Christmas 2011

Rick and I are in Utah, we got here one week ago. It's so much fun to have the whole family here with us.Not sure how much longer this will be possible, but it's nice for now. The little girls, especially Macy, have changed so much since I was here just one month ago. Love to see them. I will follow this post with some pics.

Peddler's Village

I was looking for a fun Christmas activity and found this place over by New Hope, Pa. I wanted to go at night, as the main 2 things I wanted to see were the lights, and a Gingerbread House contest. The lights were quite pretty, and the camera just doesn't do them justice. Unfortunately, the gingerbread houses were in a small gazebo and the line was long and moving slowly. We just looked in thro the doors - cute but nothing more amazing than anything Paige creates.

The tree at the top is made of kitchen whisks - it was in a kitchen store - I love to see unusual and creative displays. (As a side note, I just spent 5 minutes using a thesaurus trying to find another word for creative. The writer in me won't allow the same word being used in two paragraphs, create and creative, so in your own mind substitute ingenious, imaginative, innovative, inventive, or inspired, whichever you like best, for creative.)

Five dozen cookies

A sister in our ward had a cookie exchange yesterday and asked everyone to bring 5 doz. I wasn't going to go because I thought I really didn't need 5 doz cookies hanging around tempting me. But another sister called and asked for a ride; that was a sign for me to go, so Wed night I made 5 doz Chewy Ginger Spice cookies, which just happens to be one of my favs.

Thursday morning at 9:45 I picked up the sister and we drove over to the exchange. About 20 people came, we had finger food, and it was just quite fun. All of a sudden I checked on the time - 11:30. I was supposed to pick up my VT companion at 11:30 so we could go see our last sister of the month. I had only collected 3 doz of the cookies and candies from the exchange, but that actually was good (then I wouldn't have 5 doz hanging around). Ran to the car and raced to pick her up. I was 15 min late, but we were only 5 min late for our appointment. So all's well that ends well.

Now, what to do with 3 dozen cookies...can't think of anything...yummmmm, ummmm, chomp, chomp, gulp.

Christmas

Rick and I are looking forward to leaving for Utah for Christmas. Rick hasn't seen the little girls since Sept, and he is so ready to see them, hold them, listen to them. See how much they have changed. Going to the gas station early in the morning with Stella. One and one-half weeks left to CV-Day (that would be Christmas vacay day).

Rick has been particularly busy with work. He needs this break. But I finally got him to find a day and let me set some doc appointments for him. So Tues it is. This is the schedule: 10 am chiropractor; 2:30pm dentist; 5:30pm doc. Nothing is wrong, just back alignment (?), teeth cleaning, general physical. Jason said to go in and tell the doc, "Hook him up to everything you've got that tests for anything." If the doc says, but that test is for women, doesn't matter, test him anyway. It could work, it could work....

Time flies

I can't believe it is Saturday already. My goal is to blog at least once a week, and use this as a type of journal. But I can't think of anything to blog about. So,ummmmm...ummmmmm...ummmmmmmm

Aren't you glad you took valuable time to check on my blog?

A Feast for Thanksgiving

Scott and Chris came in on Tues evening; unfortunately, Philly had a bad rain storm hovering over the city, causing a few flight delays and cancellations. Rick finally got Scott at 12:15 am on Wed, and made it home at 1 am or so. Wed noonish we picked up Jason and went over to Reading Terminal Market to have lunch. It's an indoor market, with fresh veg and seafoods, delicious breads and cookies, and lots of sandwiches to choose from. Kind of resembles an outdoor street market, only indoors.

On Thurs the men folk got up for the Turkey Bowl, a tradition they can never miss, no matter where we are - returned covered in mud, due to all the rain the day before. It was not too cold, high 50s, and sunny. We had the traditional Tday dinner: turkey, ham (my sons insist on this), rolls, dressing, corn, green bean casserole, baked candied sweet potatoes, smashed potatoes (I use yukon golds, they are my fav), baked beans with lots of carmelized onions, cranberries, pickles and olives, and pumpkin pie.

Fri we went to 2 malls, and various other stores, trying to catch some Black Fri deals, of which we found few. I, for some perverted reason, have more fun watching the youtube videos of beatdowns and fracases that occur among the bargain seekers. Rick, Scott, and I came back early (3pm) and Jason and Chris drove back to the mall to finish it off, arriving back home at 7:30pm.

