Nash & Jen Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday NASH!!!! You are a wonderful son and I appreciate all that you do to help me and all of the time we spend just enjoying hanging out. Love, Dad and M

Happy Birthday Jen!!! You are a great daughter in law. We are greatful that you are part of our family. Thanks for being you. P.S This year we are going to focuse more on good photos of you...not in a hospital bed after a baby:)

Happy Birthday REX

Rex has been in our family now for about six years. He is a great dog and a good pal, as long as you put your food up where he can't reach it. He is a good tollerater but is not to thrilled that Bella came to live in his house. He had it pretty good and she changes a lot of things. He does however love Snowflake. Any day of the week you can come home to find the two of them curled up on our bed together. Rex always curls around her so she stays warm. Rex thinks the best part of having Snowflake around is the "kitty treats" that she leaves in the kitty box. I choose not to like that part but I like that they get along so well and make great allies. Happy Birthday Rex!!!

T Day Pics

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving 2009 was great!!! We had about 45 people there for dinner. If Mom could have seen it she would be proud. Actually I think she was there. This week has been a hard one with all of the anniversaries happening with in a few days. A lot of milestones for us this week. I was kind of dreading being all together with out Mom. While we were all together it seemed as though Mom was right there too only that we couldn't see her or talk to her. The noise level was roof raising, until everyone had food in front of them. It's amazing that the noise turns into happy, laughing and visiting when people are eating. Who ever said dinner is only for an hour, has never been to an Israelsen dinner. We can't even get through the line in an hour let alone eat some of everything that is on the serving table. That's the other part we have down. The variety and amount of food is wonderful. Three turkeys, two hams, 50 lbs of potatoes, 6 loafs of stuffing, three pans of yams, salads, rolls and a whole 8'table of dessert. Amazing. Everything was delectable delicious.
I know you have all been waiting for the Lapp dancing update and here it is.... All of the Israelsen Men wore reindeer hats and I danced in my Lapp apron, skirt and shoes. Paige did a great job at retelling the story about the birth of the Lappland subject and EVERYONE had a great laugh.
After dinner we all wrote what we were thankful for on leaves & angels. We hung them all on a string and let me tell you, our family is thankful for a lot of things. That evening we took the "Thankful Chain" to Grandpa Gene's house. He put it on like a necklace and read everything his family was thankful for. It was so much fun and brought tears and cheers. We also wrote a few notes to Elder Gillies. He was missed. We enjoyed pumpkin pie and huckleberry pie just for him. We also missed Tessa but did get to yell "Hello" to her on Thanksgiving night. All 35 of us. I am sure she could feel our LOVE:)
At Dad's house we all sat around and talked. It is so much fun to laugh as a family. We enjoyed being together. I am sure these years of getting us all together are getting fewer. It is rather hard to get 7 kids together and 7 spouses never mind all of the kids. By next year we will may be a few more in number. So we had to enjoy this year to the fullest. I think we did a great job at it. I had fun and I hope you all did TOO!!!

Missing You, Mom

Today started the Christmas decorating. It is so much fun to open and unwrap things that have been put away since last year. Today as I unwrapped I was flooded with memories. It seems that every thing I touched was either something that my mom had given me or had inspired me to have in my own collection. Dishes, paintings, ornaments, statues, books, recipes, most of my Christmas stuff. My mom loved Christmas. We used to spend lots of the month of December getting ready for Christmas. Making Candies, decorating, singing, projects, shopping...the list goes on and on.

Last evening, we attended a beautiful Christmas program. It was a program made up of a lot of music and some wonderful readings. I loved hearing the music and being part of the singing audience participation.

Friday night we took John's mom and dad to see the Christmas lights. They are always good sports about going on funny little outings with us. We had a great time at dinner and then enjoyed seeing lights all over two counties.

