Celebrating Matt and Eric -- 10 Years

 Sunday the fifth was the start of our Liebhardt Family Reunion. Mike and I started the day by attending Sacrament Meeting at 9 am with the 20th Ward. It was Fast Sunday, an Officially proclaimed Worldwide Day of fasting and Prayer for freedom of religious freedom, as proclaimed by our Prophet, Dallin H Oaks. 

Then it was time to prepare for our big gathering at the Zion Ponderosa Resort. We had a lot of packing to do and everything headed up there in MANY vehicles. We were checked in by about 3 pm and got to work! My Mom came with me and watched all the chaos of unpacking, food prep, table and chair cleaning, quick hugs, kids exploring and screaming. And shuttling cars, people, and satisfying the fire marshall.

The rented tables and chairs were quite dirty and Mike and family worked hard to get them all set up and spiffy clean.  MANY coolers of ice and drinks were sorted and organized. So many drinks! ( SO much booze!-- and only a handful of drinkers.)

There had been a lot of drama with Eric, Matt, Family, friends ( many of whom cancelled THAT DAY), causing much grief and sadness, tears and frustration for the two of them. Deep breaths, men! It will all be okay.  

But family DID come, some from HOURS away, and we were so glad. Folks mingled outside doing a bingo game while we continued to prep the kitchen and food for the dinner. Here are some shots I took of the gathering from one of the bedroom balconies. Just over 50 were in attendance. . .possibly more. 

 There was brown craft paper on the tables with writing/drawing tools for messages. Beautiful floral arrangements. They had a "Welcome " table with wedding photos printed on metal set up and a box of Lego figurine parts to assemble and keep one for yourself. 

The Get To Know You Bingo game was good for getting folks to mingle. 

The main dinner was catered by the local place and, as before, was HUGE.  Unfortunately, there was no peach cobbler for dessert ( they substituted cheesecake), so Eric and Matt brought lots of vanilla ice cream for nothing. . .except our personal enjoyment, of course. Eric and Matt added meat and cheese and fruit trays, too. Fancy fruit-infused water drinks. A bit of prep work was required and we had so little time to do it!

Emm-Cee ( MC? ) Eric

A smiling Matt

Nick with Jane and Logan

Tandy, Braeden and Ella

Seth and Lexi

Two of Matt's sister-in-Law.

Matt's Aunt, her friend, and Casey

Mike and my Mom.

The friend table! Plus family.

Katie and Hailey

I didn't get a picture of Tina Garcia and Monica Marchant, cousins who came ( Jannae's daughters). Nor did I take a photo of the food spread, but it was huge. I'll try to find a pic to add later. 

Eric had a bit of a cute program, they played one game, they cut and served cake. They forgot to do their toast, they forgot to had out the carefully prepared party favors ( hand selected taffey) and part two of the LEGO figurines -- the base. Oh well. We DID share a whole bunch of the leftover food with Matt's family. And some friends. 

And then we had to scurry and put the remaining food in the fridge. SO much food! 

The happy couple.

A Lego cake. It's yummy!

The shoe game. So cute.

Matt's nephews. One is named Quintin and is also 10.

Matt's sister and husband?

I was busy in the kitchen with Gail and didn't do the get acquainted game, so am still fuzzy about Matt's family.  But Eric did introductions of all the family members and knew almost every name in order of all Matt's family, his siblings and their children. We were very impressed!

My Mom, Damian and Lexi watching the show game.

I think Eric and Matt had a nice time in the end, after a very rough start of their day. I know we all had a fun, full day and a great meal and got to see and meet more of Matt's family and saw several of their close friends. 

Happy Fourth!

 Kids started gathering at our house and in Kanarraville. We are having a family reunion! Yay!

But first-- the Fourth. This is America's 250th. July 2nd Mike and I watched the new from Angel Studios film,'Young Washington." It was really good. Then on the third, Mike and I saw a stage production of the musical, "1776," just to get us MORE in the mood! It was good, too, and we actually knew two of the local thespians participating in Cedars newest theater company. 

The Kanarraville parade was it's usual short self. Pam was riding a float this time! But the program, organized by our own Tandy, was simply the best. Lots of participation, held in the old Town Hall as per tradition of so many years. Cute kiddos, a funny skit, a clarinet solo by Lexi. Mom came, but we left a bit earlier than the end due to a coming lunch time. Meals are crazy on the Fourth, which isn't great for 91-year-old diabetics. 

And the feast hosted at Pam's house in the evening was superb. Tandy and crew did yummy Dutch Oven potatoes and Chicken. Other sides. And Tammy Christensen 's rolls were to DIE for! Yummy.

Fireworks were at Cedar High.  The wildfires are still blazing throughout the west, so there was no choice but to do them in the safest designated spot.

We hear they were great, but Mike and I had free tickets for "She Loves Me," a musical at Utah Shakespeare Festival. All ushers were offered 2 free tickets, so I got us two. It was so cute. Also during the Cedar City Parade they offered ANYBODY tickets for the play that night for $17.76, which is also a phenomenal price! Still, the theater was very empty. Most folks were watching fireworks. Our play didn't end until 10:45 pm and Damian's extravaganza was completed. We were sad to miss it. Gail and Seth also missed it because Tuacahn was offering ticked for Les Mis for about $25. Also a good deal hard to pass up. 

