Merry Christmas to You and Yours

Just a few photos of the family this year.

Cole & Tanisha ready for ugly sweater party

Trevor, Ryan, Coleman, Nick, Tanisha, Erik

Nick in Columbia

 Coleman's family & Christian's family outside of Gilbert Temple

Jason (left) in Brazil

Liz, Christian, Reid, Natalie, Ashley 4 wheeling in Colorado

Georgia & Aaron

Terry, Afton, Ethan, Mary Kaye, Aidan, Olie 4 wheeling in the Colorado mountains

Mary Kaye and sisters

Thanksgiving - Our Favorite Food Fest

Last Sunday on the CBS morning show there was a video editorial by a woman who vehemently denounced those who photograph their food and put it on social media.  I agree that there is a great deal of minutia on social media but I do think there is another way to look at the sharing of food...even if only a symbolic sharing such as a photograph.  From campfire to kitchen, to restaurants and now social media, civilizations have connected, shared ideas and enjoyed the company of friends and family around food.  I smiled as several of my nieces ( all sisters ) shared pictures of their Thanksgiving feast on instagram.  Each living in different parts of the United States and unable to spend Thanksgiving with their extended family, they shared their food and thus symbolically, their Thanksgiving with each other. 

 At one time people lived  their entire lives in the same community, but now we are on the move.  We are global, and this is how we feel connected to those not living close by.  So I will symbolically share Thanksgiving with those I care about and post some food pictures.  Sorry CBS...you didn't influence me! And that's my nice reply.

Cole and Tanisha's family made me laugh as the boys arrived in their interpretation of the first Thanksgiving.

Aaron and Georgia went all out with their vegetable contribution.

Liz was not to be out done by anyone with her creative "turkey" salad.

The children enjoyed the sunny outdoors.

Afton made wonderful pies that we were more excited about eating than photographing.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Great food. Great family. Great fun.  And undoubtedly everyone gained a pound or two.

Flat Stanley Visits Hawaii

In September we had a scheduled trip to our time share in Kauai.  It turned out to be fortunate timing as we were also homeless having sold our home and needing to mark time elsewhere before we could get moved into our new abode. School had just started in Arizona and our granddaughter Ashley had been given a Flat Stanley assignment.  She asked us if we would take Flat Stanley to Hawaii.  Trying to decide how to let Flat Stanley experience Kauai turned out to be one of the most entertaining trips we have taken. 

On an early morning walk I caught a sea turtle sunning himself in the sand.  I have often seen them in the water, but this is the first time I found one on the shore in Kauai.

I also caught a monk seal.  I would ask total strangers hold Flat Stanley so that I could get a picture.  Everyone was happy to help, even if they didn't know about Flat Stanley.  People who were aware of the "Flat Stanley Project"  would greet him like an old friend.  Sometimes they would be driving by in a car and yell out the window, "Hey Flat Stanley." and then wave.

Terry cut this inner tube out of a magazine so Flat Stanley had a flat tube for water safety.  I also had a shell necklace from Hilo Hattie's for him.  He wore it proudly.  This is Flat Stanley at the Spouting Horn.

Aside from regular attractions, we couldn't resist having some fun with the project.  Our children say they got their bizarre sense of humor from us.  I don't know what they are talking about????

Terry cut a slit in one of the magazines in our room and inserted Stanley.  Christian calls this creeper Stanley.  It was really an advertisement for a spa treatment.

  Flat Stanley having drinks with the ladies.  (Lest you think we are totally sick, we did not give these two pictures to Ashley.  We were just having some fun.)

Also one of our magazine creations.  We stuck a straw in to make it look like Stanley was snorkeling, one of the fun activities on the island.

This one was my personal favorite.  Flat Stanley hangin' with Flat froggie.  What a great find.  We let froggie have the umbrella as it looked to me like he had had a little too much sun already.

We had many more pictures, but as you can see, we had a great time having Flat Stanly join us on our vacation. 

Kitchen Project

Call us crazy but we decided to fix up the kitchen so that we could sell the house and downsize.  We knew the kitchen was outdated, but were we really up to that big of a project.  You be the judge.

Don't gag...we have enjoyed this kitchen for a long time.

The project begins,  Terry rips everything out of the kitchen, our garage is full of containers of cabinets, the family room & patio loaded with old cabinets, the double ovens and hutch are in the hall.  Every little thing in the kitchen is in Aaron's old bedroom and the laundry room becomes the kitchen.

Terry rips out the old soffits, I attack the wallpaper and we bring in a plumber to cap off the sink in the island.  Terry rewires everything,(I can hear Tim Allen grunting as I write) puts in canned lights, and eventually under counter lighting.

