Happy Birthday Cory Chris...

We want to wish Cory a very happy 31st birthday with tons and tons of birthday love. Cory, we love you. You're the best! Have a super groovy, really wonderful day!

"Living for Summer"

Merry Christmas to all!

We would like to to wish a very merry Christmas to our loved ones, both near and far. This is such a special time of year. It's always fun to get together and celebrate the season. I have so many great memories of Christmas's over the past gazillion years. Obviously I have forgotten many, or they have become very blurred; but there are a few that really stand out.

In my earliest memories, Grandma and Grandpa Myers would sleep over on Christmas Eve, and we kids would sleep in the same room. Grandma Mom (that's what we really called her) would sing to us and tell us Christmas stories.

A great memory happened for several years while I was in elementary school. After New Years, our neighborhood gang would go door-to-door and collect everyone's Christmas trees. We would stack them up in the field next to my house, and about a week later we all got together to enjoy a very large bonfire. That was always the end of the season for us all.

Mel remembers, when he was eight or so, the Christmas tree falling down during the night . He came downstairs to see what was going on and found his dad trying to get the tree back up. He remembers many years of sneaking to the top of the stairs, and looking around the posts, to see if Santa had come yet.

I remember the year when I was 18 that our patio roof caved in from the weight of the snow. It crushed our boat that was stored underneath. My dad took it all in stride and just said that Santa must have gained too much weight that year. I remember the year when I was 21 that I got engaged on the night we were decorating our Christmas tree.

Christmas was so much fun, both in Wyoming and Utah, when our kids were little. We both will always remember the excitment that each Christmas morning brought. There were lean years and not-so lean years, but the kids were always so excited about everything dealing with Christmas. We both remember the fun of shopping for toys and putting out the presents for our kids.

Cory, of course, was born at Christmas. He came home from the hospital on Christmas morning tied up in a big plaid bow. And then there was Cameron's car accident during the Christmas that he was 16. I will never in my entire life forget the joy and gratitude I felt when I called the hospital on Christmas morning and was told that he had just awaken from his coma.

I will always remember and treasure mine and Mel's first Christmas together. Our Christmas's are much more quiet than they were when our children were small; but they are every bit as special.

We remember Christmas parties, caroling, and hayrides. Most of all, we remember and will always remember the love that we have for that Baby in a Manger. We are so grateful for our testimony of the gospel; for the light and love that our Savior brought in to the world. We want to wish you all a very merry Christmas. God Bless Us Every One!

Giving Thanks

I just want to take a minute and express my gratitude for all of the blessings that we enjoy. I don’t think that a day goes by that I don’t marvel at how lucky we are to be at the point where we are today. I want 21 children to know how much we love them. We are really grateful that we don’t have any of the turmoil’s that so many second marriages have to deal with.

We are grateful for our parents and for 21 2/3 grandchildren. They add so much joy and laughter to our lives. They are truly special spirits and we love them dearly.

We are grateful for our Hobbit house (but it’s grown up, so we’ve decided to call it the Sugar Shack now.) We’re grateful for the gospel, our testimonies, our citizenship in America and all which that represents. We are grateful for wonderful friends both new and old.

Lastly we are grateful for each other. We have tons of fun and find happiness in just being together. We know that we were blessed to find each other and we are thankful for that. We want to wish anyone reading this a very Happy Thanksgiving. We love you, and we are grateful for all of you, too!

Don't You Just Hate Graffiti?

This morning we found that our house had been "tagged" by what would appear to be criminally insane vandals. See picture below.

Luckily it didn't take us long to clean up the damage!

FOREVER BLUE! GO COUGARS!

Crazy Eight Tag

Eight TV shows I watch: (I'm like Necha. I don't watch much TV) But let's see what I can come up with: 1. Ugly Betty; 2. Friday Night Light's; 3. Monk; 4. I Love Lucy (9,384,002 reuns); 5. We just got back into watching Alf reruns (they're still as funny as they were back when); 6. Sometimes The Biggest Looser; 7. Sometimes American Idol; and last but not least; 8. Whatever Mel is watching at the time.

