Vacation

We just got back from vacationing for a whole week. Last Friday we went to Debbie and Glenn's in South Jordan. We had a great time visiting with them, seeing their new home, learning about relatives, eating yummy food. Wish we could spend more time with them.
We came home Monday from Utah, packed for camping and left Tuesday for Teton and Yellowstone. We stayed Tuesday night in Gros Ventre (Grovont) campground in Teton National Park. We have never camped there before. It was a quiet campground. We took a scenic boat tour around Jenny Lake. Very pleasant and interesting. It was VERY cold that night. I ended up sleeping fully dressed with a hoody and winter stocking cap on under flannel sheets and three heavy quilts just to stay warm. BRRRR!!!!!
Wednesday we went to Yellowstone and camped in the Canyon campground. We had not stayed there before either. Lots of firsts this trip. It was cool Wednesday night, but not as bad as Tues. Thursday night was quite warm. It was 55 degrees when we got up at 6 this morning. We saw deer, a few elk, lots of bison, a coyote. Ths morning we watched two bison fight for the opportunity to mate. The brand new visitor center at Old Faithful opened on Wednesday. We went through it. Very nice and much bigger than the old one. We had a good time, but are glad to be home.

What a Wonderful Week!

The week started off on Tuesday with a trip to West Yellowstone. We spend two fabulous days riding in a snow coach in Yellowstone Park. Oh how beautiful it is in the snow and ice. Wednesday we saw Old Faithful erupt, walked around mud pots and hot springs, visited with others on the coach and got to know them. Tuesday we rode in the coach over to Canyon. We had a different guide who took us down to Hayden Valley to see if we could see any animals. There were many bison and a few coyotes. The fun part was we saw about 10 otters in two bunches. The large bunch had 7. It was very interesting to see how they play and share their food. We also watched a pack of 13 wolves for about 45 minutes. They were a very long way from the road, but with the help of binoculars we were able to see them. We stopped three different places on the canyon rim to see the falls. I can't even describe how different the park looks in the winter.

Today, Saturday, we went to Ogden to do temple work for a Russian family. Eugene's oldest brother lives and works in Russia. His wife has been serving as the Family Search consultant in their small branch there. As soon as she was called, a man went to her and asked if she would take his family's names and do their work for them in the states at the temple. She said she would be honored. Because there were 7 of them, we were invited to help. In the 1930's there was a horrible famine in the Ukraine caused by Stalin. All 7 of the children in the family died in the same year. Later the parents had two more daughters. The youngest of them joined the church when it was first allowed in Russia. Her son is the man who asked to have the work done. Today we met in the temple with 13 other members of Eugene's family to get their temple work done. Taking turns, we started about 7 a.m. with baptisms and finished about 11:30 in the sealing room. What an honor it was to be a part of this gift to that Russian family.

Merry Christmas!!

All my Christmas sewing is finished!!! Oh happy day! I shipped packages on Thursday. I have two more gifts to pay for and I'm ready for Christmas. What a great feeling!

We are going to Yellowstone with Eugene's brother and his wife. We will be riding a heated snow coach into the park two days. I'm so looking forward to the trip and getting away for a few days. Hopefully I will return ready to jump back on the speed train of life!

Happy Holidays!!!

Catch Up

I'm getting so bad at this posting thing. Here's what we have been doing the past couple of months.

September: We spent four relaxing days in Yellowstone. We rented a cabin in Gardiner, MT. The cabins had kitchens. We took our food and didn't eat out once. Bought snacks a couple of times, but that's all. I got lots of handwork done while Eugene drove and stopped to take pics. One day he staked out a fresh kill for 3 hours. I popped a movie in the laptop and worked on an applique project while I waited for him. They were hoping a bear would come in, but nope. A black wolf came in and Eugene was able to get a picture or two of it.

We finished up the gardening for the year. Our garden really produced this summer. We got about 48 pints of green beans and about that many pints of beets. We had an abundance of little orange tomatoes and small red tomatoes along with a few serrano chilies. We also grew some green and red peppers. I'm always so sad when fresh peach season is over. I love fresh peaches and we usually buy 4 or 5 half bushes throughout late summer and early fall just to eat.

October: October brought cold, snowy weather to Brrr Lake. It's trying to snow today. I am so not ready for this kind of weather to stay!

