Thanksgiving at Heidi's House

This year Tara decided to abandon us for some other family, so we decided to go to Heidi's house and have fun without her. 

I loved the Spencer/Sarah friendship.  The size difference is pretty funny!

Parkinsons do love to play games!  It was just about the only way we could get Rachel to talk, but we did hear words come out of her pretty little mouth! 

There were, of course, moments of great music. 

 And Jason spent most of the time in the kitchen.  He's a really good cook!

 He did get some down time, though.  I like the picture of Mark torturing Sarah outside of the window. :)

 And these girls are the best of friends!!

A lot of time was spent by all snuggling babies . . .  

 and just getting to be good friends.

Here is my favorite thing!  These girls can dance!  If you dare watch this, you will be hearing Sarah do the "eee" thing in your sleep tonight!

FALL!

We love fall.  We love the colors and love to go find beautiful leaves and bring them home.  That's what we did today after the Brigham City Temple dedication.  Mark is a much better photographer than I, but somehow I usually get the camera.  He got the colors better than I did.  I'm talking about the leaves, not Spencer's beautiful blue hair.

Even with blue hair, I still like him! 

 Then Spencer found a snake and that always makes for a fun day.

 We found a really nice rocky spot.  Perfect for the three (mostly) grown-up kids.

 Here is my favorite person.  I like him a lot!

 A pretty picture place. 

 Ah, isn't Joe nice!

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

That's really what this event was called at the Spanish Fork Airport.  It was pretty fun.  We saw a helicopter race a police car, and the police car won.  We saw a flour sack bomb competition, and I believe the old Curtis (it has no flaps, just a solid wing) won.  There were a bunch of great old cars and airplanes, but the trains were pretty much non-existent.  

And Tara found her favorite car, and her favorite airplane. 

Mark, the Fresh Water Pirate

Yep, that's our duck, George, on Mark's shoulder.

This is the day we took our ducks to the pond where there are many other ducks.  Mark was very sad to have his little friends go.  We did get to be pretty good friends.  Now when we go visit them, they eat whatever we have and run away.  Sad.

Here they are with one of their new friends.

Let's try this again

After the wedding I believe it was Spencer who cleaned the basement.  I thought I had taught them to clean better than that.  Today I finally went down to clean the basement and found a few more items.  No make-up, though.  Sorry Mindy.  Here is what I found:

A pillow (really, how did Spencer miss a pillow?)

A headband thing

An LG charging cord (this was plugged into the wall then shoved down into the cushions.  I do understand how he missed this one.)

I am still trying to find the owner of the shoes, the black grab-your-hair thing and the thin, tan headband.  Please let me know if any of this is yours.  And if you ever ask Spencer to clean for you, be prepared for large, pillow sized items to be missed.

FIREworks!

This past week was Art City Days, which naturally is the most exciting thing to happen to Springville all year long.  (Springville is also known as Art City, because there is a cool old art museum here).  The big finale of Art City Days is the fireworks show that happened last night, and to celebrate this fantastic event, we had a pre-fireworks BBQ.

 Joe, Tara, Holly and Matt and their kids and Jackie and Teddy were here

 As were Spencer, Kelsey, Jason, Mike and Oriah and their cute little Jonathan.

It was a super windy evening, so we did fear they would cancel the fireworks, which would have been a real bummer, but they didn't.  So we all headed to the high school tennis courts and took up our places to watch the show.

 Tara and Joe (silly Joe.)

Jackie and Teddy 

Kelsey and Joe's eyes 

 Jason, Spencer and some of me.  Spencer just had surgery, remember.  I think that's why he looks so happy.  That, and it was cold-ish.

Holly and Chris being super snugly 

 Matt, Leah and Shannon

And Mark and Me.  I like this guy a lot!

The fireworks were spectacular, as usual, made even better by the wind.  The show blew directly over our heads, and dropped hot flaming chunks of ash all around us.  My favorite quotes that came during the show were these:

"You really get the scope of how big fireworks are when you are right in the center of them" -Spencer

"I've never been to a fireworks show that I had to plan out our escape route" - Matt

"I love the sound of cinders rustling through the leaves" -Spencer

Holly had my favorite quote, but my brain is on hold tonight.  When I remember what it was, I will add it to this post.  For now, just imagine Holly saying something super funny, and laugh.

