Jenessa Graduates from High School

Hello - Marian here. Just wanted to share a couple of pictures from our Jenessa, who graduated from Brighton High School this week. I can't believe we have three graduated - blows me away how old I really am. 

 During the year, she was involved in drama. She played one of the leads in "All Shook Up". I would have put in the picture where she and this guy kiss, but she would have killed me - literally. So funny!

 She and the drama kids competed down at the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City. I can't remember the name of the play they did a scene from, nor her character, but I figured this would be a pretty safe picture to put in a family blog.

 Anyway, we wanted to take her out and do a little photo shoot for her announcement, but she was involved in her drama stuff and their last play, You Can't Take it With You, so we didn't get around to it until Memorial day weekend when we were up at Bear Lake.Then we headed out looking for some old stuff - like barns and tractors, etc. We got a ton of great pictures. But then we found this wonderful field of yellow flowers. Couldn't resist getting a couple of pictures here.

This next picture is taken at the boat harbor there and a really strange thing happened while we were there. We had just pulled up and gotten out of the car. I told Ness to walk down this ramp so we could get the sailboats in the background. Just as she got down the ramp, we see this girl across the docks in the water. Of course, if you remember Memorial Day weekend, we woke to 3 inches of snow at Bear Lake - no one was in the water. After first we thought she was just hanging out with her dog, but then she started yelling "HELP". Ness ran over there and pulled her out of the lake. Her family heard her scream about the same time we did, but we got to her first. She must have fallen in just before we got there. YIKES! not a nice day for a swim.

ANYWAY, this is a picture at the harbor.  

Also, a little less formal, Amanda completed her work  in the sixth grade and will be moving on to Jr. High school next year. I figure I have another 5 years at least to carpool or drive her to school. By the time she graduates from High School, we will look REALLY old at graduation.

So a hearty Congrats to Mary on her graduation, to Elisabeth on her engagement and everyone else for generally making it through our crazy lives. We love you all.

Let's wrap this trip up! Well, almost!

After Arizona we crossed the Colorado river which makes the Grand Canyon. We did not see the actual Grand Canyon though. Schedule! Why is the river so green?  Algae in the high mountain where it starts. Science lesson for the day.

 Here is Peter's beloved GTI. Yes, we made the whole trip in this little car. It was great! Holds a lot more than you would think. Looks so cute!

 We stayed one night in Kanab and Peter got to play golf here. He was so happy! $15!

The next day we drove to Salt Lake and enjoyed the amazing flowers on Temple Square and around the other Church buildings.

 We saw some new art at the Museum of Church History and Art. One exhibit was called Seek His Face with new pictures of the Savior. Love this one by Greg Olsen.

 This was in the quilt exhibit. Love it too! Commemorates the Priesthood being extended to all worthy males. See the arms raised to the square in all colors? See the African fabric background? Yes, I really love this!

 Another Seek His Face one. Out of order, but I can't fix it!

 Had dinner at the restaurant called, I think The Roof. Great temple view. Huge buffet. Huge! Tried to take tiny bits so we could try more things. Still could only try a fraction of the variety of dishes. Next time I am starting with dessert. Could not do them justice!  Luckily we had a gift certificate and only paid about half price. Bargain!

That was the end of our really fun trip. The next morning Peter went home and I stayed to meet Mary who was coming down that night for a dance competition. More about that fun day next time!

Arizona Pictures--I hope!

This is the kind of cactus I mean, I know it's a saguaro, just not sure if that's how you spell it. This one, sadly, does not have flowers on it's head. They all don't bloom every year.

 This is what I call a what the heck? plant. The flowers look like red pine cones dipped in gold, but they are soft. Have you ever seen anything like it? I love it!

 Jan and Vic's great kitchen.

 View from the front of their house.

 Blooming sticks!

 Back of the Mesa temple. Yes I went in the wrong way.

Jan and Vic. They are cuter than this. Why did I take 200 pictures of plants and their house and only one of them?

On to Arizona!

It's Amy.

After Santa Barbara, we drove to Carefree, Arizona, where Peter's brother Vic and his wife Jan have a home.

Notable thing that happened on the way, got a call from the Stake YW President,"Are you on your way to church?" ''Uh, no, I'm in California." Wanted to say that I planned to go to the temple in Arizona and did that count against skipping church, but for once did not blab every thought in my head.

Jan and Vic's house is gorgeous and we celebrated Peter's birthday there--he's not 100! Peter and Vic went golfing and Jan and I made pineapple upside down cake and coconut rice and shrimp and scallop kabobs.

The next day they all went hiking and armed with their GPS I drove to Mesa to the temple. I did go! I did! Cool old temple, very busy.

We were so lucky all through our trip that everything was blooming. Plants that usually just look like sticks had really odd flowers and the saguaros (I hope this is the word I mean--the cactuses that look like they should be in cartoons?) looked like they had on flower hats, or were holding flowers in their hands. I didn't get a picture of that, but will never forget it.

So somehow I am unable to put any pictures in this post. I will try to publish a new post right now that is just pictures. We'll see how that works!

