After talking about the great memories we had of visiting the cemetery on Memorial Day, we decided to drive to Logan and take some flowers to mum and daddy's and Bruce's grave.  I haven't been there since the year after mum died...so it's been about 4 years.

I haven't been by mum and daddy's house for a while either.  Last time we drove by, it looked pretty rough.  It was later in the summer and all the lawns were burnt up and there were weeds growing all up the driveway.  I was with my sisters and we tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking he must be putting all his energy into improving the house. 

I've heard a few people on facebook mention that the house and yard were not looking very good and it would probably be better if us girls didn't go see it, so I was a little apprehensive driving up there.  I had to see though.  Boy things have changed so much up there.  The roads are all wide and fancy and there are businesses up and down both lanes going into Providence.  It's a far cry from the skinny little lane we used to ride our bikes down holding our nose because the mink farm was so stinky.  HA!

I started filming as we drove up the road, but it was too long to put on here so this is the shortened version.  

As we drove past Deloys' house, it looked just the same...perfectly manicured green lawn and tidy yard.  Going a little farther we noticed they had let the garden grow over.  Then it got worse the closer we got. The garage was closed and there was a car parked in front of the door but the whole area was full of weeds.  

There was a big pile of cement chunks that we figured out after looking around was the fish pond.  I felt like crying.  The lawns were all full of weeds and the grass was dead on most of yard.  The rock garden was just weeds and it looked like he had taken the rock out of it and put it in a big pile right in the middle lawn.  It was just unrecognizable.  

We drove the rest of the way to the cemetery in silence.  There was just nothing to say.

I have a lot of regret about the way the selling of the house happened, and this just brought it all back to the surface. I feel like he deceived us when we were selling the house, telling us he loves doing landscaping and was looking forward to restoring the place to the way it was when mum and daddy were alive. I know we can't do anything about it cause it's not ours anymore, but I can't help but feel betrayed.  That place meant so much to us.  I would have given anything if I could have worked out a way to buy it. 

Anyway, I'm going to try to not dwell on it.

Candice sent me these pictures this morning that made me feel better. Makes me realize how precious the memories I have of that place are.

We have known this was coming for a while now, but yesterday they released our bishopric.  We went in to visit with President Despain on Tuesday night and he made it official.  I think Kelley is feeling relieved, but a little lost.  That's been such a big part of his life for so long, it would leave you feeling kind of empty to not have it anymore.  I know he has thoroughly enjoyed his association with the good men he's worked with and will miss that too.  They just had a lot of fun. He has had a lot of experiences, some good, some bad, some really hard that have molded and refined (I used that term very loosly...I heard a couple stories yesterday, one over the pulpit,  about Kelley that re enforced the fact that he won't ever change some things, like the way he can make people around him laugh.) him over the past several years. (I'm still harping at him to write in a journal so these stories won't be lost)

They called Josh Smith as the new bishop and I think he will be great.  He has called Brian Berlin and Colby Briggs as his counselors.

After church we drove up to the cemetary to take some flowers for Kelley's folks and Pat's grave.

Later, Curtis came over and we had a nice bbq.  It was really nice to get to visit with him.

When we were at the cemetery we were talking about visiting the graves on memorial day and I got to thinking how that had been a tradition all my life.  Mum would make several arrangements and pots of flowers from the garden and we would take them to the cemeteries.  Seems like we would always run into relatives at the grave sites and get to reminisce and get caught up on their lives.  We would walk around the cemetery to take some flowers to grandma and grampa Braeggers grave.  Now all  daddy's siblings are there except  Buzz and Ken.  Mum would always have an extra pot of flowers for brother Beard's grave.  He was the janitor at the elementary school and didn't have any family to put a flower on his grave.  Mum thought he should be remembered too.  

We would go over to the Logan cemetery too to take flowers to grandma and grampa Tibbitts, and Aunt Dyrene

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Kelley gave me these beautiful hanging baskets for mothers day.  I just love them!

He has given me some for the past few years and there is nothing I could love more.  They were so pretty last year!  They bloomed all through the summer and fall and were still so pretty when it turned cold, I couldn't stand the thought of losing them so I had Kelley put them in his garage, thinking maybe I could keep them alive over the winter.  They lasted for a while, but I think it was just too cold out there and they weren't getting any sunshine so they started dying off.  I'd really love to have a greenhouse to keep plants over the winter and start some seeds early in the spring. 

 Mum's greenhouse was just kind of magical.  From planting seeds, to transplanting, watering, fertilizing, to just sticking a little start of a plant (ha ha that she would nonchalantly pick from a plant she liked at the temple, the park, or the neighbors and shove in her purse) in the dirt... and they would grow! 

