Sunday, November 20, 2016

Where does Mickey live?

Two year old loves to tell us who lives at Disneyland.  It's Mickey Mouse, of course.

The whole family spent a fun week at Disneyland in September.  Great to have everyone together for five crazy days at Disneyland and California Adventure.  Yes, 5 full days, 8 adults. and 10 kids, 3 strollers, a few melt downs, hundreds of snacks, lots of fun!!!!




 

 12 yr old with hands in the air enjoys a rare ride on the kiddie coaster with the younger kids.  He was mostly off to the scarier rides with Kevin and Casey.  I spent most of the time with younger kids, so don't have many pictures of him.  Fun times!  Great kids!



Monday, September 12, 2016

Five 5Ks

This was a record summer for 5Ks.

Farmington Days - July
Orem church group - July
Provo Freedom Run - 4th of July
Temple to Temple - Provo run 24th of July
Payson Onion Days - Labor Day


Extra fun now because the grandkids are running too.
There were three medal winners in this group!


At the Payson Onion Days Run, this cute 7 year old in purple won first place in her age group, beating out all the 8 and 9 year old girls. The 5 year old also beat most of the 8 and 9 year old boys. He came in fourth.  So sad they had no medal for fourth place. They are way too fast for me.  Can't wait to see what they will do next!!


 
This Old Provo Temple to New Provo Temple race was all downhill, so new record times were set!
Why can't they all be like that?

It's also soccer season again.  Beautiful day at the soccer park in early September.

 Two year old is a big fan!
 Seven year old goes for the goal.
 Five year old scored a few goals and has a new trick of standing on his head!
It's really fun to live so close to these great kids and their parents.  







Thursday, July 14, 2016

Summer

Some fun summer activities with the kids.

 Enjoying the new Utah house.

Popsicles on the porch.

 A day at the lake.
So fun to have Kevin's kids here.


 Hike to top of the "Y" on the mountain with the kids and grandkids. 
A good way for the grandkids to learn they CAN do hard things.

Nice view from up here.  I think you can see our house way out there by Utah Lake.

 A few days at Yellowstone with all the kids and grandkids.
 Suzy's 5 yr old (Later Gator) with Ryan's 3 year old (so cool to wear shades).
 4th of July in Utah.  These two are ready for fireworks!
Suzy made this Red, White & Blue dessert. Fun and tasty?

 Baby's first 4th of July.  Maybe she'll enjoy it more next year??




Wednesday, February 10, 2016

February. Winter?

 Finally having some nice warm weather here - 80s in February is what AZ is all about!
 New house in UT scheduled to be done in early March.  Hoping winter will be over by then and it will be spring there.  But I know that is just too much to ask for.
 Ryan and Ashley holding Kevin and Caroline's new baby and their boy Bradley, age 3, with Bethany, Kevin's oldest daughter, age 7.
 Found this picture to send my older sister for her February birthday.  I like to look at these old photos once in a while to remind myself I used to be the baby of the family.  We were all just so cute then.

 


Sunday, January 24, 2016

January baby

Here she is, the newest grandbaby.  This makes #10 grandchildren for us now.

 Aubrey Elizabeth was born on January 20.
#6 for Kevin and Caroline.  Busy family!




After helping out with the other kids while Kevin & Caroline were at the hospital for 2 days, I give them lots of credit for all they do.  Just getting everyone to and from school and dance, piano, scouts, etc. is a bit overwhelming.  They seem to take it all in stride and do a great job!


Sunday, January 17, 2016

Things to do after you sell your house.




Things to do after you sell your house:

1. Go on 2-week Caribbean cruise.



2.  Go back to AZ for a Tucson Christmas.


3. After Christmas, drive 12 hours back to freezing UT to check on progress of new house.  Looks like it's coming along nicely.  Due to be done in late February.  Tentative move in date mid-March.

Enjoyed spending time with Suzy and family, but . . . .
This is what UT looks like in winter.

This is what driving in UT in winter looks like. 
This is why I don't want to be in UT in winter.


4.  Drive back to AZ just time to celebrate my birthday. 
Age?  Way over the hill +1.

5. Have the grandkids come for a sleepover.  More time with grandkids. 
And even had a chance to go to the Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby, with Kevin as Cub Scout Leader. Scroll down for pic. Carson is the cub with the hat and Kevin is the tall one. : )
Thanks to Kevin's engineering skills, the track worked great and kids had fun!


Saturday, October 3, 2015

House Update

When you put a house up for sale, you finally have to do all the deferred maintenance you have been putting off for years.  Apparently, the reason you wait so long to do this is to make sure you avoid enjoying the improvements yourself.  You would rather just wait until you are moving so someone else can enjoy all of your hard work.  Here are some of the many improvements made to the house recently.

Main level.

Finally broke down and replaced the original flooring (brown sculpted carpet) in the front room.  We did the new wood laminate flooring ourselves in 2 days. 

 

Entry and upstairs family room.  All walls and ceilings painted in entry, family room, extended family room area, and dining area. Fireplace totally redone and updated, meaning old fake rock fireplace removed and replaced with new sheetrock, marble surround on fileplace with new molding. All doors painted and stair rail and posts painted.



 

 




 
Also painted doors in all bedrooms, bathrooms, office, and hallways including all closets.
Master bath, office and hallways not shown.

Downstairs
 Basement family room, formerly kids playroom which became an all purpose storage room after they grew up and moved out.  Repair work done to sheetrock.  All accumulated artifacts and precious heirlooms (meaning junk) cleared out and cleaned out, repainted white walls and the beam and post.  Got rid of some outdated furniture, but some pieces still linger on.

Downstairs bathroom.  Painted vanity.  Added other decorative touches.


Painted doors in laundry room and the two downstairs bedrooms.  Painted walls in bedrooms and replaced light fixtures.  Laundry room, hallways and two bedrooms not shown.

Workshop.  Moved out airplane wings and car parts which had taken a large part of this space.  Windows which have been blocked for years can not be seen.   Completed repair work, waterproofing, and other finishing work that had never been done.
 

Garage

Garage floor had cracked and fallen several inches over the years.  Although this in no way affected the foundation of the house, as the garage has a separate foundation from the house and no basement space is below the garage, some people found the large cracks and unlevel surface in garage to be, shall we say . . . . unsettling.   So today we have the pleasure of hiring a group of guys to come in and break up all the concrete and take it all OUT of the garage.  They will then come back (hopefully) on Monday to install new flat and level concrete.  If you know anything about this house, you know it is  a rare occasion that anyone is hired to do any work around this house.  Hoping all turns out well.