Hellhole Canyon - the southern route

 Supe told us about the southern route of Kayenta's Hellhole Canyon.  Imagine that, after all the years we've gone up the northern trail of the canyon, we had never gone down the part south of the road where the trailhead is.  It is an amazing little canyon with lots of interesting features.  It's not such a gigantic and majestic trail as the other with its' towering cliffs, but we loved doing it yesterday during a cool, sunny afternoon get out of the house at last time.  Paul has been a little under the weather lately and we've stayed in because of the rain and because of that.  I was getting just about ready to go nuts!  So I was glad that we could go someplace close and not too long, but beautiful!  We went down the first half and decided to stop at a point where you needed to use a rope to go down into another layer of the canyon.  Instead we explored a little side canyon.  Then on the drive out we found what looked like the bottom of the first canyon and decided to hike up it to the the point where we had stopped before if we could.  There ended up being a really great trail to get there and we enjoyed seeing the whole thing!  It was probably about 4 miles total.  The weather was perfect and we can't wait to go back and see this place when the leaves come out and it's not so wet from all of the rain.  SO GOOD TO GET OUTSIDE and explore a new place!

January Birthdays - 2023

 Eden starts us off on the January round of birthdays this year (as always) with one of the BIG ones - #16!!! She got her license and is now a legal driver.  We didn't get to be there for her big day (because we had funeral company) and her present came late...but thanks to FT I at least got to see her open her presents!  Eden is a just too little to already be 16!  But she is a beautiful, talented, smart and hardworking young lady.  She has a job at Costa Vida and can now drive herself to and from work!  She has learned to wake surf without rope and to snowboard (after a few years of skiing) and has done cross country and played the violin for several years already (she's done with running now she says).  She's just an amazing kid and we love her!  Happy #16 adventures Eden!  

Next up are Bryan, #47, Afton #12 and Brady #18!  We went up the night before Brady's birthday to bring presents to all of them.  The weather was not conducive to coming up earlier, so this was a good time to come for all 3 of these!  It was fun to eat a great birthday dinner, chosen by Brady, and to hang out and see them open their presents!  Happy Birthday to all y'all!  Love you all!

We stopped by the night before Brenden's birthday to wish him a happy #14!  He was having his first friends birthday party without parents at Fiesta Fun the day of!  Pretty exciting!  Brenden is a great guy - he's super smart, a dedicated athlete on his soccer team and a really nice big brother and a great son...and a great grandson (and one of the few that will carry the Lillywhite name on).  We gave him some really yummy Kneader's rolls, just for him (he loves rolls), and a gift card to the DQ.  He loves to go there with his friends for a treat.  Love you Brenden!  Hope this coming year will be a wonderful one for you!

First Grand 'edventures' date of 2023

 Sadly, neither 2020, 2021 or 2022 were good years for Grand Edventure dates.  Covid and cancer kind of put the kabosh on it.  And with many of the kids getting into the teenage zone, they are so busy that you cannot find a day to take them somewhere and it's almost impossible to get more than one of them together because of conflicting activity schedules.  They are SO BUSY.  So this year we decided "if you can't beat them, join them" will be our strategy.  Hopefully we can attend their events and maybe spend a little time afterwards with them on a single basis.  Maybe some of the younger ones we can still gather together for a group activity, but we will just do what we can do and not stress.  Family Dinners, Family Camp and any other time we can get together will have to be the way for cousins to get together hopefully.  

We did get to go to an activity with Sarai and family the other evening.  She belongs to the CCCMT - Cedar City Children's Musical Theater group and they put on a mini-musical of Frozen.  Sarai was sick for her original performance before Christmas, but they had another group do it again and she got to be in it this time along with a neighbor boy friend.  It was REALLY good!  Afterwards we had the chance to take Sarai and go to Dairy Queen for treats and a little one-on-one visit time.  It was really nice.  She's growing up to be a beautiful young lady and is very talented.  She did a great job on her part.  It was fun to hear all of the things she is involved in and enjoys doing. And it was fun for us just to have her to ourselves too!  Great job Sarai!  We love you!  

Family Dinner #1...with the added fun of the Brooks!

