We just got back from Taking Camille and Olivia home to Arizona so now I can catch up a little bit. We were able to have them for about 2 weeks and it was just wonderful. We picked them up at the airport and as soon as Liv saw me she started running to me with arms wide open...E-Mawwwwww. Wow that made my whole year! Then she did the same for E-Paw. They got here just in time to help with Candice's quilt which also made an excellent tent for playing under



We did some baking...

Went shopping for some new "Mermaid" panties. She is quite obcessed with The little Mermaid movie and can sing along with all the songs. Then she makes us all sing them too..."sing Airiel E-Maw!" I bet we watched it 30 times while she was here. I am totally ok with that though because little mermaid has always been my favorite disney movie too.

















Candice moved out on thursday...











Sure do miss her. She moved out with a girl she works with to a little house downtown. I was at jury duty all day so I couldn't really help. Kelley and K.C. got her all set up though. I know she wants to be out on her own and fix up her own place. I have sure enjoyed having her her with us. She brings a lot of joy into our home. Olivia adores her, And she pretty much keeps us laughing ALL the time!




We played in the snow...not very good oh-man snow.




















We went up to Logan to visit Great Grandma Braegger for a few days. Lots of fun jumping on her bouncy bed! We had a good visit with Brenda and Leslie too when they came over on wednesday.











Kelley and K.C. and I went up to the Draper Temple open house wednesday night with the youth in the ward. It was all scheduled so we could go in at 6:40, but there was so many people there, and there was bus mix ups, so we didn't get up to the Temple till almost 8:00. It was really beautiful though. The paintings inside were really pretty. It looked like they had just looked out the window of the temple to get their inspiriation. Lots of pictures of the mountains and trees . Its going to be open for appointment only because its smaller. About half the size of Jordan River Temple.

The same night ,Candice's friend Megan was going to be on American Idol (they were showing the auditions from Salt Lake City) and Candice was supposed to be on there too because she was with her when she auditioned for it. I heard from several people that they showed Candice standing next to Megan a few times and Megan did a great job! They had a little piece about Meg's life that was really cute too.

There was a bunch of stuff that Camille had left here when they moved cause she didn't have any need for it at the Wilkinson's. Well they need it now cause they just moved into their own apartment. So early thursday morning they loaded up her kitchen table, vaccum, book shelf and some other stuff and we drove down to their place in Gilbert. The ride went pretty good till the video player's battery died and we couldn't watch mermaid anymore. Then she just wanted to get out of that car seat! I can't blame her for wanting to get out of her seat...I wanted to too! it is a really long drive... about 11 hours. Camille is so patient with her though and got her to settle down with the promise of seeing daddy really soon. Here she is going to her happy place...











There was not a lot of ideal restroom facilities along the way. This was one of the memorable ones. It's a good thing they had this porta potty all chained up cause we wanted to STEAL IT!


















We got to their new place (it was very nice) and got freshened up, then went over to Kellen's parents and dropped Olivia off there cause Gary had gotten us tickets to go to the Sun's game. They were great seats and it was a lot of fun, except Kelley was feeling pretty sick. He had started getting a cold the day before, now it was full blown runny nose, coughing, sick. He tried to keep going and function, but I know he felt terrible We left a little early from the game and came home and zonked out. The next day, we decided we would go visit uncle Clyde. We had not been there since right after we got married, but Kelley's dad told us the address, so we thought we could find it easy enough. Well the land mark we were looking for..(a big water tower), was no longer there, so we drove around and around the temple. It was supposed to be quite close to the temple, but we couldn't find it. Finally Kelley called Chris and he googled it and we found it. But Uncle Clyde wasn't there so we left him a note and went and got some lunch. We played at the park that is quite close to thier house... it was really a beautiful day. Probably about 75 degrees. It felt good to take off the shoes and play in the warm sand!








Later after everyone had napped (Kelley needed one more than Olivia) we went to the Pro Bass Shop. It was very big and Olivia loved looking at all the "animals".

Olivia and E-Paw picked out a nice fishing boat.

We were shopping around a little at the mall there and liv found this Barbie and fell in love with it. She has been watching this "Bobbie" movie quite a bit where Barbie does ballet and Olivia trys to dance just like her. She was so cute with the Barbie...her first one!

Gary and Bev took us all out later for a real nice dinner at a place called Lucille's smoke house. Really good food! It was a fun night and we sure appreciate thier generosity and showing us a good time in Arizona!

