Cabin Fun!

A couple of weeks back I headed to the cabin with this cute little bunch of kids...Thane, Faith, Hunter and Connor (not pictured). Hunter and Connor brought his parents too.

I found them all investigating something and had to go check things out for myself.

They had found some fuzzy caterpillers. They had a blast watching them and letting them crawl up there arms. I kind of felt sorry for the poor things because these kids hauled them around like they were pets.

But one of the funniest things I did all weekend was watch this guy and his jeep. I know I have had this jeep featured on my blog before, it is definately a favorite of the grand kids, but the poor old thing has seen better days. After charging the battery and installing it the kids all jumped in and pressed the gas pedal. It surged forward about 6 inches and stalled to never start again. It has been run hard for about 6 years. This little guy, Connor, didn't care that there wasn't much life to it. He loved having it all to himself most of the weekend. If it wasn't moving the others really didn't want to mess with it but this guy put his friend in it and pretended to drive around the countryside all weekend...and I might say he talked to whole way. His poor friend couldn't get a word in.

He made sure his friend was with him the whole way. They totally enjoyed each others company. I'm not sure what all they discussed but I am sure it was important. When Connor's parents left for a bit I made his dad put the jeep inside the fence around the yard so that I could keep better track of him and he was totally insulted. He didn't like being trapped in. I don't know if he realized that when he was in the driveway he really wasn't going anywhere anyway. As soon as they returned he had his dad put him back on the open road again. He kept himself entertain (well his friend too) and was just so much fun to watch. We might even have to get a new battery for the jeep and bring it back to life.

Weekend Fun!

So this is how my weekend went. Friday before I finished work I got a text from this cutie asking if she could spend the night plleeeeeaassee! I had a friends wedding reception to go to Friday night and a baby shower on Saturday morning but how could I refuse such a plea. So I thought "oh well I will now have a partner to go with", so I told her to come on over when I got off work. We went to the reception and then went home and started watching a movie and ate some popcorn. She said she wasn't sleeping on the sofa but before I knew it she was sound asleep right on the sofa so there she stayed. After the baby shower on Sat. morning we called these 2 other cuties and had them come over so that we could go to the park and enjoy the beautiful weather we were having. We grabbed some pizza and rootbeer for our dinner and the kids had a great time playing on the playground.

Here is our cute little Faithy...

this handsome fella Thane...

and the always beautiful Reagen.

The park was a great idea ...not only was the weather absolutely wonderful but the kids played and played and when we went home they decided they needed to spend the night with Grandma so they took a bath and fell fast asleep. Can't ask for anything better than that.

Grandparents Day

On Friday I got to take a few hours off work and go spend some time with this cute guy. Hunter's school class was having "Grandparents Day". What alot of fun we had. You will have to excuse the blurry pictures, this grandma wasn't thinking and forgot my camera and had to take these pictures with my phone...you can probably tell I don't have a smart phone. We started out with the kids all sitting at their tables and the teacher, Mrs. Ortega showed us the routine they went through each morning taking roll, doing the pledge and sitting in circle time greeting each other. We then got to start activities at 4 different stations. This shows Hunter at the beading station. I made him a beaded bracelet and he made me one. We also got one started for his Nana (his other grandma that couldn't be there) but that we didn't finish, Hunter was able to later in class.
We also had a playdough station with some fun cookie cutter shapes. Here is he and I working on some fun cookies...not edible tho. An interesting note...you might notice that our pictures don't show any of the other kids. At the beginning the teacher explained to us we would be allowed to take pictures of our own grandchild but because of privacy rules we were not allow to have the other students in our pictures. How times have changed.

Here is Hunter working on a puzzle at the puzzle center. He put together a firetruck puzzle.

The fourth activity was to color the Grandparents a card with each student signing their own name. We decided that Hunter could do this and send it to Nana too so that she wouldn't feel left out.

We ended everything with the students singing a song to the Grandparents and we all joined in on doing the "Hokey Pokey" and having a treat of cookies and crackers. The Hokey Pokey was mine and Hunters favorite. It was then time for the Grandma's and Grandpa's to go home and the kiddies were off to the playground...some with teary eyes including mine which made it hard to leave. Thanks Hunter for inviting me. I had a great time!

