The Holidays Begin in November!

Somehow, time has slipped away from me again! When I scrolled through our pics in Photo for the last 2 months, I realized why. It seems that once the holidays, not just Christmastime, but starting with Veterans Day (an important one, especially to my hubby), and on through Thanksgiving in November, it's non-stop plans and family and friend get-togethers. And, continuing on with our great blessings of new Greats, little Theodore Peter Stratford was born in Dallas November 11, on Veterans Day!

Roger, sometimes with me, made the usual rounds for free meals and collected coupons for future free meals on Veterans Day. And he met and had conversation with many other nice veterans and appreciative Americans.

Such blessings these sweet little Great-Grandkids are, so fresh from our Father in Heaven!

Parents Izzy and Pete are immediately in love!

Our dear friends from Aggieville so long ago, Kathy and Mike, have a second home in St. George and we look forward to their visits!

Roger makes the 4th Musketeer in this golf foursome, and he took these pics this beautiful fall day on the Dixie Red Hills Golf, Course! Karl, Dave and Derral - such great guys!

Missy sent these pics when she texted us that - Da Da - the peppermint shakes are back at Chick Fill-A!

Great-grandson Caleb is riding his trike to take freshly-picked flowers to his little best friend from France. The bottom pic is Caleb and his sister, Lydia, on the slide near their home. We're so glad his mom, Jaylene, keeps us in the loop with pics while they're at Cornell with Josh getting his MBA.

We look forward every fall to seeing this tree in our backyard being in full bloom!

We had a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Sunbrook when they put down new flooring on the pickle ball courts. It was a big event, as there are so many residents who are pickle ball players!

Now to the Big Event - spending Thanksgiving at our daughter, Stacy's! Out front to greet us when we arrived was this cute turkey blast from the past! He greeted many visitors for many years out on our front porch when we lived in Ogden!

And we felt so welcome with all of the extra-mile thoughtful things this cute family did for us!

We were slated to arrive from St. George to Gilbert right on time the first night, but got literally shut down on the turn-off highway just out of Kingman for 3 1/2 hours! A truck and a car hit head on when the road changed for the first time from separated highway to 2 lane road. Life flight for the 2 fatalities and travel shut down both directions in the desert wilderness for, I repeat, 3 1/2 hours! Yikes! Steve had bought movie tickets for all of us to see Wicked for Good, and, needless to say, we missed it. We're still looking forward to do that, but we were so relieved to finally arrive at Stacy and Tom's.

Second night was the annual Turkey Bowl! 

Roger had several strikes and spares.

Winner was Steve (not surprising for this super athlete to win!) and our grandson, Luke, came in 2nd.

Luke's twin, Max, said, "Hey, wait a minute - I was 3rd best score!"

Stacy hosted Thanksgiving for all of the Youngs who could come this year and Steve, Barb and kids were there from Palo Alto, one of Melissa's kids from Provo and Jimbo and Sham and kids from Gilbert. Such a fun tradition and the Turkey Bowl is held by all of our kids, wherever they live! 

Steve took us for ice cream at Salt & Straw - Yummy gourmet ice cream!

Stacy set such cute Thanksgiving tables!

Per tradition, the food was de-lish-ous!

Cute Maddy dishing up

Stacy makes tasty homemade rolls!

Football, chatting and zoning out all go with happy Thanksgivings!

Max and Luke saying goodbye to their cousin Thanksgiving night - they are super close with Steve and Barb's, Lila!

A couple of nights later, we returned to have more of that delicious ice cream with Stacy and Tom's family!

Stacy, Londyn and I did some fun shopping and Roger played pickle ball with the twins, Stacy ad Maddy and golfed with the twins and Tom. Stacy had already started to decorate for Christmas. They're having all of their kids and grandkids for Christmas, including Syd's family from Florida and Jake and Meira from Norway.

Family tree with collected ornaments through the years

Special tree in their bedroom with classic glass ornaments

Roger and I were sad when our time with this adored family came to an end!

We adore this wonderful family and can't wait 'til we're together again! It was a great November, with December close on its heels!

 

Happy Occurrences in October!

Happy Birthday, dear Stacy!

