Sorry about the mistakes

I posted little Abbie twice, but you have to agree it was a cute picture. Now for the family picture of Laura's parents, brother and sister and families, and Paul's brothers, Tripp and Patrick and families, and us.

I forgot a very important event back in August - our grandson, Trey, returns home from his mission, and then proposes to Courtney with a planned wedding the day after Thanksgiving. We will be going back for the wedding, so my next post will probably be sometime in January, regarding our trip back East.

BTW, we will be 'ON THE ROAD AGAIN' the end of the month for a few week's with Patrick in Arizona, before we start our drive across the states to visit family for the holidays.

LOVE YOU

Pictures taken at Isabelle's Baptism

Family picture of Laura's family and Paul's family. One of Abbie, voted as the "Most Reverent". One of the two Harley's. Enjoy.

Boys will be Boys - Young and Older

Patrick and Paul put up the train set, as the kids watched and finally were able to play with it. I think the bigger boys enjoyed that time together, as much as the younger ones did.

Comments on Pictures posted

Sorry about that. But if you view from bottom to top, the way I downloaded them - it is Isabelle dressing Saige up as Cinderella and the finished product on the stairs of Saige. Then the cousins trying to settle down for the night. Cooper and Garrett and Isabelle and Saige.

Then we cannot forget Seth, who had a bed in the same room -

October 2010 - Isabelle's Baptism

Wow, what an exciting week, getting ready for, and participating in, recuperating from all the family festivities. Laura's family was there, parents, brother and sister. Paul's two brothers, Tripp and Patrick and their families were there, along with us. I do have some pictures to share of that. Let me see if I can get them posted with comments under each.

September - October 2010

September was the "coming out" time for Helen. She was tired of feeling bad, and decided that she could feel just as bad, traveling and seeing family. So our first trip was to go up and visit Scott and his family mid September, was there for Will's birthday party and had a great time. They have a beautiful home and Scott got a job as a PA at an urgent care facility in the area. He loves his job, plus he is teaching a medical assistant class 2 nights a week for LDS Business College. They are one busy little family, beautiful family and we are proud of them.

The last of September, with that short trip behind us, we felt that Helen could go a little farther and so we traveled up to Los Angeles, to help Paul and Laura move into their home. The pictures from that visit were on the camera that I left at their house, as I got a new one.

But wanted to share one picture of Helen and Nathan at Scott's. He is such a doll.

June - July - August 2010 Updates

June 15th, Helen had a total hip replacement and what she thought would be a breeze, ended up to be the worst nightmare of her life. She was in the hospital for 4 days, and from there had to go to Kolob Rehab for 2 weeks. Usually a very social person, she did not want visitors or even phone calls, as she sounded so bad because of the pain. But people came anyway and called. The turning point was when her brother Victor came out with Sue and their son, Joey Mac and his children, Jacob and Megan. It was the shot she needed and with their 2 day stay and lots of encouragement, she had a resolve to do all she could on the road to recovery, even though it took longer than she had anticipated.

With the slow recovery, Helen had time to put life in perspective and decided to retire completely from her part-time job, as a medical transcriptionist, and devote the rest of her "good life" to visiting family, and working on her family history. So that retirement happened on August 16, 2010 with lots of congrats from the family members.

Here are a few pictures from Victor's visit. Tripp and his family came up for a visit on Sunday. It was great to see the cousins interact so well. Kids are never strangers.

UTAH SUMMER GAMES

Harley looks forward to this time every year and shoots singles, doubles, wabbles (whatever that is)and probably more than I can remember. He first shot last year and did not do bad for a beginner. This year, he even improved. For more information, you will have to call him and get a "replay". Here are a couple of pictures. The first day, when I asked him how he did he said, "well there is Gold, Silver, Bronze, and I came in fourth". The next day he comes home with the Bronze. How about that - proud of him. Sorry, if a couple of the pictures posted twice.

SWEET VISIT

The week started off with a visit from Laura and the kids. Of course one of their favorite memories of a visit with Moma and Papa Tom is a movie in our bedroom and popcorn. I extended it the next morning to "breakfast in bed" with chocolate chip waffels and bananas. It was a sweet visit.

SORRY - FORGOT THIS DARLING PICTURE OF BRIGHAM

Remember I SAID "darling picture of BRIGHAM". I just happened to be in the picture too.