Eugene found an open extended warranty on my camera. The screen quit working in May so it wouldn't take pictures. He emailed Cannon and they sent us a shipping label, repaired the camera and had it back to us in working order within a week. I'm very impressed!!! The following are pictures of what I have been working on these past few months.

Ellie's birthday quilt. She will be 3 on November 29. Ellie LOVES butterflies. She used to call them 'fulla bulla'. All the colorful fabrics have butterflies in them. I'm not quite finished. I still have about 1/3 of it left to quilt. I want to make a doll quilt to match. It may get done, it may not! EEE! I'm running out of time! Doesn't help that my sewing machine is in the shop again!

I've been making hot pads and placements for Christmas gifts and birthdays. The hot pads are finished, the placemats are cut out. Here's a sampling of the hot pads and one placemat.

November will bring more sewing and cold snowy weather. I guess it's a good time of year to have lots of sewing projects.

This and That

Ok, so I'm not so good at keeping up on this blog. What can I say? Evidently, not much.

I'm working on Ellie's birthday quilt. I make a youth size quilt for the grandchildren when they turn 3. Ellie's will be a butterfly quilt because she LOVES butterflies. I have the blocks assembled and ready to sew into rows. I really like this qult. If I had a camera, I would take pictures. :( The next grandchild won't turn 3 for two years.

One large quilt is done and waiting for the quilter. After Ellie's quilt is pieced I'll start on Charlie and Michelle's.

The beans are done, the onion tops have been knocked over and I only have a few beets left in the garden. I have been harvesting small orange tomatoes that are so sweet. I love to eat them as I'm picking them.

We are going to Yellowstone again. YAY! Eugene found a cabin with a kitchenette in Gardiner, MT. We are going to stay there for three nights and spend our days in the park. Eugene will look for elk to take pictures of. I'll sit in the car and quilt Ellie's quilt. When the kids were still at home, Eugene would spend several days in the park by himself in the fall. Now I go with him. It is so relaxing. I love it!

FREE and Catch-up

All the summer activities that I volunteered for are over! Katie's wedding (which really doesn't count as a volunteer activity, but was still an activity on my list), Relay for Life, and the Bear Lake County Fair Quilt Show. All are done and behind us and have taught me a most valuable lesson. I've learned to say NO! Well, sort of. I won't, nor could I, say no to a daughter getting married and I had agreed to 2 years with the Relay so I will still do that next summer. However, since it will be the only volunteering I do next summer, it won't be so stressful. I hope!

My camera died so now I have to rely on Eugene for pictures. :( Maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas. I didn't use it much, but loved having my own camera when I wanted, or needed, to take pictures.

Sarah was here for 4 days last week. She brought green beans and corn to bottle. It was fun doing it together. A mess with 3 (and sometimes 6) little people around, but fun just the same. I'd forgotten that I enjoy canning. It's lots of work, but is so rewarding when you hear those lids pop sealed.

Laura came on Friday. It was the county fair and the two girls, Sarah and Laura, love to bring their little ones to the fair. I must admit, it is more fun when you have little people to show the animals to.

Now it's time to move on to the next projects. I have 3 quilts to make. One needs to be sewn and hand quilted by Nov. 29th, one for Christmas and one within a year. The two latter will be machine quilted. They are a queen and a king size so too big to try and hand quilt in a hurry. My back is still trying to recover from hand quilting the Relay raffle quilt in 3 months.

Thursday thru Saturday we are going to Yellowstone for more than a day trip. We went with Charlie and Michelle when they were here on the 7th. Left at 5:30 a.m. and got home at 11:30 p.m. That's too hard when you have little ones with you. Sarah and Eric are coming and we are going with them. It's a short trip, but better than nothing or even better than one day. Hope it warms up so we don't freeze!

There's my summer in a nutshell. Nothing on my schedule now but Relief Society and sewing/quilting. Yay!

Finally! A Vacation!

