Memorial Day Weekend at the Cabin

It was another great holiday weekend at the cabin for the few of us that got to go. The cousins had a blast and spent most of their time in the loft laughing and talking, or at a table playing games. They took some time to eat when it was time to also. Then they were off doing their own thing again...
Kevin eating his pancake breakfast in peace...

The water in the creek was the highest it's ever been. There was still snow around the valley and in the mountains, which is very rare for May 31st. We should get some good run-off in Nevada from all this water.

Landon getting some good sleep. Not much room on the couch, and he slept pretty cold the first two nights, but grandpa finally turned the heat up and he slept like a baby the last night.

One of the highlights of the trip for Kevin and I was getting to go to the Manti Temple for the sealing of Gregg and Paula's oldest daughter, Britney, and her husband Chad. It was wonderful, especially to go through a "live" session. Everyone needs to experience that once in their lives, at least. It was a great day, and we made it back to cabin in time to get in some games!

Now it's home where bags are unpacked, lawn in mowed and watered, and chicken eggs are gathered (27! Wow, those girls were busy while we were gone) The kids have two more days of finals, then it's on to girls camp, high adventure, and hopefully a trip up to Provo some time this month, then back to the cabin for the 4th of July...

I LOVE SUMMER! (except for the heat...)

An Eventful Mother's Day...

First of all, my computer is acting goofy and won't let me move my pictures around, so these are all out of order. First off, this is what Kevin got me for my birthday and Mother's Day - tickets to go see Donny and Marie at the Flamingo in Vegas one of these nights. We'll blog about that after it happens. Thank you honey, and yes, I was surprised.
Our good family friend, Brockton Chappell, got home from his mission on Friday, so we headed to their ward to hear him speak about his experiences in England, and then went to their house for fun, food, and a bunch of laughing.

Of course, the teenagers head to the front of the line first. That's Parker on the left, Brockton's little brother that he says is not so little anymore. He's the one that has changed the most to Brock.

More family friends...

Kevin must have the camera, because Paula and I are back there fiddlin' with our own cameras!
(more kids in line)

Angie and baby Bentley, who ended up with a fierce breakdown later in the afternoon!
The kids took a break after all the fun to head into the TV room for a good laugh watching "Clue." They were laughing even before the movie started!

The adults did the dirty work of cleaning up. (Gregg caught with his hands in the kitchen sink!)

Michaela, Brockton, Heather (Scott and Yvette's) and Kira playing a high-maintenance game of "Last Word." Good times...

Yvette and I having a peaceful moment to ourselves. Scott, Yvette, and Heather came up to hear Brockton speak. It at least gave them a chance to leave home for a weekend. The weather was great for eating outside, but ended up a little too windy as the day went on.

It's good to see Brockton and REALLY good for the kids to have him home. They have already had a great time laughing and reminiscing about old times. He doesn't look different at all to me, not even a day older. I don't know where he stashed all that "aging" while he was gone, but it must be that he was already a brick before he left. So Happy Sabbath, Happy Mother's Day, and Happy Back-to-the-Grind tomorrow...

Donations and Darlings

People are genuinely good, I have decided. The day after Lexie's article came out in our local newspaper, we received our first donation for her trip to China. I wasn't even going to check the mailbox at the post office (we use post office boxes here in little Logandale) but thought, what the heck, I'll check it today. And there was that first wonderful donation! I had to take a picture of it!! I nearly cried when I held it in my hand. I immediately called Kevin, then Lexie, then bragged about it all day to my family. It was so exciting!! People REALLY care...I think I knew it all the time.
And then here is the cutest primary class in the whole church! I have been teaching Kira's little CTR 5 class since she has been gone for the last 4 weeks. I have fallen in love with these kids SO much that I don't want to give them back. Kira has since decided that she is going to start attending the Singles Branch with Michaela, so they have to find a new teacher for these kids anyway. So why not me?! I'm hoping that our bishop and stake president will allow ME to teach these kids. I'm not sure if a Stake Relief Society President is allowed to, but I gave our ward primary president a list of the three (count them, THREE) dates that I have ward conferences to teach at, meaning I won't be there for those sweet little cherubs, but every other week I could be there. Please, please, let me have them...

Quilt for a Cause

For those of you who don't know, our daughter Lexie is gearing up to travel to China to have treatments for her impaired vision. To read her story about her getting to this point, visit her blog at the right of this post entitled "Lexie's ONH Journey." We are in the process of preparing for our first fundraisers, and this quilt will be along for the ride. This is destined to be a raffle item at our upcoming spaghetti dinner in April. This was as rewarding to make as all of those quilts were that I made for my daughters back at Christmas time. This quilt almost has a "spirit" attached to it, because it is for such a personal and precious cause. A cause that, hopefully, will have a happy ending to it. So here's to giving this one away...

Quality Time - Concert Style!

Yesterday Tibi and I spent the day in Las Vegas running errands and getting some things done. We went to lunch at Red Lobster, her new favorite restaurant, and then I took the much needed time to go visit my best friend from Vegas days, Kim Talbot. We have been in Logandale for 17 1/2 years now, and it was time to catch up on kids, grandkids, and each other. It was great to see her and have all of those memories fresh in our minds. Love you Kim!We then took a drive by our last house that we lived in when we lived there. This is the Esquina house, as it has since become known as. (Did that even make sense...) Tibi and Landon never lived in this house, but the bigger girls have a lot of memories from this place.

