Last weekend was kind of crazy.  Katie had promised some people in Arizona she would bring some furniture they had ordered down to them...that was when we were thinking of going there for Thanksgiving.  Then we realized KC and Candice couldn't come cause they had school and work, so we decided to not go....then we decided to go again, only to be back in time to have Thanksgiving with KC and Candice.  Ha! Crazy right?  So Sunday morning Kelley and Katie took off with the  car loaded with all the wood pieces.  I couldn't go with them cause I was supposed to talk in church with Josh at the 12th ward.  He asked me a long time ago so i couldn't really let him down.  So I went to our church, then to the 12th ward Sacrament meeting.  It was Carla and Brian and cousin Dan's ward so it was nice to see some friendly faces out there.  KC and Candice came to support me too.  They are the best! Josh scared me for a minute when he was up there talking about telling some stories me...he's got some good ones.  Then he said some real nice stuff about me instead.  He is a good guy.   Anyway, I was sure glad when that was over! 

Then that evening, I went to Terry R. mom's viewing with Rick and Stacey. She had passed away kind of suddenly after a fall.  She has had a lot of health problems for years so it was kind of a nice way for her to go. I sure do love their family.

I came home and hung out with KC but didn't get started packing till about 11:30, then when I got to bed, I couldn't go to sleep.  It was a bad night.  I was worried I would't wake up in time for my flight, which was ridiculously early.  So I think I slept for about 45 minutes total.  KC was a peach to take me to the airport at 4:15.  no really, he is the best.

We didn't take off for about a half hour after we boarded because they were de-icing the plane.

So I had a layover in Denver for an hour...seriously, when they said on the internet that this was a poor flight, they weren't kidding.  But we took so long to take off in Utah, that by the time we got to Denver, they were already boarding the plane.  I had to walk quite a ways to get to my gate and by the time I got my boarding pass and seat, most everyone was already on the plane.  I was wedged between two big men on that flight...oh boy.  I just sat real still and tired to be small.

When we landed, I was at a different area that I hadn't seen before.  I think they were remodeling or something. So I called Camille.  She was just coming from the doctor and was unfamiliar with that part of the airport too but we finally found each other.  I'll tell you what, seeing that face made the whole big hassel of getting there worth it. I just miss her terribly.

So we had two days to play and we crammed everything we could into that short time.

I could not get enough of this little bug.  She is the sweetest, funniest girl.  And she gives hugs like no other.

I took her to the bathroom in Walmart and she said "Look Grama...it's just my size!"

Liv and I played two square

Scooted around with Emily

Camille, Kelley, Katie and I went to the gym Tuesday morning.  I love their gym cause it has racquetball.  Kelley, Camille and I played cutthroat ...it's all fun and games till they threaten to hit me cause I'm beating them, then the next serve, Camille nails me in the back.  Haaaaa  Sure I believe you didn't mean to do that!   It was a lot of fun.

Hobby lobby is always a good time...Em found a few things she wanted to take home. 

Rolled around on the air mattress with the kiddos

Grampa must spoil.  We don't get nearly enough opportunities to do that so we have to take full advantage when we can.

Playing cards with Olivia...She beats me every time.

Sam is just the cutest little guy.  He is a tender heart and says the sweetest and funniest things. 

We went to the park while we were waiting for Sam to get done with preschool.  Emily loves the slide.  I couldn't help it, I just had to put all of these videos on here.  She is killing me...."here my come!"  I could sit and watch them all day.

I haven't said much about my new calling in the stake...mostly because I haven't been doing anything!  I'm not complaining, I know that's how stake callings are.  I've gone to a couple youth council meetings, but that's about it. Brenda told me she's not into meetings unless they are really necessary, so I will just wait to hear from her.  Stacey planned a camp meeting with all the wards camp leaders and presidents.  She's not one to wait around and see what happens. She gets things done!  I get that!  She has a huge undertaking ahead of her in planning and carrying out a stake girls camp! 

