Happy Thanksgiving

Here it is a couple of days before Thanksgiving and it is SNOWING!!!! This is NOT normal for Oregon. Rain? Yes, definitely, but snow? This morning I got up early to help my dad get up to the clinic for surgery to have a cataract removed. Since it was soooo icy, we told them that Reed and I would take them in. Reed had a meeting later, so we got the grocery shopping done and headed home. Then it was back in to pick up my dad and get them home, safe and sound.

Reed and I met up for lunch and then it was home to start the prep for Thanksgiving. I am making rolls today and will probably get 1 pie done. I am so excited for the kids and their kids and friends to arrive. It is such a great time to reflect on all I have to be thankful for. As I have started serving in Relief Society now, I have had many opportunities to visit with those who have not been as fortunate as I have. I am so grateful for my blessings. It has been humbling to be in some of the circumstances and to try and counsel and help those who have had to suffer so much. Poor Reed, just shakes his head as he watches me go off on another Relief Society assignment, but I am so thankful for him and his support. I have such a wonderful family.

May all of you feel the blessings that are yours. May your eyes be opened to how truly fortunate you are. May you find some way, however small, to reach out to those around you and give them a lift. Smile, reach out and give someone a hug or a handshake. Express your love to your family and friends. Find someone to be a secret Santa to. Watch the wonders of this beautiful world in which we live. That is my wish this Thanksgiving season!!

A Weekend With The Grandkids!

This last weekend was one of those wonderful Oregon weekends where the mornings are crisp and cool but with lots of sunshine. Zach and the boys came down for a long weekend while Jackie was back in New York for her college roommate's wedding! We took advantage of all the good weather and did lots of fun stuff.

We roasted hot dogs for lunch on Friday! The boys were really good at roasting.

Then we went to dinner to celebrate Jackie's birthday. Too bad she wasn't with us!! But we sent her pictures to let her know we were thinking of her!!

Saturday took us to the local corn maze. This year it was tough and we didn't make it all the way through. But there were lots of fun activities for the kids. The boys rode the "Moo Train" played on the hay slide and crawled through tubes.

We topped the day off by going to the pizza parlor to celebrate Katarina's 2nd birthday.

There was a play area there too and we had lots of fun!!

It was a GREAT weekend!!

This Is What I Have Been Up To

I know, I know. I left you hanging about my trip back east. We had LOTS of fun. We had opted to not take the Wii this year and I am so glad we did that. The TV was hardly turned on and we spent lots of time out of doors, riding bikes, walking, using the strollers, and playing mini golf. I will get around to posting pictures some time. But in the mean time, this is why I have neglected the blog so much. This project started before we headed back east and still continues today. At one time while the house was torn apart, I had 17 people sleeping at my house!!

We decided that we needed to reside our house. We have battled leaking windows for a couple of years and tried a number of fixes and solutions. We had even had to do a repair in our bedroom due to a rotting floor. It all pointed to problems with our siding. Our house used to have vinyl siding. NOT GOOD!! Over time, water had gotten behind the vinyl and was trapped next to the house. As they tore off siding we found the rot had gone through the 1 inch cedar that was still on the house, the plywood and into the studs. There were even snakes living in the wall. Gross, I know!! In some places we replaced windows with sliding glass doors. We tore apart a wall that had no insulation, just concrete retaining wall and wallboard. We put hardiplank siding on (a cement composite siding) that is a combination of planks, cedar looking shingles and scallops. I LOVE THE LOOK.

We are still working on the inside. Right at this moment we are tiling the laundry, hall and bathroom area downstairs. New carpet has been ordered and will be installed within a month. I still have painting to do. I wrote Josh and asked him what color he would like his room to be. He replied that I should leave it blue because he knew I would never go with red which was what he wanted. Won't he be surprised when he comes home and finds that I am actually painting one wall in his room red. This is a HUGE break for me, but my girls have banned the colors of pink or blue downstairs. They are my favorite colors and I do tend to over do it!!

Enjoy the pictures.

Corn, corn, and more corn

Day 3 was spent driving across Nebraska and part of Iowa. We have seen so much corn. I find it hard to believe that people think there is not enough food. Of course much of this corn will be used for ethanol. So silly, when you think about how people could be fed. And these states at least offer gas w/o ethanol:). We stopped at Winter Quarters. That place has such a sweet spirit. I am struck once again how much these pioneers sacrificed. It makes me ponder again how Pres. Hinckley always admonished us to remember. While at the visitors center, who should we run into? Reed's uncle Rodney from Denver. What a small world!!
As we drove to our motel for the night, we saw many fireflies. Morgan had never seen them. It is so fun to have her. She is seeing and experiencing so much for the first time.
Tomorrow we spend the day at Nauvoi!!



