Merry Christmas everyone

I decided to do my Christmas card honoring our 40 years of marriage last September. Ghee we haven't changed much have we?
These past few months have been a whirlwind. We went to Arizona for Thanksgiving and not only enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner with lots of relatives, we also celebrated my Dad's 100 years ( well almost since he was born in 1912) it was fabulous. A real tribute to a wonderful man, We had over 100 descendants there to honor him.

Also a couple of weeks ago Bill was released as Bishop. It was a special time for us these past 5 1/2 years.
We look forward to seeing what the future brings to us.

It's so fun to see our little grandchildren be so excited for Christmas. They are all so sweet and cute.

I also spent 2 1/2 days staying with Joy and Rick's 7 kids while they were in Utah for a wedding.
They all behaved themselves wonderfully, but I know why you have your kids while you are young! Whew, it was so great to sleep at night in my own bed !

I'm looking forward to 2012.. seems impossible to say that, didn't we all just worry about Y2K?

Merry Christmas everyone

Our trip back East

sneaking in a few Halloween pictures.. Of course I wish they were at the bottom of t his post but it never works out that way!

the above church is where Patrick Henry said , "give me liberty or give me death"

this is a re enactment at Williamsburg of the traitor Benedict Arnold trying to persuade the people to go with the British.. It was very moving! ( but of course we weren't changing sides)

Monticello ( side view)

Jamestown..inside the fort. Great place to visit, the museum was wonderful

Brady loves my IPOD, and he knows how to work it

Our sweet Carolee, oh, how we miss her

While Carolee and Jeff are living in Erie Pa. we fly back there each year. Besides seeing thier sweet family we take alittle side trip. We have gone to Boston, Washington DC. Gettysburg, and now this year we decided to go to Virginia again and see Monticello, Williamsburg , Jamestown, and Richmond . We had a wonderful time, fabulous cool weather, and the leaves on the trees were beautiful. One funny thing is though everyone at the hotels were OLD people on thier vacations. Is that what they think of Bill and I? But we love going when the tourist season is over, no crowds and the hotels are pretty cheap, especially when you do Priceline!

After a few days we drove on up to Erie. this will be our last time going there because Jeff and Carolee will be moving to Texas this summer. Woo hoo. Texas seems like next door now. I loved being with the 3 kids, they are so special.

Our 40th Wedding Celebration

Over the Labor Day Weekend Bill and I celebrated our 40 years of marriage. We thought it would be even more special if we invited our kids to join us at the Arizona temple . ( that is where our wedding was September 1971) So all of our kids except Carolee and Jeff ( who are in Pennsylvania and unable to come so far) joined us in doing temple sealings. We were so pleased and surprised to see that we were assigned to be in the same sealing room that Bill and I got married in!

I had prepared family names of those who needed to be sealed for our family to do. It was very special and all of us.

We all stayed at the Marriott Resort in Tempe, and we enjoyed the pool, eating out together and some fun shopping. It truly was a wonderful weekend.

another fun class

I took another class at Pila's Pantry in Corona.. Fun fun fun. ( excuse the paper towels shaping the bow until it dries. I"m not an expert, but it sure is exciting to learn something new.

Also while Candice was down she so thoughtfully put together Bill and I getting professional pictures take to celebrate our upcoming 40th wedding anniversary. She even had my make up done! yea or false eyelashes.

here are a couple of pictures. Thanks also to Lydia for her good work.

okay, why in the heck don't the pictures come out in order?? oh well,

I can't believe how fast the summer has gone. It's been so fun. Looking forward to great things coming up.

More Summer Fun

I'm not into crafts but I do enjoy learning new things. I'm always intrigued with cooking shows and I love to eat at Sprinkles cupcakes. So why not take a cupcake decorating class? I went out of my box and went by myself to Pila's Cake and Candy store in Corona and signed up for a 2 hour class. It was so fun! I'm not a pro, and most of the others' cupcakes looked better,but it was fun for me and I loved what we made. Here are some pictures from what we did. I love the meatball and spegetti cupcake and the Chinese food cupcake.. they are all made from candy!

I want to do another class for fondont icing. Let the fun begin!

Skirts and more Skirts

With all house guests gone I've taken up sewing again. Well, just really easy kind of sewing. I've been making little skirts for my grand daughters, That's 11 to make! I have one more to do and I'm done. But I also make a couple of bowties for the little boys. I think they are soooo cute, but the six year old said when he was told he was going to wear it, "Are you kidding me?" but he was a good sport and wore it for Sunday to match his sisters skirt.

Cleaned out some of my garage, That's a wonderful feeling to get of unwanted and not needed stuff. should do it way more often. Thanks to Tyler and Jake for helping grandma.

Got the best deal ever! Signed up with Southwest Rapid Rewards and Chase bank and got 2 round trip tickets anywhere in US.. the credit card is just 59.00 a year but the tickets were worth about 800.00 yahoo.. I love a good deal. We'll be head back east later on in the year to visit some historical sights and then to see Carolee and Jeff.

I'm loving summer!

here are some random pictures from this past month.

Grandkids and Fun

We have lots of grandkids come and visit. Life is never dull when you have little ones around.

But they are so cute and say the cutest things. They are so SMART too,

Besides Grandma's house Disneyland is always a favorite place to visit.

We are looking forward to another great summer.

By the way my son in law Jeffrey Biehn not only was doing his surgical residency he accomplished getting his Masters too! What a guy he is! Way to go Jeff.

After this next year they will have one more year doing a fellowship in Texas. I'm sooooo happy that they will be closer! Can't wait to visit them and Texas!

Ryan and Taryn are looking foward to moving into their new home very soon. We have loved having them stay with us.