Now the Young Women in Excellence programs are beginning so that will be fun.  I went to our ward YWIE last Sunday night.  It was kind of weird to be able to just sit there and enjoy the evening and not worry about anything!  My heart was kind of aching though cause I miss the association with those girls and the other leaders.  You get to be pretty close in a calling like that.  It's also pretty amazing how you just get to love the girls.  I was talking to JoAnn after,  She has been called as an advisor for the Laurels.  She is so awesome!  She said "I thought I was too old for this job, but  I found out I'm not!"  

She told me in the short time she has been in, she has grown to love the girls so much.  She truly cares about each one and was thinking of ways she could encourage the ones who haven't been there to come out.They are so lucky to have her. 

 They also put Diane Burns in as a advisor.  I've served with her a few times in yw before and she is so much fun.  The girls are in good hands.  I had to get a picture and lots of hugs after the program was over.  

Those cute girls will always have a special place in my heart

Last monday, I had a message from Liz Cox when I got home from going out to dinner with the girlfriends for Stacey's birthday.  Kelley said I should call her no matter how late it was so I did.  She said Jerry had just asked if she would put together a musical number for this Sunday sacrament meeting, and she wondered if I would sing with her and Shawna Murray.  I was immediately intimidated...her and Shawna have amazing strong voices!  But I said yes.  She brought the music over the next morning for me to learn.  It was a trio to "For the Beauty of the Earth" but a completely different tune.  She asked me to sing alto, which is where I am most comfortable.

We got together on Wednesday night at Shawnas' house to practice.  The harmony on this song is really beautiful!  Calvin came a little later to play for us and after we sang it through with the piano for the first time, he was so sweet...his comment was "Holy smokes!"  Like I said before, Shawna and Liz both have AMAZING voices, so I don't take any credit at all for the song sounding good, but it was pretty cool to get to be a part of making this happen.  Liz is a trained, professional singer, so she had lots of ideas and tips to make it sound better.  I appreciated that!  I think the thing I realized most was that I don't have a lot of air!  

Anyway, we practiced for a while, then Tori who was in the kitchen came in to say hi and Shawna said, "You should sing with us too"  So she jumped in and sang with us too.  It was good to have her help on my part cause I was definitely the weakest link.

Sunday morning we met at in the chapel early so we could go through it again.  It sounded real pretty with the grand piano.

So anyway, we sang between the high council speakers (a kind of weird thing...Josh asked me to speak with him in the 12th ward next week  and the talks we were assigned were the ones they gave in our ward sunday.  It was interesting to see her take on the same talk I had just written) and I think it went pretty well.  People were so kind.  Like I said, Shawna and Liz made it beautiful, but I sure enjoyed singing with them.  

The harmony in the song reminded me of songs me and my sisters would sing together.  That was sure the best time when mum would play the ukulele and us girls would sing in harmony.  I'm so grateful to her for teaching us how to sing and for planting the love of music in our hearts.  That could be one of the greatest gifts she gave us.

Katie and Kelley have been working hard on their wood projects.  

Katie had several orders from people in California, so she decided to drive down with a load.

I can't even say how proud I am of this girl.  She is putting her whole heart and soul into this business and working her butt off.

Her and Kelley will come in the house covered in saw dust from head to toe.  The other day Kelley came in and started digging through the cupboard for bandaids. He always acts so nonchalant, like it's no big deal, but when he finally unwrapped his fingers, my stomach flipped over.  He had pretty much made a hole in the ends of his three fingers. A big hole.  He said he had a board snap back that he was pushing through the saw and hit those fingers.  Oh man, I think he probably should have gone to the doctor, but he wasn't having anything to do with that.  Sometimes he worries me.  We bandaged them up and he went right back out to the garage.

Katie has been making a lot of these amazing art pieces...she really has an eye for this work! Her color choices and designs are all unique and really beautiful! 

She has been working on some Christmas ideas for the boutique they are doing at the Market Place in December

This is Her and Kelley loading up to go to California.  Kelley's truck is so big to drive and hard to find a parking place for, so Katie asked Dan if she could use his truck.  He is surely the dearest friend that would let her borrow it for a week.  Love that guy!