 

We got an unexpected treat due to an unexpected death.  Tony's nephew, Paul Brooks, passed away so quickly on December 26th, after just shortly before that finding out that he had cancer.  We had so recently spent time with him and Tony when Tony's sis-in-law, Carla Brooks, passed away.  Janet and Tony were both able to come down for Paul's funeral and they stayed with us.  We were excited to have them stay since usually they had stayed with Carla or Paul on other trips down.  I'm not at all happy either of them has passed away, but it was fun to have Janet and Tony here this time!  Ferf invited everyone over for a Family Dinner on the Sunday after New Year's at the last minute and Janet and Tony ended up being able to come with us!  Not all of the family was able to make it, but those that could did, and we had a great time! The night before Supe and Beacher and kids had come to our house, so they got to visit with them too.  Such wonderful people.  They, like all the rest of us, aren't getting any younger, so it was good to get to spend this time with them.  Tony says, "I'm 84, and going for more!"  Janet is 79.  This last year has been a hard one for me and my siblings health wise.  Marilynne has knee replacement, Janet had lots of very painful trouble and finally had a nerve ablation to take care of it, and Denny is not in good health at all with lots of lung problems.  He's been in and out of the hospital and is not in good shape at all.  So, seeing siblings is getting to be a pretty big priority it seems.  So, I'm very glad they came to visit even for a sad reason!  

Snow Day - Happy 2023!

 The day before I had to start back to work for the new year we decided to go see the snow!  We hoped to be able to cross country ski at Pine Valley, but the snow had disappeared so much that we couldn't.  So we decided to drive up to Cedar Mountain and see if they had groomed the trails there at the skiing site...nope!  So we just decided that we'd make it a drive instead of skiing.  And it was BEAUTIFUL!  After Cedar Mountain we just went on to Bryce Canyon too.  It turned out to be a whole day's worth of glorious, scenic snow!  That was pretty much the Happy New year celebration for us for 2023 other than the quiet dinner we had on New Year's Eve with just the 3 of us!  (New Year's Day fell on Sunday, like Christmas, this year.)  On the Saturday of New Year's Eve day, Paul and I sort of kicked back and had a fun day of it.  I wish I had taken some pictures, but didn't really.  In the morning we took our regular walk, but stopped in with a coupon at Great Harvest Bread and had, for the first time, breakfast sandwiches on the BOGO coupon.  They were really good.  We came back home and did some home stuff and then went to see a job Paul is working on...it's a really complicated and beautiful one.  It was really nice.  Then we bought CA oranges from a guy that sells them from a truck and stopped off for lunch at a taco place Supe said was really good.  It was kind of spendy, buy good!  We took them home because it was too crowded to eat there.  I really can't remember what other things we did, but it was just a total relaxing day that we kind of needed after all of the craziness of Grandma's medical issues and just the Christmas rush.  So, low key was what we wanted and what we got for our Happy 2023!  (Oh, we also spent some time making goals for the year too!)

Christmas 2022!

 Christmas turned out a little bit different than usual this year...it was wonderful, with a bit of trouble thrown in at the last minute.  It was a little different, good different, than usual because it fell on a Sunday.  Going to church on Christmas is actually so perfect!  We had a simple, short, wonderful sacrament meeting.  The sacrament was sung/passed and the Christmas story was narrated from the scriptures and interspersed with the celebratory carols of Christmas that we never get to sing enough of.  And afterwards the bishop gave a short talk/testimony and we closed with another carol/prayer.  It was wonderful.  But that's not the first thing we did.  Our church wasn't until 11 am, so we had already eaten and visited two places before church to get all of our regular visits in.  

First we got up and had a little bit different Christmas breakfast than usual.  We didn't have extra time to spend making something really fancy, but we did try a new recipe - a very yummy baked frittata.  We had non-fancy stocking food to go with it (pop tarts, pineapple juice in little cans, fruit cups).  After that we opened our presents at the house with just Bean, Paul and me.  It was fun and we  loved our gifts. 

Christmas light looking at the Desert Garden and Town Square and Christmas Eve dinner.  

