Cole's 2021 Christmas Village

Cole is a Lego lover and he and his family have a fun holiday tradition - they make a Lego Christmas village!

They set villages up for Easter, Thanksgiving, and other holidays, too. When the holiday is over, each piece is dismantled and put into individual plastic bags for storage. 

Cole uses these books for patterns. Bricks are bought at garage sales, on eBay, and from other sources. He resells what he doesn't need.

Here's another video (this one has sound) with Emily and Susie briefly sharing what they worked on and then Cole speeds up the train to Susie's delight. (Did you know that there is a robot in Santa's village? Neither did I, until Susie made one. Reminds me of the unicorn that showed up in our Nativity re-enactment last Christmas Eve.)

Summer 2021: Kyle Visits/the Temple and My Birthday

It's always hard to say goodbye, so Craig and I caravanned down to Indianapolis with Kyle and Ashley for a quick visit to the temple before they continued further south and home.

Families can be forever and this is the place that makes that so.

Sweet Cory knew my birthday was close and had brought a gift for me with her from Florida - she'd been carrying it in her suitcase for a month!

And then, before they left, the family sang "Happy Birthday" to be.

The visit with Kyle may have been short, but it was treasured.

Summer 2021: Kyle Visits/Columbian Park

When you think about it, it is amazing how many generations of my family have enjoyed visiting Columbian Park. 

From my Honeywell grandparents to my parents and my siblings,

and then my children and grands,

 

that's five generations of our family who have come to this park.

The zoo is a really nice part of the park.

Addie makes friends with a Wallaby joey.

The zoo had a new penguin exhibit, one that took several years to plan and implement. The penguins would swim up to look at us, and several were fascinated by Kyle's shoes!

A family photo op by the penguins.

My favorite zoo animal, the Galapagos tortoise who was older than me, had been moved to another home due to her age. But there is a statue in her memory.

Outside the butterfly house is a garden with gigantic insect sculptures for kids to play around.

My favorite? The monarch caterpillar.

Braden and Lukie share the ladybug sculpture.

A train ride around Columbian Park is always a must.

More family fun to come. Stay 'tooned! 

Summer 2021: Surprise on the Way Home

While driving home from our trip to visit Jessica in July, this happened. It started with a text from Sarah as we drove through Iowa.

We had no idea what she meant or was talking about, but we did as she asked.

 

Suddenly up ahead, I could see something on the overpass so I grabbed my phone and began snapping pictures.

It's Sarah with a sign!

She had not realized that we planned to stop and see if she and Todd wanted to meet for dinner, so she'd made us a good-bye sign and waited at the overpass for us to drive by and see it.

That has to be one of the best things my kids have ever done for me (and probably one of the more dangerous ones, too.)

We exited at the Coral Ridge mall and met in the parking lot for some hugs and then went inside for dinner together. It was a fleeting visit, but worth every moment.

Thanks, Sarah, for a real memory maker!

Summer 2021: Kyle Visits/ Family Fun

 After spending a month vacationing with Ashley's family, Kyle and crew stopped by in Indiana for a few days on their trip home to Florida.

Ever the prankster....

Hard to believe this is my little boy!

Curt and Vanessa had us over for a cookout at their home.

They have a huge backyard that we could spread out in.

The grands quickly made use of the trampoline

and were flying high while the adults grilled dinner.

What a great way to get rid of some energy!

Back at our home, we played board games together,

something our family loves and always does when we gather.

Pepper, brilliant dog that she is, quickly figured out a way to get belly rubs even while the family was busy playing games.

I love how Curt is right in the middle of the kiddos - he is such a good dad and uncle!

I think Melissa is the spitting image of Pooma. Can you see it?

Addie had studied with Jenny Oaks Baker while out in Utah and gave us a small concert.

Pepper was fascinated by the music!

More to come so stay 'tooned!

Summer 2021: Visiting Jessica/Red Barn Apples & Goodbye

Just before we hit the road for home, we wrapped up our July trip to Utah with a trip to the Red Apple Barn for some apples and a final photo.

It's always hard to say good-bye!

Summer 2021: Visiting Jessica/Kyle Stops By

We were able to meet briefly with Kyle and his family at Jessica's. They were staying for a month with Ashley's family in Heber City and came down for pizza and a quick visit.

It was good to be together even for a short visit.

Melissa is usually a little shy at first, but Boompa made her feel comfortable from the get-go and kept her supplied with pizza and water.

Jessica and Andrew have the best pergola and we spent most of the evening sitting in it and chatting as we ate.

I had to smile when Melissa let Craig feed her the pizza instead of feeding herself. He loved it.

After supper, the kids went into the toy room in the basement and enjoyed all that was on offer there.

There was a lot to look at and play with,

including a wall of board games. Jessica's family's hobby is playing board games together and they have 300+ games!

All too soon our time together was over

and we headed out into the yard by the rock retaining wall to take some family pictures.

All of us.

Boompa, Grammy, and seven of our grands.

Twelve Days of Christmas at Thanksgiving

I have two favorite Christmas songs - O Come, All Ye Faithful and The Twelve Days of Christmas. (Really disparate, aren't they?)

With ten grands visiting for the holidays I decided to embroider them all aprons using the song as a theme and include Craig and me to make twelve.

Titan, Susie, Cambria, Julie, and Kate modeling their aprons with us.

Partridge in a pear tree

Two turtle doves

Three French hens

Four calling birds

Five golden rings

Six geese a'laying (Craig wasn't thrilled to be a goose laying eggs, but the only other alternative was eight maids a milking! Haha!)

Seven swans a'swimming

Eight maids a'milking (I hadn't yet trimmed the jump threads on mine)

Nine ladies dancing

Ten Lords a'leaping

Eleven pipers piping

Twelve drummers drumming

We tried to get all twelve of us together at once for a photo but it always turned out like this. But that's okay - we had fun wearing them, cooking in them, and best of all, just being together for the holiday.