Monday, February 27, 2012

FEBRUARY - THINGS WE LOVE

When I look at all of the pics for the blog this month, I realize that there are mostly pics of people and things we love.
Most appropriate for the Love Month, don't you think?

 Roger and I don't really care much about the Super Bowl anymore, but we use it for a good excuse every year to have something Roger loves, wings from Winger's.  So we get them on Saturday, with the sauce in a separate container, then on Sunday after church, I crisp the wings up in the oven, then pour the heated yummy sauce all over them, and yum! 

I made a broccoli and bacon salad, which we both love . . .
. . . and we love cinnamon streusel cake.


We were invited to Crystal Lakes for their annual Valentine's Dinner and I brought potato fennel gratin.  It was such a fun evening; lots of our branch members live at Crystal Lakes. We even danced after dinner, which we both love to do!


We had our last-for-a-while Aggie Dinner Night on February 10 at Taylor's.
Both the Taylors and the Bradys are soon to go on missions.  We have loved these evenings together with dear friends, and will miss them, the evenings and our friends, dearly!
I made a chocolate brownie torte for dessert in the heart-shaped pan my kids gave me.


As my kids know, their mom loves to fiddle with new recipes - I had fun!
Didn't Anne set a lovely table?  She made a delicious chicken pot pie and the most wonderful home-made rolls.  Mary brought a yummy salad. 
Anne put candles on the torte and they sang Happy Birthday.
love these guys!



We had dinner with our college days friends, Jane and Dan Madsen.  Jane and I are both Valentine babies, so we love to get together around our birthdays every year.

Roger booked a hotel in Las Vegas for the night after Valentine's Day for a quick get-away to celebrate V-Day and my birthday because the prices were dramatically better.  So on Valentine's Day, he took me to lunch at my the restaurant I love most in St. George, The Painted Pony. And we both ordered the dish I have a hard time not ordering when I go there for lunch (that must be love), seared ahi tuna salad. 
Had to have a dessert on my birthday, right?  This was a good one!
Then we went off to Las Vegas the next day. We heard of a little restaurant in Henderson in a strip mall with 5* food at reasonable prices that is all prepared by a CIA-trained chef. It was hard to choose our entrees, they all sounded so good!  Roger had short ribs with jalapeƱo mashed potatoes and I had sea scallops with pistachio and mushroom mashed potatoes; it all was described much fancier than this, and it was delicious!  We loveTodd's




After dinner, we went to one of the very best shows we have seen in Las Vegas, Terry Fator, the ventriloquist. He won on the first season of America's Got Talent.  We absolutely loved his show!  He's really got talent! We had lots of fun shopping, going to Primm, Fashion Show Mall and the other outlets.
  
Grandma, Chyrrl and Glynn came and stayed with us that weekend to see Shaylee perform in the Rebel Dance Team at Dixie. It was an end of the year review of all of their numbers and other dance groups also performed.  She is the cutest, bestest one, of course! We loved visiting with these guys and hanging out.


Kara, Shellie, Todd (3 seats down), me, Grandma and Chyrrl are waiting for the program to start. All of Shaylee's family came to St. George to see her dance.
Susie, Jenny and her twins, Ella and Abbie also came and stayed with Jerry and Delores Hagen, Susie's long-time friends.




Sunday morning we went to church in our branch and INSTA-CHOIR sang, Battle Hymn of the Republic because it was President's Day weekend. Many visitors came up, and we had almost 60 people sing!  For the last chorus, I turned around and directed the entire congregation.  What a thrill and it made our hearts swell with love for our country! We had almost 500 attend our Sacrament meeting. 
We invited all of the Stratfords over for dinner on Sunday.  Shellie's family (except Shaylee) had to get back for Todd's uncle's 50th wedding anniversary, so they couldn't come.  I made carne asada with tortillas and guacamole and black bean corn salad, and we had Los Lupe's salsa and chips (we picked up on the way home from Vegas).  For dessert I made panna cotta with fresh berry sauce.


Shaylee's last two games were the next Wednesday and Saturday nights, so Dad and I decided to go. The Red Storm are a good little scrappy basketball team and are fun to watch.  Wednesday night they were playing BYU-Hawaii for the championship.  What a great game; they won in overtime and the place went crazy!

Saturday night they lost by 2 points, but the championship had already been determined.  Oh, I can add a another thing to our Never Happened Before list - Roger and I were put on the jumbotron on the scoreboard for a few seconds and at the bottom it said, "Kiss her!"  I guess this is commonplace at the games and everyone who comes regularly knows about it.  We were so shocked to see us up on the screen, that we didn't notice the words, so we just grinned and waved.  A minute later, my sister, Kay, texted Roger from across the gym, " why didn't 'cha kiss her?"  Da! We're a little slow! 
We invited Shaylee to come for dinner after church next day.  I made cream of chicken soup, a green salad, corn muffins and we had salted caramel sundaes for dessert.  Shaylee is a very special young lady and we love having her in our home.  She will finish her semester at Dixie, then she wants to get into a dental hygienist program.  
Roger and I attended our last institute class on the Pearl of Great Price, taught by Dean Marriott on Monday, the 27th.  He and his wife were just called on a mission to Stockhom, Sweden, to work with the young adults. His classes have been so good and we have loved going to them.

