A very belated birthday surprise.

As Maren was leaving, she mentioned to me that she had my birthday present on the counter.  I found it after everyone had left for the evening and opened it up to find this beautiful bracelet and a very sweet note.  I'm sorry these pictures are sideways.  For the life of me I cannot figure out how to turn them so they are presented upright.

Thank you Maren and family for the thoughtful gift.

Tucker is in town for the weekend.

We picked up Tucker at the airport Friday night at midnight.  His plane from L.A was delayed for a couple hours so we were glad to have him with us safe and sound.  We visit for a little while, I think until about 2:00 and then off to bed.  Saturday Tucker spent most of the day with his friend Craten, who got married that day.  (The reason Tucker came to Salt Lake).  Saturday evening, Neal and Tucker watch Utah slam Oregon.  Neal and Tucker were very happy that their team won.  BYU played Saturday as well but did very poorly.  It was a bitter sweet day.
Sunday I had the family over for dinner so that they could all spend some time with Tucker.  Tables were set and everything looked very festive for the group.  Jeff, Ryan and Grayson came.  Mindy was in Florida on business and Maddie didn't feel well.  Jeff and Annie and all the kids came.  Maren, Greg and their whole familly and Lyndsy and Desmond.  James and River made the choice to go to a movie rather than come over.  I guess River is having a hard time getting along with Boston and Brock so James and River went to a movie instead.

Mallory was asking a boy to their high school dance and so she and Annie were making cookies as part of the 'asking'.

 Neal, Abby and Hayley out on the patio chatting.

 I snapped this picture as Jeff was getting ready to leave.  It is fun to have the children together and hear all the bantering that goes on between them.  Of course Tucker and Jeff both love U of U and were very excited about the win.

A night with Jaden and Taylor

Friday night Neal and I drove out to Herriman to see Jaden play in the football game and to see Taylor perform at half time.  It was exciting to see Jaden play.  He is number 17 and plays on the offense as a receiver.  Pretty good for a freshman to be playing on the varsity team.  Congratulations Jaden.

We also watched Taylor perform with the drill team at half time.  She did a great job and came up in the stands after the performance.  Taylor has decided that dance is not her interest anymore and loves being on the high school drill team.  Again, it is unusual for a 9th grader to be chosen to be on the high school drill team.  Congratulations Taylor!

Neal finds a deal!

On Friday, Neal decided to stop by RC Willey and finish paying off our mattress.  When he got there he saw that they were having their annual sidewalk sale so he decided to browse through and see what they had.  He wasn't looking for anything in particular, just browsing.  I get a text from him telling me that he found a corner curio cabinet and wanted me to come and look at it.  I was just getting ready to leave work and detoured over to RC Willey to look at the curio cabinet.  Neal wanted to be sure that I liked it before he bought it.  Neal has great taste and I wasn't concerned that I wouldn't like what he had picked out.  We loaded it in the back of the Jeep and headed very carefully home.  We had originally planned to put it in the family room downstairs but I decided that it would fit very nicely in the front room where it would be seen by more people.  We got down all the nutcrackers and Neal spent the time grouping them into the cabinet.  I forgot to mention that I had picked up Tucker at the airport and he was the one who help Neal bring it into the house.  Thanks Tucker.

It is fun to be able to display the nutcrackers.  We still have enough left to fill another curio cabinet.  Neal actually called RC Willey and asked them if they had another one.  They told him that all the furniture on the sidewalk sale came from their scratch and dent warehouse and to buy one just like the one we did would be $1500.00.  Neal only paid $400.00 for this one and the scratch is in the back where it would never be seen!  Neal did find a 'real deal'!

Here is the picture I was looking for.

Thanks, Jamie, for pulling up the before picture.  Fun to compare them.

Sunday, Day Four

Sunday morning I woke up early, wanting to catch Jeff and the boys before they left but I didn't make it.  They were gone when I got up.  I folded up their bedding and felt badly l had not had a chance to say goodbye.

Everyone got up and ready for church.  It is always fun to attend a different ward and get a feel for the people there.  After church we went back to the house and had a delicious dinner and then play a mind game with Lexi.  3:30 came way too fast and it was time to leave for the airport.  We said our goodbyes and Peyton and I didn't cry.  She reminded me that we would be seeing each other at Thanksgiving which wasn't very far away.

Our trip home was uneventful and we arrived in Salt Lake about 10:00 p.m.

I cannot possibly thank Tucker and Jamie and the girls enough for a wonderful time spent with them.  We love you all and look forward with great anticipation for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Had to post this picture of Tucker's outfit for church.  Notice the tie and socks!

 This sign greeted me in Jordyn Lyn's room after we got home from church.  Yup, it made me a bit teary.  How I love those girls.

 Picture of our plane.  Just for the heck of it.

 Wonderful holiday, wonderful time!  Thanks again Maxfields!!!!

Now Day Three

Day three was Saturday morning.  The morning of the big game!  Well not my big game but the boys big game.  It was a very relaxed and hang around morning.  Just doing this and that.  I think Tucker went and picked up two boxes of donuts that were delicious.  Two of his friends arrived at noon and then all the boys gathered for pictures and left for the game.

Notice the one person in blue.  It really wasn't intentional but I'm glad it runed out!

