowing again because it makes 86 degrees feel like 96 - it has been hot and sticky so the boat ride was nice with a comfortable breeze blowing. The meetings got through early so the golfers could hit the links. Those who didn't want to golf were treated to a free catamaran tour - we ended up going out on two big boats and it was a wonderful chance to just visit with all of our many friends from across the nation that had gathered for this conference.
Sunset over Lanai - we could see both Molokai and Lanai in the distance - Molokai is alot bigger than I had thought. But the sun setting over Lanai was just beautiful.

We arrived LATE On Monday evening - we were supposed to land about 8 pm but were delayed in LA waiting for a connecting flight from Atlanta to come in - most of the people we were waiting for ended up being MTC employees - in fact the whole front of the airplane was filled with our conference goers - we decided we should have a training meeting on our way over the ocean! :-) I would imagine there were probably 15 couples that were MTC family. So it was after 9 pm before we landed - then we had to pick up our cars and head to Lahaina which is about 45 minutes away - we all arrived at the westin at the same time so it was 10:30 or 11 before we finally got to our room and unpacked- that doesn't sound too bad until you realize that 11 pm Hawaii time is 3 am Utah time!!!

We got to sleep in until 7 am (Hawaii time) and headed down to a fun welcome breakfast for everyone. It is always so fun at these meetings to see people and friends that you havent seen for several months or even a couple of years. I took a class with Ilvia Tuesday about noon and learned how to make leis - too bad we don't have a flowering tree in our back yard! Tuesday evening was pretty much a wash as we were too exhausted to do more than go out to eat and then back to the hotel to sleep! But it is gorgeous here and we have a full ten days to enjoy this beautiful island.

More Twinner Pics

2009-09-21T09:45:00.001-07:00

We had the August/September birthday party on Saturday Evening. Surprisingly Ed didn't hand each of the guys a shovel and say HELP!! but he didn't. The weather was just perfect and we sat out in the backyard and just visited while the kids played. We had LOTS of good food, too.

after the party Saturday evening Kelly sat both the babies upright on our couch, leaning against the pillows. They looked so cute both Jamie and I ran for our cameras.

Here's daddy giving Brayden a kiss - it looks like Taylie is saying 'me next'
Taylie slipped way down and when Kelly scooted her back up he put Brayden's arm around her
Cute! Mouths and eyes open on both of them!! They were definitely the hit of the party!
Even Emma thought to imitate them as she started crying "waa-aah, waa-aah, waa-aah just like newborns cry.

The whole family came with the exception of Melinda and Makae - we missed you both. The food was delicious and we sang Happy Birthday to Jerod and Ben and Adrie Anna and Ethan and Dirk and of course, the babies as their birthday is in August also.

Saturday afternoon and Evening

2009-09-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Be sure and read the blog just before this one talking about our Zions market. It is always a fascinating endeavor and a lot of work but well worth it.

After I finished with Zions Market then I went to work on our back yard for the family party that is going to be held this afternoon. Ed has been hard at work leveling out and preparing the area next to the house for our hot tub. In the process he tracked mud from one end of the yard to the other and then we have been accumulating junk that we stuck behind the little shed next to our house - I was fed up with it all so I went to work cleaning it all up. I dug out our Black and Decker vacuum/blower thing a ma jobber and first vacuumed up leaves and mud and pits and all manner of crud. Then I switched it to a blower and cleaned off the whole basketball court. That all took hours and I was hot and sweaty and went in to take a quick shower so I would be presentable to go get some Subway sandwiches for supper. I decided a nice hot soak in the tub sounded much better and it only added 15 more minutes to dinner time. By the time I got back home with the sandwiches and started to climb out of the car I felt every muscle in my body. Sitting in the car and not moving around for 15 more minutes had allowed all those overworked muscles to tighten up and I wasn't even sure I could walk.

fter we ate I had Ed fire up the lawnmower for me. You need to realize i NEVER mow the lawn. Ed always does it but he is working so hard on the back yard I couldn't bear to have him have to do it too. So I mowed the whole lawn. Lemme tell you - although it did loosen up those muscles I could feel all of them aching as we finally headed into the house at dusk. I was heading for a hot soak in the tub again - with lots of sweet smelling skin so soft oil. The phone rang just then and it was Kelly wondering if we wanted a couple of babies for an hour or so while they went out to dinner - YES!! Forget the exhaustion, forget the aching muscles - babies to play with!!! I took a quick shower and was ready for them to show up.