Jury Duty

So I got this letter about 2 months ago from the United States District Court that was a" Notice To Appear" for jury duty on January 22. I just figured that when I called, they would say that I did not need to come in. But they didn't . They said to be there at 7:40 on thursday morning. AAHHHHHHHHHHH. Then when I got there and saw that I was 1 of 40 people that were asked to show up that morning, I thought that my chances were slim of being picked as one of the 12. They had us all watch this movie about being a juror, then we went into the court room and the judge asked us to all tell about ourselves. It was real interesting to hear about all these different peoples lives. Anyway, after we told about ourselves, the judge asked some other questions, like if we knew any people in the court room or anyone with anything to do with this case. He asked if there was any reason any of us could not physically handle being on this jury. I was hoping he would come up with some reason that I couldn't be there.. I reeeeealy didn't want to be there. Camille and Olivia were here visitng and I wanted to be home with them! Then a few people raised their hands and had some pretty legit reasons for not wanting to be there. (Father dying, job interview, ..one lady said her husband had been laid off a while ago and she was the main provider for her family...working 3 jobs !) I felt like a big jerk for even thinking of asking to be let go. Then the Judge asked kind of a wierd question..."would you consider it possible for the cops to lie ?" The nice lady that was sitting by me said that 2 of her sons were police officers, so she had to say that she didn't think they would ever lie in court. Well that got her off the hook. So when it was all said and done, they called my name as Juror number 7. They took us all back into this jurors room and told us that would be our home for the next 2 days. After we got something to eat and freshened up, they took us back into the court room and began the case.

It was against this guy who had supposidly had guns in his posession, which was very bad because he was a convicted felon. They had the prosecution get up and tell about why we should find him guilty, ..it seemed quite simple and straight forward at the start, then the defendant got up and told us why we would not be able to find him guilty. The defendant was this skinny little blond girl that looked like she was scared to death. She started out pretty shaky and it went downhill from there. Her face was really pale and her hands were shaking so bad you could hear her papers rattling. She started talking slower and her speech became slurred. She said "Im sorry...I'm ok...I'm ok" Then she started falling backwards. The jury were the ones who could see what she was doing because she was standing right in front of us with her back to the court. We all hollered to catch her and the prosecution guy ran over and caught her as she went down.

They dismissed the jury while the EMT guys hauled her out on a stretcher. Come to find out that this was her first case and she had been up all night worrying about it and didn't eat any breakfast. She looked borderline anorexic anyway. So after everything had settled down, they called us all back into the court room. The main defendant lady stepped in and took over for her. They started bringing in different witnesses. First the police that had pulled him over told his story. Then other police that came for back up that night told pretty much the same thing. It sounded like this guy was for sure guilty from listening to them. Then the defendant asked them about the proof of what had taken place. Well the police car camera had been erased because this happened about a year and a half ago, and when they took him to be interogated at the police station, he said he didn't know how to run the recorder machine so the interview wasn't recorded there either. Then the guy that did the fingerprint testing said he couldn't find any fingerprints on the guns. He had all kinds of reasons why there wouldn't be any fingerprints but I think we were all starting to have our doubts in the way the police had handled this whole thing. Then they had the lady that was driving the car the guns were found in go on the stand. She was really a pitiful sight. She looked like she had really been through it. She was missing a few teeth and looked like she was actually high on something at the time. She admited to being high on meth the night they were pulled over(she was pulled over for almost hitting pedestrians crossing the street) She said she had been addicted to meth for 17 years and had been in and out of prison for selling drugs. She had a totally different story of where the guns had come from. When the prosecuter asked her if she would lie to protect herself she said yes...she didn't want them to take her kids away. It was very sad. Then even sadder...her mom got on the stand and told a totally different story about how her little girl had never done any drugs or had been in any trouble. Ya right. So there was two witnesses that were totally unbelievable. That was about all they had for the defense. I think we all just left the first day thinking that tomorrow they would surely have something to tell us that would help us know what to do. Well the next day they brought in another guy that was in the car with the defendant and the burn out lady. They brought him in in shackels and I was glad cause he was pretty scary. My seat as juror # 7 put me about four feet away from the witness stand, and you could literally feel an evil presence when he walked into the room. He had a shaved head and tatoos all over his arms and neck. Then when he talked he was even scarier. You could tell he had no respect for anyone there and didn't have anything to gain or lose by telling the truth. He told another different story, which was totally unbelievable. They brought in another lady that had been helping the defendant out for a while and letting him stay at her house while he was seperated from his wife. She was a pretty sad case too. No teeth and looked like she was about 20 years older than her 35 years. She told us that the defendant couldn't read or write and she had been trying to help him out. She didn't have anything to say that would help his case either. Then they had the police be questioned again to try and show proof of anything and you could tell the prosecution was getting pretty frustrated with the lack of evidence the police had to show. They both gave their closing arguments then the judge read us this 30 page report about how we had to have proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict a person. Then we went to the jury room to come up with a verdict. This group of people they had picked for the jurors was really interesting and diverse. There was a english teacher, a buisness man, one of the whipple brothers from the whipple heating and air conditioning, he was a real character and ended up being our spokes person. There was an older lady from St. George and one from Tremonton that had just got home from a mission. There was a really outspoken yuppie girl from the avenues. There was a meteorologist from Logan, an ex-gymnist, a lady that worked for the vital statistics, and a runner from park city. Anyway it felt like I had known them all before for some reason and we all got along really well. We all told how we felt about the case and it was good to hear that everyone was thinking about the same thing. The police had screwed up and even though this guy was most likely guilty, there was not any evidence to say that he was! It was the police's word against the defendant. We talked about it for about an hour, then all decided to vote not guilty.