Then we went down to Season's Health and Rehab to visit Grandma and open presents with her.  She  had the bit of trouble that started on Friday, December 16th.  It started out as a pretty good day with me getting my end of first year after cancer treatment PET scan.  (We later found out that it was clean!  Yippee!)  But then we ended up at the ER when Anna Lou fell down and used her beeper to get Paul to come and take her there.  I had just spoken with her a few minutes before she tripped over new slippers she was wearing.  Paul got her to the ER.  Ross and Lerlyn were in route to visit her to watch the BYU football game the next day.  They arrived shortly after Paul took Anna Lou to the ER.  I traded Paul at the ER so he could visit/entertain Ross and Lerlyn and make the yummy dinner we had planned to share with them and Anna Lou that evening.  Then we waited and waited and finally late in the evening the verdict was reached - Anna Lou had broken her upper right arm in the fall.  All they can really do is put it in a sling and "let it heal".  No cast, surgery or pin.  Pretty hard thing to do without your right arm and also so very painful.  She ended up staying in the hospital until Monday afternoon when they moved her to Season's Health and Rehab Center which is about a half mile from our house.  That makes things so much easier.  She's had a tough go, but is starting to move forward, but is very depressed and anxious a lot of the time.  She gets more company and calls that anyone there I think.  But, that's how we ended up there on Christmas morning for a little while with her.  She wasn't in any shape to go out visiting with us as we usually do, which was too bad.  But lots of people did call her to wish her a Merry Christmas.  

After we had finished there, we hurried over to Supe and Beacher's to visit and bring gifts.  Jem was so excited about his new grocery store play set and train!  And Auri was excited about her dog cookie!  Kaia just chilled on our laps while we visited and they opened presents from us.  It was fun to see them and especially to see Kaia again.  They've been keeping her close to home so she doesn't get all the childhood diseases going around right now.  

After that we went to Sacrament meeting.  Then we came home, ate lunch, and went over to visit the Smiths.  It's always fun to go there.  The dog cookies were a hit there too. And it was good to see everyone and open gifts there again!  It was Derek's new wife's Kelli's first family Christmas since they got married.  We love her.  She's always so sweet and full of fun.  We hope they are happy.  I know the kids are appreciating having her help them as a mother does.  

Then we went to Ferf's.  She had all of the kids there right then, so it was nice to see Kennis, Tavin and Brynnli all home from school and they were all having a really nice time being together for Christmas!  They've had some hard times the last year with all of the divorce angst, but things are close to settled finally and they were just relaxing and enjoying each other.  Kennis and Tavin had played a beautiful violin/cello/piano trio at church that morning.  They were able to play the violin/piano part for us which was wonderful!  Then more fun times opening presents happened.  And the dogs liked their cookies at this house too.  

Then we went on to Moss and Christie's house and had fun visiting with them and opening their presents and our presents from some of the kids.  We got a gift cert to Tuacahn for some good plays that will be there this summer/fall and some dinner gift cards to Outback and Wood, Ash, Rye (we've never afforded to go there before) and some dessert certs to Larsens Custard!  Yummy!  Fun stuff from some very generous people.  

Next we came home and loaded up the stuff to take to the Cedar/Enoch crew and took a short nap before heading up that way.  Thankfully it was a beautiful, clear day for traveling this  year.  On the way up we talked to Jay, Brynn and girls.  It wasn't as nice as it could have been to actually see them, but it was what we could do.  We had taken up their gifts on an earlier visit so that wasn't a problem.  Everyone got a beautiful stone welcome signs for their homes this year.  We got one from Ross a few years ago and decided it would be great to give some like it to our kids.  Ross was kind enough to bring them over to us just before Thanksgiving.  Everyone seemed to like them.  Men got cool socks this year and women and girls got headbands from this unique little place and littler women got kits to make scrunchies from the same place.  Except Jem and Kaia who got something a little better for their ages. 

At Juge and Lance's we ate yummy treats/nuts and played a couple of rounds of Telestrations, which was a lot of fun, after we opened their presents.  Then we opened our gift from them and Jay and Brynn.  They are quite cool gifts.  It's a gift to Storyworth.  Each week they send Paul and me a question about our life and we write up a story to answer it and submit it.  At the end of the year we should have 52 stories about our lives which will then be printed into a hardbound book.  We can have more printed for the other kids if we want to.  Paul is off to a good start, but I decided to put mine on hold until June when I will retire and hopefully Anna Lou will be all fixed up and I won't be so very busy looking after all my stuff, working and helping taking care of her.

