June 2025

 We are still enjoying ( kind of) plenty of radishes from the garden, plenty of lettuce, and never enough spinach. Granted, it IS hot and spinach is more of a cool weather plant. But I NEVER get big Texas-sized leaves. Just baby spinach. But it is good! 

Today, Mike and I enjoyed lunch out on the deck. SOOOOO pleasant. 

Last night, Monday June 9, we went to the first dress rehearsal for the Greenshow at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They needed an audience, so we obliged. Along with a couple of hundred other nice folks. This is Another favorite way to spend part of the evening here in good ol' Cedar City. Yes, I'm ushering again this year. Mike said he might be willing to substitute on occasion. No photos of that. But watch for us in their promo videos. We might be in them!

Saturday  was a lazy day, but Cindy Williams came by to see if I'd be willing to go Floating with her for an hour at the Lake at the Hill

 So we did! Cool, comfortable, nice way to visit and chat away the late afternoon. And I wasn't doing much, anyway. Just reading for Book club later this week.

Last Friday, Mike and I attended the Utah Summer Games opening Ceremonies. Great crowd! Lots of fun stuff and superior fireworks display---which my Mom SLEPT through! I couldn't believe it! Granted, she was at her home, asleep in bed, but they would have woken ME up!!

Flags surround the field for the parade of athletes ,  and many, many sponsors, all of whom were flinging swag up into the stands. DUCK!

ATHletes out on the field during Brookes and Dunn Tribute Band concert. 

 

Today is only the 10th. We've had a busy first week and a half. Gayela concluded her visit to Utah and we took her to the St George Airport to fly home to Aurora, CO. And Mike and I stopped by Cold Stone for ice cream while down there. Yummy. 

I've played Pickleball a few times, too. We actually had a good exercise workout-- I was sweaty! We had a birthday party on Monday. Shirley is 77. I want to be like Shirley when I grow up.

I helped a bit with Relief Society at Our House the first Wednesday . It's our Ward's turn to assist with Sunday and other LDS services there---like weekday Relief Society meetings.  Mike and I will be speaking in Sacrament meeting on Sunday, Father's Day.  And between the two of us, Mike and I worked or served in the temple for MANY hours last week.  26 hours to be exact. A lot of subbing for others was done so we can be gone in weeks to come-- Fishing in Florida in July, and our cruise with Donna and friends in September/ October.

Spring has sprung, Summer is almost upon us.

One rose is from my back yard. I'm always fighting aphids. The others I snitched from over the wall at Levi's. So pretty!

The Garden begins

 

It's just the beginning. A few baby radishes, some (volunteer) lettuce leaves, and a pile of baby spinach. 

Memorial Day, 2025. Mike and Gayela ( Who has been here for a little over a week) decorated  graves up north last week while Mike took Gayela to SLC to spend time with her kids and attended a HS graduation for Mason, her grandson. He took these pretty yard flowers to my Dad's grave.

 And then ON memorial Day, Nick took his family to the Veterans cemetery.

I made some new red, white and blue decks for the front door Wreath. I think they need some adjustments.

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, we drove to St. George and visited with Lowell And April Penrod. Mike and Lowell have known each other since they were 12.  It was a nice visit. 

We are so blessed. 

So VERY blessed.

♥️♥️♥️

We have our health, great kids who love us and each other...it's a good life that we have. Truly.

My lowest GOLF score

 Ever! I've never done so well! 

May RS birthday dinner

 It was my turn to host the birthday dinner for RS Ladies in the 17th ward who have birthdays in the month of May...and those who were unable to attend during an earlier month.

I made salads and we had a salad bar. Yummy! Hot German Potato Salad, regular picnic potato salad,fruit platter, veggies with dip, Strawberry Jello Salad, pasta salad, rolls, rhubarb cake for dessert.  Water to drink. Eight people were here. Gayela joined us, as she is here for a bit.

The peonies are gorgeous.

As are the irises! 

Sunday and home! May 11, 2025

 We have been on the road a LOT this past week! But now we are home and happy to be here. Except that it's really, really windy. 

We spent Saturday night in Gallup, New Mexico, at a Red Roof Inn that was pretty comfy. Before we found a hotel, we decided to grab dinner at McDonalds. You know, I think our picnic meals was better than that meal at McDonalds. There was much to NOT like! But that was the ONLY meal we purchased on this trip. We ate at Damian for two to three meals, out to eat in College Station once, Damian's treat. We ate at the Jaixen's in Ft. Worth. All the rest were picnics and snacks. But they were GOOD picnics!

 OUR room was comfortable. Poor Pam got the short end of the deal with practically NO water pressure ( ours was like a waterfall in the shower!) and squeaky floorboards overhead and people walking across them. All. Night. Long. There were incredibly loud motorcycles going up and down the street that woke me a couple of times, too.  We were tired and went to bed kind of early. I was awakened about every time I turned over and have been battling a very sore and stiff neck...which has now moved to my upper back, too. Hard Pillows? Too much sitting? I'm not sure, but I DO know that I have been taking more ibuprofen and Tylenol the last two days of this trip than Mike has, and that's very unusual. 

We drove thru lots of reservation lands on Sunday and stopped at the Four Corners Monument. It's fixed up quite a bit, lots of room for lots of tourists and lots of venders. I bought a magnet. We took some pictures.

