Second full week in November

I am failing at picture taking!  There were a few events this week that could have had a photo.  Sigh...

Steve had two milestones this week post-back surgery:  he had his first physical therapy visit yesterday and he rode his bike twice this week.  

We bid farewell to Elder and Sister Brown this week as their missionary service came to a close.  They are residents of Phoenix so they won't be moving away, just moving on to other activities.  We had a carry-in lunch on Monday which gave me a chance to try out a gluten-free gooey butter cake.  It was delicious.  Here is a photo of us all...

back row:  President Collins, Elder Harris, Elder Poulson, me, Steve

middle row:  Sister Collins, Sister Harris, Sister Poulson, Elder Baggiore

seated:  Sister Brown, Elder Brown

Steve and I watched the second movie on the DVD that also featured Man of La Mancha (see last week).  It was The Fantasticks.  This particular version was filmed in 1995 but not released until 2000.  The leading woman was also in Mr. Holland's Opus (Jean Louis Kelly who played Rowena).  Steve and I enjoyed watching the movie and we have decided that the next time it is offered as a play nearby, we will go see it.  It has some beautiful songs.

On Friday, we took my cousin, Kay Winfield, to dinner.  We checked out Dillons KC Bar-b-que and it was pretty tasty - almost as good as Lonnie Rays.  And, unlike Famous Daves BBQ, they were very gluten-free friendly even down to offering a crust-less cheese cake on their dessert menu.  Our time with Kay would have been a good photo op  :/ .

My sister, Juli, was down from Payson on Friday to take some friends to the airport.  She then came up to Anthem to stay overnight.  Saturday morning, we did some shopping at the Arrowhead Mall and in the afternoon, we three did baptisms at the temple.  It was a nice, relaxed visit and it was fun to have her here.  Another missed photo op!

Our friends down the street, Janet and George, had us over for dinner Saturday night.  George grilled some Korean marinated beef (his mother's recipe) and Janet made delicious sides and a gluten-free apple crisp with tons of pecans on top for dessert.  It was all just yummy and it was fun to catch up because we are all so busy.  Janet teaches full-time and plays tennis in tournaments all over the valley.  George works in the temple and often goes over to Hawaii to help some of their kids or to work on some property that they recently bought.  Steve and I also loved getting to pay attention to their cute Westie, Mochi.

Our seminary house needs some religious pictures so I ordered a large Karl Bloch print from church distribution but it came unframed.  I walked over to Deseret Industries and found a canvas that had someone's modern art painted on it.  My plan is to paint over it in a dark green and then modge podge the Bloch painting over it.  Below is my plan.  I'll post the finished result once it is done.

I have a few other projects also in the works - I need to do some Finale transcriptions for a musical number coming up on Dec. 8th, I have Alice's Christmas dress almost finished and Larkin and Lucy's dresses still to cut out and sew - my goal is to have them finished by December 1st, and I have some Days for Girls bags to sew up.  I need to wrap Christmas gifts and get them in the mail the week after Thanksgiving.  I have gluten-free pecan and pumpkin pies to make for Thanksgiving up in Payson.  I will have a turkey and pumpkin cheesecake to make for my birthday next Sunday.  And, by the third week in December, I will have made 20 dozen sugar cookies for the mission home Christmas celebrations for the missionaries.  I am certainly NOT going to be bored through December!

Veteran's Day 2018

One hundred years ago today, the armistice was signed that ended World War I.  Anthem has their Veteran's Day memorial and we attended the ceremony last year.  This year, we will be in church so Steve and I checked out the memorial yesterday at 11:11 to see the sun shine through the openings of each pillar to light up the seal of the United States.

We weren't the only ones to have the idea, as you can see....

Last week were four vehicle inspection Zone Conferences.  Tuesday, we went to Prescott, Wednesday was right here in Anthem, Thursday was in Phoenix and Friday was in Goodyear.  Steve and I plan to arrive at each location by 8:00 so the missionaries have an hour and a half to clean their vehicles before the conference begins at 10:00.  And it has been chilly all week!  I expected it in Prescott but not so much down here in the valley.  And Wednesday's breeziness didn't help, either.  This was an extra special vehicle inspection because all 60+ TiWi's were replaced.  Nancy McKay from Fleet in Salt Lake came down to supervise the operation.  Mike and Landon were the technicians.  The new TiWi's are a bit more sensitive (and they have a female voice) so Steve has been getting texts ever since with complaints about "I got an aggressive driving for making a U-turn", etc.  Sigh.

