Saturday, January 9, 2016

The Whalens:
Curtis, Hillary, Eden (8), Ava(7), Ivy(5), Elle(2), and Brady(9 mo.)
Our Chandler friends who have now moved to Gilbert.

I left to get my purse and pickup Carmen around 8am this morning. James went earlier and filled my car up with gas.  After picking up Carmen she and I went to Sheri's to drop off Carmen's Christmas gifts to Sheri, Kim, Stacy, and Darrel.  I took Jared's and told her I would mail it to him.  

 Carmen made a large one for all of her brothers and sisters,

and small ones for all of her nieces and nephews.

She is very talented!

We picked up Cathi and headed to Signature Nails on Arizona Avenue and Ocotillo to get pedicures.  This is my gift to both Cathi and Carmen for their birthdays.  We all chose purple polish!

I am the one with the crinkled toes.

I also gave Carmen her Christmas calendar.

When we get back to Cathi's, James has his suitcases sitting in the driveway and he's bringing mine out.  I guess he is ready to go home.

We say our goodbye's and we are on our way.  I didn't need to take Carmen back to her mom's because she is going to the rock show at MCC with Cathi, Terry, and Nathan.

James and I stop at Bass Pro Shop.  The first thing we do is have lunch at the restaurant, Islamorada's.  Afterwards James buys a hunting license and we are on our way home, going through Payson.

This is why we didn't come through Salt River canyon.

The trees on the rim are gorgeous and so full of snow!  We took lots of pictures.  I will share a few.

The clouds make the scene even more beautiful

It was definitely a Winter Wonderland

As we are driving along we notice that the heater has stopped working.  I think I see smoke coming out from under the hood and James sees a huge trail of smoking behind us.  He immediately stops the car.  As he is looking under the hood a border patrol agent stops and tries to help.  They determine that the radiator has a hole in it and that water will do no good.  James calls our insurance and arranges for a tow truck and the border patrol agent calls a highway patrolman to come and pick us up.  I call Harold & Vickie and arrange for them to pick us up at The Red Onion restaurant in Heber.  Harold, Vickie, and I all order green chili cheeseburgers.  They are delicious!

When the tow truck driver gets here we take him back to where the car is and then Harold and Vickie take us home.  The tow truck is taking Lexy to Richard's Automotive in Lakeside.  We are so grateful to have family close by that are willing to help!

Once James and I get settled in we watched a Hallmark movie starring Luke Perry, "Love in Paradise."

Friday, January 8, 2016

The Lueck's!

James left early this morning to pick up Blake Sherwood and go to Glendale to look at metal building that Greg Hatch wants to buy and move to the Chandler Airport.  

Let me tell you a little about Blake Sherwood.  He grew up in Snowflake and he graduated the same year James and I did.  He is an old boyfriend of mine so it's a little weird that James is thinking about working with him.  

James is supposed to be back by 10:30 so that I can leave for my infusion appointment at the AARA.  He calls a little after 8 and says that he had a blowout and that something is wrong with the spare.  At first he wants me to come and get them, and then he calls back and says they got a Highway Patrolman to help them.  

Last night Terry said we could use his truck.  We didn't think we would have to, but this is kind of an emergency.  Terry and Cathi will be gone all day to the Records Operation Center for their mission.  I am grateful Terry is so generous because I ended up using his truck.  

They took me right in at the infusion center.  I also had an appointment with Dr. Caldron's physician's assistant, Tiffany.  She is leaving at the end of January.  She adopted a four month old baby and has a five year old, so she wants to work from home.  I will miss her!  My appointment was at 11 and I am finished by 12.  They are very efficient!

James and I had lunch at Oregano's.  I had the Vino Bambino salad and James had the Pablo Picasso salad.  We shared burschetta.  I was a little disappointed with the burschetta.  I wanted it to be warm, but it wasn't.  It did have a good favor though.

