Thankful in November!

I've been thinking a lot about Gratitude lately. 

Happiness hinges on it. 

Whatever is making me worried and sad these days, 

my thankfulness for all of the things 

that don't do that far overwhelm those that do.

I feel my Savior's love and I count my many blessings!

We were surprised early in November with a visit from our youngest daughter, Mindy. 

I mean, the doorbell rang and there she was! 

Her husband and another couple met up with her in St. George two days later on their way to Las Vegas, 

but for a couple of days, we caught up with her and she reorganized my gift wrap storage 

and our under-the-bathroom sinks and my makeup drawer. 

She partners in an organizing business and loves to do it! Really?!

She treated us to lunch at Painted Pony

Beatles music recharged our batteries! 

Oh, so many happy familiar songs that we sang along with at The Fab Four concert at Tuacahn 

with Jim and Kathy Jensen.

Tribute to America

Veteran's Day we started bright and early.

First stop was a free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's for Vets. 
Many people came up and shook Roger's hand all day long and thanked him for his service. 
Another Vet drew this cartoon for Roger.

Roger golfed with three friends, Jay Taylor, Steve Whitmer and Mike Anderson, at Coyote Springs, 
which is about an hour and a half from St. George toward Vegas.

We hosted Aggie Night on the 15th. 
We invited Steve (a USU Aggie) and Viki Whitmer to join us.

We played Five Crowns after dinner and teased, reminisced and laughed a lot!

Cute granddaughter, Sadie, brought three of her roommates to stay with us over that same weekend 
and they met up with five BYU boys who stayed in Hurricane at one of their homes. 
They hiked to Angel's Landing in Zion just before there was a rockslide with one rock as big as a refrigerator. 
Yikes! So glad they were safe! 
On Sunday, they all attended our branch and sang in INSTA-CHOIR. 
Of course I fed them after church with a huge pot of my tomato soup 
and 22 grilled cheese sandwiches!

Roger took this pic off of our deck

We put together some little treat bundles for our Pathway kids for Thanksgiving. 

We are seeing some progress in some of the shy ones participating. We love these kids!

We left for Mesa to stay with Stacy, Tom and family on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 

and we stopped at the Apple store and had lunch at El Segundo in Las Vegas.

We shared fish tacos.

We love to stay with this wonderful family! Roger calls it The Four Seasons. 
They treat us with so much love.

Stacy was busy decorating when we arrived. She said it is the first time she has ever put up Christmas 
before Thanksgiving, but it falls so late this year and she didn't host Thanksgiving this year. 
It was at Jimbo's (Tom's brother) and Sham's.

Stacy planned all kinds of fun things for us to do together. We went to a couple of great movies, 
"Frozen ll" and "Harriet,"  Harriet Tubman's important story.
 We held our traditional Turkey Bowl, though it wasn't official because our whole family wasn't there. 
Roger was the adult winner, wearing his bowling shoes and using his ball from the 70's!
Anna won the senior division kids and Luke, the junior division.

We didn't eat until about 4:30, so we had lots of time to prepare our food assignments - 
mashed potatoes, candied yams and apple and pumpkin pies.

The Potato-peeling Brigade

Grandma Lois always grinds up her apples, which Stacy did, but she put on a Dutch apple crust 
instead of a regular one. It was delicious!

She baked three pumpkin pies using Grandma's recipe.

Ready to go to Jimbo's

Sham and Jimbo are awesome! They made us feel so welcome!
Tom and Jimbo's parents, Sherry and Grit, Sham's mom and dad and two sisters with their families were also there, as well as a niece's family. 
They live in an area of Gilbert where they can raise animals and they have built a lovely home.

Bros

Sham rescued these wild Guinea hens from drowning. She loves animals!

Sham's dad, Dave, recently retired after a long career flying for American Airlines.
He's a great guy!

A delicious bounty of traditional Thanksgiving food

Sham and her mom and sisters set the tables so beautifully!

Londyn with Grandpa Grit

Grandma Pam, Grandma Sherry and Grandma Christine, Sham's mom

Pie time!

Stacy brought a giant Hershey bar to share!

After Thanksgiving, Max and Luke each made a gingerbread house.
Here is Max's.

They also put up the rest of their Christmas decorations. I just took a shot looking up to the second floor.

Saturday night the Young's, the Gilbert's and we were invited to Ryan and Emily's for pizza 
and to watch the BYU game.
(Sigh!)

Sunday morning we met for, "Come Follow Me" discussion with the family.
It is one of our favorite things to do when we visit our kids' families.
After church we had a delicious pork tenderloin dinner.

Sunday night, Ry, Em and family came over for a visit before we had to return to St. George next morning.

We have so very much to give thanks for! 

