Christmas 2021

 It was an empty nester Christmas this year.  Luckily we got to visit Michigan before Christmas but we were pretty much on our own for actual Christmas day. Carter and Harley were scheduled to spend Christmas day with her family but came by in the afternoon (we spent Christmas eve night together but didn't do much that was "special"...we played games mostly and watched Spider Man to prepare Frank for our actual Christmas Day plans).  We had fondue for Christmas Eve dinner.

Since we knew we'd be on our own, we decided to go to a movie in the morning. Seemed like a good use of our time. We saw "Spider Man: No way Home" and I made frank watch the two previous movies so he was prepared with some knowledge. He actually liked them!  He's not generally a super hero movie guy. Our movie time was 9:20 am.  We've never actually done a Christmas Day movie I don't think. We were the only people there not in Christmas pajamas I think. Haha.

I made a breakfast casserole that was super yummy.

After the movie, Carter and Harley came by for present opening and a few games.  

This year we made the transition to one or two gifts plus money over lots of gifts for the kids. Made it a little weird during present opening since Frank and I had way more gifts than them. Frank and I bought each other a lot of random stuff that we've each been wanting. He gave me cushions for the dining chairs (he's been complaining of them being uncomfortable) and an electric blanket (he wanted one for emergency prep I think?). I gave him dryers for our camelbacks (just what he always wanted...haha) and miniature folding chairs to take to pickle ball. 

Frank also got some pickle ball attire, as one would expect. Sadly the shirt I got him shrunk and I think if anyone gets to wear it, it'll be me.

Frank got Carter a "da da" shirt to celebrate the upcoming youngin'

I took almost no pictures and have no proof that Harley and I were even there!

We had a nice video chat with Austin on Christmas Eve and Branden and Amber sent us Marco Polos of them opening their gifts on Christmas morning.

Other than that the day was low key and enjoyable.  We ate fondue again because it was so yummy the day before. haha. So much cheese.

Michigan December 2021

 Branden and Amber bought their first house this year, which is super exciting for them!

The house is bigger than the one they were renting, plus it has a full unfinished basement. It also has a 2 car garage and a huge barn that Branden plans to use for his car repair hobby.  

They have a few things they want to fix up in their house so Frank and I made plans to come out in December and help them tackle the first one: a mud room.  

The master bedroom was an addition to the house and they had it arranged that the only entrance to the house from the garage was through the master bedroom. Subpar.

The new plan is to carve off some of the bedroom space to create a small hallway and mudroom area from the garage into the living room.  Frank went out for about 10 days and I joined him for the last 4 days to do the painting and such.

The girls weren't super thrilled that we were not "fun grandma and grandpa" as we usually are but instead we were "working grandma and grandpa".  We did manage a couple of fun things like going out to eat and watching movies together. We made gingerbread houses (but sadly Isabelle was starting to feel sick that day..she ended up with a 102 degree fever by the next morning). Plus we read them a Christmas book each night.  But overall we spent the time working.

It was a pretty big job for Frank to finish in the timeframe but he managed it! 

 When I arrived I painted the new mudroom, the master bedroom, and the kitchen including the backsplash which was sponge painted two different colors of blue. oy.

One day when Isabelle came home from school to discover the kitchen white instead of blue, she was pretty disappointed and said that she had liked the blue.  Amber tried to reassure her that it would look good in the end and that she was painting one wall green. The look on Isabelle's face was of utter disappointment. It was hilarious.  (I think she ended up liking the finished product though)

Other projects that were completed were: new lights in living room, hall, mud room and kitchen. New door knob and lock on front door.

We enjoyed the time we had there visiting and I did end up wishing I had stayed a bit longer. But they had non-stop guests for December so we had to get out of there so Ryan and Kristal could come for Christmas!

Branden had a great idea to take a power tool to his gingerbread.  That worked out about how you'd expect.

Granpa's house had a theme (as usual) of the book we were reading: "The Christmas Pig" 

We didn't finish it while we were there and I'm still wondering how it ends...

One last pic before leaving...you can see the new light fixture and green wall behind us!

