Fall 2018

We love our home. We have a family joke from back in the day when we were traveling to La Grande to visit my mom and dad. As we arrived Tony, who was probably only 5 or 6 years old, realized it wasn't Grandma and Grandpa Ranquist's rather palatial home in Albuquerque, but instead the old homestead on 1005 "L" (which was heaven on earth but still more modest in size, and no chandeliers). Tony seemed sad and we asked him why, because we knew he loved visiting Grandma and Grandpa in La Grande, and he said "but it's LITTLE!"  It became one of those little family phrases that stuck and we say it all the time. We say it all the time now when we return from visiting any of our four children and survey our house - we look at each other and laugh and say "but it LIIIITTLE!"

Here we are in the beauty of Tony and Cindy's house, celebrating Reagan's 18th birthday. I bought her a Ronald Reagan sweatshirt for her birthday. It's a scream.

All seven of the Springville Sweats.

There is something about the light on the mountains in Springville that is absolutely jaw dropping. It's stunning. I think it's as beautiful as any spot I've ever been on earth.

We try to make it to one sporting event a year for the kids and this was the one and only soccer game we went to for Vivi. We didn't even make it to any of Cal's, I feel bad. And Vivi scored a goal! Her first and only goal and we got to see it. You can see her hand-slapping her team mates right there in the middle - she's to the side of #10.

Giddy with glee over the goal. It is fun. It's also fun to arm wrestle on Sunday afternoon. Anything that's physical is funner than sitting around like a bump on a log. I am such a bump on a log.

We took some beautiful fall hikes in 2018.

The sacredness of every day life - Dennis has taken to turning on "Music and the Spoken Word" on Sunday mornings at 9:30. It gives beauty and meaning to being a bump on a log on the Sabbath.

I had to include this "picture of a picture" of Angie with the BEST 80's hair on the planet. The photo was taken in 1991 in La Grande, and you can see all of my parent's beautiful flowers.  Which makes me think I should be working in my yard rather than working on this blog post!! Again, bump on a LOG! (Grandma Hiatt resting peacefully in the background in real time).

Another random moment going through my dad's daily journal where he includes a sentence saying that baby Jack is "adorable" - "he reminds me of me." I love it!

It turned out that Amy and Dave made a previously unscheduled trip to Utah and we got to join them at Zion's National Park! I have become a big fan of Zion's park. It's so unique and incredibly stunning. I think I was trying to make it look like Macy and Carly were holding up the boulder :-()

 Me and my Amy ages 36 and 66!

It's a great big wonderful world out there!

 Me and Dennis ages 66 and 69!

 Watch out Jack, something might grab your arm!!!

 The "real" photographer at work!

  Huish family 2018.

It was a really great trip and the beginning of their journey toward moving to Utah!!!

Sagewood had an agreement with Daybreak Elementary School where each grade got to walk to Sagewood one time during the year and interact with the residents. This day was so wonderful. I think it's kind of daunting to see lots of the residents in their frail state, but these kids didn't seem phased at all. My mom loved being read to.

Lots of kids shown here reading to the residents.

 And another Springville Sweat birthday celebration! Jane Marie is 16!!

Wheeeee! 

I love teaching piano to Calvin. He is really bright and catches on so quickly! He likes to play everything fast and loud! Although I remember when he was in kindergarten and starting out, he could play sooooooo very softly, it was hardly audible.He's demonstrating here that his armspan is exactly as long as their piano. He's left-handed so I have to sit on his right side so I don't irriate the heck out of him reaching across him to correct things.

 And woooo whooooo!  Another new Jazz season where as I always say about sports in general "hope springs eternal!" 82 games in the regular season, plus, I don't know, 10 pre-season games? and today is March 26th and there are like eight games left in the regular season and the Jazz will make the playoffs so at least four games post-season, which adds up to around 100 nights a year that Dennis can look forward to!!!

Can't you just feel the fall breeze blowing through the open back door? It's always so nice when the days and nights cool off.

 I never know what I'm going to discover when I download photos from my camera. This one takes the cake. I was working on the Christmas quilt I made for Angie, and I could not see where the hole was to thread the needle. So genius me, I took a picture of it and enlarged it with my fingers and voila - I could see that the the hole went front to back, and not side to side!!

I will always cherish the experience of working on this quilt for Angie during the fall of 2018, in order to get it ready for Christmas. It was truly a labor of love for Wyatt and Angie. I pretty much had the whole bar relegated as a sewing room for lots of weeks, and it worked great. I usually kept the ironing board in my bedroom and would walk back and forth and back and forth all night long, ironing each seam because, as my mother rightly taught me, ironing is just as important as sewing straight. Dennis would be watching his new favorite show "Airline Disasters" on Discovery channel, although after hearing about all the plane crashes they investigate, it does give both of us pause when we board an airplane! 