Eight things I did yesterday: 1. Got ready for work; 2. Went to work; 3. Called my dad at the hospital twice; 4. Bought brown paper plates for Saturday's luncheon; 5. Went to the chiropractor; 6. Talked to Alyssa while she got ready to go to a wedding dinner; 7. Fixed left-overs for dinner; 8. Went to a Ward Mission meeting.

Eight places I like to Eat: 1. Anyone else's house; 2. Cafe Rio; 3. The Olive Garden; 4. My mom's when she was still here (she was the world's best cook---she's making angel food cake now!); 5. Cracker Barrel; 6. Golden Corral; 7. (ok, I'm just going to cheat on these last two-- Mexican restaurants; and 8. Italian restaurants.

Eight things I look forward to: 1. Thursday at 5:00 (office is closed on Friday; 2. Being with our children and grandchildren; 3. Autumn; 4. First waterski of the season; 5. Halloween through New Year's; 6. Vacations; 7. Having no car payments; 8. curling up next to Mel's hot skin since I'm usually cold....and can I add a 9th? 9. Eternity with the one's I love!!!!!

Eight things on my wish:1. Long healthy life; 2. To learn that four years from now that I was wrong about the election; 3. No more headaches for Mel; 4. To get my 401 back on track; 5. To loose 30 more pounds; 7. One big room in our house, a larger bathroom and some closet space; 8. That our children will always know how much they mean to us!

I tag anyone that would like to share their thoughts!

MOAB--UEA WEEKEND

Last night we were watching television in bed and saw a travel council ad for Moab! It was great. It showed a lot of the fun things that you can do down there. In addition to that, Jeri has asked me twice now how come I haven't blogged about our Moab trip.


Well, it's now 6:15 in the morning and I'm up, showered and dressed, but not quite ready to start my day, and so I decided that it's time to show a little of a great Moab vacation!

Before we got there, I think that Mel was a little leary about how much fun jeeping would be. He had never been to Moab. On our first day we did a run up Hell's Revenge. We were sitting in our jeep waiting for our turn and watching others start the climb. Mel told me later that he he never knew what a jeep was capable of doing. He watched the other drivers start the climb; and figured well if they can do it, so can I. By the time he got to the top of the first climb, I believe that he was hooked!


We have about a bizillion pictures and I have only posted a few. I just wanted to give you a taste of a really awesome trip. Great scenery, great times, and great people. Now I ask you, does life get any better than that?

Happy Halloween

From our Castle to Yours!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALYSSA

Alyssa got to celebrate #29 in Moab with her family. The weather was perfect, the trails were great, and the company was the best....Does life get better than that?

Happy Birthday Alyssa. It was great celebrating with you! We love you and we can't wait to see you again in November!

Happy Birthday Jennilyn! With love from all of your family!

Happy happy birthday Jenni dear. Happy days will come to you all year. If I had one wish then it would be......A happy happy birthday to you from me (us!) xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxforever!

Our Little Bit of Heaven

Wicked in Los Angeles

Just 97 days until our tickets for WICKED....

I read the book last month and I'm extra excited to see the musical. (Yeah, I already know that it ends differently, and I know that it's coming to Salt Lake; but I can't wait that long!)

Timpanogos Cave

Yesterday we hiked up to Timpanogos Cave. When I say we, I mean Cameron, Cory, Jeri, Brock, Parker, Jason, Alayna, Ike, C.J., Jennilyn, Chad, Kim, Josie, Reilly, Mel and last but not least, me. And when I say last but not least, I really mean last. Ok, I thought that when you had recently dropped 25 pounds, hiking up Mt. Timpanogos would be a cinch. Well, boy was I wrong. Long gone are the days when that 1.5 mile, 1,000 foot climb was easy! It's still fun; but it sure "ain't easy" It was a really fun day!

Uintas With the Davis/Platt Families

We spent a great Labor Day weekend in the Uintas. All of our family was there except for Adam, his family, and Roy. As the story goes, Necha's dad, Eugene, planned a campout for his family and since Josh is his son-in-law, he said, "hmmm, I guess we could invite the Davis' too....and the rest is history. (By the way, we out numbered them!)

