I had a lot of company.....

Ana's family came back a few days early from Idaho. so She surprised me and stayed with me for a few days. We had a lot of fun, then on Friday night she went with me to the airport to pick up my dad and brother. We picked them up at 11:30 and then sat and talked until about 1:30. We headed to bed, Mike slept with Nathan and Ana slept with me. We didn't stop talking until 2:30. Then we were up and at 'em before 8:00. I drove her down to Nephi to hook up with her family and came back home. Jared flew himself and dad out for one of our cousins wedding celebrations. They went to the Temple this weekend and had a big party afterwords. It was in Roosevelt and took 2 hours to drive there. But wow, was it a pretty drive. We drove through mountains and past lakes. I loved it. It was so fun to see so many of my cousins again.

The place where they held the party was so nice. It had huge porches around half of the house. The family that owns it owns 800 acres. It has a river that runs through it and an old homestead on it. The old homestead has an outhouse. And when workers come out to work, the lady of the house let's them use the outhouse. they probably get a kick out of using it. This is Jared looking very nice in his orange/salmon shirt.

Just random shot of the family....Jill, Tammy, and Dolly in the background.

Dad and his brother & wife, Uncle Sammy and Aunt Sherry. They had 7 of their 9 children there.

One of their kids I hadn't seen in over 20 years and one in at least 15. It was a great family reunion kind of time.

Me, Dad and Jared taking a little picture together. I had driven 2 hours and hadn't looked in a mirror. But that is pretty obvious:-)

My Aunt Sherry has always been an entertainer. She raised 9 kids which kept her busy, but she wrote songs all of the time. She had fun with life and enjoyed being in the spotlight. So at our family parties we all know her songs and enjoy hearing them. Her children all got her performer genes, none of them are shy in a crowd. These are my cousins, Carol in her alter ego mode she is "Brenda" and, her little sister Candi. They were being "wild and crazy", my flash just wasn't good enough so it's a very dark picture.

These are all 4 of the girls in that family. They all sang to us they have beautiful voices and they know how to have a good time.

They pulled out the guitars and dad joined in for a while.

Dad with his great, great nephew-Dawson. Dawson is 1 year old and has the most awesome red hair and blue eyes.

This is Jared, Matt, and Dad. Matt is in the military and one day he will be able to tell some wild stories. He is in Special Ops, and can't tell us much now.

This is dad and his niece Tammy, with her grandson. It is so crazy to see everybody and realize we are this old. We are grandmas! I have a special spot in my heart for this family. I was a very lonely only child, and we moved by them for a few years. It was great and I got to see what it was like to have lot's of brothers and sisters.

The 2 hour drive home was nice. I couldn't see all the scenery, but the moon was big and bright and bouncing off the lakes it was beautiful. We got home 11 hours after we left, but we had such a good time.

Another crazy week.....

I ran over to visit the girls. I hadn't seen them for a while. I was holding Elizabeth and she was a little fussy. Her sister had handed me her left over pizza. So I gave it to her. Do you think pizza is a good choice for a 3 month old?:-)

Issy eating the rest of her pizza with her fingernails painted boo....

Later that night there was a fireside for the trek the kids are going on. They ask us all to wear white. I don't ever put anything white on below the waist, so I was a little different than my friends. They ended up making me a pioneer in the end.

The next day the princess came and spent the day with me. We had a lot of fun. I took her down to my garden for a while. She loves to hold the hose. She would say "i dink" and take a drink, then hold it at me and say "you dink." This picture was so funny. She leaned over to rinse the grass off of her feet. Of course, as she bent down she soaked her dress saying "wash." Then when she got the water on her dress she tried to "wash" the water off of her dress with the hose, just getting herself more wet!

She also helped me plant a tomato plant, notice the dirt she is sprinkling on top of it:-) Later that night her Uncle Steven drove her home and they all went off to LA the next day. Which was Erin's birthday. she spent her 25th birthday driving in the car. Poor Steven being born in the middle of July has probably spent half of his birthdays gone on trips. But back to the princess she has been partying in Disney Land and at the beach. She told me on the phone, "I go up down." that was on the Dumbo ride she loved it.

