March birthdays - Ferf and Sarai and Joel (celebrated) and other March fun!

 Ferf is so busy that trying to find time to celebrate her birthday must have just been too much of a chore.  We just dropped by a gift that afternoon and wished her a happy birthday on the front porch.  She didn't even have any birthday ideas...so a nice card and some green bills and chocolate pretty much had filled the bill.  Happy #43 Ferf!  We love you! 

Joel and Sarai both had birthdays in March too.  We got to enjoy Joel's (#7) at his house with the Randall's and Bryan's folks were there too.  We celebrated with Saria (#10) at our first after-covid family dinner!  

                                An evening walk at Snow Canyon....finally, longer evenings!

A great Saturday morning - a bike ride in Snow Canyon and soccer games for Eliza and Kai!  

Date Night with Kaebri - grand edventure

 

We caught an afternoon matinee with Kaebri for her date to see this movie/concert.  It was crazy trying to find matching schedules, but she was able to make it from work just in time for the beginning.  Afterwards we grabbed a quick dinner at Panda Express just in time for her to get off to her evening class!  Life is busy at her age, but this was totally worth the rush.  What a beautiful concert/movie experience.  The performance by the musicians - singing and playing of instruments was awesome.  

"Embrace the hope of Easter and experience the power of the last week of Christ's mortal ministry as told through the internationally acclaimed musical event, Lamb of God. This unique concert film brings award winning composer Rob Gardner's music to the big screen for the first time as audiences are able to see a new orchestration and new soloists perform a work that has been compared to Handel's Messiah and Mozart's Requiem. Witness Lamb of God as never before seen."

Oops!  So rushed we forgot to take any pics!  

More Spring Break Fun!

 We got Grandma's 2nd Covid shot done and then Paul and Bean were able to do the new Johnson & Johnson 1 shot vaccine.  We are all vaccinated now!  Paul got his biopsy done also...and thankfully it came back not cancer!  Just something that caused scarring on his lung and is often mistaken for cancer on a CT scan.  What a relief and blessing.  Moss and Supe gave him a blessing and when Moss was voice he pretty much blessed him to have everything be fine...and it was so.    

Another highlight (see other post) was Kaebri getting her mission call!  That was BIG, wonderful news!

After all of these happenings, Paul and I went on a rock trip to Ashfork.  It started snowing Thursday evening.  We took our evening walk in the Mall because it was too snowy to take it outside.  And the next morning we found 6 inches of snow.  We took our time and had a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel to give the roads time to get cleared off a little before making the drive from Flagstaff to Ashfork.  It was pretty slick and luckily, with 4-wheel drive we didn't slide off like some trucks had done earlier.  We did fine and got our load and the weather started clearing off some, so we were able to still go back through Jacob Lake (instead of going through Las Vegas).  We like that route so much better.  It ended up being a very nice little trip for us.  It snowed a little more by Jacob Lake and then again by Colorado City, but it was sunny at Navajo Bridge.  We stopped there to stretch our legs there and enjoy the gorgeous scenery.  

We came home to snow too...in St. George!  Saturday morning we took a walk and then drove out to Snow Canyon to see if any waterfalls had started.  One had just barely started.  Then in the afternoon, we drove up to Pine Valley and found it too mushy to ski, so we just hiked around in the about 18".  It was really pretty, but not too easy walking when you were breaking trail.  A lovely day.

On Monday we decided to see if the snow on Cedar Mountain at Deer Hollow Ski Area was good enough for XC skiing.  It was!  We had a fun afternoon enjoying that beautiful area as well.  All in all, what started out seeming to be just a medical leave Spring Break ended up being a really great time off!  

 

Kaebri gets her mission call!

 Seemed like it came pretty quick!  She's called to serve in the Jacksonville, Florida, English speaking mission.  If she could actually go to the MTC, she'd be leaving on May 5th, just a few days after her 19th birthday, but she will just do the on-line MTC starting that date and then leave for the mission field from here on the 25th.  She's beyond excited.  The evening of the day she received the call we (some close family and others via FB video) got together for her to open her call via computer.  That's how it works now days.  It was a sweet to be there gathering.  A lot of things have been crazy in Kaebri's life with all of the Covid interruptions in her life plans.  Hopefully this will be a nice change and a big step forward for her as she finally gets to really leave home and especially for the reason of serving the Lord.  We are hoping she will have a wonderful mission experience!

Kodachrome Basin State Park - Spring Break fun

I love this place!  It's so uniquely beautiful.  And this time is wasn't crowded and the weather was perfect for hiking!  Paul, Bean and I enjoyed a nice day there and the drive there and back too.  It was so good to get out!  It may be the only thing we really do for my Spring Break since the rest of the week is filled with medical things - Paul's biopsy and his and Grandma's Covid shots.  We might be able to sneak something else in (I hope so).  

First Campout of 2021!

 It wasn't a full-blown cooking everything yourself campout, but it was a wonderful one nevertheless.  We went on Friday afternoon.  We got yummy BBQ brisket from the store along with beans, mac salad and coleslaw and some little rolls.  All we had to cook was warming up the beans.  And we had hot chocolate/Postum with some of those little rolls to dunk for dessert.  We didn't get our first choice of camping spots, but we did find another very nice one.  There was no wind!  It was very cool, but we had such a nice little fire and just sat by it and relaxed after a pretty stressful week with worries about finding a place for Bean to rent, Paul's possible cancer and my already cancer.  This was truly outdoor therapy for us.  We piled on sleeping bags under and over our regular one and stayed warm.  It was clear and the stars were wonderful and there was no one nearby.  We didn't bring breakfast.  We planned to go to Cracker Barrell and share their Grandma's Sampler meal.  It was so good.  We were smoky in our camping clothes, but it was fine.  And we also went and checked out a few camp trailers just for the fun of it and also went to the yearly Art Show at the university.  It was such a fun morning!  We finally came home and put things away and got cleaned up.  It was just the "medicine" we needed.

