Aunt Tuny's Christmas Get-together 2010

Some Christmas Pictures

The decorating theme was a bit "off" this year. I kind of got behind and never quite caught up. That's a pumpkin on the window sill, along with Christmas pointsettias and gifts. And a tree, of course.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, oh so patiently on Christmas morning.
A new scooter!
I feel loved. I questioned whether or not to even send cards this year. I mean, really, does anyone even care any more? But I do! I LOVE getting cards. So I send cards. That BIG one on the bottom is really a card to Mike from a couple of his students.

A New CAR!
Katie and Casey decided to come to Cedar City and see family this Christmas. They arrived Christmas day in the afternoon and stayed in town until Monday. They spent time with Casey's family, too.
Hayden moves. Fast. All the time, I think. Plus, I'm still getting used to a new camera and not doing so well.
Katie, Nick, Mike's feet and Hayden.
Caroline wearing a "bow" in her hair.
Mike, Nick, Gail on sofa; Seth and Jonathan in background.

Zion, Dec 24.

Nick took me hiking on Christmas Eve. We went to Zion National Park in the morning. It was very cold. See the icicles hanging off the plants above the trail?
You could see your breath. There were not many people around when we started, but the parking lot at Weeping Rock and Observation Point trailheads soon filled up.
These pictures are not in order. Of course. I'm bloggerly challenged. This(above) is a shot that Nick took after we separated. You see, Nick was bound and determined to hike the Observation Point trail. However, partway up the 4 mile trek to the top, we found that water covered the trail. I decided not to cross it. Nick went ahead and removed shoes and socks, borrowed a walking pole from the fellow hikers who caught up with us at the stream crossing (he tossed it back to the fellow after wading across), and waded across freezing water that was way too fast and deep for MY tastes! I kind of have a bum hip right now and didn't relish the thought of going swimming in such cold weather. But he didn't get wet above the knees and just dressed again and headed on up the trail. Here I am below, watching him depart for the rest of the hike. I headed back to the car to study my Sunday Lesson.
Weeping Rock is usually just a weeping rock, maybe a trickle of a water fall. This was a Pouring, Roaring waterfall. I took a video, too, but will not attempt to insert it in the blog. I think I was pushing my luck to get one video posted from AGW. Sobbing Rock. Pouring Your Heart Out Rock. Not just weeping.
Below. Just one of the pretty scenes of why we love Zion National Park. It's just gorgeous.
Looking down into the river valley.
Nick, after removing shoes, socks, rolling up jeans and wading across the quickly-flowing and VERY cold stream.
This is MY version of an "Artsy" shot. The camera was set on the little wall at a switchback and I took a close-up of the teeny little pebbles that were being washed away from all the recent rain. I thought it looked like a little "Mars"-scape.
I love moss. It's one of my favorite things in nature. Nick's is water. I love water, too, but moss has it both! It's full of water this particular day. The water was all over the place, over the trail, running down stark rock cliffs, trickling down the stream beds and rumbling down the river.
Oh, Zion! Dear Zion! That's Angel's Landing in the fore front with the shadow upon it.
Nick walked 8 miles, I did about 3 to 4. But I don't think I was up to the full Hike. That amount was just fine until my hip is back to normal. (Darn Yoga moves!) ha.

Awwww

No Mexico. Nine days before we were to leave, the University administration canceled out Service Learning trip to Guaymas, Mexico. So sad. It seems that even the U.S. State department does not allow their employees or family members to cross any point of the US/Mexico border in any vehicles due to the dangers, so that means we shouldn't go, either.

It's fine in Guaymas. If we could just get ourselves there. Unfortunately, we don't have enough money to fly us all there and avoid the border crossing. And we don't know how to teleport or apparate.

That's the bad news. The good news is I have a week off! Yay! I've been home one day and accomplished a LOT of things on my list, set up a "wrapping station" for gift wrapping in my room, shopped for stuff, mailed some stuff, organized some stuff (like sweaters in my closet, but that was a good thing--they kept falling on my head every time I opened my closet door!). And I'm going to cook dinner tonight, too, and give Gail a little break.

I love being home.

Brrrrr

I just walked to work today. It's negative 2 degrees.

AGW Sillines

Why we enjoy our time together so much! These gals are just SILLY! And so much fun.
Thanks for a great time, ladies!

How to Gain Nine Pounds in Four Days

Attend All Girls Weekend in Las Vegas. Meet with family. Enjoy buffets and other good food and snacks in the room. Above is Thursday night's buffet at the Mirage hotel. MMmmm good!

I don't have a picture of it, but lunch on Friday with Jessica and Janet and Mom and Donna was at the Circus Circus Buffet. Above is Friday's dinner at the Mexican Restaurant somewhere nearby. Treasure Island, perhaps? They all look the same (casinos).

