July happenings

Baby Ellie's blessing. She wore a magnificent dress, fashioned and designed by our very own Kim. A masterpiece indeed, sure to turn heads!
The furry little critter on our patio was a visitor from the sanitation department, cleaning up after the birds, that always leave a mess after visiting the bird feeder. He actually brought a friend later on.

Emily and family came up from Las Vegas

Even though this looks like Marti saying: give me my baby back now! and Alysia responding: come get her, if you dare........ it was a really polite and loving exchange, and Marti actually offered Gwenny to Alysia to hold in stead of Grace who had stayed home for health reasons. The plan was to have Gwenny in the family picture and photoshop Gracy's face on her.... we'll see if it works.




It is strange to see Sam sitting there so peacefully without a book in his hand. Maybe it is because he is BEING lunch to Dacia's tame mosquitos that were having a feast during our otherwise nice luncheon.

Oh my goodness, if I had known how dorky I look with this hat, I would not have let Sam take a picture of me. The lovely Tetons, we visited to go hiking at Jenny lake and later to meet Allen and Alice for dinner at the Calamity Campground next to the Palisades dam. This time we came prepared with Mosquito repellent.

While peacefully sitting out on the patio one evening, I started contemplating the very messy looking flower bed. So, inspite of skirt and heels, I went to work and ripped it all out. The next morning Sam was a dear and turned the dirt for me, then we got 4 garbage cans full of bark chips, I thinned a few of the shade plants from other places in the yard, and voila! now it looks quite neat and orderly. I did most of the planting and mulch-spreading in a super downpour, but because of the convenient tree, didn't get very wet. Funny weather, we're having, but we are not complaining.






Girl's weekend in St George. We spent the first 2 days producing over 70 pair of earrings. Then the next two days we stationed ourselves at strategic points in Zion's National Park and sold them as native mormon crafts...(j/k)

Ellie thought it was great fun to have so many doting females around, there was always somebody willing to hold her.

Johnson Family Cottage Industries Flock shot

We talked Alan into trading his daughter for our Honda... I think it is a great deal. Our Honda was never this cute or appreciative when we took it places. And our Honda certainly didn't have any talent for art work.

Anya was a bit nervous about the goats, but since they didn't seem to eat any of the other little kids there, she finally decided that it was safe to pet them.

Fearlessly she put her head in the lion's mouth

And stood by the ferocious tiger. She had originally planned to sit on it.... but it was way too hot!














Here she is meeting the educational penguin.

Family reunion, Oregon trip

Here we are in Eugene, Oregon with Sam's Brother in law and his wife. David and Pam had invited us to stay with them, and after going to church with them, we had a little excursion to the coast. Sam and I agree, Oregon is our very favorite State. You have Sam to thank, that we are not moving there tomorrow. He said NO, it is too far from you kids.

Somehow we lucked out and got a super day without any wind, but the bluest of skies and warm and just an all around perfect day that still had great waves.

If you leave your pantyhose on after church, there is no wading for you.... so I got to take pictures instead.


Foxglove and wild Iris. It was so lovely everywhere. It sure was hard to leave.

Look at that surf!!! I was sure Pam would get wet, but she was just out of reach of the pounding waves.

On Monday we started out in Florence and went south along the coast. This is one of those sleepy little coastal towns, waiting for the summer tourists to arrive... look, one is already there!








This dreamy forest was on a path from the road to the beach. It was even prettier than the picture.

California coast Redwood park, we ran into the guy with the Ax and his blue ox Babe.... he even talked.... so not cute, but Sam wanted a photo. That is him there, between the guy and his ax.

Look at what $5 can buy you! And this was the only redwood at the attraction, but I have always wanted to do that. No, that is Sam driving, I just took the picture and told him that he fit thru just fine.... with about 1" clearance on each side of the mirrors.




Two little boys and their favorite uncle.

Dacia didnt bring enough motorcyles, so Alysia got stuck on the non-motorized one.

Brrrrrrrrm..... at every opportunity.

2cuties at the lodge. Love that bow.

2 more cuties

I think they like each other.

Linda was just amazing. Surrounded by screaming kids, she kept her calm and got them all to settle down. Some of those little ones had amazing lungs and an almost super-human endurance.... My grandkids, of course, were models of sweetness and loving behavior. It might have helped that their moms were around.






2 of our amazing cooks. Great food, really, I gained more weight than I want to talk about.