 She is my brave girl.  I don't think there's anything she wouldn't try to do.  She figures a way, then makes things happen. I admire that so much about her!

is

Time seems to be going faster and faster these days.  I try to regroup on Sunday and take inventory of what I have accomplished.  It's usually not a lot, but my days are happy and full of family, friends and life.  
As I was working out in the yard this afternoon, putting away the lawn furniture,  pulling out dead flowers and getting a few starts of geraniums to keep over the winter, I was thinking about what a wonderful summer it's been.  The flowers and garden have been so amazing this year...when we got home from Mexico, I picked the rest of the peppers and tomatos.  There were ALOT!  So I made one last batch of that sweet salsa and a huge batch of candied peppers.  This is our favorite thing right now.  Katie eats them on everything.  They are that good.

We had two huge sunflowers that grew on the other side of the fence.  They each had such a big head of seeds, it weighted the plant right over.  They are just so cool! While we were in Mexico, someone made off with the bigger one. I was afraid that might happen. So KC and Candice picked the other one and brought it in to dry out.

 When we went out and looked under the leaves and vines we found four more banana squash than we thought we had.  I can't believe the yield we've gotten this year!  We got at least 12 spaghetti squash and three good size pumpkins this year too.

 The zinnias were still blooming like crazy too.  They have sure been pretty this year.  

The hostas all froze so I cut them back, but the flowers in the backyard where the sun shines were still going strong.  I hated pulling out the petunias and merigolds when they were still blooming so good, but I don't think I'll feel like it next week when it's  freezing outside.

Some of the geraniums had frozen, but I found several that hadn't and picked off starts from them to keep over the winter.  I sure remember pulling up the geraniums at mums...several times in emergency mode cause a frost was coming that night.  We would pull them up and throw them in garbage bags, then take them in the green house to deal with later.  I loved working in the greenhouse alongside mum.  We would break a couple new starts off each plant, then poke them in the dirt she had prepared.  Then we would water them and just leave them in the greenhouse for the winter.  Under her watchful eye, they would start making new roots and growing a new plant. After a while, we would transplant each plant into it's own pot so they had room to grow.  By springtime, she had a greenhouse full of beautiful geraniums.  Then the cycle would begin again and we would help her put them back into the flower beds.

All of us girls would help mum every year till one year we didn't get to the geraniums in time and they all froze. Mum was paying quite a hefty gas bill to keep the heater going in the greenhouse all winter, so we decided since there were no geraniums (or very few, that mum could keep in her windowsill in the house) we would just turn the furnace off.  It was a sad thing. So the next spring, we took mum up to Rudy's and bought geraniums.  It seemed like robbery to pay so much for those scrawny little plants, but that was about the only show in town, so we did it.  After mum had a chance to nurse them along for a month or so (you can't plant up there till the middle of May) then the geraniums started to look like something.  She did have a magic touch and could make anything thrive.

Anyway, when I smell geraniums that's what I think of...some people think they stink...I think they smell like home.

 The chrysanthemums are at their peak!

Kelley and Dan went up to Strawberry to bring the boat home today.  Dan took it off the lake at the end of October while we were in Mexico...I think they say the latest it can be on the water is Oct. 30th.  They always push it right to the limit..so anyway, Dan goes up there with a friend of his and they fish for a while, then go to get the trailer to load the boat and Dan can't find it.  Ha!  They wander around the trailer storage lot for a while, then Dan thinks he's found it.  He takes it back to the lake and they try to pull the boat up on it.  It was quite a bit too small, but they didn't realize it till they got out and looked at it.  Dan's friend took a picture of it and sent it to Kelley.  We all got a good laugh over that.  So they had to unload the boat, and go back and look for the right trailer.  Ha!  They finally found our trailer and got it loaded, but added another good story to the books.

They left the boat up in the storage at strawberry, hoping they might get a another warm day before they had to bring it home.  Well today was that one last warm day.  The weather forecast is for cold and snow next week.  boooooo

I'm glad they could have a fun day today though.  They both caught a bunch of fish and enjoyed a beautiful day on the lake.

