February Birthdays - Kennis, Weed & Anna Lou

We don't have very many birthdays to celebrate in this month, especially with Weed taking leave of earthly birthdays.  But this year Kennis and Anna Lou both have milestone birthdays.  Kennis turned 18 and Anna Lou turned 90!  Those are both pretty BIG birthdays!

Kennis is looking a little nose beaten in this birthday picture as a result of a wrestling match injury.  But even with that, she still a cutie!  She's an amazing young woman and we love her so much!  Gaige and Indy (the dog) photo bombed this picture!  

Today would be Weed's 42nd birthday if she was here to celebrate it with us.  Derek has invited whoever wants to come to get together at Pizza Factory.  She worked there and loved their pizza.  I don't really know what to say except that I wish she were here to celebrate with us.  It would be a much better party then.  We've had 6 birthdays without her now.  Her kids are growing up into wonderful people.  Kaebri is on a mission, Tasia has taken over as the head cook, Zade it looking like a young man and Trigg is not that lost little 4 year old looking for a mom.  He's a handsome boy and growing up like all the others.  We've had a hard time staying as connected as we should be with all of the Covid restrictions making hash of family dinners and Derek is very busy as a single, but engaged dad.  Life keeps us all going our busy, separate ways.  A few weeks ago we had the kids over for homemade chocolate chip cookies and ice cream and games.  It was a really fun evening.  We need to do it more often.  I guess that's the commitment I need to make...to stay connected.  I'm going to try harder on that.  Love you Weed. Miss you Weed. You made some awesome babies before you had to go.  

Those who could gathered at the Pizza Factory for a little family time in remembrance of Weed's #42!

It was very nice.  She would have enjoyed it with us.  For now, we'll just leave her in Jesus' hands.  

We celebrated Anna Lou's 90th the day before (since it was on Sunday) by getting her together with all of her kids.  Everyone came!  We visited, ate lunch, had pie, opened presents, and then visited and ate dinner and visited some more at our house.  It was a nice day for her.  She had talked about wanting a BIG party, but it is so impossible for her to be around a big crowd that we came up with this plan which seemed to please her.  

And that's all for February!  

Actually, there was another important birthday that happened in February this year.  Julius Neils Poulsen was born on February 19th in Puyallup, Washington to my brother Dennis' son Christian Neils Poulsen and his girlfriend Maddie.  He weighed 5.15 and was 18.2 inches long.  I will probably never meet him, but Dennis is so happy to have a grandchild that he may actually get to know.  His others were basically lost to him through his divorce from Sharon.  Christian is his adopted son with his second wife, Sandee.  They also adopted Christian's twin brother William and their half sister, Ariel.  I think I have met the boys a couple of times over the years.  They live in Washington and we just don't see them very often.  I hope Denny's health holds up long enough for him to enjoy this little one for a while.  

Amazing Kennis...the wrestler!

I was so surprised when Kennis decided to do girl's wrestling this season! She has always done cross country and track.  She decided to try this and what a great job of learning a whole new sport she did!  She's a senior and was in great shape from her running already, but this is a pretty crazy sport to come into in your last year of school, but she was not deterred.  She had super supportive coaches and worked so hard!  And she learned how to do it!  And last Saturday at the the UHSAA 4A Boys and Girls State Wrestling tournament she took 3rd place in her weight division...can you believe that!  Wow!  Paul and I went up on Saturday (the 2nd/last day) and she won 3 matches by points...she had to work hard.  The last girl had quite the personal record, but she beat her anyway!  It was "fun" to be there to see her succeed, but mostly I felt relieved when it was over for her.  It's a pretty brutal sport and some people get hurt and everyone feels the hurt I believe.  But she stayed strong to the end and did GREAT!  

Cedar Pocket Wash Overlook & Canyon

 Supe told us about this great little desert/winter hike too! We did the overlook trail - very easy and beautiful views of desert landscape and Joshua trees.  Then we took the very steep hike down to the little slot canyon.  I'm not a fan of steep, gravely, high, narrow places like this, but it was worth the stress to enjoy the canyon.  After the canyon we continued walking down the riverbed to the Virgin River.  We had to walk through a giant culvert under the highway to get over to the river, but it was fun and we were glad we did.  Coming back out going up that steep, narrow trail was actually much better!  So it was all good.  After that we drove out a different way through the Beaver Dam Wilderness area.  It's full of great desert scenery and it was a great day with the weather perfect for this hike/drive.

  

Fossil Canyon - AZ Strip Trip

 This was another great desert/winter hike.  Supe sent us a pin for it and we were able to find it without too much trouble.  And it was really cool...so cool in fact that there came a time when we could go no further because of water (with ice on top) was blocking the way.  But, as far as we went was really enjoyable!  We need to go back again when the water isn't so cold and go further!

January Birthdays!

 Eden turned 15 on the 6th and is so excited because now she can get her Learner's Permit and start practicing driving!  We couldn't be there the day of so it sort of got smashed into Zion and Joel's baptism.  I just took her present to her there and gave it to her.  She's really growing up to be a talented, beautiful young lady.  Love you Eden!  Happy #15!

Yesterday we made it a 3 birthday dinner party at the Randalls.  Bryan #46, Afton #11 and Brady #17.  They save us the driving up over and over and we bring everyone's presents at once!  It was actually closest to Afton's so she got to blow out the candles!  Love this bunch!

Brenden was our last January birthday!  He turned 13!  He's an amazing guy and we love him so much!  He's now an extraordinary teenager...the last one of that group of grandsons (except that Noah has "changed" his birthday to April 2nd now, so he's going to "wait" to be a teenager until then instead of last December 2nd, so he will be the "last" one.