The end is near!

These pictures are more of the wearing of the red!  I was so surprised at how many people at work noticed right off that I was wearing a Ute’s necklace.  Of course, when there are only two or three of us that are cougars, I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.  I got the daily comments and teasing because I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a true blue fan.  One funny thing that happened.  My visiting teacher came to visit.  As I was saying ‘Goodbye’ to her she noticed the necklace and said, “Oh I love that necklace! I didn’t know you were a Ute fan.  How exciting!”  I had to set her straight right then and there.  I’ll post the rest of the pictures as soon as I get them down loaded from my camera.  I’m sooooo happy that my long week of wearing the necklace is over and done!  I have to admit, it is a fun tradition!

Some Sunday thoughts

Stake Conference, today, was wonderful and I wanted to share some comments that were made and some thoughts that I had.

Our theme for Stake Conference this year is Rejoice and Give Thanks. What a wonderful theme and message for all of us. The most violated of all the commandments (and I don’t remember who that was quoted from) is “Be of good cheer”. That statement alone has vibrated through my mind all day and I hope for a long, long time. We all have so much to be thankful for and yet we seem often to focus on what isn’t right in our lives instead of what is right. Here are just some:

Air to breath, water to drink, freedom, homes, the beauty around us, indoor plumbing, food, clothes, good health, the blessing of the priesthood, the temple, being able to partake of the sacrament each week, our testimony of this great gospel, knowledge, being able to read and study and the list goes on and on.

There is a scripture in Psalms 118:24 that says, “This is the day the Lord hath made, Rejoice and be glad in it.” The more we study and understand the gospel the more we should come to understand that happiness is the object and the design of our existence. The Lord wants us to be happy and has given us blessings upon blessings to help us understand and realize that. If we dwell on the good things in our lives then our hearts are changed and our lives are strengthened and improved.

How grateful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for my testimony of the truthfulness of His teachings and for my membership in this His church here upon the earth today in it’s fullness. We all have much to be thankful for and should make an effort to spend our time focusing on and looking for all the good things in our lives.

Imagine my surprise!

Neal and I had an adult stake meeting tonight.  We left the house about 6 p.m. and returned home around 8:25.  To our surprise, when we enter the kitchen, there sitting on the counter was this framed picture of my four Cutler grandchildren.  Jaden, Taylor, Brock and Boston.  What a wonderful gift to come home to and a complete surprise.  My heart was touched by the time and effort and thoughtfulness of this gift.  I’m so thankful for this precious and very timely gift of love.  Thank you Maren and Greg for putting this together for us.  It is beautiful!!  We love you!   Mom and Dad

Isn’t it just amazing!

Isn’t it amazing how much can happen in your every day life that when you are blogging you feel a need to record.  I love this!

First of all, I wanted to remember two things that Neal and I inherited from his mother that will be passed along to our children (who are interested in them).  Mom’s silver and goblets.  I’m not terribly fond of the goblets, they are a little fancy for me, but, they are a keepsake for one of the girls who might be interested in them.  The silverware is also a bit on the gaudy side for me, but again, they may appeal to one of the girls and in the mean time I will use them on holidays in remembrance of mom and dad.

 

2nd –Today I had another facial from Lyndsy.  While I was standing at the counter I noticed her very own Evolve cards.  Now I know you may think this is silly right now, but think in 20 years when Lyndsy looks back at this picture and says, Oh, yes, I remember those business cards.  I’d forgotten what they looked like!  Then you won’t think it so silly that I had my trusty little camera with me and took a picture of them!  By the way, Lyndsy told me that tonight and tomorrow are her last classes and she will be done!  Congratulations Lyndsy!  I’m so proud of you and your accomplishments! 

3rd:  We got this accounting in the mail of Neal’s last bout with a kidney stone.  He was in the emergency room for about three hours and look at this bill!  Didn’t know kidney stones were worth so much!!!  Hummm, seems like we should frame it or something.

4th:  Neal was all excited this morning when he discovered his Hawaiian plant is finally going to produce a Bird of Paradise flower.  He waited nearly three years for this event.  As we looked at the plant we noticed there isn’t one but three blooms ready to pop out!  More pictures when they appear in full bloom.  This is a history moment.  Last summer Neal called into KSL garden talk show and asked them what the best thing to do to get his plant to flower and the announcer said, “Take it back to Hawaii.”  He had no advice for Neal.  So to have this thing finally bloom is almost a miracle!

