The Best is Yet to Be

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Christmas/December Happenings

Can one post about Christmas mid-way through January? If I were a professional blogger, I’d have had this post up the day after Christmas, but alas, I’m not. Also there's been a little problem on blogger with posting pictures, so these are not posted in a great way, but a least it's a peak at just some of the fun December happenings beginning with when we returned from Utah. I think my favorite part of the Christmas Holidays is our traditional Nativity Pageant, so I've put a lot of those pictures in here.

Valiant 11-12 Primary Class Christmas Party

Claire has the lead in the Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz with a Christmas twist

Book signing with Jason Wright

Afton helps decorate our tree

Posing with our Knoxville grandchildren right after they open their gifts from us.

Allie, Tanner, Connor and Sydney

Carter, Claire and Jared

Ben, Josh, Emma, Afton, and Lydia

Traditional Mother-Daughters Christmas Pose - Julie, Lori, Sharlene, Lisa

I always get to be the narrator for our Nativity Pageant

Russ and I pose with the entire cast

Josh is Joseph & Claire is Mary (doll is baby Jesus)

Angels Sydney, Emma, Lydia, and Afton

Adding Claire (as Mary) to the Angels

Carter is a Wiseman

Tanner, Ben, Jared, Connor, & Josh

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Baptism in Utah

Five days after Thanksgiving we were on a plane headed to attend the baptism of grandchild #15, Andrew Barber in Provo, Utah. This event in his life is the reason we made the trip, but once in Utah, we squeezed in many other wonderful memories. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll blog a nice, long pictorial of some of the things we did.

We forgot to take a picture of us having lunch with my cousin, Judy Nielson and her husband, David, and I didn’t like the picture of our visit with Wayne and Susan Hilbig, so no pictures, but wonderful visits right there at City Creek in Salt Lake City. We also visited Russ’s sisters in Syracuse, but again, no picture.

Attending the Salt Lake Temple

Andrew and Sam view the Temple Square lights

How could Sam fall asleep with all those beautiful lights? A late night on Temple Square

City Creek across the street from Temple Square

Brad and Dad

Lunch with Joel during his lunch hour - before leaving SLC

December 1, 2012 ~ Andrew's baptism day

Posing in front of Stake Center right after baptism and confirmation

Celebrating after the baptism in a near by park: Joel, Sharlene holding baby Spencer, Cara

How about this tree?

Sam and Grammy go for a long walk and of course end up at the Provo Bakery

A special night out with Andrew - attending The Forgotten Carols

Andrew and Sam decorate the Christmas Tree

Russ, Sharlene, Andrew, Susan, Brad & Sam

Dinner and Advent at the Provo Barbers

Moe and Brad singing during Advent

Having lunch with Randy and Tanner

Dessert at The Chocolate - A Dessert Cafe (a.k.a Newel James Knight home of old)

The entire gang at The Chocolate - A Dessert Cafe - oh so very good!!!

Hale spent the day with us and Cara fixed us all a yummy lunch! Cara, Will, Lincoln, & Spencer

Russ plays a game of Apples to Apples with Joel and his boys

Joel snaps a picture of Sharlene reading with Koen and Hale

Thanks, Jonah, for always playing for us when we ask.

Our Lehi grandsons pose with us: Silas, Koen, Hale, and Jonah

Our trip to Utah was fantastic! We were hoping to see some snow while we were there, but with such great company who needs snow? Thanks Utah family and friends for making our visit GREAT!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

New York, New York

I love BIG cities!! Give me a big-city vacation/getaway any time. This time, my children gave me and Russ this little trip to the Big Apple. The gift was a total “surprise” – read here for the details. It was fun, fun, fun from the moment our feet touched the ground in NYC. We saw and did many things, but two of my favorites (for different reasons) were being on the Live with Kelly and Michael Show, and visiting the 9/11 Memorial gardens, fountain pools, and viewing the names (engraved on granite) of those who were killed on 9/11/2001. So here are some (a lot of, actually) pictures of just some of the stuff we did. BTW, our first day there we walked about 10 miles (or 20,000 steps).