We went to Yellowstone for four days this week. Oh! What a wonderful time we had. We stayed two nights at a fabulous, fun B&B called Gardiner Guest House. The food was great, the company oh so fun. Laura and family met up with us on Tuesday. They ended up staying the night at the B&B too. We saw beautiful fall colors, elk, deer, bison, wolves (yes, plural), coyotes, and a griz. The wolves had killed an elk and were feeding on it. I saw one wolf. Eugene saw four or five because he was patient enough to stand and wait for them to come in. Not me. I went back to the truck to read and crochet. On our way out of the park yesterday we were driving along and Eugene said look at that! There was a bear running across the highway. When we got to where it was, it was still along side the road. We followed it for about 1/4 of a mile before it crossed in front of us and went up into the trees on the other side of the highway. It was a small, about 2 yrs old, bear with beautiful coloring--dark brown with blonde (grizzled) tips. Way cool!! We didn't get any pics, but still fun to say we saw a bear!
Thursday we went on a hike up to Lone Star Geyser. It is about 2.5 miles into the geyser. We walked in and just as we got there someone told us that we had missed the minor erruption and that it wouldn't go off for another 2-3 hours. Well, we had been there less than 5 miutes before it began a major 25 minute erruption. SO worth the hike in and out again. While there, a couple from Ohio came walking in from the opposite direction we walked in. They had already hiked 3-4 miles and got there just in time to see the last of the erruption. They walked out the way we went and caught up to us. Eugene had told them that he would give them a ride to their car if they wanted to make a loop of it. They took us up on the ride. It was only a mile or two down the road where we had parked, but they were most grateful for the ride in the back of our truck because they had already walked so far.
Now it's back to the real world grind. RS, quilts to finish piecing and tying, and various other things. Oh how I hate vacations coming to an end!

VACATION/REUNION Days 3, 4 and 5

Day 3 of the vacation/reunion was July 4th. We started the day by having a group breakfast of breakfast burritos. They usually go over well and are easy to do. After the clean up we parted to do our own thing for awhile. Eugene, Liz and I drove up to the highest point in the park. Kasey, Laura and girls followed along. Eugene and Liz wanted to hike to the top of the knoll. Makayla didn't want to be left behind, nor did Kasey and Laura. I stayed behind with Ellie and we wondered the gift shop and visitor's center. We went back to camp to start lunch/dinner, also known as linner. The kids had requested a dutch oven dinner. We cooked chicken and potatoes. It was a big hit. Here's a picture of Eugene cooking. :)

He really did do most of the cooking. He was resting while it cooked. :)

Here's a couple of pictures of Grandpa and Ellie. Ellie LOVES her grandpa!!!

The next pictures are of Grandpa and Ellie coming back from one of their many walks.

Here is a picture of Shawn playing football with Makayla while waiting for the food to cook.

After we ate our fabulous dutch oven meal, we went into Estes Park for some family fun. We went to this great fun park. We rode bumper boats, bumper cars, go carts, some of us played mini golf and others went to the batting cages. It was great fun. I didn't have my camera so I have no pictures. Makayla went on the bumper boats and the go carts twice with Katie. I think she had fun. She liked the mini golf too. After the fun park we found a grassy spot, spread out our blankets and settled in to watch the fireworks.

On Saturday we went on a tour of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. It is a haunted hotel. The ghost hunters have been there and have determined it is haunted. The Stanley Hotel is the hotel from Steven King's The Shining. Following are some pictures of "ghosts". We didn't see them, but they showed up on our pictures. See the white orb on the ceiling? Weird! (click on the pictures to enlarge)
The hotel is beautiful and the history is facinating!

After the tour, Eugene, Liz and I went back to tour more of RMNP. There is an alluvial fan that we went to see. It was caused by a dam failure. Here is a picture of the creek that runs through it and a picture of Liz sitting on a huge rock that was deposited when the dam failed.

On Sunday we packed up and left for home. It was a very nice vacation and reunion. I figure the reunion was a success because there were no fights, no one blew up at anyone, and we all left friends. :) Our next reunion will be May of 2009 at Lake Tahoe for Katie and Shawn's wedding.

