Fun in Santaquin

This is my last post about our trip to Denver and Santaquin. It is an assortment of photos of some of the fun we had with Jessica, Andrew, Cambria, and Titan.

One morning we sat down at the dining room table and played games as a family.

This one involved someone drawing a picture while the others guessed what it was.

Jessica helped by giving the kids hints and ideas.

Surprise, surprise! I drew a horse!

Surprise, surprise! Cambria drew a unicorn!

Then we played a game that involved water - always fun for kids. (Adults, too!)

You put a "fur coat" on a dog, 

fill the tub with water,

and then take turns  turning on the faucet to see who gets sprayed when the doggy shakes!

Oops! Forgot one from our time in Denver with Sarah's family. This is us with JC at his graduation party.

Pony Pal Cambria longingly looking at the stick horses.

Playing an old fashioned game of pinball with Titan. (I loved these games as a child!)

Snuggling with Cambria one morning.

We went and saw the new Disney movie, Aladdin.

Craig and me at Young Living, a lavender and Percheron farm.

Riggs, the 18.3 hand Percheron!

Giving Riggs a good scritching.

A cuddle just before we left on our return trip home.

Titan gifted us with flowers as we left.

We kept them on the dash of the car all the way home, and left them there for several days afterward.

This cloud looked an awfully lot like a sheep's head to me. We saw it in Wyoming during our drive home.

And that wraps up our 2019 trip west!

Boompa's Fort

While Jessica and I were at the Payson temple, Craig, Cambria, and Titan went out "to play on the mountain" (as Cambria and Titan say about going into their back yard) to build a fort. Craig is renown among our children for his ability to take the lowliest blanket and turn it into an amazing fortress or to grab a snow shovel and build an igloo big enough for kids to sit inside. What could he do with the materials found on a mountain?

Plenty, as it turned out.

"This is the place." First, the kids found the perfect spot in which to build their fort. And then they all began gathering materials that might work.

Craig began with a basic A frame

and the kids help him pile up branches and sticks against the framework.

It turned out so cool that I wanted to play it, too!

There was even a pretend campfire just ready for pretend s'mores and pioneer cooking.

Titan brought his mama up to see their new fort as soon as she and I got home from the temple.

Titan gave her a tour of their new fort

while Cambria explained a few of its finer points to her mom.

Boompa, you've still got it! Your fort making talents aren't rusty at all.  The next generation is getting to enjoy them, too.

The Payson Temple

While visiting Jessica last month, she and I spent a morning serving in the Payson temple.

Such a beautiful temple, and quite a bit larger than the Indianapolis temple.

And, it is only an 8 - 10 minute drive from Jessie's home!

Jessica showed me how to use the Family Search app on my phone to select a family name to do.

I chose Alice Lindholm who was married to my Grandmother Honeywell's cousin, Emmett Watson.

We had a wonderful time serving together, and when we got home, Craig, who had stayed behind with Cambria and Titan, took his turn and headed off to the temple.

As a parent, one of the most meaningful things you can do with your adult children is to attend the temple with them. Needless to say, serving in the Payson temple with Jessica was very special to me.

Getting Ready for a Collectors' Gathering

Hosting a model horse show entails a LOT of work. There is finding a venue, planning, advertising, gathering entries, budgeting, drawing up a class list, finding judges... You might think that holding one at home would be easier. HAH!! Not true!

When you are hosting one in your home, you suddenly look around and notice things you haven't noticed before - a ding on the wall that needs repairing, cobwebs in that hard to reach corner, windows that need to be washed, and on and on.

With my pony party/model show Happy Trails fast approaching (this Saturday!) I've been in a frenzy of cleaning for over a week and now feel pretty good about how the inside of the house looks. Then I realized that the outside of the house could use a little TLC, too.

Especially my stepping stone garden that lines the walkway to the front door.

Those stepping stones are one of my favorite things, all having been made by our grandchildren and me. I make a footprint or handprint stone when a grandbaby is born, and other stones to commemorate events (like Hurricane Irma that hit our Florida family's home) or family gatherings. There are twenty-eight stones in the garden now, and about ten or twelve more that my grandchildren took home for their own gardens. (It's fun to visit and see their stones proudly displayed in their yards.)

 Yeesh! What a mess!! And this is AFTER I weeded it Saturday.

 This morning I pulled all the stepping stones out and and put down fresh mulch.

The plants are volunteer snapdragons that come up every year. I have to thin them all summer long - one year I did not and they took over the entire bed, obscuring all the stepping stones.

 I am pleased with how much better the front of the house looks and am glad that I got the stepping stone garden all cleaned up before the show. Check that off on my to-do list!

After BreyerFest we are heading down to Tennessee for a visit with our son Cole and his family, and I'll make Susie's baby stone while we are there. Then, later this summer I will make another for our newest granddaughter in Florida who is due to be born any moment.

In the meantime, my Happy Trails show is only five days away. Off to go work on swag bags!

Deep Cleaning - Because I Finally Can!

June 22 I have ten horsey friends coming to my house for my pony party and show, Happy Trails II. I began preparing for the show last January, but there's another part of show prep that REALLY needs to be done.

Deep cleaning my house - the show's location.

It has been a long, long time since I have deep cleaned. Craig and I both tend to be neat and pick up after ourselves, and we do routine maintenance cleaning, but washing window blinds, vacuuming walls and ceilings, cleaning baseboards... Hasn't happened.

There is a reason why it's been that long, and it isn't laziness. It's my body, or my joints, rather.  I have had eleven orthopedic surgeries including two knee replacements, a hip replacement, and a spinal fusion.

 A few hours post op from my second knee replacement surgery. (Cover me with one of those heated hospital blankets, and I sleep with a smile on my face.)

I still need to have my other hip replaced as well as another place in my spine fused, but the other surgeries have done their magic and I am much more mobile and don't have the pain that I used to. And, I have lost over sixty pounds since January, and that has really made my whole body feel better.

So, it was time to get down and dirty - because I COULD. I wasn't super excited about cleaning, but the fact that I felt well enough to do so? Priceless!

People will set up in my living and dining rooms for the show and now both rooms are deep cleaned. (I even pulled the antique player piano, which has cast iron innards and took seven men to move into our home, out from the wall and cleaned behind it!)

I think the two rooms look much better, and I myself FEEL better to have tackled a task that had started bothering me a few months go. There is one problem, though.

We have twenty foot ceilings in the living room, and I can see some cobwebs up around the perimeter of the room. How on earth am I going to get those down??  (Maybe I'll just tell everyone not to look up. Haha!)

Next up? Deep cleaning the kitchen where the show rings will be set up. Wish me luck!

Non-Holiday Pillowcases

When we were in Santaquin and visiting Jessica, they were still in the throes of unpacking from their move. One of the things I noticed in their basement family room was this:

A big stack of the pillowcases that I had made for Cambria - one for each holiday. It made me really good to see that Jessica and her family enjoyed them. And, if REALLY made me feel good when she asked me to make some "summer fun" ones.

So, Jessica and I picked out some fabric together.

 Mermaids for Cambria to match her bedroom.

and dinosaurs to match Titan's.

 Colorful ice cream cones to reflect that summer fun for Cambria

while Titan got a camping/outdoorsy theme.