Below is Saturday morning's breakfast.... Who in their right mind eats a FOUR egg omelet??? Well, I had four scrambled eggs and potatoes and others had fruity waffles and we had pancakes and juice, and , and, and. This is the "Original Pancake House." Good home cookin'.
Saturday evening we went to the Sahara Nascar Cafe for the MAN VS FOOD challenge. That's one big burrito. Of course, Donna did NOT eat the whole thing. We all helped and STILL could not finish it. I ate it for lunch at home on Tuesday the next week. And Wednesday. Really. I enjoy left-overs for lunch and it WAS very tasty.
Oh, but that's not all. I had my own small breakfast in my room on Sunday morning after I took Mom and Donna to the airport bright and early. Then I went out to lunch with Aunt Tuny and girls to In 'n' Out burger. THEN we had dinner that night at Chili's. Ugh! Roll me out the door!

But Wait! There's more! I bought fast food on my way home Monday morning early AND Krispy Kreme donuts. Of course, I got a free fresh one. But who stops at just one? Not people like me who have no will power. So I had donuts on the way home, too. There WERE still enough to share by the time I got to Cedar City, so I didn't eat them all.

So, in a nutshell, that is how I managed to gain 9 pounds over the course of a long and delicious, er, I mean DELIGHFUL All Girl's Weekend! And that is why I have walked 8,000 steps so far today. :-) It's gotta start some time. Oh, wait. Thanksgiving is in a few days....
Oh well.

All Girls Weekend, 2010

We were a small group. Tandy, Suz, Sandi, Aunt Tuny, Mom, Donna, me, Janet, Jessica. I missed having my girls there this year. We stayed at the Trump. Nice.
Me and Tandy. She stayed for a short time. Arrived on Thursday evening and we four went out to eat. She left Friday morning to head to Cedar City/ Kanarraville to check on her mom. Pam broke her ankle earlier in the week. Tandy and I look like we could be related, huh? I'll keep her.
This seems to be a running theme for our meetings. Suz and her holey socks. And this was before we'd done much walking at all! ha. We had such a fun time visiting in the room on Friday evening afternoon/evening.
Friday MORNING was such a highlight, though. After Tanday left, and Janet and Jessica were sleeping in, Donna, Mom and I headed over to Hoover Dam and the new bridge. It was very impressive. Donna and I walked up to an over look over the dam but Mom waited in the car. Then Mom decided she wanted to go on a helicopter ride OVER the bridge, dam and lake! So we all three did! Such fun. Such fantastic views. Donna's blurry, but the scenery was crystal clear from where we were. The ride was all of 6 minutes, but very memorable and fun. It's hard to take it all in because you want to look everywhere at once.

I was lucky and got to sit in the front next to the pilot and the floor is clear. Talk about thrilling. You can kind of tell by the W I D E grin, huh? ;-)
Here's our chopper. Small, reliable company (or so they said, and we believed them), they fly at 800 feet, so we're pretty close to everything there is to see.
This is a great shot Donna took as we drove down to the visitor's center area. O'Callaghan Tillman Bridge is the name. Very impressive size. Beautiful. The ride across it is NOT beautiful, however. You cannot even tell you are on the bridge because the side walls are so high. Safety first.
Isn't this spectacular? I love the shadow of the bridge on the dam. Look how low the water in Lake Mead is! That's quite a bathtub ring around it.
If you look closely on the bridge, you can see me. I'm standing by the railing, raising my hand, waaaay down the sidewalk. It's quite the view down below.
The rest of Friday was spent meeting with Janet and Jessica for lunch at the Circus Circus Buffet. Then Donna and I each went to the SPA at the Trump and had a one hour massage. We felt pretty nice after that. Later that night, we all went out for Mexican food together. I actually skipped that meal and just had the chips and salsa. Mom, too. We were still full from lunch!

Here we are on Saturday morning, meeting for Breakfast. We ate at this pancake house some years ago for breakfast and had a lot of fun. And a lot more food, too! The table was plenty full this time around as well. Tandy and Suzi were experimenting with camera settings so Suz could figure out how to blur backgrounds, etc. Tandy does a good job with her photos, so she was using me and Donna as guinea pigs as we sat chatting while waiting for our table to be prepared. There was a little topiary plant next to us, and Tandy just kept snapping and snapping away at the two of us, trying different settings. I think people nearby must have thought Donna and I were celebrities since we were having our pictures taken so much. ha
Saturday night was the food challenge. We worked up to this big meal by shopping at the outlet mall or other shops, I swam laps in the pool. Donna and Janet left after eating and they saw "Love" at the Mirage. We watched home movies Mom had converted from 8mm to VHS to DVD and it was so fun to see all those! We will each get a copy. Fun stuff. Little Sandi on her blessing day, Mom as a bride, family vacations, Suz as a teenager visiting the farm in Texas. There was a wide variety. I can't wait to show them to my family/kids. They will get a kick out of some of those.
Sunday morning early I took Mom and Donna to the airport. Then I came back to our room to have a nap, eat a bite ("Why?!" you might ask.), wait for Aunt Tuny's room to get up. Janet and Jessica said goodbye that morning, too, and headed to Provo. I spent the rest of the day with Aunt Tuny, Sandi and Suz. They wanted to see the Dam and the Bridge, too, so I went along for the ride and the cousins took the helicopter ride! Aunt Tuny does not like heights or rides, so she and I waited for them, enjoying the nice mild day. The main difference between when I went there on Friday with Mom and Donna was that there was NO traffic and we breezed on out there. Sunday, there was a LOT of traffic and it was slow going. We drove across the dam to take pictures, and also meandered through the old town of Boulder City, too.
I spent Sunday afternoon and evening with them, we stopped at Walmart, went out to eat (Uncle Gary's treat for his girls, but I was just tagging along, so THANKS, Uncle Gary!), then back to our room for more home movies, visiting, a little time in the jetted tub (below). I headed home early Monday morning so I could be at work by 1 pm. And I made it. I was kind of sleepy the rest of the day, but it was so worth it! Thanks, everyone, for coming!
This is a huge tub in our rooms. They were all this big, as we all had upgraded rooms because Donna's reservation was "lost." We benefited. The video of these girls is hilarious. I wish I could post it, but I'm technologically challenged. Use your imagination. They are a hoot, those gals.

