Bea is cute again......

So we love this little dog. Issy enjoys her, when she comes over she starts saying "wa wa wa wa" cute little fake barks. that is how she great Beatrice. The funny part is Bea has a bunny toy and loves to play with it. Well Issy would pick it up and start walking away with it and Bea would think she was playing and start chasing her. Issy wouldn't understand that Bea was playing, and she would start tugging. It is fun to watch.
So we have neglected Beatrice, she has needed some grooming for a while. She was cute but shaggy.
She is all cute now! I finally found someone who could fit her in to clip her. She looks a lot smaller with a lot less hair.

Other Worlds......

So I posted a few posts back about reading this book and how good it was. Well the truth is I was at one of the ladies houses that I Visit Teach, we were talking about books. I told her that I had read "A Wrinkle in Time" and I didn't like it. So I guess I don't like fantasy books at all. Well she told me she had a book she wanted me to read. She brought out FableHaven, I took it and said I would read it. She loved this series it is her favorite. I have to admit I was a little bummed because I have over 500 books I need to read (darn that DI addiction!), and she just added one more. So I read it on our trip to Chicago. I really enjoyed it, and told Mike he had to read it. He really enjoyed it and got the other books in the series. I was impressed with this writer. I suppose the first author I really know created a different world was JRR Tolken with the Lord of the Rings Series,. He made a different world with different creatures elves, hobbits, walking talking trees, and so on. Then JK Rolling with Harry Potter and that entire world. All of the names, spells, characters, just blew my mind. She created an entire other world. Then Stephanie Myer she just stepped outside of the box and created her own kind of Vampires and Werewolves. While I was reading her books Mike would tell me they can't go out in the sun or they will burn up. I smiled to myself and thought, she wrote the books she made the rules, her vampires don't burn up in the sun. My point is she had a great imagination and going against all of our preconceived ideas she did her own thing. Now again, here is a guy who has a most amazing imagination. He has also created a different world. He was so creative with the creatures, characters, and his story line is really amazing.
I just finished the second book it was sooooo good. I just kept on thinking as I read all of the excitement this came out of 1 mans imagination. It must be awesome to be a writer and create such stories. This Brandon Mull guy has 2 movie deals in the works from 2 of his books. I hope they do Fablehaven justice it would be as good as Harry Potter if it is done right. Then Stephanie Myer has a movie coming out in Dec. I told Mike I thought it was so cool that 2 LDS people have written such books to capture the countries attention and have movies made.
So this is the third book in the Fable haven series. It just came out in May. Mike is ready for the 4th book but I have no clue when or if Mr. Mull is planning on writing more. The second book left me almost holding my breath! But alas I am preparing to teach a lesson Sunday. I don't have the actual lesson I just have a subject. I decided to have fun with it and make a big hand out for it. I need to finish it up hopefully by tomorrow. I actually ask a few people for ideas and only 1 person answered my plea. Then I am also doing a newsletter to go out this Sunday also. My point is I am to busy to start reading a book I can't put down! So Sunday night you all know what I will be doing, reading! (oh yah, the 4th Vampire book is coming out Saturday)There are to many good books out there! Next week will be a reading week!

You know your a grandma when your excited to read a bunch of books!:-)

Beautiful day.......

The girls got back from their shower late last night, but they decided to have a little more fun. The guys took off for Batman, so they were all up pretty late! They were goofing around for the camera and after I took this picture Erin said, "Oh man, my face looked like this." And I pulled the picture up and it was the exact face that's in this picture, I thought it was funny.
Now on to today.... I love clouds, it probably comes from living in "The Valley of the Sun" for so long and not seeing many clouds, just mostly blue sky's. Anyway on one of my scariest, saddest days as an adult. I walked out into my backyard, I was really down. I looked up and Heavenly Father had sent me some big beautiful fluffy white clouds. I leaned against the trampoline and watched one cloud actually make an elephant head. I watched a perfect trunk blow out, until I had no doubt as to what it was. It gave me peace in my heart. My problems were still there, but I knew Heavenly Father knew I was sad, and sent me a sign that he loved me.

