SURPRISES ALL AROUND

Well, it certainly has been a busy time for us. We started out with Frank in the ER on Wednesday, December 3. It appears that he tweaked his back painting in the basement and now he has a pinched nerve which is causing his right leg to not want to work properly. FUN TIMES!!

So we got to do Rachel's birthday shopping trip on Friday pushing Grandpa in the wheelchair. Thank goodness for malls with wheelchairs to loan and handicap accessibility. We had fun with Rachel and picking cute clothes for her. She is 12 now. I can't believe it!!

Then we got home and the contractor wanted to do his final walk through of the basement. His painting crew should be there today to paint the trim for us and our bedroom furniture was delivered on Friday morning. WOW is that a room full of furniture. We may decide to move the chest of drawers to the office. See what you think.

It looks kind of funny with no bedding on the bed and all of the packing stuff on it. But someday I might get it put together.

Then the BIGGEST surprise of all was when Jessi called Friday night and said that they had admitted her to the hospital. SHABANG! Her baby decided that he was ready. Nathan Paul Nelson arrived at 8:30 Saturday morning. He is a cutie and I think that his sisters love him already!

Congratulations Jessi and Paul. You have a beautiful family.

Thanksgiving and more!

Well, we survived the Thanksgiving weekend. We had a wonderful dinner at Bill & Lynnette's. Lots of food and fun. Then we did gingerbread houses at her place. She makes her own gingerbread, cuts it out, puts in stained "glass" windows, even added stables/sled ports this year. Here are a few of the masterpieces.

Then on Friday, we didn't get up with the crazy's but we did go out and spend some money. We even met up with Paul and Jessi while we were out, then had a late lunch with Grandma and the girls.

Friday night we went to a surprise birthday party for Marci. She had pulled one off for Bret during the summer, so I guess he thought it was fair game. We went to the Clearfield Aquatics Center and she seemed a little surprised. There was pizza, soda, and swimming for all.

Then on Saturday we had a family lunch and let all of the grandkids decorate gingerbread houses. It was fun to watch their creativity show, and some of their parents as well.

Then it was outside for some family pics.

It was a great and busy weekend. I know that I need to go on a diet now, but that is nothing new. I hope that you had a great time as well.

PS - Got the floor finished in our new bedroom downstairs. It is BEAUTIFUL

Remodeling, Thanksgiving

Well, for an update on our remodeling project, we are at the point of only one room to paint and picking carpet. We have someone coming tonight to give us an estimate on carpeting and another one coming tomorrow night. Then we have to decide. I told Frank on Saturday that it would come down to the cost because I haven't found one carpet that I like more than any other. There are definitely some that I like a LOT less than others.

Here are a couple of pictures of the family room with paint on the walls. It is the same color as our bedroom.





We even got the stairwell and surrounding area painted this weekend. (I will post it when there is carpet on the those stairs.)

Then I actually hung the shower curtain, put the rugs down and used the shower one morning. If it could only be completely finished.

Oh well, enough moaning about that. Time to move on to other things.

THANKSGIVING!!! One of my favorite holidays. I really enjoy that it is usually steeped in tradition. We will be going to Frank's sister Lynnette's home for dinner and the traditional gingerbread house party after. Then all of the kids and grandkids will get together for our family lunch... on Saturday afternoon. We have lunch, sing Happy Birthday to all of the family members who have birthdays this time of year, have cake and ice cream and decorate their gingerbread houses.

I have tried for a couple of years to get out of the gingerbread house habit because it is a lot of WORK. Lynnette has been more than generous and offered to bake them for me. Two years ago we just decorated cookies. (That got way out of control, fast!!) Last year I tried using graham crackers to imitate gingerbread. Those are not strong enough. When Hannah asked me last year, "Grandma, can we do real gingerbread houses next year?" I knew that I was committed. It is really fun to see how creative the kids are. And even though it might not be cool if their friends saw them, I hope that as they get older they will continue to participate in that tradition.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, what is your favorite side dish for the big day. Mine has to be the Raspberry pretzel salad. It is the perfect combination of tart and sweet, with a bit of salt in the crust. I get to bring it to the dinner this year. If you have a fabulous/favorite side dish feel free to leave me a comment on what it is.

Have a safe and tradition filled Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving and history

(Sorry Lisa, I lifted a great picture from your blog.)

Yesterday was election day. While I voted 2 weeks ago, I was glad to see it finally come to an end. This has been a LONG, drawn out process. I am glad that the nasty ads will be gone. And while some of my choices may not have won, I am very thankful for the opportunity to cast my vote and to witness history, the history of electing public officials. We should be very grateful that we have the opportunity to go through this process. Another thing that I hope happens now that the elections are over is that the "chicken little"( the sky is falling...) type emails will quit finding their way into my mailbox. Especially those emails that are not entirely correct. Most days I don't even open them, but ocassionally I will weaken and click on one of them and then I have to delete it. I know that most people think that they are keeping others informed, but perhaps we should check the validity of them before we just click forward.

Okay, I am now off my soap box. I hope that were some successes in your ballot, and if you didn't vote, I don't want to hear it.

More halloween

Mom convinced me (with a simple invitation) to go to Moroni with her on Friday to see the girls Halloween parade. I think that Jess needs to move one county closer or we do. That is a long trip to do round trip, oh sorry I digress.

