Turkey Day

I am finally finding time to sit down and blog about our Thanksgiving weekend. Some of our kids and grandkids were able to come home for the holiday, and we had a great time. We had to do web cam phone calls with Cassidy, James, and Truman, and Holli, John, and Rhys. We missed them, but we were glad we could talk to them and see them, even if it wasn't in person. Sorry, I have a lot of pictures..............
This first one is one with the grandkids on a little outing we took.

We even saw Jake Travolta!!!!

Lexi and I trying to do a teen model sis pose.

The girls and grandkids.

Me and Finley on the dock when we went to feed the fish.

A cute cousins picture.

Keith helping Finley feed the fish. Can you believe that big swarm of hungry fish?!

Lexi, Sareny and Isaac trying not to let the ducks hog all the bread.

We saw two amazing herds of bighorn sheep. It was so cool.

Hillari and Lexi working on a sewing project.

We got out the marble works game and the grandkids had a blast!

Trying to get them all to sit still AND smile AND look at the camera at the same time is pretty much impossible...........

Matt and Donna came over for dinner. I hope Matt hates this picture. He wouldn't look at the camera.

Lexi and cute little Charlie.

Charlie, Finley and Bampa.

The kids decorated Christmas cookies. I just had to get a picture of them, expecially Isaac's, which is the green one in the bottom right corner with gobs of frosting on it! He was so proud of it. And somebody actually ate it because by the end of the weekend, they were all gone. Of course it could have been him!

Everyone had a name tag at the dinner table.

The centerpiece was really pretty. Thanks goes to Lexi for gathering all the acorns and chestnuts on BYU campus for me!

Of course the kids had to go on several Ranger rides with Bampa.

The last night there was a basketball game, alumni vs. the high school basketball team. Jake was one of the stars of the alumni game. They were all pretty good! And they won. I can't remember the score. It was fun to watch.

Jeff and Gary Batchelor were the coaches for the alumni, so he got to coach Jake one last time!

What a fun weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did!

We're Going to State!!!!

We had a play off game last Saturday, and we won! (43 to zip!) It was a beautiful day for a game, and it's always fun when you win. Here's Jeff during the game with his headphones on.

Heading to "the talk" at half time

Doug, Lewy and Jeff.

Us after the game. We always join the team in singing the fight song in front of the stands after each game, win or lose.

Jeff singing "We Are the Pirates" with the boys after the game, which is tradition when we win.

I wanted a picture of all the coaches, and I asked them to cuddle up a little so I could fit them all in the picture. This is what I got:

We got a picture of the wives too. We started laughing because it looked so funny to see all our husbands lined up taking our picture. (you had to be there; it really did look funny, especially when Shane started pretending to be a professional photographer.)

Charlie's Blessing

After Mom's birthday party on Oct. 24th, we headed up to Lehi for little Charles Merrick Keel's baby blessing the next day. Charlie was so sweet and cute in his blessing outfit, and was a very good boy during the actual blessing and during the rest of the meeting. Afterwards we went back to Jake and Liz's for a lovely brunch. Liz did a great job with the food for the brunch, and it was delicious.

Lexi and her nephews, Charlie and Josh. I gave Josh Jake's old "Wicket" and he totally fell in love with it! He wouldn't put it down for any of the pictures.

Sweet little Charlie with Grammy Jo and Tia Lexi.

I have to wear a "boot" on my foot at night, and Josh came out of our room with the boot on his head! It was hilarious.

Lexi is such a good Auntie! And beautiful too. Can you believe the darling smile we snapped of Charlie? Perfect!

These are all the men who participated in the blessing. Liz's Dad, Grandpa, and brothers (including one brother-in-law) were all able to be there. She's lucky to have her family all pretty close.

Joshie with his cheesey grin.

What a cute little family. We're so glad we were able to be there for Charlie's special day. Thanks Jake and Liz for letting us stay, and also for planning the blessing when we were able to be there. We love you guys!