The were both sound asleep when they came. Full tummies, dry bottoms and so comfortable
Instead of getting a close up of Brayden, I got a picture of the cute jammies he was in complete with puppy dog toes.
Here is an angel at sleep She woke up first and started fussing but I was able to hold and cuddle her until she went back to sleep - and then I held and cuddled her while she slept for about 45 minutes. :-) Then Brayden started fussing so I laid her back down and held Brayden. He continued to squirm and to fuss until I put his binky in his mouth and that settled him right down. He relaxed and slept so well in grandma's arms. I finally put him down after another 45 minutes. Shortly after mommy and daddy came home so cuddling time was over. Thanks for sharing, Kelly and Jamie.
She has finally grown into her preemie size jammies - yes, newborn sizes still drown her!
Here they are together -so precious

I thought it would be fun to post a picture of what they looked like when they were newly home. This was just a little over four weeks ago - they have changed from preemie s to a more softly rounded newborn look

my weekend

2009-09-20T07:27:00.001-07:00

It's only Sunday morning and I feel like its been three weekends already. Yesterday was a tiring but good day - buts lets start at Friday.

As usual I made a trip to Roy to visit Kathy Heath. She had just found out the day before that the long awaited laser treatment wasn't going to be able to help her stenosis of the esophagus - that she is going to have to have another surgery to put in a stint and that they wouldn't do it until she was officially accepted by Medicaid. So that's another 5-6 weeks wait in the rehab for her. UGH.

I also got to buy the beads and stuff for next weeks Super Saturday - we are making illusion necklaces with a single crystal bead every 1 1/2 inches. It should be great fun.

we won't be making the earrrings except for special orders.

Then I headed over to the Stake House to spend the next 4 1/2 hours accepting donations for our annual Zions Market. The Zions' Market is like a giant garage sale, only no money is exhanged. You want it -- you take it!! This is the sixth year our stake has done this and I have helped set up for every year. It took a couple of years to train the members of our stake NOT to bring stained, ripped or broken items. We literally fill up every room in the church except for the chapel! Even the outside. Washers, dryers, dishwashers, foosball machines, lawnmowers, computer tables, even a hammock - these large items are accepted for donation and set outside the church but those that donate them are kept in a list and if the item doesn't go, then the people that brought them have to come and pick them up after the market is over.
This is the foyer inside the front doors of the church - livingroom furniture, book cases, tables, couches, baby cribs, mattresses, entertainment centers etc. It all went!

This is the relief society room and it has kitchen items of any and all kinds. Dishes, pots and pans, glasses,vases, decorations, canning bottles, etc. That is a cold pack canner sitting under the table to be given away. This picture was taken with still a couple hours worth of donations still to go. Each wall in the room was lined up several deep with frames and pictures and baskets and all sorts of prettiesThis is the tool and camping room - as you can see it has bikes - I think 17 of them. There was even a pocket bike~ exercise equipment, small tents, shade canopies, helmets, even a reloader!!

