Merry Month of May

In March, I posted about our branch's Relief Society Auction of homemade goodies and services to each other.  I had the amazing good fortune to win the bid for dinner at the "House of Wing." We just enjoyed that dinner with the Wings in their home on May 19. Myrna and Howie Wing have lived in our branch for a couple of years. He is a psychiatrist, son of an Olympic gold medal cyclist from China (Howie has a pic of his dad receiving his medal with Hitler present!)  and a Dutch Caucasian mother, and he is an amazing convert to the Church, serving as our High Priest Group Leader.  His father also became a member of the Church before he died.  Myrna is from the Philippines, they met in Canada in the lab and joined the Church together.  They are a very interesting couple.  Howie is quite an accomplished guitarist and we spent such a fun musical evening.  He remembers lots of great folk songs.

Myrna prepared an amazing dinner which included food of her and Howie's heritage - lumpia, Chinese shrimp noodles, a Dutch cucumber dish and wonderful fresh mango ice cream.  It was sooo delicious! 

Truly a highlight of May was the Keynote Spring Concert in the Tabernacle. Kay selects the theme, all of the music, and teaches and directs it at all of their rehearsals. After each concert we go to, I think, "Well, Kay has outdone herself this time.  It just couldn't get any better!"  And then, the next one comes, and we say, "Well, this is just the best one yet!"  But we say that every single time!

The theme was "Home" and we heard gorgeous harmony, blend and sweet sentiments. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing, super-talented sister!

The next day, we headed to Las Vegas for our one-to-one lessons and had lunch (on the Lettuce Entertain You card) at Mon Ami Gabi French sidewalk cafe in The Paris. It's our second favorite place (I don't think anything can beat Joe's Stone Crab) and we shared a delicious salmon salad and a lobster roll. It was a perfect day to eat outside, but those days are over already in hot Las Vegas!

Roger and I have kind of made it a custom to go for little day trips on summer holidays to see the marvelous beauty all around us.  We hadn't yet seen Kolob Canyon, so on Memorial Day, we headed about 40 minutes up I-15, then turned off to enter into the park.  Roger took some gorgeous pics of the red cliffs and there was so much lush green this time of year.

At home that evening, we cooked steaks out on the grill and wished we could be enjoying them with family. We don't cook steaks very often, and, of course they were not as yummy as Stratford beef (those were the days when we had our freezer full of Roger's Dad's beef he raised)!

I thought I would end with a precious pic Mindy sent of little Charlie!

He classes up this post a lot, don't you think?

Annual Mothers' Day's Chocolate-Covered Caramel Pretzel Trek Up North

On May 10, we headed up north to kill a few birds with one stone -

 to pick up the V-Chocolate caramel pretzels to pass out to all of the moms on Mothers' Day in the branch; to have Jessica work on my hair, since I haven't been up north since Christmas and it needed a major re-haul; to go to lunch with Grandma Strat with all of the girls who could go to celebrate Mothers' Day; to stay with Rick's family and catch up with them; and to return a box of my sister, Patty's, treasures she loaned me for when I taught the personal history workshop.

On Friday, Sadie had the busiest day ever!  She was in two events in the regional track meet - the high jump and she ran the 200 yard dash.  She came in second in her heat, which I think is awesome!  Like I told her in the car afterwards, I didn't think anyone in our car had ever done that; I know I haven't!

Look at Sadie go!

We then hurried to Roy for her to play in a basketball tournament. Sadie was her team's point guard, and she was like a female John Stockton! The game was way out west.  When we lived in Roy, there was just farm land that far out. Now it's like a whole other city. We drove by our old house in Roy after the game to show Rick's kids where their daddy used to live and talked about Roy memories. Most of Rick's childhood was spent in Roy.

Then, when we got home, Sadie mowed their lawn!  Oh, to be young again!

On Saturday, all Grandma Stratford's daughters, daughter-in-laws and any grand- daughters who could come, met for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory in the new City Creek in SLC. There were 14 women and Roger came, too, since he doesn't get to go to lunch with his mom very often, and besides, he loved being the only guy with a bunch of women!

Hey, Jodie!  So glad you could come to lunch!

(Dad just took this random shot of her, but don't you love her Michal Negrin earrings and pretty eyelashes?)

