Summer Family Vacation - Henry's Lake 2016

I just love our annual summer trip to the cabin. This year both of my kids and their families were able to come for some of the time. We started out on Saturday morning, June 18th. As always we stopped, in La Grande for a late lunch (breakfast for Wally). We discovered the Smokehouse Restaurant a number of years ago. They are famous for their smoked meats but also for the flapjacks.

Saturday evening we spent the night at my sister's new town house in Boise. My nephew, Bart and his family from Oregon joined us there. We had barbecued hamburgers with sister's son and his family. The kids had a lot of fun playing together. After dinner we walked through the grade school lot to a really nice city park and let the kids play and watched the sunset.

Boise sunset

Sunday morning was Father's Day. We always go to McDonald's for breakfast before getting on the freeway. On Father's Day, Dad's eat free. We arrived at the cabin on Sunday afternoon. Joe and Nikki with Kali and Taylor were already at the cabin in their new trailer with their two dogs. They spent Sunday in Yellowstone Park. Sue and Dennis arrived on Sunday, as did Bart and Autumn. Over the next week we had Becky, Dave, Nancy, Emily, Katie, Kylah, Eli, Scott, Natalie, Scott, Wayne, Andrea, Annelise, Avea, Amoura and Andrea's parent's Ted and Grace from St. George.

It was so much fun having so many kids there this year. They had a lot of fun playing together. Wayne and Andrea stayed at Mack's Inn with her parents in a rental cabin. They loved being there near the river. They had dinner with us one night and spent many afternoons hanging out, playing, canoeing and boating.

Our Dad's cousin Frank Peterson was driving a semi from Montana into Idaho and he was able to stop for a short visit and meet Wally.

During the week there were trips into West Yellowstone, some groups went into the park, we thoroughly enjoyed the new deck at the cabin. Jim came over and visited with us. And then there was the kayaking down the Henry's Fork of the Snake River.

It was going to be Natalie, Scott and I, then when we went over to the rental place we ran into Wayne and the family so they joined us. I started out in a tandem kayak with Natalie and Scott was by himself. Wayne and Andrea each had one girl with them. Amoura stayed behind with Ted and Grace.

At the beginning where we get in the river, it was very shallow. I had to keep getting out of the canoe and pull us. Eventually I talked Scott into trading with me. Then I was solo in a kayak for the first time ever. And I loved it. It was beautiful scenery, very relaxing. There were other kayakers and rafters on the water.

Then as we got closer to where we would be getting out we got a big treat. A mother moose with her baby drinking in the river. Natalie and Scott got awfully close to them. I stayed a little bit behind some people in a bigger raft, just in case I needed to get out of their way as they crossed the river. It was so much fun.

During the week at the cabin we had some really good food. I made bread twice for dinner. We ate white chicken chili, chicken haystacks, enchilada casserole, Emily's chicken, chili and a baked potato bar. We also had caramel corn, fudge and other treats.

My new quilt. Pieced by Sue and quilted by me.

Scott and his hammock.

Eli.

Great Uncle Dennis with Amoura. She always knew right where she was headed and it generally involved a dog.

Annelise and Kali.

It was a great week and it was nice to have the five of us siblings together.

Beautiful Kali. I could take her picture for days.

Grandma Becky with Taylor

Uncle Scott with Eli. Or as Eli referred to him one day, "that guy".

Joe and his fish

My grand daughter Amoura. She turned two on July 6th.

Aunt Natalie with Amoura.

This was our attempt to get all the cousins together. Nine kids, oldest 11, youngest not quite 2. This is one of the better pictures.

My grand daughters Annelise and Avea.

Scott and Wayne (cousins) these two have entertained us at the cabin for many years. I think my favorite was the video with Wayne and his gloves in his best Crocodile Dundee voice extracting a bat from the cabin. But then there was the time they got decked out in Grandpa's hats and jackets, or the time they walked in the dark outside the window with the axe and pretended to be One-Eyed Henry.

Carry on you two!

Katie with Elsie and Kylah

Having a little fun.

Siblings

Getting ready to go home.

It was a great week. Wally and I drove I-90 home in one day. We stopped for breakfast in Ennis, Montana. They have fry bread on the menu. Yay!

Thanks Mom and Dad for the cabin and all the great memories it holds.

See you all next year!

Sister's Trip Utah 2016

I'm writing this almost a  3 4 months later and I wish I would have jotted down some of the details. It was a great trip. I'll try to remember as much as I can.

Another year rolled around and it was once again time for our annual gathering of the sisters in Utah. I flew into Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 6th. Natalie picked me up at the airport and we went for a morning pastry snack at Gourmandise.

We did a Costco run and then we met up with my friend Susan. Susan and I met in college in 1976. I'm very fortunate that we have stayed in touch all these years. We had a good time hanging out and visiting a candy making supply store. Then we met my sisters and cousins at Mimi's for lunch.

