Tuacahn's "Frozen" by Disney

 

Yeah, I know. It's usually "Disney's Frozen." Tandy had an extra ticket so she invited me. 105 heat in  St. George. Outdoor theater in a concrete amphitheatre. Lots of little kids. Over an hour away. Start time 9 pm. 

I had to think about it, but decided to tag along. It was so worth it. Great production! Magnificent seats!!!

We stopped and ate dinner together at Iceberg.  There were just 19 of us. I only ordered a corn dog and water. I'd decided to PRE hydrate prior to the show and I'm glad I did!  However, as others got there food, I ended up eating far more than just my corn dog. The serving sizes there are way ridiculous. HUGE. A so-called shake is really just 3 1/2 cups of soft serve ice cream. Good flavors. Raspberry Oreo was what all their family selected. I tasted Damian. I helped Pam eat her fries. I shared ONE of Tandy's onion rings with Pam. Like I said-- it was A HUGE SLICE of fried onion. Then Pam and I both helped Colleen eat her caramel "Shake." We were amazed at how much ice cream those kids and others ate. 

Damian said goodbye after dinner and headed to Las Vegas airport and his red eye flight home.

The theater wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be! It should have been 99 at 9 and 10 pm, but there was a breeze that helped it to be tolerable. Yes, we all had sweaty butts, but it could have been waaaay worse!  Such a fun production. Talented actors, great set and costumes. We loved it. It is certainly easily ADA accessable and Colleen was probably really done in by the end of walking down stairs and finding elevators, which were kind of far away from seats... But she managed. 

Tandy drive me home and I was in bed by 12:30 . Not bad. Thanks for a great time, Tandy and gang!

Happy Independence Day!

 Mike and I enjoyed breakfast on the deck...so lovely in the summer. We attended the Cedar City Lions parade and Park festivities. Had a good visit with a few friends. 

Came home and had a nap!

Earlier in the morning I froze/ churned ( it's an electric ice cream maker, not like I was hand-cranking it!!) two batches of cherry-chocolate ice cream. Yummy. And I made a macaroni salad.

Damian stopped in for a visit while making fireworks preparations. 

I sewed a pretty July Tablecloth. May through August, actually. Memorial Day thru Labor Day. Gail helped me with the requisite math. I'm getting really rusty with that stuff. And she designed a table runner I can make with the scraps, for those days when a full tablecloth isn't necessary.

We took our foods and picked up my Mom around 5 and drove to Kanarraville for dinner at around 6:30 pm. Gail and her kids came. Eric and Matt came. Damian and Lexi flew in for just 2 days.  Lots of Tandy's cousins were there in Kanarraville, we had a grand feast. Tandy and crew did Dutch Oven chicken potatoes and there were beans and salads, rolls, etc. 

Only Caroline and Johnny stayed for the fireworks. As I'm typing this late on Thursday night, I can hear lots of fireworks and quite a few sirens, sadly. It's terribly dry here.  It took extra long to irrigate my garden in Wednesday morning. The soil was just so parched and thirsty. But our front lawn is still nice and green! 

Happy Fourth!

Pam, Ella, Marilyn 

to

Cheesy Dutch Oven potatoes. Cooked to perfection.

New Shoulder for Mike 6/20/2024

 It's time for Mike's LEFT shoulder to be replaced. We arrived at hospital at 7:15 a.m., he went in for surgery around 9:30. Dr Allen checked in with me around 11:45 saying that Mike had done well, they'd had to shave off some really big bone spurs ( no wonder he's had such little range of motion and so much pain!), but he'd come through surgery okay and things looked good.

Mike spent over TWO HOURS in the recovery area. He did NOT want to wake up. His blood pressure was quite low, so they had to address that with some medication from the anesthesiologist...I could hear his nurse speaking to him quite loudly down the hall, and after such a long wait, I was beginning to be concerned.. 

Eventually he made it back to his 'room' ( a cubby with curtains) where we worked really hard to get him really awake enough to go home. 

We were home by 2:45. He went straight to sleep, of course.

Later, I went to get him some prescriptions at Smith's. When I came back, David was here! With Mom. Nice surprise. David is on his way to Reno. He had taken Mom out to have Mexican food, and they went to Sizzler on Friday and David drove on to Reno/Carson City on Saturday. It was fun to see him for a bit. He stayed here.

Mike's nerve block wore off on Saturday. He's done really well with pain management overall. The antibiotic has been rough on his tummy, however. 

He does not like wearing the sling. At all. Seldom does, which is a worry to me. But he is good about icing thw surgical site. No fever, he is taking blood thinner ( baby aspirin) and walking around regularly. He stayed home from church on Sunday.

Now we just need to regulate the sleeping to happen at NIGHT and not during the day. 