Shoes - need I say more?? Most of them went the next morning too!
this is the view of the cultural hall - tables and tables and tables full of clothes - girls, womens, mens and boys. The table in the foreground were just womens' jeans - and each of the tables held a lot of jeans too along with shirts, sweaters, socks, lingerie etc. Coats and nice dresses and shirts were hung at each side of the hall. Down at the other end of the hall were tables with fresh vegetables, seeds, handbags and purses (a separate room held suitcases, backpacks, and computer bags.
The toy room had six tables like this FULL of baby toys, puzzles, games, cars and truck, dolls, etc. The floor was covered with boxes with legos or bionics, or scooters etc. The lady that oversaw this room said it emptied out in 20 minutes Saturday morning - all except the babies toys (lots of fisher price, playschool, etc.) since the moms were busy in other areas of the church so it took them a while longer to get to the toy room.
This is in the cultural hall = lots of computer monitors and phones and dvd players etc.
this ws the appliace table - if it doesn't work it is not allowed in the market

This is one of four rooms of baby stuff - the other had strollers (nice ones) and then another two were filled with tables full of baby clothesBaby clothes - deep deeper and deepest! This is where I hit first thing on Saturday morning as Diana Smith had asked me to look for baby clothes for her granddaughter to be and I wanted to find stuff for my new twinners. As you can see, lots of girl stuff on this table - a few boy things but nothing I could find for Ben or Simon. As for the twinners I found baby clothes, shoes, socks, similac, jackets and lots and lots of adorable clothes. I had Jamie go through the girls clothes to share between Taylie and Diana's baby. Brayden got to keep all his stuff. I also found a pile of cute dresses for Emma between this room and the small girls area out in the cultural hall.

I also picked up a computer monitor for Jeff and a bathroom sink complete with fixtures for Kecia!! I got a humidifier for me. It was a fun morning and I think Mauri and Adrie were happy with their treasures too!

I was going to put my whole saturday on here but hate to have to move all of the pictures down to sequential order so I will close this blog and open another.

New camera = new pictures

2009-09-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Finally I can take some fun pictures again. The screen on my old camera had cracked and although I could still take pictures I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. So Day before yesterday I broke down and bought me a new camera. It was not an expensive one but rather one that camera dummies like me can operate. I don't have to pull out my glasses to see what the setting is each time and it even has an 'easy' setting so I can't 'accidently' push the wrong button and wonder what my camera is doing!! Finally they are listening to us old folk and working within our 'limited' ;-) capabilities.

Of course the first place I went to try out the camera was over to see the new twinners

Here they are - age six weeks and doing fine. Mr Brayden Kelly Willden and Miss Taylie Grace Willden.

Taylie is a really good eater and you can see it in her face. The preemie look is fast disappearing behind the fat little cheeks and the beginning of a double chin.

Here I am playing grandma with Brayden - look at all that dark hair

You wouldn't believe he had an empty tummy waiting to be fed - he is the most mellow laid back kid. His big baby blue eyes are looking all around as he waits patiently for his bottle.

Miss Taylie Grace is NOT a patient child. I even suggested duct taping her binkie in her mouth (GRANDMA!!) She is constantly on the move and if they don't have her in her 'burrito' wrap then her little arms are out pulling out her binkie and brothers too if he is close enough!

They are so precious and I love to get to hold and cuddle and feed them. Thanks Kelly and Jamie for sharing!

And last but not least - a short video to see the twins in action!

The Latest Creations

2009-08-25T18:34:00.001-07:00

Last week I really didn't work on necklaces a whole lot, but in two days time I created four necklaces. I have made one more so far that is a beautiful combination of pink pearls and silver chain. I saw it in a book some time ago and finally got around to making it. I don't have a picture of it though so you will have to wait and see it in person or go to petalsoftjewelry.blogspot.com - I am posting the newest necklaces there tonight.

I call this one Frosted Crystal Clusters - I made it a couple of weeks ago but just got the pictures taken last week. It sits at the base of the neck with clusters of clear and frosted plastic beads connected to silver chain with sterling silver cones. The earrings have the same cones and clusters and it makes a gorgeous set. In fact, I had just finished one similar to it when Kecia came over to let Emma play with grandma and she bought it from me on the spot. The picture below is another picture of this necklace. I guess I need to have Kecia send me a picture of the one she bought because I liked the chain on it better. When she sends it to me I will post it. I have priced it at only $15 a set - it was not really expensive to make because I got the sterling silver cones (which is the most expensive part of the whole set!) at clearance price at a Ben Franklin Sidewalk sale.

