Early Christmas

• We have purchased a new music system for Christmas. We love it! It is a Bose system which is small and has great sound. As you can see it takes up very little space on the shelf where the old one was located. SL will not like it as well as the old one because there are not very many buttons and tape decks to open and play with. This one has no buttons, it is operated through the use of remote controls. It is a lot different than the first stereo system I bought in 1970 which consisted of a record player and an 8 track player and took up about 3 feet of shelf space. I am sure we will enjoy our Bose for many years to come.

27 Pounds of Common Cents

Benji came down the stairs this morning lugging my old piggy bank that I have had since I was little. I reached out and took it from her before she fell from the weight of it. She said that we need do empty it and do something with all the pennies. We proceeded to empty the contents of the bank out onto the kitchen counter. It took us quite awhile to empty it all out though the small hole in the bottom. Taking the pennies out of the bank reminded me of when my brother Ben and I were in elementary school and we would sneek out 5 pennies each to take to school. During lunch time after eating we would run down to the drug store in Thayne and buy us each a Charm sucker. They were in all different flavors and we loved them. The fun in buying them was that there might be a slip of paper under the wrapper saying, "free sucker". We would then receive another sucker. I remember a time when I received 4 or 5 free suckers! It was great!
I took the pennies back to the scale to weigh them. They weighed 27 pounds! We will put them all in penny rolls and get them back into currculation. We checked them over to see if there were any old ones. There were no wheat pennies. The oldest we saw was 1960. We found a few nickels, dimes and a quarter. There were a few other interesting items in it too as you can see from the picture above.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time during the week of Thanksgiving! We had everyone home for the week except for Megan, and we truly missed having her here. But we are looking forward to having her at Christmas time. The grandkids had great fun playing games and being together. The adults also had a fun time playing games and talking. We had good weather and were able to spend some time out side. On Friday night we had a suprise visit from Mike and Sheila Erickson. They were just on a drive up here and decided to stop by and visit. We had a great time catching up on all the news from Evanston. They were glad to have seen the girls and their families. They were disappointed in not being able to see Megan. Everyone left yesterday and it seems too quiet in the house. We really miss having them here and hearing all the fun noises from everyone.

Love having family close by

We had TJ and the boys out for part of the day and evening yesterday. We just love it when they come and visit. It is great to have them close by so they can come often. I am glad that we are here and not in Evanston where we had no family close by. It would be wonderful if we had all of our family this close. I realize that would be next to impossible. But we can always wish.

Picture Tag

This is my 4th picture of my 4th folder. It was taken the summer of 2007. It is a picture of Nana, Granddaddy, Bridger and Sam right before we took off on our 1st annual camping trip with grandchildren 8 and over. We are on our way to Warm Lake up by Cascade. We spent a week up there and had a wonderful time. The rest of the Jacksons came up and spent the last few days with us. We look forward to this trip every summer. This past summer we spent a week up at Sage Hen. Summers are wonderful times and we are sad that this one is over. It was a sad day when I had to winterize the trailer and put it away until next spring.

Stained Glass

I have finished my stained glass project that I am making for my sister's Christmas present. It has been a little bit more complicated than the others that we have finished. It has 55 pieces and is larger than the others. It was fun making it and turned out quite nice. This is a neat hobby and one that I will continue to do. My next stained glass project? I'm not sure.

Marching Bands

Last Saturday afternoon Benji and I had the opportunity to attend the HS Marching Bands competition at BSU stadium. We had a wonderful time. The bands were great the the weather not too cold. The competition went from 2:00 until 8:80 p.m. We went to the last half from 5:30 until 8:30. During that time we were able to watch 12 of the bands compete. After the high schools were finished the BSU marching band performed for about 1/2 hour. They were great to see and very entertaining. We were both glad that we attended the event.

Playing in the Trees

Friday TJ and the boys came out the house to enjoy the day. We went down to the Boise river and played in the trees. They are great trees for climbing on and playing around. We got some wonderful pictures of all of us. Lily thought that the swamp by the trees was solid ground and walked out on to it. She sank! The water was black and stinky and so was Lily. We had to give her a bath when we got home. The boys had so much fun that they didn't want to leave. It is one of their favorite places to go.

Greenbelt

This afternoon we went to Garden City and walked a couple of miles on the Greenbelt. It was wonderful temperatures and a beautiful walk. The fall leaves are on the trees, a combination of orange, yellow, brown, red and green. We were glad that we went and enjoyed the changing of the seasons.

Soccer game and surprise visit

We went to the boys last soccer games on Saturday. It was a beautiful day to be out watching the games. The boys all did a great job. TJ and AJ are very glad that they are all over for the season. They spend a lot of time working with the boys in soccer. Benji and I got home about 5:30 after stopping and doing some shopping. We had a message on our phone from our nephew Hal asking us to go out to dinner with them. My brother Duane and his wife Donna were here in town visiting with them. They told us to meet them at Golden Corral at 6:30 for dinner. We were surprised again when they all showed up at GC. There were about 16 of them. Jan and his wife were there with some of their kids and some of Hals kids were there too. We had a great visit and enjoyed seeing them. Duane and Donna look great! The best we have seen them for years. They all had to go back home today so they didn't have time to come out to our house.