We didn't stop for anything else but gas, water and pop, and potty breaks. And at Lone Rock for a photo of Lake Powell. 

Lone Rock

 There IS water out there, but it is way down...the ranger said it is 70% down. 

One of the options in Google Photos as I'm editing ( mostly just cropping) is to "adjust the sky color." Why would I want to do that?!?! It is GORGEOUS just the way it is. We have truly been blessed with the most lovely weather on this drive. And beautiful wildflowers, too!

We had plenty of snacks in the car ( healthy ones, too... Not that we ate any of those😉). It was Mother's Day and Mike wanted to stop and buy us [and him] ice cream as a treat, but most places were closed, or it was a busy restaurant... So we drove on. And on. And on. 

And now we are happy to be back to our own home to find all well here❤️. Great trip!

Saturday, heading on home...still...

 Are we there yet? 

Yummy breakfast of those Texas Shaped waffles.😀

Drive, Drive, Drive.

Snack. Eat. Drive. Stop. Stretch. Pee.

Picnicked at a roadside area and had tuna sandwiches, chips, avocado and orange juice, with Oreos for dessert. We've had some very nice meals on this trip

And we stopped on Famous Route 66 to see the Cadillac Ranch. (Stupid. Dumb. But we took pictures anyway.)

The clouds were pretty.

Huh? 

Yeah, well, even though it wasn't on THEIR bucket list, they can still check it off. Haha

It had rained a lot recently and the parking lot was closed. 

We drove as far as Gallup, checked in at the Red Roof Inn after a dinner at McDonalds.

Friday, another travel day

 We didn't leave horribly early, but we DID have a lovely breakfast. Again. [Trips are about food, right?]

We were heading to Plano, Texas on Friday to visit with my old college Roommate, Diane Howell Palfreyman Hodnett and meet her husband Tom. We got to visit for two hours in their lovely home there in Plano. 

Our next visit was with David Autrey at Michael and Toni Jaixen's home in Ft. Worth. 

We visited, toured all the new and beautiful updates to their home, enjoyed the fabulous ribs meal Toni made for the six of us.

AND I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO OF ANY OF IT!!

At Diane's , too.  Oh well. We were there. Really.

When we left Fort Worth around 8 pm, after a LONG Texas goodbye😉, we enjoyed a very lovely Sunset to accompany our drive.  So pretty. Are we there yet????

And we were tired but made it to Wichita Falls, found our Baymont Inn HOtel, checked in, got ice into our coolers and conked out again. Mike drove the whole day again, in spite of my terrible navigation boo boos, AND horrible traffic, multiple " make a u-turn now" instructions from our navigator. He's so sweet to not complain at my ineptitudes and directional disfunction.

Thursday, May 8--Graduation Day!

 But Graduation Day was really Graduation NIGHT. Her ceremony was at 7 pm, so we had all day to party as we were all going different directions after the ceremony.

Thursday morning, we had breakfast in our hotel's breakfast room. Complete with Texas-shaped waffles! Cute.

I guess the photo got reversed, because I'm pretty sure I took the photo with Texas right-side up and not backwards. Ha. 

We all ( except Tandy who was busy doing other preparatory  things) met up at the George HW Bush Presidential Museum ON the campus of Texas A&M. It was really cool! We didn't have a lot of time due to a lunch reservation, but we saw enough and enjoyed it all. A 20.minute movie to begin, museum exhibits, some photo ops, helpful doce RS/volunteers, and...a train AND a helicopter! Cool. And a lovely fountain,ctheir graves are there, there's a pond on the grounds-- where one can actually fish. But we didn't see all that, just read about it on the brochure. Fun morning.

Museum photos:

This is Lexi with Redford in the (replica of) the Oval Office

Pretty fountain out front.

Flags and fountains

Marine One Helicopter 

A train Engine. A Presidential Train?  I dunno. Never figured that one out.

Mike enjoying LARGE exhibits in a Large Pavilion.

Damian and Tandy treated us all to a lovely lunch at a Barbeque place there in College Station. I think we came in four separate cars. Mostly due to Dogs, early departures after the graduation, etc etc.

But lunch was great and we all had plenty to eat. Plus cheesecake to go! 

Back at Damian and Tandy's hotel room for dessert and the

SURPRISE

decorations in their Room for Lexi. Fun!

 And the cheesecake, too.

Gifts.

Then, we went back to our hotel to change and freshen up for the big evening at the Reed Arena. We got there before 6 pm. It ended about 9:30 pm. Took a while to get back to our Hotel and we were leaving the next morning.

We had quite a lot of waiting time, which is "phone time."

Aggie socks for Mike and Damian. I'm so sad the photos are blurry.

 

The Arena was huge and it filled up. More wanted to come in, like Lexi's friend Josh. He was turned away at the door. :-(

We watched them March in and she was 5th to last... But she ended up half way through.

Such a cutie!

It took a while AFTER the ceremony to find Lexi among all the THOUSANDS of other graduates.  But we did, shared congratulations, found friends, took photos, said goodbyes, hiked to our truck and collapsed into bed. Whew. Long day, but very satisfying and fun.

Robert, Lauren ( past roommate), Lexi.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Ella "holding" Lexie's Lei until she came out and found us.