Lunch date

Today I went on a lunch date with my mom and dad. First I got to their house at about 11:00. They live on a beautiful mountainside above Salt Lake City. We visited in their living room until it was time to go eat. We drove to a place called Quans. It's a Chinese food restaurant in the basement of an office building. It's next door to the well known Eagle Gate Apartments.
This seems to be a favorite lunch place for the Church office workers. Today our timing was excellent or it was a slow day for the restaurant. We practically had the place to ourselves.
Since almost nobody else was there, I thought it would be a fine chance to take a picture of mom and dad (before they had food in their mouths). As expected (in a basement) these pictures are dark, but still okay.






The food was good. I tried a little of everything this time. Then for dessert I had a little salad and some fruit; slices of pineapple, orange, and pear.
After lunch we meandered a bit through mom and dads neighborhood, looking at some houses and then we went home. Mom and I sat on the front porch for awhile. It's this awesome long porch that has a gorgeous view. The best part about the porch, I have discovered, is that it gets full sun and it's toasty warm along there, even on a cool day with snow on the ground. We soaked up the rays and I think I even have some color in my cheeks this evening. I've been turning lilly white this winter.
This Spring they're going to take me for a drive up Farmington Canyon. They were surprised that I've never been up there. I'm personally surprised that there's anything left around this valley that I haven't done yet, so I'm looking forward to it. We want to wait until the trees are green and the wildflowers are up again.
What's the big deal about Farmington Canyon you say? Well, my great grandpa ran cows up there in the 1800's (that's history). Plus it's supposed to be pretty.
So, that's the report on my afternoon. It was more entertaining than most of my days. I got home around 4:30; so it's been a nice long day.

January fun

We enjoyed having our married daughter and her family here for a week. This last Saturday, my grand daughter, Emma, came along with me to a 'Rise and Shine Breakfast' for our primary.




Sunday, was their last day with us. We spent part of the day just eating and playing games at the dining room table.




As the day wore on, Emma and her baby sister, Becca, wore out.
This is Emma taking a rest, which eventually became a good long afternoon nap.


By the end of the week, Emma, Becca, Sue and I had shared a cold and on Saturday my son sprained his knee on a ski slope. In spite of these little inconveniences it was a good week.

Sledding 2009

Today we went to a little park near the house and my grand daughter, Emma, went sledding. This was her second time to sled in her short life. She lives in Arizona, but comes to visit her grandma and grandpa, here in Utah.
The first time she went sledding was two years ago. She only went down once, because she was only 22 months old then (according to her mom).
This time, however, she really got into it.
It was really fun to watch her fly down the hill. She was fearless and she clearly had a great time.



This is just the best video ever!

Disneyland

Have you ever noticed how much work it is having Family fun? We just got back from a trip to Disneyland. That was our family Christmas present to ourselves.
Here's how a trip like this goes; Drive, drive, drive. Fight massive crowds to get on a few rides, then drive, drive, drive to get home. Sound familiar to anyone?
Oh, and be sure to throw in a mild stomach bug that hits two members of the family while traveling.
In truth we did have a fair amount of fun and it was worth every effort to see the grandchildren.
My married daughter and her family drove from Phoenix and joined us in Anaheim. My husband and I traveled from Utah with our two unmarried kids. We stayed overnight in St. George on the way down and on the way back. We got a super deal on our hotel there.
It's interesting for me to go back to the areas that I grew up in. Every time I go down it seems to have added more cars and people. It also gets more and more ethnically diverse. Are all the white people moving out of Southern California?

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.
This first one shows how the Small World ride was lit up for Christmas.




My son stood in front of this Christmas tree which was located in the Downtown Disney area.





My children and grand children in the hotel room. Hey, where's my neat son in law? I didn't mean to leave him out. This was just an unplanned photo op.





This is outside of the Tiki Room:




Oh, there's my awesome son in law with his wife (Susan) and daughter (Becca). Emma is riding with Sarah and me. It's fun to be a grandma.




Getting a picture of my youngest daughter can only happen if she's unaware:





Little Becca on a crazy ladybug ride:



Our cute Emma:




Ben and Emma on the Dumbo ride. We waited about 45 minutes to get on this thing. Gee whiz.





Becca was too little for the kids roller coaster, so she went with her grandma and grandpa to play in Goofy's house. There was a great backyard with a slide and fun things to climb on.
Even though it was very cold for California, and it was near the end of a long day, she went up and down the slide at least 20 times (without help). What a great little girl.




Okay, I've got a video of the Dumbo ride, but it just isn't happening. I may put it on another post later on.
I want to add my Thanks to my son for driving from Barstow to Saint George. Good job. I finally took a turn at driving and brought us from Saint George to the Salt Lake area. My husband drove all the way to California, so he deserved a break.

Four pictures that were left out!

I thought I'd done pretty well making a slide show, only to discover, to late, that I'd left out four of the best pictures from today! Good grief. That just goes to show how good my computer skills are. Be sure to view the two posts before this one now.

Mom and Dads 60th wedding Anniversary!

This evening my parents had their 6oth wedding anniversary. They made arrangements for our family with the Lion House in Salt Lake City. We were treated to a nice chicken dinner, served on pretty dinnerware. We met in a really charming room upstairs. My sister, Debera, went the extra mile and made a slide show of my parents life together. That was shown on a large TV screen. Dad got up and explained to us some family genealogy facts. Dad want's us to know that we come from good people and that we have deep roots in Utah. We grew up in Southern California, so it's nice to know that we fit in here too.
It always makes me so happy to see the family. We are very scattered about with our own little families and it's hard to get everyone together. Some of the family got here by plane.
We were still missing a few of our numbers, but I know they wanted to be here. They in turn were very much in our hearts.
I just want to add that Mom and Dad deserve all the praise and respect in the world. Thanks for making us feel cared for and safe all these years. Even as adults with our own children, we draw strength from you.


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Here we go again

Some things just don't require much commentary; at least it's pretty to look at.