Spring Flowers

 Here's our Front Flowerbed.  Later on the Irises will be in bloom, and the columbine and dianthus.

 But for now, in the early spring, it's tulips, and.....

Paperwhites, or narcissus.  These and the bigger tulips are a new addition, given to me for

 my birthday last fall. Damian & Tandy's family gave them to me.  Aren't they pretty?

A Visit to the Farm

 I have a really sweet co-worker who lives on a farm.  They raise mostly sheep for wool and meat.  She's open to having visitors, so that's what I did with the "in-town" grandkids on Friday afternoon.

 We met their horse.  J's a little confused about what animal does what command.  He told the horse to "SIT!"  Or, perhaps the horse just seemed a bit large to him.

 They have many cows.  That was a surprise to me. I thought they just had one milk cow.  One young calf chased a chicken across the pen.  The kids thought that was pretty funny to see a chicken squawking and flapping around to get out of the way of the playful calf.

 I mostly came to see the baby lambs, and they were nice enough to give the kids a bottle to feed the tiny little dogie lambs.  Awwww, how cute!

 Peek-a-boo, I see you!

We also watched the chickens, petted the dog, collected two eggs from the chicken house and petted one of the calves.  It was an eventful afternoon!  Thanks to  Susan and her sister (the one in the pictures is Susan's sister, Carolyn).

2012 Spring Fling

Yes, we did go to California for the Sorensen family Spring Fling. But first, we went to Las Vegas and crashed the Spring Break Vacation for Robert and Janet's family. They'd been there since Sunday, just relaxing and playing. We left Cedar Friday after work and got there in time to play some games in the evening with Sarah and Mandy and Robert and Janet. It was Sarah's 16th birthday! So we got cake and ice cream, too.

And Eric's just plain silly, getting ready to go to bed that evening. The following morning, we all went out to eat a the "Original Pancake House" restaurant. It was pretty good and still just as popular as it was when we ate out during "All Girl's Weekend" in the past. I love breakfast foods. We drove straight to Yucaipa, where Ken and Jeri hosted the get-together. There was no group photo taken, but I could name everyone there.

Here's me and my mommy:

Below is Aunt Maureen (seated), Mom, Aunt Tuny

Gina and Mary are puzzling over "Quiddler." Hey! That's what we played with Robert's family the night before!

In the kitchen we have our host, Ken, Uncle Gary, Kenny K....
And then there's Kenny K with Aunt Jean and Aunt Tuny.

Here's another group in the living room. and I don't know how to make it quit underlining. Left to right: Ella and Tandy, Suzie, Mary, Brenda, Kirk.

Another episode of Damian making a weird face for the camera. With Tandy and Eric.

Braeden's playing baseball in the back yard. They have apricots as big as, well, apricots! on their tree already. Small apricots. We have frozen blossoms all over our town!

Devin

Our hostess Jeri, Steve, Cousin Randy

Lexi's head with Devin pitching to Braeden

Braeden is just chillin' in the living room

Back at Damian's and Tandy's on Sunday, we just had to see how far Braeden could really whack the tennis balls down the street, so we went out after church. Tandy came out to pitch. Only she was in the midst of fixing dinner for us, and handed Eric that HUGE knife! He looked just a little threatening. ha.

Oops. One more out of order. Lexi and Avery at the get-together.

We're really glad we went! It was fun to see and visit with Everyone. Ken and Jeri are great hosts and their home is lovely. The food was delicious. Same with Damian and Tandy while we were there. Thanks, everyone!!

Hmmm. Left or Right?

I've been mulling over the two dresses (below) for about a week now. They are hanging on my closet doors, and I stare at them from the bed. Stare. I bought them from Sears (On-line, one of the most painless ways for me to shop) and they were both on sale. They are both "Royal Blue" I think. I liked the one on the left because I thought the jacket was cute and more "multi-purpose," meaning I could perhaps put a black skirt or something with it for Nick's wedding. The colors are blue and yellow, and Eric helpfully suggested that I take a yellow magic marker and color in all the white spots with yellow. Helpful? I don't think so.

So, then I got brave and tried them on. They are a size bigger than I "think" I am. They are a size bigger than I ought to be. So I sucked in my tubby tummy and modeled for Mike. Here's the solid blue one. It IS a pretty dress. It is much prettier on a shapely body (but not this body's shape). Mike is SOOOO encouraging. He said in 3 month's time, I can be in great shape!! I agree. I could be. But will I choose to be?! I think that requires getting up early and not eating what I like to eat. Mmmm. Not much of a chance, I think.
And below is the patterned one. I'm not sure the jacket will look good with a skirt. It may be short enough that it will look too chunky (Like I'm NOT?! )
Then, after all this, I remembered I have this blue sequined top (below) already in my closet and had forgotten all about it. It's very close to the right color. Sequins? For the mother of the groom? Probably a bit flashy.


So, send your votes to my g-mail account or comment on the blog. Love, MommaLinda

Happy Easter

Enjoy the videos on the LDS Church website!

http://www.lds.org/?lang=eng

Sleeping by the numbers

After sleeping for close to 30 years (Yes! 30 solid years!!) in a mushy water bed, and loving it most of the time, we have switched. It's not because I didn't like it any more. I still kind of miss it most nights. It's just that I enjoy sleeping with my spouse and HE couldn't tolerate the water bed any longer and was being driving out to the couch almost nightly when he could no longer stand the pain the water bed inflicted on his back or hips or shoulders.

Normal bed mattresses, even nice soft pillow-tops, gave me sore hips. We have a couple of kids who have purchased Sleep Number beds recently and like them, so Mike went shopping. Remember, I'm the one who does not like to shop. I looked at them online. I laid on Gail's bed and she adjusted it for me so I could see what it was like.

And that's what it has been--an adjustment. Mike chose a much fancier version than the basic model. But when he went to their store one time when he was out of town and looked it up, he really felt most comfortable on that one. He really fell sound asleep on the show room floor model (of course, he WAS a little sleep-deprived at the time!). So that's what we got. He did go along with my plan to keep our present bed frame. We kept the king size waterbed frame and headboard (which are shelves and such) so we didn't gain any space in our crowded little bedroom. But, we also didn't have to buy a frame, end tables, etc. to hold the new bed and all our stuff. I was kind of looking forward to having "under-bed" storage with a new bed, but decided that I'd rather just keep our bigger sized bed. We feel too squished and crowded in a queen to do that every night. Are we spoiled or what?! Maybe we are really just a whole lot fatter than we think we are! Yikes.

So, I'm still adjusting. I went through my pulled back muscle, and it was really nice to adjust the softness/hardness of the mattress as my back healed. I do NOT like how hot the bed feels, however. For some reason, the water bed just didn't seem to retain body heat in one spot. And with me and my warm/hot flashes. . .well, it's kind of toasty. There's more foam under me than I'm used to. Our water bed didn't have a foam mattress pad under us.

One of the things that the mattress we bought came with ("for FREE!!" Yeah, right.) was a king-size down-alternative comforter with a duvet cover. It is so nice. It's really great quality. But it's so hot. We just cannot tolerate it. We even opened our bedroom window one mild night. I'm wondering if it will be more usable in the winter, but our house is a fairly constant temperature. I just don't know what to do with it. It's white. And huge. It's classified as "light" weight, so I can only imagine how heavy and hot the "heavy" style one would be, had we selected that model! We'd sprain our arm trying to lift the covers to get out of bed in the morning! ha.