So long to Summer. . . Part 2

We had a great time at the Olsen reunion in Duck Creek this summer - here are just a few pictures of our five days of fun in the mountains above Cedar City! Rebecca, Andy and Christian by the Rhino ATV that we all enjoyed! We also had fun fishing, hiking, exploring caves, eating on the back porch at the Jones cabin, playing games, shooting, riding ATV's, talking, relaxing in hammocks, playing at the playground, eating breakfast at the lodge and being together. We love Duck Creek!
Andy and Declan on one of the ATV's

Matt, Shaylin and Jayna have some fun on the Rhino.

Curt and Mitzi - we love being with everyone!

Jayna with Shaylin and Emmalyn on the swing near the playground.

John and Lacey eating lunch (some of the Dalton's awesome beef sandwiches!)

Nathan helping Grandma get ready to shoot! Target practice was a popular activity!

Another favorite activity was roasting marshmallows - Declan, Shaylin, Christiam and Jayna are having fun.

Nathan is also enjoying the fire and the marshmallows!

Grandma Olsen with her 5 great-grandkids - (# 6 - Tucker was born to Elaine and Sheldon in August) Shaylin, Declan, Emmalyn, Jessica and Christian.

Mom and the kids - Roy, Don, Curt, Rick, Dana, Jill, Irene, Mom, Mitzi, Linda.

Our first group shot with Nathan and Brandon.

Second group shot with Lauren and Lacey.
John, Andy, Curt, Matt and Emmalyn, Nathan in back.

In front, Rebecca with Christian and Declan, Mitzi with Jessica and Jayna with Shaylin.

So long to Summer. . . Part 1

As you all know, I kinda got sidetracked from the blog. . but as I listen to the wind blow tonight bringing the storm that will probably give us our first snow of the season. . . I decided to post a few more pictures from our fun summer. . .we enjoyed every minute of it!!

A very exciting thing happened to our street - the city actually repaired it so that is it smooth and nice to drive on - no more hills and valleys as you drive into our cul-de-sac!! The Bakers were here the last couple of days while the work was being done - we had fun watching from the front porch!



Then a couple of days after the street was finished, the water retention pond behind our house overflowed and our intersection was majorly flooded for couple of hours. The boys got in on that fun, also!
Grandpa and Grandma and the Bakers at the company picnic in Orem. Grandpa got to be in the dunk tank, we ate lunch, they had balloons, cotton candy, and prizes for the kids.
Did I mention that these pictures are not exactly in order - just a smattering of fun summer days!! Here are a couple of pics from the 4th of July again - Lauren, Kaleen and Shaylyn taste testing the homemade ice cream!
Curt cooking his famous shish-ka-bobs for everyone.
We had a great time at our Hedges Family Reunion in Pocatello - the weather was great, we had almost 100 people there which meant our attendance was close to 100% also!! Lots of young great grandchildren - Rebecca helped me organize game and activity stations to keep them busy. Of course the squirt bottles were the big hit - even Grandpa got in on the fun!!
Andy, Declan, John, Christian, Nathan, Matt
Rebecca and Jessica, Curt, Mitzi and Shaylin, Jayna and Emmalyn
Grandpa and Grandma with all 21 of their living grandchildren - a special day!The big group shot. . . 4 new babies since last year - Jessica and Emmalyn in our family and Silar and Taylor in David's family.

Christian with the blocks. . . Christian and Declan playing at the sand and water table at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point - the blue aprons do help keep their clothes dry and clean. . .

Enjoying lollipops at Sundance. . .even Jessica!!
Oh what fun they had at our nearby creek - the boats were so fun to float down the stream!!

June Joy and Fun on the 4th of July

June started off with a visit from my friend from college, Bonnie Lucas and her family. They were in Utah (they live in Georgia now) for the wedding of their son on June 5th in the Salt Lake Temple. We were also privileged to attend the endowment session for the bride the week before at the Salt Lake Temple. It's always a treat to be in the temple that we were sealed in almost 34 years ago!! This is a picture of me, Bonnie, Lee Ann and Yvette - two of Bonnie's friends. June 5th was a fairly cool day but a beautiful one!

As most of you know, those Maricopa Bakers spent 2 wonderful weeks with us in June - check out Rebecca's blog for tons of pictures of all the fun we had. The boys enjoyed playing outside and playing ping pong inside (I'll have to check if we have pictures of that) - Declan would always say "Bam-it, Slam-it" before he served the ping pong ball. He was very good at serving, for not being much taller that the table itself. Christian is getting very good, too. It was fun to play with them. Here is a picture of Declan with the blocks - we can hardly wait for Emmalyn to get here so we can get her picture with the blocks, too! Grandpa reading the boys their Book of Mormon stories before bedtime. Christian is reading now, too. He actually read Declan several stories while they were here. Declan loved the book "The Diggingist Dog" and Christian read it to him several times. We enjoyed visits from the Trouts and Olsens over July 4th. The Trouts took all the pictures on the 4th, so we need to get copies of all the fun!! We had a relaxing day and a BBQ and even made homemade ice cream. After dinner, we sat out on the lawn and watched the neighborhood fireworks for entertainment. Lauren and her roommate, Shalyn (pronounced Shay Lynn, not to be confused with Shaylin) came too. They are attending summer term at BYU. It was fun to meet Shalyn and we hope we get to see her and Lauren more times this summer! On Saturday, Curt and I helped out with the baptisms for our Stake. The Olsens and the Trouts hiked up to Stewart Falls, up near Sundance. We met them for dinner at Bajio's and then they came over and we all hung out at the park and visited.