We found the world's greatest camp spot right on a river (I would say "thee" river; but then you would think I meant the Bear River....and it wasn't. It was one of the Forks that feed into the Bear. It was an amazing spot with beautiful scenery. There was a really cool beaver dam that backed the river up to make a great swimming hole.

We had great food, fun games, a night hike and quality time. Oh, and did I mention rain? Holy smokes! It rained really hard! By Sunday night half of the camp was covered by strung up tarps. We had Bryan, Carol and the kids move out of their tent and into the trailer with us so that they wouldn't float down the canyon. Monday morning we even got into snow. We had lots of fun!

Happy Anniversary to Us

We made a big splash for our second anniversary…. in a raft on a whitewater trip on the Snake River. It was awesome! I marked one more thing off of my bucket list, because a whitewater trip was something that I have always wanted to do. It was really exciting but awfully cold. The wind was blowing up the canyon and we were paddling in to the wind. Every rush of water was chilling. We have a great picture of us going over the Big Kuhuna, but it’s a copywrited picture so I’m not going to post it. This picture was taken by our bus driver just as we were pushing off.

We went to Yellowstone and Jackson for our honeymoon and had such a great time that we decided to try and go up to Jackson every year to celebrate our anniversary. We started at the Idaho Falls Temple and then went to visit Adam, Melissa and the kids. We hadn’t seen their finished new house. It’s beautiful. They did a great job building, as well as decorating. We spent the night with them and then drove to Jackson on Sunday.

We checked into our tent spot at the Snake River KOA and then drove to Granite Hot Springs. It’s a beautiful place and we spent a couple of hours enjoying the mountain scenery from the pool and relaxing in the warm mineral water.

On Monday we took a wagon train up into the mountains where we had a dutch oven dinner and fun western entertainment.

Sheriff Mel was drafted to be on the program. It was hilarious. He had to wear a red little boy cowboy hat with string ties. The hat, of course, had a star on the front. He was wearing a red stripped tee-shirt, so he looked like he was seven all over again.

We were also attacked by wild Shoshone Indians, but luckily we lived to blog about it.

Tuesday was our actual anniversary and our white water trip. It was a great way to end our little get away. It was a wonderful trip.

We really love Jackson and the Teton's.

Summer 2008

I always remember every year on, on the 24th of July, hearing my mother say, "Well it's the 24th, already. Summer's nearly over!" I always hated hearing that. It was like listening to someone read the obituary at a funeral. Besides, I was young, and still had about six more weeks before school started.

But then the inevitable happened. I grew up! Those long summer months started getting shorter and shorter. I have to honestly say, I don't know what has happened to this summer. It really got away from us. We only got to a few of Brock and Parker's baseball games; and only one of Cory and C.J.'s softball games.

Spring through June was spent working in our yard. It was a really big project, but really rewarding! I would have to say that the highlight of the summer so far has been the fun times that we had when Alyssa and Randy where here in June, little Ike's blessing, boating at Yuba,

the Davis family

reunion, and the Davis family campout up at the Ranch. Mel and I also spent a night in our tent up in the Uintas.

We have a lot of great things planned in the next few months, though. Next week we'll get to see the extended Larsen family for grandpa's birthday, and the next day Mel and I are leaving for Jackon Hole for four days to celebrate our anniversary. We have a big campout up in the Uintas over Labor Day weekend with the Davis/Platt familys. We're also doing a Timpanogas Cave trip in September, and 4-wheeling in Moab in October. Sounds like good times, huh? Who ever said that summer has to end when school starts?

Update to the previous "We Love Grandkids" blog

Please read our last line of our last blog, and then go to Alyssa and Randy's most recent blog for a complete update "on the rest of the story"....(have you read it yet? Is that cool or what?)

Grandkids

WE LOVE GRANDKIDS! Here are 8 out of our 20 grand children. I thought I would share.

From bottom left: Jonah, Hannah, Molly, Allison, Noah, Megan, Sydney, Grandpa and Ariel.

Grandpa and Aiden who is #20. Matthew and Sally will welcome #21. After that we can only guess who will give us our #22......(Alyssa and Randy, maybe. We'll have to wait and see!)