Luminaria

 I've had a nasty cold. Nasty.  I feel like I've been sicker this fall than ever before. I missed Thanksgiving and luckily had Friday off so I had some time to recover. By Monday I was feeling somewhat better and I did go to work but I was full of advil and cough medicine and wore a mask all day.

Luckily, Dion and his family still plan fun, festive holiday activities and he invited us.  Luckily, my cold was somewhat better to the point that I felt ok going to an outdoor activity.

I had received free tickets to Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point from Angela so when Dion mentioned that they were going to go, we decided to go with!

The weather has been unusually warm (enjoyable but a bit freaky). I haven't ever been to this particular light show even though I knew it existed because walking around in the freezing cold winter weather just didn't sound enjoyable.  This time, it was warm enough that I was actually excited to go!  It is cool enough to have a jacket/coat but not freeze to death.

It was a really fun time with Dion's family, Lauren and Frank and I.

Thanksgiving 2021

Thanksgiving was a bit of a bust for me this year as I came down with a bad cold on Wednesday. I even left work early to go get a covid test, thinking that if I felt ok, I could still go to the family get together as long as I was covid free. But I felt like crap and decided it was best to keep my germy self home.  

We had a big gathering that I was quite looking forward to: Diane's family, Daren's family, Jared, Doneen's family including Chelsie, Jaime and Greg and their kids, Kari and Josh; Dion's family, and Lauren Davidson who is currently living with Dion's family while she goes to nursing school. Ryan/Kristal and Carter/Harley also went.

Frank took the opportunity of my illness to not go since family activities aren't his favorite anyway. Lame.

I had made stuffing, mashed potatoes and two pies (well Frank made the pies, obviously) that we sent with Carter.

It sounds like they all had a great time!

The one redeeming quality to the day was that we had a nice long video meeting with all the boys!  I love hearing them chat and talk with each other. That was really nice.

I watched a couple of Christmas movies and managed to unpack the fake Christmas tree, though I didn't decorate it or anything. But mostly I napped and sat on the couch feeling sorry for myself. 

My throat actually continued to get more and more sore as the day went on. It's now the next day and I'm wondering if I should see a doctor since the pain isn't improving and I'm taking too much advil.

But, even with a cold and sore throat, I have a lot to be thankful for! My family, my warm home, my job, Frank's job, Frank's health, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ that gives it all meaning.

Arizona!

It's a bit of a long story but New Mexico Jennifer and I decided it would be fun to visit Arizona Jennifer for the showing of the new Top Gun since we had seen the original together as high school friends. We made all the necessary arrangements: hotel and flights, only to discover that the movie release had been moved to May 2022!  Gah.

But we figured it was past time for a girl's trip anyway and did not reschedule.

The night before the trip, New Mexico Jennifer (I will call her NMJ from now on) started to feel ill. Not covid ill but still...not good.  By the morning it was clear she could not travel but by that time I was on my extremely early flight to AZ.  I arrived and got the rental car and headed toward the hotel, even though it was only 8 am and check in was 3 PM.

We were super sad to be missing NMJ for this trip we had thought about for so long!  But apparently she was sick enough to not even have time to feel sad about it for the first couple of days...so she made the right choice.  Still, we are going to have to do this again in May when the movie actually comes out and she will just have to quarantine herself beforehand if necessary!

I was miraculously able to check into the hotel at 9 am!  Felt like a Thanksgiving miracle!  I took a much needed nap while AZJ got her child off to school and such.

The next two and a half days were just wonderful!  We walked around Scottsdale and had a nice lunch on that first day. 

And then, when AZJ had school obligations with the youngin, I went to dinner with my Dad and Lottie. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and I ate about 1/4 of my gigantic Chimichanga and was still too full. 

Day two included a lovely hike and dinner at a super nice place where we watched the sun set and ate yummy food. AZJ seemed to be worried that I was too out of shape to hike very far and kept asking me if I wanted to keep going. Luckily Frank and I hike some and also go on walks together so the hike was no problem. I surprised her!  I may be chubby but I can hike. ha! 

The dinner was overlooking a golf course and we even got to watch a wedding rehearsal take place. Food was good and we had a fun time just talking for a couple of hours. AZJ may or may not have scoped out the place for attractive single men. 

Day three we both slept in and then I went over to AZJ's house and we just hung out a bit. I got to (re)meet her son who of course didn't remember me (It's been a while).

