Memorial Day 2020

Sunday evening we enjoyed the most delicious honey-lime chicken enchiladas on the planet!  Oh, and enjoyed the company of wonderful family as well:)

I love these two little sweetheart cousins together.

Greta and Juliette-- they are so fun.

"Poor Kitty" was a hit with all ages!

And here they were together again the next morning for the traditional Memorial Day cemetery visits. 

We didn't have our full group, but it was wonderful to be with those who could come.

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Aunt Diane, Uncle Lane, and cousin Christy.

Sharing stories about about my mom.

It was wonderful to have Clark and Alexa join us.  They are dating and we sure like them together!

What a lovely picture. 
It wasn't until later we realized Peter was missing from the family picture.  It's a little like herding cats.

At our next cemetery we tried again for a picture that had everyone in it.  SUCCESS!

We happened to come upon my dad's twin cousins-- Rosemary and Roseanne.

So of course we had a to get a picture with all the "Roses" together.  Here is our Rosalee with them.

Several years ago we met up with one of Abe's great uncles at this same cemetery.  Elinor had just lost a tooth and he gave her a two-dollar bill (his tradition with his own grandkids).  Our children have never forgotten that exchange and frequently mention it when we visit this cemetery.  I think they'll remember this exchange as well. 
I liked Faith's comment about our tradition of visiting the cemeteries-- "It's taken a lot of years, but I think I'm finally starting to understand how we are related to all these people!"  SUCCESS!

We decided it would be best if we all just picked up our own lunches and met up at a park to eat. 

Cousins came back to our house to play for a while.

It's hard not to keep taking pictures of them!

I adore this picture of Bethany and Aliyah.

The weather turned a little chillier than we would have preferred, but we still enjoyed our traditional cookout/picnic at the park with our good friends, the Butterfields.

I must take a moment to share my appreciation for this little blue double camp chair. We got it when Clark and Bethany were little and it's still totally functional.  Sometimes you buy something and if you had known how great it would be and how much used you'd get out of it, you'd have happily paid twice as much for it.  This is just such an item.

It was a very full and fun Memorial Day weekend, and truth be told, we were exhausted by the end of it.  It basically took the next week of normal life to recover from so much fun.  Oh, man, I think I'm getting older!

Three Sisters— One Week—Nine Teeth

A couple weeks back Bethany and Elinor got their wisdom teeth removed.

One week later Faith had oral surgery to extract a deeply impacted 12 year-old molar that was fused to the bone and was never going to come up on it's own.

So between the three sisters, that's 9 teeth, a lot of pain medication, a lot of icepacks, a lot of ice cream, popsicles, and yogurt, and a lot of Netflix.  In happy news, their discomfort was minimal, they had very little, if any, swelling, and no bruising.  It all went as well as we possibly could have hoped for and that is a blessing, indeed.  But you know what was the very best part?  THE AFTER VIDEOS--- awwww yeahhhh!  The girls did not disappoint!!!

Bethany:  Completely loopy!  Hilarious.  No filter.  May or may not regrets sending Marco Polo messages immediately afterwards.  Did an Instagram live feed of herself for 15 minutes.
Elinor:  Stoic.  "I may look back, but at least I have my wits about me."  Disgusted with Bethany's inability to pull herself together.  Confident she could immediately compete in a speech and debate tournament.

Faith:  Emotional.  Full-on tears for 1 hours.  Negative.  Complaining.  Name-calling.  Mean.

  Elinor trying to explain that she is "FINE!"
Here are Faith's videos:






Elinor's videos:




Bethany's Video
 https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAL8LoOAxsE/?igshid=s2n8tdyu8jv6

Our Second Visit to Stratford Ranch

This place is magical.  It's relaxing, peaceful, rejuvenating.  We are more than likely to overstay our welcome and wear out our invitation.  But we all just really love being there.

Raven is starring in plays up at the Play Mill Playhouse in West Yellowstone this summer.  She and her boyfriend (also an actor) drove down to spend some time at the Ranch as well.  It was wonderful to see friends be together again.

There was laughter and performing.

There was reminiscing over old home movies they made in their childhood.
Here is the video they were laughing about:

Chilly walks

Making friends with the horses.

Doesn't that look fun?!

My love.

So cute.

A sneak preview of Ren and Ariel in Footloose this summer:)  "Almost Paradise".

They found a chicken to love.

Greta represents how we all feel about Stratford Ranch:)

Mothers Day 2020

Mothers Day 2020 was simple and lovely.  I mean, the Covid 19 pandemic was getting a little old, but another Sabbath day at home with my family was a wonderful thing.  I love this picture of my children and me.  My cup runneth over.  I don't want to be obnoxious or bragging-- sorry it may come off that way-- I just can't believe Abe and I have been blessed with so many beautiful children.  They are our joy and our treasure.  It is exhausting and energizing at the same time.

George helped Abe plant the annual "Mother's Day Marigolds".  Aren't they lovely!

Greta picked me flowers (weeds) from the backyard.  It was so sweet and I gratefully accepted the offering-- despite the massive allergies I was suffering.  I figure that's pretty much the love of a mother in a nutshell:)

She still likes to pretend she is a kitty, so this was her "Kitty Throne".  We use the word "kitty" as an adjective to describe anything and everything.  We "meow" at each other a lot.  When we sing hymns in our home church she meows instead of words.

Snake brothers

Maybe my all-time favorite picture of Peter and Greta.  For all of Peter's intensity and force of will, he is incredibly kind and attentive to Greta.  On this day he was training her in the ways of snakes and Jedis.

They are holding a snake, which is sort of gross, but so cute anyway.

A couple days later Abe had the day off so we went to Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see what was left of the tulips.  Bethany and Elinor both had work, so we missed them, but we were so happy to have Clark and his girlfriend, Alexa join us-- we quite like her!

Nice rolling form, Faith!

Aww... they're so cute.

My girl!

Early on Peter was running down a path and he took a tumble and got banged up a bit.  On the way back up to the entrance he reenacted his downfall.  Very dramatic.

We've had a problem lately with Greta leaving our house without permission.  She knows several neighbors and sees her older sibling moving around with more freedom.  This is problem.  This was a few days ago when she escaped and our neighbor gave her a lift home.  Heaven help us!

George finished reading the first Harry Potter book.  This was the longest book he's read on his own and he was pretty pleased with himself!  We were proud of him too:)

Faith was playing hospital with Greta.  

It was almost a little too realistic-- Faith tried to conjure of memories for Greta of when she was in the hospital for surgery a little over a year ago.  I particularly liked the ear buds being used as oxygen tubes.  Greta was fully committed to the role of patient.