What a great Love Month it has been! I kinda hate the celebration to end!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

2012 IS HERE! - January Happenings

As the sun set on 2011, 
a great new year was ready to begin!
I am starting the new year by beginning my own blog 
so I can share our news
 with my nieces, nephews, friends, etc.!
I plan to continue to post in Stratford Scoop, also.  Soooo . . . 
2012, here we go!
I thought this was a great way to use Roger's pic he took a couple weeks ago off of our back deck - 
a beautiful January St. George sunset.
We drove home on New Year's Day from Rick and Jodie's (We had such a wonderful week with all of our kids in their home for the Holidays!).  The next morning, we drove through Las Vegas to Mesa to help Ryan and Emily move in to their gorgeous, newly re-modeled home.  We returned home three days later, tired but so glad we went.  Roger was able to help Ryan a lot with a lot of grunt work and I helped watch kids and did some cooking.
Our first event of the year was to attend the St. George Chamber of Commerce Awards and Installation Gala.
It was fun to get dressed up 
(thank you, Joan, for the St. Thomas jacket for Christmas!) 
and among those honored and in attendance that night were Jefferey R. Holland and Paul Anderson of thepianoguys.com (of John Schmidt fame).  Check it out!
Patty and Hal decided to get a little R and R after their mammoth task of moving in to a new home. Among all their hard work, they unpacked boxes that hadn't been opened since they moved from their first home in Caldwell. Their daughter, Jessica, was a huge help and their home is beautiful.  Hal, a new branch president at the MTC, had a break from receiving new missionaries and we were delighted that they came to stay with us in St. George!
They arrived Monday afternoon and we had a late tomato basil soup and panini lunch, then I made beef burguignon, a salad and individual peach (from Kay and Ken's peaches) crisps for dinner.
Next day, Hal, Roger and Bill Gordon golfed together.
Patty and Hal served with the Gordons on CES missions in Russia and the Gordons live in our branch.
 Kay, Patty and I met at Sakura for a yummy lunch in bento boxes.  I don't know exactly what it is about bento boxes, but I absolutely love them! As we were finishing, Dad and Hal, having completed their golf game, came strolling in with a camera, popping our pics.  I think everyone thought they must be paparazzi and wondered why we were famous. We then went shopping at Urban Renewal. Sister lunch and shopping is THE BEST!
Then Patty and I went for massages; I had a gift certificate from last Mother's Day and April, the cute lady who has given me a few massages, had surgery on both of her knees, so someone else gave me mine.  She wasn't as good, but it was still wonderful and Patty said the foot part was the best ever! 
We met the Gordons, Bill and Barbara, for dinner at Paradise Bakery.
Ken, Hal and Roger golfed next day, then we met for dinner at Pancho and Lefty's.
We then met back at our house for cherry pie and ice cream (Jeff, you would have loved it!).


Patty and Hal left Thursday morning, then Friday morning we left for Mesa to be there for Ben to be baptized.  Friday night it was the Pinewood Derby and it was fun to see Ben's rainbow car that he designed all by himself compete on the professional track.  It may not have been the fastest one, but it sure was the best looking!



His cousin best bud, Maddy, came to watch.
Saturday morning we worked on fruit kabobs for the Open House at Ryan and Emily's after the baptism.  Another boy in their ward was baptized, too, so the two families combined the get-together, which had about 130 people attend.  Ryan and Emily's gorgeous home was the perfect venue; I think about half of their ward came as it was kind of a house-warming, too. 
At noon, we went to watch Peter, Jake and Brad and Cynda's son, Cooper, play the Diablos in basketball.  Ryan is the coach and Tom is the assistant coach of their great little team, and they are such great coaches, so positive and building to the boys.  The Diablos play basketball year round and thought our team was just a scruffy little push-over. Were they in for a surprise!  What an exciting game!  We were behind at the half, and the Diablos actually pulled away for awhile, but boy, did our boys come roaring back! They won by 3 points!
Hustling Pete
Super shooter Jake

Jake, Cooper and Pete with their victory smiles!
The coaches with part of their super team
The baptism was at 4 pm. Ben was so excited!
Ben's family and friends who could be there
Ben's biggest supporters
Priesthood
Ben's grandmas and grandpas

Sarah Kate's cute little mug
We gave Ben our iron rod box that we make for each grandchild. 
Becca Sue and Grandpa
The Open House after the baptism was so nice- their home accommodates many people inside and out. There were four kinds of soup, bread bowls, appetizers and the most delicious decorated cupcakes ever! Roger was so busy guarding the uncovered pool (the pool people were supposed to get the cover on before, but didn't, and we were all very worried someone would fall in the pool) that he didn't get any pics of the lovely event.
Cute little sisters

Sunday after church, Stacy had us all (Ryan, Emily and family, Grit and Sherry, Brad and Cynda and family and us) over for Tom's birthday dinner. We had a great meal, including Stacy's home-made bread sticks, orange rolls, three kinds of soup and a big Texas sheet cake. The twins were busy helping us cook; they love to be chefs!
Maxwell Roger's talents are many!

Emily, Tom, Stacy, Cynda, Brad, Roger, Mom and Ryan
Luke almost always has a smile on his face!
Cute little twinners!

Monday we went to a great restaurant for lunch with Emily and Stacy, walked through Stacy's new home, then headed home.  It was a cram-packed, fun-filled weekend!