The weather was just so fantastic the whole time. Low 80's with a breeze. Perfect.  

So many potatoes

Turns out 50 lbs of potatoes is a lot of potatoes.  I've mostly been using them for home canned stew but I've also put a bunch of chopped potatoes in the freeze dryer. Every time I chop potatoes for canning, I over estimate and end up with some that have to be freeze dried.  I'm very bad at estimating for stew apparently. 

I have 35 cans of stew so far and the huge bag of potatoes is almost gone. I may make some baked potatoes tomorrow with some of the few we have left.

We had eaten almost all of the previous stew I canned a few years ago. I think we have 3 bottles left.  My goal is to get 52 jars, one per week for a year, by the time I'm done. I can't believe it but I'll actually have to buy more potatoes to do that. ha!

I get tired off all the chopping to be honest but I borrowed a special chopping contraption from Doneen that made the potatoes SO much easier. Carrots are still a pain and my hands are stained orange now after a weekend of canning. It's a good look.

I suffered my first ever broken bottle while canning my first load. Luckily all of the other jars sealed just fine.  I knew something was up when my garage smelled like delicious stew..sure enough.

I am feeling like it's getting easier and I'm doing better at managing the pressure of the canner. I'm almost feeling like I know what I'm doing!

So many forgotten things

We had a little flood in the basement apartment a month or so ago. Rain came in the door due to a plugged drain at the bottom of the stairs. The Taylor's were out of town at the time so no one realized until things had been wet for several days. Bummer.

We pulled out carpet, baseboards and set up fans. We ended up needing to replace their flooring but while we were at it we decided we might as well paint, replace some old light fixtures and do a little more sprucing up.  

They had to move out for a few days but we managed it. I failed to take after pictures but the Taylor's got a few.

Here's before (living room)-it's actually more of a "during" when we were pulling out carpet and had already painted the ceiling

After:

Bedroom (low lighting but walls are white)

Living Room (from the other direction)

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We purchased the 50 lb bag of potatoes that the local high school sells as a fundraiser. We did it a few years back and I just haven't had the guts to do it again for awhile. It's a lot of work to make use of that many potatoes!  But we did it again this year.  My plans for them include: canning more stew (I have used up almost all of my canned stew), freeze dry some for future use, can some if I can find enough lids, save a few in the cold storage room.  I worked on freeze drying some today and, as expected, it's exhausting. I used about 1/10th of the bag  (If I'm lucky).  Oy.

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It's gotten suddenly cold in the last week and I'm super not ready for winter already. I'm hoping we get another shot at fall. I think it's supposed to snow tomorrow. I'm grateful for the moisture but I'm ok if it just stays up in the mountains at least in October!

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Branden and Amber bought their first house!  We are so excited for them!  We're hoping to go out and help do some fixing up that they want to do. Amber is already painting and making it their own and it's looking so good!  It has a big barn that Branden is excited for also as he can set up a super awesome car repair place in there.

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Back in the day, when I used to blog on the regular, I had my blog as my home page when I opened the internet. I remember one day Frank noticed this and thought it was a little weird. He felt it was a bit self centered to go to my own blog first thing every day. I decided he had a point and I changed it to be something random like google after that.  But now with how things have changed in my life and I find myself not even thinking of blogging or writing my thoughts, I'm thinking I might go back to making my blog my home page. I think I need to remember it exists and maybe I will think of things to say that I want to remember.  

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I probably could have made my home page something good like the Church's website for example...that would have been a good choice.  Instead of just google, which I always immediately click away from.  Food for thought.

I'm doing a scripture study called "Inklings" through instagram (a good use for social media!) and it's really wonderful and I recommend it to anyone!  It's helping me keep spiritual thoughts front and center and helping me to reach for my scriptures daily.  I want to be an elect woman and someone who stays true to God no matter what happens in the world.

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Another crazy thing that happened this week is that I started giving away all of my scrapbooking stuff. Oh man, it's been hard. I'm still very attached to all that stuff. But I don't use it so I need to give it a new life and I need to move on.  I do feel like I'm lacking in the hobby department right now so I need to work on that but I'm (mostly) ready to let this particular thing go.  Wish me luck.