A March Medley

I've gotta begin this March post with the Softball Roger Bobblehead our son, Ryan, created. Roger plays slow-pitch a couple of times a week with local teams and loves it, though he fell on his shoulder a few weeks ago and has had physical therapy and has been nursing it since. Despite the sore shoulder, he continues to keep moving, as usual - softball, pickle ball, golf and running.

The day before the Mountain West Basketball Tournament every year, held in Las Vegas, Roger gets invited to an Aggie golf tournament sponsored by USU in St. George. This year, they golfed at The Ledges. Fellow Friends and Aggies, Loran Van Noy, and Steve Whitmer, got to make up their foursome with Roger and the Alumni Relations director, Sian Smith.

Our Aggie basketball team was top-seeded and won the Mountain West Tournament and came out on top of the Mountain West Conference in regular season play, insuring a berth in the NCAA March Madness! This pic was taken by grandson, Sam, at the floor celebration after the game.

We were so excited this year for the March Madness. BYU had a great team, too, with A J Dybontsa, and they got a 6th seed in the tournament, though they lost in the first round to the Texas Longhorns, who went on to win two more rounds. Our Aggies were seeded 9th, which was a disappointment - my gosh, what do they have to do to get a good seed??? Their win-loss record was 29-7 and they won the Mountain West tournament at the end of the season.

Anyway, in the NCAA Tournament, they won the first round, beating 8th-seeded Villanova, 86-76, and then had to play #1-seeded Arizona in the 2nd round. They lost, but played them a lot better than most of the teams later in the tournament.

As you have probably surmised, I LOVE March Madness, though it is changing and will continue to change with the portal and who has the most money to buy players. Sure hope Cinderella teams aren't a thing of the past! We have a bracket contest with our kids and spouses every year, and I led until the final. Roger picked Michigan and won! Our boys, especially, really get into it and know lots more than we do about the teams, so this was a fun victory! Who says Grandma and Grandpa can't keep up!

We lost 3 wonderful people within a week in our ward - Lorin Nielsen, Connie Richter and Chuck Dubois. 

Roger served as Lorin's 1st counselor a little while after we moved to St. George. What a knowledgable, talented man he was and he and his wonderful wife, Kathy, are dear friends!

Darling Connie was Carl Richter's sweet wife. Everyone loved Connie! Carl golfs in a foursome with Roger every Monday morning and is a very dear friend.

Chuck was our bishop's brother. He and his wife, Elsa, live in our ward. He has taught Gospel Doctrine and his wife is a little dynamo!

We were tickled when our grandson, Ben, texted to ask if he and his sister, Becca, could come stay a couple of nights on the weekend on March 20 and 21st. They had fun hiking with their cousin, Ellie, who goes to college here and she knew a good hike to take them on. I fixed a chicken enchilada dinner and they were starving! We loved watching how these cute cousins interacted and it was so fun to step into their college world for a few hours! We adore these great grandkids, noticing how they're maturing each time we see them and we appreciate how they'e such good kids, pursuing good and great things.

Alas, another March funeral! Roger's cousin, Annette, unexpectedly passed away with complications of shingles, of all things! She was a very upbeat, lovable, charitable gal, doing so much good for others. She and her husband served two missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they headed up a project of sending life-saving equipment for newborns to Mexico, among many other charitable acts. Her husband, Shaun, called Roger to pass on the news of her illness, then of her death to family members. We drove from St. George to Sandy for her beautiful funeral and Roger was able to catch up with all of his Stratford cousins who were there. 

After we drove to the grave site at the SLC Cemetery, instead of driving all of the way back south to Sandy in traffic for the luncheon at the church, we met back up with Roger's sister, Susie and Chyrrl and 3 other cousins from up north, Dolly, Cindy and Butch, at Little America Cafe, a long-time favorite in SLC. We all lingered a while, laughing, reminiscing and catching up - the best part of funerals!

We forgot to get pics this time, but we had such fun at our monthly Game Night. The best game was, we all wrote down our most embarrassing moment, and other topical personal stories, then 3 of us told the story of 1 of the 3 to convince all the others it was our story, and then they voted on which one of us was telling the truth. We heard lots of funny stories! So fun!

I made a crunchy veggie dip, enough to feed an army! I sent some home with friends and to other friends the next day!

Finally, we celebrated Palm Sunday with a 1-hour Sacrament meeting at church and our usual Easter meal when we returned home - lamb chops and mint jelly a week early! General Conference will fall on Easter Sunday next week. This year I have especially thought about the "awesome arithmetic of the Atonement," as Elder Neil Maxwell calls it, and the incomprehensible sacrifice God and Jesus Christ made for me so my spirit will live on after mortal death. Our Come Follow Me group has had wonderful discussions about our Savior and my love grows deeper every year for Him!

We often enjoy relaxed Sunday dinner in our chairs!

Both sobering and gloriously happy things have come to us this March. We are grateful for it all.

 

June Jaunts (I know, cheesy)

Three of the four weekends in June, we were headed Up North. I think it's great that society gathers and celebrates when we enter this world and when we leave it. June this year had some of each for us.

The first weekend in June, we drove to Rick's for a baby shower for our granddaughter, Anna ( son, Ryan, and wife, Emily's oldest daughter).

