It's complicated, but it can be done

Ferf decided to surprise Ryan with a little get away trip. With lots of planning, she was able to make it happen. She and Ryan dropped their kids off at Weed's Thursday morning, came to our house, traded us cars (so I would be able to pick their kids up from Weed's after work) and then headed off for their get away trip. Meanwhile the rest of us had a good time with the kids. Weed and kids kept them entertained until I picked them up. It was kind of a cold, rainy type day, so we played out a little, but then headed indoors and Kennis said how much they had been missing the Little Rascals. We decided to watch Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken and have a dinner intermission and then finish and see if we had any time for Little Rascals. After all of that it was time to be getting to bed. After teeth, prayers and piddling were taken care of we had stories with Genghis walking around the bed on us while we read and otherwise showing off. Grandpa put Koen to sleep. We have three available bedrooms now, so everyone was comfy. Everyone slept through the night, except Grandma worrying about if everyone would sleep through the night. Next morning Grandpa got the fire going and Grandma got the breakfast ready. After getting dressed and brushing teeth, the kids headed outside with Grandpa while Grandma got Koen taken care of. Pretty soon it was too cold so the Little Rascals kept us entertained. We had an intermission snack and pretty soon Ferf and Ryan returned. Thanks are due to the Stucki's who lent their cabin for the get away couple. I think everyone involved had a good time.

A Waterfall Day in Zion

Saturday we both had the same idea for what to do...let's go to Zion and see how beautiful it is with snow and waterfalls. We took it easy and didn't actually get there until about 11:00. This turned out to be a good thing because it had been raining a lot before then, but it had stopped for a while. We headed up the road toward the Temple of Sinewava and spotted several waterfalls going full blast along the way. There was a triple near Weeping Rocks, another single along the way, some little ones at the place where Lance's sister got married, the giant one at the end of the road at the Temple and then we walked the trail up to where the Narrows start and there was a big one on the way. There was lots of water running everywhere. We ate a little watercress out of a little stream on the way...mmm good. I don't know if it's legal to eat foliage at National Parks or not. It was so pretty with the mountain tops covered in misty clouds. We saw Lynne Godfrey and some of her hiking buddies and also had quite a visit with a boat captain from Alaska while at the parking lot at the Temple of Sinewava. The boat captain wanted to talk our ears off. He was an interesting character with very colorful language. On the way back to the junction we walked up to the wedding spot and then ate lunch in the car. After lunch we decided to drive on to the East entrance of the park and see the sights en route. It was colder with more snow up that way and was really pretty. We pulled out one place and had a snory little nap and then drove on. There were more waterfalls to be seen. We turned back at the East entrance and on the way out hiked through some snow to visit one waterfall and pulled off to take pictures of some others. It was now starting the rain, so we decided there would be no more hiking around and headed home. It was a very scenic day.

Scrabble revisited

Now that it's just Paul and me we are finding we have a little time on our hands here and there. We have had some time to start playing Scrabble again. It's been quite a while since we played games that can be for just two people...weird! We played a couple of games and realized that our old game was missing more tiles than we thought, so we went out a got a new one on Saturday. I guess we could have just ordered new tiles, but this was faster. I thought maybe I would beat Paul if we had a full set and was anxious for that to happen. It hasn't yet, but I'm going to keep working on it. He does much more pondering and employs more strategies than I do. I just get sick of having three g's and want to get rid of them as fast as possible. Along with buying a new Scrabble game we had a great yard clean up and tried to go to the dump Saturday. The truck had some problems so we ended up having to drop it off and walk home. Hopefully it's nothing too terrible. The yard looks a lot better. We have been enjoying eating whatever we please. We've had lots of mushrooms with no one turning up their nose about them. The house seems pretty big for just the two of us, but it's staying pretty clean. We've been listening to old people music and no one's complaining about that either. It will take some adjusting to having just the two of us, but I think we'll get the hang of it pretty soon! Oh, Genghis thinks he's a big help to us while we play. He has to lay on the table and be involved in such activities as trying to knock over glasses of water, attacking the dictionary and trying to eat a dice that ended up in the Scrabble box. After a while he gets bored and just takes a nap. He just likes to hang out wherever we happen to be. He had to be out getting tangled up in things while we did our yard clean up. I guess we still have one baby around the house with us. He misses his boy, but he's learning to hang out with just old people.

Brenden's #1 Birthday Party

Last night we went to Brenden's first birthday party. Moss and Christie reserved the little clubhouse in the Fox Cove subdivision for the occasion. It was a really nice little place. Lots of Christie's family and some of ours turned out for the celebration. Brenden seemed to enjoy the whole thing other than smacking his head during the blessing. He ate up lots of cookies and was full of smiles and excited looks about his presents. He was even excited about getting socks. His Grandma Key gave him a cool blanket/pillow/backpack and he snuggled right up to it. He was kind of full of cookies by the time for his cake. He did think the candle was great and tried to grab it rather than blow it. Then he sort of threw his cake on the floor via Tasia's leg. She was pretty sad about that, but got over it when she realized we were laughing at Brenden's antics and not at her. All in all it was lots of fun with lots of nice people and lots of good cookies and hot chocolate. Brenden is such a funny little guy. We are so glad we've had him around to enjoy for the last year! Happy Birthday Brenden!

