The Love Month = My Valentine's Birthday & Loved Ones' Birthdays Galore!

I share my birthday month with several people important in my life - my mom, my dad, a sister-in-law, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a grandson, an old friend. 

They are people I love.

tT

Mom's birthday is February 5th and Dad's is February 18. 

 They were married on Dad's birthday in 1944.

This pic was taken when they lived in Hawaii, a year before my brother, John, was born.

This was taken a little later down the road.

My lovely daughter-in-law, Emily's, birthday is February 9th.

Emily has run marathons and many other races, and she brings many abilities and much love to our family.

We drove up north February 7th so we could help surprise Chyrrl, Roger's sister, on her 70th birthday.

Her family arranged a surprise dinner at Maddox.  61 people sang Happy Birthday as she came into the room.

She thought she was just going to dinner with her husband, Glynn, and her son, Brad, who they had just picked up at the airport. He said he was coming to Ogden "to get his teeth worked on."

We stayed with Grandma for three nights and loved just visiting with her and hangin' out. We went to church and had a delicious dinner with Rick and Jodie on Sunday, then stayed overnight with them.  On Monday, we met Karleen for lunch at Market Street Grill.

ipad Whiz, Blakey

Our best little buddy

Okay, back to Chyrrl's birthday party!

I am in good company with Lois and her oldest daughter.

Sherie, me, Chyrrl and Shellie (Susie was on a Disney Cruise with her kids)

Chyrrl with some of her grandkids

Chyrrl with her daughters, Sheila and Stephanie

All of Chyrrl's kids and spouses were there except Nathan and Hollie, who moved to North Dakota in December.

We have been friends with Jane and Dan Madsen since college days. We have exchanged Christmas cards since our early marriages. Jane and I taught at South Cache Junior High School, carpooling to Hyrum each morning together.  We both lived at the USU Student Apartments.  Madsens lived in Price for many years, then Dan moved his medical practice to St. George.  

Jane's birthday is February 13 and she always remembers me on my birthday.  Three years ago, we started going to dinner together to celebrate both birthdays, so on the 13th, we met at Player's Grill.

On the morning of the 14th, off Roger and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate my birthday and Valentine's Day.

I got to pick where to have a light lunch, so we shared a bento box at a Japanese restaurant next to Anthropologie in the Forum Shops Mall, Sushi Roku.  We will be going back there!

 All day long I received calls from my kids, their spouses and grandkids (best part of every birthday!). 

My Valentine treat from Roger was to get to pick out each chocolate in a box at Jean Philippe's - not an easy job!

Then, for dinner we had reservations at, Todd's, a wonderful, nondescript-looking restaurant in a strip mall in Henderson. We were told about it by another chef, and the food is amazing!

We shared their Valentine's Day Special.  And it was as good as it looks!

They brought this complimentary"Todd-amisu" to me.

We shared this to-die-for blackberry apple cobbler with homemade cinnamon ice cream, Todd's specialty.  It elevates the humble cobbler to gourmet level!

This is my gift from Roger and my kids, a Jay Strongwater trinket tray.  Roger gave me the matching frame two years ago.

I think it is so beautiful - a work of art!

To conclude dinner, the waitress brought me this long-stemmed red rose.

We stayed overnight at South Point, drove to Primm and shopped the next day, then were able to get "day of" tickets to Donny and Marie.  Their show was very entertaining - voted best show in Vegas, and it is clean and the dress is modest for Las Vegas!

On February 18th, my dad's birthday, our precious youngest child, Mindy, was born. 

She is our Adventure Queen!

In this pic, she has just completed a triathlon.

In this pic, she is swimming with sting rays.

She has also jumped out of an airplane, went canyoning in Europe and she has her scuba certification.

How a daughter of mine can be so fearless is beyond me!

Our Jakeman, Stacy and Tom's son, was also born February 18.

We are so proud of him and his many athletic skills!

 So, there you have it!  Love Month Birthdays Galore!

January Calm

I can not actually believe this, but I am going to blog an entire month in one post.

Ever since the first part of November, it has been Crazy Time!

So many things happening so fast, it took me until the end of this month to get caught up. 

This month, January - calm.

But Roger and I enjoyed some definite highlights in this month.