Sat morning - just got back from dropping Jason off at the airport; Chris and Rick just went to the shooting range. Still plenty of Christmas movies to watch, turkey and ham to finish off. Tomorrow we step on the scales to read the bad news.

Home again

I returned to Eagle Mt on Thurs. Took the shuttle up and got to Springville at 7pm and Paige and Stella picked me up. On Fri we went out and met Scott to do some shopping, ate lunch at Olive Garden (Stella ordered mac and cheese and enjoyed it), then went to Stella's Starlets program. Riverwoods, an outdoor mall, was doing a preChristmas lighting ceremony that her little singing group was singing at. It was quite adorable.

Church on Sunday, we left at 5pm to drive to NYC. Rick had a meeting on Monday and I decided to go with him. It was fun. I'm going to start going on the short 1-2 day trips like that.

While the cat's away the mice shall play...

or something. It might be who's sitting in mama bear's chair while mama bear is gone. I'm still in St George, so someone evidently feels quite comfortable getting in and on my stuff.

Fall at home in Lansdale

I love burning bushes. We had 2 huge ones in Limestone, and a row of minatures in Danville. The ones around our townhouse are at their prettiest.

St George

I decided I needed to come to St George and see how mom was doing.
Yesterday I got up at 3:45 am to catch the flight; unfortunately I had a 3 1/2 layover in Denver - the bad news of last minute flying. Scott picked me up at 1:50pm, we drove to Paige's and I played with the little girls until 4:00, then we headed for St George. Got to mom's at 8pm. She looked good to me. Scott stayed 15 min and headed for home. I do have a good son.

Got up this morning and walked 2 1/2 miles, then came back and had breakfast. Mom got up around 10:30, showered and then she ate. I went out shopping to get a few groceries, check on the price of some wheelchairs, and get some dried prunes at Costco. These are delicious - I'm not kidding they taste like candy. Get some and see if you agree.

If you find this entry boring - sorry, but I'm also using this as a kind of journal, so some of my blogs will be pure boredom.

Sunny sky

Today is a sunny, beautiful day, with the temp supposed to be at 68. The snow has been gone for awhile, but still seeing all the damage that was done to the trees. Most everybody here has power back, but some were without for a few days. It was bad because most of the trees still had leaves, which made a bed for the snow and caused limbs to break. All the damage to the trees was sad to see, but the falling limbs brought down power lines. It was a heavy wet snow, so that made it worse.

We only lost power for 45 min (we didn't know it tho). Rick and I were driving home, so we called a neighbor to go over and look in our basement. But no rain, so nothing to cause huge amounts of water anyway. We need to get a battery backup on that sump pump, now that we know that with lots of rain, it will fill the sump pump area. And with no power, no sump pump to get it out. During the hurricane, when our basement flooded, we already had about 20 inches of rain in just a few short weeks, so the ground was saturated and more than ready to cause problems.

This storm happened 2 weeks ago anyway.

Nano and Papa...

as seen by Stella. Note the 2 little tuffs of hair on Papa, because "that's all he has."

Occupy Wall Street

Chris met some friends in NYC last weekend. Of course, they decided to check out the OWS group; these signs seemed as good as any, so they grabbed them and joined the rebellion. Good times.

L.L.Bean in Freeport, Maine

Here we at the flagship L.L.Bean store, open 24 hours a day, 365 day a year. Also in this downtown area there are a lot of outlet stores. A very fun place, the nicest outlet mall I have ever been to. I could spend 4-5 hours here (when the weather is warmer) just wandering and looking. We actually came across some good deals at Banana Republic and Van Hussein, unusual in my humble opinion. We didn't get there until 6pm and most of the stores closed at 9. Rick bought a huge ice cream cone at DQ and almost froze while eating it.

Old Orchard Beach

We are actually at One Bay Ave at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Chris' rented condo. These pics are taken from his 3rd story balcony.

We got in yesterday afternoon, Chris came home and met us. Later we went out to eat at a Mexican hole in the wall (the place we wanted to go was a 30 min wait); don't ever eat Mexican in the New England states - absolutely horrid. Eat seafood. Rick's baked haddock was delicious.

