Grandpa

My Grandpa passed away this last Tuesday.  My mom volunteered herself along with me to help put pictures together to display at the funeral.  It was such a treat as I've never seen any of these pictures before.  Or even any of my grandparents from their early years.  I thought I'd share just a few of my favorites.

Grandma and Grandpa, Driggs, Idaho.  I think about 1945(?).   Not quite married.

Grandpa served in the military for 2 years.  First in Camp Roberts, CA and later in both Germany and Torino, Italy.  Just as he was called to the front lines, the war ended.

 Grandpa home on furlough:

My Grandpa came from a teeny, tiny town in Idaho.  Love his cowboy hat.

September in a Flash

4 miles in
2 nights
4 miles out.
6 miles in between.
7 lakes (at least)
Too much trail food
Little Weight
No compass needed.
4 friends
1 awesome backpacking trip

Lots of junk
Giggly girls
Silly moms
Always a craft
Uplifting thoughts
Time away from boys
And presents! (Hey! That was mine!!)
Forever a good time
Marchant Girls Weekend in Park City

Butterflies
Fairies
Makeup
Music
Dancing
Food
Impromptu Fairy party/Costume Picnic

First.
Ever.
Principal Pride Award.
Happiness.

Visiting Grandpa

My grandpa is not doing well.  My mom suggested that we might want to go visit, just in case.  Jeff and I decided to take the kids over last night and I'm so glad we did. 

Grandpa is at the point where the main goal is to just keep him comfortable.  He's on oxygen and seemed to wheeze quite a bit.  My parents visited with him on Friday and Mom said he barely said two words the whole time.  When we got there he was watching the end of Bonanza with my grandma. We handed the baby over to Grandma (she's a baby-lover for sure!).  As soon as Grandpa saw Chloe, he perked right up, playing with the baby, cooing at her, singing to her.  He held her without dropping her, even though she was a little heavy for his frail muscles.  Chloe was so good for him, too.  She was bright eyed and showed no anxiety being held by a strange old man with tubes strapped to his face. I'm really glad we took the time to go visit.

Our Own California Adventure

A week is never a long enough vacation for me. I wish I had more time to vacate with my little family, but the time we did have was great.

We hit the beach

Sophie is still terrified of someone being thrown in the ocean.  It still makes me laugh.  Personally, I prefer smaller, more secluded beaches like on this trip.

Disneyland was great.  I didn't know how Sophie would do with the meeting the characters.  She can be a little shy and unsure, but she loved it.  McKay and Lyndsi still loved it as well. 

We spent a lot of time in Fantasy Land.  I didn't mind, though.  The kids all (except Chloe who, obviously, didn't meet height requirements) wend on the bigger rides: Space Mountain, The Matterhorn, and Big Thunder Railroad.  Pirates wasn't as scary.  The Buzz Lightyear ride was just as awesome as remembered.  Pinocchio's Daring Adventure gets the award for Most Times Ridden. (Thanks Soph.)  Our time at the Haunted Man was extended due to the ride breaking down for a minute.  Jeff and I happened to get to do that one with just the two of us.  It really was kind of nice.  We were headed down hill (going backwards) in the graveyard section when the ride came to a halt.  There was a nice starry sky, a cool breeze, a cute boy by my side...Oh and the most annoying bird ever screeching "Caw! Caw!) every thirty seconds or so.  Which is fine for a minute, but 10 minutes later I was ready for a BB gun. ;) 

McKay and Sophie spent most of their time clamoring for their dad's favor.  McKay, ever the gracious one, often ended up with a different riding companion and left Dad to his persistent little sister.  Which left Lyndsi and Chloe completely to myself and we had a grand time together.

We traded lots of pins.  My parents, brother and his girlfriend were having a grand time with this and stopped at every pin trader we saw.