VISIT IN CASA GRANDE

We visited Patrick and Jennifer in their new house in Casa Grande, Arizona the last week in May. Scott and Lori and their boys came over on Sunday for a cookout and visit. We had a great time. Enjoy some pictures of Saige and Garrett in "dress up clothes" (sorry Patrick, I just had to post this one of Garrett, he makes such a cute little girl. Then there is a picture of me and Gavin and Nathan, my two sons checking out something on the computer. Jennifer and Lori in the kitchen, and all of them waiting for prayer on the food as I snapped the last picture. We had a great time with both families.

MOTHER'S DAY

I seem to be having a hard time with doing a new post, so please excuse all the mistakes I am making today. Hopefully, you will enjoy the pictures. Mother's Day was spent in Henderson with Tripp and Paul and their families. Sande and Uncle Paul sent me some flowers and I got the balloon from Church. I also received calls from all the kids and other special gifts. THANKS to my Heavenly Father for letting me be the mother of five beautiful and wonderful children.

VISIT WITH JENN AND KIDS

We were blessed with a visit from Jennifer, Saige and Garrett, mid April thru the first week in May. Jenn helped me with my spring cleaning. Papa Tom showed Saige where her new house was on the map, and Garrett fell asleep watching Thomas The Train.

SORRY ABOUT THAT

The last was posted without any explanations even though the pictures and title told the whole story. We do have the prettiest house in the neighborhood with those pretty flowers before we get such freezing weather; but the flowers are sturdy and survived most of that snow.

CEDAR CITY IN THE SPRING TIME

OUR SPRING FLOWERS

Question SPRING IN CEDAR

With the big "white Easter" we had the first of April, we were soooo happy to see our flowers come up and add beauty to our home. We still enjoy seeing the snow on the mountain from the back of the house, but here it is SPRING. Close up of the flowers in the entry way.

And lots of purple along the front of the house. The grass is getting green.

BUT, then yesterday evening, April 21st, we got this. Can you believe it. I got this picture, not knowing what I would find when I got up this morning. But we had some droopy yellow flowers. But now that the sun is out and all the snow is melted, our flowers have survived it all.

No picture of the garden with the "steer manure" spread by the Boy Scouts on Tuesday. They advertised "cow manure", but Harley requested steer manure and when asked what the difference was - Harley said the steer manure had more BS in it. As Abbie says, Papa Tom, you are such a jokester.

Busy Week Following Easter

Ever since we bought our house some 5+ years ago, we have talked about getting a new stove. Everytime we used the oven, you could count on the bottom of whatever we cooked to be well done, to say the least. So we broke down and got a new one last week. It is nice and we love being able to cook and regulate the temperatures. The towel on the front of the oven is one Lorenza sent to me via Patrick and Jenn (very sweet).

Paul and Laura came up with their family on Wednesday and Patrick and Paul worked out in the garden for hours and hours filling in the hole that Pat and Jenn had removed rocks from a few days before. We used to have a fish pond there, when we first moved in, but the fish would freeze in the winter and we decided to fill it in. Now we have more garden space. Patrick is supervising Paul's use of the electric toy (tiller) in this picture.

Patrick and Paul took a break and enjoyed their breakfast of Biscuts and Sausage Gravy, Blackberry Jam and Apple butter. I sat in that glider and watched them work and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the boys working together and teasing each other. I was enjoying it so much and the nice sunshine, I did not realize how much damage that sun could do until later that night. My first sunburn of the year, and hopefully my last. But it was nice to be warm after our winter.

Another shot of the garden. After leveling the garden and tilling it all up, they layed this brick for a nice walkway for us. Now all we have to do is wait for "planting season"

I got a special treat the first part of the week. On Easter Sunday night, we got to pick up Cooper for a few days for some one-on-one, while his mom and dad were looking for housing in the Los Angeles area, where Paul is relocating, job wise, soon. Grandma Rowels had Isabelle and Seth, until their parents got into Vegas on Tuesday and came up here on Wednesday. Cooper enjoyed being out in the snow for short periods of time. He is a little doll and we love him, as we love all the grandchildren.

APRIL FOOL

Wasn't spring a week or so ago. But look what we woke up to on Thursday, April 1st, 10 inches. When we told people of the snow, they thought we were pulling an April Fool's joke on them. It was a heavy, wet snow and hung on to the trees for awhile, until the sun came out and melted down to about 4 to 5 inches for Tripp's family's arrival on Friday. But we still had some around for Easter - so you guessed it we - HAD A WHITE EASTER. We ended up hiding Easter eggs in the house and the kids had a good time. So all was not lost. No matter how old you get, and how much wisdom you gain, we have found YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE WEATHER.