The first set was my least expensive and this one is my most expensive because of the dichroic pendant. It really sets off the necklace. This is one that doesn't photograph well - it looks too busy but looks gorgeous on. It combines chains and amethyst drops and the one of a kind handmade dichroic pendant in black and silver and lavender. It is selling for $36 for the set. Again, I show the same necklace below. I think I am going to redo the beadwork part of it because I used 49 strand wire and I\it kinks easier than the mid priced 19 strand wire!! Weird - the 49 strand is supposed to be the best!

(do you like my shoe??)

This one is called Gold and Silver Sparklies because that is what it is. The central focus is a beautiful pendant made of gold and silver toned metals with rhinestones set in the open work. I put it on a beadwork necklace of gold toned spacer beads and Crystal Swarovski beads that sparkle so magnificently. This bead work is in turn connected to gold toned chain and the whole necklace connects with a 14k gold decorative magnet. The earrings are single drops with the same beads as the necklace with little bits of chain hanging from them. The picture below is a close up of this set.

Silver Wildflowers:I made this one at the same time I made the Gold and Silver Sparklies and the Mother of Pearl Pendant necklace but though this one is pretty it is not as striking. I am going to repeat the beadwork on a hot pink pendant if I can find one I like and see if I can improve on this one. It's pretty but not one of my favorites. This set sells for $22.oo

This is one of the most striking necklaces I have made in a long time. I wear it with purple but it would look really good with greens or browns or especially turquoise. It is called Mother of Pearl and that is because the pendant is a large round piece of mother of pearl with tones of lavender, hot pink, blues, browns and greens depending on how the light is hitting it. I have again, hung the pendant on a small chain between two sections of beadwork. The bead work in this piece is made up of pale blue pearls and blue iridescent cubes and green Swarovski crystals with copper toned accents ....all hanging from copper wire. The earrings are made up of the same blue and green and copper combination. Maybe it is just because I love copper in my necklaces but this is a definite winner. ($25.00 for the set)
Citron palms : The necklace above and below is created on an dark antique gold chain - with a pale yellow/green pendant with palm trees on it. I have framed this pendant with a lower chain with dangles of the same citron colored flat round shell pieces. The earrings are a pretty dangles of the small round shells and the antique gold chain. This set sells for $29.00

Well - that's it for another while - remember - you can see all of my necklaces at Esty.com The link to that site is here at the upper right hand corner of my blog.

And again - if there is anything you see, remember there is always a 20% discount for friends and family. Also, if there is something you want that you don't see, describe it to me and I will give you a bid and you can have it custom made, just for you...Your color, your size, your metal!!

Bear Lake

2009-08-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Bear Lake with Shawn and Kris and Cade and Makae and Ethan and Jace and my dad. Ed was in Nebraska and Iowa so he couldn't come.

As we came down out of the hills West of Evanston and saw that gorgeous blue of the lake it was marvelous. I don't there is a lake anywhere that is prettier than Bear Lake. They should have called it Blue Lake!! We got there early afternoon and got the whole camp set up and then just relaxed. I fixed Taco Salad for dinner that night and Kris had brought enough nummies to last two weeks so we were well set. I think the hardest thing we did all that evening was try to decide which flavor of the crispy cremes we wanted to eat. My diet went out the window.

The boys slept out in the tent, and the rest of us were in the trailer. The first night was peaceful and other than a couple of Betty's kids up at the cabin we had the place to ourselves.

Kristanne made us a nummy breakfast the next morning. Lunch all the days were easy - sandwiches or hot dogs.

Thursday the day was warm and clear and just plain wonderful. It was a lazy day - except for the kids who had discovered some previous sand castles and built upon them. Ethan was the main architect although, as you see from the pictures all of the kids helped. I went down to the beach in the early afternoon with them and read and relaxed and simply enjoyed the beach.

Here we have Jace and Cade working - or at least Jace was working and Cade was supervising?

