June birthdays & Father's Day

 Madi starts June off on the 1st and is turning the BIG #16 this year!  She had a friend party before the big day that looks like lots of fun!  She made her own, very beautiful, cake! Another great thing happened for Madi's birthday!  She got her driver's license!  Yippee!!!  

Lance came next with #48!  He was actually down at Havasupai with the fam on the day of, so he had to wait till they got home to have cake and presents.  We just mailed it and luckily it got there to be waiting for him.  Happy Birthday Lance!  I'm sure you had a fun birthday...at Havasupai and again at home!  

Happy #49 Derek.  His girlfriend, Niki, organized a gathering for him even if he didn't want a party!  It was fun to go and hang out and visit with people there.  Happy Birthday Derek!  Hope the next year it a great one for you!

Father's Day - Had a great meeting at church to start it off.  Next we had Paul's choice of dinner:  Ham/Pinto Bean soup, corn muffins, melon and German Chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting and Costco vanilla ice cream.  It was just Paul, Bean and I.  In the evening Moss and Christie and family and Ferf and Jared (boyfriend) came over to visit and bring presents and eat cake!  It was a fun time.  Other kids called or texted to wish him a happy Father's Day!  We talked about how grateful we both feel for our own fathers who were great examples to us.  So thankful for being blessed by great fathers who were role models. So thankful to know that we also have a Father in Heaven and Savior who also love us and are the fathers of our salvation and redemption.  

Moss's birthday #42 - I started the day reading my old journal of the day he was born and for a little afterwards.  He came at a pretty challenging time, but we were happy he came and joined the family...finally, a little brother for Jay!  There's quite an age gap, but at this stage of life it's not such a big deal and I'm happy I persevered to have the promised sons and did not stop after Juge. I would have missed some wonderful people joining our family it I had. Happy Birthday Moss!  So glad to have another great son to bring joy into our lives.

On Moss's birthday (June 23rd) Lou, Joel and Afton came down and brought us a wonderful lunch.  We didn't know they were bringing it for us too, but they did, and it was a delicious salad!  After lunch they had a few hours to spend and one errand to run before heading back up for Joel's swim team practice.  What a nice time it was to spend with them.  We went to see the Eccles Fine Art show of Fire & Ice.  I loved seeing it again and sharing it with them.  Next we stopped in at the Red Cliffs Reserve center and they enjoyed seeing all the desert critters and such.  I love that place too. Oh, outside before we went in we saw a stone well with a bucket.  On closer inspection we saw that it had a plexiglass bottom leading into an old early St. George stone well that a family that was called to live here by Brigham Young. The had built the well for their home that had been on the property where the county office building is now.  As it was being built, they discovered the old well and saved it and put a historic site sign next to it.  So cool! Last we went to the St. George Art Museum.  They had changed the exhibit I was hoping they could see, but they had one that was quite interesting about people in prison in the the downstairs gallery and up top they had some religious art that was deep, lots of reading for interpretation, but worth it.  There was too much to see/read for the time we had, and the kids got a little bored of it, so we left some unseen.  Then we went back to the house for root beer floats!  Such a fun time visiting and going fun places.  Yesterday had been a very hard day for me, and this morning started with a scorpion in the garage, but the day just got better and better!  I feel like my birthday started a day early.  Oh, Lou and family gave me another James Herriot DVD that I'm excited to watch!  Happy Birthday #71 to me!  Thank you Lou and kids for making it such a nice day for me.  Time truly is one of the very best gifts you can give.  

On my birthday it looked like we might not find something fun to do because our truck was in the shop and we had already taken all of the pretty paved drives we could think of to get out of the house with Paul's foot restrictions.  The day dawned cloudy, a little bit rainy and so much cooler.  I took a nice morning walk and stopped by that old well we had found and read more about it.  While Paul was fixing the faucet in our camp trailer I went in to read scriptures and found a fun card and present from him.  He and Bean had very sneaky like gone shopping for it the day before.  It was a brand new Lifetime card table and a pink Lowes bucket, both things I had been wanting!  After lunch we went out with Bean for some fun.  On the way to our destination at the Kayenta art galleries we spied some historic  buildings we wanted to see in Santa Clara...and the caretaker, an old friend, just happened to be there to unlock them for us.  She had to leave and just said to close the doors when we were done.  It was an old pioneer home and Santa Clara Relief Society building.  It was so fun to look through them.  Next we did go out and look at a couple of the art galleries at Kayenta Arts Center.  They had some beautiful and unique works of art that we enjoyed very much.  Then we took a beautiful drive out to Gunlock reservoir and then went out to early dinner at Olive Garden using a gift card I had gotten for Mother's Day that paid for all of it!  That evening Ferf came over bringing lots of nice gifts from all of the kids and we enjoyed my free Nothing Bundt Cake and my free cheesecake from Olive Garden and a little visiting time with her.  I got some nice phone calls and texts from the other kids throughout the day too!  Lots of FB friends wished me a happy one too!  That evening Paul and I relaxed watching the fun James Herriot DVD movies that Lou and family gave me.  What a nice day it turned out to be!  Today, I got a really nice phone call from Janet too.  Paul and I had a good visit with her.  Happy #71 to me!  Thank you to everyone who made it a lovely birthday for me.  And that's all of the June birthdays!  

One more cool thing I got for my birthday a few days after was a bday card from my best teenage friend, Malinda Carter.  We had such fun times together and then she moved.  Lots of my teenage friends moved before we graduated.  But, we did keep in touch some through the years, mostly writing letters after we were both married.  She has been the good one at instigating I have to say.  I get busy even with my own sisters and don't keep much in touch.  But for my birthday, she send me some old pics I had sent her, the graduation announcement I had sent her and some letters I had written to her after Lou, Jay and Ferf were born.  It was a fun walk down memory land to read them.  I wish she could do FB or Instagram, but because she once had a job at a prison, she feels unsafe putting herself out there.  Maybe we are just going to have to get in the habit of a yearly Christmas or birthday (darn, I forget hers) letter/card.  Thanks for the memories, Malinda!