Grandma's little helper

Savannah loves to help me with my Saturday chores. She actually enjoys cleaning the house with me. She's getting old enough now that she wants chores that she can do herself not so much things she can help with. Since I hurt my back, vacuuming the stairs is really a problem, but not for Savannah. She wanted to do it all herself.
She's doing a great job. She's very careful to pay close attention to each stair.
It's a long flight of stairs but Savannah doesn't seem to mind. She just wants to be left alone with her vacuum and the job at hand. Savannah you're a doll and I just love having you come over to my house for sleep overs and some one on one time with Grandma!

The Hands of Time

This was taken at my little grand-daughter, Emma's baby blessing yesterday. You can see little Emma's hand holding on to her momma. Emma has a ring on that was passed down from my mother to me. Next to her is her mom Jocelyn. Next to Jocelyn is her mom (me) and next to me is my mom Nora and next to my mom is Wayne's mom Margaret. Four generations.

Our hands in a circle, life symbols…… both perfect and
profound. The women of our family, young and old in love are bound. We are born
into our circle…..sweet, delicate dimpled hands. Loved and held by the
generations, the miracle of life we understand. As we move throughout our lives,
our hands speak our heart. Touching, loving, comforting……….They are God’s work
of art. Our hands entwine for games & prayers. They clap with joy and pride.
They tremble with anger and sorrow, soothe broken hearts and babies cries. Our
hands shape, guide and teach, nourish, support and share. At times swift, deft,
and purposeful…….. at times imperfect and impaired. We are called home from our
circle, a life story engraved on our hands. Loved and held by the generations,
the beauty of life we understand. Together we share our journeys, the
generations both now and then. The women of our family are a circle of love that
never ends. Teri Harrison

Girls Day Out

I work with some of the most incredible women and I am so blessed to call them friends. Today we took some "girl time" and we went and had pedicures. It was a first for Mary and me. (Pedicure virgins!) It was kind of stressful for me in the beginning but with the support and laughter of this crazy group, I soon got beyond my anxiety and I loved the pedicure! Thanks Jessica - you did a great job. And thank you Ashley for helping put this all together for us.

Gena, myself, Susan, and Mary. I had to capture my first pedicure experience. Just incase I died from the anxiety.

Oh my goodness someone else is touching my feet!

Cute little flipflops provided after our pedicure. Do you just love my bright orange polish because I do. Mary and Susan both went safe with neutral colors and Gena choose bright purple with glitter and well, this is my bright orange!

Reader Beware It's our latest Lake Powell Memory

Every year we go to Powell by the end of the trip, something memorable enough has ocurred for us to refer to that particular trip in the future by the event. For example we all remember the year the boat tire lost it's lug nuts on the freeway and we nearly lost the tire. Not to mention about putting out Susan's window. That was before we all had cell phones. Or how about the year Wayne hit Brinley in the head with the dutch oven full of potatoes and had to stitch her up on the bar in the houseboat at Lake Powell. Well, you get the idea. This trip had gone fairly smooth and nothing really came to mind as the "oh ya! that was the year we...." but I was really ok with that. We arrived safely home to our house Saturday evening at about 8:00. Jocelyn was the first one to go in the house. She stopped abruptly and told me not to come in. Seems when Jocelyn and Brandon left our house in a rush last Saturday morning, the laundry room door got closed by accident. The kitty litter box was behind that big closed door and the kitty was on the other side of the door in my family room where she would spend the next 7 days without a litter box and with no way out of the house!


Jocelyn jumped right on the clean up. If you can clean up a weeks worth of cat pooh and urine that I have no idea where she went! I will say this for the old cat 99% of the mess was contained in my family room just outside the laundry room. I had no idea one cat could crap that much in just a week!

Thank heavens for carpet cleaners. Jocelyn did the carpet the first round and over the weekend I cleaned it 3 more times. On the following Monday I cleaned it with a special solution I bought at Don Aslet's cleaning store in Logan specifically made for urine. Just when Jocelyn thought she was finished she went to the upstairs to check things out....

This lovely mess awaited her at the top of the stairs on the carpet. Please notice the linoleum right next to the mess. This lovely cat managed to miss every tile or linoleum floor in the house. I honestly think she was so stressed about what to do and where to do it, it must have given her and upset stomach. I noticed she hadn't eaten much food while we were gone.


When it was all cleaned up and you know you couldn't help but laugh a little or else you'd cry. My back was killing me after sitting for 7 hours. Sydnee was so proud of herself that she had just announced that she didn't throw up in my car on the way home. What more could you ask for? Jocelyn says " Well, you have your Lake Powell memory for the year!" That pretty well summed it up!

Day one of Lake Powell, Getting set up

This year Wayne and I went down ahead of the rest of the kids with Zach and Hayan. It was nice because setting up and putting things away lacked that usual chaos that we have become all to familiar with. Don't worry, the winds did not disappoint us and we had strong gusts all night long. Zach and Wayne worked on making sure we had adequate anchors out to keep us from floating out to sea.
When there are only 2 of you- remember I'm broken this year- Wayne and Zach had to worry about both the ski boat and the house boat. The winds were incredible and causing quite a stir.
This poor white SUV was parked here on the beach in Hobbie Cat. Probably had been for several days. Their jet ski trailers (2) were on the back. The water continued to rise and it was quickly approaching the vehicle. On Saturday morning early after we had been there about 18 hours the park Ranger came back down to the car and did some measurements and then they called a tow truck. At a rate of water raising a full foot a day this car would be under water soon. The ranger said they had to do something before a tow truck couldn't get down there. I'm sure those poor people aren't going to be happy but a tow off the shore is surely less expensive than a tow out of the water and water damage. Hopefully they will see it that way.
Zach and Hayan enjoyed the first day by relaxing and "chilling" until they fell asleep for the night at about 6:00pm. We all slept downstairs this evening because of the strong winds and because of how cold it was.

More Lake Powell 2010

Wayne is helping us to celebrate our Luau day with his parrot hat. He was making hawaiian chicken with grilled fresh pineapple.



















Syndee joined in the fun. She helped hand out the lays and helped make the tropical slush for dinner.






Even little Emma got into the swing with a lay. Isn't she cute!!














Wayne went for a walk way up on the mountain. The rest of us stayed at the boat doing other things. Mostly just watching. A little too lazy to go get our own exercise so we were cheering for Wayne!

Lake Powell 2010 Rainbow Bridge

We have been going to Lake Powell now for many years. Wayne and I took our first trip together to Lake Powell in 1981. It was my first trip in 1981 but not Wayne's. We visited Rainbow Bridge and had our picture taken. About 10 years later we made the trip back down to Rainbow Bridge again. We tried to find the same rock but water level was much lower this year. We had our picture taken again. In 2002 we went again and found the same rock, this time we had our teenage boys with us along with some of his friends. And again this year 2010 we made the trip to Rainbow Bridge. This time we took our married children, their spouses and our 3 grandchildren. We have made sure incredible memories there at Lake Powell. It's fun to reflect back on them through pictures.