We had Nathan drive on the highway Saturday. He drives great around town but hasn't had much highway driving time. We ended up sitting in basically one spot for 30 minutes. We saw a helicopter come and leave, and when we finally went by the wreck we saw a motorcycle. hopefully it wasn't to bad, we never heard anything about it.

Sunday we headed out fairly early to Grantsville. My cousin was speaking in Sacrament meeting. He had taken the hard road in life, and has turned his life around. He is married now and going to the temple this weekend. It was fun to go and see him and his sisters, and all of their kids. I didn't take any pictures, a person doesn't think to whip out the camera in the chapel:-)

Then we were invited to a surprise birthday party/barbecue for a good friend Mindy. Her husband did a great job throwing her the party. She was very surprised!

Mike in his free time has gotten hooked on a farming game. So he had to use the computer at the party to harvest his crops!

They did the coolest thing. They cooked in their fire pit on the porch. They had 3 dutch ovens going 2 full of chicken breast and one with yummy camp potatoes. They were made with bacon, onions, garlic, cheese, and 7-UP. I could cut my chicken with my plastic knife, it was so tender and very good! Her husband had ton's of food there he had hamburgers and hot dogs for everybody too.

We were neighbors for about a year. While we were building our house. Mindy and I got pretty close we started walking everyday and just enjoyed each others company. Then we moved and they moved and we haven't seen each other in about 2 years. We are friends on facebook:-) But she was really happy to see us. It's nice to go somewhere and have people be excited that you are there! ( I should have put more makeup on, this was 12 hours after I got ready to go to church, I was looking bedraggled!)

We left Mindy's party and I drove down to a town called Nephi. Ana had driven up with her family. They spent the night in Nephi heading up to Idaho to see her father-in-law he is not doing well, so they came up to be with him. It was a gorgeous drive. It took about an hour and it was dark and cloudy, 68 degrees with lightning jumping around in the clouds. I had the sun roof open and the windows down and I was listening to some good oldies songs. It was a very happy drive for me.

Ana decided to come home with me and spend the night. We stayed up until 2:00AM, then got up the next morning had a bite to eat with Mike, and met her family in the parking lot of a store to pick her up and head for Idaho.

Off they went and I came home to some very relaxing time. Nate is out of school so we all just chilled around the house.

Our day today......

So I read on a friends blog that they had gone to this great Pizza place. They just got back from Italy and she said their pizza tasted the closest to what they had in Italy. Mike wanted to take me to lunch so I told him about it and we went. It was called Pizzeria Seven Twelve. They started you off with hummus and the freshest pita bread ever. The waitress told us that they make it fresh everyday.
We had a butter lettuce and blue cheese salad. Very good!

Our pizza was great, it was so fresh, the sauce tasted like fresh tomatoes the crust was thin and chewy, it beat the heck out of Domino's or Pizza Hut!

On to my garden. I am loving my garden I have run into a few problems but I work it out or buy new plants:-) Below in the foreground of this picture you see little cilantro starting to pop up. Cilantro is my favorite of the herbs!

My dad helped me plant 12 tomato plants and they looked good for about a week and a half. Now they look all saggy and yellow. I am really worried about them. I had a garden guy come and look at them. HE didn't know what was wrong with them, but he said the new growth looks good so I'm crossing my fingers.

My peppers look great, but this is after I killed the first group of peppers. I then went out and bought more they seem happy in their new home.

This is a mystery plant. I can't remember what it is. I forgot that I put anything in that square, I'm doing the square foot garden. I planted some lettuce in it.

And 2 days ago I noticed a few of those little plants popping out. Maybe they are cucumbers, or squash, I really can't remember!

So this is a little overview of my garden. I hope I can keep it safe from the critters we have around here. We have deer, skunks, minks, and neighbor kids!:-)

Memorial Day......

I think we found a new tradition for Memorial Day. My friend Michelle told me about a special coffee cake that her family has for breakfast every Memorial Day. It sounded pretty good so I got her recipe and made it yesterday morning. And it was soooooo good. It is cream cheese coffee cake. We probably won't have it very often, maybe just on Memorial Day because it is made with cream cheese and butter. But we all enjoyed it!