We went back into the court room and handed the verdict to the judge. He read it out loud, then asked each of us to say if we agreed with it or not. The look on the defendant's face is something I will never forget. He just broke down and cried. His wife and daughter were cheering and he just sat there with his face in his hands crying. All the prosecution guys looked pretty unhappy with our decision, but I think they knew they didn't have a good case with out any evidence.

After, the judge came into the juror room and thanked each one of us for our service. We said our good byes to the fellow jurors and left. As I was walking to my car, I came up to the stop light, and there was all the family and friends of the defendant. They just kind of smiled at me, then the wife said "thank you" and asked me if she could give me a hug. I was like..sure! and she came and gave me a big hug. Then the rest of them came and thanked me and hugged me too. The defendant guy was just bawling again and thanked me and hugged me. Then I started bawling too. I guess I had been holding a lot of feelings inside during the whole thing and they decided to come out right then. dang it! One of his friends asked me why I had chosen "not guilty" and I told them there wasn't enough evidence to prove anything. He said they were all really grateful and they were trying to get their lives turned around and stay out of trouble. I sure do hope they will. That was an experience I will never forget. It was a great reminder to me of how very blessed I am to have been raised in a happy home by wonderful parents who taught me right from wrong. I know that people are the way they are for a reason. They don't just get to be like that without some crazy, bad, stuff happening in their lives to make them that way. I know that most of it is due to choices that they have made along the way, but you could just see the vicious cycle of the bad or absent parent...the son or daughter turning out the same way, then their children following the same example. So sad.

Mother dear, I love you so...

I got to spend a few days with mom this last week. I am supposed to be helping her, but I always feel like I am the one who gains the most from our visits. She has a very calming effect on me. I can put things in perspective and slow down when I'm with her.

The other night when I called her she said that she had a pain in her back that was really bothering her. She does not complain unless something is pretty bad so I took her into the doctor on saturday morning. This was a process in itself. We got up early and got all ready to go, then tried to get out to the car. There was a sheet of ice from the front porch to the car. just getting myself to the car to warm it up was not easy. I got ahold of her and we started shuffling, skating to the car. Five minutes later we are in the car! When we got to the doctors office, we had to take the elevator upstairs. We were waiting for the doors to open so we could get on, and mom started going down. I had a hold of her arm, but her legs just gave out from under her. It was like slow motion. There was a lady standing behind us and she ran up and helped me get her back on her feet. We finally made it to his office and sat and waited for a while. Dr. Stones examined her and asked her where it hurt. He asked her if she had fallen or bumped herself there. She said no. He said "well sometimes you might forget what's happened, I think you may have a cracked rib." She disagreed with him, but we went over to the hospital and had some x-rays taken. Dr. Stones said he would call and let us know what he saw.

We had a nice lunch together, then I met with Brenda and Leslie to talk about pursuing the home health care idea for her. With Angie (who was a great help and a lot of companionship for mom) moving, and Brenda (who has been consistantly there for her) not being able to be there as much as she had because she is not working in Providence anymore, We need to have someone check in our her a few times a day when we can't be there. We decided to try again to talk to Mother and get her to sign the papers that would allow someone to come into her home. She is very stubborn about her independence and wants to take care of herself. I think for her age she is doing really well, but just needs someone to help her with a few things...like remembering to take her pills, and to get up the stairs to bed. I hope she will go along with the idea...that would really ease all of our minds if we knew that someone was there to help her when we can't be there. I really hated leaving her that day. She has seemed kind of lonely lately. I was glad when I called later and found out that Kelsie and Steve had been by to visit with her.

