A Week with Blake, Abby & Katie, V/B-Day & Josh's Visit

Taking Care of Blake and his Sisters, Abby and Katie

Roger and I love to stay in Rick and Jodie's home and hang out with his kids.

They always make us feel so loved. 

Each time we visit, we are amazed at the progress that Blake has made with language and motor skills. 

We were excited to stay with them for a week while their parents went on a much needed get-away to Hawaii.

Jodie had everything laid out for us -

Blake's clothing to be worn each day to school was in labeled, neat little piles, 

post-a-notes for each day of the week were lined up in the pantry, spelling out what to put in  Blake's and Abby's thermoses and lunch bags 

 (i.e. Monday, boil cheese tortellini, stir in marinara sauce and fill half in his 

and half in Abby's thermos, cut up strawberries, and little snack packs and juice boxes were in Monday's pile); 

Tuesday, make turkey sandwiches, put grapes in a ziplock, snacks and juice boxes were in Tuesday's pile, etc.).

The schedule of each of the kids was written out, which we referred to often 

("Now where does Abby need to be after school today?"etc.).

Each school morning Roger got Blake up at 7 am ( he was already awake) as Katie was leaving for school, 

dressed him, Abby and I helped him make their lunches and feed him breakfast 

(scrambled eggs, yogurt, fruit, toast cereal, etc.). 

Then Roger drove him to school, then picked him up after school.

The girls had tennis lessons, piano lessons (and Katie teaches piano lessons), Young Women 

and many church and school activities, besides lots of homework. 

Blake has quite a schedule himself: 

Special Needs basketball in Farmington, Special Needs Primary, someone comes to do therapy 

one day and takes him to their home to do therapy another. 

Also, once a week, his best buddy, Matthew, comes over to play.

We took Blake to In-N-Out after his basketball game.

The kid loves French fries and ketchup!

Blakey has skills!

He is the best dribbler on the team . . . 

. . . and he can put it in the hoop, straight on or on the side, 9 out of 10 times!

Seriously!

It was so fun to watch the girls play and interact with him;

they all adore each other!

Wish we had taken more pics.

While the kids were in school, we met up with Karleen for lunch at Little America one day.

We hadn't been able to connect with her at Christmas, so it was great to catch up!

We also got to go to lunch at Ohana with Grandma after I got my hair done in Ogden.

It pretty much wore us old folks out keeping up the busy schedule, but we loved every minute of it!

A bonus was getting to be there when Katie decided, unknown to her parents, 

to run for a next year's student body officer. 

She chatted with us for ideas of how to answer questions for her interview with the administration 

and what pics to use on her posters.

 

It was oh, so exciting and scary - last year she ran for a junior year officer and barely lost. 

This year, she won!

It was also fun to be there when she got ready and left for a dance 

 that a boy from another high school asked her to go to.

She looked so gorgeous!

Roger picked Rick and Jodie up at the airport late Saturday night and we drove home Sunday after church.

We were so happy that they had a great, relaxing time in Hawaii 

and that we had that chance 

to spend time with some very special grandkids!

Valentine's Birthday in St. George

Monday, we attended Dean Marriott's last Old Testament class. 

Tuesday, I met our book club girls for lunch at El Sabor! 

and had an extra-fun discussion of our book. 

They are such fun ladies!

Wednesday was Valentine's Day and my birthday.

Usually we go to Las Vegas overnight,

but we had been away from home so long, we decided to celebrate in St. George. 

Relief Society had a fun meeting on taking care of our bodies with presentations on healthy foods 

and how to give ourselves facials.

I hurried home so we could meet Jane and Dan Madsen for lunch. They are friends from our Aggie days; 

Jane and I taught school at South Cache Junior High and commuted from Logan together 

while our husbands were completing their educations at USU. 

We've been in touch through the years and have both ended up living in St. George. 

Jane's birthday is February 13, so we try to get together for lunch or dinner every year.

Every year Janis Ence, my visiting teacher, sends me a gorgeous flower arrangement - 

I think they get prettier every year!

My Valentine brought me a red rose, my favorite Cummings chocolates and beautiful cards - 

one for my birthday and one for Valentine's Day. 

Every year I think my favorite part of my birthday is getting birthday cards in the mail from loved ones!

For dinner, instead of fighting the crowds, Roger fixed me a de-li-cious dinner! 

It was a great Valentine's/B-day!

President's Day Weekend and Josh Comes to Visit

Josh likes to golf with his grandpa and at Christmastime, 

Josh and Roger planned for Josh to come stay with us over President's Day weekend.

He arrived late Friday afternoon from BYU 

and I had lots of homemade food waiting for that cute, starving college student!

We had French dip, potato salad (I made using a new cooked dressing recipe), 

marinated veggie salad, cut-up carrots and celery and we bought his favorite, 

Nielsen's Custard and made cones for dessert.

Saturday was beautiful weather and they played 18 holes at Sunbrook.

Roger says Josh is a great golfer!

I took this shot from our back balcony overlooking the 7th green of Woodbridge.

Saturday night, we drove to the best Mexican restaurant in St. George - 

Los Lupes in Mesquite!

Sunday, I led our choir in Battle Hymn of the Republic, a tradition we have in our branch. 

Josh sang in it we had a choir of over 60!

Roger gave his high council talk in the 1st Ward on prayer at 1 pm and Josh and I went to hear it.

It was a great talk and Roger delivered it so well, even though he has been fighting a cold.

Roger and I fixed a meal of barbecued salmon, baked potato, asparagus and homemade lemon cream pie. 

I love to feed Josh because he gets so excited about food and he is so appreciative!

Sunday evening, Josh played the piano for us. 

He had brought many of his piano pieces, 

and he played one after the other and we were in heaven. 

He has such a beautiful touch on the piano.

Monday was big winter storms all over Utah. Josh had brought shorts to wear to play golf in - 

after all, it is sunny St. George - and temperatures kept plunging after their 10:30 am tee time.

Luckily, Roger had an old Braniff (from when he flew for them) wool blanket, so Josh wrapped it around him.

It looks like he has on a long kilt!

After some rain fell, then came large snow flakes - an unusual sight in St. George!

They came home laughing about their golfing adventure in the snow!

Josh got on the road about 2 and we kept checking in with him, making sure he was ok. 

They had some long slow downs on I-15 with the bad weather and with everyone 

trying to get back up north after President's Day Weekend.

We were so tickled to have Josh come visit us and get to enjoy his cute personality! 

What a great kid and how blessed we are to have such a special first grandchild!