Today we met Chris at The Landing School and then to lunch. Rick found a small sailboat that they are going to start building at the school that he is ready to buy, costing $8,000. A school official said a place in Rhode Island sells the same thing for double the price.

Brand new basement

I spent many hours last week in the basement organizing. I bought 15 new tubs to put, as Stella would say, "stuff" in. On Fri evening, Rick and I spent another 4-5 hours organizing. This morning we got up and finished it off. We have a brand new basement!! We can now go down and find and get into anything little (or big) that we want or need.

We also bought another tv, new carpet piece, and got the tv set up so we can exercise and watch tv. Now we only need to actually go down there and exercise.

Home again

Got back from Utah last night. I had a great trip, but am glad to be home.
Macy claps her hands, scoots like crazy, and rolls and rolls and rolls....
Stella is a great big sister, and loves to help her mom take care of Macy. She also likes to be a goer and a stomper of bugs. Making the world safer one bug at a time.

Looking forward to our trip to Maine, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Zion National Park X3

Mom and I went to Zion's to get her a buffalo burger and I wanted to see the park. Couldn't find her card to allow us to enter for free (car price is $25), so we just got a buffalo meatloaf burger outside the park. Mom saw some cute jamies she wanted and paid $41 for them. Got them home - didn't fit. The next day we went back and got another size - got home and they didn't fit. The 3rd day mom and I went to Zion's, returned the jamies and she bought a cute pair of crocs. We had her card so we drove thro the park, out on the other side and got her fav buffalo burger for lunch. It was cold and did start snowing just a dab.

Larry, Mom, Gary, and I did some family sealings, then I went back to the temple 2 different nights to do endowment sessions. I really enjoyed it.

On Fri I rode the shuttle up to Springville, where Scott picked me up. The "boys" all left for Denver, leaving the girls home. The girls went yard saleing this morning. Nano and Stella went to Artic Circle for dinner and she played in the playplace. We HAVE to start painting on Mon.

St George

Scott and I drove to St George on Fri. It was quite an enjoyable trip; we always like to stop in at Cove Fort and tell them to give us "the 10 min tour." This time we decided we needed to find the Cache Valley Cheese Outlet in Beaver and buy Paige some curds, which we did.

We arrived at my mom's, chatted for a while, then Scott wanted a book to read, so off to the mall and Barnes and Noble. I decided I needed to go to Christopher and Bank (my fav "boutique"). I found a jacket I had been looking at in Orem and this time it really called my name. Then on to Penney's, where I found a bunch of good sales.

On Sat listened to Conf with mom, and then shopped with Scott at the old Red Cliffs Outlet Mall. I still like the old one better. Scott headed back to Provo.

On Sun we listened to Conf, then went to lunch at Larry's. It was quite enjoyable.
Mon we drove to Tuacahn, did some errands.

Today we go to Zion's to look around, and Wed we go to the temple and do some family names mom wants to get done.

Thurs I don't know, and Fri I leave.

Little Miss Sunshine

Who can resist that smile?!

I ride my bike don't drive no car...

Stella and her wheels.

Labor Day Weekend

Rick and I drove over to Indy on Fri, arriving at Jason's at 1:30 a.m. Sat.
On Sat we went to Danville, walked in Blanton Woods, looked at our old house and subdivision, then spent some time with Fred and Barbara. Oh, can't forget the Donatos Pizza, my fav pizza in the whole world.

That evening up to Jonesboro to see the town Jason does his police work in. Saw the old 3 story school that is haunted. Seriously, it is on some national registrar of officially haunted buildings. Jason asked if we wanted to go in - no, just listening about the time he had to clear the building for a group of ghost hunters made the hair stand up on the backs of our necks. Jason actually wasn't too keen to enter it again, either.

Sunday church at Brownsburg. So much fun to attend there again. So many good memories. And visiting with old friends was wonderful. Jason took pics of the plaques with the kids' Eagle and YW awards. Sunday afternoon we saw Pat and Ed. Then off to Pendleton, where the Owens' orginated, to see the gravesites and then museum. The pic of Rick and Jason at the tornado slide is the infamous slide that Rick could only go on once because he had new school pants on. Such a sad story....The other pic is the site of the Fall Creek Massacre, and the brick building is the Owens house, now a registered historical building.

