Catching Up

Oh my, I have been downloading the pictures for this blog for the past 3 hours. I can't believe I allowed myself to get so far behind. The year is already half over with! I promised myself that I would not go to bed tonight until I had caught up my blog, I just had no idea how long it was going to take.

My life is so very full and I am so very blessed. The pictures and captions below represent just a small portion of the last 6 months. I left off at Christmas Eve so will pick up again Christmas morning!

Christmas morning begins by going upstairs to see what Santa has left at the Morris home. There is always so much I believe that Santa has to bring an extra sleigh just for their gifts!

Mary and Cam with Hudson and Kennady. Sorry Cam, it looks like you got your picture taken before you were wide awake. We were so excited to have them back home for the holidays and hopefully for good.

Tim and Kim always come up for Christmas Eve. They spend Christmas morning with us until breakfast and then head back down to Kim's parents home in Sandy to celebrate with them.

Marlon, Daniella, and Dalene were up from Las Vegas.

Cheryl actually was up for the holidays also.

Santa brought us 3 little princesses, Snow White, Ariel, and Sleep Beauty!

After opening our gifts we all head for the kitchen for our traditional breakfast of pancakes, orange rolls, scrambled eggs, orange juice, and eggnog.

The 3 little princesses patiently waiting for their breakfast.

Our long-time friends, Kurt and Roberta Barraclough. They are more like family than friends. We lived down the street from each other as our children were growing up. Eventually they built a home in town and we moved up the hill. Unfortunately, Kurt lost his job several months ago during one of the many ATK lay offs. He has since taken a job in Florida. Roberta is trying to get their home sold so that the rest of the family can join him. My heart can hardly handle the thoughts of them being so far away. We couldn't let the Christmas season go by without spending a few minutes with them and their family.

The entire Barraclough clan minus a few husbands!

Bet you can't guess what day it is! It was fun spending the holiday's with my sister in our home.

I have tried hard to make sure that I don't loose touch with my dear friends. Here we are celebrating 3 birthdays, Cindy Roper, Janet Seeley, and Neil Poulsen. Roberta Barraclough also joined us for dinner and cake.

Dave's birthday.......HaPpy BiRtHdAy DAVID!

Well, we are just having one birthday after another. This time it is Keri Beth's!

Speaking of birthdays, Tyson and Nancy (one of our foster daughters) had a "tiny" 10 lb. 1 oz

baby boy they named Cameron.

Grandpa Kerry with baby Cameron.

And yes, it is another birthday. This time we are celebrating Miss Kennady's 1st. It seems like just yesterday I was in Florida for her birth. Mary made her this huge cupcake and we all got little ones. So cute.

It didn't take her long to dig right in. I really wanted to help. It looked so good.

All gone!

Cleaned up!

Just a few day's after Kennady's birthday, our oldest granddaughter McKayla became a teenager when she turned the ripe old age of "13". Not sure what happened to her party pictures but you can see from this picture that she is maturing into a beautiful young lady.

I am not sure where to start with this story. I want to do a separate post, but for now I had to at least mention the Savior Of The World Production that I was blessed to oversee. Actually, I have no doubt that it was the Lord who oversaw this entire event as we witnessed miracle after miracle. It is a musical about the Resurrection. The Stake Cultural Arts Committee, of which I am the director, presented the idea to the Stake Presidency to put on the SOTW production. After being given an okay, we started out with a small budget of $1300.00. There was no way we were going to be able to do this, but the Lord knew different. We began with this truck load of borrowed pallets for our stage. You can't believe the finished product, it was absolutely amazing. There was many, many, hours donated by many, many talented people. It truly was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life time. We did 5 different showings the weekend before Easter, with a total of around 3000 people attending. I will never forget this sacred time!

Our director, Michelle Martineau, and assistant director Heather Strong. I grew to love these women so much.

The stage is starting to take shape and this was one of numerous practices.

This is one of my most favorite parts, when Mary the Mother of Jesus is explaining to the Children about his death. You can see how beautiful our costumes turned out. Our daughter, Keri Beth, is standing behind the young boy.

I am so grateful for the testimonies that were strengthened of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Our granddaughters, Maddi and McKayla after the first performance when Michelle gave everyone a rose. Mason and Marlie also participated.

The Stake Cultural Arts Committee: myself, Lisa Skinner, Rosa Thornley (back row) Nan Croney, and our High Councilman Alan Heiner. What a blessing it has been in my life to work with these wonderful people. I will be sad when our time together is finished.

Easter weekend we went down and spent Friday night at Tim and Kim's. They just finished their family room and we were excited to see it. While there we went to a place with all kinds of games and rides. Here is Tim and Kerry with Addison and Drew.

On Saturday we went to Thanksgiving Point to participate in a variety of activities and an Easter Egg hunt. The kids especially enjoyed the pony rides. There were so many kids that the egg hunt wasn't quite as rewarding.

Hudson loved the ponies!

Hudson and his mommy Mary.

The train ride that was pulled by a tractor was also a hit. It was so cold, I was glad I had a blanket in the car. Not sure if Drew can see anything under her bunny ears.

Kerry and the "Drew bunny".