After the Weaver's we joined the Randall Christmas feast as per usual.  It was fun to eat and visit with them and see what they got.  And then it was fun to see them open our gifts.  We stayed until it was time to head back down the hill to our beds at the end of another wonderful Christmas with the family! Merry Christmas 2022!  We love you each and every one!  Thanks to all again for being so generous with us.  (Everyone put in for a 12 days of Christmas for Ferf and family this year headed up by Moss and Christie.  It was a nice touch to their Christmas I'm sure.)

We are so thankful at this wonderful time of celebration to remember the birth of our Savior.  We know that He is the real gift of Christmas to each and every one all of God's children.  How grateful we are for his infinite atoning sacrifice.  We are truly bought by his gift and saved through his grace.  We love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and feel their love so much at this time of year as we remember this gift.  It has been sweet to see little Kaia and think of Mary and Joseph and all that they went through to bring Jesus into the world with so many difficult circumstances to deal with as part of being his mother and adoptive father.  

Here are a few other activities we did over the holidays while I was off school!  We just took it easy here and there and enjoyed ourselves when we weren't doing the regular things that need to get done for everyday life to happen and getting Anna Lou settled in and visiting her pretty much every day and sometimes more than once a day.  

Those women and girls who could got together at Ferf's invitation for a Girl's Night.  It was just an easy, fun bring some food to share get together and games and visiting evening.  Just the kind I like.  No one had to go to a whole lot of trouble to make it happen kind of last minute.  

Paul and I went shopping on the Monday after New Year's and Costco had a great deal on a small Traeger smoker.  We decided it was a good thing to get with some of his first retirement check from Social Security.  He made us the best steaks on it for New Year's Day dinner!!!

During the holiday break Paul and I and Moss and Christie went to the little Italian restaurant that everyone went to for Paul's birthday after Thanksgiving when he had Covid and couldn't go. Moss and Christie missed it too because Brenden had a soccer tournament game that night.  It was a delicious and fun evening!  Happy #70 at last!

Paul and I ran a lot of errands just spending New Year's Eve day together.  We used a coupon and went to breakfast at Great Harvest.  Then we did other errands and ate lunch at Street Eats and also went to see this beautiful work he is doing on a job right now.  It was a fun, relaxed day for us.   

Paul, Bean and me having our quiet, New Year's Eve feast of finger foods!  The next day was our new 9 am church schedule, so there was no staying up late and celebrating done this year! Well, that's it...the end of good old 2022!

Here are some good year's end report Christmas cards we received from these peoples!  

  

Torin's Baptism!

 It was the exciting day, at last on December 17, 2022!  We all arrived and found that the font had not been filled.  It takes 2 hours to fill it up.  And then Ferf's high school best friend, Janna Combs Adams   randomly showed up at the church to pick something up...and saved the day!  She said we could all come over to her backyard and baptize him in her jacuzzi!  She called her husband to get the heater going on the water.  The bishop arrived and okayed the idea and then we had the program.  The piano player forgot to show up too, so Kennis stepped in handily to do the that for the program.  So we had the program at the church where it was warm inside only the room we were in and then we all caravanned over the Janna's backyard and Gaige baptized Torin in the jacuzzi part of the pool (it was 82 degrees, but it was really pretty cold outside) and then they quickly got dried and dressed and Tavin confirmed him at the edge of the pool!  So, it all worked out very nicely and kind of sweetly since Janna just showed up to save the day just like a good friend would do if they had the chance.  There was a bit of tenseness in the air because of the divorce situation and because Ryan was not able to participate in the ordinance at all.  The two grandpas, Paul and Theron, were the only ones allowed (by Ryan) to stand in the circle while Tavin confirmed Torin.  He didn't want to look like the odd man out I guess, so he made it so no one else but those two could be involved.  But, we were very glad that he finally agreed to let the baptism happen that should have take place a few months ago.  Divorce is not a pretty thing, but I'm so happy Torin did not have to wait any longer.  Afterwards Ryan also allowed Ferf to have Torin at her house for a couple of hours (even though it was his day to have him) for a family dinner.  It was a very nice time to celebrate this wonderful and very important day.  I'm so happy that it all worked out.  I gave the Holy Ghost talk and Grandma Borrowman gave the baptism talk.  I'm so grateful to have Torin on the path and moving forward with the help of the gift of the Holy Ghost to help him through the life ahead of him.  He's a sweet boy he'll get lots of help with the rough patches that are sure to be ahead of him.  It's a "SHOUT FOR JOY" day as are all of these type of days!

Kaia is here early!

