Long time no see

Well it has been a long time since I wrote. I guess I just keep putting it off and putting it off. We have been busy. I am no longer RS Pres. so my life has calmed down a lot and I can now find the time to do the things that I always wanted to do, but now I can't remember what I wanted to do. Life is that way I guess.

We have had out daughter Aimee Jo and her 3 kids living with us since last July. It has really been a challenge mixing two families. We have had our ups and downs. She will more than likely be getting her own place in the next few months.

Our traveling has not taken us far, no long trips to get away. We have made a couple of trips to Tori and Russ's house. I have to say that I really didn't want to go, not that I didn't want to be with them and see them, but it is really cold there. I don't do well in the cold. I wasn't disappointed at all. I froze the whole time I was there. My feet were saved from frost bite because their dog took pity on me and slept on my feet.

The second time we made the trip I was prepared. Double set of socks, clothes and heaviest coat I could find. I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I arrived and the weather was quite warm. Needless to say I was over dressed and cooked all night. On top of that the trusty dog got stuck at the end of the couch where no one could see him. Late in the morning putting up the hide a bed we found him. I really felt bad.

My friend that has been battling cancer just found out that she has a mass in her abnormal area. They did surgery on her today and was not able to remove it. She only has 6 months to a year left to live. She has become like a sister to me and it has been really hard to finally put a time on her life. I have thought what I would do if a time was given to me. I thought of all the things that I would want to do before my time was up. I sorted out all of the things and places I have always said I wanted to do and go, like sky diving, taking a cruse, standing on top of a mountain and looking around. Maybe learn to climb like my son does so that I could see the beautiful things that he sees. After all my dreams went through my mind I narrowed it down to one thing. I think I would just want to be with my family. That is the most important thing in my life. I would love to hold hands with my dear husband and talk about our love for each other. I would love to spend time with my children and learn more about them and their lives. Most of all I would make sure I told each of them how much I love them and how much joy they bring to me. One thing for sure I would want them to know is that I love my Heavenly Father, and that I know that it will not be long before I will see them again. Any way enough of this.

We have joined the rock club at the senior center and hopefully we will go on a couple of trips with them this year. We want to find some great rocks. There is so many places in Utah to explore, we are really excited.

Joddy called one day (I am sure she really didn't want to tell us) any way she called telling us that right behind Walmart where they live, people have found some beautiful rocks. She said that the kids could hardly wait until we got there so we could take them out. It really is funny coming from them. When they were first married Doug just about had a heart attack when we wanted to bring some rocks in his house. I am glad they have learned to put up with us and our quirks.

It is time to end my ramblings. Life is good, I am glad I am here and I feel very blessed. What more do I need.

Now by no means am I saying that this is the best part of the trip, but this is my love. I come here to renew myself. I come here to get closer to my Heavenly Father. This is where I put everthing into perspective. The water, waves and all the beauty touch my heart. When I look at the wonderful things around me I can never figure out why some people don't believe in God. I see him in these things, I feel him. I can even say when I am standing on the shore line he speaks to me. In that still small voice he lets me know that I am his daughter. I am so thankful that I can have these moments of quiet. I am so blessed that I have the life I have, the family I have. Everyday I thank him, I know that if it wasn't for his help I would not have been where I am. I love my family and all the joys that they bring to me. Here in front of the sunset I see how lucky I am, I go home with renewed spirit to do the things that I need to be doing.

On the way to Calif. and back we were able to visit with Tina and her family, since they are mostly camera shy we decided to get a peak at Emily's room. I am glad that I am not going to have to dig through that, I am afraid that something might bite me. In all honestly we really enjoy seeing them. In fact we really had a nice visit. Family is great most of the time.

EE and grandpa hit it off. The other kids were in school and that left the two of them. I think another reason that they hit it off is because they are so much a like. They seem to think the same. It was nice they bonded so well it gave them both something to do while we were there. It was fun watching EE and the things he came up with. Some of them got him into trouble, but since I am not the mother I thought they were cute. I know his mother was having a hard time when he threw things over the bannister. One time I almost got hit in the head, I guess that was not as funny as some of the other things.

S was kind enough to let us sleep in her room, which ment she had to sleep with the boys. I am not sure I would want to sleep with the boys, so I am so grateful that she helped us out. She holds her own in that group. I think that her pretty face and the fact that she is a little doll helps her a lot. Hay, when your out numbered use what you can. We really enjoyed visiting with her.

E and K kept us going. I think they are smarter than
us so we had a hard time keeping up with them. Most
of the time I think we were way behind.

Rigby makes our 22nd grandchild. Is there any thing greater
than to be with a baby who has just come from Heavenly Father.
I am afraid I just loved to hold him, so I made a pig of myself.

