Utah Fans

Derek and his friends are big Utah fans. The grins on their faces show their joy in victory!

Megan looks so pretty in her ballet costume!

Megan looked so cute at her dance recital. I am glad Natalie took pictures because we had another engagement and couldn't be there.

Two Christmas Parties

We met together with the McKell family last night at our home. We had fun visiting, eating, and opening gifts.

My cousin Sharalyn gave by far the most creative gifts. For the men, she gave each a hard-bound booklet of U.S quarters. The state quarters are displayed in the booklet in the order that the states entered the Union. For the ladies, Sharalyn had made a variety of attractive beaded watches, and we chose the one that we liked the best. What a thoughtful cousin!

Paul picked up my dad in Spanish Fork and brought him to our home in Draper. Dad had been invited to three parties last night! He was going to my brother Kent's party after Paul took him home. My dad is truly amazing--his energy, his alert mind, his enthusiasm for life.

Where are the pictures of the other party, the Moore gang? A week ago we met at Paul's son's house to celebrate Christmas. I took lots of pictures. I transported the memory card to my computer, and the photos didn't appear. The printer said "memory card error". These same photos would appear in the camera, however. So, I thought I would put the memory card in a safe place and then take it to Inkley's on Monday. Well, where is that carefully-thought-out safe place which is hiding the card? Hopefully, I can eventually unwind my mind and remember its hiding place.

At the Moore party we had a wonderful Mexican buffet--chicken enchiladas, tamales, spicy rice, etc. Our daughter-in-law Char always decorates her home beautifully for Christmas and is such a gracious hostess.

Anyway, we enjoyed two great parties (photos of party #1 to hopefully follow soon).

December 16th Birthdays - Bryce and Keaton

Cousins Bryce Ferguson and Keaton Moore share the same birthday - December 16th. Bryce turned 15 and Keaton is now six.

Bryce is a 9th grader at West Jordan Middle School. He is an excellent student and also a good athlete. Bryce and his whole family are fans of the University of Utah, whether it is football or basketball. A favorite hobby of the family is boating. Bryce is a very good water skier.

Six year old Keaton lives in Oregon. He is in kindergarten this year and loves his school. His class is a Spanish immersion program. Only Spanish is spoken by the teacher and the students. Keaton loves transformers and playing his guitar. Now that the birthday party is over, Keaton is aniticipating his next big day, Christmas!

I am lucky to be the grandma to these two handsome boys!

Cute Little Girls

The girls didn't like wearing look-alike dresses or having their hair short. Oh, well! I think that Natalie is four years old here, and Melanie is one. We were living in Selma, Alabama. Guy was in the Air Force teaching new recruits how to fly. We lived in on-base housing.

Thanksgiving Day, Year 2000

Bryce, Lucy, and Nicole are sitting at the kids' table.
I love this picture of Paul. He is an expert carver of turkey.
Mike and Patti came from Oregon to visit the family.
Lisa was celebrating her birthday as well as Thanksgiving.
Lucy looked so cute in this red coat.

It is fun to look back in time when the grandchildren were very young. This is the year 2000 in our home in Sandy.
We met with my family at my cousin Sharalyn's home yesterday. I forgot to bring the camera, but Natalie didn't, so I will hopefully steal some from her to put on a future blog.

A Thanksgiving a Long Time Ago

My first Thanksgiving away from home (Utah) is one I will always remember. I was 24 years old. Guy and I were living in Laredo, Texas, while he was going through pilot training for the Air Force. Natalie was only a few months old.

The temperature outside was in the 90's; It certainly didn't feel like the Thanksgivings of my childhood. We lived in a trailer at the time. The airconditioning was going full blast to try to keep up with the heat outside.

Here we were, very homesick and far from home. We decided to invite some other couples we had met in Laredo to share our Thanksgiving Day. They all came around noon with their food contributions for the dinner.

I was in charge of cooking the turkey. Well, I had never cooked a turkey in my life. Basically, I just stuck it in the oven. No one had told me I needed to remove the sack inside the turkey containing the neck and other assorted gross parts . Also, no one had told me that I needed a lot of time to defrost the turkey. So, it pretty much went into the oven frozen.

Dinner was supposed to start at 1:00 P.M. Every half hour or so, I would check the turkey to see if it was done. While waiting, we were all feeling the effects of the one window airconditioner we had which tried to combat the heat coming from the oven and outside.

Finally, we all gave up the waiting game and ate a turkey-less Thanksgiving dinner. I think the turkey was finally done around 10:00 that evening. Needless to say, this was a very disappointing Thanksgiving, as well as a pretty embarrassing one!

Still Alive But Now Spotted!!!