All of these are things that my mom would love to do. Dad may just go along for the fun but mom would enjoy them. So this years challenge is 25 memories repeated. Mom would love doing them and so we will do just that. It's time to just do it for fun and memories. XOXO

Sisters have a field day

Today the three sisters got together at my dad's house. What a blast. There is nothing like going home. We laughed, cried, and just had a great time together. Even though we don't live next door to each other it feels like we do. There is a special thread in each of us that seems to keep up with the others. We enjoyed visiting and going threw the stuff my dad had decided he was done using. We loved going to lunch with EVERYONE and enjoyed going to the store to pick up the last minute stuff for Thanksgiving. Wayne and his family also arrived today and we all had a great time visiting. It is so much fun to see how many people you can get around the table. The noise level in the whole house escalates. I am sure the neighbors can hear us. As soon as the cousins saw each other their little minds were turning and they were all trying to figure out how to con their parents into letting them have a sleep over. Grandpa's house if the most fun for a sleep over. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A B C's of Thanksgiving

This year we decided we would get back to the basics...ABC's of Thankfulness. Here is our list of some of the things we are thankful for. There are lots more and this list was very challenging because there were so many things we were thankful for for each letter.

A~Autumn time. It brings with it a great break.
B~ Babies that keep us in touch with the important stuff
C~Computer games that occupy the down time
D~ Duets we sing together. Most nights there are just the two of us. Lots of practice time.
E~ Electricity. We love camping but it is nice to come home to bright light and auto heat.
F~Friends that we enjoy doing EVERYTHING with.
G~ Garcias of all sizes
H~ Helpful Family members
I~ Israelsens, the crazier the better
J~ Just taking a break.
K~ Kindness shown to us in many ways
L~ Leaves. In the Spring and Summer they make shade. In Fall they are fun to play in.
M~ Music. It's the best way to spend time with friends and with each other.
N~Nieces and Nephews who love to hang out and do stuff with their Aunt & Uncle
O~ Ogden, it's a great place to live
P~Parents that have taught us everything we know and keep teaching us DAILY
Q~Quilts that have fond memories attached and are a safe place to snuggle.
R~ Rides. Near of Far we have fun no matter what. Never know where we will end up:)
S~ Spouses. We make a great team!!
T~ Tipi's that mean we are having a great time away from home
U ~ Universe that we are part of
V~ Voices. We love to hear voices in the house, that means we have visitors:)
W~ Water. We like it in a lot of different forms. River, Snow, Rain, Drinkable, Shower.....
X~ XOXOXOX: our favorite
Y~ YOU! If you are reading this it means that YOU are someone special in our lives.
Z~ Zestful outing that keep us young

Happy Anniversary

Wow another year. Who knew time would fly by so quickly. Thanks for another great year honey. Spending everyday with you in my life is wonderful. This year we get to celebrate with the traditional present: leather. How fitting. Maybe we will spice it up a bit and become a little modern and give each other crystal. The past year has been full of a lot of things, some good some bad but with you nothing seems to be more than what we can handel. Here's to another great year. Love you the most.

Something Used

Tonight after raking leaves for a few hours I had a great idea. There is a new consignment store in Ogden that I have been trying to get to shop. The problem is every time I go near there they are closed. Well, today was the day. We were just browsing looking for some new chest or shelves to put in the spare room for storage. I am looking to move the extra fridge out but that will require more help than the two of us.

There it was.....

A beautiful waterfall front, cedar lined hope chest. It still had the "Moth insurance" purchased to keep your clothes moth free for at least three years after purchase.

After we found that and picked up the sales tag we kept browsing. There were a lot of neat things in the store. A nice "King Chair" that I want just to have, a cute day bed couch, a Navajo couch.....I found a lot of wish list items.

Then there it was....

Another great find. A old Victorian wash stand. It is in pretty good shape. Visions of a new bathroom sink in an old washstand danced through my head. It may never happen but soon there will be two great new (old) pieces of furniture in my house. If only they could tell us the stories of their past. Like Devin explained while he was wearing a cardigan sweater tonight. Some old man wore that sweater and it was full of stories if only he knew them. Deep thoughts for a teenager. Winter projects are in full swing around the Garcia Casa.