After the boys left for the game the girls went shopping and then home to eat and watch Cheaper By The Dozen with Steve Martin.  We also stopped at the Sun-Maid Factory and bought some fun treats.  I had to take a picture of Peyton.  She fits the sun-maid princess perfectly.

 This is a belated post picture of Jordyn being fitted for her toe shoes.

Saturday night ended with the boys happy because U of U won and Jeannine kind of sad because BYU lost by one stinking point.  They were ahead of UCLA the whole dang game and they lost.  :-(

Day two?

I just about skipped a day.  Somehow I thought I was on day three but I know we didn't go golfing on day three so if I've already said day two, I was just kidding.  This is now day two.
Tucker arranged for us to go golfing Friday morning.  We dropped the girls off at school and from there drove out to the golf course.  Jamie and I did nine along with Tucker and Neal.  We did a scramble along with the dot game.  Don't ask me to explain it.  If you want to know how it works, talk to Tucker.  However, I think Neal and I won the dot game :-)

Somewhere I have a picture of the four of us 10 years ago or more in the same pose at a different golf course.  I'll find it and post it.
After the nine hole we took a break and went to an old school house made into a restaurant and had a delicious lunch.

After lunch the men went back to play their last nine and Jamie and I headed to pick up the girls, take Jordyn Lyn and Lexi to get their toe shoes (which took a long time.)  I had no idea that being fitted for toe shoes would be such an exact science.  Jordyn Lyn ended up with a pair but they couldn't fit Lexi so she had to go home without a pair.  They may have to make a trip to LA.

When we got home, Jeff, Ryan and Grayson drove in.  We spent the evening visiting and enjoying each other and ended by watching Star Wars.  What a great day!

Day two

Jordyn Lyn was nice enough to give up her darling room for Neal and I.  When I was getting things unpacked I looked on the wall and this caught my eye.  What a greeting that was for me.  How could you help but feel welcome.

Some fun pictures of the girls and a couple I forgot to post from the first day.  We did stop at an ice cream place that Jamie loves!

 I don't mind this picture.  In fact, I kind of like it.  Darling of Jamie, as usual, and not too bad of me, for a change.

 A selfie in the car.

Here are some pictures of the girls.  This was Friday morning as they were ready to be dropped off at school.  Jordyn Lyn did her best to try and convince her mom that she should stay home, but to no avail.

 No surprise here!  Tucker jumped into the picture.  Love it!

Off to four fun filled days in Kingsburg, California

Tucker bought tickets to the U of U vs. Fresno State football game and invited his dad to come to Fresna and go to the game with him.  I totally encouraged Neal to do this and in fact, had Jamie find the best airline tickets available.  She did and the time came for us to pack our bags and head to California.

We got to the airport about 5:30, parked the car, caught the shuttle bus and got to the terminal about 6:00.  Our plane left at 7:10.  There is never a time at the SL airport that there isn't a line.  Thursday morning was no exception.  We check in our golf bag and two other bags at the cost of $85.00 - sting! But we were happy not to have to haul them through that long walk to the gate.  When we got down to the security line it was a total Disney Land ride line!  It snaked at least 4 or 5 times and then continued back to the baggage claim area.  Seriously!  I was getting just a bit anxious about making it to the gate on time.  As we stood in line for maybe 30 seconds a security lady walked by to tell us all to push the line to the right so we didn't interfere people trying to get their baggage.  For some reason she noticed my ticket in my hand and said, "Oh, did you know that you don't have to wait in line.  You've been given a "Go past go and collect $200.00" ticket.  She check Neals and he had one as well.  Why the agent at the check in counter didn't tell us that when she handed us our tickets is a puzzlement to me.  So, Neal and I went past all those hundreds of people to an area that had one person waiting.  We were through security and at the gate within 10 minutes of her telling us to go ahead of the line.

Well we would not have had to worry about getting to the gate on time because the flight was delayed 45 minutes while they were waiting for a crew member to arrive!  Yup, they help up the flight for one crew member who was late.

Our flight into Arizona was uneventful and even though we were 45 minutes late arriving we had just enough time to get to the other side of the airport to catch our next flight into Fresno.  We arrived just as they were getting ready to board passengers.  We got out on the runway and then stopped and idled for about 5 minutes when the pilot came on and said they were having mechanical problems and they were trying to fix them.  No one wants to hear that the plane you are on is having mechanical problems, right?  30 minutes later we were told that everything was fixed and we were ready for take off.  We arrived in Fresno about 12:30 and were happy to be greeted by Tucker and Jamie.  Jamie had sent me a text and told me that Tucker was on an important interview follow-up call and so we couldn't talk!  That was, as you can imagine, hard to hold my excitement in for over an hour until his call ended.

We had a delicious lunch

and then headed for a pedicure!

Oh yes, Tucker got a picture of his dad sleeping in the chair.  I know, not unusual for Neal.
After that we stopped a couple more places and then headed home to see Jordyn Lyn, Lexi and Peyton.

The first fall rainbow

I think one of God's most beautiful and breath taking creations is the rainbow.  I love them and have to stand out on my back porch and look at the magnificent colored arch reaching from one side of Mt. Olympus to the other.  Often we get double rainbows and for the first time I actually saw a triple.  It is those times that I wish I had a camera that would actually capture the beauty.  This is the best that my little camera could do.  You can almost see the double but the triple just doesn't show up.  I'm thankful everytime I see a rainbow stretched across the sky.