My cousin Russell organized a lunch with Aunt Margaret, her daughters, Jill and Dana and daughter in laws, Donna and Leslie. Along with my sisters, Sue and Becky, we had quite a big group. We had a lot of fun. I'm still trying to locate the photos. Aunt Margaret is one of my Dad's sisters. Of the 7 children there are just Aunt Margaret and Aunt Velois.

After lunch I drove Sue's stick shift car with Becky and Sue and we headed to Nancy's house. For the next couple of days we camped out in the living room. We went into our spring cleaning mode and made the place shine. Emily kept us well fed and stocked up with Creamies. We watched movies, visited, read and stayed up way, way too late! Luckily we had no place to be early in the morning.

There was also some trampoline jumping and an evening trip to the Provo City Center Temple.

Love these things!

Sisters April 2016

Sue and Emily at the temple fountain

Provo City Center Temple

On Saturday morning Natalie picked me up and we dashed to St. George for Avea's baptism. We arrived at the church just in time to change clothes and get seated in the chapel. It was a fun afternoon. After the baptism we ate at Ted and Grace's house. Then Natalie and I checked into our hotel.

Wayne came and picked us up and the three of us went bowling, then to Village Inn for a late night snack. It was fun hanging out with my kids.

Sunday morning Wayne, Andrea and the girls come over to the hotel and we visited for a bit. Wayne and the girls hit up the breakfast buffet. Natalie and I walked around downtown St. George and then drove home to Salt Lake. It was a really quick trip to St. George, but I'm glad we got to be there.

We walked by this cute little building with a pink door.

Avea's baptism.

Aunt Natalie with Amoura

 Sunday night Natalie, Scott and I went out for Italian food at a really small little place that had super good food. For an appetizer we had bubble bread. It was like a pizza crust cooked in a wood fired oven with oil on it. Very good. It was my first night sleeping in their house that they moved into one year ago.

This was an amazing ravioli dish.

Monday I flew home. Then back to work on Tuesday. It was another great trip with family in Utah.

100% of My Life

I started to post this photo on Facebook but I wasn't sure I needed that many people to know how old I am! I guess I am a little vain. I've been thinking about doing something like this for awhile. I'll do some other items in a pie chart too just for fun.

3-1-2016

And suddenly it's March! Wasn't Christmas just yesterday? I guess not. I'm currently wrapping two baby gifts. The list on my fridge to remind me about the baby gifts is dated July 2015. That's right the babies are now like 8 months old.  About a month ago I actually took back the baby clothes I bought before Christmas and exchanged them for a bigger size.

According to baby growth reports on Facebook, if I can manage to get these gifts delivered tomorrow, the clothes should fit the babies right now! I was waiting till I had time to sew some things to add with the clothes.

Wow, was I ever behind. There are three more babies on the way, I'm going to get a head start now. And when I do buy the baby clothes I'm going to go right ahead and buy bigger sizes.

I seem to be enjoying 2016 so far. In January we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. Then I blinked and February came and went. All 29 days of it. We celebrated Valentine's Day by going out for breakfast the day before. And buying potted daffodils for flowers.

We had a great visit this last weekend from a friend that had moved to Utah a few years ago. After Wally went to bed on Saturday night we stayed up talking until midnight. It was great. On Sunday morning Wally asked me what time I got to bed and I said midnight. His response cracked me up. He said, "you always do that when you have company, stay up late!"  Well, I guess I do.

Also, last weekend was the big Sewing Expo at the Fairgrounds. I found a new craft I'm going to try. Playing with resin, making some jewelry, magnets, experimenting and learning something new. I'm waiting for the weekend to give it a try. I'm very excited about it. I'll post photos, hopefully the items will turn out as great as the pictures I'm creating in my head.

It's been nice to get back into my early morning gym routine. I'm still loving the sauna a few days a week too. Especially in our rainy season right now. Today we even had hail. I do enjoy listening to the rain at night when I'm sleeping.

Happy March!

Christmas and New Year's

Christmas Day 2016

It was really fun having a Santa from Oregon working in Seattle and attending our ward for a few weeks!
With Patty at a church party.

Sunday Morning

Can't get enough of this little cutie, Amoura. She's 1 1/2 now. Had a fun New Year's trip to St. George.



Had so much fun with these grand daughters.



My very first artificial Christmas tree and I loved it. Excited to be able to put it up earlier too.

ac-tion

4 :  an act of will
5 a :  a thing done :  deed
b  :  the accomplishment of a thing usually over a period of time, in stages, or with the possibility of repetition
c plural :  behavior, conduct actions>
d :  initiative, enterprise action>

You know how some people like to have a catch word for the new year? Sometimes I do that. A couple of weeks ago I was driving in my car, pondering what my word might be. I said to myself I want an action word. And that was it. Action.

Action has different meetings but I like the ones above. An act of will, a thing done, accomplishment. I especially like the part about the accomplishment being done over a period of time.

So that's my word for 2016 - action. If it had a partner word that word would be results or outcome. I think for every action there is an outcome. Whether that outcome be good or bad, it's there.