These pictures were actually taken friday morning before the winds started whipping up - so you can see that the sand castles kept them busy for two days!!

Makae is hard at work here while Ethan takes a breather!
As you can see (maybe) mighty ditches were dug to create a moat around the main 'building'...at least until they all realized that the water was dropping so fast that their ditches were being left high and dry!
Here again, is Jace and Cade, We had the beach pretty much to ourselves - Shawn, Kris and Dad didn't even come down to the beach. True it was a llllloooooonnnnngggggg walk out there but we had two four wheelers for heaven sakes. ;-)

I think if we had realized that Thursday was going to be our only good day we all would have spent more time at the beach that day. But actually we adults went up thinking we were going to relax and we did.

Makae and I had a particularly lovely time - since Ed was not around she gotto share my soft comfy bed. It is the most comfortable bed in the trailer - I guess I ought to buy an egg crate mattress for the other queen sized bed and it would be just as nice ...but I didn't hear Shawn or Kris complain about the hard mattress. Makae and I also enjoyed our time on the beach just visiting too. I was thankful for such a fun weekend with the whole family.

There were a couple of fun (!) memories at the beach that day. Cade and Ethan headed out into the water to play and all of a sudden they were way way out - I said to Makae - they are too far out there, they need to come back. I'm sure its getting deep. Makae said 'yeah, ethan keeps going under'. I jumped up and hollared for them to come back. Then reason returned and I hollared for them to stand up. They did - they water came up to their knees!!!!

The even funnier thing was when Makae and I were sitting on the beach and the four wheeler was between us and the boys. Makae went over to see what they were making and she screamed "I'm branded for life...a sight no sister wants to see - Ethan running buck naked down the beach after his brother yelling 'give me my swimming suit back!!!' Evidently Cade had dumped a handful of sand down Ethan's swim trunks and he couldn't get it out so he pulled them off under water and was rinsing the sand out when big brother grabbed the suit and took off.

Thursday night Kris made dinner again - actually Shawn and Kris - they dutch ovened a delicious meal. The winds and rain came up during the night and in the middle of the night we had three scared boys come into the trailer saying that the winds broke their tent. So we put Ethan and Jace in bags under Shawn and Kris's bed, and we folded out the table 'bed' and Cade slept there. (Grandpa Merritt was on the couch bed). That worked great for everyone except Kristanne who knew she could get down out of her bed, but wouldn't be able to get back up since there was no room to put the ladder!!

Friday dawned bright and beautiful. We looked at the boys' tent and teased them about telling tales so they could come in the trailer to sleep. The tents looked fine! Anna Lisa and Ed Smith arrived for the weekend, to police the grounds. She and her husband have been protecting Marjories property for a long long time.

She tried to give me a bad time about having my mat down on the grass in front of the trailer and I told her it would NOT damage the grass - it was open weaved and the grass could breathe through it. I think it kind of surprised her that I would stand my ground but she can be such a warden!!! She gave Kris a bad time for having fire wood on the grass!!

In the early afternoon John Sabin and his wife showed up with their boat ready to take anyone that wanted to go out skiing. For John's whole life grandpa merritt took him skiing summer after summer after summer so it was it turn for pay back. Dad did come down to the beach but just then the wind started up and we sat out there trying to keep the sun off of him and keep from being blown away (it did ruin my old beach umbrella) and finally he gave up and says - this just isn't fun anymore. I talked to kecia that evening and we decided that it would probably be too cold for them to come up and camp...we didn't want their first camp out with Emma to be the one where they got snowed on!! Of course it didn't get that cold but it was not fun Bear Lake weather at all.

What was fun was that they had a pair of ski skimmers - for little kids - it was like one large U shaped ski with handles coming up from the skis! Jace got up skiing!!! the rope was attached to the post with the handle on it so Jace didn't have to worry about controlling the skiis or the pull of the rope - all he had to concentrate on was to stay standing up! He went down once and then got back up and stayed up. The other kids tried to ski but the lake was just getting too rough with white caps and all but they had fun anyway riding the tube or whatever you call it. All we know is that the boat took off with all on it, pulling Jace and they didn't come back for an hour and a half!! But they had fun!