Today, Mon, we meet Aunt Phyllis for lunch, then Circle Center, 100 acre Park, and the downtown Canal walk. I only have pics of Pendleton because that is when I finally remembered the camera.

I heard someone say, "Earthquake, hurricane...

what's next, locusts?"

Normal at last

We finished getting everything cleaned up yesterday. What a lot of work. I washed nonstop for one entire day. Fans in the basement are getting it super dry, plus we have 2 dehumidifiers going. Sunday afternoon we had 8 people from church come and help us bring ruined stuff up from the basement, and just generally clean up. I hope that never happens again.

Chris and Adam, his friend, got in Mon night at 11:30. We talked for a while, then went to bed. Rick had to leave this morning for a business trip to Europe. Chris, Adam, and I went to downtown Philly to see some sights. We ate a late lunch at Geno's, famous Philly cheesesteak place.

Chris and Adam leave Wed morning. I will miss them. Luckily, Rick and I go to Indy to spend Labor Day Weekend with Jason. It will be fun to be back, spend time with Jason, see Danville, go to church at the Brownsburg ward.

We do have damage

Sometime after 1 am, our sump pump quit working. Around 9:30 am we discovered around 5 inches of water in the basement. What a mess. Tons of boxes filled with stuff destroyed. Lots of work. Starting to get a handle on it.

All's well

Received lots of rain, our rain gauge topped out at 5 inches and I'm sure more fell but could not be measured. There is major flooding, but we are not affected by any. Tornadoes were spun off the hurricane, and Rick and I spent several hours in the basement. Still expecting more wind. The tv news reports that millions are without power, luckily we still have it. Church today is Sacrament only and we are joining with the other ward in the building. It is supposed to be quite humid this upcoming week.

Earthquake, then hurricane...will we survive?

This is the horrible damage we sustained from the earthquake. It lasted about 5 seconds here. This pic is on our deck.

The top two pics are from our deck onto the golf course. We are on the 6th tee. Philly has already been saturated with rain; I emptied our rain gage this morning - 1 inch. The hurricane should hit here Sat night or Sun morning. The weatherman said expect 4-8 inches. I hope the golf course doesn't become a lake. I'm stocking up on batteries, getting 72 hr kit ready. Not sure what else to do.

Peace Valley Park and Nature Center

This is one of the places Rick and I like to walk. It is 6 miles to walk around the lake. We usually just walk part of it, 2, 3, or 4 miles. They rent canoes, kayaks, and sailboats. Sometime when Chris is here, we want him to teach us how to sail. The lake is man-made and the name makes me think of some commune from the 60s.

Grandmother Deeny with Macy

This pic is the 1st and 4th of the 4 generations. I love it.

Cascade Springs

One of my fav places in nothern Utah would have to be Cascade Springs. My sister Kristi introduced me to this area several years ago. I really like to drive up Provo Canyon, passing Sundance and Timpanogas cave along the way. Beautiful switchback road, breathtaking scenery, until arriving at the Springs. It has trails, some with a boardwalk. Rick and I took Stella and had a lovely morning drive and walk.

Memories

Having lived in the Midwest, and now on the east coast, for about 26 years, I love going back west to Utah and Idaho. I'm fortunate in that I can return 4 or 5 a times a year, and stay 2 to 4 weeks at a time.

I'm posting some pics from the Family Reunion in Idaho. This is from the canal above our house in Richfield. We used to swim in it most every noon break and many times in the early evening. The water is icy cold. Once when Uncle Junior was up from AZ he saw us playing in the water, jumping off the bridge, swimming under the bridge, just having a great time on a hot summer day. He went back to the house, pulled on his swimming trunks, came back to the bridge, and jumped in. He immediately swam to the bank and climbed out; then with some colorful language (but no swearing) let us know that the water was "gol-danged cold!" We were so used to it we didn't even notice. Ahh, good times.

Missing my granddaughters

I guess I have pics to look at. Not quite the same as holding, talking to, and playing with them.

Remember when dinosaurs roamed the earth?

We have been scouting out different parks to take Stella and Macy to when they come. This looks like a fun one.

Too much fun, forgot to blog

I meant to blog once a week while in Utah, just like I did in PA, but for some reason all my plans seem to fall to pieces.