More Alaska

Tomorrow is my last day here in Alaska...actually half day. I leave to travel home in the afternoon and I am so sad. I could stay easily another week. I brought a few stitching projects with me (of which none got done) and a book that only got partially read but I have never had one dull moment. This black bear below is what we watched all day yesterday but I never had my camera with me when he was around to get a good shot of him. This was taken while we ate dinner through the dining room window. I had to zoom it to get a close enough shot and by the time I did all this he turned around and was heading away from me. We spotted him early in the morning, he had found some trash to get into. Even after the trash was gone he kept coming back. I guess he was hoping for more. I never saw him again after dinner but I heard he was spotted even the next morning. I am a little disappointed that I never got to see any moose...oh well, I guess I will just have to come back again.

Today we took a day cruise in Glacier Bay National Park. It is a little late in the season for the cruise and pretty chilly but we did see some whale, lots of birds, some Mountain Goats and these sea lions. There were quite a few of them and they were just hanging out being lazy. We also saw alot of sea otters. They are all over in the ocean flipped over on the backs relaxing. All you see is their head and feet sticking out.

The glaciers were beautiful and amazing. We stopped in one area where they were breaking off into the water. As we sat there several times you would hear a loud thunder and then al huge chunk would come tumbling down into the water. We went through miles of water with chunks of ice floating in it. The park ranger that was with us explained that each day now more will fall off before they would build up again in the winter, but there are many miles of these glaciers that we couldn't see so they would never disappear completely. Well at least not in our life time anyway. He did show us a time lapse diagram of how over many years they are gradually disappearing.

Altho my trip here in Alaska is almost over and I am sad to leave, I have had the time of my life. It is a trip that I hopefully will get to make again. I have enjoyed every minute I was here thanks to Carla and all of her family here at the lodge. And even more thanks to my great boss that gave me this opportunity to come.

Fishing in Alaska

Last night it was decided that we...Mark, CeeDee, Jim, Carla, Matt, Lonnie and I, the whole crew, would go out fishing for Halibut on Jim's boat today. It ended up raining all night and I wondered if we would still go but this morning it was still on. The chef here at Glacier Bay Country Inn packed us each a sack lunch and we (I, most everyone else already had some) went to the Inn's stash of rain geer and water proof boots and each of us outfitted ourselves. Then off we went to Glacier Bay National Park where their boat was docked.

Here I am in the boat waiting for the others to arrive. It was still raining a little off and on but when everyone arrive we all headed out to sea. As we traveled along we saw whale and sea otters. The water was real choppy and rough today and we were being bounced around in the boat quite a bit.

We finally arrive to where Jim and Mark thought we would have the best results fishing.
They then started setting up fishing poles for us. I was assigned a fishing pole and told what to look for if a fish decided to take a bite. The water was still very rough and choppy. After not to long of a time I got a bit and I started reeling it in. About the same time CeeDee also got a bite on her line. Sorry this picture is sideways, I couldn't figure out how to turn it.

It seemed like I was reeling in forever and I was afraid I was going to lose their fishing pole. It was decided that this was a pretty big fish so they quickly got CeeDee's fish in first and then about that time a third pole had a fish on it's line. That one they got in quickly and ended up letting it go because it was to small. I finally decided that I was going to need some help, so one of the guys took over for me. It actually took 2 of them to pull my halibut in. In this picture I look like I am smiling, which I might have been, but believe me I was struggling too.

Here I am with both of the fish we caught. Mine is the BIG one. It measured about 61' and weighted in approximately 127 lbs. It was so heavy that I couldn't hold it up. After we brought in these two we decided to head back in since the water was getting so rough and we had several in our group not feeling very well. After we got back to the dock Mark filet my fish for me. He was a real expert at it, probably because he has done it for so many of their guest this summer. Now hopefully I will be able to get it home.

Thanks Jim and Mark...I had a great time.

Alaska

I am so lucky to be able to be in Alaska this week. My boss at work gave me a trip to his family's lodge, Glacier Bay Country Inn in Gastavas, Alaska. I have been so excited to go all summer. I have to say it is beautiful and all the Lindbloms here have been so gracious. It was a long day traveling to get here but it has been so worth it. Today I took a day and just hung out and rested. I met Lesli who had been a guest here all week and we spent the day with her telling everything I needed to do and try. Unfortunately today was her last day and she flew out to go back to her home in Tennessee tonight. This is a picture of the lodge. We have had a light mist all day so that might be why this picture is a little fuzzy, it was taken through the rain.

