Mother's Day, Baby Blessing andSoggy Northwest trip

These two got cut out of the middle for some reason. You'll know where they fit when you get there.

This is just an after-thought, of course it pops up at the beginning... These lovely Rhododendron were in bloom everywhere in Oregon in a riot of different colors. Almost like dogwoods in the south everyone had several in their front yards. I love them, even in the rain.



Part of the group that participated in little Grace's blessing. We did it at Alysia and Topher's Poolhouse, which was thoroughly lysoled beforehand and everybody had to desinfect their hands first and was not allowed to breathe on her. Grace was such a darling little doll that evening. She was wide awake and looked around and never said a peep. We had a little birthday celebration for Jared afterwards with authentic mexican piniata and all. Here is little Aaron, longingly eyeing the birthday cake.

Alysia with adorable Grace, dressed in a dream of a blessing dress made by her grandma Andersen. Emily and her birthday boy Jared.

We had a girls (and 2 boys) lunch special , Topher was kind enough to babysit his daughter and Buggy and I went and met Emily and Dacia in Am. Fork. Caden was a doll and Gavin was his usual self (very cute and silly). Somehow the stupid thing cut out a whole bunch of pictures, so now, of course they will end up at the beginning, oh well, you should be used to my very unprofessional blogging by now.

I Iwas invited to a Mother's day dinner at Jen's... by Emily. They all collaborated and fixed a super fantastic dinner with virgin Margaritas and the whole works. The kids misunderstood and ran thru the house proudly announcing: we're drinking alcohol !!!

Here is a majority of my cute kids and great cooks

Grandpa Sam is always very popular for reading books.

Here are the cute producers of this marvellous fruit torte. It didn't just look good, it also tasted amazing.

Aren't they all just adorable! Eat your hear out, they are all mine, and I even have several more, just as amazing and cute!










Now you know where they got it from......Baby Grace, of course!

Last week we visited Sheila for a big birthday bash . First we saw them all in Portland, then we played in the rain on the coast for a while, and finally we met up by Bend for more partying. Lots of fun, not very warm and rather wet. We actually didn't have to go that far, we could have had cold and wet right here in IF.
Here Sheila is unwrapping her birthday gift from Sam... some books, what did you expect.














This is a little Volcano in the Sunriver/Bend area. The day we got there, the weather was pretty good, so we got to go to the top of it, enjoy the super view and wander thru the lava fields.

Christi said this stuff is called Scottish Broom. I know it from Europe as Ginster. It was in bloom all along the Oregon coast and rather pretty.

We admired some rather noisy sealions in Newport by the harbour.

A spectacular view of the Oregon coast. Sam and I never get tired of it.

This one is for Emily, and she knows why.

Happy first of May in Idaho Falls

May 1st in Idaho Falls, they had 6" in Pocatello this morning. I think Spring got cancelled.

Grace's room is almost ready for her, we spent last weekend painting polka dots and sewing curtains and crib stuff. Here are a few cute people holding darling Grace. I got to feed her, then Sam rocked her to sleep. We are quite the team

Marti's Andrew graduated in Mechanical Engeneering from Byu. We came to celebrate with them.

On the way back from Atlanta, we decided on a shortcut.... I-70 all the way to I-15, without the cutoff thru Price... Wow what scenery! I hadn's seen the San Raphael Swell in years. It was like being back in BYU Geology class on a field trip. Amazingly beautiful, even if it took us a whole hour and a half longer, it was well worth the extra time.





Spring in Atlanta, that was in early April, Sam took me to the local Botanical Garden, and we almost melted, that day, it decided to be 90 degrees, and 90% humidity. But the flowers were lovely.

On the way home from Dollywood (in the Great Smokey Mountains) we stopped at the Forbidden Caves and admired the upside down bats. They really looked stuffed to me, but the guide insisted that they were real ones, just sleeping now.







And here is Dollywood. Kim and kids just finished the 2nd or 3rd time on the "Raging- Rapids -get- totally- soaked" ride. Must be fun to go "squoosh, squish", with every step for the rest of the day, they couldn't get enough of it. Sam and I really enjoyed the international Dance Festival. We got to see the Mexicans, the Russians and the Irish.

Here is Baby Grace, fairly new, when I got to hold her for the first time.

So, it looks like I did it again, must be a slow learner. I got all the pictures in the wrong order, newest at the top, oldest at the bottom.
And I thought I was a total genious, after just having slaved over the quarterly Family News Letter, I thought, now wouldn't it be slick, if I just pasted that whole thing into my blog.... it all seemed to work, and then it told me to forget it, it was a bad file or something. So since I didn't feel to write this all again, you just get the abbreviated version, if you want to know more, read the family news letter.

Writing this and looking at all the pictures, I realized that Sam and I really have been on quite a few trips this year already. Blame it on the weather. Blowing snow and temps in the "- "range are just not our favorites. If they don't cancel spring and summer up here, we should stay put for a bit.... little Grace permitting.

another dreary February....lol

(in spite of my numerous efforts to get the pictures and text together, the blog would not cooperate, so excuse the slightly off-set text)

January ended on a high note with Dacia and the Topherbugs coming for a weekend visit.
We got way more snow than we had imagined, so rather than languish in the totally white world of Idaho Falls, Sam and I decided to escape:




Sam looks good in orange, so there was nothing keeping us.


So, here we are on board the Norwegian Sun, leaving lovely Miami, for even warmer climes.

we got a rousing welcome in Roatan, Honduras



Here is a view of our cool cruise ship

Main attraction in Roatan: the Iguana farm, and again it was reiterated: tasts just like chicken. Actually the tour guide was way more impressed by the fact that this iguana farm also was home to 3(!!!) chickens!


How about a piggy back ride.

Or way up in a tree

Here is the local Roatan LDS chapel. Note the 8' chain link fence and the barbed wire on top.... they don't like it when their pews and carpet walks off.

The beaches and the water were fabulous. Wish I had that out my back door all the time. But the poverty was also there...









This is now Belize. We are walking thru the Jungle! I got a little souvenir from there. Some sort of bug bit me, and kept biting me even days later....

They had some cool ruins in Belize. It was almost too warm there, we both got a bit of a sunburn.

Next stop: Cozumel. We decided we wanted to visit some more ruins, since we liked the last ones so much, so we took a small boat to Playa del Carmen, and then a bus to Tulum. I have been there 3 times now and I still love it. Sam really enjoyed it too.

The sun came thru the window on the left for spring equinox, at the left corner of the big building for summer solstice, at the right corner for fall equinox and an other window not in this picture for winter solstice..... These Mayans were amazing. However, in a previous visit our mormon tourguide said the sun shone thru that window on April 6th... I guess we'll never know unless we go again on one of those specific dates.

The Promenade deck. We almost walked a mile! And we brought our exercise clothes, so we could go to the gym.....










The obligatory towel folding class. here we have a sitting elephant and a bunny.

Sunset over the caribbean, as seen from my seat in the dining room

Formal night. It is too bad you can't get a better view of my fancy new dress... it cost a fortune... (99cents at Ross)

Grand Stirrup Caye at the Bahamas, our last stop at NCL's private island. A fun spot for all sorts of water sports. We did some swimming and snorkeling, walked all over the place, and enjoyed the warm weather and the sunshine.














It was kind of hard to come back home, light snow in Chicago, and 2-3 feet of snow in our backyard!