And lastly but certainly most importantly, Neal and I got this thank you in the mail from the Tucker Maxfield family.  Did it make my day?  Absolutely.  Did I shed a happy tear or two?  You know I did. 

Wonderful idea borrowed from Nie Nie

I just read this on Nie Nie's post and thought what a great idea. She had a big glass jar with colored soft foam balls and had written a job on each one. The kids draw out of the jar and the rest is explained. Just had to post this because I thought it was such a creative way to get your kids to do jobs around the home.

"Asking my little children nicely to do things around the house wasn't cutting it anymore.I needed something genius. Something that would work. Something down right fun.So I came up with a plan.It had to do with colorful balls.And it had to work.
I wrote jobs down on the 50 soft golf ball sized balls. I have to admit coming up with 50 jobs became hard...after about the 25th one I was writing jobs such as:"hug sister" or "pick up 10 strands of Jimmy hair on the couch.

I am making a tally of all the jobs done, and whoever has the most tallies, gets to pick out a treat.Works for them, works for me. Hopefully this will last longer than a few weeks."

I think I’m now an official blogger!

I’m so excited.  I just got my first ‘blog’ book.  What a fabulous way to keep a running journal of your daily life and with pictures to boot!  This has been one of the greatest projects I’ve been introduced to.  I just love it.  I look forward to each day with anticipation of something that may be of worth to record and would be of interest to my posterity and also fun for me to look back and remember.  Mother always kept a journal and I cannot tell you how many times I have picked her journal up and browsed through it.  Fun to read about her journey through life and the role I played in it.  I always go to her journal when I need to talk to her and miss her. 

Thank you Jamie, so much, for getting me started.  I wish all my children would do a blog.  Those little children of yours grow up so fast and all the funny things they say and do will be forgotten with time.  But, if they are recorded then they will have the fun of reading about their escapades when they are older. 

My yearly bet with Tucker

Every year Tucker and I have a bet on the BYU / Utah football game.  If my team (GO COUGARS) wins then I get to chose something that he has to do and the length of time he has to do it – and if his team (GO UTS) wins then he gets to make me do something.  For the last few years it has been a cougar dominated win.  I’ve had him wear a BYU tie to church, put car magnets on each side of his red UTS car for a week and fly car Cougar flags for a week.  Well, this year BYU missed the final field goal which would have put them over the top and given them yet another win over the Uts.  Needless to say, that didn’t happen.  I now have to wear a Uts necklace for one week.  I wore the necklace yesterday and couldn’t believe how many people at work noticed it and got a kick out of it and of course, had to rub it in.  You see, 98% of the people I work with are Ut’s fans.  Sigh . . . . .

If you notice the pictures below, I’m doing a cleanse this week and for some reason decided that a cleanse and wearing the red necklace kind of go hand in hand.  Almost as if they compliment each other – hummmm – I just can’t quite put my finger on the similarity!  :-)

I love the annual competition and hope it continues as long as I’m able to cheer on my mighty Cougars!  Thanks, Tucker,  for the fun memories we’ve created together.  I love you!          Mom

Day one and day two!

TO ALL MY CHILDREN - LOVE MOM

Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone.
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute.
You didn't grow under my heart, but in it!

Our trip to St. George

Judy and Ron invited Neal and I to St. George. They were going down on Thursday. Neal couldn’t leave until Friday afternoon so I opted to go down with them on Thursday. Ron had meetings all day and Judy wanted me along to go shopping with her and keep her company. We left about 7:30 a.m. and arrived in St. George about 11:30. We decided to stop at Jimmy John’s for a sandwich and then head on to the condo. We decided to stay there and eat, rather than wait and eat at the condo. As we were ready to leave, I stepped over to the counter and asked them if they had a sack we could put our sandwiches in (that we hadn’t finished). I stuffed the sandwiches in the bag and out the door we went. When we got to the condo and had unloaded everything from the car, I noticed my purse was missing. We double checked the car and it was gone. That is a horrible feeling, thinking about all your credit cards, cash, check book, driver’s license, house and car keys, etc. Amazing how much of our lives we carry in our wallets and purses. Judy and I jumped back in the car and headed back to Jimmy John’s. I said a little prayer that somebody honest would see my purse in the booth and turn it in. I ran in and sure enough someone had found it and turned it in. I asked the manager if he knew who the person was or if they had left a name and he said he didn’t know. What could have pretty much ruined a wonderful vacation was turned around because someone was honest.

My returned purse! Doesn’t look like it is worth much from the outside but the inside is packed with all kinds of identity!

