Vickie we love you

Today was the funeral for one of the ladies that lived in my group home. It is amazing to see the love that pours out during a time like this. I had the opportunity of working with the bishop of the rock cliff 1st ward again. I hoped last January I wouldn't have to work with him again but this week I got my chance. What an awesome man. He is amazing and willing to help in aspects that I didn't think of myself.

I was asked to speak by the family on Saturday. It is not my favorite thing to do. I kind of thought that I dodged the "Relief Society" bullet that my Mom laid the "big shoes" to fill in that department. However, after this past week I think she is just being sneaky about how she is getting me involved:)

Talking at funerals is not my favorite thing. In fact talking in public is not what I would ever choose to do for a past time. I learned at my mom's funeral that it was really hard to control my tears but with my brothers backing me up I made it. Literally the backed me up. I was having a hard time talking instead of crying and they all came to the pulpit to stand with me while I finished. Now for two other funerals that I have been asked to speak at I can feel them standing right behind me letting me know it's all going to be ok.

I was amazed to find out how often I cross paths with others who know Vickie or her family. It was a great day and thankfully the storm waited to come in until Vickie's day was over. She wouldn't have liked that. I can see her shaking her finger now at the weather man.

Send in a real big storm

That is what we have been waiting for all winter. We just hoping for the same amount that we had in 2008. That year it seemed to pile right up to our windows. Well, we have not seen anything like that but this weekend made it feel like it was possible. Saturday morning started out rough and by seven that evening all I wanted to do was watch a movie that would make me laugh. My wonderful husband found the perfect movie and so we headed out to see it. When we walked out side of the theater...there was a good two inches of really heavy, wet snow on the ground. We came home and talked about shoveling but it was close to 10:30pm and I said, "I'll do it tomorrow." That phrase is becoming more popular and you would think by now I would know that there is always a crisis on tomorrow. Sunday I woke up early and looked out side. There it was 6 inches of beautiful white snow on the ground. I had a grand idea and figured it was still early enough that I could play in the snow in the front yard and not be seen by any one. I broke out the snow pants and a warm shirt and vest and headed out to play. After I had lost myself in my snow man and snow angel making I heard the neighbor Sam. He stepped out on his porch chuckleing to himself. I stopped in my tracks looked up and laughed. He told me I really was a kid at heart and then left the whole driveway full of snow so I could build the middle section. It started to snow again and Sam wished me well and went inside until it stopped snowing. I stayed out side and played. I even built a snow dog. If you look really close you can see her. Bella wanted to come out front with me and help but when I let her out in the front yard she knocked over Mr. Snowman. After having to rebuild him a time or two I put her in back. So here he is....




Here is the snow dog. Like her tail and ears. After a few minutes of new snow falling her details were hidden.

Goals, goals, goals

In the class that we are taking we have to make weekly action plans. This was really hard the first week because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I did know things that I needed to get done but I had a rather hard time coming up with things that I wanted to do. The next week was better and I learned that I set the bar really high for myself. This week has been perfect. I made it a point to take 10 minutes daily for myself. I do something that I want to. That could be read, crochet, sing, or just plain do nothing. 10 minutes is a long time when you have to do something but it doesn't seem that long when I want to do the thing I am working on. Yesterday I didn't think I was going to find 10 minutes in my day. It was one of those days that things just kept coming and piling up all around me. I finally fit it in right near 10:45pm. (I guess I could count my sleep time.) Today I broke my day into two parts. It was a much nicer day and I did get a little more me time and felt like I was not going to break. Maybe next week I'll go for 20 minutes.

Lucky post #280

This is one of my favorite hobbies. Today you get post 280! I know its not your typical mile marker but when I started with 15 posts in a year I never guessed I would get close to this and since its here, why not talk about it. In our house we used to joke that EVERYTHING would end up on the blog. We don't talk about it as much any more but we do still look forward to any blog worthy event. So here's to another 280 posts. Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

February news

See the paper whites? If you look really close you can see little bulbs with teeney sprouts coming up. Those are going to be really neat flowers in a few weeks. Thats what I love about this time of year. You can actually get bulbs to grow and the night is gettings longer. There is something refreshing about having the sun start to stay out past 5:00pm. Spring is coming just like Skyler told me "The hedge hog saw his shadow so Spring is coming. That means we can play outside."

