Summer Fun, 2022

The big events of this summer were Roger's Honor Flight and our family reunion, 

but we enjoyed a few other happenings. 

We escaped to Las Vegas for a couple of days the end of June.

Fashion Show Mall, Las Vegas

Delicious lobster tail dinner at Bonefish Grill

We had Connie and Karl Richter over for dinner right after the 4th.

Roger golfs with Karl every Monday morning.

July 12-17, Rick hosted Roger, Ryan and Josh on a golf get-away to Whistling Straits golf courses in Kohler, Wisconsin. This is where the Ryder Cup was played in 2020 and they played 81 holes of golf. Point of interest - pretty much everything in the area is owned by Kohler, the  bathroom fixture people. They came back tired but very happy. They all had so much fun being together!

I stayed with Jodie while they were gone. Josh and Jaylene are living in the new pool house for awhile, and for a fun treat, Jodie treated Jaylene, Abby and I to a pedicure.

Katie came home on the weekend, and it was so cute to watch Aunt Katie and Grandma Jodie help bathe Caleb. He absolutely loves his bath!

Jodie also treated the girls and Blakey to lunch at Beaumont Bakery, a hotspot on Wasatch Blvd. in SLC. Yum!

After we returned home for a day, Missy and her kids drove to St. George to stay overnight and go to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Tuacahn with David Archeleta. preceding the Roger Stratford Reunion, which was back up in SLC. I made Aunt Kay's French Dip and a big potato salad. We sure enjoy this cute family!

Walking in to this outdoor theater, which started at 8:30 PM, it was 103 degrees! I came armed with a squirting water fan, a wet neck scarf and Missy's double fan I wore around my neck (not shown) And I ate frozen lemonade throughout. Not only did I survive, but I LOVED it! We saw Donny Osmond play Joseph years ago and thought no one could be better, but David was also wonderful. Totally worth the heat!

Two days later, Tom, Stacy and twins met us in Cedar City to go to see Tom's brother, Steve's son, their nephew, Braeden, perform in King Lear in the Shakespeare Festival. She treated us all to dinner at Centro Wood-fired Pizza, where the food is amazing. It was early enough that Braeden could eat with us, too.

Ready for the show at The Globe Theater

We took this pic after the show with Braeden. Tom is 6' 2", so you can see how tall Braeden is and he is the nicest, kindest guy!

Katie stayed at our house while she attended her boyfriend, Tyler's, family reunion. We took them to lunch at the new Roctaco in St. George before they left to go up north. How we love that cute girl!

First part of August, we had Aggie Night at our home. I served grilled Hawaiian bowls on coconut rice and Asian cucumber salad. We always so enjoy to be together!

The 1st Annual Keith and Lois Stratford Reunion was held at Chyrrl and Glynn's ranch on August 13. The siblings met for dinner at Maddox the night before.

The siblings, kids and grandkids gathered in their backyard for a hamburger cookout. The date for it was set rather last minute and none of our kids could be there - Blake, who had wanted to ride Glynn's horses, had a flu bug, Ryan and Emily were in Italy, Stacy and Tom were in Hawaii, Missy and Jedd were camping and Mindy and Jeff were celebrating their 20th anniversary in Las Vegas. but hopefully they will be able to come next year.

Glynn saddled up 8 horses and took them to the arena for the kids to ride, and they had so much fun - pre-schoolers through the big kids! He has been so nice and generous to let the kids ride his horses through the years.

It was so fun catching up with Roger's sisters. Their kids live all around them and they were in attendance in full force.

Chyrrl is the perfect hostess! She worked so hard, rushing around all day, taking care of everyone. After most had gone, we visited in the shade all afternoon - it was a mercifully-cool day. When she jumped up and hurried into the house to get us all a soft drink and cups of ice and came out with arms loaded, I took her pic. She's always serving everyone, just like her mom!

Roger and I got some dental work done with Chyrrl's son, Skyler, on Monday, then on Wednesday, Rick, Jodie and family left for New York City to visit Katie's mission and we tended Blake for 5 days. His first day of school was the following Monday, and when Roger picked him up and asked how he liked his first day of school, he gave him a thumbs up!

What a thrill to hold this little bundle of joy! I did it every chance I got! Josh, Jaylene and Caleb flew to NYC a day later and returned a day early.

They were all home by Sunday, and we had a delicious meal after church together.

After our Temple Walk, which the family takes Blake on almost every night, they hung out on the curb and Roger took this quick pic.

Monday (be glad there are no pics) I got in the glorious pool with Roger and swam and floated forever!

Caleb loves to be outside!