Spring Trip Santa Barbara

Next we drove to Santa Barbara, CA since Peter's Aunt Elizabeth was turning 100! Isn't she cute, just like a little bird, chirping things like, "I'm 100 years old!" and "Do you like my yard?"

In this picture she is wearing the apron that I made for her. Blue is so becoming! She has lovely blue eyes.

She also delighted in telling the story of how Peter and his brothers were so naughty once while his parents were on a long trip that the babysitter quit and Aunt Elizabeth had to move in with her own children and dog and take care of them. She quickly subdued the boys with a trip to the bakery and had no trouble after that. Aunt Elizabeth is formidable!

Aunt Elizabeth still lives in her own home thanks to a good caregiver, her devoted and amazing daughter Claudia, and her son Warren who comes from Oregon when Claudia travels. Warren is also the fixit guy. They have another sister, Sue, who lives too far away to help out day to day, but visits whenever she can. Sue was there too, that was fun.

Peter, Aunt Elizabeth and Claudia.

So we had two nice birthday dinners--during one at Ruth's Chris, the manager and servers kept coming by to wish her happy birthday. They made her a beautiful chocolate dessert with a candle. Aunt Elizabeth was as gracious as a queen as she accepted their congratulations. When they asked her secret, she said, "I eat lots of sugar!"

It was kind of dark in there!

 Aunt Elizabeth's fabulous yard

Cousins breakfast--Peter, Sue, Warren, Claudia

Claudia and Sue took me on a girl day to a great yarn store and Sephora. They are so nice and let me use their arms for perfume testing when I ran out of my own arm space.

So that was Santa Barbara, we packed a lot into a day and a half.

Next--Arizona!

Spring Trip First Part

Amy, as if you didn't know!

OK, after a little glitch where I though I had somehow changed the login and wrecked it for anyone else to post (I bet you think that is my intention, but I welcome and would love posts from everyone! really!) thank goodness Pam validated it and all is good again.

Peter had training meetings in Las Vegas so we made it a good road trip through Nevada, California to celebrate his Aunt Elizabeth turning 100!, Arizona to see his brother, and Utah where Mary had a dance competition at Lagoon. It took two weeks!

Today I will talk about Las Vegas. Peter had never been there and hated it so much. He is not a city or a crowd person. But he was mostly in meetings and survived it.

I had some adventures while he was working--I got to see Lion King--my favorite Broadway show ever. Still love it!

And I got to see Donny Osmond! Oh, yes with his annoying sister Marie.

 Me with Donny--kind of! This is in the gift shop near the show. I resisted the urge to buy a Donny pillowcase. It did not have a high enough thread count. Yes I still love him. Ladies at my table and I were screaming like we were 14 again!

Pam, do you remember when Uncle Bob came to BYU and drove us by Donny's house and he came out and waved to us?   Scream!  Those were the days!

Anyway, I didn't just stalk, Donny, I got to go to the temple twice. It is beautiful.

 Still wearing the sweater I saw Donny in! I'll never take it off!

 Temple grounds flowers. It was so nice, not really hot yet--end of April. Birds were singing up a storm!

 Th is is Oleander.  Not an Idaho plant.

 Of course, exactly one week later, it was all over the news that Marie got re-married to her first husband in this very temple. Oh Marie, you annoy me so! If you had only hurried up by just one week, I could have possibly seen Donny dressed in white. Sigh!  Done talking about Donny. I promise!

This is called Devil's tongue. When a lady told me what it was, I said, "That's not very nice to have around the temple!" and she didn't even laugh. Must work on my delivery!

Finally Peter finished his training and we walked and walked to see some sights and had a really great dinner.

 Peter and the rabbit!                                                             Bellagio ceiling made by Chihuley.

Oysters! One of my favorite things!

Next time I write--Santa Barbara! You may like to imagine me knitting and knitting as we drove and drove because I was.

I am now the keeper of the cousin sampler!

It's Amy.

My mom and dad were here for a day to hear Mary talk and sing in church and at Seminary Graduation. She was delightful, but that's not what this is about.

My mom is at that stage in life of trying to get rid of stuff. Wait, she's always been like that. Kerri and I can name many of our FAVORITE toys that disappeared, that we still miss. But now things are re-appearing, like a  crewel embroidery Christmas wreath that I did in 1980 or so.

Apparently I said that I wanted the sampler that my mom made for Grandma Katie. I don't really remember my mom asking me, but she must have. She would not lie! So I have the sampler with all our names and birthdays on it--cousins only, I should say. It's very nice and I am glad to have it.

I had forgotten that Lissie is a nickname!

An organized person would put your birthdays on the calendar, but I will probably just let facebook remind me.

My mom and dad have gone to Utah for a few days--heads up everyone! Their car looks like more stuff is looking for a new home. Then they will come back here for Mary's graduation.

Another beware---I am planning on publishing pictures of Peter and my spring trip on this blog. Why get my own?

I am remembering what fun I had last spring visiting Uncle Marvin with my dad. They hated Cafe Rio. Isn't that weird? But their stories were priceless!