Nice Tie

So...the brethren may need some supervision when handling machinery with potentially harmful capabilities.

Kelley came home from bishopric meeting the other night carrying this tie and laughing to himself. What the heck? As he described what happened to me I could just picture the whole thing playing out. Just like in the cartoons.

First of all these guys have way to much fun at their meetings. He said Gordon was vaccuming the clerks office and Kelley was going to move the paper shredder aside so he could clean under it. As he leaned over it his tie went down and touched the start up mechanizim and it started sucking his tie into the machine. He found the off button and shut it down but was still stuck in the machine with his face about a foot away from getting shredded with his tie. They were all laughing so hard that the Stake Presidency came down to their office to see what was going on. His tie was pretty well stuck so they took it off of him and found a reverse button to get his tie out. There was talk of framing the tie and suggesting that this is what can happen to you if you don't do your home teaching. Heaven help our ward.

I got to go to lunch with my girlfriends to celebrate my birthday today. This picture is actually from Marsha and Brenda's birthday party in August because I happened to have my camera with me that day.

It was so nice to have everyone there. We had a great time catching up on each other's lives. It seems like even when we can't see each other very often, there is always this special bond that keeps us close. We sat and talked for about 3 hours!

Katie and I were talking the other day about our friends and how very special and unique the relationship is we have with each other. We met the Wrights and Reynolds when we moved into our first home in Hunter. Kelley worked with Bryan and Terry at Portland Cement and us girls were good friends right from the start. Carla and Bryan have been our dear friends forever. When Katie was about 5 and Camille was 2, they invited us to go on vacation to Newport Beach with them. That was the start of a wonderful tradition. We have gone most every year since them with their family, and it has grown to be a big group of friends that go on this annual vacation together. We enjoyed many "date night" outings with them and love them like family. Corrinne and Terry are just great people. I have always felt close to Corrinne. She is beautiful inside and out. Terry always makes me feel good just being around him He always has a story to tell and makes me laugh.

I met Marsha at an outdoor basketball game Tony and Kelley were playing in. I found out they were living in the same neighborhood we were building a home in in Taylorsville. We really hit it off and she became one of my dearest friends. We pretty much raised our kids together and were always doing something fun together. shopping, vacations, skiing, doing things with the kids, perms? and church callings. When she told me they were moving to Sandy, I thought I would die. But we have stayed very close over all these years. I met Diane before we even moved in. I remember all their family driving around the circle all loaded in their suburban pulling the green booger(their awesome boat) . We all went out and said hello and I knew from the start that Diane would be my good friend. They have the kind of family that just makes you feel loved and welcome. We had kids the same age they became good friends. We have had a lot of fun times with their family...Camping, boating, Utah games. Diane and I soon discovered we had many things in common. In fact, we had so much in common we decided we were surely sisters in heaven. We have the same taste in clothes...often end up wearing the same thing, we both love to sew, garden, and play the piano.

It seems like Charlene has been my friend forever. We got to know their family through Bryan and Carla and Wayne was the builder of our homes.We vacationed with them at Newport Beach waaaaaay back when the kids were little and have spent that special time with them most every year since.

We were in the same ward at first and they just lived across the canal road. After about a year, they split us off from their ward. That was really hard. We thought we had found some kind of utopia with that ward. There was a a special feeling there and a real bond between the people. But we remained close to their family. We had lots of fun shopping adventures and Katie and Amy were best friends growing up. Stacey and Rick moved in about 17 years ago. We became great friends right away. She ran a little preschool and K.C. spent many happy hours there. Stacey is the kind of person that is easy to love. She has a genuine intrest in you and is just a lot of fun to be around. She is always ready for any adventure and not afraid to try anything. We have had a special relationship with their whole family...Rick has done so many things for us I wouldn't know where to begin to describe how good he is to us. He is a great friend to Kelley.They have always been there for us through good times and bad. We got to know Northrups soon after we moved in here. We have enjoyed sharing a condo with them over the many years at Newport Beach. Dan and Kelley have a shared obsession for many things, the least dangerous being fishing. We went on a road trip to Northern California last summer to pick up their fishing boat, and have spent many happy hours since up on Strawberry Reservoir.(me on warm sunny days, Kelley and Dan- anytime they can...rain wind, freezing snow) That is a whole other story. Our kids grew up together and we have had a lot of great times with their family. They have been through some hard things and I am always amazed at their example of courage, faith and strength.