Kind of makes you think twice before "taking action" doesn't it?

Ways I'm going to take action this year:

Accept more, complain less;
Keep looking forward, less looking backward;
Just do it, less putting it off;
Be brave, less fear;
Service, not selfishness;
Find the need and fill it;
Jump in, don't hesitate;
Make it happen;
and accept the outcome and result with a good attitude.

Action requires planning, action deserves rewards, action is movement, motion, not sitting on the sidelines.

This is the year for action. How about you?

Christmas Past

December was a whirlwind. But it was all good and fun preparing for the one day of Christmas. Since I live out of state from most of my family, it means shopping early and shipping gifts. Gifts and candies. I had a lot of fun making chocolate covered salted caramels and mailing them out. If you didn't get any this season, forgive me, there will be more later. I think I made like 600 of them over a period of 2 weeks.

I shipped something like 14 boxes to various family members and friends. Caramels even made their way to a friend in Hawaii this year.

The month was filled with fun holiday church parties, a concert at Benaroya Hall, lunches and gift exchanges at the office and food. Lots of food.

Two days before Christmas we celebrated Gisele's 15th birthday at Grazie's Italian restaurant.

On the day before Christmas Wally and I took a drive up to Snoqualmie Falls. We saw snow along the way. It was cold at the falls but still nice.

Christmas Day we slept in. When we finally got up we opened presents, ate breakfast, made many phone calls to talk with family and grand daughters. In the afternoon Melissa and her family came over for dinner and more gifts to open. It was a nice day.

Saturday I shopped, watched TV and did a lot of nothing. It was a nice relaxing day after.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. On to the New Year! 2016 awaits.

Viva Las Vegas and Washington, Utah

In August I made a trip to Southern Utah to visit my son and his family. I flew down on a Thursday and Andrea and the girls drove to Vegas in the morning to pick me up. We went to the Hershey Store and had lunch in New York, New York hotel.

I remember in the mid 90's flying into Vegas to visit my parents who were living in Southern Utah at the time and I remember having some spare time before flying home. I had gone down to the strip and I remember walking around New York, New York.

 

 

After the Hershey Store we went to get burgers in the New York, New York hotel. Then it was off to the Las Vegas Children's Museum for loads of fun. There was dress up, there was climbing, there was inventions, there was water. Something for everyone. As we arrived at the Museum I discovered I had left my credit card at the hotel when we had lunch. I called them and they were holding it for me at security. So after the museum we had to make the trip back to the strip to retrieve my card.

 

 

After retrieving my card we made the drive home to St. George. Wayne came home from work and we had a nice evening at home.

 

On Friday and Saturday we visited Aunt VeLois, got to visit the Superior Threads warehouse store and fabric store, had lunch at Cracker Barrel and had a mega fun shopping trip to Costco. We also had dinner at my daughter in law's parent's home. Wayne and Andrea got to go out to a movie while I watched the girls.

On Sunday Wayne drove us to Vegas where we had lunch at the Rainforest Café inside the MGM Grand Hotel. That was quite a pretty site to see. Vegas was very warm and sunny.

 

 

After lunch it was time to go to the airport to head back home. It was a fun, fast weekend visiting the kids.

Catching Up with Life

Excuse my embarrassment for not having blogged for two months. Do you sometimes ever feel that life gets in the way of life? I think we spend so much of our time planning our life, that we don't always recognize life as it unfolds right here and now in front of us.

In September I was able to go to Boise to attend my 40th high school reunion. Gail flew in from North Carolina. We had so much fun. Originally the life I had planned that weekend would have been Wally and I driving to Boise on Thursday and spending a leisure weekend in Boise and then driving home on Sunday.

As life would have it, Wally got a stomach virus and was very sick the first week and a half in September. So I bought an expensive plane ticket two days in advance and I have no regrets. Well, except leaving a recovering Wally home to fend for himself for a little over 48 hours.

Gail picked me up on Friday night for the first activity. It was a casual gathering at The Drink Waterfront Bar and Grill. It was the perfect spot for this gathering. We donned our name tags at the check in desk and then spent the next few hours trying to guess who people were! Some I could recognize, but for most it was hard. High school was so long ago. But the evening was very fun spent visiting and catching up with people.

Saturday morning my brother and sister came over to Sue's house and we met to discuss things about the cabin with Nancy on the phone.

In the afternoon Gail came over and we spent the afternoon floating in the pool in the backyard and visiting. It was a much needed rest for a crazy month.

The Saturday night event was a lot of fun. It was held at the Riverside Hotel.  It was fun getting dressed up to go out for the evening. We had a light dinner, short program and a DJ playing 70's music. And lots of space and time for visiting. They had yearbooks spread out and even some grade school and Jr. high photos. A lot of the kids had gone to school together since grade school.

 

The evening was a lot of fun. Sunday came very quickly and it was time to fly back home. Wally survived and I was back at work on Monday.