So now that you know how much I LOVE clouds this was the view from my backyard. Click on the picture above and get a good look at those huge fluffy white clouds. They were perfect, I couldn't take my eyes off of them. But behind me were the clouds below. Dark and rainy. I just wonder which clouds are the best dark rain clouds or fluffy white clouds. I love them all!
Then as I was watering my garden I saw this, a tomato!!! A happy little tomato, growing in my garden.

My garden got off to slow start, but it is actually growing. I have some little tiny Roma tomatoes growing in on one of the other tomato plants.
This is basil that I grew from seeds. I have been married over 25 years. I have only had 1 garden and that was about 16 or 17 years ago. So I'm so happy with my little garden.


Then yesterday Mike and Nate and some other members of the ward helped the neighbors put there grass in. So now we only have 2 sides of our yard exposed to massive weeds.

Can you find the doggy in this picture? I thought she was funny she just went to the edge of the grass and sat for a while. It was so nice outside, it makes you never want to come inside!

A week with the Princess......

Well there is some big news around here. I spent an entire week with my little princess. Her mother is pregnant again, and was soooooo sick. She got some medicine that helped a little, but knocked her out, so they all spent the week here. We finally found Erin some medicine, that makes her feel much better, and she can stay awake. Issy gives out her kisses pretty freely. She opens her mouth wide and walks across the room. This is when her mom was so sick in the beginning of the week. She was trying to cheer her up.
Then she acts like she is going to kiss the dog. She gets up really close and at the last minute she shakes her head "no".

Erin was knocked out quite a bit this week and Issy and I had some awesome times. You can see how thrilled she is to be with me in this shot.
Every princess needs a chair, and Issy has a Dora chair she loves. She carries it all over the place.

My little princess has a wild side. I have seen some serious Dare Devil actions in her this week. One of the times was when, I was giving her a bath and she was walking around, she fell and got her face in the water. She popped it out really fast. Then she turned her head and looked at me, then she dipped her face in the water again. She did it 3 time on purpose before I made her try something a little less scary. But I told her mom she is going to have to watch out for this little girl.

They are trying to teach her the baby sign language. She is not very interested in it, but when her dad tosses her up like that she laughs and does the sign for more! That is Jessica and myself in the kitchen. Erin and Jessica were headed out to a shower for a girlfriend from Mesa.

Today Mike bought my ticket to Amsterdam. Yes I get to go again this year, I'm so excited!

good times.....

Last week, Nate went to a BYU Soccer Camp. He cam home with a very hard stomach. They run those kids ragged, but they have a lot of fun. This was in his dorm room the morning he checked in. The princess played soccer with Uncle Nate she loves to walk with the ball in front of her and then she thinks she playing.

Then grandma let her throw rocks. But it was good because grandma taught her to say "rock" while she did it.

Some favorites.......

So Nate has had a good month. Last week he went to Lake Powell with his young mens group. Lake Powell is huge and it is between Arizona and Utah. I personally have never been, I have driven past it ton's of times, but never stayed at the lake. People love it, it's very big, it has wagon ruts in it from the pioneers headed down from Utah to Arizona. People rent house boats and stay out there for weeks at a time. So he had a lot of fun there. Then this week he went to BYU to a soccer camp. We picked him up last night he had fun, but is glad to be home. So I saw this movie on a friends blog she loved it. So for my birthday last month I got it an d everybody had to watch it with me. It was so good, I think everybody here liked it. It was made by a group that likes to make "good" movies.

This is another movie they made. Mike and I watched this one and really enjoyed it to. But I couldn't find a picture for one of my favorites. My favorite book in the bible is Ester, I love her story. They also made a movie of Ester it's called "One night With the King." I really like that one. It doesn't match up perfectly with book in the Bible but it is a good story. We rented these movies at blockbuster, so they should be easy to find. They might be a fun Family Home Evening activity.
While Nathan was off having all of his fun I was just chillin' at home and reading. I read this book "These is My Words." It is so good! It's a fictional story based on a woman's family history research. It is written in diary form and I was swept up in it. Actually I was reading it while I was trying to finalise my talk. So when I sat down after my talk the first thing I thought was "yea! I get to finish my book." So go to the library and check it out, you won't regret it.