The garden is really looking beautiful right now.  I got two Peoney bushes from grandma Jensens yard before they sold it and they are going to be gorgeous this year.  They have got to be one of my very favorites.  

The yellow rosebush is so pretty too!  The blooms are huge!

Kelley has been hating on the pavers that we have around the rose bushes and all the way around the front yard.  It was kind of falling apart in a few places, and i think he just wanted a different look. So Saturday morning I wake up to the sound of sledge hammering and the saw grinding away on the block.  Why is there block filled with cement two feet under the pavers?  Why is there double rebar that he has to saw through?  Because my husband can't build anything just normal.  It has to be the biggest, the strongest, meant to last through an earthquake and all eternity.  Ha ha,  In most cases, this is a good thing, but when it comes to removing the said thing, that's a different story. That foundation did not want to come out.  Kelley and KC sledge hammered, and sawed and picked all morning and finally got it out. It was a huge job.  Toby had rented a big yard cleanup bin and said we could throw our junk in it too so that made it nice cleaning up.  

  

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All the sledge hammering and picking and drilling was giving my pretty pink roses fits, so I went and trimmed all the ones that were hanging down low.  I trimmed enough to make two pretty vases to take to the cematary.

Kelley and I went over to Lambert and got a bunch of flowers for my pots and beds.  Aren't pansies the cutest?

Candice gave me this awesome pot for mothers day.  I couldn't wait to plant it.  She gave me a hummingbird feeder too and I've already been enjoying watching a cute little hummingbird feeding there.

This is still my favorite pot.  It sat up in the rock garden at mums next to the pond for years.

I planted all color medium size Zinneas over by the wall.  Last year I planted the tall Zinneas and they were beautiful, but so top heavy I had to stake them up or they would fall over.

This is a shot of the Peony bushes today.  They are just loaded with blooms.  I picked some of the more open ones to make some bouquets to take to the Providence cematary.

 I picked  a few roses to go in the arrangements too.  Man those stems are wicked!  But the blooms so huge and beautiful!

I was able to get enough flowers from the garden to make three pretty arrangements.  I sure do love arranging flowers. There's something kind of theraputic about it.

I used to think mum and daddy were kind of kooky taking so many pictures and videos of their flowers.  Now I get it.

I love em' but chickens are weird.  And lately they have been acting extra weird.

Since we got rid of little Jerry, they have done a complete turn around with laying eggs.  We were lucky to get one  a day while he was here.  I think he was terrorizing them.  So we found this place on KSL,( and when I say we, I mean Candice...she is a lover and protector of all animals and didn't want to see him end up in somebody's soup) that takes roosters...yes a rooster farm where they can run around crowing all times of the day and night and feel all manly.  So Kelley and I drove down to American Fork to the address he gave us.  I was happy to see that it really was a rooster farm when we got there.  I thought they might have just been saying that.  There were roosters running around the yard and several in cages.  They weren't home, so we found an empty cage and stuck little Jerry in it.  I felt like it would be a pretty happy place for him to live.

Anyway, since he was gone, the chickens have been laying eggs like crazy.  We would get eight or nine a day!  

But then this one started acting real strange. She would not get off the nest and looked like she was dying.  She was real droopy and could hardly keep her eyes open.  We thought she was a goner. Kate said,"you should wring it's neck or take care of business with a bag of rocks (that's a whole other story) and put it out of it's misery!"  I was like NO!  It could perk up! 

So we just kept checking every day, thinking we would find it dead, but it wasn't.  It actually started perking up a bit.  It wouldn't get off the nest still though so we decided it must think it's hatching the eggs.  Which is odd because now the rooster is gone?  I don't really know how that works.     

The other chickens are still laying lots of eggs, but for some reason, they all want to lay their eggs in this nest.  Ha ha!

Anyway, I hope she snaps out of it.  We had one of them die on us while we were in Mexico and Candice had to get it out and wrap it up and put it in Toby's garbage can.  I think it might have warped her for life.

I'm going in reverse with my blog so if you're confused, join the club.  

We went to California for a few days at the end of April. Jimmy told Kelley he could have their old boat if he would come and get it so that was the main reason we went.   Katie needed to get some succulents for the market,  and get this...Kelley and Katie had a meeting with these producers in LA for doing a reality show!  Ha!!!!!  Well that's a pretty big stretch to think anything could come of it, but Katies friend Jason I think put in a good word for her and they contacted her.  I think they just thought it was a big joke, but also, what have we got to lose so they went and met with them. I'll tell you more in a sec... 

This is one of our favorite places to eat and right close to Staceys house...Which by the way, how sweet is she to just let us come stay there!  She has been living in her Airstream and renting her house out.  Her trailer is so cute and cozy, I can see why she would do it.   

