I got a call first thing this morning from Emmi telling me that she had been accepted to Brigham Young University for the Fall Semester! I think I was almost as excited as she and her mother. What an exciting time Emmi’s life. She has work for this moment every since I can remember. It has always been her dream to attend BYU. My first posterity to attend the college that I went to. So proud of you Emmi! This was the letter she received early this morning.
Andrew turned 9 this month and he wanted a Lego cake for his birthday. Annie sent me this picture of the cake she created.
I was told that Emmet is one of the characters in the new Lego movie. I would like the Salt Lake Temple for my 70th birthday cake. Could you create that for me Annie? You know I’m just kidding.
Saturday morning I was sitting at my computer working on a talk that I had to give at ward conference today. It must have been about a little after 8:00 when I got a phone call from Emmi telling me that she was at Gateway dropping her dad off for work and wondered if I wanted to go to breakfast with her. I told her I would love to. She came to the house and off we went to Mimi’s. We both ordered waffles and hot chocolate. It was fun to sit and listen to her talk about her class officer assignments and what she was doing to plan their graduation exercises for the senior class. She also talked about her plans for college and scholarships. 
We got to the mall about 9:40 and went straight to the Apple store to get some ear phones. From their we noticed that Eddie Bauer was opened. We walked in there just a few minutes before 10:00 and they told us they were having a promotion. Apparently their store had opened at 8:00 a.m. and from eight to ten they were having a drawing for $50.00 gift certificate. They were just getting ready to close the drawing and said that we should put our names in, so we did. Neither one of us thinking that anything would come of it. Well, Emmi won the $50.00 gift card!! She was ecstatic because Eddie Bauer is her FAVORITE store to shop at! She ended up buying some pants, a t-shirt, a shirt and a tank top to wear under the shirt. We had a fun time together that morning. I’m glad she isn’t embarrassed to be shopping with her grandmother and that we had such a fun time together. We got back to the house about 11:45. She had to pick up her dad at noon and I had an appointment with Lyndsy at noon. Thanks for a fun Saturday morning, Emmi!
She also sent me a picture of another vase that she finished in her ceramic class. She is very creative and quite the artist. Can’t wait to see it close up.
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Lynda Ann shared this with me and I had to post it. Hayley’s vocabulary far exceeds my own and her creativity is amazing. Annie had the kids make Valentines for their friends and Hayley made one for Derek, Emmi’s missionary. Below is the valentine. I love the sentence: “I admire your persistense and determination”. What a great Valentine, Hayley!
How grateful I am that Lynda Ann is a memorabilia person! I mentioned to her that our theme for our Stake Women’s Conference is around pioneers. We want to display home made quilts. I mentioned to Annie that I would like to display the quilt that her grandmother and Aunt Lila quilted for her. It is white Satan with the temple quilted in the middle of it. She said I could certainly borrow it and wondered if I wanted the other ones she had. I was surprised that she had some. She had two more quilts. She reminded me that mother had her lay on a piece of butcher paper and traced around her. Using that pattern she appliqued a little girl, representing Annie, in the center of the quilt. Oh the memories that came flooding back. Thank you Annie, for taking such good care of them. They will be passed down to your daughters some day. I will take a picture of the temple quilt when I get it displayed and can get the full pattern of the temple on camera.
I do love this day. Mostly because of the tradition of my mother. There was always a chocolate heart with my name on it left secretly on the front porch with a door bell ring. Sad that we don’t do that anymore. I remembering running home made paper Valentine’s around to my friends. Sneaking up to the door, laying the Valentine on the porch, ringing the door bell and running as fast as I could my legs to move. You never, never wanted anyone to know who had left that Valentine. We didn’t sign them but the message was what was important and conveyed our friendship. I often asked mother who left the valentine and she always said she had no idea. Too bad that when I was older that I didn’t ask her. I shall never know who left those chocolate hearts on my front porch!
From my love. This was the best card ever. It played the Peanuts theme song with four bubble pops at the end. Of course, the Talbot’s card, the box of chocolates and the roses were all wonderful bonuses.
We also went to Market Street Grill for a bite to eat. Ended up running into Jim and Bonnie Parkin and the Tates. No surprise that Neal would run into people he knew!
As I look at it, the resemblance isn’t too bad! Ha Ha Mallory was going through some of her stuff and found this picture and sent it to me. I don’t know the age Mallory was when she painted this picture.
I love that we can send pictures to each other through the phones. Modern technology is wonderful! \
So is modern art! 
Andrew had his first cub scout banquet and invited Neal and I to come. Neal had just finished a neckerchief slide and decided to give it to Andrew. Andrew was thrilled with it and Annie said that he wore his scout uniform to school the next day just so he could wear the neckerchief slide and show it off. Andrew achieved all kinds of awards and is well into scouting much to his grandpa’s excitement. Way to achieve a gold and 6 silver arrows along with three other awards! Nice job Andrew. Keep it up!
A close up of the slide Pa carved and painted.
Every year at work we have a football chart and you can buy squares. Two years ago I won $25.00 but this year was even better. The pay off is by the quarter score and I won the first quarter. Maybe I’ll take Neal out to dinner! Of course I was cheering for Seattle and they won! So my team won and I won. Can’t ask for better than that!
As a family, we decided at Christmas that we would all get together once a month. It was unanimous that it be the first Saturday of the month. Well, January rolled around and no one was available including Neal and I so we missed the first month. But today is February 1st and we held our first gathering. It was kind of sparse, but we all knew that it would probably be that way taking into consideration all of our busy schedules.
Today we had all the Gertsons, Cutlers were represented by Maren, Brock and Mr. Boston, and the Goss’s were all here. I served lasagna, garlic bread and a tossed green salad. I also did something I rarely do and that was serve on paper plates! Yup, I decided to go really casual. I’m not sure any one noticed or was bothered by it. Boy did it ever make cleaning up easy.
It was fun to visit and get caught up on each others lives. We had just enough time to play a few round of Six Handed Rook before everyone had to leave. Oh yes, Jeff won the game today!
The first picture is of Andrew who made a hat out of the building blocks. Wonderful imaginations!
Thursday evening we had Ron and Judy over for dinner and a few hands of bridge. When Ron and Judy came in, Neal wasn’t downstairs yet. He was getting changed. When he came down Judy and I burst out laughing because they had on the exact same sweatshirts by Tommy Bahama! We did notice that the dye lot was just a bit different but obviously the same shirt. Too funny. We had to take a picture. My goodness, their hair is even the same color!!!
Neal and I went to see The Book Thief and absolutely loved every minute of it. I had to read the book after seeing the movie. Usually it is the other way around. I prefer reading the book and then going to the movie but some how seeing the movie gave me a better understanding of the book. Of course, the book filled in all the missing pieces of the movie. I would recommend the movie and the book. Wonderful story!