Then I read this book on our trip to Chicago. It is a children's book, it's about a 14 year old girl and her 10 year old brother having to stay with their grandparents for the first time. It is a fantasy story, it was well written and easy to read. I could picture all of the magical stuff the writer described. I made Mike read it and he quickly went out and bought the 2nd book and read it on a single plane ride. He said the second book was even better than the first. We had to go buy the 3rd book yesterday so he could finish. It is fun to start reading a book series when they are already published.

So these are the things we have been enjoying this summer. We can easily recommend all if you are looking for anything fun this summer.

obsessed princess!

So Sunday we all gave our talks at church, thank goodness they are over. Nathan spoke for 7 minutes and gave a pretty good talk. It was hard for him so I was proud. Anyway, Sunday night we had our nephew over, he's going to BYU this summer. The kids came and visited us so we ended up with a nice little house full. The princess was having fun being adored by her grandparents. then Nathan sat on the floor and Issy sat in his lap and enjoyed hanging out with him. But Nathan had other things to do he got up and left. So Issy walked over to James and decided he was OK and she would sit by him. Then she backed up to him and made him put her in his lap. She played for a while, but she was hurting his shins. so he had her run off and play and got on the couch.

Well she wanted to get in his lap again. She kept on going over to him and trying to get him to pick her up. We tried to distract her, but finally her mom had to pick her up and carry her away. She kept reaching for him and literally crying and reaching out to him.
So in the end he put her back on his lap and she was ever so happy! We finally had to put her to bed because she just couldn't leave him alone. I thought it was pretty funny. James said "I got it wrong instead of a Babe Magnet, I'm a baby magnet!"

Bummer........

So all 3 of us have to give a talk in church on Sunday. Oh joy of all joys. We were assigned the topic of "avoiding deception" along with 3 chapters of scriptures! I have read those chapters over and over trying to find a smaller group of scriptures to focus on. But the problem is these are pretty heavy chapters, you could give a hundred different talks from all of the stuff in these chapters. I have spent all day today trying to bring my talk together and it just isn't happened. My only solace is that it is in the middle of the summer and hopefully everybody will be gone on vacation:-)

a night with the princess....

Her parents had a wedding to attend last night, and I was doing nothing so the princess came to hang out with me. We played and she ate and then I told her "it was time for a bath." Actually she loves bathes but this picture was so fun.

She got on the scales and started playing around it was so cute I had to grab the camera. I imagine in this picture she is bending over to get a closer look. Then she is pleased with her out come, that last teething biscuit didn't do any damage!
But grandma pulled the camera out while she was in the tub. You notice she sucked her stomach in, but it had to go somewhere and

it popped out her chin!:-)

She had so much fun in the tub, I hated to take her out.

Then we discovered that her mom forgot PJ's so we had to find an old small shirt of Uncle Nate's. She was walking around in her big t-shirt gown it was a whole new experience. I think she will play dress up quite well.

And just before bed she was way cute in an old hat. She just makes me so happy, granddaughters are awesome!

our last day....

So this is a Naked Indian statue outside of a park in Chicago. There were 2 of them right across a road from each other. I do not know their purpose, my feet where to tired to go try to read anything about them. But when Nathan and I left, Mike changed hotels and could see him from the window of his new room. I have seen the elevated tracks in downtown Chicago in lot's of movies. And they look the same in real life.
This is the front room in our hotel. It was also Nathans bedroom, the couch folded out.

This was the view every night from our window. It was so pretty we never wanted to close the curtains.
This was just one of the very many intersections, that where underground. There were lot's of them. We had to walk in a few of them at night, but they were well lit.

There is a river that runs through the city. There are lot's of bridges in the city, and we were a little surprised to see kayaks out in the river.
ON the last day we relaxed all morning and went out in the afternoon. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was so big, We needed to get there the second it opened and stay till it was closed to be able to see everything. We watched an Omni Theater movie about Dinosaurs and it made me really sick. Any way the picture below is another family portrait but this time it's in Infra-red.

These were cool guy things that we saw there.
And finally Nathan in front of a train.
We got up at 4:40AM Sunday morning, got dressed, grabbed our stuff and headed off to the airport. It was a long bumpy flight. Nathan did not enjoy the turbulence, it effected him, like the omni theater effected me. So he couldn't eat his "first class" breakfast. Anyway we got home and all the kids came over. Erin made us dinner and we celebrated Jon's B-day. It was a good day, but very long!