Captain Eo was playing.  We were all so excited to see it, but in the end it was a little lame.  At least the dancing was awesome.  We watched the birds and flowers sing in the Enchanted Tiki Room, toured Sleeping Beauty's castle and stood in line for hours to meet Rapunzel, princesses, and Fairies.  Thankfully McKay spared us by opting out of watching Jedi training. :)  The hours in line were worth it though to see Sophie squeal with excitement when she saw Belle.

Of course you can't see the excitement here, but she was SO excited.

Disneyland was great, but we spent a lot more time in CA Adventure than I would've thought.  Not quite the same feel as DL, but much less crowded and had some perks of it's own.  Like the Monsters Inc ride.  We've done it before, but had a lot of fun on it this time.  We met Sully, too!  There were all kinds of fun street performances (including The Incredibles and The Little Green Men drum corps) and outdoor stage ones (That Mickey can really bust a  groove!)  My mom convinced us that we had to see the Aladdin show, which was awesome.  We did the Tower of Terror (McKay even tried it!  but-couldn't convince the girls),

 Bugs Land (still not my favorite place), and the more carnival-ish pier rides.  Toy Story Mania was SO much fun.  Didn't dig the Jumping Jellyfish.  Something about not being in an enclosed car makes me nervous.  (Loved Tower of Terror, though!)  We had a great time on River Rapids, too.

  At least Mom, Lyndsi and I did.  Thankfully we all had on quick drying clothes, though. ;)  And as predicted, my mom loved Soaring Over California.  I was surprised though that the kids all loved it too.

The World of Color fizzled out on us the first night we tried to watch it.  We caught it Friday night (our last night), but by then I was one.  My feet hurt after 5 days of navigating a stroller through two amusement parks, keeping 5 people fed, hydrated, SPF'd and happy, and standing in line.  It was pretty, but I wasn't super impressed.  But don't take my grumpy, end-of-trip, fatigued opinion.  See it for yourself.

One thing we did that was a fun little surprise was the Talk with Crush (from finding nemo).  The kids had a great time.  In the same building, we got to see a demonstration of how the animation was done for Toy Story and the kids and Jeff attended a class where they learned to draw Goofy.  (The results were surprisingly good!)  While they were in class, I stayed out in the lobby with a sleeping baby and watched clips of all Disney's cartoons in their various stages of animation.

It was such a great trip.  (Cue music- "When you wish upon a star")

Now time to get back to reality.



Rose Petal

This morning Sophie was cooing over Chloe continuously calling her "Rose Petal." Which made me first laugh.  And second remember.

Do you remember her?

No?

Maybe this will help


This was one of my favorite cartoons growing up.  I'm so going in search of it now!  What are some of your favorite cartoons from your childhood?

Hawaii

was great.  I'm so glad I got to go.  I think I can make it until spring now. ;)  Really, we had a great time.  Here's a quick recap of what we did:

Friday:
Departure late morning!

Walked around Waikiki
Ate dinner at Planet Hollywood
Went to bed kind of early (at least by whatever time zone is Hawaii)

Saturday:

Got up early

Hiked Diamond Head.  Beautiful.  I'll have you know Jeff did this on one granola bar and did not complain of hunger once.  I was in shock.  (happy shock, babe.  Happy shock.)

Came back and ate breakfast
Went to Aloha Stadium for swap meet.  Missed the exit.  (Thanks "Mandy" our beloved TomTom.) Eventually got there. 
Spent too much $$ (according to Jeff).  Ate an enormous pork sandwich there.

Visited the Battleship Missouri at Pearl Harbor.  Was in awe.

Sunday (My favorite Day)
View from our room

Sailed to Arizona Memorial. 

Went to church.  Loved the ward we went to.