The emptying of the nest...for a while

The time has finally come. On Friday morning Paul, Bean and I packed it up and headed north. We loaded up what Bean wanted to take to start a temporary volunteer job at Deseret Transportation and the humanitarian center in Salt Lake City. Later it should become a service mission for him. We stopped by and dropped off his tools and met one of the bosses and some of the other employees. They seemed like really nice people and it was a beautiful shop. We were very impressed. Then we went on to Bountiful to Juge and Lance's and unloaded all his home stuff. We had a great dinner with them along with Jay and Brynn. We visited, cleaned and played the train game. Bean is getting settled in.
Saturday he ran some errands and Paul, Lance and Supe (he arrived Saturday am) framed an addition to the pantry that is part of the remodeling of the kitchen.



Paul and I left in the late afternoon. The weather on the way up was perfect. It wasn't quite so perfect on the way home, but we made it with no problems. We stopped in at Lou and Bryan's on the way home to give Brady his birthday present and eat cake and ice cream with them.


Genghis was glad to see us get home. It's just the three of us now...until Supe comes home for the summer. The empty nest at last...for a while.

The weekend report

It seemed like it was going to be a pretty boring weekend, but then non-boring things started happening. We decided to head up to Enoch to wish Bryan an early happy birthday on Friday night. They are getting settled in and it was fun to see all of them...without it being a long drive. Bryan doesn't seem overly worried about getting older. (Unfortunately I forgot my camera.) Saturday morning was filled with yard work...tree pruning and cleaning up and hauling it all to the recycling center. It was such nice weather that it was good to be outdoors. With that done we decided we needed to take a walk and enjoy the outdoors a little more. We decided on T-Bone Mesa from the east side. We headed up near the center of the T top and then proceeded to hike to each point of the T. I took pictures of Paul on each point. On the south point we came across a funny little man face that someone had made out of rock. While hiking down the middle of the T we looked north and saw a small herd of deer. There were 8 in all. They were very well camouflaged and pretty hard to see. They were as interested in staring at us as we were in staring at them. After reaching the bottom of the T (the picture with the flagpole) we decided to take the trail down the southern side down and then back east to our car. All of the views from up there are magnificent. It was perfect weather. After we got back I checked the e-mail and found Jay and Brynn's ultrasound report. We are now thinking pink for May! It ended up being a pretty restful, but very nice weekend and wasn't boring after all.

On Saturday we finally got the chance to try out our new bargain cross country skis. It was a perfect day. I even got a sunburn. We went up on Cedar Mountain. We had hoped to make it to the yurt and then find the trails they have made, but the road was closed and there was no place to park so that we could ski in there. So, we drove on around and finally found a couple of places where we could go. The first place there were lots of snowmobiles and it was not very peaceful. We found a lot of other places that looked good, but there was no place to pull off that we wouldn't get stuck. Finally we found a good pullout at Deer Valley just above the turn off to Cedar Breaks and it was very peaceful. We only saw one other skier and snowshoer there. We need lots of work on our technique, especially me. We did try to pull out one place and ended up getting stuck. Luckily some nice guys came along and helped Paul push us back onto the road. It is lots of exercise, but very fun and I know we are going to get back out there soon.

Lou & Bryan and family...the new house

Happy new house for Lou, Bryan and kids. Paul, Bean and I drove up to Enoch this afternoon to help them get the truck unloaded into their new house in Enoch. It's really nice. It seems so roomy compared to their Fillmore house...and so new. It's very nice and the yard, though covered in snow right now, looks like it will be great for them. It's in a nice neighborhood that's close to church. They have a lot of putting away in front of them, but they will have room to put it away here. They also have some friends from when they lived in Cedar before. The dad came over to help unload and the kids went to play at their house while we did that. They invited them over for dinner too. How nice to have some people step right up to help that way even on a holiday. I think this is going to be a really good move for them.

Happy New Year 2010!

We were not going to stay up until midnight, but after a few games of Rummy Cube - Bean won of course - and a movie, the fireworks started up. We had such a perfect view out on our front lawn we went out to watch some of them. You could see as well as feel them. They are set off so close to us that the windows rattle and the floor shakes while they are exploding all around you. It's pretty cool. I love where I live for a lot of reasons. Happy 2010!

Eden's early birthday celebration...#3

Instead of a New Year's Eve party, we had a birthday party...just a little one. Juge and Lance are heading back home, so we decided to give Eden her birthday presents here where we could see her open them. Her birthday is coming right up so we aren't too early. We had a slice of brownie bread with candles for a cake. We sang, she blew and opened her presents. Noah just wanted to take the camera. Happy New Year and Happy Birthday #3 Eden. We love you!