The weather went from bad to worse that night - but the boys didn't have any trouble out in the tent Friday night. Jace got so excited when we told him that Skye was coming that night. Of course when she arrived with her dad, all he wanted to do was play his game boy. Kids!!! So she attached herself to Makae. We decided to let Jeff and Skye sleep in the big tent we had put up the first day for Kecia and Glenn. We had used it for a storage tent for all the nummies. I'm sure Jeff didn't have to go very far for a midnight snack!!

While we were eating some of Kristanne's fantastic spagetti dinner Kris got a call from Lillianne. It seems that they had packed up the truck and trailer and were going to camp on top of Monte Crisco. But there were no camp sites available. So by the time they got down the other side of the mountain to Randolf, she called Kris to see if they could come to Thatcher's property. So we said come. Courtney was not especially friendly to Makae when she got there - in fact not until the middle of the next day, but Makae handled it very gracefully. Like my dad said - whenever mickie got upset she would head down to the beach on the 4 wheeler and when she came back she was fine. The lake did settle down Friday evening but Sabins were no where to be found - it was really too cold for too much water sports.

Saturday was definitely cold. It was 42 outside when we got up about 8:30 am. I cooked a big breakfast for all of us (but not Lilliannes family) I turned into a bit of a grouch and Shawn said later that Kris almost called me Wanda!! I don't do mornings well when I have to get up and get moving fast. Sorry guys.

Anna lisa walked over to our trailer to tell us that Marjorie had passed away that morning at 4:30 am. It was totally expected. She has been going down hill for several months although the kids said that she recognized them up to the end. She was 94 years old. Her oldest daughter Valerie came up to stay at the cabin later on that afternoon and we had a couple of good chances to get together to visit. She is such a beautiful woman.

It had warmed clear up to 53 by noon!! So we decided it would be a good day to go to the caves. We all piled into three cars (all of us except dad and I think by then he was just craving peace and quiet - to go from living alone to sharing a 26 foot trailer with 4-7 other people!!).

We drove into St Charles and headed up the canyon and got halfway up there and there was this terrific traffic jam. EVERY one else at Bear Lake thought the same thing. The word came back that they were selling tickets for the 2:30 tour through the cave ...and it was only 11:30 in the morning.

We voted not to stay and we turned around and headed back down the mtn...and came face to face with another car that had decided to go up the mtn in the wrong lane!!! IDIOTS!! the black car backed back into place and we headed down. Darin and Lillieann were able to do the same. But poor Shawn and Kris were in our truck and the road was simply not wide enough to turn around. So HE had to go up the mtn to the parking lot and then come back down.

So we called each other and decided to go into Garden City for a Raspberry shake. We called dad at the camp and told him to meet us at the road and he could come with us. The shakes were nummy - Garden City was sooo packed it reminded me of West Yellowstone or Jackson Hole - way too many people for a small space. Lots and lots of shakes being sold. Raspberry shakes taste better when it is hot outside though!

That afternoon Carl and Pat Sabin came over and visited with dad for a good couple of hours. I think that was the highlight of his trip. I think he was missing having his own truck and tools, and isn't as steady on his feet as he should be to walk over much of that ground. I did see him scouting out the lay of the land on his four wheeler though. The weather stayed cold and windy that whole day. Skye thoroughly enjoyed playing in that cold bear lake water though. She doesn't feel the cold at all I guess. I am glad someone enjoyed it.

this picture was taken on Sunday - when we looked up there was Jace leaning back against the back packs half tipped over sound asleep. By the time I got my camera from the trailer he had woken up and shifted position but still wasn't really with it.

Sometime - Saturday afternoon probably, I invited Courtney and Makae and Darony to make ankle bracelets. It was a good chance to run through what it would take to teach a class like that. Their bracelets turned out really pretty. Each one was totally different. Such fun. they enjoyed it too.