Picniced at the Punchbowl cemetery.  (My favorite place we visited.  Beautiful)

Stopped at the Pali Lookout on our way to the north shore

Went to a Buddhist Temple

Went to the Lai'e Temple (where we acutally met Mark Eubank, funny enough, who is the visitor's center director)

Monday
My first day alone.
Read on the beach for an hour or so.
Took a nap
Had lunch on the beach
Read some more

Tuesday
Ate lunch at Seasider Cafe (BYU-Hawaii)
Polynesian Cultural Center all day with my aunt (wished the kids were with me for that)

Wednesday
Alone again. 
Read and watched TV
Dole Plantation

Matsumoto's shaved ice

Shrimp shack for dinner

Thursday

Waiemea Falls.  Got dumped on.  Wish I had worn my swimsuit.

Played in the ocean. 

Attempted snorkling.

Friday

Did not sleep well on plane.

Came home.

Happy reunion with kiddos.

Little Tidbits

And I'm immediately thinking pineapple! 

I'm already off topic. :)

Anyway.......We've been working on our basement for...um...2.5 years now.  A huge part of the hold up is deciding what to do with the ceiling in the craft/laundry room.  It's a mess of all kinds of pipes and wires, most of which aren't tucked up neatly between the beams.  Shudder...My mom eventually volunteered my handy man dad to come put up a suspended ceiling for me (thereby clearing up clutter from her house since he had the supplies laying around).  We also had to wire a light in.  There was an existing feature in the laundry portion of the room, but my craft area was a dark corner.  Lots of time hanging with my dad and a week later:

Ta-da!  We have light!  And a ceiling.  Wahoo!!There's still a bit to be done, like sheet rocking one wall, taping and mudding another wall, painting, adding a door to the bathroom and flooring throughout.  It'll get done.  Eventually.

I also (partly in thanks to my wonderful new lighting) finished my first goal of the year.  I finished scrapbooking our Disneyland trip (from 07).  The goal was to have it finished before this coming weekend (as in the 22-23 of Jan) before my big scrapbooking crop that I'm attending.  Honestly, I'm done with 07. I just need to get a few holiday pictures out of the way and that year will finally be history.

Last, but not least.  The kids talked us into a game or two of Uno attack the other night.  After the first round Sophie had the hang of it enough (with help) that I could have my own hand. We were all having a lovely time.  Then I looked over at my darling baby girl and nudged Jeff.  We broke out in hysterical laughter.  Sophie was holding her hand with the cards fanned out between her toes!  The big and second toe to be exact.  Jeff grabbed the camera and we caught this for posterity.  Love it!

Goodbye 2009

It's been real fun. We've planned and played all year long. We've survived another tax season and worked hard around our yard and home. We've laughed and cried, succeeded and struggled. There have been some hard times, but mostly you have been quite good to us. I hope your sister, 2010, is just as kind to us as you've been. We'll miss you!


Jan: Scrapping to support the Utah Down Syndrome Foundation. (Check it out here.)
Feb. Unromantic Angie actually planned some fun valentine things for the family.
March: Spring is coming! Spring is coming!!

April: St. George, the end of tax season, and a new train at the cabin! Sweet happiness.

May: McKay graduated from preschool. He loved his year with Ms. Shelly.

June: Lots this month, but the definite highlight was taking family to see the new Oquirrh Mtn. temple.

July: In an effort to get the kids ready for two solid weeks of hiking and beach combing, we took them on the Donut Falls hike. I'll have you know my 2 almost 3-year-old (at the time) did the whole thing by herself.

August: Kids are back in school, Sophie turned 3 and Brady came home from his mission!!!!

September: Maybe you're sick of this by now, but this was our trip to the coast. We seriously got a small taste of heaven those two weeks.

October: Filled with Halloween preparation and festivities. This is a huge deal at our house.

November: So much to be thankful for. It was a relaxing month. (Of course, my highlight was New Moon. lol.)

December: A month to reflect on the past year's successes and mistakes, to be grateful for a little baby boy who would come to atone for those mistakes and a time to be with family.

Like I said, 2009 you were a great year and we'll miss all that you brought us.

To 2010 we say bring it on!! We're excited and looking forward to the future.