Grandma Attends the Wedding of Her Youngest Grandson

On New Year's Day we traveled to Southern Utah for the wedding of Eric's youngest son, David to Amber Gafa.

We were asked if we would pick up Mother and take her to St. George to The Bell Tower reception center for the marriage.

Here she is riding in our Mini van to the wedding.





After the marriage, performed by David's bishop, Gary McKell, David took Amber to meet his grandmother.


We thought we would try to get Mother back to the Beehive House for dinner but she absolutely refused to go until she had her share of the sweet refreshments being served. She seemed to enjoy the cheese cake and a couple of other things. This is most of my family (brother and sisters and aunt and cousin.)









Mother is having a good conversation with her only living sister, Ardella Heiner.


David and Amber getting ready to greet their guests.

Mother finally agreed to go back to the "home" after she had her share of "goodies" and had been included in the picture taking.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

Those of the family in northern Utah got together at Deren & Liz's place in Provo for New Year's Eve activities.

After a delicious meal of soups, tortillas, veggies and fruit, we played games to pass the time until midnight.


Guy and Sheridan played Risk - Lord of the Rings




Trina, Sam and Marenda played "Dirty Marbles"












Deren, Garth, Caleb, Drake and Marcus played the game of Life.










Liz was very good to help Addie put together puzzles etc.




















Mitchell just enjoyed things and stayed awake the whole time. Only Kasen was smart enough to welcome in the new year while he was resting upstairs.

Seriously, We had a good time and ended the evening playing Apples to Apples until time to blow the noise makers and drink sparkling cider and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

A Birthday for Dana and Sewing for Shelby

We so enjoyed having Thayne's family here for Christmas, but - alas - all good things have to come to a close and their last day in Utah was on December 31st - Dana's 12th birthday and we were privileged to have them spend the day with us.

Dana had celebrated her birthday the day before with her Stanley grandparents and relatives - ending in a slumber(less) party with cousins .




We couldn't let the day go by without having a special birthday dinner for Dana with all of her favorite foods - meat and potatoes (and a few other things for the rest of us).

Dana, Shelby, Thayne, Jenny and Paxton.






Thayne said that Shelby wanted a sewing lesson so, upon arrival I showed her where the patterns were. She picked a fairly easy skirt pattern. We then looked through the cloth and she picked a navy blue fabric.

With instruction along the way, Shelby very patiently worked until she had sewed up this skirt. They left here around 6:30 New Years' eve to prepare for their return home to Michigan. (They called on Saturday to tell us they had arrived home safely).