Fishing Trip with Davie and Chris

This is our first trip for our pontoon boat for the 2009 fishing season. It also was Davie's and Chris's first time on the boat. We took it to Piute Reservoir. We caught some nice fish without using any bait, such as worms or power bait. We only used Jake's lures and Chris used pop gear. While on the boat we cooked a steak dinner with dutch oven potatoes on the BBQ. Davie and Chris were very impressed. They want to come again for their anniversary next year too.

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! ! !

This has been my best Christmas season for many years. My prayers have been answered and at various times during this holiday season I have been able to spend time with all my children and grandchildren.
It started off with the arrival of Deb and Paiton on December 8th. While they were here we got to ride 4-wheelers, see the cows at the dairy, swim at the hot pots, see some big bucks up the canyon, sew, make stables for nativity scenes and when Christopher got here he made some great improvements to our computer, including setting up our web cam. ( Thanks Chris! ) We had so much fun with Paiton and catching up on all the new things she has learned. I loved hearing her sing" TOMORROW, TOMORROW, It's only a day AWAAAAAAAAAAAY ! ! !" Carl and I both were amazed at how much she has changed since we saw her in July.
On the 17th of December Christine brought David,Summer,Andrew, Logan and Hannah to Delta and along with Deb, we all got up the next morning and went to the snow covered dunes and rode 4-wheelers and tubes. We had a big fire to keep warm and roasted marshmellows and hotdogsand had hot chocolate. It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. Christopher stayed at the house while Paiton took a much needed nap. That night we all drove to St. George and spent the night in a 3-bedroom condo courtesy of my generous brother Kelly. When we woke up we drove to Vegas for a wacky day of shopping at the swap meet. We all bought a special gift and played a fun game exchanging gifts. The next day we spent "Chilling" in the pool and the hot tub. Crystal and her family came over and all the kids had fun playing together. We all had fun challenging each other to take a dip in the ice cold "kiddie pool". That night we enjoyed a delicious "Cafe Rio" dinner cooked at the condo by all the "gals". Then to top off the evening for the kids, Christine prepared a pinata filled with candy. We only had one person come and remind us that "quiet time" was in 30 minutes. After all the festivities, David and Summer and their kids had to pack up and head up north so David could catch his plane back to Cleveland and work. During this whole trip we had to keep Christine occupied because she was missing Davie so much. Davie had to keep the library going strong , but we appreciate his dedication.
For Christmas day we had Deb, Christopher, Paiton, Chris and Davie. Davie read us a cute Christmas story and serenaded us with an original Christmas medley of Christmas jokes put to music on the guitar. It was great fun ! Christine and Davie made a gingerbread house and everyone made and decorated Christmas sugar cookies. Then we all turned in and waited for Santa to come.
After opening presents and spending the day together, Deb and her family went to spend some time with Christopher"s family in Richfield. Davie and Chris had to go home and go back to work the next day. Thank you all for all the great gifts and for spending time with us. We loved every minute of it ! ! But the fun wasn't over yet! On Saturday after Christmas, Russ and Angela and Jaden, Ashlyn, and Cadence came to Delta. We spent several hours at the dunes with another round of 4-wheeler riding, roasting marshmellows,hotdogs, and having hot chocolate around the fire. Then we changed clothes and went to the hot pots in Meadow for a swim in the warm water. We were there for nearly 3 hours because nobody wanted to get out in the cold. It was dark when we finally got out and the kids nearly froze to death. Russ just put on a t-shirt and spent quite a bit of time getting the kids dressed and warmed up and to the car. By the time he got a chance to put on dry clothes, his swimming suit was frozen solid. Poor guy! I felt so sorry for him. He is such a good Dad! After we were all dry and warm we stopped in Fillmore for some famous "chicken and potato logs". When my kids were younger we would go to Dr. Moody for dentist visits in Fillmore. They all hated the dentist so to bribe them so it wasn't so bad we would go get "chicken and potato logs" after the dentist. They used to" speak" to go first in the chair so that their numbness would be worn off by the time we went to go get chicken. The last one in the dentist chair was still numb and had to be careful. After this full day, Russ and his family headed home to Layton. What a wonderful Christmas season I had with all my family! Thank you all! God bless us every one!