Dad and I were bowled over with the beauty of City Creek.  It is so well designed, with lovely landscaping, fountains, and a pretty little creek meandering through it. The views from the sky bridge of the Salt Lake Temple are gorgeous!  And the old ZCMI facade on Roger's left was preserved when they redid what was existing.

We all went shopping after lunch and took a few pics.

You can see some of the majesty of City Creek in the background.  And can you believe how amazing Grandma looks at 86?!

Susie had gone home before we took this pic, and Janae couldn't come to lunch, but we got a shot of the rest of Grandma's "girls." 

I don't have a pic, but we stopped at Patty and Hal's on our way home, which, by now, was dinner time.  After delivering the box and visiting a few minutes, we decided to go get a bite together at a new, non-chain (my favorite) barbeque joint in Payson.  So fun to chat and catch up with Patty and Hal, and the food was tasty!

So, Roger took the annual Mothers' Day pic of me after church.  And I must record our little saga afterwards.  We got home after 11 pm on Saturday night, so we did the "ox in the mire" thing for dinner on Mother's Day.  Roger didn't want me to cook, and we had no groceries for him to, so we set off for the Mothers' Day Buffet at Los Lupes in Mesquite.  Just before we were to enter the gorge on I-15, traffic came to a complete stop, and we sat there without moving for over ten minutes.  Two or three cars were braving the dirt median and turning around to head back to St. George, so we thought it was kind of silly sitting there, and headed back.  We ended up having sushi at Ichiban Seafood Buffet in Washington, which was actually quite yummy.

My favorite part of the day was delivering pretzels to ladies who were not in church - Connie Minnoch, who had hurt her back, Lilian, our cute next-door neighbor, Linda Webb, who has just returned to St. George after having difficulties, and the mission president's wife down the street.  The delighted looks on their faces were priceless!  Everyone loves those pretzels!

Hosting Our Branch Open House

A great way to motivate you to get your house spiffed up -              Have a party!

Sunday, May 6, at 6 PM, Roger and I opened our home to our branch for a friendly get-together.  We love our branch, and every two months or so, someone hosts an Open House, so we were excited to invite everyone over.

Roger took some pics of our home before everyone arrived - the calm before the storm!

I saw this idea of displaying doughnuts on Studio 5 (a morning show on KSL), then showed it to Roger, and true to Roger, he whipped it out in no time!  He bought a 2 x 6 board, sanded it, drilled random holes for the dowels, cut the dowels at random lengths, and there you have it - a $7 doughnut showpiece!

 And did I mention that these are Krispy Kremes?  Roger loves Krispy Kremes! Are there any other kind of doughnuts?  It took a bit of arranging and a major snafu when they forgot to put them on the delivery truck in Las Vegas that delivers to gas stations in our area, but they stood by their word and the general manager personally drove them to St. George!  Could we love Krispy Kremes and their people any more?  I don't think so!

The following pics are a homage to Krispy Kremes from a slightly Krispy Kreme-obsessed photographer!

When we were in Mesa in January for our grandson, Ben's, baptism, Emily, our daughter-in-law, served this delicious Sunrise Punch. It was a hit, Em, and several friends asked for the recipe!

We put out mixed nuts and Jordan almonds.

 The dip for the crackers is the Harry and David pepper and onion relish mixed with cream cheese.  The red, white and green goodies are fresh mozzarella pearls, grape tomatoes and fresh basil . . .

. . . to make these Caprese Bites.

We think close to 80 people came - the most visitors our home has seen!

We refueled the dowels several times!

  Brent and Connie Minnoch, our stake president in Ogden years ago and his wife, have a second home in Sunbrook, and we were happy they were in town so they could come to the party.

Lori (Crowther), Roger's cousin, and Kim Taylor live in Sunbrook and have been such a super addition to our branch.

 We invited our next-door neighbors, the Huetters.  They haven't ever been to church, so we were excited that they came, and everyone was warm and friendly to them. That's Lilian Huetter in the black.  She is in remission with her leukemia and doing well.

 That's our new Relief Society President, Marilyn Uffins, with me.

Grinning with me are "Shana Banana" Simmons, our two-doors-down neighbors, Kathy Nielsen, Lorin's wife,  and Marilyn Woodruff.

 Roger and I were happy that so many came and we were both exhausted.  It was so worth it!