New Glass Project

I just finished my most recent glass project. It has been a fun one to make. We got the idea for this project up in McCall at a glass shop. 

September Baby Ducks

Today we were visited by 7 baby ducks. They came into our yard to eat the bird seed that has fallen on the ground. It seems to be late in the season to have baby ducks they are usually hatched in the spring. They are fun to watch.

Hot Air Balloons at the Park!

Last Saturday morning we went with the Jacksons down to Ann Morrison Park to see them launch the hot air balloons. It was great fun and everyone enjoyed it. We were all in awe watching the balloons fill up and float up into the sky. This is an event that we hope we can go to every year.

Camping at Sage Hen

We had a great time camping last week with the three oldest Jackson boys. The weather was great with warm enough temperatures to go swimming in the lake. We went on a hike every day. Our favorite hike was the 4 miler around the lake with a picnic on top of a huge rock. We also found an area that had thousands of baby frogs. The boys were great and a big help while camping. Hope we can go camping again before it gets to cold.

Donna's Funeral

My sister-in-law, Donna, past away on Feb. 5, 2011 in Idaho Falls. Benji and I drove over to her funeral on Friday. The services were very nice and were attended by a lot of family members.

My brothers and sisters were all in attendance. All 5 of us don't get together very often and when we do we like to take a picture. You can see in the photo that all of them are getting older except me. (Don't we wish!)

The program was nice. All 5 of Duane's children talked of remembances of their mother. The boys sang and all the grand and great grand children sang a medley of primary songs.

Duane looks in better health now than he has in years. Hopefully we will have him around for many more years.

Living Legends

What a wonderful evening we had last night in going to BYU's production of Living Legends. Everyone seemed to enjoy the dancing and the costumes. Thank you Aaron, Tory and boys for going with us.

Kids Monsters

Tory, Aaron and the boys came over for dinner Sunday. After dinner the we and the boys worked on monsters taken from a new book we purchased in Texas called Papertoy Monsters. We all had a great time.

Holidays

We spent a wonderful 2 weeks in Texas at the Jackmans and at Megan and Annemaries. Christmas in San Antonio and New Years in Arlington. We drove down so that we could take Christmas presents. It took us 3 days to drive down and we enjoyed the places that we traveled through. We miss them and wish we were closer so we could visit more often.

New Bookshelves

We have finished our bookshelves and loaded them down with books. We love them and they look great in the house. It was good to get some of the books out of storage in the garage and put them on the shelves. We have also finished the new computer desk. It looks great and we are going to love it. The only problem is that it won't make the bend going into the computer room. We are going to have to switch the back bedroom and the computer room. It is going to be quite a process.

Finished Glass Project

I finished my stained glass project for the master bath windows. It has been a fun project and I have enjoyed doing it. I need a new project to do so I need suggestions from my daughters for ones I can do for them.

New Stained Glass Project

We have started a new stained glass project. This is the first piece of it. We are making two of these double quilt squares and hanging them in our bathroom window. We are now in the process of deciding the patterns for the second one. These are so much fun to make. It is a great hobby.

Lucy's B'day

Thank you Lucy and Derrick for a great time last week! We arrived at the Jackman's Sunday evening so that we could be with Lucy on her birthday. The weather wasn't the greatest but we still had a wonderful time with them. May is such a charmer! She is so fun to play with and to be around.

We went to dinner at Buca D'pepos (I don't think that is how it is spelled) on Lucy's birthday. We sat at the kitchen table and had good food, the service wasn't the greatest. We made angel food cake and had strawberry shortcake for dessert. We took with us our new game of Phase 10 Twist which we had fun playing.

We all ways enjoy visiting the girls in their homes and spending time with them.

Thanksgiving in Texas

Thank you Megan and Annemarie for a wonderful time at your home and the yummy Thanksgiving dinner!
We were able to spend 9 days with them and did some great things. We went to to Rudy's and had lunch on Wednesday and had the best barbque beef in Texas. We also went to the new Christmas Carol movie at the IMax in 3D. It was a great movie and we all enjoyed it. We also spent some time on the river walk and ate at the Iron Cactus.

Starbuck and Saul were fun to be around, they are great dogs.

We just had a wonderful time and are glad that we were able to take the trip.

The Ten Virgins

We returned Saturday from Rigby. We (Benji, Tory and I) went to Erins to attend her production of The Ten Virgins that her ward Relief Society put on. It was very nice and Erin did a wonderful job during her performance. We had a wonderful time while visiting them in Rigby. Lucy and May were also able to come and enjoy it with us. Thanks for the wonderful time.

Glenns Ferry Trip

We went to Glenns Ferry this past weekend with our friends the Crosgroves. We had a great time seeing new places we haven't visited before. We stayed in our camping trailer at the Glenns Ferry State Park, which was very nice. Our first night there we went to the dinner theater. The play was kind of lame but the food, which was flame broiled steaks, was very good.

On Saturday we went on a road trip and the Crosgroves showed us around. We stopped in Haggerman for lunch, we had sturgeon and catfish sandwiches which were great. It was the first time any of us had tried sturgeon. The rest of the day was spent visiting Thousand Springs, Miracle Springs, Balanced Rock and Malad Gorge. We got back to our camp around 9:00 hoping to go to the observatory at Bruneau but it had become cloudy so we didn't go. We left Sunday at 1:00 to come home. It was a great place to visit.

Oregon Trip

We returned from our trip to Oregon last Friday night. We left on Sunday for Oregon and traveled on I-84 down the Columbia River Gorge. We spent the night in Hood River and enjoyed watching the para-surfers on the river. We visited Multnomah Falls and others along the Columbia on the way to Portland. We stopped in Portland and ate lunch at one of the food carts that are all over downtown Portland. We had yummy East India curry.

The next day we visited Fort Klatsop in Astoria. It was a neat place to visit and walk around. We spent the night in Tillamook and visited the cheese factory and got some yummy cheese.

On the way down the coast we visited Seaside, Lincoln City, Newport and Florence.

We loved seeing the light houses, the beach and the wildlife. We also had some great sea food.

Little Redfish Lake

Here are some of the pictures that we took on our recent camping trip to Little Redfish Lake up by Stanley. We had a wonderful time with the whole family. Unfortunately Derrick and Annemarie were unable to be with us. We spent the time relaxing around the fire, fishing, reading, cooking and playing games. I hope we can have a lot more of these wonderful experiences together. We have a super family that loves getting together and having fun.

Florida Collage

Siesta Key

We had a wonderful time at Siesta Key with Megan, Annemarie, Lucy, Derrick and May! They left for home on Saturday and Benji and I have been staying at Marti and Dick's. We have had a great time with them, enjoying their pool and visiting the area. Benji and I went down to Sanibel Island on Monday. We did some shopping at the village shops and swimming at the beach. The Gulf beach was very windy with very high waves. We had fun jumping the waves. We ate at a restaurant called The Island Cow. I had fried oysters which were great.

We spent the day yesterday at Siesta Key shopping and enjoying the beach for the last time before we leave on Saturday. It has been a great vacation.

Mule Days in Star

The Jacksons came over today and went to some of the Mule Days activities with us. We had a fun day. We went over to the library's used book sale and got a bunch of neat books. They were only $1.00 for hardbacks and 50 cents for paperbacks. We got enough books to keep us busy reading all summer. We then went to the parade, which was pretty lame this year. I think there was only one mule in the whole parade. The kids had fun though catching all the candy that was thrown. We took the boys over to the playground at the elementary school and had fun there. We had a yummy dinner of ribeye steaks on the grill and red potatoes. We all enjoyed it. It was a fun day.