Christmas morning

It's finally Christmas day! Everyone had sugar plums dancing in their heads last night. We heard reports of people who were too excited to sleep (haha).

For breakfast, Sarah made German pancakes and Aaron made hot chocolate. I love having grown up kids who want to cook:

I made lots of fleece blankets this year and my family seemed to like them (thank goodness):

Aaron wanted a Kindle. He can load thousands of books and periodicals onto it. He won't have to worry about carrying or moving books from one apartment to another:

Sarah gets to pick out a Cockatielle (bird) this week. The cage is huge and quite pretty:

I got my wish too! This is the first bike of my own since I was a teenager! It's a pink and white ladies Schwinn. I think it's called a LuLu. It has 7 speeds and is very retro.

I also have a raspberry-pink and black helmet. I must say it's bad for the hair:

I have to show this adorable pony that mom and dad gave to me. My grandkids are going to love it. When you press on one ear it neighs, and when you press on the other ear it makes galloping sounds.

It holds 250 pounds! We all sat on it and it's as sturdy as concrete.

Even though it's been another tough year we have managed to have a most amazing Christmas.

Joe got clothes and a Jack La Lane Power Juicer. We also now have a 'soda stream' to make our own soft drinks and a very nice Cuisinart. It's a kitchen aid brand, so over the years attachments can be added if we want.

The best thing is that my daughter and her family will be coming to visit us very soon!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! It may not be about the gifts, but it sure is fun.

Family Christmas Party 2010

It really isn't Christmas until the family gets together at Mom and Dads house in Salt Lake City.

For several years now we've enjoyed the tradition of dining on large trays of Chinese take out. It's great.

This year Mom and Dad took the time to share with us some personal and family history stories.

We have ancestors to be proud of and I never get tired of learning about them.

Our family is so large and crazy. We may have 20 people at a party and that's still only about half of us.

Following are some pics;

Aaron:

Dad:

Mom:

Sarah with her grandma:

Bradly and son, Tyler:

Debera:

Me (Lesa):

Brian:

Dallin and his folks: Shawn and Lilly:

Three of Shawn and Lillys kids (they have 4):

Stacy (Her baby boy is due in January):

Sarah and Aaron:

Lots of little Cousins:

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of our missing family members.

Luncheon

Today I went to a luncheon for certain workers; office, engineering, laundry.

I've worked on two different shifts, so I know a few people.

This picture has most of our Friday shift. We work 2:00-6:00. One lady is missing.

From left to right: me, Marlene (she helps us part time-about an hour each week), Heather (center) is in training right now. She's a young return missionary. Delanne (In purple) is our supervisor and was my missionary companion about 35 years ago. Cathlene is in the red vest.

Gathering:

Heather and Marlene:

This shows two of the ladies from when I did the Thursday shift.

Left to right: Delanne, Kathy, Maureen, me:

Nice ladies:

Basically the program was; eat food, listen to a light hearted Christmas story (read by the Recorder), sing a few carols,then listen to nice talks from the Temple President and the 1st Councilor. It was a very nice get together.

A sledding hill

Joe and I went out looking for a sledding hill for our grand kids. We found one, but then we learned a couple of things.

First, the only way to approach the hill would be on snow shoes. We were sinking to our knees in places. A small child might sink chest deep.

The hill looked good, but isn't a good place to bring kids to sled right now. The snow probably isn't always this deep here, so it might be good at other times.

I was first to reach the hill and I made a short run.
You can see my sled tracks in the snow:

After the sled run we put on our snowshoes and went walking.

Following are just some sights from our walk:

It's amazing the places we can get to on our snow shoes:

These beautiful trees got us thinking that one of these years it might be nice to cut down our own Christmas tree.






It's always great to get outside and play (at any age):

THE END

Winter Playground

At about 2:30 this afternoon we escaped for a little play time with our snow shoes. We parked at Spruces campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Getting ready:

Into the trees:

No picnics today:

A little stream:

Me:

We discovered a great place for sledding. It's just hidden enough that it's probably not well known. If we bring kids and grand-kids here, we would very likely have it to ourselves. Small children might prefer to start from part way up:

This open air shelter was well hidden in the trees and full of picnic tables. It also has a huge rock fireplace. It can be rented (or you can just climb through the giant open windows):

We like finding new places to play and to bring visitors.

Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We've had a good day at our house and everyone helped with dinner.

This was our Assignment Summary (created by Aaron):

Sarah: Turkey, cranberry sauce.

Aaron: Peach pie, mashed potatoes, stuffing.

Mom: Rolls, yams with marshmallows, green bean casserole.

Dad: Veggie dip with veggies, homemade Root-beer, homemade Ice-cream (pumpkin flavored).

Sarah folded fancy napkins:

Aaron liked the dry ice vapors from the root beer:

We had a fire going, but it didn't last long enough. Our log was too big! We should have chopped it up more. Oh well, it was nice for awhile and we learned something:

Our table was full of food. We'll be eating turkey for awhile. Not shown is Sarah's awesome cranberry sauce (made from fresh cranberries), or the pie and ice-cream:

After the big clean-up we gathered in the dinning room for a couple hours of games:

When we'd had enough of that we adjourned to the basement for two episodes of Dr. Who (modern version). That is one weird show (I liked it).

We'll all be up for awhile yet and we have a long weekend to look forward too.

It's good to have some time together as family and to reflect on everything we can be grateful for.

Upper Bell Canyon Falls

Today Joe and I were on a trail for about 8 hours. The Bell Canyon trail starts near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon (very near to our home).

It's a short climb to the Bell Canyon Reservoir, which we skirted around:

The trail started out easy, but it became progressively more challenging. It was steep, narrow and rocky. It cut through shrubs and pine trees.

At one point we came upon a tree laying across the trail. I took off my backpack and went under it. Joe bushwhacked around it.

A large portion of the trail looked like this:

Looking down at the South end of the valley:

This mountain was on the north side of our trail. We had various views of it for most of the climb:

We're not to far from our destination here:

We've been at higher elevations, but we really worked hard for this one:

Pretty valley:

Another look at that mountain:

We were way up in the mountains where we got to go down into this neat little gorge. Someone had built a bridge across the stream bed:

We didn't go beyond the bridge because we had made it to the Falls and that was all we were interested in reaching today.

We sat on rocks and had a snack while watching the water fall. The loud sound of falling water is so neat. There were a lot of pine trees. There was some other type of tree too. We were walking on deep beds of yellow leaves that were all through here. It was a very pretty spot.

At last we had to make the descent. Here's Joe up ahead of me on an easier section of trail. On other parts of the trail I was concentrating on my footing:

We found this nice little place to rest on the way down. It's just a short distance above Bell Reservoir. We saw a sign mentioning that Boreal Frogs live around this area:

After a long but good day of hiking we drove to Draper for the In N' Out Burger place. Yes, it was very much out of our way, but they do have great food. We brought some home to my daughter too. Both she and I had hamburgers, fries and chocolate milk shakes. Joe had almost the same, except with a diet drink. So, that was our day. I think it's going to snow on Monday.?