After lunch James went to Cathi and Terry's to take a nap and I went to get my prescriptions and to do a little shopping at Walmart.  I bought Sheri a food processor to replace the one that got broken  I couldn't find the same one as the last one.  

I met Sheri and her boys and her Primary class at Peter Piper Pizza this afternoon.  I ordered some cinnamon bread and shared it with everyone.  It was delicious!  I took Max and Evan home so Sheri could take the kids from her class home.  Ben is at driving class.  Max and Evan could have gone with Alex, but they went with me instead. 

James and I went to Tempe to visit Carmen, Dawn, and Lois. Carmen is here visiting from Pennsylvania.  We had pizza, salad, and apricot pineapple pie.  I ended up leaving my purse, and James left his jacket.

  Carmen, James, Dawn, and Lois.

Zaki's twins:

One weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and the other weighed 6 lbs.

Not bad for being two weeks early!

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Good friends from the Vernon ward,

Becky and Chris Skousen.

Becky is the Primary President and my visiting teacher, and Chris is the High Priest Group Leader.  

We got some snow last night and there is lots more scheduled for today.  

James thinks that the leak in the basement has slowed down enough that we can leave for a couple of days  He goes out to start the car and it won't start.  He opens the hood and fins that a rat has built a nest on the engine and assumes that he chewed a wire in two.  He is able to jump the car so the rat has been falsely accused.

He loads up the car, including two Christmas trees, a tub of lost and found items and my Oreck vacuum which needs to be fixed.  We leftg the house at 11:20.

I wanted to go through Payson but the megatron said you either needed to have chains or a four-wheel drive. 

  Tons of snow

Gorgeous

This picture was taken as we left Miami and were coming into Superior just before we got to the bridge.

I have never seen waterfalls here before!

Traveling was slow.  It took us five hours instead of our usual three and a half.  We stopped at Trina's house to say hi to her and the kids.  Then we headed to Goodwill on Pecos and Arizona Avenue to get rid of our old living room Christmas tree.  We then stopped at Stacy and Paul's to give them the tree they left at the cabin a few years back.  We visited for a few minutes and felt bad we didn't have a treat for Holly.  Next we went to Kim's and then Sheri's.  We had Taco Bell for dinner before finally arriving at Cathi and Terry's. The dogs were very happy to see us!  We stayed up and visited with them until about 10pm. 

Throwback Thursday

 I used to collect Hot Wheels and would have loved to

have this to display my cars.

The drugstore where I went almost everyday

after school for a baked ham sandwich and a cherry phosphate.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

We had over 76 elk in our yard this morning.  James was so happy!

 Two out of the 76

It started snowing and the elk started leaving.  We had snow, and then sunshine.

James cleaned out the hall storage closet.  Thanks Honey!  It looks great!  (I think he was looking for a dead mouse, but no luck.)

We were going to leave for the valley today but the water is still leaking in our basement, so we postpone until tomorrow.  

I a slowly getting Christmas things put away but I've decided to leave the tree up until next weekend when Kim and Brian come so they can see it.  Yes, it is that beautiful!

I made a fresh salad to go with dinner tonight.  I think James was grateful to have some fresh veggies. 

We watched the new Garage Sale Mystery movie starring Lori Laughlin on the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel.  It was a good one.

Our friends, Collin and Wendy DeWitt sent a greeting from their mission in the Carribean.

Nice apron, Collin! 

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

The Heyman family

 There was no snow here in Vernon, but we did get a little rain.  

I am worried about going over on our internet gigabytes.  James was online most of the morning categorizing expenses on our cred card.  I also had to go online to finish paying some bills.  We are now at 87% of our allotment and we have to go until January 13th.  If we go over Verizon charges us $15 for each gigabyte.  We are already paying $130 for 30 GB.  I feel like Verizon is very unfair.  For several months we were way under on our monthly sage.  Wouldn't it be fair to give us a discount or forward what we didn't use to the next month?  Not many companies serve our area and most of them require you to have a phone line.  Mud and internet, the two things I don't like about living here.  