Sunday morning after sharing some of Lillianne and Darin's pancakes and eggs (Jeff helped cook them!) it was decided to make another attempt at going up to the cave. This time Lillianne and Shawn went alone and bought tickets and then came back and gathered up everyone that wanted to go. I stayed back with grandpa this time because I knew Dirk and Da were on their way and didn't want to be gone when they got there.
Sunday about 2 or 3 oclock Dirk and Melinda and Ben and Simon showed up, It was so fun to see them. As you can see, none of us were in swim suits ...rather long jeans and sweatshirts although Sunday afternoon warmed up nicely.
Here we are sitting in the sun in front of the trailer - feeding our faces as we did the whole weekend. Ethan wasn't sure he wanted to try my zuchini bread...he thought it was like Jamaica food -- cooked bananas and such. Finally his mom told him it was like banana bread...and I added 'with lots more cinnemon'. So he got brave and tasted it and loved it!!! Yeah for trying new things!
Just a cute picture of a little family keeping busy.

Ben was not sure about this whole thing, but he was cute
That afternoon Melinda and I decided that if they were going to drive all the way to Bear Lake and the sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing (too bad) we could take the boys and the big yellow blow up raft and pull them around the lake for 15-20 minutes just to say we did it. We headed down to the beach and Da and Ben headed out into the water with the big boat and Ben did NOT want to get in it. He liked the water, that is until the wind pushed him down twice into the water and he got scared. So we scooped him up and put him in the boat and he thought that was great fun.

Simon wanted to walk to hanging onto two of my fingers we walked and walked and walked through this three inch deep water and he was loving it when all of a sudden he just sat down. And he LOVED that - the waves lapping gently around him. Great fun!!

What was not fun was telling them mama and grandma were tired (Shawn and Dirk had stood and talked the whole time) ...they did NOT want to get out. But simon settled down once we had the towel around him and he was getting warm again. Ben we promised he could go up and play throwing rocks for the dog to fetch. Yep - a dog that only wanted to fetch rocks. It was so funny to watch him scoop up the rock with the side of his head against the ground - he would scoop up the rock with his teeth and then run back to you. He would then hold the rock in his mouth until you tossed another for him to go after. Hey, Dirk and Da, maybe this is where Simon learned the golf ball trick.

Dirk and Da left about 6pm and we all got on the road about 7 pm stopping in Evanston for a late dinner.

We all traveled to and from the lake safely and had a wonderful time. Hopefully Shawn and Jeff will share the GOOD pictures they took. I didn't take many - should have taken more - in fact I broke my camera somehow coming home...it still takes pictures, but the view screen is broken!!

Emma and family came to visit

2009-08-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

The day of Kecia's (and Kelly and Jamie, but they were otherwise occupied) Kecia and Glenn and Emma all came to visit. She thought this made a pretty good seat!!

This cute picture of Emma is being blown up to an 8 x 10 to put on my wall of grandkids !! I cropped Kecia out (sorry Kec). I also took some pictures of Kecia and Glenn but they took off their sunglasses and all the pictures are of them squinting - so I won't post them

A play day with Emma

2009-08-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today (Tuesday) Mauri and Ira and kids are heading to Lagoon and they invited Kecia (and probably Glenn to come with. Glenn has to work so Kecia asked me to babysit....So I get a play day with Emma Lynn!! We have had a good time - and my house looks like it. The magnets from the fridge are decorating the kitchen floor, the toys that were stuffed in the 'trunk/seat' of her pooh train are decorating the living room floor and all the necklaces that I gave her to play with PLUS two of the necklaces on the table that I was working with (!!!) were packed in the trunk. Downstairs she has burb cloths (extra ones for new babies in our ward) strewn across the family room and toys from the toy room. She has been busy. Kecia thought that maybe if I wore her out she would take an afternoon nap...NOT!!! She has entertained herself for over an hour with a tupperware container full of decorative marbles ... Grandma is ready for a nap!