This is our Humanitarian project. I'm the new humanitarian "specialist" in our ward. My first major project is to put together sets of childrens building blocks. We are making 1,200 blocks, and sewing bags to store them in.

Just testing them out. Yep, they work!

"Painting the blocks is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do. Painting the blocks is fun to do, to do to do to do! It actually turned into quite a big job!

Some kids never grow up!

Why can't these cool geen 4 wheelers come in big kid sizes??

VROOOOOOMMMM!

Here is Deb at balanced rock.

We all got to "roll" in this cool jeep. I was a

great afternoon of rock climbing.

"HANG ON CHRIS!!!"

We are white water rafting maniacs!

These are a little late but here are some of the pictures we took at

Moab with Christopher and Deb. We even had the same river guide!

Our New, well...kinda, Pontoon boat

Last week while delivering the mail, I was listening to the trading post program on the radio. A guy was advertising a pontoon boat for sale so I thought I would call and see how much he wanted for it. He wanted $550 for it but because we were so far away he said we could have it for $450. We drove to Manti as soon as I got off work and we are now the proud owners of a 16 foot pontoon boat with a trailer and 25 horse Johnson outboard motor. We took it out to the "Res" for it's "Maiden Voyage" this evening. The motor started on the first pull and we were able to launch and reload the boat on the first try. We were so proud. We dropped the motor off to a guy that works on motors so he could give it a tune-up and we are going to take it to Fish Lake on Monday, September 8th. This guy said we could probably sell the motor by itself for about $800. We made a pretty good deal huh!! We want to paint it and maybe put some metal sheeting around the railing. Also it would be nice if we could find some sort of shade cover and we want to mount a gas barbeque grill. We will be right up town with the Clampetts on the Beverly Hillbillys.

JULY 31, 1982 DEB'S BIRTHDAY !!!

When I woke up this morning , I layed in bed for a while and thought about this day 26 years ago. It started like any other day with the alarm going off at 5:30 AM. It was time to get up and go to work at the post office. I was nine months pregnant and I remember laying there and holding still to see if anything felt different...was this the day we had been waiting for? Probably not... I might as well get up and get ready for work. Carl was supposed to go to Salt Lake to pick up a motorcycle for a customer who was driving to Delta from Las Vegas. By the time I got ready to leave for work, I felt some thing was different but I couldn't put my finger on it. I was a little nervous about Carl leaving because what if I went into labor while he was gone. I mentioned this to him and he said " So are you going to have it today or not? If I stay home and you don't have the baby, I'm going to be bugged." I responded, "Well if you go and I start into labor while you are gone then I'm going to be bugged." Anyway, Carl went to SLC and picked up the motorcycle and came home and started putting it together out in the shop. I went to the post office and got my mail all sorted and went out on the route to deliver the mail. I was about one hour into my four hour route when I realized I was having contractions. I hurried as fast as I could hoping to finish my route before I had to go to the hospital. I probably had about about half the route left when I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to make it. The contractions were getting harder and closer together. I went back to the post office and made arrangements fo someone to finish my route and then I went home to break the news to Carl. When I told him we needed to start getting ready to go to the hospital, he said "Can you give me an hour and I will have this bike put together?" I told him I was going to go get in the shower and get cleaned up but then it really was time to go. After showering and getting dressed, I went out to the shop to see if Carl was ready to go....He wasn't! He said" I'm so close. Can you just wait 15 more minutes and I promise I will be done. I said " Do you want me to take the boys (Russ and David) to the babysitter and then will you be done?" He promised he would be done by the time I got back. After taking the boys to the sitter, he was just washing up when Iwalked in the door. We then dashed off to the hospital and Deb was born about one hour later.