When I heard a few months ago that Garth Brooks was coming to Salt Lake, I thought I'd sure like to go!  He has always been a favorite.  Then we were in Mexico and I kind of forgot about it. Then when we got home and I found out he had so many people that wanted to get tickets, he decided to do 4 more shows!  I started looking online to see if there were any tickets for sale but by the time I called about them, they were sold.  I had kind of given up on the idea and Katie said "why don't you look on KSL classifieds".  So I did and there were quite a few for sale. I thought I would get some nosebleed seats, but I didn't care.  I called a guy that said he had "flash seats" for sale.  I didn't know what that was but thought I would see what he said.  He said he had some seats in section 115 which was way to the side and since they were flash seats, I would have to download that app in order to buy them.  I was kind of wary of it so I looked up what they were and it was a code that he would send to me and I have them scan it at the door and that's my ticket.  I was thinking I would check out some of the other people selling tickets before I bought those so while I was looking at some other ones, this guy calls me back and says some people he had promised some seats to had decided they just needed two instead of four, so there was two seats in section 22 available.  Ha!  I thought they would be a lot more, but he said they were the same price as the nosebleed seats!  I saw an interview they did with Garth where he said he wasn't going to let scalpers jack up the price on his tickets.  I don't know how he worked that out but the tickets were only 75 dollars!  I was so excited! Katie helped me get the flash seat app on my phone and he sent the code after I paid him.  Gosh I love technology.

I had got up early and got all my popcorn balls made for the trick or treaters, so I put them in a big tub and set them out on the front porch, then we were on our way.

We got there early enough to get something to eat.  The Energy Solutions Arena  was sold to Vivint Smart Home and they have definitely improved the food choices. 

For the opening act, they had Karyn Rochelle sing.  She is a back up singer for Garth and was excellent.

 These were our seats.  When we walked in and saw where they were we just looked at each other like 'are you kidding me?'  We were just giddy!

II wanted to video pretty much every song...cause I loved every song!  He really stuck to his oldies and he has so many great hits, he just went on and on!  Trisha Yearwood joined him and was just amazing too!  

The videos I recorded were all too long to put on here so I tried to edit and shorten some of them.

He went on for a couple hours, dancing around the stage with more energy than I've ever seen.  After two oncores, he came out with just his guitar and people held up posters with songs they loved and he sang them. Trisha joined him again at the end and they sang together.  It really was an incredible, fun concert...everyone just sang along with him to all these songs we love.  Definitely the best I've ever seen.  

These are pictures that Katie took and sent to me so they are not in any particular order.  It was sure fun to have Jimmy join us down there. He meshed with everyone there without even trying.  He had to leave on Sunday because of a job interview. 

I was a very good girl and kept my sunscreen on at all times.  No sunburns!  woohoo! The sun is so intense there I would have fried in a jiffy without it.

This is one of my favorites!

Ann takes her dogs down to the beach for a walk every morning.

One afternoon we took the 4 wheelers down on the beach.  We headed towards Buena Vista and the light house.  When we got a little ways down there, there were these huge rocks blocking our way because the  tide was coming in. A guy drove by and said, Yeah, you have to go up on the road to get by here.  Jimmy and Kelley accessed the situation and decided to go for it.  Katie and I did not want to have anything to do with that so we got off and walked while they worked their way over the rocks.  Those 4 wheelers are really fun!  When Jimmy left, it became necessary for Kate and I to learn how to drive them.  I was pretty jerky at first but after a day of driving, it was easy.  We went down to the beach to help Katie learn how to drive them.  I'm not going to lie, I said the s word when we were going over a small cliff at a high rate of speed.  I'm sure I'll never hear the end of that.   After some practice, she got better at it and was buzzing back and forth from Anns house like a pro.  

These stars were so bright...I guess it helps to not have any city lights around.  When the sun goes down there, it's pretty dark, but then the night sky lights up with a million stars!

This is the face I pull when Alberto tells me to just grab the fish by the mouth.

Seriously the funnest trip I think we've ever taken.