These things were left

I had a great week last week!  I hope you did, too!  The newly weds are home now and all settled into their Provo home, and I have been busy cleaning up here, since I haven't had time to do that for the last two months.

These are the things so far that I have found that were left here.  Let me know what is yours and I will send it off.  There are some smaller items that you need to be looking for like the rings and ring-ish things and the contact case.

The Surgery

Spencer's surgery went really well this morning.  Here are his before and after pictures.

 Before

 Before - the big dip

 Right after.  Spencer was talking and laughing - gently

 After - most of the dip is gone.

Looking' good-ish.

If you are interested, and weird like I think you are, here is a youtube video of someone having this done.  You are going to love when they smack the bar into the chest wall!

Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!!

There are some days that are OK, and some that are really good.  Today was pretty darn good.  I woke up early and ordered the last thing I will need to order for the wedding (yes, on Sunday, and yes, on Mother's day).  Now I think I can relax.  Except I though that yesterday, too, and then I remembered the lights.  But back to today.
The young men and women took over primary for us today, and I got to go to Sunday School with Mark.  That was a treat!  Relief Society only lasted an hour, and then I got to go home. When I got here, Spencer was here and had a suspicious . . . well, this.

At first I asked him if he was giving me the gift of silence for Mother's Day, and then my brain started thinking.  And I was right!  He gave me this!

No more nasty beard!  YAY!  At least until after the wedding.  Ah, doesn't he look nice! OK, try to imagine him without a silly, "I'm trying to look silly" expression.  Then he will look nice.

Tara and Joe came over, and when I tried to go into the kitchen to be chatty with them, they yelled me out.  For real.  Then they gave me this.

It was actually a lot more than this at first.  YUM!!!

Mark gave me this, and a spa pass.  I've never done that before, so it should be a good thing.  A friend and I get to go enjoy that after the wedding.

Joe is super excited to watch all the leading ladies with me.  He loves old movies.  That is sarcasm, by the way.

Then Spencer asked what the noises were that he heard in the basement.  Since I had asked for the cat to be disposed of for Mother's Day, I thought he really had done it, and my heart began to sing ( more loudly).  He walked up the stairs with these.

Aren't they cute!!!  They are "assorted ducks" and I have wanted ducks for such a long time.  We aren't allowed to have them in our neighborhood, but I can't be expected to give away a Mother's Day gift, so I will just have to hide them the best I can.  So Cute!!!

I just realized.

It's a good thing there are holidays, or I would never take pictures, and never have reason to blog.

Christmas 2011

We had a really fun Christmas this year. Spencer was home, and we decided to go cut down our tree from a farm in Alpine. They only had Blue spruce trees, at least that's all we saw. Have you ever tried to cut down/carry/put in a stand/decorate/water/undecorate/get rid of a Blue Spruce? I'm not sure how long it will take for the rash we all got from the prickly needles to go away, but even Spencer says it's the best tree we ever had. It was huge, and really beautiful!

We made gingerbread houses on Family Night right after Thanksgiving. Tara and Spencer each had a friend join us, and that was it. A pretty small group this year, but fun all the same. Tara later invited the Single's Ward to make houses, and that was a bit more rambunctious. No pictures, though.

Tara and Joe

Spencer and Sarah

Jeny's house and some lady holding it up.

I love all the pensive looks.

Christmas eve was spent here with the kids and the Galloway family. We did our usual cold cuts and french onion soup, and the Galloway's added some Cinnamon Rolls and Wassail. Yummy! We did not have our usual program. I guess Tara and Spencer have decided that only traditions that make Jeny work hard are worth keeping. Instead we sang Christmas carols with Mark, Joe and David playing guitars. That was really pretty fun, especially when we got to "Blue Christmas" and everyone's Elvis came out. We watched Spencer's Christmas program compilation, read the Christmas story and watched the Bishop's Wife. Good times! Of course, I got no pictures. Bummer.

Christmas Morning

This is the only picture I got of people on Christmas morning. I had to wake them all up - again. Maybe my grandkids will be excited enough to get up before me. Sigh.