Mom's 80th Birthday

On Saturday, October 24th we had a birthday bash for my sweet Mom's 80th birthday. My sis and I planned everything, and made a slide show and scrap book for Mom. Everyone helped with the food, and we all met at the Scipio Church for a day to honor her. Thanks goes to Rod for cooking his specialty meat for us all, to Suzanne for doing the table decorations, to Dee Ray for the delicious ice cream cakes, and to my Sis who bought all the food and the gift. The day turned out fabulous!

Me and my little Mom, who I always have to bend down to hug or kiss!

Lexi and Jake and Liz and their two boys were the only ones of my kids who were able to attend. The other kids sent their love to their Grandma with a page for the scrap book we made her. Here is Lexi with Mom and Dad.

This is all my Aunts and Uncles on my Mom's side. I was really glad they could all make it to the party.

My Sister, Shelley, Mom and Me.

My sibs DeVon, Dallen, Shelley, Mom, Dad, Me, and Rod, the baby.

The best part of the whole day was Dad playing "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" for Mom on his harmonica. She started to cry and went over and hugged him, and he hugged her back while still playing his harmonica with one hand. I loved it.

We all went in together and got Mom a flat screen TV for her livingroom, which is where she always ends up watching TV. (Dad always watches boring stuff like cattle auctions! Seriously, I have been there and seen him watching that.) So they end up watching in different rooms. Thanks goes to Josh for getting the new TV all hooked up and doing a tutorial so Mom and Dad can actually use it!

This is our new little Grandson, Charlie. He's a cutie.

Jake and Liz with Josh and Charlie. Charlie wasn't too happy in either of these pictures, but he really was a good boy that day. We sure do love those two boys!

I love my Mom and I am so grateful for all she has taught me. She is the greatest example of love and selflessness I have ever seen. I'm glad her day turned out to be wonderful. Thanks for the memories, Mom and Happy to You!

Lexi's Visit

A couple of weekends ago, Lexi came home for a quick weekend visit to watch the volleyball team play and also watch the football team that her Dad helps coach.

I love it when she comes home to see us! She has no problem hanging out with us and doing things with us. The problem is, we usually plan way too many activities, and only get to do about half of them! But we have lots of fun.
Jeff took us on a super long, but fun, Ranger ride, and it is the only thing we took pictures of the entire weekend, so here are the few pictures commemorating the fun time we had:

Me and Lexi in our cool "Clicks."

Lexi and her Dad. We saw some really beautiful rock formations and pretty desert colors and scenery.

We did some other fun things, like grind wheat and make the world's flatest bread loaves and cinnamon rolls. We ate them anyway ("we eat em cuz we was hungry" sorry, family joke.) and they tasted pretty good, just looked funny. Lexi always brings a ton of laundry home, so we did that while we watched a movie. I love having Lexi come home for visits.............makes me wish she was still around all the time!

My Favorite Time of Year

A few weeks ago for my birthday we made our yearly trek to see some fall color. It worked out that we had a bye in football that weekend, so we even got to stay two nights! It was also conference weekend, so we didn't have to go home until Sunday afternoon. We listened to conference on the radio, and watched some of it at the motel. We took off Friday after work, and got up Saturday morning and headed up the canyon.

This was taken at Cedar Breaks. It was beautiful, but really windy and super cold.

The color display was a little disappointing. It was much prettier last year. Not sure why.

We still saw some pretty scenery. Lots of yellow and orange, but not much red.

Even though we had to search for them, we still had lots of fun looking for leaves and driving through some beautiful country.

When we got back to town we met up with my sis and her husband. We went to a couple of antique stores and browsed around, went to Robert's, of course, and went out to dinner and had the best steaks ever, then rode around some more and saw some more pretty leaves, and a beautiful view of the city. We headed back to the motel and stayed up until 2:00 a.m. playing Phase 10. Can you believe it?!

Mom and Dad met us the next morning and we all had lunch together. It was fun to see family and be with them for awhile. We should do things like this more often!