The kids were all dressed up for church on Mother's Day. I love this picture of Marlie.

Big sisters McKayla and Madison.

Mason is all "duded up". He still has his teeth in this picture. His smile looks a little different these days.

All the mom's on Mother's Day: Kami (foster daughter), daughters, Mary and Keri Beth, Kim (daughter-in-law), myself, and Nancy (foster daughter). Were were missing foster daughter Ryann who couldn't make it up from Ogden.

Here we are with our 8 grandchildren (not counting the foster grandchildren). I gave up a long time ago trying to get them all to look at the camera and smile. I just take what I can get.

Cam with Hudson and Marlie enjoying strawberry shortcake.

My sister asked me to make a trip to Washington DC with her to attend her son's graduation from George Washington University. Never having been to DC, I was excited to join her. When my girls found out I was going they said that I had to bring them back some "DC Cupcakes". There is a reality show on TV filmed from here. Being the good mom that I am, I made a trip into George Town, bought the cupcakes and hand carried them all the way home! These pictures aren't in any special order and only represents a small portion of the photos I took.

Stephen and me in front of the White House.

Laura arranged for us to be able to take a tour of the Capitol Building. It was amazing. This is the ceiling of the Rotundra.

All of us waiting for our tour to begin. It was fun to see Laura, Ashley and their little families.

My sister and I took the Metro to Arlington. I wish we could of had more time there.

It was kind of a long walk, and I was getting blisters, but I just had to go to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Fortunately, we arrived just at the changing of the guard.

We made it to a couple of the museums. This was one of the space capsules that John Glenn came out of space in. I don't think I would even fit!

Spent one morning with Uncle Dave and Ashley seeing the art museum.

One of my favorite art pictures.

Stephen's friend Mark, manages an eating/dance establishment and arranged for us to eat there a couple of times. The food was excellent.

Stephen on graduation day with his mother and sisters.

The actual graduation for George Washington University was on the lawn between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. How amazing is that!

A look in the other direction. What a special experience.

Our last night there I wanted to go back to the Lincoln Memorial to see it at night.

There is so much history here, I wish the walls of all of these special places could talk. I loved my time in DC and hope to take Kerry back to visit sometime.

Had to include a picture of my aprons. I have spent hours making dozens of aprons for my friends. I have found that I LOVE creating them. Each one is different.

I have to mention that this has been the looooooongest winter. It is the end of June and we are finally starting to have some warm weather. There is still a year's worth of water in the mountains that needs to come down. Bear Lake is going to fill up this year! I am still waiting to be warm.

What happened to our beach? We used to drive around these rocks and park on the sand. It's good that the lake is full but we will miss driving down to the water. Now we have to park in a parking lot and walk. We are fortunate to still have beach access at the resort. Most people have lost their beaches altogether.

Time for another birthday. Hudson was turning 3 so Mary and Cam had a fun party for him at the park by their home in Wellsville. Here is Kim with Drew and Mary with Kennady.

When I asked Hudson what he wanted for his birthday, all he would say was "a cake". So I had Connie Archibald make his a Toy Story cake. Mary bought the figures and Hudson LOVED it.

The kids were all standing around just waiting to sing so they could eat the cake.

A couple of weeks ago, my childhood friend, Kathy Malchow (Norberg) came to visit from California. We grew up down the street from each other. I took her and her husband Craig,out to Thiokol to see the rocket garden and to see where Kerry works. It was so much fun to spend a few hours together. They parked their trailer out in front of the house and spent the night with us.

We spend quite a bit of time attending our grandchildren's activities. McKayla is our dancer and here she is all ready to go to a competition. She also takes cheer, tumbling, and plays soccer.

Maddi claims to hate basketball, but she sure did well and it was fun to watch her.

Maddi also plays on a competitive, traveling baseball team. It's fun to watch her as she tries to intimidate the other team with a "lead off" from third base.

Mason is quite the soccer player, always scoring most of his teams points.

Our "toothless" ball player. He recently lost 3 teeth in one day.

I recently went on a "field trip" with the emergency preparedness committee from the hospital/community. The county sheriff took us to some amazing places. This is a small cemetery where 2 people from Russia are buried. A group of Russians immigrated back in the late 1800 to Park Valley as they had heard they could get cheap land. They actually lived by digging into the earth and then just covering the hole with something for a roof. There are still pieces of pottery around from when they lived there.

Amazing rock formations.

Father's Day. Kerry with Addi, Drew, and Hudson.

This last weekend, Kerry and I helped at our Stake Youth Conference. It was wonderful. It was centered on the Book of Mormon and I feel blessed to have been able to attend.

Well, this about brings me up to date. One thing I don't have pictures of is when I went to California in April to attend Cerise's mom's funeral. It also gave me time to visit with another dear friend Vickie from high school. This is the year we all turn the big "60" so my sister, Vickie, and I spent the day getting a manicure and having lunch together. I really, truly, can't believe I will be 60. I still remember my 3rd birthday, how could so many years have past? I am still trying to decide how I am going to celebrate. In the meantime, I am so grateful for each and every day of my life. God has blessed me beyond my ability to comprehend.