Nerve blocks are wonderful.

And I picked peas! I got this many on Sunday morning. Eric and Matt came over for a salmon dinner on Sunday afternoon. My Mom came, too. I made everyone shell peas before I would serve dessert. My thumbs simply cannot handle it. 

And the carrot cake was delicious and worth the labor of love. Even Pam enjoyed the cake when she had a taste on Monday. She brought lunch over on Monday the 24th, sweetheart. KFC. Yummy. And left all the leftovers.

I went over to Janet Seegmiller's on Saturday evening to pick cherries. I picked two full grocery bags. They SEEMED ripe, but Mike won't even eat them. Too tart and not ripe enough, sadly. Plus, his tummy is upset.  I found him some probiotics and bought yogurt for him. He was able to enjoy a chicken leg today, so that's good.

Check out the damage done to the marigolds I planted-- even the NEW ones purchased by the Funke's. Stupid bugs.

June Hike 6/22/2024

 Navajo Lake Loop Trail.

I have never been on that hike before! So pretty!

And it was a loop, but we did NOT loop. I can only do about 5 miles in these old hips, so we walked about 2 1/2 miles down the trail, then came back the same way.

Six women hikers, two dogs. 

June 22, 2024. Pictures to follow.

On the 21st, I attended Susan Christopher 's retirement party at the library. Nice to visit with old friends. They are having to hire a new Circulation Coordinator. Again. Poor folks. Not my monkey, not my circus!

We also had a lovely dinner at our house with Keenan and Jeannine Hart on Wednesday June 19. Mike fixed us some yummy Salmon! We were celebrating Keenan's retirement after 44 years of teaching.

Part of the trail meanders through quaking Aspen, part through pines.

Part of the hike meanders through the lava beds on the end of the lake.

The lake was glassy smooth that morning. 

All the white areas up in the lava rocks are columbine flowers! 

Columbine and elderberry. We also saw a lot of currant bushes that were flowering.

Bluebells!

So many perfect little Christmas Trees.

Few of my wildflower photos turned out good enough to print and make into cards, unfortunately. That was my intention when I took so many! 

There was a trail that led down to the earthen dike. But it (the dike) does not span the entire width of the lake. Apparently they made a concrete causeway/opening of some sort on the other side. It's too wide to step or jump across, unfortunately. Otherwise we could have made the loop by going OVER the lake.

I think Navajo Lake might be spring-fed. These lagoon-looking circles appear to be springs. Maybe?

Three dragonflies on a limb.

Indian Paintbrush.

The two dogs really loved playing in the water for a bit.

The water was so clear!

This is Penny and her dog, Lawrence. Which Disney character does he remind you of?

Day Three

 

Six Chinook salmon, maxing out our limits of Salmon to take home from this trip. One flounder and one black bass. We lost some biggies off the hook, and we tossed back a small ling cod. 

So many"Double-Headers," too. That means that both poles have a bite, so the reelers have to do a bit of a dance to keep lines from becoming entangled, the guide works hard coaching both fisher-people, and hauling in the fish, AND someone has to keep the boat going straight. ( My job😊). It was a fun morning of fishing, though we did lose a few big ones that got away.

Oh, and if we thought yesterday's sea was rough, today surpassed it by a LONG way! Another foot of high seas and waves and our captain would have turned back. Tides turning, storm weather coming or going, plus wind made for a rough passing through one of the Channels. Whew. BIG swells. HUGE splashes. BIG surf. But not scary. At first. I couldn't take any pictures cuz I was hanging on. The first part of the ride out to our spot was smooth...but only that part.  Then it got rough. But where we were trolling was not too bad. We did have to watch the angle of their boat with the swells and waves, but it was okay. Ish

 

It's crazy how quickly things change. The ride back was oh-so-smooth. We saw whales spouting, plenty of birds were hanging about in the fishing area. As were four or five other fishing boats, trolling for Salmon. We saw quite a large number of Sea Otters and they are so cute. It is such rugged country up there in Vancouver Island, BC. 

Through all of this, Jessica never got really really seasick! We were so grateful for that, as she tends to be that way, and we did encounter some very rough seas.

*********

We had the fish processed, drove around town a bit, got our ferry ticket, shopped for some smoked salmon in their shop, picked up the mostly NOT frozen fish, and hit the road.

We drove as far as Issaquah, WA on Wednesday night, found a dumpy hotel at 1 am Thursday, slept, then drove home to Cedar City by about 1:00 am on Friday. 

Long trip.

Friday afternoon,  we divvied up the the fish

The Funke's headed to Salt Lake on Friday morning while we slept in, and returned on Sunday afternoon. We said goodbye to them on Monday. Sunday? I don't know. My days are all a jumble. But it was sure good of them to house sit for us and water the plants.