I worked on putting Christmas decorations away.  Today it was my large nativity and Christmas knicknacks.  Our basement still has a slow leak.  

I worked on my blog today.  I am now three weeks behind.  

Here is something to cheer me up:

 Looks like Lola made a visit to Chandler Eye today.

We are still finishing up our Christmas movies.  Tonight we watched "Santa for Christmas", and "The Christmas Claus".  

Monday, January 4, 2016

Our good friend Ruth Gale and six of her seven children.

Val her husband passed away and so did her son Thomas, both

in motorcycle accidents.

It was cloudy today and was supposed to rain but it never did.  James and I read two chapters fro the Book of Mormon.  James fixed the leaky water valve, but there is still water in the basement.  He also worked on taxes.  I start putting the Disney tree away and pay some bills.  I like quiet days when I can putter around the house getting things done.  

We had one Christmas casualty.  Cinderella, one of the ornaments on the Disney tree was beheaded and her body is missing.  I sent out a group text and got this response from Stacy:

"Joshua said it was Emmy that broke it mom.  It was at night so he forgot to tell you.  Evan and Emmy were light saber fighting and Evan went to get a drink.  Emmy was doing cool stunts with the darth maul light saber and she accidentally hit the tree and a couple of the ornaments flew off and Cinderella broke.

He said Emmy looked at him scared and he walked away.  You were in the kitchen.  He thought she was going to tell you  He said they both saw the head and that was it.  Neither one of them stuck around.  he said that light saber is hard to use and she was doing awesome stunts but he warned her she was too close.  He also said please don't be mad at her cuz she looked scared and that means she is sorry."

Maybe she was afraid of getting in trouble so she took it?  He only ever saw the head and didn't stick around.

I am sad Emmy was afraid to tell me about it.  I would not have been angry with her.  Anyway, Carmen, James's sister is giving me one that she bought after Christmas.  Here is a picture.

 I think this one is nicer than the original.

R.I.P. Cinderella

We watched two more Up Christmas movies this evening:

"Silver Bells"

"The Christmas Bunny"

We both loved The Christmas Bunny.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

The blessing of baby Ander Hoose

Happy Birthday Cathi!

One of my most favorite people in the world!

Today I gave my first lesson on the Book of Mormon.  We got to church early so I could set up my room, something I never did last year.  I am so glad I did!  Things ran much more smoothly.  We sat by Jared and his kids and Paula Johnson during sacrament meeting.  

None of the Miller's were at church today.  Debbie, the bishop's mother, is in the hospital.  She has a weakened immune system because of her chemo therapy treatments.  

James bore his testimony today about Stacy giving a Book of Mormon to Cindy Ganado and the fruits of that effort.  

Tyler Hunsaker bore his testimony.  He will be leaving on his mission on January 13th.

Emmy was in my class today along with Braylin Chaffin, Curtis and Zemira Wilhelm.  There are five other children on my roll but the only one I have ever seen is Kacey Westbrook.  She is Wade and Jackie Butler's granddaughter and is a sweetheart.  I wish she would come more often.

Our lesson was: "The Book of Mormon, a Gift from a Loving Heavenly Father."  The kids were so good!

I had a coughing attack during sharing time and had to leave.  Molly came looking for me.  

After church Jared and the kids get ready and leave for home. 

Great memories!

Come back soon!

 James and I break our fast a little early because we both have headaches.  We had burgers for dinner and then watched some movies on the Up channel.  We watched: "Three Days of Christmas", "The Nativitiy", and "Christmas Snow".  Christmas Snow is one of my favorites.  

I forgot to mention that the kids enjoyed playing with my Calico Critters while they were here.  Surprisingly none of them got lost.

 Calico Critter community

I am grateful my nativity set survived the Christmas chaos.