Then we headed out to the yard. We had seen two movies this weekend, and today was about yard work. We had rain for a day and a half. We figured if we didn't go out and weed today, we would regret it. While we were outside we had 2 cranes fly over us. They are huge birds to have fly over you. We see so many birds here geese, ducks, ibis, pelicans, magpies. The five of us made a pretty good dent in the weed population in our yard. I tugged and pulled and this morning my collar bones are sore!

Then we went out to Sonic for a burger. Who needs a cookout? We got tater tots and onion rings!

Not to mention cranberry and cherry limeades!

We babysat the girls...

Erin got invited to go to a concert so we watched the girls for her. Elizabeth is at the sweetest stage. She'll just be looking around and then she see's your face she smiles at you and starts talking to you. It is awesome. She just makes you happy. Elizabeth just chillin with the girls.

Erin and Elizabeth

Erin ask Steven to help out with the girls. All of the boys are good with them, but Steven was great.

Steven took care of Elizabeth the entire night he calmed her, gave her her bottles, burped her, rocked her, and I changed her diapers. I said he was great not a saint! Mike and I were amazed at how good he was with her and how much she liked him. She never cried once with him.

In the mean time I took Issy out to water the garden and taught her how to drink out of the water hose.

Later that night I was in the kitchen cooking, and Chris came to hang out with Issy. The boys love to play with her. They say sweet things to Elizabeth and give her kisses. But they play with Issy all of the time. She has all of those boys wrapped around her little finger!

Our ward has a recipe group once a month. I went last week and learned how to make crepes. I was mixing them up and Issy helped me make them. She enjoyed getting the flour and putting it in my bowl.

This was my favorite topping for the crepes. So it's the only thing I offered my family. Nutella and sliced bananas. It is sooooooo good!

another busy week......

So first off I have a little lesson for everybody. My dad did a load of laundry, then threw it in the dryer. Half way through the drying cycle dad realized something was thudding around in the dryer. He went in and checked, it was his cell phone. It was sopping wet, the scene had water stuck in it. He was so bummed, he started trying to dry it out. Put it on the porch in the sun, kept it in the oven with the light on, blow dryed it, he worked for days. After the fifth day of drying he turned it on and it worked fine. It still had all of his numbers, charged well, and he was happy again. So the next time you drop your phone in water have some patience and dry it!




Mom and Dad went home yesterday. They were here for 3 weeks. Dad worked so hard I was a little worried. He, with a little help from the boys, sheet rocked half the basement. Mom spent most of the time checking out the surroundings. She would like to move here. It would be a big change for them. I have 3 cousins who live there and I don't even see them once a year. I am so lame!

Then we went to my cousin Stacy's and visited with them. This is her baby Esme in my parents lap. She is so cute! I really enjoyed visiting everybody.
Then on Friday night we were all here at the house. The kids took some shot's of the baby. She was so cute and happy.

Elizabeth had lot's of patience while her parent posed her. She is just chilling in this picture.

Issy made me give her a bath. She learned the womanly art of persuasion. She said, "bath...please" and pointed to my room. She loves bubble bathes now, so she was so excited.

I love that she if filling out now, and not the little scroungy baby anymore.

And getting ready to go home she was very happy and cute.

On to my garden. We are doing the square foot garden, garden. The problem is it takes a while to get the soil wet enough. I killed all of my pepper plants, because they didn't get enough water. I am soaking the bed down and I will plant new ones. Wish me luck!

Then Mike came home from New York on Friday sick. I picked him up at the airport and drove him straight to Urgent Care. I had him tested for the flu. I am amazed that they can stick a long q-tip into your brain (OK, straight through your nostril, but very deep so it looks like the are touching your brain!) and test it and tell you if you have the flu, and if it is strain A or B. But he didn't have the flu or strep, he has a viral thing. He is miserable, and has had to stay down all weekend. I have been sanitising everything. I do not need to get sick!