Family Reunion 2021

This year Shannon invited everyone to her new house in Aurora.

Fred and I reserved a hotel and Shannon fit everyone else in her home.

We arrived Thursday night and Scott and Jess arrived Saturday night.

They had an exciting adventure flying with the boys.

Corinne's family arrived Sunday night.

All of Corinne's family slept on the third floor.

Shannon's kids slept in the office.

They locked up their two cats in the master bedroom.

Ends up that Jess had a bit of allergic reaction to the cats that first morning.

Monday morning we all loaded up and headed to the Botanical Gardens in Denver.

It was cool and drizzly this morning. Henry and Marissa were inseparable.

Brian and Fred often lagged behind doing their own thing. I'm always so happy to see them hanging out with one another. I think they get along well. I'm so glad of that.

Clara is something else. She has quite the personality. Nothing subtle or shy about her for the most part.

Graham was off with his parents at this point, but we did get everyone else in this picture.

I posted another picture of this amazing flowering bush at the ends of this post. For some reason I can no longer insert pictures in the middle. Everything goes to the bottom. Anyway - it was amazing.

Here is a great picture of Scott's family. 

I took this picture because you can really see the red in Shannon's hair here. 

There was this beautiful tree house basically in the rainforest.

Coloring time for these two. Clara looked on.

Evan just loves Woody and Buzz. These are actually Clara's toys, but he did bring his own from home.

Everyone here is playing an online game here. Jack something.

These are our youngest grandchildren, born 5 weeks apart. They are both so cute and full of personality.

Scott and Jess put together a Daly Jeopardy game. Oh my was it fun. One of the categories was "Dad Knows Best".

We went to the Miller Activity Complex in Castle Rock. Corinne and her big boys went on a zipline and the rest of us were in the pool.

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Fred and I got to go on a walk around the neighborhood a few times. This is a view.

I really didn't get too much close up time with many of the grandkids so I'm so happy that I somehow got this picture with Graham. He is a character with the most serious scowl. But he is so handsome!!

We set up some wiggle sprinklers in the backyard for these younger ones to enjoy.

These two were a little bit crazy in the hammocks. I'm surprised one of them didn't fall out on their face.

Brian got quite a bit of help from Fred and Scott getting their big toy set up. It was great to see them working together. Brian still had much to do after this first day. Everything like this always takes longer than anticipated.

We went to Crave for the craziest hamburgers after the Miller Complex. Brian puts up with me very well. I do really like him. He is very easy to get along with. 

This was basically the kiddie area in the pool at the Miller Complex.

One morning we went to the park for family pictures. It was definitely a challenging hour and a half. I'm excited to see the results. I sure hope they turn out.

These two started out on a positive foot the first morning, but then it kind of went downhill from there. It's hard being a kid sometimes.

Talk about looking like your spouse. Their two kids are mini clones of their parents too.

Here is the bunch at Crave for lunch. Richard and Garrett are on their phones here, not praying.

Here's another spot that we took family pictures at.

Henry and Marissa are the best of friends when they are together. I hope they are able to stay that way for many years to come.

Quiet and peaceful time in front of the TV. I appreciate the TV and it's powers.

One afternoon we went to a neighborhood park. Unfortunately, it really was hot that afternoon. We didn't last long.

You can see how pink everyone was.

We took our car track for the grandkids to play with. It helped a little.

Jess interned at the Mermaid Bakery in Denver after she graduated from Johnson and Wales in Pastry. She brought home a bunch of scrumptious cupcakes to share. I should have gotten a picture before we ate them all. I didn't take many pictures this time. I decided I wanted to actually be in the moment more than behind my camera.

 Scott and Jess headed back home. 

They were hoping for a more peaceful experience.

Here they are on picture day. They are happy and that makes me so happy.

Here is silly Clara. She is so funny.

I don't even remember being this close to Clara. I really didn't have much one on one with any of the grandchildren. It is very hard to spread yourself out when there are so many. Also we don't see our grandchildren that often so I feel like I don't want to push myself into the personal space of the little ones.

 Here is that beautiful flowering tower of a bush. Isn't it fascinating!!!

So that is the short of the long story of our reunion this year. All in all things really went well. We enjoyed good food, fun outings and some time at home to do whatever. For the first time we got to have an adult night out for dinner. We definitely want to make that a regular thing. The Jeopardy game that Scott and Jess put together was so much fun. Yep - I'll keep them all and do it again.

Mother's Day in Phoenix

 It just so happened that we were able to visit Scott's family over Mother's Day Weekend. I was pretty excited about that. I can't remember the last time I have spend Mother's Day in the company of any of our children. 

This year is my 40th year as a mother. Corinne, Shannon and Scott all went together to have flowers sent a week early so I could enjoy them before we left for Scott's. It was such a nice surprise. 

Scott sent me flowers the day after we returned from their house. That also was so thoughtful and meaningful to me. I loved the spring colors.

The flower container is quite unique. I really liked it. 

We did so many different things at Scott's. We arrived Thursday late afternoon. I brought some Toy Story Pancake shapes so Jess whipped up three different colors of batter and the boys helped. The pancake dinner was a success.

We have decided to do away with our grandchildren toy stash. Since we will be living at Shannon's, our place isn't going to be the central visiting zone. Most likely visitors will stay with Shannon. So we decided to see if the kids wanted more of their toys back. We took Scott's Tomy Trainset for his boys to play with and they were very happy to play with that.

