November 8, 2015

Hi to all our loved ones!

This has been a great week, celebrating my 70th Birthday!  (I believe in celebrating all week.) 

Last week I spent a couple of days in Rexburg - having some Halloween fun with kids and grandkids, delivering cookies to Josie and little Atlas in their new house in Iona and to Tanner, Daniel, nephew, Logan Sant, and grandson Ben Godfrey and his fiancee, Aileen.  I got to go to a Pumpkin Patch and witness a "Pumpkin Cannon," (which was very impressive) and follow Katie around as she supported Maddie in her Halloween party with friends and prepared for Kennedy and McKay's Birthday party on Halloween morning.

Sarah and Ted Schroeder arrived Halloween afternoon, so we celebrated with Ben and Aileen, Tom and Amanda and had home evening on Monday with Grandma Cox, Steve and Denise and Brittney (neighbors and also family).

Mandy and Shane and baby Meg came down on Wed. morning and we headed for Salt Lake and boarded a plane for Chicago, then drove to Mat and Jill's and met Kris and Travis there.  The Palmers were all prepared for us.  Lucy slept in her parents' closet and Liv slept in their room, Vaughn slept with his cousin Stockton on bunkbeds. (Stockton has been staying with them while waiting to go to South Dakota to start a job.)  So Clair and I had Lucy's room, the Dallings had Livvy's room and Kris and Travis had a nice air mattress in the family room.

We packed a lot into those two days!  Mat and Jill arranged for us to go to the "International Twirling Museum!"  The fella who maintains it is a patient of Mat's and is quite the guy.  He had pictures and letters and manequins and costumes and a supply house full of batons and plaques, which he gave to all of us.  He was in the movie business and was a "best friend" to all the stars, including Elvis!  It was so fun!  I'll never look at baton twirling the same!  Mat, I hope you will post pictures on this blog, so everyone can see what we saw.

We took a tour of Mat's dental office, which is so nice.  And everyone there was so nice to all of us.  He has a very pleasant place to work with lovely people to work with.

That night we all went to a dinner theater in Fort Atkinson called "The Fireside."  The food was wonderful and we just enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and little shops and then watched the stage play, "It's a Wonderful Life."  We had to leave halfway through.  Meg was not happy without her Mom, but we all knew the plot and how it ended, so it was okay.  Thank you so much Mat and Jill for funding that night.

The next morning Ted and Sarah drove down to join us and the boys went shooting and Travis Klingler went shooting too - lots of pictures!  The girls loaded in the van and went out into the country and to the Amish bakery, where we bought Amish goodies.  We all oohed and awed over the beautiful countryside.  The rolling hills and clean farmland and quaint houses are "charming" as Mat and I say.  We met the boys at the Amish General Store and bought more goodies and souvineirs and then went to the Amish furniture store (expensive, but wonderful) and then on the the cheese factory for cheese sandwiches which included "picklelicious" and "3 mouseketeers."

Then we headed home to get ready for Vaughn's Baptism at 5:00.  It was very well attended.  Three of Jill's brothers and their families were there, along with all of us and many of their ward family and some non-member friends and co-workers.  I had the priviledge of giving the talk on Baptism and the Holy Ghost and Jill bore a beautiful testimony, Mat baptized and confirmed Vaughn and the girls and I Liv got to sing "Beautiful Savior."  Then we all went back to the house and Jill's brother Seth cooked pizza out in the driveway in his portable brick oven.  He must have made 50 pizzas! (at least)  And they were so good!
Jill had ordered some yummy gourmet cupcakes in honor of my birthday, and then the Klinglers, Dallings and Clair and I went to Coldstone Ice Cream, where Livvy was working.  She made us all some yummy ice cream treats and made Grandpa a great malt!  Back to the house, where Jill and Mat were having a great reminiscing time with Jill's family.  It was a wonderful day.

We got up around 4:30 a.m. and got on our way to Chicago for our flight at 10:10 a.m.  We got back to Salt Lake around 12:15, went to the Lion House for lunch, got home around 4:15 and sent the Dallings on their way, so they could get back for their evening meeting of stake conference. Whew!  It was a great trip and it truly is "A Wonderful Life!"  Thank you Mat and Jill, Livvy, Lucy and Vaughn for everything. 

Please, anyone who has pictures, post them on this family blog, so they will be there forever.

Love you all,
Mom and Clair