The Holidays with Family

Pugsly, Tammy and Charlie's Pug

Randy with Jaden


Jaden and Kelly

Randy enjoying his crab at Tammy's house

Randy and Me at Ruby River with Tina and Kipp

Kipp and Tina at Ruby River

Me with Marty and Cherise before Christmas at the Pizza Pie Cafe

Before Christmas we visited with Marty and then Tina and Kipp took us to Ruby River. Tina gave me a key chain that I can put digital photos on and she gave Randy a $50 gift card to Chevron. Marty and Cherise gave me a Precious Moments Strawberry Shortcake doll. They know I collect Precious Moment dolls. Tammy gave me and Randy a calendar with family photos on it and that just precious. Matt gave us a Olive Garden gift card. Kathy and John gave us calender. Jennifer and Rob gave us a Felix the Cat clock, shirts, candy and bath stuff. And Randy gave me a new wedding ring set and a mixer.

For New Year's Day, we enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by Charlie and Tammy. We enjoyed rib eye steaks and crab. Matt and Kelly were there too. So were all the dogs. We had a wonderful time. I got really good news too: Matt and Kelly are expecting a baby boy.

We wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Christmas, Seattle and Family News

The ocean at Ocean Shores from the balcony of the hotel

Our visit with Chris

Our Christmas Eve goodies

The star on the building in downtown Seattle

The caroler's in Downtown Settle Christmas Eve

The hustle and bustle of downtown Seattle on Christmas Eve

The carousel in downtown Seattle on Christmas Eve

On the way to Seattle by the Columbia River (in the distance is MT Hood)

Jennifer's fireplace all lit up on Christmas Eve

Randy with Odin one of Jennifer's foster kitties

We had a wonderful holiday season although an expensive one. We decided to go to Seattle for Christmas and we took the Suburban because it has 4-wheel drive and thought we might need it because of the snow, and we did have snow but not until the way back. That is where our main expense was. The Suburban is a very hungry vehicle and should only be used to take us camping in a not so far away place. But we were glad to have it because it did help with the snow and roads on the way home. But from now on, we will just take our little Elantra and probably won't be able to do Christmas far away from now on. The ride to Seattle was wonderful and clear and we could see MT Hood on the way to Portland.

We did have very good weather on the way there and all the time while we were in Seattle. We enjoyed visiting with Jennifer and Rob and the kids. They were perfect hosts. Jennifer had two foster cats that we really enjoyed. We enjoyed going downtown Seattle for Christmas Eve and people watching. There were many people downtown and there was a Christmas carousel and all kinds of street music and it really put us in the holiday spirit. We also saw Avitar in 3D on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve we enjoyed goodies and the Jennifer's traditional Christmas Eve show of A CHRISTMAS STORY. One Christmas day, we enjoyed a pork shoulder that Jennifer made. While visiting, she also made an Irish stew.

Jennifer also took us to a holiday program in Seattle where we got to celebrate the nativity with a Catholic nun and the program was quite fun since the took people from the audience and made them dress in the nativity clothes and play the nativity characters.

Rob and Sid took off for NYC on Christmas night and so the spent the rest of the time with Jennifer and Zoe and also visited my brother Chris in Kent WA. He has lots of stories to tell us because he travels all over the world for his job. Chris and Elaine gave us a gift certificate for honey baked ham.

One the way home, we stayed on the ocean at Ocean Shores in WA at the Shilo Inn. We were very close to the ocean and could see the waves and the sunset. Our suite was wonderful with three TV's and a balcony. However, the bed was very hard.

On the way home, we hit a bad storm coming from Portland Oregon and it was really bad and wad to stop early and the next day the roads were very slick and lots of cars had slid off. We were lucky with the 4-wheel drive. We made it home safely one day later than planned.

We had many more experiences but it would take many pages and time to tell them all. We wish to thank everyone who helped make our season so wonderful and now it's back to the same old thing but we are glad for our home and the blessings we enjoy and look forward to the New Year and to warmer weather for camping.

Wishing You All a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas to all my friends and Family

Little Cash


Me and some of Marty's Family
We enjoyed a nice pizza dinner with Marty and his family.

We will soon be on our way to Seattle. Since we won't be here for Christmas, We want to wish all of my family a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanksgiving 2009

Randy and His Thanksgiving Feast



Savannah and Grandpa Randy


John and Kathy Enjoying Their Feast

We had a great Thanksgiving. But big feasts do not exactly go with my digestive system. There was so much food and it was all very good. But I could only eat one helping and couldn't even eat any pie afterwards. Charlies makes a good turkey and Tammy makes good stuffing yams. Randy did a lot of the grunt work in the kitchen. He kept everything in order, cleaned up and did most of the dishes. I enjoyed having family over and the great food, but Thanksgiving is kind of wasted on me because I just can't eat all that food!


Tammy's Yams: Yummy

I Am Thankful....

This Thanksgiving, I am very thankful for my health, my security and my family. I have many blessings. I often do not appreciate all that I have. I have a tendency to look at negative other than positive things.

I am thankful that I was raised by loving parents. We didn't have much in the way of material things but we had love and many happy times together. My parents taught me great values and hard work.

I am also thankful for my children. All of them are very successful and responsible people. I could not have asked for better children. I am thankful for my Alex and the hard work and all of the talents he gave us while he was alive. I miss him very much. He was always there for me even though we had our trials. His life was way too short. But he left us with many wonderful memories and things to treasure. He left me with security and I am sorry he had to go through so much only to lose it by an untimely death.