Happy 250 years, America, Land of the free and Home of the Brave.

Travel Time!

 

We have a couple of fun trips coming up. First one is our family reunion up at the Ponderosa Ranch Resort. There will be a fun reception and dinner for Eric and Matt on Sunday night the 5th. The 6th 7th and 8th all of the Liebhardts will still be there, after the Davis's have gone home on Sunday night. We plan to play Kahoots, lots of bingo, some Favorite Things exchanges, three meals a day, pickleball, swimming, a family portrait. It's going to be a busy two full days! Because that's really  all it is -- two full days and three nights. I wondered why my credit card bill was so humongously large, like more than twice as much as it ordinarily is, even with a lot of travel and other expenses on it. It dawned on me as I read through the list of charges that the cost of that vacation rental was on at this time. Or at least half of it. Half of it I paid last year. And all the rest of it is paid now. That is a big relief. All of our kids are taking care of all of the meals. And they have to get themselves there. It's going to be a fun time. 

Right on the heels of that fun time, Mike and I will be driving to San Diego with our granddaughter,  Rachel. We are going to attend the San Diego Temple open house. We will also maybe go to Belmont amusement park on Mission Beach, view the seals at La Jolla beach, see the Mormon battalion historical village in San diego. And that's about all the time we will have there! It's a long drive down and back. We will get home probably Saturday night. And then we will drive up to Harriman to take Rachel home. I suppose if we hurried we could be back to our own church by 1:30 p.m. on Sunday but I don't know if we want to do that. It does seem a little bit rude to drop off Rachel at her home and then take over her bed, however. That is,  if we did spend the night there. Haven't planned that yet. 

But what I have planned is our anniversary trip to the east coast. Today I purchased airline tickets, car rental, and the Boston hotel room. I had already purchased the Buffalo and Niagara Falls area hotel. I think things are shaping up quite nicely! I started a new credit card and the early spring about in March. I've gotten enough points that it got the airfare for us free, and a big chunk of the car rental, too. That was a big savings. And then Mike's credit card also offered him a $250 rebate for travel expenses if we reserved the hotel through his credit card website. So, We did. Now he will get $250 off of his next credit card bill. Savings all around! The 75, 000 free points at the onset of the card were very helpful. We just had to spend x amount of dollars over the first 3 months of having the card and the points were ours. We switched over some of our regular higher auto pay things to that card and it really helped a lot. 

So, a-traveling we will go! And for a bit less money than we thought we'd have to spend. We still have to buy food, entertainment, etc. but it will be fun and we are getting very excited for September and our 50th Wedding Anniversary.

June 26, 2026 Ward ( non) Campout

 We didn't camp, but we went for dinner out at the Three Peaks Recreation Area. They really have done a lot of improvements out there to the camping areas. I don't know that anyone stayed to camp, though a few did come prepared to do so. It was pretty windy. We did have to hold onto our plates! 

There were probably 30 to 50 people who were there, including kids. It was a fun and friendly group. 

Mike making cobbler, two different kinds.

There was plenty of food. Lots of sloppy joes and lots of sides and desserts. Mike made 2 cobblers and most was eaten. He was supposed to do a demo of how to do Dutch oven cobbler, but even charcoal needs flames to get going. Since there is a huge wildfire risk, we baked them in our very safe electric ovens at home, instead. 

The view from three peaks of Cedar City and the valley. Lovely. Today we don't have smoke.

But we sure had a lot in the air earlier this week!

 Visibility was awful on Tuesday. We drove to New Harmony that even for Boyd and Carol Fife's 50th wedding anniversary celebration. There were less than 100, but many were their family. And they included us. How kind. We really had an enjoyable time celebrating with everyone and enjoyed their childrens' talents. So fun. 

Then we went back out to New Harmony on Friday evening for one of their grandson's wedding reception. That was great fun, too. We left and even dropped off a very tired 16 year old Grandson at his home in Cedar afterwards. Ezra Rock had just returned from Trek AND camp, back-to-back. He said he had 20 min from when he walked in the door to shower, dress, and be ready to walk out the door. The kid was very ready to be home and not at a big party. So we obliged. 

I took the picture from the smokey freeway as we were head down to New Harmony Tuesday. I think the smoke was worse on the north end of town. Crazy bad smoke. 

I subbed in the Temple Office that morning and we could smell it all through the building. Not good.

On Saturday, the air was clear, and I forgot my phone or I would have taken a photo of the Kolob 5 fingers from their yard . It was lovely. Windy, but nice. 

The wind has been so awful, fanning the fires throughout our state. It's tragic, truly. The Cottonwood Fire near Beaver is particularly awful.

The West is ablaze.😭

Lily

 

Donna brought me these lilies from her house. They came from Dad's house in Georgia. They kind of struggle here in our desert climate, so I'm happy when one blooms.  It's a double day Lily.