And finally, some last fall photos, one of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple behind the fiery red leaves along the roadway, and then this beautiful photo from Tony and Cindy's back yard, with fall still in full swing, and a fresh dusting of powdered sugar snow on the mountains.

August and September, 2018

I'm going backwards in time, since my previous post was all about going to North Carolina in the middle of September, and these events happened a few weeks before then..

FAIRY GARDEN area (sans fairies). I love miniatures. I want miniatures for my miniatures.

The height of summer glory.

It's always sobering to look at pictures of my mom from just a few months ago and see how much she has declined. Although today (Sunday, March 17th, Leesie Lou's 21st Birthday as I write) I went up to see my mom and she was doing better than I've seen her in months. I had an ulterior motive for going on a Sunday because they have two daily newspapers delivered to the sitting area every day, and I love having newspapers for my potato peelings, but don't take the paper any more. I also love to have the Sunday comics on hand when the kids come for Sunday dinner, but I can't buy a Sunday paper on Sunday, so, voila - I stole one!  (do you think stealing memory care's Sunday paper is a bigger sin than breaking the Sabbath to buy one?).

This is such a walk into the past, 7 months ago it was the height of the farmer's market too. I LOVE the South Jordan farmer's market. It's close, and it involves farmers and their marketable fruits!

Dennis and I celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary at Market Street Grill. Mmmmmmmm, oysters and clam chowder.

SLLUUURRRPPP!

This picture is the BEST! Before Elise left on her mission I showed her this photo of great-grandpa Hiatt from his French mission journal (he was a scrapbooker before scrapbooking was cool). He had written "what's the use?" to go along with his expression. Elise wanted to re-create it so I sent it to her and she DID it. It's that awesome? She's the bomb.

This is BYU Education Week 2018 where Tony presented IN THE MARRIOTT CENTER THIS YEAR!! ROCK STAR STATUS!! He joked that his dream was to be playing basketball in that arena, but, yeah, wow. Really humbling and terrifying I'm sure, but he was just awesome.

School clothes shopping with the girls. I don't know which store we were in but I'll always associate school clothes shopping with them with Forever 21 which they know I hate! I should add that to my 5 things I hate list, and remove round-abouts! They're so fun to shop with. Now Lauren too old, and next Reggie will be too old too.

And this little Vivster is going to have such a different second decade of growing up, because she will be surrounded by BOYS.  "The girls" have been so "girly" and Viv will have to hold that down all by herself (with plenty of sisters to help her along the way and pave the road)!.

Eli and Cal  - Boys don't want to go school clothes shopping. But they did like the Orange Julius.

I think this was one of those random shots that come over all of us sometimes when we see a pretty sunset and think "I've GOT to take a picture." It's soul-satisfying to do it. So there ya go - a pretty random sunset replete with traffic signal.

We are blessed with robins in abundance, and it has the healing effect of feeling Wyatt very near. I take pictures of them all the time. Flocks of them. This is probably one of the photos I took last August of my solo buddy who was in the yard all last summer.

This is our Relief Society summer party at the Gibbon's home. They're rich. It's nice to know rich people.

Evidently Forrest was in town in August. I think he's juggling a lime and an avocado which is so appropriate for Forrest, the man who loves to cook, loves fresh ingredients and who in my opinion invented "Taco Tuesday!"

Okay, this is good for a giggle. I'm officially old (and semi-senile just so you know) because I am now a member of DUP. Yes, you could put that in my obituary. No, on second thought, never mind, I doubt I'll ever go to a meeting. I think they have "camps" or something.

Angie was here too for the Saints launch and this must be Cindy's birthday we're celebrating which is September 3rd.

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End of summer glory - Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches and fresh peaches, worthy of FOUR photos in a row

DEEEEEE-LISH!

And here, in stunning billboard-worthiness taken while I was hosting at the conference center, is the SAINTS launch!! and Angie, MY Angie is one of the writers. It's just such a thrill that she has this opportunity, and since she is a genius, it's just awesome knowing her genius mind is working so hard every day, full time, to help bring the history of the SAINTS to life, Latter-Day SAINTS, ALL ABOUT US YOU GUYS!

We got to attend the launch party at the Church History Museum. Oh my GOSH! It was thrilling to be there and to know Angie has been working so hard on this spectacular endeavor. We got to meet some of the other writers and historians. I developed a HUGE crush on one of the historians, whose name I can't remember, but his talk was just so good.

This is Angie and some of the other people who worked on SAINTS. The lady to her right (not the best picture but she will never know) wrote the screenplay for the film "Jane and Emma" that came out last fall. So many gifted, talented people in one room (with really good hour de ovres too!).

Denny came to the open house too and I remember that this little girl in the picture was a random little girl, we have no idea who she is!

And I'll finish with one of the simple pleasure of life - going to Springville every week for piano, and sometimes Cindy makes us dinner too!! And Dennis reads to Truman.XOXOXO MOM