I am thankful for Randy, my husband. He is very special. His life was so much different than mine and I am learning to have understanding of those people who are not just like we are. I am sorry he has so much physical pain to live with every day. He has had pain most of his life. He keeps plugging on and helping me to have a life worth living. I wish I could do more to help him but like it was with my mother, I just can't take all his pain away. Would that I could.

I have a nice warm home, a loving family, food to eat, a nice warm bed, a shower, clothes to wear and fairly good health. There are many in this world who do not enjoy these things. I am truly blessed.

Halloween 2009

We had a great Halloween at Matt's house. He really goes all out. He has fog machines, bubble machines, graveyards, witches, ghouls, bats, you name it. And great Halloween sound effects and music too. He even dressed his dogs up ant took them Trick or Treating! Randy even dyed his hair green for the occassion!!

Zion's Park

The Great White Throne

We enjoyed a week at Zion's National Park. The park is so beautiful. We took a ride on the shuttle and also ate at the restaurant at the Zion Lodge. We saw a 3-D movie and also went to a movie in Hurricane Utah. We also went to a Chinese buffet with Tammy and Charlie who were in St. George to see a production at the Tuachan Theater. The weather was beautiful at first but a cold front came in later in the week and the wind was miserable.

We really enjoyed our trailer and nice and warm furnace we have in it. We had electricity in the park but no water or sewer. We had to fill up with water at the entrance and we ran out because I needed to wash my hair and take a shower. (I don't like to go out with flat hair) So we had to unhook everything and go fill up again. We were right by a water faucet but the park manager would not even let us hook up a hose and fill up even though it would have taken only 10 minutes or less. Because Randy has a lot of arthritis pain, I think we had better find a park in the future with full hookups because of the work he has to go to. In the government parks in Timpanogos we can come home a couple of times a week so that we can shower at home so this is OK when we camp that way. But when we can't come home for a long time, we really need full hookups. I guess we should have gotten a motorhome to make it easier on Randy. But motorhomes are so expensive unless you get a really old one or buy a really small one.

We would like to winter in a warm place but we would have to leave before the snow flies because if we leave later, the weather is too unpredictable and we might get caught in a bad storm and that would not be good with a trailer. Anyway, it is better just camp close by as it is cheaper as the gas mileage is really bad with the Suburban and trailer. The Suburban isn't too bad when not pulling the trailer.

We met some nice folks in Zion. One couple from Canada who were originally from New Zealand. They were very friendly. It seems folks from other countries are much friendlier than our fellow Americans. We did have a good time despite a few setbacks.

Latest News

I can't believe that it is almost winter already. Time really flies.

This month I have enjoyed going out with my girls to see Little Shop of Horrors and eating at Los Hermonos for Tammy's birthday.

This past weekend, we visited Hogle Zoo with John and Kathy and Tammy and family. We are going to Zion's National Park for a week on October 24.

The bad news is that we have to get a new furnace. I have known that we needed one for a long time. Ours is over 31 years old. It is not very efficient. But our house is so old and has been built on to so many times, that they have to do a lot of duct work to make the furnace work like it should. We are also getting vents cleaned. Of course this makes the price even higher. I should have just had the house torn down because it's so old that some things in the house are so outdated and hard to update. Oh, well, we will just keep the house going as long as we can.

I have also had a lot of allergies and sinus problems. It's not the cats, even though they cause a lot of hair and dander and smells. because I only get the problems when the weather changes. We have too many cats but Randy cannot let them any of them go.

Other news is that Randy has carpel tunnel syndrome and is seeing the Dr. tomorrow. We were going to go to Jennifer's for Thanksgiving but we have had to spend too much on the furnace and then, of course we spent a lot getting our new trailer toy. I am not sure if the trip to Zion's will be our last until next spring.

Nice Visit

Yesterday I had a nice visit from Elaine, (my brother Chris' wife: Chris was in NYC), from Kent, WA and her daughter Cassie who is from San Antonio TX. Robin from America Fork, also visited and we all went out to eat at Mimi's. It was really nice to have them visit.

Willard Bay

We took our new toy to Willard Bay and camped for four days. It is a nice campground but too close to the freeway and very noisy. If we keep the vents in our trailer closed, it's not too bad. The water there is really nice and warm. It would be a good place to go for a family reunion. The kids would love to swim there in the warm water. We saw some pelicans there. And the sunset was beautiful.

Our new trailer is so nice. We have queen bed that is comfy. We have a full sized shower and even a shower on the outside to shower off when people need to shower after swimming. It has a microwave and central air and heating. You can set the water heater to electric or gas and fridge as well. You can do this with a flip of a switch. No lighting anything. The stove has an electric start so you don't have to light it. The trailer has a slide out which operates with a flip of a switch and an awning that works that way too. It also came with a flat screen HD TV and DVD player and radio. There are hookups in the bedroom too for a TV. So we can have two TVS.

We went to visit Monica and Jay and then the next day we went to The Golden Spike Monument. We watched a film there on how the railroad came together at Promontory Point. We were going to go see the locomotives but our Suburban would not start. We had to get a jump and we went back to the campground and then it would not start as soon as we turned it off. It had a brand new battery. After we got home, we took it to have the battery checked and it was fine. The only thing we could think of was the battery cables were bad. We took it to Murdock Hyundai and had all new battery cables put in and the oil changes and new belts. But Matt found out that the water pump was failing and so we had to replace it. He also fixed the trailer brakes which were put in wrong by Gene Harvey Chevrolet. All in all, was spent a lot of money getting it fixed. We know that we saved a lot though by having Matt fix it. We do appreciate him. The Suburban works fine now. We are planning a trip to Zion's Park the end of this month.

Our hobby is expensive but it is worth it. Life is good. You only live once.