Our five children are incredibly supportive of Roger and I, as well as each other. Many times they have gone out of their way to be there when important, and even, not so important events, happen to one of us. When daughter, Stacy, heard that Roger was playing slow pitch softball in the Huntsman Senior World Games this year, she dropped everything and drove to St. George from her home in Gilbert, Arizona, to watch him play for a couple of days. What a treat it was to have her all to ourselves!

As it happened, she was with us on her birthday, so we squeezed in every celebration we could think of! Her favorite pie is lemon meringue or lemon sour cream. I can't believe our beautiful little "Stacy Lacy," is 52! Her energy level alone belies that fact! She strictly instructed me that I was not to cook while she was visiting, so we had some yummy meals between ball games!

Don't you love the name of Roger's softball team?

We took Stacy to Painted Pony for a birthday lunch and Stacy and I had my favorite, the Ahi tuna tower salad.

World Huntsman Games

Here's the lineup of Old Bones. Most of them are from northern Utah. Larry, Roger's old fraternity buddy from USU, called and asked him to play with them. He knew Roger can still run!

First day of determining what bracket each team would play in, Stacy and I cheered loud in the stands, encouraging words to all of the Old Bones players - especially Stacy. She was the head of the Cheer Squad at BYU in the day, and she is the BEST cheerleader!

That evening, she took us to dinner for sushi and curry at, Benja Thai.

Next day, we were in the stands again, cheering the team on.

A big bonus for Roger playing on this team is one of his best friends from high school, Danny, from up north, plays on the team. We also reconnect with Danny and his wife Carol up at Jerry's ranch with the annual Class of '62 reunions.

Below are some shots of Roger in action:

Two couples, Viki and Steve Whitmer and Nancy and Loran Van Noy, who are good friends down here and play pickle ball with Roger, came to watch the action.

Old Bones won a bronze medal - so exciting!

Rick, Jodie and Blake Visit

For fall break, Rick, Jodie and Blake came for a visit and to go to The Little Mermaid, at Tuacahn. They made a visit to the Visitors Center of the St. George Temple and to walk around the grounds.

Blake loves the shows at Tuacahn and he knows all of the music of the Disney shows and gets so excited and sings along! It's so nice that they treat us to the Tuacahn shows every time they come.

Rick took us to breakfast Saturday morning at First Watch before they left to go to the BYU-Utah game up north later that day.

The Smiths Visit

All of Missy and Jedd's kids but Jared, and wife, Kenna, came visiting on their fall break. Their daughter, Ellie, goes to school at Utah Tech, so it was fun having them with us for a few days!

Our Missy has such a cute family - we adore them!

They treated us to go see Newsies at Tuacahn with them. It is Ellie's favorite musical because of all of the amazing dancing, and it did not disappoint!

They loved the Cuban paninis for lunch!

Mother and daughter are looking more and more like each other!

We fixed a chicken and pasta birthday dinner for Missy. How cool that it worked out that each of these beautiful daughters were here on their birthdays!

I made a chocolate Oreo McFlurry birthday cake for Missy - she, and actually, all of them love Oreos!

Two Great-grand Babies Are Born!

Great-granddaughter, Charlotte Elizabeth, was born to our granddaughter, Anna, on October 23. She is so beautiful and both are healthy. Ryan and Emily were over the moon - their first grand baby!

Two days later, William Barton Stratford, was born to Josh and Jaylene, their third. Caleb and Lydia are ecstatic with their new baby brother!

Roger and I are so tickled to be blessed with two more beautiful great-grandchildren. Our total now is ten!

Our Rick has been a huge Dodger fan since childhood. He took daughter, Abby, to the second game of the World Series at Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately, they lost that night, but, oh how happy he was when they won the Series this year!

Halloween, 2025

Mindy's family goes all out - she loves Halloween!

That's Jeff in the pig? costume.

Grandson, Jack

Granddaughter, Fiona 

Granddaughter, Addie

Sydney, our oldest granddaughter, sent us pics from Florida of her cute family. Guess what characters all of the kids  are - some of them, I can't remember!

Rosie, Sydney, Syd's husband, Jake, Poppy, Henry and Charlie

Here is cute granddaughter, Sarah, Ryan and Emily's daughter (on the left).

This is Great-granddaughter, Ellie (Sadie and Joe's daughter)

Great-granddaughter, Charlotte, the little pumpkin is out for a walk on Halloween with her dad, Jack, our granddaughter, Becca, Mom Anna and our grandson, Ben.

So many happy occurrences happened in October!