We loaded up on Friday morning and made the drive down, had some lunch and rushed to parade route to get a spot. Two whole blocks of Main Street. The kids come down to Main Street and go two blocks down, turn around and come back and then go back to the school. We had Addi and Paul in tow as Jess had to go finish Kassidy's costume. It was great weather, we saw Nana and she came to stand with us for the parade. It was fun to see all of the costumes and even some of those not in the parade dressed up. Here are the ones I could snap of the girls as they marched by.

There's Emma the witch.

There's Kass as a bat.

After the parade, the kids got to come home. They were both a bit upset that we weren't staying the night. We hung out for a bit and then we headed home. Here are a couple more pictures. Some are of Addi in her ghost ensemble. She was playing a Tyrannous Rex in one of the pictures.

T-REX?

Halloween and birthdays

Wow, it is amazing how time flies... A week ago Sunday, October 26 we got to go to the annual bloody brains and eyeballs dinner in celebration of Harley's birthday!! It was a fun event and for once I didn't freeze in the basement of the garage. (We have had incredibly beautiful weather.)

Here is Harley amid the stringers and stuff that Sunday. Besides our wonderful serving of bloody brains and eyeballs we got to have kitty litter cake and homemade ice cream. The ice cream was great, but I am not too sure about that cake. Here it is before anyone cut into it.

Then for Harley's birthday shopping trip we picked her up on Saturday. We went and found the Clearfield train station and took Front Runner into Salt Lake, then Traxx to the Gateway shopping center. We were all told that she could not get another Build-A-Bear. (I think she said that she has 13 of them, as well as all of the rest of her animals.) So we went to lunch at Applebee's and then went to Barnes and Noble. I don't think that Grandpa knew you could spend so much at a bookstore. Oh well. Here is Harley with her birthday present as we wait for the train.

For this year we have a shopping trip with Rachel in November and a shopping trip with Jacob in December, then we get to start all over again. Too much fun.

UEA

Well, UEA was last weekend and even without kids, I got to go and play. Jessi, Paul and the kids came to Bountiful and we played on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we went to This is the Place State Park. They had some great stuff for the kids to do and a few long lines. They got to get their faces painted, ride the horses, do an art project in the old school, get a cornhusk doll and ride on the train. The weather was perfect. Here are some of the pics from our day.













Then Friday afternoon we went to The Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. WOW, there were a lot of people there. It appeared to me to be a very successful event. They had bounce houses of every kind and shape. Addie wanted to go in the first one with Kass and Em and we just about lost here. Kass and another girl were very nice to pull her up to the top so that she could slide down the slide and out of it. But she didn't like the Jr. Haunted House. She came out holding on to Daddy for dear life. She told me there was a "Big Monster" in there and she didn't like it.












We got to eat caramel apples, kettle corn and mini fried doughnuts. And stand in longer lines than the day before. Jessi, Addie, and I stood in line forever to ride the little train. We sat in the back and we just about got beat to death and squished Addie between us. Then we went over to the barnyard side and got to pet more animals and ride in the big wagon that was pulled by the tractor. It was fun for all of us?

Decisions, Decisions, blah, blah, blah

Okay, I am so tired of the whole remodeling thing. I cannot imagine what it would be like if we were building new. Frank and I would probably not survive it. I don't like to have to make decisions. And there are not that many to make here, but it is driving me nuts. The contractor and his crew for some reason, cannot work here for an entire week. Why???? I can't seem to get an answer to that question. We have gone beyond our 3 months. Last weekend we were here on Friday when our contractor and his supervisor showed up, with our exterior door. WooHoo!!!! So we did kind of a walk through to talk about a couple of spots. He told us that they were going to fix them, blah, blah, blah. He told us that the tile guy would come in on Monday to clean and seal the tile, so don't walk on it for 24 hours after that. And that we would need to purchase our light fixtures before Wednesday as the electrician would be in that day to finish them. So we went between conference session on Saturday to pick out the light fixtures. Boy, that was painful. Here is what we picked, see if you can figure it out.

Then we painted some sample boards and decided on our paint colors. Considering that all of the walls in my house except my bathroom are white, this was not an easy decision either. Here are the two colors that we picked. (At least until I put them on the wall and something changes my mind.)

So Monday at work was a hectic day and I get a message from Frank that says that our contractor called him and they had found water on the floor of the bathroom downstairs and they don't know where it came from. So they were going to look into a few things and see what they could find. That was Monday, today is Wednesday and no word from the contractor and no apparent progress on the water issue. BUT... they did finish the light fixtures. The only problem is that they didn't pay attention to my VERY EXPLICIT DIRECTIONS, and they mounted my bling light fixture in the office and not our bedroom. Well, me of little patience, called the contract right then. He was trying to placate me, but I have had enough. We can't decide on furniture, carpet, flooring, etc. And then the few things that I have decided on the contractors group messes up. Here are the light fixtures.

Bottom of the stairs

Hallway lights

Fixture #1 in our bedroom

The bathroom fixture.

The "bling" fixture that got put in the wrong room!

They got the bulbs in the can lights in the family room and the bulb in the shower. I just wish it was finished. Okay, I will try to be patient. And hopefully I will get some painting done this weekend as well as get stuff for card groups put together. Wish me luck!