Our Trip to Michigan

What fun to be with our family in Michigan for a few days!

With Liz's help, we got to the airport in good time and had a good flight to Detroit on April 2nd. We spent the weekend with Thayne and his family.

Here Garth is playing a game of Stratego with Paxton. He loves games.









Dana is doing her favorite thing and the thing we saw her doing most of the time we were there - reading whatever book she can get a hold of.





Serena and Blair joined us for Sunday dinner and the last session of General Conference then we traveled to Waterford for 5 days with Serena and Blair.





Serena had a lot of things she hoped to get done. After painting some ceiling areas in the hall, she and Garth took everything out of the Master Bedroom closet. Then painted the closet ready to put new Closet Maid closet accessories in. After several trips to Home Depot and a lot of consultation and discussion, the closet finally took shape.



















































While Garth was working on the closet, Serena worked on cleaning up in the basement. Once the sewing area was cleared, I sewed up a cover for the futon and made two large and two small pillows for the futon. The insides are from the pad and cover that went on an outdoor swing but the covering had rotted. I used the large sheets of batting found inside. I sewed them together and filled them mostly with batting I pulled apart.







Serena is enjoying the new look in her office.






I did a lot of mending and made
Serena a new dress and made a new pouf pillow cover out of softer fabric. It has yet to be stuffed.




















The last project was to re-cain Serena's rocking chair seat. I had never done this before but decided - with the materials and a good instruction book - I could tackle it.




The finished seat after many hours of work
















On Friday, Serena and Blair took us back to Ypsilanti to be with Thayne, Jenny and family.

We started by having an Easter Egg hunt on Friday while Serena and Blair were there.



Shelby



















Paxton & Dana had fun finding the eggs.





























Here Serena is watching while the children look over their finds.


The next project - after helping Thayne pick up all of the trimming limbs from pruning his fruit trees, the next project was to spike, reseed and roll the acre of lawn.















Thayne is spreading seed and Garth is driving the tractor with the spikes on

























Paxton joined his grandfather when he was rolling the lawn to help plant the seeds.









On Easter Sunday we took a walk in the Wastana County Rolling Hills Park that borders their neighborhood.


Thayne, Jenny, Dana, Paxton and Garth in front of the lake.










Dana, Garth, Thayne and Jenny












Thayne, Dana and Jenny are consulting the map of the area.










Garth and Paxton.












After a lovely Easter meal, the three couples enjoyed visiting

Jenny and Thayne, Janice (that's me) and Garth, Blair and Serena.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

A sweet Interlude With Some of Our Children & Grandchildren

It's always a special time when we can spend some time with our children and grand
children.



In March we were privileged to attend a play put on by Sheridan's class - Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors". Sheridan played the part of one of the twin brothers who had been separated in a storm and didn't know the other existed. The children did an exceptional job and the set was well done.


























After the funeral we were privileged to have Shanda and her children with us for a few days before Preston came for them.

Talia is a lot like her mother - always coming up with interesting, fun things to do. She thought climbing in the clothes dryer was just the right place for her to be.





Here she is trying out the wastebasket for size.






















Milo is quite the charming little guy












and when he sees you looking at him, he puts on his little shy face.









The Hardings joined us for Family Home Evening. Trina is giving her boys the lesson while the rest look on.








Preston, Shanda and Milo are watching.


















As are Caleb and Guy.

Cleaning Out My Mother's House

On March 9th, Garth and I traveled to LaVerkin and Joined LuDeen in cleaning out the house our mother had lived in for the past 27 or so years.

The first thing we did was to take all of the silk type flowers in the house and decided the best place for them would be to decorate our parents' graves in the LaVerkin Cemetery. My sister, LuDeen Lundin, is placing the flowers .




Mother's first request was that anything that had been given to her was to be returned to that person. As we went through things in the house, we put anything that we could identify in piles for each member of the family.

Our next step was to clean off the shelves in the store room and we stacked everything from the house - except for the dishes from the kitchen - on the shelves in the store room ready for the family to gather and decided what they would like to keep before we give the rest away.























After 3 days of work, we pretty much had everything ready for a family gathering later in April when we will finally dispense our mother's belongings so that the house can be rented.




















LuDeen is going through a lot of paper work.




Here piles are being made for different people to take.















As we finished, we met with Brent and Kathy Nelson - they bought and live in our former home - and we gave them a plaque with a handkerchief that Mother had crocheted and a picture of Mother and Dad when they were first married.


They have been very good friends to our mother and to our family.

Birthdays of Grandchildren

We had the privilege of being present at Marcus' 9th birthday dinner. I was quite amazed at this lovely "cake" - all etible - made by his mom, Trina.






























In preparation for two other birthdays, I made this lovely white dress as Kira's special white dress for her to wear at her baptism later this month.











Then for Addie's birthday - also toward the end of April - I made Addie and her doll matching pink terry towel bathrobes.

Saying Goodbye to my Mother

My mother, Ruth Gubler Nielson, passed away at the age of 101 on February 13th 2009. Becky Halterman sent me this beautiful bouquet of tulips. After notifying the family, the funeral was set for the following week on Feb. 21 st at LaVerkin, Utah.


My sister, LuDeen and I had the special privilege of helping dress our mother for her final journey here on earth. It was a tender time for us to make sure that she was dressed in her temple clothes and was looking her best for the public viewings.


As we left the mortuary, we were both deeply impressed with the beautiful statuete in the entrance because the woman going through the veil of death looked so much like our mother and it was so comforting to think of her leaving her old body and looking young and energetic again.








After a lovely memorial service that lasted only an hour - as to Mother's request - we walked the block to the cemetery and put her to rest beside our dad.

A Fairyland & Garth's Birthday 2009

I couldn't resist taking these pictures of the beautiful feathery designs produced as the wet, thick snow clung to the limbs and trees a couple of weeks ago.

































































We returned home on Friday from 6 days with my mother in southern Utah and our Northern Utah children suggested they prepare a birthday dinner Sunday evening at Deren's and Liz's place in Provo. We had a wonderful meal and a great time being with some of our family.

Most of the children were off playing but the rest of those present were:
Back: Guy Harding, Deren and Liz Hansen, Kalen Reynolds, Marenda, Kasen and Sam Brown.
Front: Trina and Garth







I couldn't resist this picture of Mitchell. When I was taking the picture of the group, he thought he was in the picture.








Garth is ready to blow out his candles before we have brownies and pecan pie and ice cream.











Today, Monday, February 9th, 2009, on his actual birthday we did something we rarely do and that was to eat out.

Marenda signed her father up to get a free meal at Tucanos in north Provo so the two of us went and over ate considerably. I knew that Garth would be delighted with the varieties and kinds of meats served and the salad bar selection was wonderful!




While there our waitress and a couple of guys came with a dessert and sang to Garth in Portuguese - which he thoroughly enjoyed.