December 2011

We kicked off the holiday season with Grandma's annual Christmas Sleepover.  We all had a good time eating, making Christmas cookies and crafts, and watching movies.

 

We had our family Christmas party early before Becky and Scott left for Arizona and Matt and Jessica left for Oregon.  We made cute gingerbread houses.

A cute program by our talented Grandchildren

Good Dinner

 

Opened Presents

And more presents!!

On December 23, we helped Grandpa celebrate his 92nd birthday!!

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Dan and Betsy and family.  It was fun to be a part of the excitement on Christmas morning.

Happy Birthday Jesus!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Matt and Jessica went to the Dominican Republic with the BYU baseball team over the Thanksgiving holiday.  They played games and had great experiences performing service to the very poor people in that country.  While they were gone, Chloe, Landon, and Tanner spent part of the time with Aunt Diane and Uncle Aaron and part of the time with us.  We loved having them.  We played at the park and made daily visits to the 8 horses that live on a neighboring farm.  The kids loved to feed the horses some of the weeds that were growing along the the ditch bank.

Happy Halloween 2011

We had a fun family Halloween Party.  The weather was wonderful so we were able to be outside for eating, costume parade, treasure hunt, and other games.

Every family got to carve a pumpkin grown in Becky's very first garden!!

October 2011 Visit With the Goodman Family and David

Our extended weekend visit with Michelle's family and David was fun and relaxing.  We played games, went on walks, ate Melodie's good cooking, and enjoyed interacting with the family.

We went to the cemetery on Saturday and cleaned up around Michelle's grave and planted tulips and daffodils.  Everyone helped-even the doggies.

Dave arrived in Denver on Sunday morning to attend a work conference.  We picked him up at the airport and made it back to Castle Rock for Sacrament Meeting.  We all visited as a family in the afternoon and then we took David to his hotel downtown and walked around the area with him for awhile in the evening. The picture shows him relaxing in his very nice hotel room. We enjoyed our short visit with him.

Fall 2011 Bryan and Faye Came to Visit

After Faye retired in September, they came to Utah and Idaho for a 3 week visit.  We loved having them stay with us when they were in town.  We all visited Kenneth's mother's grave on her birthday, October 12.

 We also had a family dinner at Snowbird and took some pictures with the beautiful fall colors.

September and October 2011 Fun Times

We love to visit the gardens at Thanksgiving Point.  Adam liked feeding the koi.

But his favorite thing was the spouting fountain in the secret garden.  He would have played there all day.  We enjoyed the waterfalls and oh yes, the flowers.

Addy, Easton, and Ellie came for a visit and we took them to the park.

We went to St. George for 3 days and enjoyed the shows at Tuachan, long walks, and shopping.

Happy Birthday Easton and Betsy!!

 Happy Birthday Addy and Landon!!

I got to stay with Addy, Easton, and Ellie for 4 days while their Mom and Dad enjoyed a fun get-away to Disneyland.  We enjoyed our time together.  Addy and Easton built some great castles and Ellie did her best to knock them down.

August 2011 Planting the Peach Tree

While Kenneth was recovering from his heart surgery, we found a sale on peach trees and bought a Lemon Alberta peach tree.  This variety had been recommended to us as a great tree to grow in this area.  With some help we got the 8 foot tree loaded into our little car and brought it home.  Now we needed to plant it.  Kenneth was not allowed to lift anything heavy or strain his chest muscles in any way so I needed to plant the tree.

  Kenneth sat in the chair and supervised and I managed to dig the hole and role the heavy tree into it.  I decided I can do hard things!!  The tree is planted in memory of our family peach, Michelle.  Love you always Michelle.   

August and September 2011 Special Times with Special People

This year we started a new tradition of trying to spend some special one on one time with our grandchildren around their birthdays.  This works well with the grandchildren who live close by but will take a little more planning for our Texas and Colorado kids.  We started early in the summer by having Addy come down for a sleepover and taking her and Chloe out to dinner and  to see a production of Annie at the Scera Theater in Orem.  We had a great time.

 In August Easton came down for a sleepover and then we went to the Dinosaur Museum and Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point.

Adam and Becky joined us.

Feeding the goats at Farm Country.

Landon wanted to go bowling for his special date so we took Grandpa Great and went out to lunch and then went bowling at Fat Cats.

Landon showed us all how it is done!!  Thanks for a fun time!!

Chloe wanted me to help her learn how to use the sewing machine so we spent a day making some pillows and bags.

This is what happened to Adam when Mom forgot to bring his jacket and hat to our house and we wanted to go for a walk.  He had to wear Grandpa's hat and Grandma's sweater.  I think he looks pretty cute!!

I sure do love all my grandkids.

July 2011 Mending a Broken Heart

On July 28 Kenneth had open heart surgery-a triple bypass.  The surgery went well, he spent 5 days in the hospital, and then recovered at home with almost daily visits to the cardiac rehabilitation center for about a month.