A song to remember

A few weeks ago the temple president's wife asked me to sing Away in the Manger for our prayer meeting in the temple last night. I told her I would love to sing but I don't sing solo! She was not surprised and asked me to ask Susan Merrill to sing with me. I quickly sent an email to Susan and asked her to sing with me and hoped she was an alto. She said she would be glad to sing with me and she was an alto so all was going great. The week before we scheduled our breaks at the same time so we could practice in the break room together. We sang it once and called it good until this last week when we were to perform. We got to run through it once in the ladies room before we performed in front of our Tuesday evening shift. When we practiced together we were discussing how we were both so afraid to sing alone and that we were both very nervous to sing at all in front of everyone without a piano. Well, it was finally our turn to sing and we just got up and it was such a high for me to sing with Susan in the temple. The acoustics in that room are amazing and we sounded really good together. So many people were shocked to hear us sing and said we sounded like angels!! It was such an honor to sing with Susan and especially such a wonderful song about our Savior. It was a wonderful beginning to the night of work at the temple. I am so grateful for the talent of being able to sing and share this talent with others. I have truly been blessed in so many ways and thank him for this gift.

Happy News

If any of you have not heard yet, our son Joshua got accepted into Dental school at the University of Louisville!! We are so excited for him to FINALLY get in and get on with his dream of becoming a dentist. It is hard to believe that we have two sons attending dental school at this time. Jacob in West Virginia and now Josh in Kentucky. We are so proud of all of our kids and know they have worked hard in their educational goals. Mike and Christy are living with us while Mike completes his clinicals at UC Davis in Sacramento. He enjoys the experience of working with different people every day and learning new things. We love having the grandkids entertain us on a daily basis. Now that Jack is mobile we have to watch out for everything on the floor that he might get in to. We had a great Thanksgiving in Colorado visiting with Matt and Stacie and seeing our newest addition to the family Tysen. What a sweet and good baby he is. It seems all we did was eat the whole time we were there but we did have a great time. Kandis and Nic were there and Kristin and Thomas were there. Three out of six children isn't bad when they are spread out all over the USA. It was cold and windy but we flew in and out with out any problems. The time just went by to fast! I have not got the Christmas decorations out yet. I have to decorate for the ward Christmas party on the 11th and most of my things will be taken over to the church for that party. I will probably get the rest of the stuff out today and get it done. Much to be grateful for and much to look forward to.

Look What I Did

A while back I bought a hand held sander so I could sand those little benches that were in front of my house. The weather was beautiful so I decided to go for it! The sander is really great and I loved how fast it took care of the work of sanding. These are really old oak benches so they needed a lot of sanding. I think I definitely got my monies worth out of this guy.

A little tricky with all the slats but really fun to use the new tool.

Then on to painting them red! Yes, RED. I love red so I thought they would look better in red in front of the house. I can even think of ways to decorate them for Christmas now!! Anyway, they turned out really cute. It did take 2 to 3 coats of paint. We did not take a picture of the primer on the benches so that was another step in the process of getting these painted.

Finished results. I likey!

One on the left and one on the right. They are different benches but both are antiques and oak. On to the next project. Painting nightstands black. Julie Doolittle gave me some nightstands that she did not want so I said we would take them and someone would want them. Why not add them to the stuff I have in my garage?? Saw a great blog about painting and I am convinced they will be wonderful when I am done. If the weather holds up in the 70's I will tackle it soon.

Photo shoot of grandkids

Looking at something off in the distance
Ava playing hide and go seek
Look at those baby blue eyes!
We bought some cool frames from Ikea to go in the kids room so we needed some updated pictures of the kids to put in them. We dressed them up and took them out front of the house and tried to get pictures of them to put in the frames. After much effort on our part to get these two little ones to smile and look at the camera we ended up with some good ones! We had fun blowing them up to 16 X 20's and putting them in the frames! Enjoy these two little cute kids. Ava is 2 and Jack is 8 months.