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Day 2

Today we had our granddaughter Morgan join us. She is Norma's oldest and she gets to be with grandma and grandpa for the next 3+ weeks. Today we visited the Mormon Pioneer handcart center known as Martin's Cove. As we arrived we saw black clouds from a thunder storm approaching. This has happened every time we have visited. We left in time, but got hammered on the highway by a torrential downpour and massive hailstorm. It came down so hard we could not see the road. As we crawled into a rest area, we had no idea that we were at Independence Rock. We couldn't even see it!! It was another exciting day!!








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The Journey Begins

I have decided that I should journal our trip across America. I am very grateful for this beautiful world and the country in which I live. Today we drove to Utah. We stopped for lunch in Ontario, OR and watched the Wendy's there burn to the ground.
Then Reed did a good deed while at a rest stop in Utah. A family pulling a boat were stopped trying to change a broken wheel on the trailer. The dad was on crutches. Reed went over and helped the family. What a good man.


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Quick Update without Pictures

Guess I will give a quick update while I scramble to get everything done. Alas there are no pictures because I don't have time. So on to the update. Since last I posted, I have pulled off a family reunion for my side of the family. We had 60 people camping at our cabin by the river. I planned and pre-prepared all the meals except for breakfast which was assigned out to different families. We had a GREAT time. I hope to get pictures up. We made 2x the money for the next reunion AND raised money to reside the cabin and replace windows.

Jessica has started her new job and so we don't see her or hear from her like we used to:( I miss having quick access to her, but she is very happy working and we will get to see her for 1/2 of our vacation. We got to take Jessica and her roommate up to camp and sight see at Mt. St. Helens after graduation and had a wonderful time! I will post some pictures from that too - someday!!

Let's see, then Keegan (my 6 year old grandson) broke his arm. Reed and I had gone up to the temple and to talk about becoming ordinance workers. That has to be put on hold. We are way too busy and I have a new calling and responsibility at church that will probably postpone it for a while. Anyway we came out of the temple to a text message from Jackie asking us to meet her at the hospital because Keegan has broken his arm. Brave boy never cried, just calmly told his parents that he had broken his arm. They didn't believe him at first until he removed the hand that covered the broken arm. Glad we were up in the area and could meet up with them, take the baby and stay with the younger kids while mom and dad were at the hospital with Keegan. Kind of changed plans we had for how the summer was going to go.

Jackie then came down to our house for 2 weeks of swimming lessons and the reunion. It was fun to have all those boys here and the house sure filled up with people!!

My sister and her husband arrived from Indiana as well as her daughter and son from Georgia for the reunion. Meanwhile my house is under construction AGAIN!! What started as a residing project became a major remodel as we found major rot problems. So fiascoes continue daily with that. But I am getting used to all that now. Just a major mess in my home with the downstairs basically out of commission until everything is done! Norma and her family made it to the reunion and it was sooooo good to have them here. After the reunion we had 17 people staying the night at my house and that was with the downstairs and bedrooms out of commission!!

Life is never dull around here. This week I have been sewing like mad for a family in our stake that is going on TREK. Trek is where they enact the pioneers crossing the plains in handcarts. They will be hiking about 25 miles in 3+ days. Everyone wears pioneer costumes and they are organized into "families" and have a handcart that they must push/pull along the old Santiam wagon trail. Thank goodness my knees are not up to that kind of torture (well sort of). So instead I said I would help. So in one week I have made 4 bonnets, 2 dresses, 1 apron, 2 pioneer shirts, pantaloons, and altered 4 shirts for the family. All this while I have 2 different construction crews pounding, hammering, taking out windows so I can't run my AC and showing up at 6am to start work. Not to mention there is still the lab, workers in the trees and and a high school student doing yard work for me. Oh did I mention that I had a 16 year old young lady that stayed with us for a week while her family was away. She is in summer school and could not go with them.

So today I actually cleaned my house, ran errands and did the laundry. I am trying to get my brain to function so I can start packing cuz we are leaving to drive across the country. I think I am totally insane!!!

I will try to post pictures as we vacation with the kids back at the beach house. Is this really a vacation? Stay tuned and next time I promise pictures.