Leaves are falling everywhere

We have spent the last week doing "leaf detail". That means each morning while Bella and Rex are out we sweep off the patio from the 6-8 inches of leaves that have fallen during the night. Then when we come home from work we do it all over again. We have a huge number of leaves. I swore I wouldn't send them to the land fill but, I just cant use that many of them. Saturday prior to the snow storm I thought I would get them all cleaned up. I did what I could but there are still so many leaves under the snow it's crazy. I did a check on the trees today and it seems that all of the leaves are down now. Thank goodness.....

Thankgoodness for weekends

I have not yet decided why a weekend is such an amazing time, I do know that I can get a lot of little stuff done around the house during a weekend. I guess maybe it has to do with actually getting to be home while the sun is awake, and I think not having the pressure of getting EVERYTHING done helps out too. This weekend was amazing. Saturday morning we woke up early ate breakfast and the storm started. We went to the Episcopalian church for a bazaar. That was a ton of fun. We did some Christmas shopping and we got some baked goods that we couldn't live without. Then we headed over to Mom and Dad's house. Who knew we would find a large project going on. Later that evening we went to another church open house. It was a lot of fun to look and see. After coming home we decided to call it a night and stay home. We watched a great movie and spent some "us" time. It is amazing how nice it is to just hang out and get some of the important things done in a weekend.

Update on weekend project

So much fun. Never mind the mess in the kitchen, it's fun to find out what is under that ugly yellow paint...


Pink and Cream paint and cat and dog decals. All gone thanks to the "stripper"

On Halloween weekend we started a furniature remodeling project. It is a high chair chovered in two or three layers of paint one oil for sure and heavy laqure to keep it safe. Wefinally have it stripped and sanded. Now to decide what we want to stain it with and a few minor repairs. It's in great shape and has a lot of original stuff on it. I can't wait until we finish it. It will make a great quilt holder:)

working on the hard parts. All the small space>

Ready for sanding. We had to wait to do that OUTSIDE!!!

Good Health

We were driving around last weekend with Zack. We had passed by the store "Spoon Me" Zack commented that it was the best ice cream ever. Uncle Gene and I both started inquiring because we too had been intriged by the store and the name. We asked Zack what the ice cream was like. He said he had not eaten there but that it seemed like it would be good. We looked at each other and started to laugh. Just then from the back seat we hear, "Good Hell". Uncle Gene and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Did we really just hear that or did we miss understand. At the same time we asked Zack what he had said. Again, he said, "Good Hell". We looked at each other and smiled. Then Zack continues that he was just reading the sign. Sure enough when we started reading the signs for the stores around "Spoon me" there was a health food store called, "Good Health". He was right. That really made us laugh. All of the way home it was funny. Later that night we were laying in on the bed and you guessed it, "good health" was the thing that kept us going all night.

Zack and Uncle Gene's day out

Today Zack and Uncle Gene had a day out. They went to the tree house museum. It was a ton of fun to run around and learn and make arts and crafts. We also learned about the states, the president, being doctors, countries, King and Queen, dress up, school, how to milk cows, building, being pioneers, and we planted and harvested our own garden. Zack thought he was pretty cool being the president and the teacher. He humored me and had a tea party with me. Uncle Gene helped us solve the riddle and make paper flowers. Who knew you could pass so much of a day running around a giant TREE?

Birds of a feather

So, if you read the blog prior to this one, you know that we have a project to work on. It was a great find at a bargain store and so this weekend was going to be spend re-doing it. Well Saturday was a bust so Sunday morning we woke up early and started re-model. It went rather well and we go to work TOGETHER side by side in a small area for ALL DAY LONG. We still loved each other when we were cleaning up last night and getting ready for bed. A while into the furniture paint stripping I looked at John and said, "I am sure glad you like to refinish furniture as much as I do." He quickly replied, "I don't. I just do it because you like to." What a guy. Having a project to be working on did make two football games and a baseball game much more manageable. Thanks for a great day honey. I love you the mostest!!!