I don't know what we did to deserve these wonderful people in our lives but I am forever grateful for the love and support they have shown to us and how they have influenced me and my famlies lives. I consider these dear friends as gifts from Heavenly Father and I treasure each one of them.

Nifty at Fifty

Not really so nifty, but what could have been a real depressing birthday was changed into probably the best birthday I've ever had.

I have been dreading this birthday...waking up in a cold sweat thinking about what I have done with my life because it's mostly over...50 years old! 50 has always sounded so old to me...kind of like that was the line someone crosses into the geriatric years. AARP is sending me welcome letters. I still feel like I did when I was 30 on the inside. And for the most part, I feel good on the outside too. I can see little things creeping up on me...like the vision problems, hearing, lots of sleepless nights...the aches and pains that weren't there 5 years ago. But I sure can't complain. I have been blessed with very good health all of my life!

Anyway, I was thinking I would just have a low key celebration with my family. Friday night, Kelley and I were just watching TV and the next thing I know, he is gone. I figured he had gone over to his Dad's or something. Then a little while later there was a knock at the door and I go open it and there stands Katie. She had been her a week before so I sure didn't think she would be able to be home for my birthday. What a great surprise!.

We had a fun day saturday, got up early and went to the gym, where she gave me a killer workout on my legs. She really knows what she's doing and would be a great personal trainer. Anyway, then we went and got our nails done,(which was a whole other story...very funny!) and went shopping. It was great for me to be able to spend some time with her. Katie is a marathon shopper. Just like her Grandma. I wish so much that she was here so she could see how much Katie turned out like her. Their personalities are a lot alike. Fiesty, witty and funny, steadfast. On second thought, I'm sure that she CAN see her and she is very proud of her.

Back to the birthday...so saturday afternoon, Kelley said he needed to get some things from the distribution center...and would I go with him. I said ok. We got the things he needed, then he said he wanted to go over to deseret book to look for a picture. I was like ok but we better hurry cause we were supposed to meet the family downtown at PF Changs for dinner. Well he was talking on his phone, and wandering around, and disappearing for long periods of time, till I was just like, "We have got to go now!" Well we get out in the parking lot and he was still talking on the phone and really taking his time getting to the car. It was freezing cold and he was moving so slow so I was dragging him by the arm. We finally got going and he missed the exit to go downtown. He said he would get on the next one, then Candice called him and said her car wouldn't start, so we would have to go back to the house and pick them up. He turned around and drove incredibly slow back to the house.

When we walked in the kitchen, I about fell over. The house was all decorated and full of all our friends and family. I was totally surprised. I don't know how they pulled it off without me even suspecting anything, but they did it.

They had gotten a great dinner from Rubios for everybody and a wonderful carrot cake. I think everybody had a good time visiting and eating. I was reminded again how very blessed I am to have been surrounded with wonderful family and friends. I am truly grateful.

Sunday was another great day. We started our schedule of 9:00 church this week. It was great to have Katie with us at church. She bore her testimony which was wonderful to hear. While she was up there, I had a sudden realization that my 50 years here have not been meaningless beacuse I have a wonderful husband who is my dearest friend and together we have raised four amazing delightful, wonderful children. Could there be anything better than that? That was what I was put here for. That is where I find my joy...being the wife, the mom and now the Grandma!.

After church we opened presents. Kelley surprised me with a card with a picture of a beautiful beach and on it he had drawn two little stick figures on the sand and wrote "you" and "me" and a carribean cruise. I about fell off my chair. He is so good to me. I don't deserve it.

I sure do thank my family for all their love and support and for all they did to make my birthday so special. Looking forward to 50 more wonderful years of joy in the journey!

favorite things

Katie did something really special for us for Christmas this year.










She made Kelley and I each a book called "101 things we love about Mom..Dad"

I think all the family had gotten together at Thanksgiving and worked on this. There was lots of great pictures and 101 of the nicest things (and the funniest things) they could ever say. Kelley and I took turns reading a line from our books, bawling through most of it and laughing at the rest.

I think thats the nicest compliment I could ever get... to know that my famiy loves and respects me as their mom and just likes me as a person. Thanks Katie.. (Camille, Candice and K.C.) what a thoughtful gift! We will treasure them.