I have been having a great time. Rick was here also, off and on. I guess someone needs to have a job that actually makes money. I hear that money is a handy thing.

We began the fun with July 4th parties at Paige's, then continued on to St George. Everyone but Macy and me went to Tuacan to see Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, they got rained out. Scott says out of 4 shows he has tried to see, 3 have been rained out. NEVER go with Scott. Wonderful to see mom.

Back to Provo, where Chris had returned from New Zealand, before he heads to Maine. It will be nice to have a child on the east coast. Jason, Rick and I are planning a trip up to Maine to see him (but first we go to Indy for Labor Day).

My sister, Kristi, Rick, Chris and I all went to Sundance to view the full moon from the ski lift. It was quite fun. The moon was beautiful.

Up to Idaho to the Jensen Family Reunion in Hollister at my brother Charles'. Cheryl planned everything (she needs to be an event planner, she does such a fantastic job with it all). So nice to see everyone that was there.

Finally back to Provo. The party officially ends Sat, when I fly back to Philly.

so...naturally...

So I was reading all my old blogs, and naturally I discovered that I really like to use the words "so" and "naturally". The more I look at "naturally" the odder it is looking....

The terrible, horrible, no good, way too yummy pretzel

Rick and I were out today and came across a pretzel bakery that is close to our house. We had been wanting to try some soft pretzels, so we stopped. The sign out front said, "Buy 3 pretzels, get 3 free, after 3," and it was after 3pm. They were fresh out of the oven and smelled and looked delicious. Naturally we needed 6, 3 for $1.50 and 3 for free.

On the way home we ate one, and said we really shouldn't have discovered this place. At home, I observed one of these pretzels, and imagined it being 2 slices of bread, or around 200 calories. Sadly, no. I weighed one and it was 5 oz. I Binged it on the internet (I never Google anything, it is too liberal) and discovered a 5 oz soft pretzel was around 400 calories!! Or FOUR slices of bread.

Hence the title of this post.

See...!!

Different angle of pillows

Does this pic show more of the 19 pillows?

I forgot to mention that I also got 6 huge (HUGE) backpack/duffle bags for $1 each. Rick and I had been eyeing them when they were $10. Imagine my surprise when I was told they were now $1. I said, "I'll take them all!"

Pillows!!

A furniture store here, called American Signature, had throw pillows on sale in Feb, 4 for $20. Which is a great price if you have ever bought throw pillows. So Rick got 4. When Jason came out the end of Feb, he bought 4 throw pillows, once again for $20. Then Paige wanted some, so we took pics, emailed them to her, and she chose 4, which we brought to her in April.

I wanted some pillows to put on the bed of the room I just painted. So of course I headed over to American Signature. But, this time they were $2 each. I got 4, then called Paige, who wanted a bunch. Is a bunch 19? Because that's how many we got her. I guess we will being bringing throw pillows to Utah, a few at a time, for the next few years.

Peace Valley Park

On Tues, two friends and I went walking in Peace Valley Park, a place about 6 miles from our house that I had never heard of. It is a large, woodsy area with man-made Galena Lake in the center. The path around the lake is 6 miles, with many outlying hikes. We walked to the Nature Center and then back to the boat rental docks - about 5 miles. I was quite tired for the rest of the day.

It was so nice that Rick and I went there on Fri afternoon, after he returned home (he was in the Netherlands for the week, so no sleep for me). Tabora Farms, with pick your own blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, veg, is about 2 minutes away, so naturally we needed to stop there and buy some high calorie baked treats in their store.

We got up on Sunday morning and went for a walk at the Park. It truly does refresh and reenergize my soul to be out in nature. On one of these outings I will remember to bring my camera so I can upload pics. My blog desperately needs some pics.

Cat sneaking out

I like to open the door leading onto the deck and get some fresh air in the mornings. There is a screen that goes into the storm/screen door, but for now the glass is still in. So I move the bar to hold that door open. The cat likes to sneak out onto the deck, and jump down into the shrubbery. Then someone has to go chase her back in. Usually I'm watching the door and don't let her sneak out, but the other day she did and Rick went out to chase her back in. He couldn't get her in and came in telling me she was going to get lost. So I went out, looked under the shrubs and bushes and yelled at her to get back in. She immmediately did. For some reason when I tell her to do something, she does, and when Rick does, she just looks at him.

