We Love Having Our Family Visit

We are so excited to have a new queen size bed in our guest room. So will all of our visitors! The bed was given to us by Nat and Jay, they bought a new king and they were nice enough to give us their queen. So our little California kids and our St. George, Arizona and Texas families will have a much nicer bed to sleep on. We're still working on the shower, but promise it will be done maybe after we get the roof on. It's been a very busy summer, with working on a shed under the old deck and wanting to build a new deck off the kitchen, but for now we need a new roof. The Deck may have to wait, we'll see.

Another Year Older

August 9th, John celebrated his birthday by going to guard, helping Brandt and Shannon with windows and sprinkling systems and going to bed. But we made up for it on Sunday the 10th. We had dinner and a birthday cake. Happy B Day! We really do appreciate you and love you lots!

"Space Sisters"

So John and I went to Byron Putnams wedding reception, Wednesday night. It was great! We loved visiting with family. Vince, Jean and Gloria came up from St. George for the evening. The funny thing was Jean, Gloria and I were wearing black and white, Jean and I had on black and white polka-dotted skirts and Gloria had on a floral/polka-dotted blouse. Honest, we didn't call each other up and plan it out. Probably no one else even noticed, but I did. Vince calls us the "space sisters." Vince, we may be ditsy but we are well coordinated. I do remember one time when I went to St. George, it was for some church thing on Sunday. Jean and I had on the exact same dress. This was when I was very heavy and I made Jean go change because I didn't want people to notice the fat lady next to the skinny lady in the same dress. Do you remember that Jean?.......Oh wait a minute we need to get Jean blogging.....somebody help her out!

FLOWERS & BUTTERFLIES

When we were up on Ephraim Mountain we saw the glorious spring/summer flowers, they are at the end of their bloom, but still beautiful. I Especially enjoyed watching the butterflies flying all around. They were spectacular! There were three different ones that I could pick out. Only one Monarch out of the hundreds we saw, but there were some others that I thought were just as beautiful. The one I posted was my favorite, but there was another one I liked too, they were little orange ones that were spotted almost like a leopards skin. Anyone know their names and how I can start my own butterfly garden?

ARE YOU JUST "'BEARLY" HOLDING ON'?

It's funny how we begin to appreciate life more as we get older. Johns dad, 81, has been saying good by and patching up old relationships for the last couple of months. It is making the grand kids nervous, John angry, and me melancholy. His health has been borderline lately, but it seems to us that he is literally talking himself into dieing. Mike called him from California the other day and he said that the conversation left him feeling like Grandpa was saying his final goodbyes. We have always loved visiting Ephraim, but the kids are getting as crazy as Grandpa. He is making them feel an urgency to visit. John and I decided to take a little trip down on Friday, without know that Brandt and Soupie were doing the same. Shannon knew we were going down and decided she wanted to pack up the boys and go down after work (Larry has been out of town the last couple of weeks and when he goes, Shannon adventures out with the boys so they can play too...Good for you Shannon!) Natalie and Jay want to go in a couple of weeks, this week they had Grandpa Bob and Grandma Jo in town. We took the ATV's and John took Brandt, Soupie and Carlie up the Canyon to see the tree that Grandpa Bill carved his name into along with the information that he had spotted a bear.......I should say he chased the bear on his ATV until the bear stopped in his tracks and turned around to face him....Grandpa decided to turn around and head out of there. So they got to see the tree, then Shannon came up and the next day we did the same thing over again. It was nice to see Grandpa and Grandma and spend some time.

BEAR LAKE

We had a fun weekend with family members. Most of the kids were at Bear Lake with us, actually Natalie and Jay planned the trip and we all just invited ourselves. Thanks Nat and Jay for letting us crash your party!

Soupie and Tayler at the KOA pool
Carlee and Brandt preparing the camp fire for a hot dog dinner and smores
Sitting around the camp fire roasting marshmallows
Playing at Bear Lake (North Shore)
Jays Dream House (according to Natalie) Brandts "freehand" Sand Castle

RIGHT PLACE - RIGHT TIME

Hi everyone! What a great experience I had today. This morning I went to get my hair done out by Soupie and Brandts, they live by the new Oquirrh Hills Temple that is getting built. when I drove by the temple, they were just hoisting up Angel Moroni onto the steeple. What a thrill! There were a lot of people watching and taking pictures. Channel 2 news was flying around so I tried to take a picture with my cell phone(another hurdle to jump over), I don't know if I got it or not.....anyone know how to find it on my cell? Don't laugh, at least I'm trying to become more savvy.