This is a little closer look at the lodge. The dining room of the lodge looks out onto a large meadow that I just know I am going to look out and see moose or maybe even a bear wandering through. Apparently there is a mother bear and 3 cubs that have been hanging around the area lately. I would love to see them...in the daylight.

There isn't a fire going right now but this is the patio area with the firepit in the middle to hang out at to keep warm and visit. I am sure there is alot of story telling going on here.

And this cute little cabin is where I am staying. Beside the guest bedrooms in the lodge there are 5 of these little cabins. I get to stay in one of these. I even have my very own front porch where I just might grab a few minutes doing a little bit of the hand stitching I brought along...yes I even brought stitching to Alaska. I loved listening to the light rain all night on the tin roof.

This is little glimpse of the inside of the cabin. Very cute and cozy. Warm comfy flannel sheets on all the beds. It's hard to imagine flannel sheets coming from the 113 degree weather we were having before. Very cute and cozy.

I can't wait to see what is in store for me for me tomorrow. More to come tomorrow.....

HaPpY BiRtHdAy!

We have a couple of birthday's this week in our family. Tomorrow is our English missionary's birthday. We have all his packages send and hope he has received them so he can celebrate. I even sent him a cake mix and frosting for his celebration...humm I wonder if he will be able to figure out how to make that? With 2 older sisters he has never had to make such things.

Happy Birthday Matthew. Hope you have a great day and we will definately be thinking about you.

This cute guy is turning 7 this week too.

Since I am going to be out of town on Thane's birthday I decided to do a quick little birthday breakfast for him so I could be with him to give him his gift. He was excited to start the celebrations. He loves to eat eggs when he is here at my house so that is what we had...eggs and bannana muffins (cupcakes?). It was a small little party but these cute sisters came to celebrate too.

Happy Birthday Thane, I will be thinking of you too on your birthday. Hope you have a fun birthday party and I will see you when I get back from Alaska.

Happy 4th of July

I know this is a little late but thought I would go ahead and share what I did for the 4th of July. Our family tradition is to head up north to celebrate the 4th in Heber, AZ. Because of the fire danger this year the 4th was a little different. There weren't going to be any fireworks this year. This hasn't happened in the 9 years we have had our place there. But tradition is tradition so I headed north for the long weekend. I ended up sitting on my porch and watching nature most of the weekend. This is what I was watching....

Right above me were these cute little toddlers. I could tell they looked like they were ready to leave the next but Mama bird kept bring them their food so I think they were a little hesitant to leave. Sure enough before the weekend was over they were gone. Poor Mama bird didn't see it coming I don't think, she just kept bringing the goodies to an empty nest. Sorry Mama, we don't always have control on these children of ours.

Then down a little further down the porch I was watching this cute little humming bird sitting on her nest. I had to keep my distance from here, she wasn't really into someone watching her. The little nest was only about an 1 1/2 inch across. I have some decorative lights along the porch and her nest was actually sitting on the cord. My nephew came by and climbed up and saw in the nest there were 2 little eggs. He said they were a little smaller than a jelly bean. I can't wait to get back up there and see the progress.

I returned in time to celebrate the 4th with these 2 cute boys. They had bought some fireworks to shoot off in their street. This is Connor with his sparkler.

Here is Hunter showing off his firework stash. Unfortunately the wind became to strong, making it unsafe to shoot off all of these. Hunter and Connor will have to safe them for next year.

Happy Birthday Carrie Lissa!

Today is my daughter Carrie's 25th birthday. We celebrated on Sat. with a little luncheon (I will blog on that another time). Here Carrie is with her cousin, Katie. See that little bunny Carrie is holding, well I made that for her on her 3rd birthday. Through the years it had gotten dirty and the head was coming unstitched and it just needed some general repairs. She gave it to me quite a while back to fix. It has been sitting in my sewing room a long time so I decided to get it out of my way, fix it and give it back.

As I was undressing it to wash and iron the clothes I found this....I had forgotten I had written a message on it's bottom. It says "Happy 3rd Birthday Carrie, Love, Mommy. After I read that I decided to get it all cleaned up and give it back to her for her birthday. Very lightly there is some writing that she added which says "I miss Heather". Her best friend had moved away and she was missing her.

Here is her Bunny all clean and laid out on the back table to dry. I stitched and repaired her and I ironed everything and redressed her and gave her back to it rightful owner at the birthday luncheon. Carrie hadn't even noticed lately that Bunny wasn't any longer sitting on the shelf in the sewing room and was surprised to see her again, as good as new.