It reminds me of the time in NC when Rick was packing for a trip and she kept jumping in his suitcase. Finally he had to get her out of the bedroom and close the door to keep her out of his suitcase. I told him he should just tell her to stay out of the suitcase. He snickered at my naivety. A few weeks later I was packing and she tried to jump in my suitcase. I told her, quite sternly, to get out and to stay out of my suitcase. She did. I even left my suitcase open all night, as I was going to continue packing the next day. The next morning I checked: no hair.

Weekend Fun

In keeping with my new goal to blog once a week, here goes.

Friday afternoon Rick came home early, around 1:30 pm and we drove to Doylestown to walk around, since it is another quaint touristy town that we have wanted to explore. But we got there at 2, and it was hot and muggy, so we walked for about 1 hour and called it quits.

Saturday we took the commuter train into Philly, to Market East. We bought the Independence Day pass which was $22 for both of us. Next time we will get the round trip only, since we didn't ride the trolley or busses (didn't think we would but just to be sure...) and that would have cost $19 for both tickets. The train was clean. It didn't take much longer, if any, than driving would have taken. Plus we would have had to pay for parking. We wandered around the market (can't think what it's called right now), bought lunch, which was a corned beef sandwich to share and was delicious. Then we just walked the streets downtown for about 2 hours. Quite fun. Went back to the train station and walked around the mall, which is 4 stories. Then hopped on the train and came back home. Forgot the camera and Rick didn't have his phone, so no pics.

Sunday was church. We got a call in the morning asking us to substitute in the nursery, which we did, but made us realize we aren't young anymore. Only 3 kids, quite cute.
I had made banana oatmeal muffins in the morning, so we took those around to do HT/VT. Learned a little more where people in the ward lived.

Monday we got up and did some shopping, I made the pasta salad, and we drove over to the ward picnic at 11 am. It is a Sounderton Ward Memorical Day tradition. We left around 1 because we had invited a couple over for a BBQ later in the afternoon. It was quite hot, so we couldn't use the deck (it also faces west, which is bad), other than for Rick to grill. I guess we did a little, as their little girl was on the grass blowing bubbles, but with the sun beating down, even the table umbrella didn't do much good.

Yup, that was it.

A Walking Talk

I was going to start entering another post every Sunday. Sunday came and I realized I had nothing to blog about. Politics fascinate me, and I follow it very closely, but I'm not sure I want to turn this into a political blog. Too much work, not enough readership to make it worthwhile!???###&&&

A friend from our new ward invited me to go walking yesterday and then have lunch. We went to New Hope and Lambertville, which are resorty, touristy, types of towns. New Hope is on the PA side of the Delaware River, and Lamberville is on the NJ side. It was relaxing and quite enjoyable, going into all the quaint little shops. I got a pair of Bass navy blue and white polka dot flip flops for $10. Then we drove to Doylestown, where Allyson lives, and is another quaint (bizarre , curious , droll , eccentric , erratic ... adjective: old-fashioned; nostalgically attractive - in case you don't want me to use "quaint" again), PA town.

I can't download any pics because I took none.

Back Home Again

I got back to PA on Sat, around 5pm. Rick flew in from Ireland at 3pm, so I was a little nervous all along, hoping that his plane would not be delayed, etc. I didn't bring keys for the car left in the lot, and so would have not had a way home. I don't know anyone here well enough to call and ask for a ride (the airport is about 50 min away, without traffic). I decided I would have 3 options: commuter train, taxi, rent a car. Without a GPS, I'm not sure I could drive to my house, I still would need a ride from the train station to my house (I could have walked, but it's about 2 miles dragging 2 huge suitcases), so that leaves a taxi. Luckily, Rick was there and I needed no plan B.

Here are the pics of Stella and Macy.

New Beginnings

I was rereading some of my old blogs. It made me sad that I didn't keep doing it. I was going to use it as a type of journal keeping log.

Rick and I came to Utah to be with Paige (and fam) and Scott for Easter. Rick stayed a week, then went back to Pennsylvania, and I'm staying on for another two weeks, to spend time with my sweet granddaughers. So much fun!

This pic was taken in Jan after Macy Renee was born. Don't she and Stella look adorable! I will update with the Easter pics next post.