Sister Retreat and Halloween, 2019

I don't think the Gabrielsen sisters plus our adored sister-in-law, Cindy, 
have ever had a retreat together. 
Cindy, who, okay, I'll just say it, we consider a sister, has always worked in education 
and hasn't ever been able to come to our retreats in the past. 
She and our brother, John, recently returned from a Self-Reliance Mission to the Philippines, 
and she was all in for this one. 
Roger and John cooked up a plan for the husbands (minus Joan's husband, Tom, 
who was winterizing their cabin in Island Park that weekend) 
to golf in St. George and stay at our home during our retreat at Patty's in Elkridge.
 So John and Hal drove to St. George and met up with Roger and Ken, who also lives in St. George, 
and they golfed a couple of days and enjoyed some Mexican food. 
Before the guys left on Thursday night, 
Patty (John barbecued the steaks) cooked up a delicious barbecued steak dinner.

Our meal included freezer corn that Hal put up, Patty's famous cheese ball and a delicious orange coconut cake

We planned out what we wanted to do while all together, and at the top of our list 
was to go through a temple together to do endowments for some of our ancestors.

Patty serves in the Payson Temple, which was closed for cleaning, so we went to the Provo Temple.

What a beautiful spirit of unity and love we felt in the Celestial Room together!

Per tradition, we enjoyed some yummy Thai curry afterwards.

And, of course, we did some Sister Shopping!

Note Cindy's nail polish out-sparkles the turkey!

Next day, we shopped in Salt Lake. 
Joan, Kay and Patty love Stein Mart and it's kind of a tradition to shop there, 
so we had to get a pic!

After a tasty Mediterranean lunch at Spitz, we headed to South Jordan to visit Aunt Gary, 

our dad's brother, Ron's, wife, and her daughter, Randee, 

in the assisted living center where they live together.

We had called Aunt Grace, dad's brother, Alvin's wife, in Ogden to see if we could visit her, also, on Saturday, 

but she unfortunately, had plans. 

We each chatted with her on the phone and had a delightful visit. She is 90 and is a doll!

Aunt Gary was waiting for us at the entrance and was very happy to see us! 

We all went up to their apartment and she had laid out many photos from our past. 

She has always willingly served as our family historian, and she had scanned all of everyone's photos 

she has collected through the years and offered us the hard copies.

 We spent an hour and a half chatting and reminiscing together.

Aunt Grace, Aunt Gary and Dad's sister, Aunt Nedra, who we visited at our Sister Retreat three years ago, 

are the only remaining Gabrielsens of that generation.

Here are just some of the pics of our mom and dad and us together that Gary shared. 
She also had many of our individual family photo Christmas cards through the years 
and others.

Young mom

Mom when we lived in Fort Lee, Virginia.

This is a pic I'd never seen before of my towheaded dad

I love this pic of my handsome dad and pretty mom.

Aunt Gary's editorializing label was stuck on it.

I was pregnant with Roger's and my first in this shot. (Whoa, swollen face and sky hair!) 

I think my sisters' faces look so pretty!

Thanks, Patty, for hosting such a fun reunion/retreat/ Happy Time!
I stayed with Patty and Hal Sunday night 
and everyone else headed home after church and a delicious ham dinner, in a snow storm, I might add. 
Roger drove up Monday afternoon, we took Patty and Hal to dinner and stayed over and had a fun visit. 
Tuesday we drove to Alpine and stopped off to see Mindy and Jeff's newly-remodeled home, 
which is almost finished. It is gorgeous! She has done such a great job practically gutting it 
and starting from scratch while their family lived in the basement! More about that later.
We continued on to Ogden, Lois took us to her favorite place and Jess did my hair, 
arriving off an airplane from Georgia.
 She is so good to me! 
We stayed overnight with Lois and watched the World Series, 
then left for home the next morning.
As always, we crammed a lot into our trip Up North!

Thursday was Halloween!
About four years ago, a wonderful couple in Sunbrook, Holly and Bob Laird, hosted a Halloween party 
and on the invitation it said, "Costumes are recommended but not required."
 We thought almost no one would wear one, and boy, were we surprised! 
Since then, I think all of us old seniors look forward to seeing what each other comes up with!
I don't even remember my costumes as I grew up other than old sheet ghosts and then, one year, 
a Beatnik, put together with stuff around the house. 
As a mom, I scrambled to come up with costume ideas for my kids,
 usually also put together with things we already had. 
As an adult, I had never had a costume. 
Since this fun party began, I have been a Sky and Cloudhead with Roger, the Pilot, 
dressed all in green with Roger's sign around his neck, "With Envy," 
and this year, "Hatter Gone Mad" with Roger's Explorer/Indiana Jones.

Here are just a few of the fun costumes and the festivities.

Bob Laird loves to make cakes and this "bloody" chocolate cake was a masterpiece!

Everyone brings an appetizer/snack to share and there were many delicious goodies!

The hostess, Holly, is on my right and Marion Vaughn, on my left, grew up in Preston, Idaho, 

and was best friends with Kay Anderson, my Balladier friend! Small world!

With lots going on, this fall has been memorable!