Here are Mary and Brett Hardman and Kendon Freeman. They are the only seminary graduates from our ward. The boys are heading on missions in the fall and Mary is heading to BYU-I.

Elisabeth gets engaged!

it's Amy, who else?

Our oldest daughter Elisabeth got engaged on April 1--no fooling!--on top of Bald Mountain in Sun Valley. Her boyfriend talked to Peter and me last October and we kept it a secret! I hope you are not like the people in the Book of Mormon who fell to the earth because they were astonished greatly. Don't you love it when they do that? I mean that you are astonished about my secret keeping, not Elisabeth getting engaged.

Anyway, her boyfriend's name is David Fehling but he goes by the letter Q. Q is sweet, polite and can fix things and we like him very much. He and Elisabeth were here for snowboarding and he talked to our other kids about proposing and they kept it a secret too.

We all "happened" (really it took a lot of planning and work) to be in Sun Valley that day. Q planned to ask her on top of the mountain in the morning and we would all meet at the Roundhouse for lunch later. Even me--the non skier. I took the gondola up and that was very fun and a terrific view.

So Q took Elisabeth to breakfast and then as they were starting out snowboarding, he proposed. Super romantic! The ski patrol soon stopped by to see why he was kneeling and she was crying. Then Peter skied up.

Meanwhile, Andrew was taking his ski class down and was pointing out the sights like, "That's college run, and oh, there's my sister getting engaged!"  Ha ha! Love that!

So we had a nice lunch and a great day.

 Here's Andrew, Q in the back, Rachel in blue, Elisabeth, Mary in pink, and Peter

Later that night we had another adventure, but I will save that for another post.

Travis comes to wonderful Twin Falls, ID!

It's Amy, like I even need to say that!

Got home from the temple this morning, changed to house cleaning clothes, but decided to check facebook before doing any actual cleaning. Was I glad I did!

There was a message from Travis Alexander that he was here in Twin Falls working at Office Max  for the day. I quickly wrote back and he and I went to Kiwi Loco for a quick catch up visit.

Ever the gentleman, he would not let me pay. But next time he's here, I hope to invite him over for dinner.

Travis is interested in everything. He reminds me of talking to Uncle Marvin a little bit. Except Travis doesn't do the favorite Hein man thing of "It was Tuesday, no, it must have been Monday because the garbage man came."for 5 minutes before getting to the story. Ha! I think you all know what I mean!

Back to Travis: he is smart, and I think a good dad and husband, and handsome! He really brightened my day.

The moral of this is, always check facebook before doing housework.  And I still haven't done any.

Kidcation

It's Amy.

Spring Break here and all our kids took their first vacation together without us! They saved up their money and went to Grand Targhee for 3 days skiing/boarding. They stayed in the same condos we used to stay in when they were little. That's where Andrew spoke his first sentence,"Mama, see snow?"
He was trying to show the maid out the balcony window when she brought some towels. That's how long we've been going there!

Elisabeth and I cooked food ahead. We made lasagna, ribs, cinnamon rolls and oh, I can't remember. It was last week! Anyway, we packed a ton of food and it took us all day.

The skiing was so good that they never came in for lunch, but rode 9-4 everyday. They packed sandwiches in their pockets. It snowed a ton and they had a day when they felt like the only people there and  two great powder days--the last day was a bluebird. Which I think means blue sky and deep powder.

Peter and I were a little lonely, even though I was so excited to be home alone.

 Here's Andy in the powder. Oh--some big news! Before the kids left Andy passed his Level lll ski instructor test. Level lll is as high as it goes. We are so proud of him! He could now teach anywhere in the world. But Sun Valley is good for now. Only an hour and a half away.

Mary and Elisabeth

 Rachel and Elisabeth

Mary in the powder

I only have a few pictures, but may post more if they took more. They better have!

More Wedding Pictures

Hi: Marian here.... I promised to post some additional pictures once we got the wedding pictures. So finally - only a month later, here are a few more shots.

This is a picture of Elisha getting ready for the wedding. I love the back of her dress. It's hard to tell all the details of the lace and such, but it's really a pretty lace.

The next shot here is obviously, ELisha and Ron getting ready to walk down the aisle. This is a great shot of her bouquet. As I mentioned in my last post, she really wanted feathers in her flowers. We think they turned out really cool. Her bouquet was mainly light orange flowers with red accents. The bridesmaids and boutennires were red with the lighter accents.

Our new bishop, Troy Winegar married them.

This next picture is of the Hein Family - minus the Alexander clan - who decided to go off and get dinner in between the ceremony and the reception. I kept thinking they would come back soon, but they didn't until after the reception had begun and the photographer had left for a little while.

The cutting of the cake. The cake was fairly simple, as you can see. You can't really tell the color very well, but it was a cream and gray color with some fresh flowers on top. Simple, but pretty.

Elisha would kill me if she knew I picked this picture. Her smile is kind of weird. Anyway, here you have it. The wedding was nice and it is really hard to believe that they've been married for almost six weeks.
Wish you all could have been there.