Last night, December 9th, 2022, at 9:32 pm we got great news! Kaia Kawehiokalani Lillywhite had arrived before her planned birthday...which is so nice for her mom and dad and little brother!  We are hoping to meet her today or tomorrow.  She weighed 7.9. We have only seen a few pics as yet, but she looks like a cutie!  We are so excited.  She will most likely be our last grandchild and is #27!

A few more pictures:  We've had a chance to see her a few more times (being careful with lots of diseases in the air right now) and went over on Christmas morning for a little while.  She's growing and getting cuter all the time!  

December birthdays!

 We started off on the 1st with Brynnli's 23rd birthday.  She wasn't in town for it, but we gave her her present at Thanksgiving to take home.  I just took a picture of her at Thanksgiving since I knew we wouldn't be seeing her the day of.  She's our oldest grandchild...crazy how they grow up!  She's had some hard times, but she's on the upward now.  Love her so much.  Hate having them grow up, leave home and be away.

Now it's time for Paul's birthday.  Too bad he had to miss the big birthday dinner with the family that was planned for the day after Thanksgiving...dang Covid!  But we got some gift cards from a former employee that borrowed our scaffolding last week, so for our date we ate at Texas Roadhouse.  He said he wanted a great steak for his birthday...and he got one that he didn't even have to pay for!  It was a really delicious early birthday dinner.  Today he'll be cooking a lot of his birthday dinner - pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans with almonds.  The family will come over for cheesecake tonight to celebrate.  This is a big one, #70, but big plans just weren't his plans, so it's not a big party like it could have been.  We made cheesecake for many last night and bought one from Costco too.  They are both really good!  Paul is the love of my life and I can't think of any bigger blessing in my life other than the gospel.  He's such a loving, kind husband, father and grandfather.   He's a hardworking, taking care of everyone.  I don't have words to say how wonderful he is.  He's truly the sunshine in my life in so very many ways.  Happy Birthday Paul!  I love you more than "birds (words) can say" or tongue can tell!  Happy #70!!!  Can't believe we are getting that old...you and me!

"Good temper, like a sunny, day, sheds a brightness over everything; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude."  Washington Irving

This was the quote of the day in my Franklin Planner today, and it is a good description of Paul. The kids, in-laws and grandkids wrote things they love about Paul in a book for  him. It really shows what an impact he has had in lives of  family members and how much love and "sunshine" he does bring to all of us.  I wish I could put them all here, but I'll just leave you to read them in the other book instead.  

We had as many here as could come and it was great crowd! Juge read the cute book they made for Paul on his 60th birthday - "60 things we love about Dad".  It was pretty sweet!  We sang and Jem helped Paul blow out his candle.  We opened presents and visited and ate 2 kinds of cheesecake - both yummy!  It was a fun evening.  Jem is the only little one right now, and he was pretty darn cute and helped entertain all of us.  Happy 70th Paul!  We love you! (Jay, Brynn and girls gave him a sweet call just before it all started.  He loved it!)

(The only thing I didn't love about this whole thing was the idea of 70 YEARS OLD!!! We are both getting way up there and the thought of one of us kicking the bucket and leaving the other is not a pleasant one.  We've just been together so long - 48 years now - that it will be really hard to be apart even for a little while. It's just a worry in the back of my mind that if Grandma kicks the bucket her revelation about him being the child that would take care of her will be taken care of the the Lord will decide Paul can then be done...and I'll be here without him for a while.  Not good! Guess we better keep G'ma here as long as possible, but I know she'd sure like to be moving on too. Guess it's all in the Lord's hand no matter how I feel about it anyway.)

(On December 9th, Kaia Kawehiokalani Lillywhite was born to Jerel (Supe) and Kalehua (Beacher) Lillywhite.  She's getting her very own, separate birthday post this year!)

Last up for the year, and December, was Gaige!  It was #17 for him!  He's such a cute, smart, fun guy! The girls really like him...well, everyone just really likes him,  He's easy to like! He has a great friend group that have been really supportive in the hard times he's had with his parent's divorcing.  I'm really grateful that he does have good friends there for him.  He's a super athlete even though he's small in stature.  He was a really little baby and has had some struggles with getting his growth, but he's large in heart.  He's a Junior this year.  His sport is running now.  He's done others, but is happy with this now.  Happy Birthday Gaige!  We love you!