Sisters (Linda and Donna)
Sisters (Sandi and Suzi)
Sisters ( Aunt Tuny and Mom)

Finished product

I told Donna I wanted to make a fall wreath, as I have in past years. And I did. I was out walking one morning and couldn't resist picking up the bright-colored leaves. I pressed them for about a week in some heavy books at work (Periodical Indexes ARE good for something in 2010.Ha). I bought another straw wreath, as I had tossed my previous one after having used it for several years. Mike found me some more staples--and Voila! A fall wreath. Real leaves, made with real love. I usually make one with mostly yellow leaves, but the red ones were just so vivid. There are still a lot of yellow leaves around and I'm tempted to make another. But I'll resist. This one's hanging on my front door and will be until I take it down for Christmas decos in December. It's my one and only crafty thing I can and will do. Other than sewing--which hasn't happened in a good long time!
Tandy and Kids came up in mid-October. It was Caroline's 9th birthday and also happened to be SUU's homecoming weekend. We went to the parade. Tandy and Gail took about 100 pictures. I took this one, and one of grumpy Ella. The people NOT in the picture are Grandma Liebhardt, Gayela, Gail, Jonathan and me. We were a formidable crowd, as usual. ;-) Oh, Grandma brought a couple of extra kids, too! (her home teacher's youngest two)

We have a WINNER!

www.cedarlivestockfest.com/gallery

Click on the link to see (past) photos of the Cedar City Heritage and Livestock Festival. It's fun. It's very small-town, it's rural. It's unique.

And Mike and friends are right in the big middle of it all! He has participated in the "People's Choice Dutch Oven Cook Off" for the past two years. He and friends cook up tons of food, serve it to total strangers who caste votes for favorite dishes -- and there are many to choose from-- and then this year they got to bask in the glory of being the overall winners! Their foods received the most votes from all the people. It WAS close, but still. It was a nice honor for them. Last year they worked their buns off and toiled very hard but didn't win a lot of prize money (which isn't a great deal, compared to the time and effort put into the thing). So this year was sweet.

Congratulations Mike and all your buddies! Can't wait till next year. He'll be warming up by cooking several dozen fruit cobblers in November for the Cedar City Birthday party. I'll be in Las Vegas. . .but if you're in Cedar be sure to come by for a good time--dancing and entertainment and food on November 11 from 8:30 to 11 pm in the SUU Ballroom. Fun times. Dutch oven cooking is alive and well in Southern Utah.

Fall

A college campus in the fall--nothing better, right? RIGHT! I love it here. I love my job. I love fall. I took the library's camera out on a little break this afternoon and snapped a few pictures.

I first began blogging about this same time of year...well, summer time anyway, three whole years ago. My how times flies when we're having fun! I think time flies even when we are NOT having fun, but then, I'm just getting kind of old. :-)


A favorite walk of mine (below). I take it almost daily on my way to take the daily deposit to the cashier's office. These maple trees are all shades of reds and yellows this year. I don't remember them being so vibrant. Of course, this picture doesn't do it justice. This is looking east toward the Centurium statues, for those of you familiar with campus.
The one below is actually taken from the window that's by my desk. I don't actually SEE that view because my back is to the window and it's way up on the wall. So, when I stood on a chair to take the photo, my co-worker gave me an odd look.. . . I just left her wondering. ha.

However, I DO see this little scene every time I return to my work station after helping a person at the front desk. It just makes me smile. :-) I mean, really--what's not to like about glowing leaves shining through the brisk fall air--right into my face. So what if there was snow on the mountain the other morning (it has since melted away from our immediate view), and my pretty tropical plants are traumatized because I left them out on the front porch too long? It's Fall! I get to ride my bike through crunchy leaves on my commute to and from work each day.

Caroline and I have been on walks a couple of evenings this week and we noticed the smell of wood-burning stoves and fire places. I had to tell her why it smelled like "fire?" I think she was alarmed, initially. It reminds us of the summer when there have been (not this year, thankfully) forest fires burning nearby.

Happy Fall, everyone. Oh, and I happen to love the food aspects of this season, too. Especially chocolate Halloween candy . . .candy corn. . . then Thanksgiving, etc. (Oooh, I can feel the pounds piling on already!)