She made us a fabulous dinner that first night.  Ha ha this was so funny.  She wanted to make a big batch of lemon bars so she could give some to her boyfriend.  She got out the biggest bowl I've ever seen to mix them up in!  She has a lemon tree in her back yard with huge lemons on it so she had plenty of those.    Anyway, I think she tripled the batch so she used about two pounds of butter and filled up three dripper pans!  They were so yummy though...I never make lemon bars cause Kelley's not a big fan, but I think he changed his tune after eating these!

Stacey has a Treggar (she's the one that got us dreaming about getting one) and she also had this smoker thing she was going to cook the meat on, but couldn't get it going so Kelley worked on it a bit.

We ate dinner out in her back yard that night.  It's really just lovely there.  We had unusually warm weather for so early in the spring and we enjoyed every minute of it.

I found this video on how to get the seeds out of a pomegranate on you tube that was super helpful and really funny!  After a trip to growers market, we made the best fruit salsa ever!

This was the yummy meat she made for us.  She used this rub that a friend of hers makes that was out of this world.

The next day we went over to Stacey's boyfriends house.  He lives right on the bay...pretty incredible view and home.  He was super nice too.  So generous...he offered all his toys for us to use any time we wanted.  We went out to run home and put on our swimsuits but when we got to the car, we had a flat tire.  It was on the rental car so we called triple A and they came out to fix it.  Kelley had been spending most the time at Jimmy's working on the boat.  Come to find out the trailer needed some work  (and new tires) before we could drive it home.

Anyway, we lounged around Stacey's boyfriends house till the guy came to fix the tire, then ran home and changed and came back to do some paddle boarding.

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.  Looking at these pictures it was all smooth and easy.  Not so!  Ha!  I wish I could have taken a picture when we were out in the open area.  This is in the bay by his dock where the wind doesn't blow.  

It was not too hard getting on the paddle board cause we could just step down from his dock, and it was all calm and peaceful back there too so we thought "oh yeah we can do this!"  But then we got out into the open area and the wind started blowing.  We were both struggling to keep away from the boats that lined the sides of the bay.  Then this big boat came out in front of us and the driver put up his hand and said for us to stop while he towed a even bigger boat out.  Believe me we were trying to stop, but the wind was just pushing us straight ahead.  We were paddling our guts out to keep from hitting that boat...I ended up over on the side almost hitting boats parked there and I think Kate fell in the water.  We didn't go too much farther than that cause we started thinking about how long it was going to take us to get back with the wind blowing against us. So we turned around (Kate might have fallen again) and started paddling back.  We were not moving forward at all!!!  The wind was just blowing us the other direction.  I hollered something at Kate about being more aggressive or we weren't going to get anywhere.  We were really thinking we were going to have to get someone to rescue us.

If these videos look fuzzy, it's because I took them with my phone in a baggie.  I couldn't see what I was doing, and Kate and I were laughing so hard we were falling off the board and I was just pushing any buttons hoping it would take a video

When we watched these, Kate thought she was really moving this slow, but I think I had pushed the slow motion button  Ha ha!

She didn't fall...she's just sitting down.  haaaaa!

  I started moving forward a little ( I was really paddling my guts out) but Katie wasn't getting anywhere.  I heard some guy that was on the shore yelling something at her and found out later that he told her to just lay down on the board and paddle from there.  Ha ha!  I made it a little ways and pulled up to a dock and took these pictures.  This was coming back into the protected bay where it wasn't windy anymore. 

We finally made it back into the dock and were just so happy to be alive. We might need a little practice for paddle boarding in windy conditions.

Thursday was the day Katie and Kelley were supposed to meet with these producers so I tagged along with them and we headed up to LA.  

I didn't go in with them,(it was in some swanky office building) but just waited out in the courtyard.  They were talking to them for about an hour.  When they came out, they said the people were really nice and just wanted to hear their story. They thought it was a unique idea to have a father and daughter working together. They threw around some possibilities and wanted to see some recording of them in action. Ha ha can you even imagine?

We wanted to make it home in one day, so we got up early friday morning and took off.  We were a little nervous pulling the boat because of the trailer situation, but didn't have any trouble all the way home.  Now to start on this project...

KC and I went out one night while Kelley was at bishopric and started cleaning it.  It has been sitting outside uncovered, at Jimmy's house for about the past 10 years.  It was filthy and needs lots of repairs.  But it has potential!

KC tried to use the power washer to clean it but the motor burned up on it.  Kelley got a new one a few days later and went to town on the boat with it.  It was like night and day when he got done.  I was amazed at how it took the dirt off.  It looks like a new (old) boat!