First adventure of the new year

We were excited about attending Isabella's baptism and Nick's ordination to the Priesthood this month and I wanted to visit my mother who has been very ill recently so I just combined the two and was gone for nine days. It was a little long and Bruce said I can only go for three days from now on but I enjoyed it so much and was able to visit with a lot of family and amazingly enough the weather was good the whole way. There was snow on the ground in Beaver and it was very cold but it didn't snow while I was driving so that was all I cared about. Sacramento and Las Vegas were beautiful and warm. A huge thanks to Em and Steve for letting me borrow their car the whole week!

It was good to spend time with my mom and see for myself how she is doing and also see her new home, the Long Term Care facility. Any ideas on a better name for that place would be appreciated. I hope she will be able to gain strength again and enjoy her days there.

I think Bella liked her comforter I made for her, isn't she adorable in her new glasses?
The whole gang. Bella was the only one being baptized that day since she waited for Nick to be ordained but the room was filled with family and friends. Grandpa Bob made her adorable dress and jacket. I love spending time with Beth and Britt, they are best friends as well as cousins. I just can't believe they are going to be 14 and that means Stake Dances!! They always manage to get us in the swimming pool at the motel.The guys; John, Andy, Wayne, Grandpa Bob, Nick and Grandpa Brucie. I'm excited that next time I visit I will get to see Nick passing the Sacrament. We were so proud of Nick and Bella and so glad we could be there to share in the occasion.I told Ila she was going to make the blog so maybe she will actually read it this time. They are so much fun to spend time with and they took such good care of me, I slept and ate at their house for five days. We stayed up until after midnight every night visiting and slept in every morning, it was great. They make retirement look inviting.Added bonus! I love that the Las Vegas airport is pretty close to Beaver, it makes for extra chances to see Em, Steve and Easton. It was a short visit but very fun.Well, it was a great time and I'm so glad I got to go. I appreciate the day care parents being understand and I'm glad to be home with the girls and Brucie, he was lonesome and running out of food.

Finally I'm blogging Christmas. I loved every minute!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season we sure did and I have a hard time letting go. You put so much effort into it, you have such a great time with family and friends, some of us get a vacation from work and then it's over just like that. Our family is all gone and I finally took the tree down, that makes me feel sad, I put all my grandson's favorite toys away and that made me sad so I decided to leave a few winter decorations up for awhile and that perked me right up.

It's quiet here now and even though I wasn't ready to start those early morning walks, I need to get rid of those extra calories and I was glad to see my little girls come back on Monday morning. Bruce is working all manor of crazy hours the past couple weeks so I haven't even seen much of him.

The big news here is that we got a new bed! Yep, after 26 1/2 years we thought it was time, it did dip in the middle pretty bad and we could feel the springs coming through so we went shopping and just as I thought would happen, we bought the first bed we saw so Bruce could get home in time for the Oregon game. I can be a good thing that he shops that way, if it were up to me, we would still have several stores to check out and then it would take a long time for me to choose. We got lucky though, it's very comfortable and we think we are going to love it, the only draw back is that you have to have a step ladder to get in it. It wasn't that high in the store, what's the deal with that?

Happy January to all and Happy Birthday to: Megan, Nicholas, Michael, Caleb and Kellen!!!

Bella gets baptized on January 17 and Nicholas will be ordained a deacon on the 18th. They are growing up so fast!!

I'm so slow that a lot of our pictures have been posted but here are a few favorites:

1. Cookies for Santa

2. We actually have snow

3. The favorite toy

4. One of many SERIOUS scrabble games

State Champs!!

I just want to take a quick minute and say how fun it was to watch the Skyhawks claim the Oregon 6A Football title. It was a beautiful evening at Reser Stadium in Corvallis so we were grateful for that as rain had been in the forcast. We were very proud of Marc and happy for his team, they were awesome. Way to go Coach and Happy Birthday! I bet your family will be glad to have you home more.

I am glad for many things

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, ours was just great, I love it so much! We had the same group as last year and it was so good to spend time with them. Jenni was here for a week from Rexburg, Brad and Kristy came from Roseburg and Darren, Jill, Joseph and Justin from Seattle. That's a lot of traveling and we really appreciated all of them for doing that. Warner, LeAnn, Joe, and Andrew were here, (we missed you Stephanie) and we had a new friend from the YSA Branch, Jenny Laederich who adds spice to any gathering:) We love her.
Fourteen of us so that is a good group.