Beautiful Colorado

This story starts out because on of our favorite singer song writers isn't coming to SLC. Peter Meyer has become a real favorite in our house. He has wonderful music, great lyrics and awe inspiring talent on the guitar. We just happened upon him on year during the UCC concert programs and fell absolutely in love. at one of gis shows we bumped into some dear friends and that was all it took. We became part of the Jackson clan once a year during this show and had a wonderful time seeing amazing music and enjoying a great after show midnight snack. So this year when Peter released his travel dates "SLC" was not on the list. This weekend is the next best thing to "SLC". He came to Colorado Springs. We headed out with one thing on our minds. We were going to have a great trip and enjoy listening to Peter at least once this year. It was a great time. We stayed with Cathy and Matt who are gracious hosts and we enjoyed visiting with them. The concert was great and we got to meet a new singer song writer that we fell in love with. It was a good weekend and I was sad that all good things must end. I guess that just makes it better when we get to have a good time again.

Where is 25th street?

It is under a few feet of snow. No we have not had that much snow, but Ogden City has been working hard to haul snow down to 25th street for Winterfest. We had so much fun there last year that we planned to spend most of the weekend down there this year. The added bonus was that Sky and Sage got to come with us.



Friday afternoon we headed down and watched the parade that kicked off the festivities. There was candy and everything. That was all it took. As Sky was picking up little Hersey kisses out of the snow bank, the man with the box came by and poured it into our coats and packs.

There are kisses every where. Lots of people out to see the festivities and enjoy beautiful weather in Ogden.

We got lucky and Megan and Drew came with us to Wnterfest. We even got a cup of coca while braving the outside.

Skyler found this sledding statue and got on the front of the sled. He has a great imagination and made the Weeeeeee sound while he sat here.

What do you think has these boys attention. Held for almost 10 minutes?

The big bang these dumps make after they dump their load. See the flap that is resting on the bank of snow? When the truck starts pulling forward after is dump that little flap hits into the bed and makes a LOUD boom. The boys thought that was a lot of fun. We got to see them dump snow on 25th and Washington. It only took 20 minutes to fill the rest of the road with snow and start the winterfest.

On Saturday we came back. We watched Skijorring, ate breakfast at a restaurant, listened to and watched snow machines, built a bird house, watched whole chickens roast, built snow men, posed by snowmobiles, and walked around a lot.

Uncle Nash came with us and helped us build a snow man. because there was no snow left in the park, the city had to bring in piles of snow. It was not the best snow man snow but with a little help from Uncle Nash we found three just right snow pieces.

Sky couldn't get the arms to stick into the snow/ice. Thank goodness Uncle Nash had just the right touch to make them stick.

Skyler used a spray bottle of blue water to put the finishing touches on his snow man. Once this little guy was built Sky was ready to start another and another. Luckily we found a bird house to build. By this time Sage and M were ready for a nap and so we sat in the amphitheater while Sky, Gramps and Nash built the house.

Over all we had a great couple of days and were very happy to get to spend them with two of the most amazing BOYs on the planet.

A souper day for a super bowl

Megan and Mandy are so excited to try the next pizza. We had a huge food spread. Anything you could think of we had. Lots of Green and Yellow to support our Green Bay team. We also had a lot of cheese. We are cheese heads...only from Cache Valley.

Lori and Megan enjoying visiting prior to the first kick off.

Lena teasing Me that she was going to eat all of the pizza before I could get mine. I was leaning in to steal a bite.

GIRLS rule. We were having our own party. The boys had other plans so we made up our own plan.


The first touch down. Made by the best team!

This is how much pizza 4 of us could eat. What you can't see is a whole other pizza!! I guess we planned for boys being here to eat with us:)