Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cruise anyone?

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Barbados
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St. Lucia
St. Maarten
St. Thomas
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St. Kitts
Our family is planning to go on a cruise April 29 to May 5, 2012, before Sean leaves on his mission.  We sail from port in Puerto Rico and enjoy each of these fabulous islands.  Sounds incredible to me, and we'd love to have any of you fun-loving, exciting people come along with us!
        ..... grandpas and grandmas, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends.....
Call me for details!


Here are Ashley's words of excitement, "Get excited for the best vacation yet!!!  ... and the 10 pounds we'll all no doubt gain!"  24-hour all-you-can-eat ice cream, midnight pizza, chocolate molten cake, lobster night, and cheeseburgers and fries after a long day of scuba diving.  .....also the warm days lying in the sand, fountain fun cards, karaoke, and Latin dancing, and papa's linen shirt!!!!  I won't sleep tonight!"       

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Thanksgiving!

Averi sent this adorable picture to papa and I for Thanksgiving.  We appreciate her mom helping her.  Her little hand prints are priceless!  I get the impression that they have spent a lot of time in their home talking about what they are grateful for.  Last week Katie posted a picture on her blog of Averi with a 'Grateful Turkey' that she made for great-grandma and great-grandpa Clark.  How terrific!
We have a huge amount of things to be grateful for.  At the top of that huge list is our family.  We are extremely blessed to have wonderful children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins!  Love you all!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Ashley's and Hudson's Surprise Visit!

I can't think of anything better than a visit from family!  Last Thursday I was so surprised when Ashley and Hudson appeared for a visit!  We had four, full, fun-filled days of time spent together!

 I enjoyed visiting with Ashley, cooking and eating delicious food, working out at the gym together, watching movies, shopping for Christmas ideas, and catching up.  She cut my hair.  She decided I needed to activate my facebook account - and so she did.  I love and value her 'style' advice for me.  She picks out the best clothes!  It is just so nice to have adult daughters in my life!



I spent as much time as I could holding Hudson (he is not very cuddly); he would much rather be moving around.  His feet never stop kicking!  Hudson and I played with Elmo and with the noisy phone.  We practiced fitting shapes into the spaces.  We read books.  We played the piano.  We sang and danced.  I fed him bottles, changed his diapers, and put him to sleep.  He is a good baby.  He is always so happy.  His smiles come very easily.  I'm afraid that we threw him off of his terrific sleeping schedule, but we tried really hard not to.  Actually, I think his airplane flight the first day took care of that.  No one on the plane let him have his nap - they just played with him and let him entertain them.  I am sorry that the plane rides are so long and that there are no direct flights.  It is not an easy task getting to Columbus from Salt Lake City.

It would have been terrific if they could have stayed longer.  However, I will take any moments I can get.  I appreciate that Ryan is supportive of them coming to spend time with us.  Our next visits will be here before we know it.  We will see everybody at Christmas time!!!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

The House Painting Project

It is nearly finished!  Hooray!  After many weeks of a few hours here and there, when schedule and daylight would allow, Lyle is almost finished with his painting project.  He only has a few windows left to trim around on the south side of the house.  When he started this project, he didn't realize that he needed to fit in a roofing project for our friend Kelly Coffey.  Her roof was a MUST and our painting was on a list.  I mean, are we really in a hurry?  It has waited for nearly six years!
I kept asking Lyle why we decided to do this now that Sean and Tanner weren't around to help out!!!!  We never do things the easy way.

The 'After'
The 'During'
Tied in with his harness and rope

The 'Before"