Weekend with L,D&M

We had a very fun time in West Jordan this past weekend. Sunday we were able to witness and participate in the blessing of little M. She is a cutey. We were also able to visit with Mac, Agnes and some of their family, also Tom, Shar and their girls. We also enjoyed being with E & D and kids. Had a fun time at Ikea. Monday night we went out to eat with D and L at Toucanos. It was a fun place to eat with good food.

Idaho City-Banks Loop

Benji and I went on a road trip to see the fall colors on Monday. We did the loop up through Idaho City, Lowman, Garden Valley and Banks. We had a great time and saw some beautiful country. Most of the trip is up in the mountains with windey roads and steep climbs. We stopped at Ten Mile camp ground above Idaho City and had lunch. This is the camp ground where we went camping with A & TJ family last summer. The grandkids named it Watermelon Creek. The picture is at that campground. Temperatures were in the high 50s. It took us about 4 hours to make the 170 mile loop. Beautiful country, we love where we live.

Mystery Duck Solved

While looking in one of AJ's bird books I found a the mystery duck. It is called the Domestic Muscovy. It is a domestic duck. Probably escaped from some ones farm. That is why it is so tame.

Ducks Still Hanging Around

TJ, AJ and the boys came over Friday and spent the afternoon with us. While they were here the mystery ducks were back on the ditch bank. The boys and Sadie went out and fed some bread to the female. We had a fun evening with the Js, having dinner, smores and dancing on the new DDR2. Thanks T and A for coming over and having a fun time with us.

ABC Tag

TJ tagged me and showed me how to reply to it so here goes!

A is for your age: 63
B is for burger of choice: Any burger done on the grill at home.
C is for the car you drive: Red Prius, love the gas mileage.
D is for your dog's name: Sadie
E is for essential item you use every day: My brain!
F is for favorite TV show at the moment: Survivor and Amazing Race.
G is for favorite game: Pillars of the Earth
H is for home state: Wyoming
I is for instruments you play: I played the trumpet and French horn in high school a hundred years ago.
J is for favorite juice: Juice made in our new juice extractor.
K is for whose bum you'd like to kick: Nobody!
L is for last restaurant at which you ate: Olive Garden with BS,T, A and LJ.
M is for your favorite Muppet: The Swedish Chef!
N is for number of piercings: 0
O is for overnight hospital stays: On my mission in Vancouver having my appendix removed.
P is for people you were with today: BS, Jacksons
Q is for what you do with your quiet time: Read and crosswords
R is for biggest regret: Not traveling enough now that we are retired.
S is for status: Retired and loving it.
T is for time you woke up today: 7:30
U is for what you consider unique about yourself: Have 4 daughters, 2 granddaughters, and 7 grandsons.
V is for vegetable you love: Broccolli
W is for worst habit: Being and back seat driver.
X is for x-rays you've had: Ankle when I sprained it and of my esophagus for acid reflux.
Y is for yummy food you ate today: Soup and salad at Olive Garden, Brats for dinner, S'mores for dessert.
Z is for zodiac: Gemini

Unidentified Duck

These ducks were on our ditch bank yesterday! I couldn't find them in any of my bird books. Any body have any idea what kind they are?

Weekend with dj and lj

Thanks for the fun weekend! We had a great time spending time with our new granddaughter. She is a cutie. We had a good time shopping at Gardner Village where bs bought a new quilt for our bed. We also ate at Leatherbies and had some yummy ice cream. LJ had a little bit too much, but she was able to take some home. We look forward to seeing them again at the babies blessing in October

Yard Swing

We went over to Parma today and bought a log so that I could fix the rotted out leg on our log swing. I thought it was going to be very hard fixing it but it went quite smoothly. I even cut the holes in the right places and everything fit perfectly. We can now sit on the swing and not worry about the leg collapsing under us.

Fun weekend

Thank you D and E for a wonderful weekend at your house. We were able to spend from Friday afternoon to Tuesday morning with them. It seems like the time goes to quickly while we are visiting. We bought some corn and E helped us get it into freezer bags. It looked like good corn so we are looking forward to some good eating. It rained for a few days that we were there which made it challenging in taking the dogs out side since they don't have grass yet. We took Lily with us so that A and T could go to L and Ds. I think Sadie enjoyed having her friend go with us.

We brought 5 doz. ears of corn for tj. Lj and I spent part of the morning husking it then we got it ready for the freezer.

Meeting with the Bishop

Last night after young womens Benji and I had an appointment to meet with the bishop. We were both very worried that we were going to receive a new calling in the ward. We both enjoy the callings that we have now and hate to give them up. Well we had a very nice visit with Bishop Smith. He had us come it to talk with him about our going on a mission. He was wondering when we would be available to go. We told him that we have a trip to Florida planned with our family next summer and we wouldn't be able to go until after that. So it might be sometime after next summer. We will see.
We are off tomorrow to go visit Erin, Dale and the grandkids over in Rigby. We are looking forward to spending some time with them.

First Blog

My name for my blog page as you can see is, Life is Great! I hope I can use this blog to let everybody know that it is great. I have a great wife and a great family. Hopefully this will encourage me to keep track of the things happening in my life.

TJ came over today with LJ and helped us start making our blogs.