Back Home

Well, after two weeks in Kentucky I am back home and Mike and Christy have moved in again. The place was ready for them and we are having fun having them back with us. Mike should be starting his internship this week and life will get into a routine. Sid is off hunting in the mountains with his brother Calvin looking for deer in California. He should be back when they get something. The weather has been hot but where he is it rained on them and looks like rain will happen most of the week. I am excited to get back to the temple on Tuesday night and see my friends. I really enjoyed general conference and hope all of you got a chance to see it too. If you want to see what I helped with in Kentucky you will have to click on Josh and Alexis's blog! Lots to see. Kristin and Thomas will be arriving back in the USA on Tuesday night. They will fly into SLC and will be staying with Thomas's parents. They are anxious to return home. They decided not to proceed with the masters in law in England and return home and go another path. We will see where they will land. Maybe we will be lucky enough to have them back in California again. I hope this helps you catch up with my life!

New Decor

Have not decided on the lamp yet so that is why the tag is still attached. I love having homegoods so close with all the great deals you can get. I just love the mirrored night stand. You can't get enough bling!




With the arrival of Mike and Christy back into our home on the 25th of this month I thought it would be nice to change things up a bit. Sorry Kandis but the purple and gold had to go in the guest bedroom. I decided to go with black and white and aqua. Ava and Jack will be sharing this room and they will move the white crib in the bedroom with a white dresser so it should look really nice. I also purchased black curtains for the window treatment to keep the light out when napping. I am thinking of getting HUGE vinyl letters of their names for the wall but have not firmed that one up with Christy. The other bedroom has Kristin and Thomas' bed in it with their bedding. All I added was the picture over the bed and a mirrored night stand. The other mirrored night stand is in the kids room. They are really cute and I got them at Target! The Laundry room got a new rug and a picture on the wall to make me happy when I do laundry. ( I'll let you know about the happy part!). The shower curtain rod has been changed to the type that is in hotels. It is bent to give the person more room for the shower. Pretty cool. I hope you enjoy the pics. This is the first time I have done this with my new computer. (go apple!)

All ready for the kids to move in a couple of weeks. I will be in Kentucky when they come so I hope they like it!

So Sad

Well, we knew this day would come but it didn't make it any easier! Thomas and Kristin flew to London on Monday and the trip to San Francisco was very memorable. The flight did not leave until 7:15 pm so we decided to leave around noon so we could be there in plenty of time and possibly grab some dinner before they needed to be at the airport. We start out getting on 80 west from our house and the traffic was packed bumper to bumper pretty much all the way to the turn off for the Sacramento airport exit. We were going about 5 miles an hour stop and go when we get rear ended by the car behind us in the middle lane of the freeway. We pull over and get out to check the damage and luckily we were in Sid's truck and didn't have any damage to our car since Sid has a tow hitch on the back. The bumper of the other car was punctured but we were fine. The bump woke up Mason from his nap and he was not very happy about that. We got ourselves back in the pile of cars and headed forward again. The clock was ticking and we really did not see how we were going to make it to San Fran by 5:00pm. We would cruise for a little while and then come to a dead stop again. Very frustrating and tense in the car.( You can imagine how Kristin and I were in the back seat) Thomas was calm and cool about it but we were a little tense! We get to the bay bridge and pay our toll and then on the bridge a car was stalled and a tow truck pulls in front of us and stops. We have to go around it and then off we were to the airport. The clock turned to exactly 5:00pm when we arrived. We pull all the luggage out of the truck and get a cart to push everything in the terminal. I am pushing Mason in the stroller and Kristin is pushing the cart and Thomas has 4 bags trying to find where we needed to go. The luggage falls off the cart and we have to stop and pick everything up again. Sid had to wait out by the curb with the truck and then the police car came and told him to move it just as I was walking out of the terminal. I ran and jumped into the truck and off we went. Sid didn't even get to say goodbye properly and I was a sobbing mess! We haven't heard a thing from them yet so we hope they made it on the plane and are in London at the Holiday Inn.

We have a couple of weeks before the house will be full again with Mike and Christy and their 2 kids. Mike will get assigned his internship at the Kaiser in Sacramento so they will stay with us while he completes that part of his schooling. They will probably be with us for about a year. Life is always changing around here and keeps us busy. For now there is quiet on the home front but I sure miss Mason's giggle and smiles and all his jumping in the jumper! Next time we see him he will be walking and running.