These pictures are actually backwards.  The top one is sunrise and the bottom one is just before sunset!  

 

Valentine's dinner...early date!

 In order to beat the rush and get in at a super busy place, we had our Valentine's dinner on the Tuesday before.  It was still crowded, but we did get a reservation at Sakura.  Our kids gave Paul a gift card for there for his birthday and we used it to cover most of the cost.  It was so fun - we did the hibachi dinner where they cook it on a grill in front of you.  It's entertainment and oh such good food!  We had the Geisha special which includes shrimp, chicken and filet minion and we got fried rice, salad and soup too.  We had enough leftover for dinner the next night!  Glad our kids take such good care of us with fun stuff for birthdays, etc.  (One thing this cook did was make an onion volcano, set it on fire and then put it out...and then cooked up that onion into a yummy vegetable side dish.)

 

February birthdays!

 Kennis was our first birthday for the month - not too many this time.  We went a day early to enjoy presents and chocolate covered strawberries with chocolate ice cream.  Kennis is a sweetie.  She is very busy doing high school, college and track right now and you have to see her when you can.  She also takes piano lessons and gives piano lessons to some neighbors and some family members.  She, Ryan, Koen and Ferf all played for us that night.  Pretty impressive!  Kennis has really excelled and has earned some big awards for her playing.  

Happy #41 Weed!

My FB post: Today we celebrate our sweet Weed’s (aka Lenae) birthday and remember all of the joy and fun she brought to our lives for not long enough. So grateful for her and all that she was to so many people. Heaven is so lucky to have her there.

Weed's  #41 birthday celebration this year had to be a little bit low key because of, you guessed it, Covid-19.  We met in Supe's backyard for a bring your own dinner and memory to share night.  We had 3 of her favorite cakes for dessert - Black and White cake, Lemon cake with strawberry frosting and homemade cheesecake.  There was plenty of cake!  It was low key too in that not so many people could actually come.  But it was nice to at least gather with as many as could and think of her.  

Juge always posts something special on Weed's birthday: Birthday celebrations today for this most beautiful, kind, and hilarious of humans! We miss her every single day. Wishing I was giving her this cutest and very profound book for her special day. And because it’s her birthday here’s a few cake related pages to celebrate. Enjoy—then go give your people an extra better-than-cake hug and a smile as bright as hers to someone who may need it today in honor of our most loved “Weed”. (Along with this very Weed collage.)

Happy #89 to Anna Lou was the last of the February birthdays. We took her to lunch at Mo' Bettahs the day before so she could be home all day on her birthday to get calls. It was really crowded inside, but she had been wanting to try it, so since it was such a nice, sunny day, we just ordered by phone and then Paul and I went in and got it. They had a comfy, sunny spot outside, so we ate out there. Good food! Afterwards we shared a Nothing Bundt carrot cake and some locally grown birthday pistachios we gave her. It was a nice time. She got many birthday calls the next day and was very pleased. Glad she could have a birthday that made her happy!

Cactus Joe's and other unexpected things

 We had a free Saturday and wanted to get out of town.  Didn't want to be cold, so we went south trying to go to see Red Rock National Conservation Area down by Vegas.  I looked it up and it said it was open...but not that you had to have a reservation to get in.  We found that out when we got there.  Rather than wait around hoping for a phone reservation to go through, we just took a drive (while listening to The Secret Garden) and saw some interesting and fun things.  We found Cactus Joe's - which was a very big nursery for all things desert gardening.  We found a couple of little critters to put on our backyard stone wall shelves and just enjoyed looking around the whole place.  Then we drove over to Pahrump and ate lunch in a park.  There were horses wandering around...we wondered about them at first and then realized they were wild horses.  We had seen signs all along the road on the way there warning you to watch out for wild horses and burros.  In town they had signs warning you not to feed them (or you would be fined).  I wish I had taken pictures of them.  There were 3 at the park and we saw another just wandering around town on a sidewalk on our way out of town.  Crazy!  First time seeing wild horses up close for me.  Wish we'd seen a burro.  We just had a nice day listening to our book and seeing what we saw.  (Except I had these crazy pains that we thought were a gallbladder attack and then turned out to be something else to do with enlarged lymph nodes constricting flow between kidney and bladder which ended us up in the ER for a while that evening. It was really painful that day, and some the next day - took Tylenol regularly.  Now, it's just sort of in the background and not too bad.  Seeing a urologist soon and may eventually have to have a stint they said.  Not happy to have this cancer stuff showing it's ugly head.  It could just be because my lymph nodes are swelling even more in reaction to my Covid vaccine shot.  We'll see.)  

Oh, and on some walks and on a bike ride recently I have seen some beautiful scenery and a Valentine Cactus!

Let the grand edventure dates begin - 2021

We got off to a great start with Eden and Ellie when we attended St. George Musical Theather's production of The Secret Garden.  It was very well done and good, but kind of a different way of presenting it than in the book or movie.  We had fun hanging out before and after too getting treats at the store and then playing a round of Hells-a-Poppin' afterwards.  These girls are growing up to be beautiful young ladies.  Wow!