VACATION/REUNION Days 1 and 2

What a whirlwind the past two weeks have been. We left on July 1st for a family reunion for just our immediate family. We stopped in Logan for my check-up with the oncologist. Cancer markers are good. Don't have to return until November. We then drove to Ogden to visit Sarah's family. When we left Ogden we met up with Lizzie at the Rodizio Grill at Trolly Square in SLC. We had a fabulous dinner. It was great! We spent the night at Lizzie's. Wednesday morning Lizzie picked Katie up at the airport and we headed for Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park. On our way through Wyoming we stopped in Green River and met up with Laura's family. Katie and Lizzie drove on ahead. We arrived at Rocky Mountain National Park in mid afternoon. We pitched tents and cooked dinner. Charlie and Michelle arrived around 3:30 a.m. They drove up from Texas. Sarah's family weren't able to attend because of the arrival of their 2 week old baby girl.

This is Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). It is MUCH smaller than our Bear Lake. We were able to walk around it. Makayla and Michelle throwing rocks in the lake. Laura watched her throw and then said, "Oh dear! She throws like a girl." A passing tourist said, "Imagine that!" We all laughed! Sorry Michelle! I cut off your head! AAAHHH!!!Laura, Kasey, Makayla and Ellie at Bear Lake.

Charlie and Michelle at Bear Lake.

Eugene, Charlie, Makayla, and me.

Laura helping Ellie touch the water in the lake.

Katie and Lizzie are absent from these pics because they drove into Denver to pick-up Shawn, Katie's fiance, from the airport. He flew in from Michigan.

We later drove into Estes Park to pick up some food items we didn't have room for when we left home. The following is a picture of our impromptu picnic in the Safeway parking lot in Estes Park. Weren't they nice to provide grass and trees in the parking lot for our picnic?

Actually you only get to see a picture of Grandpa and Ellie. That's all I have of our picnic in the parking lot. Ellie wasn't a happy camper. While walking around the lake earlier in the day, I was carrying Ellie on my shoulders and holding onto her hands and wrists so she wouldn't fall off. She pulled back and partially dislocated her left elbow. She has what is called "Nurse Maid's Elbow". It comes out quite easily but a dr. has to put it back in. We ended up at the ER before the day was over because Ellie was very unhappy and in pain. Sorry Ella Belle! :( She was much happier after her elbow was put back into place.

Eugene, Charlie and Kasey left from here to go into Denver for a Rockies game. They met up with Katie, Shawn and Liz. It was very late when they got back to camp. Laura, Makayla, Ellie, Michelle and I stayed behind and shopped in Estes Park. It was fun. It was probably a good thing we did since we ended up taking Ellie to the ER. What's vacation without one visit to the ER or a clinic? A lot less adventurous!

FABULOUS Last Four Days

We spent the last four days in Spokane visiting Katie. Oh! What a relaxing time we had. She was worried we would be bored with her at work all day. Not so. It was nice to just sit around and do nothing. We arrived Wednesday evening after stopping at Laura's in-laws for a visit. We visited with Katie during the evening. Eugene went to bed around 10 or 11 and Katie and I sat up and talked about her wedding plans til after midnight. Thursday Eugene didn't feel well so we just sat around. I did venture out to the grocery store. Katie had given me directions. Eugene was worried I would get lost but I told him I would call if I did. By the end of the day Eugene was feeling a bit better. After work Katie cut Eugene's hair. My sister Jeanne was in town working so we went to dinner with her. We did some shopping before we went back to Katie's. I got Makayla's birthday present. I think she will love it! I hope she will. Katie and I again sat up into the wee hours visiting about the wedding. Friday Eugene and I ventured out shopping. We went to Shopko and bought a 6' folding table. I have been looking for one since Thanksgiving. It was even on sale for about 50% off. Cool! We went to JoAnn's and then to the mall and wondered around for a couple of hours. When Katie got home she and I went to JoAnn's again. We looked through pattern books and found the pattern for flower girl dresses. Then we went to the fabric so she could show me what she wanted. She found this gorgeous embroidered organza type fabric. Her colors are pink, green, silver and black. The embroidery was pinks and greens. Perfect! Even better was that the patterns were 40% off and the fabric was 30% off. She bought those two items. She'll watch for sales and get her name on the mailing list so she can get coupons in the mail. These little dresses are going to be beautiful!!! Katie and I sat up and talked more about the wedding plans until after 2 A.M. Eugene went to bed early because he had to drive all day Saturday. Katie cut my hair that evening. It was such a pleasant visit. Thanks Katie for putting up with your parents for 4 days! Oh, and thanks for the hair cuts!