Muir woods, north of San Francisco. As soon as we got close, the fog set in. But it was still really pretty and majestic.

Hey! where did my picture go???? All I was trying to do was decrease the space between pictures, and suddenly the thing is gone....so unless it shows up again somewhere you'll just have to imagine it. It was really pretty.

This is the famous Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, where Sam and his siblings hung out when they were growing up in Palo Alto. I think it was a fun trip down memory lane for him, and I was glad to be along.

This was on the pier in Santa Cruz. The concerned look on my face is, because I was worried about my nice new camera in the hands of a stranger.... hoping that she wasn't going to drop it.

These big fat sealions were all over the support structure of the pier. They must have hopped up there the night before, when the tide was high.

We went on south, ending up at Carmel, where we had lunch at the beach, enjoying the surf. It was in the mid 50 there and a bit foggy. Just an hour inland it was sunny and 95+. I remember the first time I was in Carmel was in 1972 with Helen and Mary and my parents and sister. America was still the total wonderland and carmel seemed almost magical. I still like it a lot.

Here is the picture of the little candy store, where Helen and Mary bought my sister and me a truly gigantic lollypop. No, I wasn't tempted to have another one. I think the same picture is in Kira's blog... just not with Sam in it. She is lucky, she lives much closer than we do.

We went on the 17 mile drive and enjoyed Pebble beach and the beautiful seashore in that area. The surf was up and I just love digital cameras.... you just snap away until you get the one you want. My dad didn't have that advantage, and still his pictures were totally amazing.... maybe that's where Alan got those photography genes.

It took me a while to figure it out, but I have a super-zoom on my camera (great job buying that for me, Bugs, great job researching cameras for me, Dacia) thus I can bring these sealions in real close... cool.

The lonely Cypress, the Emblem of Pebble Beach.

This is really wiered, and thanks to my super camera, I finally got the picture I wanted. On the freeway outside Sacramento right there in the river are all those huge WWII battleships. It is like a used car lot for battle ships. It looks impressive.

And as usual, at the start of the blog, I goofed again, putting my first pictures last.... but nontheless, here are the pics from my quick trip to Vegas. What would normally take 7+hours took only 1 1/2 hours plus a bit of a wait and some securitystuff, but seeing Emily and boys by plane sure has its thrills. Esspecially since they turned down the thermostat for most of my visit, and I enjoyed my window open during most nights. But by Friday it was in the 100's and definitely time to go home and enjoy cool Idaho with all it's rain for a night, before we left for Oregon the next morning.

We spent part of Thursday at a Sprinkler Park. The boys had great fun, esspecially when it came to a water fight with Oma.... they got me drenched, which felt very nice. Jaxon, however is in big trouble. He was in charge of applying sun-tan lotion to my back..... I still have a very odd looking dark brown triangle on my otherwise snowy-white back.... tsk, tsk. Which means he did a great job on the rest of my back. Thanks, Jaxon.

This is one of those other hardship assignments, Emily had for me: Accompany grandsons to Coldstone and watch them eat ice cream..... in the company of a gazillion other little tikes and their moms for a church playgroup activity. They were so excited as they all got to pick their very own flavors and add-ins and got this amazing spoon to shovel it in with.

Aren't they cute? Even Caden didn't find me too objectionable anymore and actually did not mind associating with me.

Here are two more very busy ice cream eaters.

The End.

So I had a whole lot of cool pictures to post. I tried 3 times and every time it would not let me do it, so you will have a picture-less blog, until one of you figures out what's wrong and can help me figure it out.
This weekend is the first weekend back to normal.... and it is soooo quiet. Sam and I are ratteling around in our big house and it seems rather strange that there are no little ones around, no TV going, nobody fixing food.... could it be that we miss you all??? NO WAY! (j/k) of course we miss you, sillies. It had to be one of my favorite weekends of my life, having everybody here, having fun together and all getting along splendidly. You are the best. I don't mind having birthdays, if we get to celebrate them like this. Of course, it could have been even better, like real sunshine the whole time instead of the liquid kind, and everybody staying healthy, and no flooded basement.... we will aim for that next time; it would have been too perfect otherwise. So, hope you are all back home safe and busy planning out the rest of the summer. I would have more to say, if there were pictures to share. I am eagerly looking forward to the ones Alan took. Thanks again for coming, love you all.