No one reminded me not to make too many pies and so, like last year, I am finishing them. Hey, that reminds me, I wrote about that last year, it's my blogging anniversary! One year ago I started with Thanksgiving.

We are grateful for our many blessing, including all of you.Jill and I took the boys on a nice walk to the park to get the wiggles out before the Duck game. They seemed to know it was important and played quietly during the whole game. Dad looked forward to watching it with Darren and got called out, of course.

Jen had a lot of fun with the boys except for when we went to feed the ducks, she was a little wimpy. That nutria was really ugly though and all those birds swooping down on us and pooping on her pants didn't help.

Dad and Darren traveled to Portland to watch Marc's team win over Beaverton in the semi finals( they are in the championship game this Saturday, Congrats to Marc) , Jenni and I went to see Twilight and loved it, some serious Christmas shopping was accomplished, and lots special time with family and friends.

All Aboard

This time of year comes around and I just can't resist getting on the train and going to see the Sorensen's in California. I am always leery about my train rides because you never know how it is going to turn out, Emily and Jennifer can attest to that fact. One morning I woke up and expected to be in Sacramento and we were stuck in the Mountains not even to Klamath Falls yet! This time all went well, better than well, excellent! We left on time and arrived on time at both ends and on the way home I had my own sleeper car, it was deluxe indeed. They wait on you and you have a private parlor car to eat in away from the coach travelers. I don't know if I can go back to being a coach traveler. I'll have to.

The time with Mel's family was wonderful, we packed as much as we could in the time we had. Saturday after they practiced for the Primary program, Andy drove us to Reno to go shopping at Cabala's and we all loved that. Sunday I was able to see the kids do their parts in the Primary program and they were great, Ben and Mel played a duet on the piano, Nick and Bella both did a great job on their talks. Nick and I went on a nice walk together while Bethany took her very long Sunday afternoon nap. That evening we celebrated Joshua's (their little Foster boy) first birthday, he loved the chocolate cup cake while eating it but later...not so much. He's a cutie and they all love him.

Monday we went to the park, played our annual $ Store game, went to see HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 ( Jenni, we agree with you all the way!!!) ate lots of good food and played games right up to time to get on the train and head home.

Thanks for having me, I loved being there!

Ya gotta love Rexburg

I've been looking forward to Mother's weekend for months and now it's over but it was all I had hoped for and more. As Jenni was driving Em and I around town, I was thinking how much I love it there and asking myself why, (it was miserably cold at the moment). Here are a few reasons I came up with:

1. It has been home to four of our children off and on for 20 years now. Unreal!

2. Darren met Jill there.

3. Emily met Steve there.

4. Jenni met Michael there.

5. They have all gained an excellent education and grown into exceptional adults.

6. They all strengthened testimony.

7. They have met lasting friends.

8. Dad and I have had some amazing times visiting them there including; Mother's weekends, graduations, moving them in and out numerous times.

9. It has a friendly, small town goodness about it.

On the other hand, some things I don't like about Rexburg :

1. Freezing cold weather Fall, Winter, Spring.

2. It's in the middle of nowhere!

3. It's expensive to get there and back no matter how you travel.

4. It has taken my kids too far from home.

I enjoyed my time with Jennifer and Emily so much and we were able to hang out with Steph which was so great. We met a lot Jen's friends, her room mates, and her boss, Brother Tippetts, they were all awesome, I swear she knows everyone there. The temple is just so beautiful and I was grateful to be able to go with Emily. We went to one of the seminars which was excellent but mostly did our own thing and that involved a lot of eating. Em had her favorite spots she wanted to visit and Jenni and Steph have their favorites so we had to hurry to fit them all in. I think I'd have to say the pumpkin shake was my favorite, I don't know, it was all delicious.

Thanks to all who made this possible, especially Jen for inviting us. I'm worried about that being my last Mother's weekend. Bethany could you arrange to go to BYUI and invite me?

WE LOVE REXBURG!

It was a beautiful day for a flight into Portland and I took this photo of Mt. Hood. Cool huh?

Up and coming

I just wanted to share these adorable pictures, a couple you have seen on other blogs but aren't they so cute? What about basketball though? I thought with the five little boys we were going to have our own basketball team.

Go Team!!