One Year Older and Wiser Too

Yes .... I am now one year older and wiser, too. Thanks Renae for finding such a great picture of me. The 80s were a great era ..... wish I still had that outfit. I always wanted to be able to feather my bangs better.

Jay's Obituary

The Salt Lake Tribune did a nice article on Jay click here

Here is Jay's obituary from the Deseret News click here

My sister Renae posted this and I couldn't agree more and she said it so well that I just copied it ....

It seems like every so often, we are reminded that the world around us is not quite what we think it should be, and that we are not the ones in control. Sometimes these experiences are amazing and wonderful. Sometimes they are exhausting and heartbreaking.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."Proverbs 3:5

Nothing Like Being a "Good" Mom

So today about 3:30pm on our way to the store Joey says to me, "Mom, you forgot to feed me lunch!" Wow! He was right. Good thing we were on our way to Costco and they had tons of samples.

The Search is Over

My cousin's body was found today in a deep ravine. He seemed to have plenty of food, water and his insulin kit. He was fully prepared to hike, but seemed to slip and fall. It is believed he didn't suffer and died instantly. I have had many memories flood my mind about J.C. during the past couple of days. When he was younger we called him J.C. (John Clifford) and as he got older we called him Jay. My heart aches. He left behind a beautiful wife Marcie and their 6 children.

My Cousin Jay

My cousin is missing. He left for a hike on Wednesday AM and hasn't been heard from since. My siblings and in-laws and other family members were searching for him yesterday. He is a diabetic and so we are all so worried about him. He is the father of 6 and has a wonderful family! His oldest son left the MTC on Monday for Sweden. We need all the prayers we can get. The media has done a great job with updates. Click here for to read more about the search efforts.

I have been on the phone, pacing, and checking email several times an hour.

Aspen Grove Family Reunion

We had a wonderful week at Aspen Grove . It was a great week catching up with my extended family.

Some traditions we have:

Group family picture .... I believe there were over 100 of us this year. A professional photographer takes the real picture, but here we are getting ready in our matching shirts color coded according to generation -- Grandma and Don in red, Grandma's children in green, grandchildren in brown, and great-grandchildren in blue. (Thanks to my cousin Tami for this great picture off her blog.)

Remembering an ancestor
The past few times we have gotten together the family in-charge has chosen an ancestor to remember. This year was Norm & Verna Gardner. My Great-Grandparents .... my father's parents. My aunt Diane and Uncle Don's family made us each a little card with this great picture. My Grandfather is the tall one on the back row in the bottom picture.

Rook
My family LOVES the game Rook. We don't play the traditional rules. In fact, I know of no where that the rules are even written down. They just keep getting passed down generation to generation. It is highly addicting and we can sit around for way too many hours talking about games played and hands dealt days, weeks, months and even years ago.

My Grandma told the story of how when she first met my Grandpa they introduced her to this stupid game called Rook. There was no way she was ever going to be a part of it and was disgusted that they would stay up all hours of the night playing such a dumb game. Even worse his family could talk about games and hands dealt days, weeks, months and even years ago. We all got a good laugh.

More July 4th Fun

We went boating and had dinner at the Deer Creek. We have started spending the night of the 4th of July at the lake. That is the time most people head home to bbq and do fireworks so that means we have the lake to ourselves! We had almost the whole family at the Lake minus Norm and Diane and their boys and Darrell.