Our trip to Calif. was a good resting time for us. Al and I needed a time out and what better way than to see our family. We always enjoy seeing them but this time it was special, we had a new one to welcome into the family. We went to help Joddy out and I hope we did. We love watching the kids doing their thing. Each time we go they are bigger, which means new experiences for us. All in all we had a great time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCUS
He is really enjoying his birthday cup cake. I
am just glad that I am not the one cleaning him
up. Even messy we love him...........

While we had Aimee Jo's kids with us we went to Bridle Fail Falls.
It is a beautiful place, the kids were able to wade in the water
and climb rocks. Ashley and Paige finally made it to this rock and
sat down.

Allie finally made it through school, notice she is holding a carmal apple
in her hand. She is going to pig out on it as soon as she gets home.

Boy it has really been a long time since I put anything on this blog. I will try to hit the high spots.
In June ( I think) we went to St George to Allie's graduation. I still cannot believe she is so old. Time really passes by and we don't pay attention. While we were there we had the opportunity to go through the Temple with Crosby. That was a great experience for us all. It was a great family time, which we always love.
On July 7th Marcus, our great grandson had open heart surgery. They had to remove part of a tumor that is in his heart. He has had it since he was born. We were all hoping that it would not get bigger, but our hopes were dashed when 2 years later they found it had grown up one of the arteries in the heart. He went through the the surgery just fine, but it made his heart beat irregular so they ended up putting a pacemaker in. After two weeks he is home and doing fine. We are very thankful to our Father In Heaven for letting Marcus stay with us longer. He still has his tumor so we have not idea what will happen next. We take a day at a time,
Aimee Jo was off the first week of the hospital stay and then had to go back to work. We spoke up and told them we would take Paige, our granddaughter and Destiny, our great granddaughter. Paige is 8 years old and was no problem at all, but even with Haylee here Destiny wore us out. She is a year old. An ear infection and just plain old one year old energy kept all 3 of us on our toes. We had them a week. For two days after they left we rested. Haylee and I made several trips to Primary Children's hospital while all this was going on. Every thing is back to normal and hopefully they will stay that way.
Our lives seems to stay busy. I wonder when it is going to slow down, but it never does. In two weeks we will be going to St. George once again for Cos's farewell. It is sad to see all of them grow up.
Tonya, Scott and their family are in Germany. They are there for 3 years. I know that they were far away before, but this seems like a lot further. I know we did it to our parents, but we are now on the other end and it is not so fun. Tonya will be back in a few months to welcome a grand baby. Yes Bre is having a baby. That will make 3 great grandchildren for us. It just keeps getting better and better.

I am still kickin!

Since I have not written for a long time, I am not going to worry about pictures, but just move on. We have been so busy. This past week we have enjoyed the grandkids. On Weds. we went to Paige's school to have her birthday lunch with her. AJ could not go so we had the fun of taking her place. The whole time we were there, (eating our pizza) she was trying to talk us into checking her out. She gave me several reasons. Of course I gave her several back. It was funny! I won!
We then took Amanda, Randy and the kids to Wick to get food. Destiny is almost crawling, her knees are there, but not movement. Marcus is not moving much. I think his body is catching up with his head. He is in Physical Theaphy. That is a good thing!
On Thur. we went and picked up Ayden. He wanted to come down on his birthday. So we went and got him, kept him for a few days. Of course he wanted to go to Thanksgiving Point. He loves going there, the gift shop is the best part. We took him to a 3D movie. I don't think he liked it, he kept taking his glasses off. He also kept trying to grab the things that were coming off the screen. One time I had to grab his shirt because he about went over the chair in front of him. It is always fun with him.
On Sunday we took him home and had dinner with Tori, Russ and the girls. When we arrived home we just flopped down enjoying the sound of nothing. We were really tired. Kids are for the young, I see that every time I have one of our grandkids.
Since I last wrote we had a visit with Tina. She came all alone. It was so nice to have her with no kids. We had a nice visit. We took her to Midway to see the Ice Castles that someone made. They are beautiful. No one can even understand how great they are until you see them. I was happy to see that Tina was really impressed since we talked it up so much. It was a great visit. I wish all of my children could visit every once in a while without their kids. We get to really spend time with them.
Family is a great thing to have. Everyday I am so thankful for the blessings of family. It is what it is about and it's great....