Ron read about this place in a magazine and so we decided to venture there on Friday for lunch. Xetava is the name and if you can figure out how to pronounce it – good for you! It was a very quaint little outdoor/indoor restaurant. The weather was perfect for sitting outside.

I had to take a picture of the menu just for Lyndsy. If you notice it says “cage free eggs”! Never in my life have I seen that written on a menu. Apparently, this place is all organic food. They even grow their own beef!

As we were driving back we went through a little town called Santa Clara and Ron noticed this old building that is the Relief Society House erected in 1907. He did a u-turn and went back so that I could get my picture taken by the relief society house.

Just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.!

We decided to go out for Chinese Food on Friday night. It was delicious and we had enough for left overs the next day.

This was the moon that greeted us when we returned home. It was absolutely huge and gorgeous!

The men golfed, the women shopped and did a little bit of sun bathing by the pool. Of course, we played lots of bridge. It was a wonderful weekend! Thank you Ron and Judy for your hospitality and your treasured friendship!

This sign at Jake’s Old House just about sums it up – LIFE IS GOOD!

My favorite dessert in the whole wide world!

Years ago, so far back in time that I don’t want to mention the date, let’s just say in the 70’s, we were living in a desert town called Trona.  Way out by Death Valley.  We had become good friends with the Washburn family.  One evening when we were over visiting I noticed AlDean (the father) putting ice cream and milk in a glass.  I decided to try it and have loved the combination ever since.  Any flavor ice cream in a glass, pour milk over it and chop it up with a spoon.  It is just like having a malt or shake and it is delicious and not so sweet and thick.  My favorite will always be Peppermint Candy.  You can usually only get it during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  One year I bought about 4 gallons, thinking I could have it for months.  Well, I learned that you can’t freeze ice cream indefinitely – it crystallizes and is nasty.  Now I just enjoy it while it is available in the stores.

Pillow cases

Maren called me yesterday and told me that Jaden, Taylor and Brock loved their pillow cases.  She said that Brock especially loved them and every week wants to change to a different pillow case.  I’m so glad that they are enjoying them.  Little did I know that they would be such a great hit.  Especially with someone as young as Brock.  They were fun to make along with picking out the fabric for the different seasons.  I was originally going to make one for each month but by the time I had made 82 pillow cases I was done!  One for each month of the year would have totaled 164.  Nope, just couldn’t do it.  However, the positive feed back tells me it was all worthwhile to do the ones I did! 

I had to put this on my blog – just for Lyndsy

Lyndsy is doing some treatments on my old face and is hoping to improve my looks by making me look a bit younger.  Lynda Ann found this cartoon and we had a good laugh over it.  Hopefully my face won’t drop – however, everything else on me seems to have shifted South! 

I have to say that the treatments are wonderful and very relaxing and so for me, it won’t matter if I look younger or less wrinkly when she is done – I’m just enjoying the journey!  Thank you Lyndsy!

What a fun day with C. J. and Justin in town!

C. J. and Justin came in to town for a short weekend visit. Mindy arranged for the family to meet at the Training Table to have lunch. Jeff G. and Jeff H. were able to get off work and have lunch with us and then they both had to go back to the salt mines.

We had to take a picture or two of Grayson eating this huge hamburger. Watching him trying to eat it without everything dripping out the bottom. I think he just about downed the whole thing. I’ve never seen him eat so much at one sitting.

After lunch we everyone came over to our home to visit and play games.

You can see this is a very serious and thoughtful game. It is a new game that Emmi got for Christmas called Blockus.

The game Blokus can only house four people so Annie, Mallory and I played Yatzee

River, Grayson and Abby played the game Slider.

I had to take a picture of this. Grayson, River and Andrew asked if they could build a hut using chairs, pillows and blankets. I so remember as a child building tents out of blankets and chairs. I also remember when mother would have a quilt going in the front room that I would play under the quilting frames for hours. What is it about a home made tent to crawl into. I think every child loves to build them and play in them.

Fun pictures taken just before everyone had to leave. Jeff H. and Jeff G. both had to work and Maren and her family couldn’t join us either. Maren had worked all night last night and had to go to work again tonight so wasn’t able to come in.

Everyone wanted a picture with the boys.

We were so grateful that we got to spend a few hours with our two oldest grandsons. We love them so much and miss them greatly. C. J. and Justin are both getting close to graduating from college. Justin from Washington State University majoring in Public Affairs and C. J. at Multnomah Bible College studying ministry. We are so proud of both of you and love you very much.