We put in new wallboard, have it textured, and we paint the kitchen.  Now that it is time to start putting in the new cabinets, I navigate the labyrinth in the garage and select each piece for each spot.  Terry sets about to prepare, and level the space. 

These pictures are to illustrate the hazard potential when working with power tools.  In the foreground of the first picture is Terry's table saw.  In the background you see the drill press, and imbedded into the wall next to the drill press is a speck.  The second picture shows the speck is a piece of wood about 3/4 in thick and about 4 inches by 4 inches.  While Terry was working on the saw cutting wood for this kitchen project and this piece broke off with so much power that it zipped back and lodged into the wall.  Fortunately it missed his head or he might have a hole like picture number 3.

I can't begin to describe the agony over getting the vent over the stove "just right".

Our Mexican guests installing our granite.  They came down from the Snowflake area and rather than make them get a hotel room while they were working on the granite, we let them stay upstairs.  They wouldn't sleep in the beds even though I washed the sheets.  They brought sleeping bags, and their own towels and slept on the floor.  They were here for 2 nights and 3 days. Fortunately both Terry and their supervisor are fluent in Spanish.

Now for the finished product.  Drum roll please, because it took us about 4 months.  Well, we did take time off to go to the cabin, and we don't exactly get up early and hit it at 6:00 am.  And since we had never done this before we took a long time to figure it out and measure, level and adjust and then measure, level and adjust again. 

Terry even did the stainless doors on the frig and warming oven saving about $1000.00.

We bought a new table and chairs so that it would look nicer when we put the house back on the market.

And we're done.

It's Puzzling

Over the last year, Terry and I have been involved in a lot of projects.  It's fun most of the time and it does keep us out of trouble.  One of my projects has been to make personal puzzles for young grandchildren on their birthdays.  I thought I would share some pictures of them.

This is one of Olie, Afton's youngest.  He is a character, and loves to do puzzles.

This is Ryan's puzzle.  He is Coleman's fourth son.  The pictures were taken at our neighbors in Colorado. Although the photos on the puzzle are very good, I lack the photo skills of some of my siblings to do them justice in this blog, but you get the idea.

Last year my sister Wanda visited and taught me how to do scrap booking on the computer.  Well she did her best.  Her skills in this field would be akin to a graduate with a masters degree and mine are more like a kindergartner.  When Terry purchased a new power tool, I decided to combine my new found "talent" (and I use the term loosely) and Terry's talent with wood to make puzzles.  He makes the frame, but he even let me cut the next puzzle.

This is Ashley's puzzle.  She also loves to do puzzles.  The second photo gives you an idea of the size of the pieces and shows depth.  This is Christian's family with baby Reid in the upper right corner. 

Colorado July 4th

We love spending the 4th of July at the cabin.  First, it isn't 110 degrees.  Second, as schedules permit, our children and grandchildren come up to join us.   This year we had Coleman and his family, and Afton and her boys.  That's 11 people, 8 boys, lots of food!!!  The locusts of Salt Lake Valley have nothing over these kids...or, like my mother who grew up on a farm used to say, " It was like feeding the thrashers."

We also love the small town feel of Bayfield on Independence Day.  It's an all day event, with pancake breakfast, parade, small town rodeo and naturally the fireworks, every bit as good as the big city, but no traffic.  We throw blankets (yes Phoenix...blankets and jackets to bundle up in) and lawn chairs into the back of the pick-up, and drive 10 minutes into town.  We park in the lot of the bank, set up our chairs and enjoy the fireworks flying directly overhead.  At the end of the show, everything is thrown back into the truck, and we are home in 10 minutes.  Did I mention no traffic?  Got to love that! Not to mention no dust, no temperatures above 100, and nobody is angry because we are too hot.  This year, because of the drought and fires, there was also no fireworks...Well, not in Bayfield anyway.  Mother nature provided our fireworks that night.  In the late afternoon it started to rain while Terry was cooking the hamburgers and hotdogs outside.  It was just sprinkling so no problem.  Later we enjoyed a light show, with lightening striking a tree on the neighbors property about 150 yards away.  Yikes it was loud!

My real reason for blogging was to send out some pictures.

We took a hike to Treasure falls. 

Afton with her camera.  She is more creative than we are.

Our urban cowboys oldest to youngest.  Jason, Nick,Trevor, & Ryan (Cole's boys) Ethan (Afton's) Erik (Cole's) Aidan & Oliver (Afton's)

 

 

 They were very cooperative about taking photos of them everywhere.  But it was difficult to get everyone looking the right was at the same time.

 One of Cole's dogs decided to join them. 