Kaleen and Meghan playing at the park. . .


Texting while Tetter-tottering, Linda is always on the go. . .
Meghan and Kaleen and Sheldon and a few others tried out the swing over the creek - shhhh! Christian and Declan don't know about the swing yet. . .
The Trouts went to church with us on Sunday, then headed back to Henderson. The Olsens and Lauren and Shalyn came over to dinner, we had a fun BBQ together, then play a fast game of Cranium (good thing they know how to play, we've never quite got the rules straight!) Rachel is at EFY now in Logan and Dana is staying in Utah for the week. It's fun to see them!Olsen Family picture (missing Daniel!) Sheldon, Elaine, Terrell, Rachel, Dana and Roy. Terrell came down from Logan on his motorcycle - wow!
Can't wait to see all who are coming to Duck Creek - we love being with you!

Wallsburg News

When we went to Wallsburg over Memorial Day Weekend we took a few pictures of the changes to Grandma Wall's property. The old white house has been torn down, and the only things left were the old oil tank and the flagstone steps that led up to the house. A new house is being built on the south west side of the property - in the old pasture.
The old oil tank.
So far the old grainery is still standing.
Mom and me near the old flagstone steps. We will miss the old home and yet the happy memories that we have of time spent there with our grandparents will stay in our hearts forever.

Spring and Summer Fun

Even though we had a cool spring in Utah, we enjoyed some great times together with family and friends. We celebrated John's birthday in Arizona, got to see Roy, Dana and Rachel when they were in Utah over Rachel's spring break (it even snowed one morning when they were here!), Curt's cousin's daughter, Sonia, spent a few days with us while she was looking for her first full-time teaching job and it was fun to get to know her better! Sid and Marcia came for a weekend and Curt helped them scan some family pictures for Marcia's upcoming family reunion. We watched Enchanted together, ate at Rumbi Island Grill and checked out a new bakery in town - Flour Girls and Dough Boys. We also had a fun weekend with Nathan - he helped us fix several things around the house and sold us on a cool timer switch for our bathroom fans! All our guests who have used the upstairs bathroom have loved it. We also used Nathan's great technical skills to get a TV set up that we can view when everything goes HD in a few months. John and Lacey overlapped on that weekend also - coming up to see a couple of Jazz play off games. And Irene came to pick up Hilary from BYU - after a little bit of car trouble, they got Hilary moved out of the dorms and back to Denver for the summer. We loved having them all here. We piled on the blankets on the downstairs beds, because it was cold again that weekend! Sunday we had a great stake conference with Elder Boyd K. Packer as our visiting General Authority. He had great counsel for all ages!! Our friend Maggie Conway came up at the end of April for BYU Women's Conference, too. So you can see that April passed very quickly and I definitely got behind on the blog! So moving on to May, we received the following gift for Mother's and Father's Day - the next best thing to a visit from our grandkids - a darling picture taken by Matt, Jayna and Rebecca of all five of them - Shaylin, Declan holding Emmalyn, Christian and Jessica. The boys are sporting suits that they received from their Baker grandparents and the girls are wearing some cute Grandma dresses from the Jolene's stores in Utah. We appreciate the time and effort it took to get everyone dressed up and take a lot of photos to get this great shot!

Emmalyn was blessed on May 18th at Matt and Jayna's home in Maricopa, Arizona. Jayna's grandparents were coming into town about midday, and their Sacrament meeting is at 8:30 a.m. so they decided to do the blessing at home. One of the Bishop's counselors came to the house and Matt gave her a name (Emmalyn Rose) and a beautiful blessing. Below are the proud parents and precious baby girl!
Grandma Olsen came to Arizona for the blessing and I drove back with her to Utah - we stopped by Henderson to spend the night with the Trouts on our way back. We had fun getting things ready for Memorial Day. On the Saturday before Memorial Day, Curt and I drove to Las Vegas to trade cars with John, he was in town for a friend from BYU Idaho's wedding. We met John and Lacey and Will and his girlfriend Karen at the Las Vegas Temple and then took them out to lunch before hitting the road for the 6 hour return trip. Here are a few pictures from our Memorial Day remembrances and celebrations - my dad's headstone in the Springville Evergreen Cemetery with all the beautiful flowers. We had a fun picnic at the park in Orem - Sheldon and Elaine came too - it was COLD as you can see from the next picture - Mom and I are wearing layers, coats, and we even used HANDWARMERS on May 26th!! I was about ready to sign up for a Phoenix summer!!!!
This is a picture of my aunts and uncles on the Olsen side --Mom - Bernice Olsen, Uncle Ben, Uncle Jim and Aunt Marilyn, Aunt Genny, Aunt Geneva and Uncle Ken, and Aunt Janet. We love them and miss those who have gone on before.

More posts to come (hopefully!) and June has been another fun month. We're looking forward to Hedges and Olsen family reunions in July!

Cherry Blossoms in Japan

While I was in Arizona playing Grandma, Curt traveled to Japan. On Sunday after he attended church with his associate, they visited this area near the Tokyo Temple to take pictures of the cherry blossoms. Yes, that is the Temple spire in the background. This next picture was taken in a different place near the Imperial Palace.
This is Curt's new screen saver - spring is arriving somewhere - it's being slow to arrive here in Highland - we've had snow 3 times during the past week!