I have been fighting with my body, and so far I am not the winner! Weird spots have been appearing on my arms, chest and face. The face spots are especially unattractive. In fact, my internist said yesterday that I might have a good chance of winning a look-alike contest for Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer! I have been to a dermatalogist and my internist, but these spots are very determined to stay.

Apparently, I am allergic to my blood pressure pill. Yesterday afternoon Dr. Roberts gave me a week's worth of steriods. Hopefully, that will work. In the mean time I have not felt well and haven't been motivated to do this blog or anything else as well.

So.....I'm still here; I'm just a little more colorful version of me!!!

A Positive View of Teenagers

I had the best experience yesterday. My friend Suzette had a birthday, and I decided to take lunch to her at Riverton High School where she teaches.

I had to park in the visitor section of the parking lots, which put me quite a distance from Suzette's classroom. Hoisting all the stuff I needed to take (sandwiches, chips, cookies, large drinks, even larger birthday gift, purse), I started walking from my car to Suzette's classroom door. I was doing a balancing act, and it probably showed from the frustration on my face.

A teenage girl, who was on her lunch break, saw me struggling and asked if she could help. She took half of the items, and we made our way to Suzette's classroom on the second floor. How sweet was that?

Keep in mind that I taught teenagers in the public schools for 20 years. The kind young lady who helped me reminded me of all the truly great teenagers out there. Certainly there were the jerks, but all in all, the nice ones definitely outweighed the obnoxious ones.

This sweet teenage girl (why didn't I ask her name) made my day!

Keaton and Sully on Halloween

These two scary dudes from Oregon are having a very fun Halloween. Keaton is Darth Vader, and Sullivan is Iron Man. Look how strong and fierce they are!!!

Keaton especially has been looking forward to Halloween for a long time. This is Sully's year to shine as well as they collect their goodies and celebrate. I love this last picture of the two boys holding hands. It is so sweet.

Megan at Halloween

I asked Megan several weeks ago how she wanted to dress on Halloween. She said she wanted to be Derek! So.....here she is as Derek the baseball player. I talked to Megan tonight, and she informed me that she had stuffed all of her hair into the baseball cap so when she was trick-or-treating, no one could tell if she were a boy or a girl. She also informed me that someone gave her a king-size Butterfinger candy bar; she was so excited!

Little kids make life more fun. They are thrilled with things like Halloween, and it reminds us older folk of our younger days when anticipation and adventure were around every corner.

The McKell Boys at Halloween

I found this cute picture on Facebook of my five nephews and their dad at Halloween . These boys are my brother Allen's sons (picture taken when they were all still living at home). Now my brother and his wife Wendy are empty-nesters and the boys are all off on their own adventures!

More Halloween Pictures

I remember Natalie and Melanie laughing in this picture about whether these costumes fit their personalities!

Bryce made an authentic Harry Potter. Nicole was a cute little witch.
This is my favorite costume from the grandkids. Lucy looks so cute!
Keaton is a race car driver for this Halloween.

Can you pick out Jake in this photo?

Spiderman seems to be a really popular hero to emmulate on Halloween. Keaton still likes Spiderman.
This is Sully's second time as a puppy. Patti said that she could barely squeeze Sully into this costume!

Halloween - 2001

Lucy looks so sweet in her costume. She has the prettiest blue eyes.
Derek and Jake stayed warm for trick-or-treating in these costumes.
My clearest memory of Hallween, 2001, and actually for the next two years, is seeing Nicole in this princess dress. Nicole loved, loved, loved this dress; she wore it even when it became noticeably too little for her. I always smile when I see her in this dress!

Halloween in Years Gone By

Nicole was a "Bug" on Halloween in the year 2000.
I believe that Bryce is a very scary monster.
Jake is a scary person (not sure "what" scary person). Derek is one of the characters from Teletubbies.

Where has time gone? It seems that these cute little grandbabies have grown up!

Jessica

I found this very cute picture of our granddaughter Jessica on Facebook. She is currently at BYU-Idaho, where she is majoring in Occupational Therapy.

Happy Birthday, Paul

Paul was proud of his new riding pants and boots. His brother Grant gave them to him.
Back: Maynard; Front: Paul, Grant, Alice; these are Paul's siblings. His brother Ray was on a mission at the time.
This is the house where Paul grew up (in Payson, Utah).
Paul as an LDS missionary in Colorado and Nebraska
Back: Catherine, Lisa, Paul; Front: Mike (These are Paul and Nancy's children.)
These are the Moore children with Paul and Nancy a few years later.
This photo was taken at the wedding reception of the oldest son, Paul W.
Paul retired after many years at the Wasatch Mental Health Center.
Here Paul and I are eleven years ago at the time of our marriage.