Busy with Birthdays, Bakugans, a Baptism, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

I haven't blogged for a long time because I spent every available minute for months trying to finish making this scrapbook for Camille's birthday. I finished putting it together only one hour before my plane was to leave for Arizona. I arrived at the gate as they were boarding the plane.

Fortunately, I made it just it time to arrive exactly on her birthday and give her this surprise. I never made her a baby book, so this started from her birth and went up to her college days. It was a work of love, but since it was the 7th scrapbook I have made in the past 18 months, I was so burned out from losing sleep, I didn't even want to touch a computer for months. I was also sick in October and then again in December. Hence, I haven't been blogging lately. Here Camille is counting all the candles on the birthday cake that Jerel and the boys made for her.

Then I flew up to Idaho for Ethan's baptism and to give him a belated birthday present. Below, he is pointing to one of his favorite bakugans. It is the purple one and is called a Moskeeto COSMO (Concidentally, Ethan named his first dog Cosmo. However, since Nickie was allergic to Cosmo, Ethan graciously gave him to Grandpa Randy and me. He still misses Ethan and barks for him whenever Ethan calls me on the phone.)

Ethan loves Bakugans. They are little round marbles that pop apart into a myriad of creatures. Ethan decided to display his 98 bakugans in a very creative way. Since they are magnetic, he discovered that he could attach them to three of the corners in his room.

Ethan's baptism just happened to be scheduled for Halloween Day, so here he is ready to go to the church.

Here Ethan is with his dad at the church, waiting to be baptized.

After being baptized, Ethan came home and got dressed in his Storm Trooper costume to go Trick-or-Treating.

London is showing off her Spider Princess Costume:

Baby and the Beast?

That beast didn't scare Aubrey. All she had to do was wave her magic wand and smile.

London is standing in front of the beautiful Halloween afghan

that her Aunt Tricia so expertly crocheted.

Here are some spooky spots at my house this past Halloween.

This old hag obviously put a spell on my house.

Can you see the green apparition on the upper right hand side in the picture below? I have no idea where that came from. I didn't have any green lights on in my house. I didn't see anything green when I took the picture. What do you think it was?
Finally, Dana and I spent Thanksgiving with my sister, Charlene, and her family. Actually, this is only half of her children and grandchildren.

As soon as I get some photos, I will write about my exciting and busy December in my next post.

Flowers Sent from Heaven

Randy loved sunflowers. In 2007, the last summer I had with Randy, it was his idea to plant giant sunflower seeds all along our back fence, but not one of them sprouted. He was so disappointed.

Amazingly, I now have sunflowers in my yard that I NEVER planted (and they are nowhere near the back fence.) I’d like to think that Randy sent sunflowers straight from heaven just for me—just to add a little sunshine into my life.

What do you think?

Happy Birthday, Jerel--A Man of Many Hats

Jerel is a man of many hats and seasons . . . . .

Here Jerel is enjoying beautiful warm weather and is wearing a California Angels hat because he is a CPA for Arte Moreno who owns the Angels. (Even though the Angels pay his salary, secretly Jerel has always been a Yankees fan. Shhh . . . don't tell Arte.)

Here is biker Jerel with a very big hat on.

Here he is enjoying the snow with his winter hat on.

When Jerel makes his mind up to do something, he has the tenacity to do it. Jerel has run in several Marathons. Here he is after running the Salt Lake Marathon in honor of his 2 sisters, Shannon and Lindy. After all that training and hundreds of miles running, I think his head band definitely counts as a hat. Way to go, Jerel!

Hats off now to Jerel for being such a great dad. He teaches his boys to both work and play. Here he is wrestling with them. I wonder who is winning. Click on the photo to enlarge it, so you can see all of the Bandaids on Tanner's leg. HMMM. . .

Jerel the devoted husband and father, who works hard to support his family and make sure they have the things they need, and also who sets the proper example of morality and spiritualty.

Finally, here is a photo of Jerel and Camille at my house 15 years ago for Chase's first Christmas. Click on the picture for a close up, so you can see them better.

Avery's birthday

Here Avery is opening a present.

She can't get the Panda Bear out, so Daddy Dee is helping her.

Here Avery is holding up the Little Pet Shop Dog and Panda Bear. When Avery saw the little hat for the Panda, she exclaimed, "A party hat!" Click on this photo to make it larger, so you can see her beautiful, big blue eyes.

Avery is wearing her new Hello Kitty dress in this photo. Click on the photo to make it bigger so you can see the Kitty faces on her black dress that she got for her birthday.
Here is another cute birthday dress. Again click to make it larger to see her pretty eyes.
Isn't Avery beautiful? Her birthday was a month ago, but I have been overly busy, and so I am just now posting her birthday pictures.

Karli and Grammy's date to the temple

When Steve and Jen went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, they only were able to take Sage because Karli had some other place to go, so I decided to take Karli on a special Karli/Grammy date to see the temple.

Karli and I are standing in Jen and Steve's beautiful back yard before our "date."

Here Sage is posing in their pretty yard. (Jen is an expert at planting the right flowers, so something is always in bloom no matter what month it is in the spring, summer, or fall.) Although Sage didn't go with us because she had already seen the temple, Jen and Sage met us at Chick-fil-A for lunch after Karli and I were finished with our tour.

Here Karli is standing in front of the Temple.

