Washington DC Trip - part 1

I'll try to make this brief, but sadly, it might not be.  For Shannon and Allan's Christmas gift, we decided to go somewhere instead of buying them things that were not needed.....games/clothes/etc.!  So on New Years Eve, we took a 1am flight to Washington DC, getting in there at 7am.  Crazy?  Yep.  

Arlington Cemetery.  This was a pretty impressive wax guy.  

Funny picture of the scout uniforms in 1922- See Allan, scouts even had flag duty back then!

It was really amazing to see all of the headstones.

It was SOOO cold!!!  I'm not joking!

One of the days we were here was so cold that they high was 22 degrees!!!!!

I took this picture as they were changing the guards and the other folks - all 5 of them, did not appreciate the little camera sound.

So guess what we Arizonans did when we saw ice on the ground -.....yep!...  Walk on it and break it!

After renting our car, went straight to the Cemetery and then that evening, although exhausted, we went to a play at the Kennedy Arts Center called; Shear Madness.  It has been running 24 years!!!  It was cute and we all enjoyed ourselves.  Kind of an interactive play where they ask the audience to participate with questions that they ask.  

After the play we drove to the Lincoln Memorial.  

And of course stepping out of the Lincoln Memorial we viewed the Washington Monument, which we found out the next day, that it was closed due to renovations from a small earthquake.  Hmm.....earthquake?  Should I be nervous.  Our hotel room is up pretty high.

And Allan found something funny to do.  Oops, he went the wrong way the first time.....he had to do it again of course!!!

See his gloves?  Those are texting gloves.....one of his pre-Christmas gifts.....to get him excited about the upcoming trip.

On Thursday, we got to go to the Washington DC Temple and do baptisms!  And the unique part is that they actually take you into THE temple and down a few hallways where there are some gorgeous paintings.  They explained that the kids, or those with just a baptism recommend, are interviewed and found worthy to be IN the temple and so they take them a new route that lets the kids see the beauty of the temple.  We were there with another family from Michigan.  It was nice.  When we first arrived you could not even see the spires. It was so foggy - really neat.  By the time we came out.....well, you can see for yourself....simply beautiful!

Tossing his hat

this is just a 'tease' picture for my next blog.

 Okay, so here's my blog for today.  I made these super Hero men for all
of my earthly grandsons, 6 in total.....and then the Princess for my two oldest granddaughters....
and then 2 sets of polka-dot girls for my youngest granddaughters....
My Christmas has been busy and I will give a thanks to Katie, she was
a big help.  And another shout out to Jason, who painted the green
cup holders for my Hulk.

Our Christmas decorations this year were nil.....and we barely made the
last minute cut for getting our Christmas Tree put up this year.  Shannon
had been making a quilt, which took up our living room space for several days,
if not weeks, finishing only on the night of the 23rd, and I then made Doug
bring up my $5 Goodwill tree in the house. Our stockings, luckily, were at the top
of one of the many Rubbermaid totes we have crammed into our storage shed.
We didn't even get our Nativity set on our roof.  Sad......

  Also as luck would have it, we had a few

ornaments, either not put away from last year or, were given to us this year by friends, teachers and

neighbors.  And with a few others things stuck on the tree, it was beginning to look nice. 

 Doug did hunt out our lights that you can put on different settings and wha-la.....done in a matter of minutes. 

For each boy, I lucked out and found some zipper bags at the thrift stores and then put a name on them.

  For the two older girls, I found these cute Princess purses

and lined them.

 It was quite the task, but I loved seeing them all together.

Thanksgiving 2013

Still in my jami's at 9:36 am.  And I think I'm loving it.  There is a deep feeling of something I'm missing though and I'll know what it is.
For 34+ years (with a few of those off because of work), we made our annual pilgrimage to Snowflake, Arizona were we would be surrounded with all of Doug's family.  As the years went by and families continued to grow, our seeming comfortable sleeping arrangements ended up being in 2 homes and every available floor/couch/bed space called and spoken for.
        You get the idea.

If you did NOT get up to Snowflake early, you could possible lose your 'spoken' spot.  That really depended on if the person kicking you out of your spot wanted to meet your wrath.  There were a few 'stare-downs'.  That aside we would love being there with all - and the all was occasionally 40 people or more!  It was an amazing feat to have all the food cooked, served, and eaten in an orderly manner.  Alan and Linda's garage became the dining hall with 6 or more round tables set up for us all to squeeze around.  It was great.  And then after dinner - and of course before as well - we would find our way back outside, sometimes to a finger-numbing cold, to play volleyball.  That is what I miss the most. I loved how we used the water hoses for our court lines and because of the coldness they sometimes would not coil out all the way and our lines were somewhat wavy.  I also deeply miss the Thanksgiving Day planning of what stores we would go to for Black Fridays' sales.  Our choices were, Walmart, Kmart and Ace Hardware. Walmart was not there at the beginning of the 34 years and our choices were nil.  It used to be just the women would wake up early 5-6am and leave all the others to fend for themselves and hit the crazy busy Showlow Walmart to get the great sales.  Elbows, shoving, cutting in lines....the whole thing....it was tradition.  Even if we ourselves weren't going for anything, we would be there to help clear the aisles, hold places in the lines and even supply oxygen if needed.  Kmart wasn't the madhouse that Walmart was, so it was a breeze.   Later on as the years went by, husbands started to join in the spirit of Black Friday.  Looking back now, maybe it was to control our spending rather than just the fun of being with us....hmmm......
For the past 2 years my family stayed here in town.  Last year we got together with a son-in-laws family, meeting at a church building for food and then games.  It was nice, just not the norm.  Not being with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents....it really is different.  Now that Doug's parent have both passed away, we felt it wouldn't be the same in Snowflake -and now we, Doug and I, must take the 'grandparent' role and establish our own Thanksgiving Day and all of the traditions.
Yesterday, was just that.  Family, Food and Fun.  After dinner we went to the retention basin and played bocce ball, crochet, and corn hole.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  But wait......NOW for the MAIN EVENT!....we love Table Tennis.  Really we can't get enough of it.  Yes, some of us are not so talented at pinging or ponging, but we love it all the same.  Even as spectators, this game brings out the competitiveness of us all.  We cheer for the underdog, unless it is your spouse, then you almost HAVE to cheer for them. (Although these are NOT us in these photos - I'm sure we made many of these same faces).
 

This year, after several years of a desire to do this, I finally re-wrote words to a song.  The song I re-wrote is Carol of the Bells....but ours is Carol of the Balls......
I will work on showing your our video when it is all edited.  This might take a while, but stay tuned, it will be worth your time.

I'm trying to clean out my bedroom today.  Two bags of clothing and items no longer used have already made their way into 'donation' bags and I'm not even halfway done.  I was pleasantly surprised when my daughter Jill and grandson Vin showed up for lunch!  When we got done eating and we were cleaning up, Vin followed me down the hallway to see if I was 'bigger'.  He was holding a measuring tape and so I stopped for him to measure me - and in my own naivety
way, thought he would measure my 'tallness' against his 'smallness', but no.....he came right up to my behind area and measured across the buns to tell me, 'Yep, you're bigger'.  Hmmm....  Maybe they shouldn't have come for lunch.  I now have been reminded that I am bigger in more ways then one.

Okay, so clear back in July or so, Brian graduated from Medical School.  They had been living in Henderson, Nevada, which is not too far away so we got to visit them a few times a year.  (Whenever we wanted to visit Las Vegas, it was very convenient).  They (Brian, and a few times Celynda) had visited and interviewed at several places around the US.  They were excepted and felt good about choosing Wellington, Florida. and deciding to go into pediatrics.  We of course were happy for them and this HUGE accomplishment, but also had emotions knowing that the visits to their family would not be as easy as a 5 hour drive.  

So.....in August, I was thrilled when it worked out that I could fly with Brian and kids to Florida.  Celynda and her Dad drove the large moving van on a road trip that took them 4 or 5 days!  (They were the real heroes in this story, I just had to help with the kids on the plane!)  Of course it was great to see their home, help a little in setting it up and having a few days of being with them before their 'doctoring' life began.  The beach we went to was great.  And the water was surprisingly warm!  I didn't wear my swimsuit thinking I wouldn't want to get in, but I wish now that I would have!

a cute little frog that we found in their garage.

Thanks, Brian, Celynda, Lukas, Brookie, and Roxy for letting me stay with you for a while!