The day has arrived! Our kitchen has been GUTTED. Oh, I feel so anxious to get a new kitchen. We have the new kitchen cabinets and appliances in our barn. The granite is in a shop right now. Everything is a HUGE mess right now. Our kitchen items are everywhere! I am so thankful that God gave us a tender mercy today. We asked a local teacher for help with gutting the kitchen. William wanted some strong young men to help him. Mr. Heuker at the school came over to look at our project. He said he probably could get his two sons to come help with the demolition on Tuesday night. Today, it rained and the roofing project that 12 young men (who work for Mr. Heuker) had planned for was canceled. And so, they came over to our home and began gutting the kitchen. They worked from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM and you can see for yourself the progress they made. I came home from taking two exercise classes and found the kitchen completely different! Wish us luck. This is the most difficult re-modeling project we've attempted! Here is the work William did on Saturday: (For those who read this besides our kids - our home is over 100 years old) Here is what happened today: (The workers found photos of previous owners behind pantry shelves and 1936 newspapers stuffed into the ceiling for insulation.

I am so relieved that my dance recital is over for the dance season. I felt really good about it and the girls did great. My theme was "Dancing through the Decades." We started with the roaring 20's and danced through each decade. I was told I had the elderly loving the older songs. I had a full crowd for all three recital nights. There's about 200 students at my dance studio. I use to teach all the classes, but now I have a ballet teacher, a tumbling teacher, and many student teachers. It really helps and they all did an amazing job. I'm really enjoying my break now that the recital is over. I don't even have to teach my exercise classes this week because the Y is on a one week break – so I am playing catch up with everything I didn't do while I prepared for the recital. Today I began taking kitchen items out of drawers and cupboards. We are GUTTING the kitchen this weekend. Oh, I'm dreading not having a kitchen. I already can feel the major inconvenience of it all. Here's some recital pictures that I downloaded from Facebook.

We traveled to Utah at the end of April to see our precious new granddaughter, Reese Emma. She is beautiful and we are in love. She was such a good baby while we were there. We were frustrated that many of our family became ill during our stay, including Reese's sisters. We prayed hard that the baby wouldn't get sick. Reese's father blessed her during her baby blessing with a healthy immune system and our prayers and Reese's blessing were honored by Heavenly Father. We are so grateful for this new spirit in our family. We were able have fun together as a family and go bowling, to the zoo, to the petting zoo, to the dinosaur museum, to the temple, to our children's homes, etc., and we have such special memories of being together. We have never loved our children more and we are so blessed to be their parents. We were so grateful to be with my parents and William's parents too. How we love them! Last week I finished my "Composing your Personal History class" and am so glad it's done. It ended up being 409 pages, which includes many photos. It is a major accomplishment in my life! I am busy right now making preparations for my dance recital coming up this week. I will be able to relax once the recital is over. It is such a major feat! I just wanted to get a few photos posted of our trip and especially of Reese. She is just precious. And we are so excited that our 6th grand baby is on the way!!!

Valentine's Day

I had a sweet Valentine's Day. William had a dozen roses on the table when I came home from lunch. They were especially beautiful because they had a deep rich texture to them. The florists told William they grow them that way. They still look lovely.
I wish the flowers would last! They really brighten up my spirits every time I see them!

William also made me filet mignon for dinner and it was so yummy. He set the table with our china, goblets, and chargers and we had a romantic evening.

He also gave me with two pair of earrings and some bracelets. I gave him a package of gifts I thought he would enjoy, including goodies, nuts, and clothes.

I'm grateful for my sweetheart. He's a wonderful husband!

My Birthday

My birthday was on a Fast Sunday this year - and also on the Super Bowl. I read scriptures in the morning and had some special spiritual feelings before and during church. I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting. The spirit was with me. It was really special.

When I came home, my ice cream cake that was sitting on the back porch was melting. William was sure it would stay frozen there. I quickly put it in the freezer (where William said there was no room for it).

I then had time to myself since William was on High Council duty in our Stake. I really like time to myself, but it was a little longer than I wanted.

In the evening, William made me eggs benedict for dinner. He had wanted to make them for breakfast, but it was Fast Sunday. Anyway, they were delicious, but I could tell they were very high in calories and fat! He had tasted them in Las Vegas and wanted to duplicate them. He put banana peppers in them which really gave them a nice flavor.

Later that night, our children all called on ichat from a Super Bowl party at Melissa's. They sang Happy Birthday to me and it was fun to see them. I really wished they could have helped me celebrate my birthday and helped eat the ice cream cake (which didn't taste that great - I think because it melted and then was frozen again).

For my birthday, I told William I wanted a jewelry organizer. I have a small one, but I had seen a particular one about a year ago while looking on the internet for solutions to organizing my jewelry. It arrived on Valentine's Day and I LOVE IT! It even has a mirror in front!

I had some nice wishes for my birthday on Facebook and emails. William's parent's called. My parents were in Mexico, but my father sent me a lovely email. I got some sweet gifts and cards from friends and my sister including a silk floral arrangement, a necklace and earrings set, a video, and lotion.

I'm another year older and hopefully another year wiser. I'm looking forward to a terrific year!

More Christmas photos! SO FUN!

Our Christmas vacation

I'm having a hard time choosing which pictures to download to document our two week family Christmas vacation.

Here's what went on:

We all first met in Utah where we attended Addie's Christmas dance recital. William's sister, Melissa met us there. We laughed and had a wonderful time that night.

We drove to Island Park the next day, and our children met us there. Cecil, William's brother was very generous to let us use his four snowmobiles. Everyone had a great time riding them! We were grateful it snowed, and I was grateful it didn't snow too much so that the roads were safe and dry!

We spent a whole week with our children and grandchildren at our family cabin in Island Park. We had a very special and memorable time while together! We were all able to talk to Tanner on the phone on Christmas Day and that certainly was a highlight for us all. He's doing so well and we're so proud of him.

We were concerned and dependent on the Lord when my mother entered the hospital on Christmas Eve with great pain. She was put in the ICU on a major pain drip and two days later had emergency gall bladder surgery. I was able to be with her some in the hospital, and we are grateful she is recovering now! I was also grateful all our children were able to visit mom and see her.

A fun memory to share is that we cut down our Christmas tree in Island Park. It's a tree we'll always remember because it had two trunks and few branches, but a lot of pine cones! We decorated the tree with old fashioned decorations including stringed popcorn.

William's brother, Kreg and his wife Sue came to visit us at the cabin and William and Kreg had some bonding time in the snow!

Our family had a lot of fun playing "Minute to win it," "The Bubblegum game," "Zip, Zip, Bong" ( I won that one), and our traditional Christmas Bingo.

We cooked and ate delicious food. We watched movies, listened to Christmas music, and sat around and talked.

We made cookies, cocoa krispie gingerbread houses, and tortilla snowflakes. We drank lots of hot cocoa.

Sarah, our daughter-in-law took photos for our family and for each individual family. They were taken on our cabin's back porch. I can't wait to get them to post them.

We celebrated Jeffrey's, Ryan's and William's birthdays. Bart, William's brother invited us (and all other siblings) to his home to celebrate William's birthday and fed us pizza, birthday cake and ice cream. It was very kind!

We also visited Ron and Kari and Melissa at their homes and enjoyed being with them!

We spent a few days at William's parent's home and spent some wonderful times with them. We also visited with our sister-in-law Michele, and our nephew Bryan, although it was in the Idaho Falls hospital.

Overall, it was such a terrific vacation. Our children are getting older now and are wanting to have Christmas in their own homes, so we may not be together at Christmas for some time. So, this was especially wonderful!