A side view of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Wicked & Christmas Memories in July

On July 8, I flew down to Arizona to see Wicked with Camille. I thought this would be a great way to celebrate my dad's birthday. Even though I am not privileged to have him still on earth with me, he and Mom loved Camille and would want me to be with her and the grandchildren. Wicked is a prequel to the Wizard of Oz. I love how it explained the beginnings of the Wicked Witches of the West and East, as well as how Glinda the good witch got started. The origins of the scarecrow and the tin man were also explained. It was an incredible production and I especially loved the music.

I loved being with all the grandsons and spent most of my time with them trying to put this 550 piece puzzle together. Chase is the one who started it, but by the next morning I couldn't resist trying to put a few pieces in. Pretty soon Tanner was helping and even Jordan put in some pieces, too. It took us 2 days to do it. I was convinced that we were missing at least 20 pieces, but as it turned out, there were only 2 pieces missing--one edge piece on the top right and the second piece is missing from the top of the head of the puppy on the right. If you look carefully, you will be able to see the 2 places where they are missing.
I took a lot of photos of the kids working on the puzzle, but not one of them downloaded to my computer. My batteries were low and I guess that I didn't have enough battery power to have them save to the camera's memory stick. However, on the day I left, I put in new batteries, so I took one more shot of the puzzle and one shot of Chase's room. Those are the only 2 shots that actually were saved. I wanted to put photos of the boys on this post, so I looked for photos of them that I hadn't posted. Eureka! I discovered that I had neglected to post all their photos of my 2008 Christmas visit with them.

When I was a high school student in Price and also when I was a student at BYU, I would always play Christmas carols every July which probably confirmed to my roommates that I was a tad unconventional. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year and I thought the music was too beautiful to only be heard once a year. So . . . in honor of that tradition of my younger years, I will now post some great photos of last Christmas in Arizona:

Here the boys are waiting at the top of the stairs for their parents to give them permission to go find out what Santa had brought, but they can't go down without their parents being there, too. Notice that Chase is having a hard time waking up.
Here is their living room before the family went downstairs. Isn't the tree beautiful?

Below is the Nativity set I gave Camille after she moved to Arizona. Trevor can hardly wait every year for Camille to put out her "Christmas action figures." This is displayed on the beautiful cedar chest that belonged to my mom.

Here are the wise men by their tent that are also part of the Nativity set that I gave to Camille. I love how they not all riding on camels. The one you can't see very well is actually on an elephant and another is on a horse. This Nativity set was made in Italy and I love all of the figures, houses, etc. Each figure has a name and a story written about him, too.

Finally, the kids are downstairs opening their presents.

Look how beautiful Camille looks even after she stayed up most of the night. Chase got more sleep and he is still having a tough time waking up.
Here Chase is examining the stilts that he got. Dana tells me that Randy had a pair of stilts that he actually could walk on. I am amazed at how Randy could do so many things. (Chase still doesn't look very awake, but at least he is standing.)

Here is Jordan showing off some new clothes.

Trevor is trying out his new crossbow in the photo below:

This is the last time I saw their dog Pepper alive. It is such a nice photo of him that I had to post it.
After Christmas, we were invited over to Allyson Anderson's house for dinner. Since her husband Vance served a mission in Italy, he cooked us a sumptuous Italian meal. Camille and Allyson were best friends up in Montana, and now they are both together again in the Phoenix area. I always called Allyson my other daughter, and her mom Carole has always been a dear friend of mine, too.

Notice that Chase actually looks wide awake in this photo. Look at his great smile with those gorgeous teeth. I think he woke up because of the delicious food. It couldn't possibly be because of Allyson's cute teenage daughter, could it?

Happy Birthday & Anniversary Beloved Randy

Randy at about 4 months. Isn't he just adorable?

(This photo reminds me of Aubrey's cute smile.)

Randy--age 18

July 2005, I made this cake for Randy, Angie, and Dana's

combined birthday party.

Engagement day March 17, 2000 when Randy officially gave me my ring that I am showing off in this photo.

Our kiss after we were married in the Jordan River Temple

July 15, 2000.

Randy, I miss you more each day.

Thanks for the joy and the "magic"

that you added to my life.

I will love you forever.

Remembering Randy By Learning To Do Cryptoquotes

My first impression of Randy is that he was a word genius. I couldn't believe he could decipher Cryptoquotes until I saw him solve one in 5 minutes right before my eyes. He subscribed to the Salt Lake Tribune because he did the crossword puzzles and Cryptoquotes that were published in it every day. As shown in the photo below, he even took some papers along when we went to the Uintahs for a picnic, so he could read all of us Asimov quizzes while the food was cooking.

He would save his favorite quotes and Asimov quizzes. Here is one that he solved a few years ago. He liked it because he thought it was so funny.
Last May I was missing him so much I decided to try to learn how to do Cryptoquotes as a way of feeling a little bit of Randy's light in my life. For some reason, I was able to solve the first one I tried. Its message was so much how I was feeling that I saved it.
Being with Randy filled my life with such joy. Even unpleasant tasks became fun when I was with him. The dark never bothered me until Randy left, but then I found that I had become afraid of being alone in it. Metaphorically speaking, it has been very hard to just learn to walk alone in the light . . . and it is even harder in the dark.

When Randy was alive, I would try to do Cryptoquotes, but he almost always would have to help me. However, in the past 2 months, I have been able to solve all of them unaided except for two. Part of the fun of solving Cryptoquotes is reading some provocative quotations, so I will include a few more in this post: