Lower Lights or The Christmas Trip Becky Missed

One of Becky's favorite groups is The Lower Lights, a group of LDS artists who sing awesome folk/bluegrass-style music, so when she heard about their Christmas concert in Salt Lake at the U of U she immediately talked me into a girls getaway for an early Christmas present. 

 We planned to visit Laura for her birthday and have lots of fun shopping with Maren, Megan, Emma, and Ellie.  Unfortunately, life is what often happens while you're making plans, and it made havoc of Becky's.  

 Becky had to have half of her thyroid removed, along with a giant cyst that was growing on it, but she scheduled it immediately after Thanksgiving so she'd have time to heal and be ready for our fun weekend.

Exactly a week later, however, she ended up in the ER with severe pain in her abdomen and back.  It turned out that it was a large kidney stone which required a week with a stent to pass.  Not fun at all!  Becky put off giving away her tickets until the night before but finally decided she couldn't go.  We were all sad that we wouldn't have a getaway for the cousins, but what can you do when a kidney stone is sending intense pain through your body?!  Fortunately, Becky's friend Arlynne Larsen lives near SLC and offered to let us spend the night in return for the coveted tickets.  Arlynne's girls, Melanie and Layna, came and we enjoyed the concert so much, but we all felt bad that Becky was miserable!

Maren, Arlynne, Melanie, Layna

Love the photobombers!

The stage was beautiful!

About 10 minutes into the concert a group came in and sat directly in front of us.  One lady looked familiar, and pretty soon Emma leaned over and said, "Mom, I think that's Mindy Gledhill in front of us!"  It did look like her, but it was dark so I didn't think much of it.  We kept trying to get a good look and eventually we were sure it was Mindy.  On the last song the lights came up a little so I took a picture of my girls with Mindy just in front of them.  

After the show she was gracious enough to pose for a pictures with the girls, so now we've had pictures with her 4 times!  It's weird that two of those times were not even at her concerts, just random run-ins!  She used to be part of Lower Lights, but she said she had to quit when her career got too busy. 

The next day we went to the Odgen temple.  The girls had to have a picture with the nativity because the donkey looked like a unicorn.

We had such a fun weekend. So sorry you couldn't join us, Becky!  

State Staff Training

I work with some fantastic people, and it's always nice to get together in Boise with the staff from all of the offices.  After a full day of training, we headed to Sur la Table, a restaurant supply store and demonstration kitchen, for an Iron Chef competition/dinner.  We made a delicious spinach salad with Parmesan crisps, roasted rosemary potatoes, and a delicious steak with a sauce and compound butter.

Margaret Ballard, Bob Ford

Margaret, Bob, Sally, Mitch Silvers, Roy Hansen

My picture may not look great, but the steak was amazing!  For dessert we made molten lava cakes. Mmmmm.  My group won the overall competition and became the Iron Chefs!  Our team name was You Kill It, We Grill It.

Karen Roetter, Jamie Novis, Lindsay Nothern

Bryan Ricker, Brian Raybon, Courtney Lehosit, Farhana, Janice Wilcox

During the staff training we celebrated Bob Ford's retirement and also had a White Elephant Christmas gift exchange.

 

This is what I won in the gift exchange. 

Now that's what I call a White Elephant!  Our Senate trainer for the meetings was from Virginia, and she said she had never seen ammo as a gift as a Christmas party and was very surprised that two women fought over it!  There were two boxes given away and the other one went to the 19 year old intern in the office.  We told the trainer, "Welcome to Idaho! We do things a little differently here!"

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays because we usually have lots of family gathering together and having a great time.  This year was no exception!

 The Phillips family made it to Pocatello just before our first real winter storm hit, which gave us lots of snow for sledding.  

 The girls had lots of fun making a sledding hill out of grandma and grandpa's stairs.

Later, they roasted marshmallows in grandma's new fire pit and made s'mores and homemade slushies from KoolAid and snow.  

 There are few things these cousins like more than to visit each other!  I'm glad they're all such great friends.  Ellie and Emma have even planned to build one big house together after they get married, so they can raise their kids together.  I wonder what their husbands will think of that plan!

We love to have the Phillips visit!  Now we need to get the rest of the family here more often.  Laura, it's your turn next!

Halloween 2015

 Gorgeous weather for Halloween this year!  As usual, we had fun playing dress-up for our book club party and our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  Del and I were off-duty Superman and Wonder Woman. 

 

Maren made a fabulous Merida from Brave, and Emma was an adorable Pocahontas.

 

My vote for cutest costumes went to my friends, Jenny and Layne Lambson's twin girls who were Cabbage Patch dolls in their boxes.  They were so cute!

Milly's near-death experience

Milly has been a moody little part of our family for over a decade, ever since Maren picked out the little ball of fluff at the Miller's house and brought her home.  Milly loves to wedge her fluffy body into boxes that are impossibly small, and she loves to spy on people.  She also loves to kill fat mice and leave them on our sidewalk all summer long.  Other than that, she doesn't seem to love much of anything, but we love her!

On general conference weekend, Milly came home with a couple of small bite marks on her rear, evidence of a nasty cat fight.  We cleaned her up and the kids did this amazing job of bandaging her.  They found it's impossible to wrap an angry, injured cat around its tail and hindquarters! Just can't be done.  She seemed fine and we weren't too worried, but a few days later as scabs started to form she bit them all off and ripped out her fur! All of it!  Her whole rear was hairless, bloody, oozing, and scabby!  It was terrible and quite disgusting!  Since it was a Sunday and we can't afford to take pets in for emergency care we tried to clean her up ourselves but there was no way to cover the injuries and she wouldn't leave them alone.  We gave her some antibiotics and put her in a cone of shame and hoped for the best.  When she didn't seem to be improving Del and I even talked about having her put to sleep, although we were sick about it.  She was so miserable!  The next day, however, there seemed to be some slight improvement so we held off on taking her in.  The next day she was even better, until, hurray, she was definitely on the mend!  Now her hair has grown back, and she's as pretty and moody as ever.  We hope she has learned her lesson about fighting because she's obviously too old for that stuff now, despite her scrappy attitude.

Girl's Trip to California

Becky and I love to get this group of fruzzins (that's "friend-cousins") together as often as possible, so when she had the fun idea for a girl trip to see Katherine's baby, Savannah, we jumped in the car and took off!

On the way we stopped at a the site of the Donner party, which is quite beautiful despite the tragic events that took place there.  Then we headed to the Jelly Belly factory for a tasty bit of fun. 

 

 

We stayed with Katherine's in-laws and they took us to the famous Apple Hill orchards.  We ate giant apple dumplings and shopped at some wonderful farmers markets.

 

I think Becky really likes little Savannah!

 The highlight of the trip was going to the beach, of course.  The girls spent hours playing in the water.

 Savannah didn't seem to care much for her first dip in the ocean.

 

 Maren got bored while Becky took Megan's senior pictures, so we had a little fun with our camera.

Attack of the 100 foot woman!

Maren is about to push Megan in!

 

Cute little posers.

 This is a great group of girls.  Can't wait to do it again!

Chubbuck 31st Ward Reunion

I've never heard of a ward having a reunion before, but I'm so glad my old ward decided to have a 50th reunion.  Growing up in the Chubbuck 31st Ward was like living in a little slice of heaven.  Great people loved me and taught me the gospel, and it was wonderful to go back and share some memories.  There was a program, displays set up to show off the talents of many of the members, and time to visit and have refreshments while we watched a slideshow of old pictures. 

Kendra Parrish Burton

Renae McKee, Lolane Andrae, Becky Parrish

There were songs by the Bill McKee family, the Allens, and the Parrishes.  They sang the same songs I remember them singing in sacrament meetings so many years ago.

?, ?, Steve, Linda, ?, Norma, Norma's daughter

 

The Parrish sisters used to sing together professionally, but I remember them best from their swimming pool.  Their family generously made their pool available about once a week in the summer for neighborhood kids.  We would anxiously look for the white flag to fly above their fence and then grab our swimming suits.  Debbie (on the left) taught me how to swim.

.

 

My friend Erin McIntosh Hillier got her Parrish Sisters record autographed.

I always thought my Dad and Bishop Ray Almond looked like brothers, and their matching hair makes them like twins!

 One past member of our ward, Elder Neil L. Anderson, didn't make it to our reunion, but he had some primary teachers and past leaders there, and they all had good things to say about him.

The reunion wasn't complete until I went to dinner with some of my best friends from Chubbuck:  Norma Allen Bell, Erin McIntosh Hillier, and Jennifer Almond Spackman.  Great friends!  Great memories!