The bridge over the creek at our cabin. 

 

 

 

 

 

Rocky Mountain Adventures - More Than a Quad Ride

We have a lot of fun friends, so we were delighted when Lynn & Debbie Bedford decided  to accept our invitation to join us at the cabin.  Lynn is one of Terry's childhood friends and have remained friends for 60  years.  The oldest of 5 siblings, Lynn is somewhat of a tease and not unaccustomed to pulling a prank or two.  You cannot imagine the twinkle in his eye and the delight on his face when he pulls off a good one.  He is a retired FBI agent and the son of an FBI agent and can spin stories all night with the smallest amount of encouragement.  They are the friends we visited in Guatemala and also in South Africa.  When Afton was going to ask a boy to a backward dance, Lynn willingly (with the permission of the boys parents) arrested him as agent in charge and released him only after he agreed to accompany Afton to the dance. We have a lot of Lynn Bedford stories, but I will share just this one with you now. 

After Lynn graduated from college and became and agent at one point he was assigned a position in McAllen, Texas.  It was there he met Debbie, 19 years old, innocent and 8 years younger than Lynn.  I believe his prank happened at their apartment very shortly after they were married.  It was a hot day and they decided to go swimming in the apartment swimming pool.  As a football player and an agent, Lynn was accustomed to rigorous workouts at a gym to stay in shape, including swimming. For those occasions he wore a speedo but Debbie had never seen them.  So when she suggested they go swimming, Lynn put one on in jest.  He would have never worn them for a regular swimming activity.  Being young, and a new bride, Debbie didn't know what to say when he walked out and modeled his speedo asking if he looked o.k.  So she simply asked if he didn't have another swimsuit.  Lynn said certainly, and he went back into the bedroom and pranced out in yet another speedo, but in a different color.  Now Debbie's face was getting a little red, and she still didn't know what to say.  She didn't want to offend her new husband, but on the other hand she didn't want to go out in public with him wearing that suit.  So again, as politely as she could, she said she didn't like that one very much either, could he find another suit? He said sure, and went back to the bedroom to change.  This time when he came out, all Debbie could do was cover her eyes, yell oh no, and run into the bathroom crying and shut the door.  She had never seen a jock strap before and didn't know it was a joke. 

 Since we didn't take any pictures while they were here, you will need to see pictures of them in Africa.  They don't look much different even though it was 10 years ago. Below is Lynn after eating a Mopani worm.  He was willing to do this because he got a certificate if he did.

So we have had a delightful week with them here.  On our final day of the visit, we took them on a quad ride over Engineer Pass.  At 12,800 feet above sea level, the views are spectacular.  We ride over rough roads, once a stagecoach trail and past the mining town of Anamas Forks, now a ghost town.  We go from pine trees, to above the tree line, and into Arctic tundra.  It really is breathtaking and quite an adventure.  We see waterfalls, wildflowers, occasionally wildlife, and the remnants of mines. After about 5 hours of riding and exploring, we loaded the quads on the trailer and headed back home, but because we were hungry, we stopped in Silverton for a bite to eat. While on the trail I had talked to a local and he told me that the place to eat was Handlebars, so we went there.  We all ordered hamburgers, and I went to the ladies room while I waited for the order.  The facilities were small and occupied so after sometime I returned to the table and Lynn said he had ordered appetizers for all of us.  I looked at the plate and Lynn quickly said it was deep fried zucchini.  I brightened up, I love deep fried zucchini, although I rarely have it, but I was famished.  Looking at the plate though, I noticed that instead of ranch dressing to dip it in, they had barbecue sauce.  I said that was odd, and Lynn responded that it was a combination plate.  Some of it was zucchini and some was chicken.  I picked up a round piece and said I didn't think I would dip it in barbecue sauce, but after biting into it I determined that I must have the chicken so I tried the barbecue sauce.  As everyone ate, I would ask, "Did anyone get zucchini?"  To which they answered no.  (I didn't notice they were all trying to keep a straight face.)  So when the waitress returned, Lynn said, "Our order didn't have any zucchini on it.  The waitress smiled and said, "It must have gotten eaten by the Rocky Mountain Oysters" and she walked away.  Lynn was roaring.  He asked me if I had heard the waitress and I said yes and repeated what she said but I couldn't understand what that had to do with anything and I didn't know if she was heading to the kitchen to correct our order.  He asked me if I knew what Rocky Mountain Oysters were and I said sure.  Then he dropped the bomb.  Did you know you were eating them? Well I surely would not have eaten them if I knew.  But they did taste a little like chicken. 

If you are unaware of what Rocky Mountain Oysters are...look it up.