Father and son

We then went to my sister, Patty's, for 3 days for me to work on her book with her that she is putting together of our parents' lives, with memories and tributes from all of the kids and grandkids who remember them. It's a Herculean effort, working on an onery computer and getting everyone's pics and stuff in so it can be printed. Patty's determination and dedication AND patience are amazing!

There were lots of deer in the front and back yards of Patty's neighborhood. This is the only pic we happened to take while there.

Roger's birthday was on the Saturday after we returned and he and I celebrated it by going to dinner at Magelby's and I made him his favorite, Joe's Stone Crab's recipe of Key lime pie, for dessert. It felt good to have a low key day after being away from home so long!

The temps are still over 100 degrees going into September, so it still feels like summer, and we still have the annual Ence picnic to go to before we go on our big Viking cruise at the end of the month. It's been a great summer, in spite of the horrendous heat!

 

ROGER STRATFORD REUNION, 2022!

After the Covid drought, the Roger Stratford Family Reunion is back!

Rick and Jodie's next-door pool, hot tub, pickleball court and poolhouse were completed just hours before our 40 family members gathered en masse. We missed granddaughter Sydney's family in Florida, grandson missionary, Sam, in Bolivia and granddaughter Anna's, new husband, Jack, leading a youth program in Africa. Everyone else was there!

Some began arriving on Wednesday. Some families met up at Lagoon for the day. Missy's family stayed with Mindy and Jeff's family in Alpine, Ryan's family stayed at Clark and Christine Gilbert's family (Emily's brother) in North Salt Lake and Stacy and the twins and Roger and I stayed at Rick and Jodie's. We were all so tickled to see each other! And what would turn out to be a big highlight of the reunion was holding and loving on our newest great-grandbaby, Caleb, Josh and Jalene's adorable new son. As you can see, that started immediately! 

Blake was beside himself with excitement, having so many visitors coming to his house to play with him - Grandpa is a definite favorite!

Josh and Pete got right at playing ping pong - Josh is a BYU Intramural's champ and Pete loved picking up some pointers!

There were two foursomes who wanted to play golf at Eaglewood - 

Josh, Ryan and his two sons, Pete and Ben . . .

. . . and Rick, Sadie's husband, Joe, Jake and Roger. Tom couldn't come until later Friday.

Rick and Jodie's new pool, waterslide, hot tub, pickleball court and poolhouse are a dream come true for Jodie - she was sooo excited to have this option for Blake and their family loves the water and are major swimmers and divers. It was such a perfect place to have our family reunion!

We tried to take random pics of some of the happy campers - Jodie, Missy and daughter, Ellie, Stacy and Jaylene.

Rick, son, Josh, Pete, his dad, Ryan and Grandpa Rog.

The water slide was quickly broken in and, with the little curve jog at the end, it delivers a fast ride!

There were lots of daring dives off of the two diving boards! The cousins how so much fun egging each other on, teaching each other gainers and doing synchronized dives!

Many games were played with different teams of water volleyball - fun to watch! They also played games of water basketball.

These two little cuties, our two youngest grandkids, Fiona and Claire, were little buddies!

Our Miss Ellie will be a junior in  high school next year - she was one of the 7 in our family who could do a gainer - a front-facing backflip off the high dive.

The pickleball tournament went on throughout two days - singles and doubles with several different combos, single elimination. I am amazed how many really good players there are in our family, all ages. That's what's so cool about pickleball - it appeals and can be done by little kids through old folks, like Grandpa. Wish my knees allowed me to play!

We had yummy food spreads for many hungry mouths!

These two cousins, Katie and Jared, are great buddies! They served their Church missions about the same time - Katie in NYC and Jared in Scottsdale, Arizona area.

Friday evening we had a fun program. Each family gave updates of what they had been up to, showing pics on the big screen and sharing talents. 

A huge highlight for Roger and me was watching Rick and Ryan do a surprise reprise of Casey at the Bat. They had performed it together when they were in grade school. It was hilarious!

We had an old-fashioned Hootnanny! We started with a Blake-favorite - She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain with gestures . . .

. . . then sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone and and what Hootnanny is complete without If I Had A Hammer? Jared is really good on the guitar and cute Anna has a great strum on the baritone uke.

As stated, the big hit of the reunion was Caleb! Jaylene, his mom, said that every person at the reunion held him at least once and he was perfectly happy with that!

It amazes me how our kids and their kids just pick up where they left off from the last time they were together! Cousin Love is real! With unbounded energy, they played, chatted, laughed, ate and sang together. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Rick and Jodie, for making everything down to the last detail perfect for all of us! It couldn't have been better and I think we all can't wait 'til the next one!