We have been playing outside too! She loves to play in the water and so I got out the fun play pad and she decided it was fun to splash grandma. I finally ran in the house and grabbed my camera and took a video Then I tried to download it to my blog for over 13 hours - finally about 4 am this morning I stopped the 'upload' and quit. If you want to see the video you will have to go to facebook!! It uploaded there just fine!

BIRTH 'DAY'

2009-08-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

MORE PICTURES!!

Mauri and Kecia - this picture is for you!

I went and saw the babies again last night and had to add more pictures to this 'Birth Day' blog. The nurses had bathed them and fed them and given them their three hours of sleeping without being bothered time - they now have them on bright colored flannel sheets and little horseshoe shaped cushions - Taylie was on a bright red one with a cute red and white checkered bow in her hair.

Taylie Grace in her 'preemie' sized' hat!

Brayden's fit him a little better. Jamie and Kelly had us put these hats on the babies for a day or so and then Kelly will take them home to Harley to smell to teach him that they are 'good'

Look at all that hair!

Brayden doesn't like the bright flashes of the camera!

Even with all of the paraphernalia of oxygen, IV's, and monitor patches - he still looks so comfy and content under that nice warm heat lamp.

Taylie was sound asleep on her tummy when I asked the nurse to to turn her over so I could get a cute closeup picture for her Aunt Mauri and Aunt Kecia - she did NOT like being woken up!

Brayden is in the top picture and Taylie below him, holding onto daddy's finger!

Daddy Kelly talking to Taylie - Jamie was mostly sleepy this morning (do you blame her after how many hours of labor and then a C section !!!) but Kelly was so excited - he is gonna be such a good daddy.

Again, Taylie is on the left and Brayden on the left. Notice how much darker Brayden's hair is!

Brayden Kelly

Taylie Grace

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Jamie and Kelly had their twins today - Monday, August 3, 2009 - and they are healthy and seem to be doing well!!!! They were six weeks early - Taylie Grace is 17 1/2 inches long and 4 lbs 1 oz; Brayden Kelly is 18 1/2 inches long and weighed in at a whopping 5 lbs 6 oz. It sure brought back memories of when MY twins were born 28 1/2 years ago - Kelly weighed 5 lbs 7 ounces - only one ounce more than Brayden!! Kecia was closer in weight to her twin brother at 4 lbs 14 ounces -

When I got to go into the NICU to see the twins all I could think of was how SMALL they were. I can't remember my babies ever being that small and my daughter Mauri's twins were much bigger it seems - Mauri - remind me of how much they weighed when they were born please. These babies seem normal size in the pictures so I had Kelly stick his hand next to them so you could see how small they are.

Anyway - They seem to be doing well. Taylie especially even though she is the smaller one. Brayden was struggling with his breathing and his blood sugars were low so they have an IV in him and an oxygen canula attached to his nose to help him breathe. They also gave him some meds to help increase the surfactant in his lungs to help him breathe better too. Thank heavens for today's knowledge and medical abilities to help these precious babies at their most critical time.

When Kelly and Jamie arrived at the hospital about 6 am Monday morning they thought that Taylie had moved into the birthing canal, head down ready to deliver. After they did an ultrasound on mommy they realized that Taylie was tucked up in the corner of her uterus and the nurse was feeling Taylie's tail bone instead of her head. They were both breech. So yeah, she got to deliver them C section so Jamie will have a longer recovery time. She only got to see the babies in the delivery room for just a quick moment and then they whisked them out of there into the NICU. Later on, as they moved Jamie from her room in the delivery suite to a nicer bigger room in the post partum section of the hospital, they wheeled her into the NICU where she got to see both babies and hold Taylie. . Poor Brayden got jealous of that and wailed the whole time she was in there.

I can't wait to see Jamie with one of these precious ones in her arms...or Kelly with a baby in each arm! There are lots of long days and longer nights ahead but also lots of joy and love.

I will try to keep you all updated through my blog.