Here we are on Tuesday with Nancy. And below that are photos of Landon and Mike as they work.

We celebrated my birthday a bit early on Saturday by driving to Wickenburg (about 40 miles west of us) to their annual Bluegrass Festival.  The drive was nice - Wickenburg is a lovely town nestled in desert-y hills - and the music was just fantastic.  Temperatures were perfect, although a bit cool for me in the shade.  (not for Steve).  In addition to hearing three professional groups, we also got to hear the mandolin competition and the group competition.  It was held at the rodeo grounds and was very laid back.  We could have brought our RV and camped and listened to bluegrass jam sessions all night, if we had wanted to.  

Driving home, and just out of Wickenburg, the Hassayampa River surfaces (apparently, it goes above and underground quite a bit) to create a lovely riparian oasis and there is a rest stop right there.  I actually believe I have been there before waaay back when I was 8 or 9.  I remember stopping by the Hassayampa River to eat a picnic breakfast on our way to visit my sister Judy in California.  We had been visiting Jerri in Mesa and, in usual fashion, we left at the crack of dawn (my dad's modus operandi) and, by Wickenburg, it was time to eat breakfast.  As Steve and I walked around, I am pretty sure it is the same place.

We checked out the DVD "Man of La Mancha" and watched it yesterday evening.  Although a bit dated, it is still a good story with wonderful music.  

And there you have it for this week.

Family Reunion

The above event happened yesterday.  It was a LONG time coming as I started this whole endeavor back in June.  But, the day finally arrived and it was WONDERFUL!  Below is a better copy of the above photo on the invitation.  That is Everett and Thelma in back.  My dad, Ivan, is standing next to his father John Alma (Alma) and Iris is the little girl between her dad and mom, Belinda (Linda).  A fifth daughter, Lillian, died in 1920 from that horrible flu epidemic.

Much of the posterity of my grandparents still live in Arizona and yesterday's reunion was the first time we had gathered probably since grandma and grandpa's funerals in the sixties!  Incredible.  

We took group photos but my cousin Mona and her photographer son were in charge of that so I don't have the pictures to post,yet.  Stay tuned.  I did take some general photos as shown below.  That is Uncle Ralph - age 94 - sharing his memories.  And below that is Jerri, Amy and Cade and Colby.

We had a hot dog bar and everyone brought sides to share.  We provided dessert and my sister Juli made sugar cookies and Steve made TONS of M&M chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and snickerdoodles Thursday and Friday night.  And, we brought TONS of cookies back home with us! 

There was a memory table with artifacts from grandma and grandpa.  Juli brought two quilts made by grandma.  Mona brought a memory book that included sound recordings of grandma and grandpa's voices which she shared.  Living in Tucson, where Hollywood often filmed westerns, my grandparents had the change to be extras in some movies.  In "The Westerner", they are clearly visible in one of the scenes and Juli brought her copy of the movie from which we showed the scene featuring our grandparents.  

I met a first cousin - Pat - who is 87 years old - for the very first time.  She was Everett's third child.  Everett was bi-polar and, after fathering a whole bunch of kids, kind of went nuts and his wife divorced him and re-married, raising the kids with a step-father while Everett basically just had a horrible life dealing with the stigma of mental illness.  He was rarely a presence for his children.  And, so quite a bit of hard feelings developed - children for father, children for father's family.  This reunion was step towards healing so many years later.  I met children of Gwen, Pat's older sister who has already passed away, that I hadn't seen since I was a little girl and then only once, probably.  It was just such a great day.  And I know Grandma and Grandpa are happy.

The rest of the week?  Well, aside from preparing for the reunion, we had Halloween.   And, we spent the evening with most of the elders and sisters in the mission at the Phoenix Temple.  So, we weren't there to pass out candy to little trick-or-treaters.  But, I guess some large trick-or-treaters decided to play a trick on us and turn off our power at our breaker box which is located outside and in front of the fence and not locked!  How dumb is that???  Still waiting on a lock to fix this problem.

I got to pet a teacup Yorkie on Thursday night.  His name is Zeus. He is so sweet and he let me pet and hold him to my heart's content.  I confess I needed this because I am still missing and mourning Sadie.

And, on Friday morning, we had a senior missionary zone conference.  Here is our photo.  Steve and I are on the far left.  It was a pot-luck and I tried my hand at a gluten-free tres leches cake.  It was delicious!

Steve and I unwound last night after a whole day of family reunion and we watched

"The Westerner".  Not a bad flick for being made in the 40's.