We took pics of Rick and Jodies lovely home and adjoining pool house next door. That pool house has come in handy for Rick's two oldest kids - Josh, Jaylene and their 2 littles lived there before they left for Cornell, where Josh is getting his MBA, and a week later, Sadie and Joe moved in and now live there with their new little Ellie, saving money to get into a new home.

Jodie and Rick always plant such beautiful flowers.

We arrived in time for a little farewell swimming party for Josh, Jaylene and kids. They came home to Utah for about a month, and are now back at Cornell, where Josh is working on a project with one of his  professors.

Grandpa Rick and Caleb

Sadie and baby Ellie

Great-grandma Kathie and Great-grandma Pam

Everyone loves their hot tub!

Blake loves to swim in the pool, especially when he's surrounded by loved ones!

Cute Caleb

Lovely Lydia

The Nydegger family

Next evening, Aunt Jodie hosted a wonderful shower for Anna. The food was so delicious and the flowers, so pretty. Here is Anna with her darling mother-in-law. We had the shower early - Anna isn't due until late October - because her inlaws were leaving to be mission leaders in Vancouver, Canada, the next week.

Anna's mom, Emily, and sister, Sarah, were in Utah for the shower, and also, Anna's Grandma, Sue, who all live in Arizona.

When we took these pics, most of the Vincents had already left. Roger's sisters, Chyrrl, and Sue, came and supported our family, as always. Our kids love them so much!

Emily, Grandma Pam, Anna, Sarah and Grandma Sue

Blake really loves his cousin, Sarah, and she is always so excited to see him and so cute with him!

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We were happy that we were Up North when they held our dear friend's funeral, Pat McEntire. When we lived in Roy in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, her husband, Glen, was the bishop of our ward and Roger worked closely with him. Such a loving, wonderful man! And we loved his dear wife, Pat! Every Sunday our then little toddler, Stacy, sat on her lap in Sacrament meeting. They adored each other! I worked with Pat in the Junior Sunday school - she was co-ordinator and I was the chorister, and that might have been my favorite calling in the church I have ever had! I Loved teaching songs to those little kids, and Pat adored the kids, too - we worked so well together. Such happy memories! This pic does not do her justice - she was a beautiful woman, so charming and lady-like and fun!

In the next week, Roger traveled to Mesquite, Nevada, with 3 friends to golf at the Wolf Creek Golf Course. He said it was lots of up and down walking and very hot, but, as always, he really enjoyed it. Extreme heat doesn't bother him, but he hates to play in really cold wind and rain. 

The toughest thing about turning 80 is having to say good-bye to so many dear friends! When we lived in Ogden, one of our dearest friend couples were Dave and Jan. They both performed with the predecessors to the BYU Young Ambassadors when they were at BYU and they both sang in the, at that time, Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So we have music in common, and we were in a small dinner group with them. Their jobs took them to Germany, and we visited them twice over there. They have lived in Texas a few years and they have stayed with us in St. George. We have met for lunch in SLC, when we were both in town, with our dear friend, Karleen, many times. We all loved each other for many years. Dave hasn't been in good health but has soldiered through for a long time. Oh, how we'll miss this darling man and his wonderful sense of humor!

The graveside service was lovely and heartfelt, complete with the tunes from this bagpiper.

The luncheon afterwards was so fun, wish we had taken pics, and we got to catch up with Jan and visit with some other dear friends from Ogden. They had HugHes cater the food, and it was so delicious! We were entertained by their talented family and we even had a sing-a-long.

The following weekend, we were Up North again for Ellie's baby blessing. She is our 7th great-grandchild. It had also been Blake's birthday, and he loved his llama cuddly blanket. 

Sadie and Joe were able to have the baby blessing Sunday evening in their home so all of the family travelers could be there. Sadie is such a loving, conscientious mom!

Josh and family flew back to Cornell the next morning.

Rick, Blake, Jodie, Sadie holding Ellie, Abby, Jaylene and Josh

I got to hold this sweet little thing a few minutes before we changed clothes and left to drive back to St. George.

Bye bye, cute family, for a few months!

Our Come Follow Me group has become very close over the past almost 6 years. Changes have happened amongst us in that period. Carl and Marie had to take a health break and we now have Loran and Nancy with us. Our dear Mary's Alzheimer's has been rapidly increasing and we are so grateful to still have Loran after his second heart attack while playing pickle ball, which I talked about last month. Bob and Diane weren't able to come to our party because Bob's back was hurting him too much. Probably the most-quoted sentence for us in this phase of life is, "Getting old isn't for sissies!" I remember when my dad said that and it seemed so far away for me. We're there! Relationships take on greater value. This little group is important in all of our lives and we truly love each other.

We met for dinner at, Benja's Thai, then went to our house for dessert and games.

I made a hack on the popular-in-the-media, Dubai chocolate, with this chocolate pistachio crunch cake. We all thought it was delicious!

We played a couple of different games, one that shared things from each of our lives, and a fun card game. What a great evening it was!

Well, as I said in the tittle of this post, we took off on a lot of jaunts in June and were on the road way more than I'd really choose to be, but each event was too important to miss. Such is life in the fast lane, right? I'm kind of hoping to slide over to the slow lane for awhile, except I really hate to get behind those darned trucks!