August 31? Wow

Seriously, what happened to the summer?  I have a hard time believing that the end of the summer is here and all the grandchildren are back in school.  Even River is beginning his schooling at Twin Peaks Elementary.  Hard to believe that he is in Kindergarten.  Lyndsy says that he loves it and the first day came home and told his mom and dad everything the teacher had told them – that he could remember.  And from what Lyndsy said, it was quite a lengthy explanation of his first day. 

It is still plenty warm outside.  A few subtle hints that fall is coming but when I walk Bella at 4 in the afternoon and it is above 90, I am reminded that we still have the summer heat.  The nights are getting cooler.  They’ve left the 80’s and are moving down into the 70’s and I guess by the end of this week will be in the 60’s.  Those are the nights I love.  To open the windows and have that cool night air come through the house.

All the flowers in the gardens are at their full peek of blooming as you witnessed by the pictures I posted the other day.  The vibrant colors of nature that show themselves in the summer are an artist love.  Did I ever tell you that Grandma Ross (my mother) was quite an artist.  Mother had a lot of talents.  Had she been born later in life or in different circumstances, I think she could have been a writer or an artist.  But, when I look at her life and what she accomplished by raising six children entirely on her own – I would say that  her notoriety may not have been to the world but to the most important people in her life – her children and her posterity.  She was and is a great example to me.  I miss her greatly.

I just had to post this picture of Bella patiently waiting at the door for Neal to come in. She is determined to sit there until Neal comes through the door.

Tending the four Gertsons

 

Jeff and Annie were invited by some friends to go the the Homestead in Midway and spend a day of free golfing and a free room.  Annie called and asked if I would be willing to watch the kids.  She dropped the kids off about 4:30 p.m.  Emmi stayed home because she had her first Youth Council on Sunday morning as the newly set apart Mia Maid President. 

The four younger ones decided they wanted to go swimming.  They swam in the pool from 5:00 until 7:00 when I finally had to get them out so I could feed them and get them settle down for the evening.  Andrew wanted to play with the dominoes and if you look close you can see that he was creating a question mark!  Hayley wanted to read the reunion books. Those books are continually looked at every time the grandchildren and/or adults come over to the house.  You did a wonderful job on them Lyndsy.  Thank you for creating them.  Abby and Mallory played cards and from there to scrabble to see if they could beat me.   

Bed time was interesting.  At first, Abby was going to sleep in the bed downstairs and Hayley and Andrew on the couches.  Mallory was going to sleep in the trundle bed upstairs.  Mallory went right to bed and the three younger ones went downstairs to watch Mulan.  When it ended, Abby changed her mind and decided to sleep in the bottom trundle.  Hayley and Andrew settled down on the couches.  It couldn’t have been longer than 10 minutes when Hayley and Andrew came up to my room and said that they were too scared and wanted to sleep in my room.  So we hauled all the bedding upstairs and finally got them settle down.  Andrew between the desk and TV and Hayley to the side.  They went right to sleep and everyone was safe from the boogie men downstairs!

Jeff and Annie picked them up Sunday morning about 11:00 a.m.

Neal’s patio flowers

Hayley Anne

Lynda Ann just called me to tell me about the kids first days of school.  All seems well and everyone seems happy with where they are. 

She usually has a funny story about Hayley and this call was no exception.  Lynda Ann said that last year there was a boy named Gabriel in Hayley’s class that Hayley had talked quite a bit about.  When she and Hayley went to the school to check out the class list for this new school year, Hayley noticed that Gabriel was on the list.  Her comment, “Oh no, he is in my class again.”  Annie said that Gabriel’s farther is a doctor at the hospital where Annie works.  She saw Gabriel come in to visit his dad and Annie went up to him and asked him if he knew Hayley Gertson.  He told her he did.  Annie then asked him if he like her.  The little boy said, “Well, I wouldn’t say I liked her.”  Annie asked him why and he said, “Well, every time the teacher asks a question and I’m going to raise my hand, I look across the room and Hayley already has her hand up.”  These two kids may be in an intellectual challenging scenario.

Lynda said that Hayley noticed there were some twins in her class that she knew from last year and said that they didn’t look like twins because they didn’t look alike.  Annie told her that not all twins were identical.  Hayley said, “Oh I know that.  Twins that aren’t identical are called fraternal.  Where did an 8 year old come up with that word or even know what it meant.  Kids seem so much smarter at their young age than my generation at the same age.

Rosarito–our favorite place!