I surprised Tibi and told her that I had gotten tickets to the Brad Paisley concert. We both love his music and knew that he would put on a great show. I have always loved his songwriting. He's so honest and funny writing mostly about his own life and experiences. Plus, he's a cutie! It was Tibi's first concert, so I wanted to make it a good one. Probably the only other person that would have been right up there on her list is Taylor Swift, but hense, she is not coming to Vegas anytime soon...

Here we are waiting for it to begin.

He started out with his song "Start A Band" just using his guitar out front with the audience and then after just a few lines of that song went immediately into "American Saturday Night" with the rest of his band and brought the house down with it. You can see him at the bottom of the picture. All of the stuff above him is on a huge video screen that he had going on for every song. Very fun and entertaining just to watch the screen...

On this song, he stood up on the ramp and played in front of the screen. Very cool...

Here's a little blip of him singing "American Saturday Night." Sorry you can't see anything, but the camera made the picture look like that. For us it was a much better picture of him!

Like Father...Like Son

First off, this has got to be the most disturbing post that I have ever written. And in more ways than one. First off, these feet belong to two different people, and secondly - they are so much alike that it's scary. They are finally about the same size, which gives you a pretty good clue as to who they belong to. All I can say is that I'm happy with my own ugly feet! Take a wild guess on who's is who if you dare...

Back to Reality

We spent a wonderful 7 days on the western Caribbean this last week with Vicki's mom and dad, siblings, and their spouses. We left Tibi and Landon with family friends while Kira took off herself to Phoenix for a wedding reception of a mission buddy. We flew to Miami (probably the best flight I've ever had, thank goodness) on early Sunday morning and arrived about three hours before the rest of the family. We all caught 6 a.m. flights (which meant 2 a.m. wakeup time) so that we would have daytime left in Miami with time change. Kevin and I never really went to sleep before our flight, which made it nice for me sleeping most of the way on the plane. We arrived in Miami to find record cold and wind there. Our shuttle guy complained that he finally had to buy a coat for the first time because of it. It was brutal cold. We waited at the hotel for the rest of the family to land, finally ended up together, had a relaxing Sabbath day, and prepared to board the cruise ship.

We headed out south toward Cuba on our way to our first stop. We would be on the boat all night, all the next day, and port the next morning in Cayman. It took that first day for me to get used to the movement of the boat, but after the first day, I was fine. I discovered that I needed to be at the back of the boat to get the least movement. Thank goodness that's where our cabin was, but the workout room was at the very front of the boat near the top, which got the most movement, so that first morning that I went to workout, I felt like I was going to throw up. I wanted to workout every morning on the ship (to help cancel calories that I knew I would be eating) but this was not going to work. So I decided to instead run on the track that was located on the top deck of the boat. I would rather run outside than on a treadmill anyway, so it worked out perfectly.

The ship was huge, 12 stories high, with everything you would ever need. Food was always available, and the staff was wonderful.

This is Armanz from Latvia. They have a lot of foreigners working on the ship. Armanz liked to hang out with our family whenever he could. I had taken a puzzle with me to do on the ship and he was afraid we would get it done before he could have a little time off to come and help us.

The Cayman Islands were beautiful, but crowded with tourists from the ship. We usually had two or three other cruise lines ported with us, so it made for a lot of people on the islands. We still had a great time sightseeing and walking the streets. These ports thrive on the tourists that come shopping. It's how they survive, and boy, do they try to draw you in to their store!We snorkelled around this "pirate" ship and saw some pretty coral and fish. Some of us had to get used to snorkelling, but we finally got the hang of it before the day was done. Dad even got out there with us while mom and Jeff stayed on the ship.

After each port we had a lot a down time to travel on the ship getting to our next port. We spent a lot of time on the Lido deck eating and playing games. This was our designated meeting place for almost everything.We ate dinner every night in the Washington dining room, which was very nice. We sat at the same two tables every night and had the same waiters too. The food was incredible and we tried some pretty yummy appetizers, entres, and desserts. We could order whatever we wanted, however much we wanted. One night, when Lobster tail was on the menu, my brother Scott joked about having 5 more dinners delivered, and the next thing we knew, 5 more dinners were delivered! The second port was at Roatan, a little island off the coast of Honduras. It was a beach day where we all got burnt and had to stay out of the sun for the next day. Well.....I had to. This is where we were when the earthquake hit Haiti, which was north of us by then.Mom was able to get off the ship for our beach day. She stayed in a hut right on the beach and even had waiters to tend to her. Our next stop was in Belize where we took a jungle cruise up a river and spotted crocodile, dolphins, iguanas, monkeys, and birds. We climbed Mayan ruins and enjoyed beautiful meadows.Our last stop was at Cozumel where we got off the ship and snorkeled with sting rays (yikes!) and tropical fish. We then went shopping and sightseeing before we headed back onto the cruise ship to set sail back to Miami.

The colors were beautiful. I'm a sucker for pretty flowers.

Every night after our room was remade we would find an animal made out of towels. Here's our elephant. We also had a dog and a dinosaur. The ship even sold a book that showed how to make all the different kinds of "towel" animals. We spent the next day on the ship and got back into Miami on the next Sunday, got off and headed to the airport before flying back to Las Vegas. We had a wonderful time, thanks to mom and dad, and have decided that everyone should go on a cruise at least once in their life.