Meetings, Meetings

Well my week has been filled with meetings. It seems everytime I turn around there is another meeting added on. Alden was put in as the High Priest group leader, now we can go to meetings together. I know they will not stay as bad as they are now, but I still feel meeting out. The new TS program has finally been unveiled and I love it. We are working more with the Priesthood to find the needs of the ward and then as a RS we can meetings to meet those needs. It will take some getting used to, alot of organization and prayer. I can see where the Lord has had a hand in this. Every time I hear about a new thing added to our busy life I think of Pres. Monson, hay if he can do it we can do it.
We have been looking at the weather out west and for once we are getting less. I have to laugh at the Vegas and St. George people, they are really getting hit hard, us not so bad. They always laugh at us so it evens out the playing field a little bit.
All in all we are good, moving slower, but still moving. The Lord has blessed us and we are very thankful for that. Life is good! As I read J's blog I know how blessed to be out of the poop stage, any way right now, someday we may be back into the poop thing.

We love our family and love to spent any time we can with them. Both our kids and our Grandchilden are our life. As we get older we see how important family is and the little things that we do with them. It seems like when we were young we were to busy with things and doing than being and enjoying them. I don't know if that is the way with all of us, but to me it is sad. I guess you don't know how much family means to you until they move a way. We have a great famly. That makes us super blessed......... We stayed home for Chirstmas, but for New Years we went to St. George. I was looking for warm, but is was not as warm as I hoped. It was warmer than were we came from so it was good anyway. After pushing a lot we convinced James and Emily that we needed to have family time up in the hills. They wern't to happy, but as you can see no one seemed to sad when we got there......

The first place the guys wanted to go was the sand dunes. I have always thought that men were told in the Spirit world that dirt was great and to put it on your body any time you can. Kevin and James proved that as they rolled down the hills of sand. James really liked it, but I think Kevin found out he is not as young as he used to be.

We all loved the view. It is so nice to be up in those red hills. Kevin was our leader. He kept telling us there was a concrete path that we would meet up with, never saw it and later after we got home we were told that you are not supposed to go off the paths or you could be fined $500.00. Some one was looking out for us, not Kevin!

After Kevin led us up and down hills, we found the rocks we were looking for. I had to have some so know Allie would not refuse me we loaded her back pack with rock. Her burden was heavy.

Good Memories, Love, Family & Friends

No pictures this time, I think my husband has passed around our pictures enough. I can't tell you how great it was to spend time with family and friends. It was such an uplifting weekend.
The Conference was so great, we cried and laughed. There were things there that made me think my relationship with my Father in Heaven. It reminded me that I have someone near that will always love me no matter what. I came home with a larger Testimony, that I hope will last a long time.
Now for my family, I saw each of the girls that were there step up and it reminded me of how great they are. I don't know how I ended up with this group as my children, but I am so thankful for them and the things they teach me.
It was not all serious, not with my family. They were totally fun to be around. We bought jewelry and Harlean and Tonya ended up seeing a lady in a thong, hay what else can you ask for.
It was a great weekend and for sure I want to do it again. Thanks to Joddy for all the work she went through and Tina for helping us get a room.

Last color before Winter and cold

This is our last color before white sets in. Our drive over Nebo loop was beautiful. This year the colors were bright as you can see. The fall is the perfect time of year for me, not to hot, not to cold. I guess you can't have everything. It was a nice day trip and Al and I enjoyed the beauty of the mountains.

Rocks In Our Heads

Our heads hurt along with our feet, backs, hands and even our sit down place. Sometimes we are so hot that we can't stand it and sometimes when the wind blows (which is most of the time) we were cold. We were bent over for hours looking for Topaz crystals, which we can only find if we see the sparkle from them. If the sun is not in the right place, no sparkle. Why in the would do we do things like this? Well I'll tell you, we have fun. We are out side looking at the beatiful world that our Heavenly Father created. We are with the one we love and nothing can get better than that. On top of that we can bring home treasures. Alot of people don't think rocks are so great, but we love them. They all look different, some not so pretty and other really pretty. Look at the rock I am sitting on, it is not so pretty, but inside this rock are little sparkles of Topaz. There is a whole mountain that sparkles when the sun is in the right place. The rocks are not so pretty, but inside are really pretty things. I guess it is like us, some times we shine and at other times we are just a not so pretty person, inside that is. What could be better than that seeing all this in just one day..

Rock Hunting Fun

No pictures on this one. We took out last trip of the year ( I hope). Al and I went to Wyoming to see Glenna and of course to look for rocks. Boy did find rocks. It was a lot of fun. We even stayed on the freeway for 1 1/2 hour. A truck bruned up, so we sat there. It was a good time to visit with Glenna. We went hiking in the hills and found all kinds of things. We did see some wild horses, but not as many as I would have liked. Last time we went we saw a herd of them and they were beautiful. We brought home some rocks to put in Al's little desert garden in the front yard. It might not have been a grand trip, but we had a lot of fun. We spent time together and saw some of out family. What else could you ask for.

Isn't she cuite

This is our newest family member. She is really tiny and such a good baby. She is healthy and we are thankful for that....