Friday morning we drove to watch Evan play soccer. That was entertaining. Evan is much more attentive to his teammates than the ball. That's okay. He's learning new skills by being there and getting along with others and be a kind teammate. 

Scott and Jess have been changing their eating habits over the last few years. They have more foods that are clean - less processed and more natural ingredients. They shared one of their latest finds. Basically gourmet peanut butter. This is one of them. 

If Fred and I weren't trying to lose weight right now, this is a super temptation. It's a dessert for sure. 

Saturday afternoon Jess and I went to have a manicure and a pedicure. It was fun. First we went to the wrong place. It was a very nice salon. Jess was saying she had been in salons before where they play action movies blaring in the background. This place wasn't doing that. When got to the right salon, it was playing a Dwayne Johnson Action movie blaring in the background. Jess was apologetic about it, but I didn't mind at all. It will be a fun memory for us.

We met Fred and Scott at Claim Jumpers for a double date after that. That was a first for us to go out together. I'm really glad we got to do that.

Sunday we went to church. Their ward was very generous with the Mother's Day gifts. We got little succulents, a big fat chocolate chip cookie that did look homemade, but I'm not sure. They also brought in cinnamon rolls to class time and gave us a journal. 

We spent a lot of the afternoon watching the home movies we took to Scott. He wanted a copy of his musical performances. We watched a lot of those and a lot of fun movies of our family doing silly stuff. So much fun.

Jess had a puzzle set up and Fred spent a lot of time working on it. I had no idea he enjoyed working puzzles. I want us to make one of my Dad's puzzles boards so we can maybe start working puzzles in our retirement life.

Monday we dropped Evan off at preschool and then went along to Graham's swim lesson. 

I do love that the boys love to play in the water and know how to handle themselves. 

By Tuesday we had been prepped for our babysitting duties. Scott and Jess were going to Mesa to attend her uncle's funeral. With us being there they were able to attend and be present without worrying about the boys. Fred got Evan to and from preschool and I was in charge of lunch, diaper change and keeping tabs of Graham while Fred was away. Everything went smoothly. We were a little anxious before we got here wondering if the boys would not be comfortable enough with us. It was no problem.

We got in the pool a couple of times. The water always feels so cold to me in my old age. It was fun to watch the kids. They are so lucky to have that pool in their backyard. What a blessing.

Wednesday morning we packed up and headed home. Such a great visit. We're looking forward to seeing all the kids in Colorado in a couple weeks. Lots of time with our kids during the next few months before we move and live so much further away from Scott and Corinne. I see long road trips ahead or else we'll go back to flying.

Beginning to do stuff so we can move

Fred only had the time to put in the grass and gravel the first two summers after we moved here.

We finally fixed that. We bought about 25 plants/flowering bushes.

We had quite a few bushes/trees that we purchased way back that sat in the garden waiting to be planted. We salvaged two fruit trees, and a few other plants. I have the job of cutting up the dead branches to throw in the garbage can. I worked at that for two days straight. I quit for now. I've been having shoulder problems and there is no hurry. I'll get back to it.

I'm also mowing the lawn for Fred while he slaves in the backyard. He is amazing. He is a working machine. He does make an awful mess when he works on projects, but man it is magnificent when he is done. I don't know how he makes everything always look so good.

This is my summer apparel. I love this hat. I go for a walk every morning. Never have to fix my hair or put on makeup with this getup. I love it.

I think he looks a little dirty here.

So everything is planted and in place.

Fred now has to put all the gravel back in place around the plants

I just wanted to share how it looks in a somewhat finished state.

It took 2 1/2 weeks of hard sweaty labor on Fred's part. I just marvel at how hard he works and the hot and awful conditions he is doing this in. 

We both liked the same type of plants so buying them was pretty easy. We didn't really have a plan, we just had a rough estimate of how many. We really didn't even know for sure how we were going to lay them out.

We were going to plant two of something kind on each side of the bench, but neither Fred nor I wanted him to do anymore digging. I suggested planters with flowers. This is what we came up with. We will take them with us when we move. He'll remove the hanger....

This is a Lantana.

This is a smoke bush. We have a huge one in our front patio entrance. We love it.

I don't know what this is called, but it was so interesting. The colors in this picture aren't great plus most of the plants are not as vibrant as they were when we bought them. They have all wilted maybe just a bit.

Most of the bushes we bought blossom. This has an orange blossom.

Pink Blossom.

Here is the other little bush that was a vibrant red - almost blood red.

Snapdragons

This is a peach tree. It has sat in the pot for about five years. We will see if it continues to grow. Fred said it was more work than it was worth to get it planted. He doesn't do anything half way.

This is a fuji apple tree. Same story - sat in a pot for years.

This is a pretty bush that kept growing in the pot. All the branches are quite healthy, but it is so heavy that Fred is shoring it up so the root can catch up to support the bush.

Here is my hero. He works so hard on everything he does. He never does anything halfway. At times I wish he would, but the end result of his work is always beautiful.

Now on to the garage process. 

Fred's method for organizing is to pull everything out and spread it around. He made four categories. Throw away in the trash. Give Away. Sell in a Garage Sale and Take with us.

I don't know how he got through it all. I'm not sure if he really did. I'm just having faith.