I took these pictures of a typical bakery shop.  All of the pastries our out on shelves and you take a tray and some tongs and go around and take what you want.  I will add here that as we were in the shop an Indian family came in.  A mother with three children.  As we were choosing our pastries I noticed this little family go over the cookies and she picked one for the little one year old, walked over to the counter and put down her peso.  As they started to leave I was very aware that the other two children didn’t get a cookie.  They left the bakery.  It nearly broke my heart.  I mentioned to Neal what had happened and he and Ron bought some more cookies for the other two children.  Neal also gave the mother a $10.00 bill. 

We left Monday morning at 4 a.m. hoping to not have a long wait at the border.  As we neared the border crossing at San Diego we saw miles of cars and policemen waving us to a different crossing that was about 10 minutes further away.  When we arrived there, we found the same problem, hundreds and hundreds of cars waiting to cross the border.  We ended up waiting for 4 1/2 hours.  When we finally arrived at the gate the ‘short lady guard’ decided that we needed to be searched!  We had to pull around to the back area where we waiting for another 45 minutes for them to find that the only thing we had that they said we couldn’t bring into the states was – are you ready?  An ONION and three LIMES!  Seriously!! 

Because of the delay at the border and stopping to shop in Primm and Las Vegas at the outlet stores, we didn’t arrive home until 3:30 a.m.  This is a picture of Neal with all of our stuff piled in the kitchen.  I didn’t put one thing away and fell in bed.  Wonderful times and a wonderful trip.

A few more pictures of Rocky Point. It really is an oasis out in the middle of the desert. Hot, windy and sandy.

Our trip to Puerto Penasco or Rocky Point

Puerto Peñasco is a city located about 100 km from the Arizona border. It is located on the small strip of land that joins the peninsula of Baja California with the rest of Mexico. Puerto Peñasco is often called “Rocky Point” in English, and has been nicknamed “Arizona’s beach” as it is the coast closest to the major city of Phoenix.

We left Friday morning early and began our journey to Arizona. We very much enjoy traveling with Ron and Judy.

On our way we stopped in Panguitch and there met a group of motorcycle men. Rather rough group but very nice. Judy and I had to pose with one of them. We also visited the very small post office so that Judy could mail a package.

From there we headed to Jacob’s Lake. This is a mountain retreat owned by some relatives on the Maxfield side of the family. I bought a t-shirt that says, “Grandchildren, you just can’t ‘beat’ them.” We had a delicious lunch, took a picture of some of the relatives and then headed back on our journey.

We stayed at a motel for the night and got up at our leisure to head to the border and our destination. The funny thing about these pictures is that we were all ready to leave and saw the movie “The Blind Side” was just starting. We had all seen it but had to watch it yet again. Watching that movie delayed our departure by a couple of hours. But, we weren’t on any kind of a schedule, so . . . . Then our next visit was Costco to stock up on some groceries. I think Costco is almost as prevalent as Mormon church buildings and 7-Eleven. Almost one on every corner!

Here we are at Rocky Point. We had a fun time. It was very hot. Neal and Ron golfed every single morning and Judy and I spent most of our time laying out by the pool, swimming in the pool and dipping in the Sea.

We loved the creative towel decorations that the maids left in our rooms each day.

I had to take these two pictures. I’m always amazed and strongly reminded of how incredibly blessed I am to live in America and to have all that I have. This man probably makes about $8.00 a day doing back breaking work of taking each rock out of the edging so that someone behind him can come along and edge the grass with a sharp knife. The worker then goes back and puts every rock back in it’s place. There were blocks and blocks of this kind of edging.

Judy basking in the sun. The lounge areas were actually made out of tile and were surprisingly comfortable. We said our “Goodbyes” to Puerto Penasco on Thursday about 2:00 p.m. and headed to Rosarito.

“THE” project from ‘heck’–Mormon terminology!

After doing a requested Christmas Stocking for Tucker, I swore I would never do another one of the miseraly projects again!  Famous last words.  Susan discovered this advent calendar in a catalogue and wanted to do it for Lynda Ann because she knows Annie collects advent calendars.  Thus came the project that I got involved in because Susan could see this was a tedious and pains taking task and would need help.  I don’t even want to figure out all the hours it took to put this thing together, but Susan and I lovingly referred to it as the “project from Hell”.  Well, between the two of us it is finally done and we are happy to be able to pass it on to Lynda Ann.  So, Annie, if you are keeping up on my blog you will know what is coming your way this week when I bring Bella out for you to tend.  Susan and I decided that we didn’t need to store it until December.  We would pass the honor on to you.  So Merry Christmas from your Aunt Susan and me.  Love, Mom