Happy Birthday Carrie, Love, Mommy!

Some Finished Projects!

I don't get much done these days it seems but the past couple of weeks I have been able to finish a few things. I know its almost the end of June but here is my little June calendar quilt. I really had it done and displayed by the first part of the month. I need to get going now on July. It will be so nice to have them all done...some day maybe!

I was also invited to a wedding reception for one of the guys that I work with, Josh. Josh is my "Monday morning texting friend". He is now working out of Utah so every Monday morning I start texting him to find out how many hours I need to pay him for. Humm...seems like he should be texting me. Anyway I put together this cute bright table runner for my gift for Josh and his new wife. Congrats Josh!

My sister also had a birthday this month so I whipped up one of these cute snap bags and put it with some Bath and Body products (got those at their semi annual sale...great prices). These little bags are so fast and easy to make. I need to make some more to just have on hand.

Along with the above gift I threw in a set of these crochet coasters that I have been making. It was kind of a "hodge podge" of stuff gift. These have been really fun to make. Remember at the beginning of the year I was going to do a "gift" project each month? Well I am behind on that but these were one of those projects. This is a good on going project. I have all the supplies in a bag that I grab when I know I am going to have to sit and wait somewhere.

Well time to go and work on another project!

Cooking Weekend

Last Friday I came home from work and found this going on in my kitchen...Beth had begun her marathon cooking weekend. She started out by making jam. She made strawberry and blackberry. She was going to give it as her Father's Day Gifts.
Here is her stack of jam ready to go into the freezer. It is soooo good. She didn't stop there, she just kept cooking.

The next cooking project were these cinnamon rolls. This was before she put frosting on. These were also for Father's day or you might say "future Fathers" Day. The girls in her single branch passed these out to the guys there since they will be fathers in the future.

Then she had another activity planned with her friends and Beth put together this veggie platter. Does she ever stop? No she just kept going. She also put made some delicious biscuits to give out with her jam and also a cake. Lastly she cooked dinner for her dad and brothers. Humm...did I forget anything? She was in the kitchen most of the weekend.

On Sunday I asked her if she was sick of cooking/baking and she said "No, just sick of doing dishes". Unfortunately for her our dishwasher is not working right now. Sorry Beth but everything turned out great. BTW...I got to be the taste tester. Lucky me!

Father's Day

This weekend, like many of you, we celebrated Father's Day. It was also my youngest sister, Amy's birthday, so we started out the morning at Kathy's house for breakfast. It wasn't a big celebration, just the 3 sisters and our parents. My niece and nephew showed up a little later. Kathy fixed us a wonderful breakfast and then before we left we decided we sisters needed a picture with dad.
While we were at it we needed a picture with Mom too. Mom and Dad also celebrated their 60th anniversary this last week. Alot to celebrate. Thanks Kathy for having us over for breakfast.

We didn't end our celebrations here...we officially celebrated Father's Day later that afternoon with a BBQ hosted by my niece, Darcy and her husband, Sean. We had some wonderful hamburgers. Thanks Darcy and Sean! Happy Father's Day Dad, you and Mom are the best. And lastly...Happy Birthday Amy!

We're in the Army now!

For the past two and a half weeks Tom (my oldest son) has been at his yearly Army National Guard training. The location of this was at Camp Navajo just outside of Flagstaff. Last Sat. was Family Day so I loaded his kids, Reagen, Thane and Faith, up in the car and headed north to visit him. The kids were excited since they hadn't seen him in almost 2 weeks. As we entered this the first sign we had that we were now on base.
The morning activities were games with each unit competing against each other with the families cheering them on. Here is a tug of war that we got to see. That's Tom at the very end. Unfortunately they lost this competition but his group did win at Kickball. After all the games the guys (and gals) were release to spend some time with their families. They were having a BBQ with some wonderful looking hamburgers but after spending 2 weeks on base Tom was ready to leave and get some pizza, so thats what we did.

On our way out Tom showed us around a little and the Thane wanted to look at the Army vehicles. Here are Tom and the kids with a few of them. The base was actually pretty nice. Most of the buildings were pretty new. I guess I was expecting it not to be as nice as it was.

The kids loved seeing where Dad had been hanging out. About 4:30 the kids and I headed back to the valley and Tom was going to take a much needed nap on a bed. He had been camping out and sleeping on the ground so a bed sounded very inviting.