Highlight #1 - Wayne Brickey's Pearl of Great Price class

He is a master teacher, and I actually feel annoyed that it's over when he concludes our weekly hour and a half class. He has the uncanny ability to give Big Picture perspective to every line in the scriptures.  He packs vast knowledge and insight into line upon line.  He makes me feel and more fully realize God's plan.  He makes me laugh with his wit, and weep with new understanding. 

Roger conducted our branch meetings in January and invited him to speak and take the entire meeting.  As it turned out, he came on Martin Luther King Weekend, which brought vast throngs of people from the frigid, cloud inversioned North.  Our branch has under 200 members, and on January 20, we had 573 attend our Sacrament meeting.

Roger hadn't warned him about how this phenomenon can happen where we live in St. George on holiday weekends.  Brother Brickey just knew we were a little branch of mostly retired people.

  

When he began his talk, he said, "Now I love Brother Stratford. But from what he told me when he asked me to speak, I expected to see 80 or 90 gray-haired people in the congregation." 

Then he turned to Roger, sitting on the stand, and said, "That was just a bold-faced lie."

The congregation was full of young families with many noisy, little kids, but about a third of the way through Brickey's talk, it was quiet.  Roger said that there was a group of teenagers on the first row, and they were mesmerized.  He spoke about Joseph Smith and the Restoration, and brought insight and relatability to Joseph. 

Ever since our girls have traveled with him on tours to Israel and Church history sites in Missouri, they call themselves the Brickeyettes.  They love him.  I wish they and their husbands, who also love him, could be here to attend his classes!

Highlight #2 - My sister, Kay, told me about a multi-stake music workshop that was held on January 12 at a stake center in town.  I met her there at 8:30 AM on Saturday morning, sang some wonderful arrangements with the other attendees, then went to selected classes.  It was wonderful, I learned some new ideas and I hope I can attend next year.  Kay and I went to lunch afterwards at Sakura and had yummy food in bento boxes. I love to go to lunch with my sisters!

Highlight #3 - We were treated by Kent Petersen, our old friend from up north, to a delicious Italian dinner at Piccolo Mundo.

He and Nyla invited us when we were together at, "Savior of the World" in December.  He said he was inviting a group of old Ogdenites and other friends in St. George when he was to come with the Kay Starr Henniger Singers on a tour to do their musical program in St. George and other stops.  This is the choir that he invited me to sing with and go to Israel in September of 2000 to perform Lex De Azevedo's, "Gloria."

What a wonderful evening we had!  

We loved catching up with Kent and Nyla and Linda and Ron Halverson, our long-time-ago stake president.  He was later called to be a mission president in Norway and is an emeritus general authority, Mike Burdett, my good friend, Donna's husband, sings with the group and was there, too.  Donna couldn't come. Stephen Wade, a good friend of Kent's (they both have very large car dealerships and have known each other for years) came, but Stephen's wife, Marsha, who served on the auxiliary board of SGMT with me and I like her very much, couldn't come because she was in charge of a Relief Society meeting that night. The others there are great people and we enjoyed meeting them and visiting with them.

Highlight #4 - The next evening, we attended their beautiful program in Green Springs.  Kay Starr has written most of the music for this presentation, and it also included beautiful medleys and arrangements of hymns and narration.  It was so very well done.  What a talent she is, and there are wonderful voices in this group.

We took a quick trip to Vegas for a one-to-one computer lesson and to get our car serviced and enjoyed a good lunch at Joe's Stone Crab, but the trip maybe wasn't in the bold letters category, though I guess I would have to say that the lunch was! 

Saturday, January 26, Roger had to meet a potential buyer of two convenience stores he has listed in Panguitch, so he talked me into riding with him.  It turned into an all-day deal (he had a three hour meeting with the owner and the buyer).

We took the route through Zion National Park on the way back, to see how it looks in the winter. He got out and took a few shots.

We were excited to see some big-horned sheep.

The clouds hung low on some of the peaks, which gave a different kind of beauty than it is in the summer.

January 30, we invited Jim and Kathy Jensen over for a quick soup and salad dinner before we went to Brickey's Pearl of Great Price class.  I had made a huge pot of Russian Borscht from my sister, Patty's, recipe.  She learned how to make it when Hal served as Mission President in Novosibirsk. I made it that morning, then it hit me that we would be eating borscht forever with just the two of us, so why not share? 

I think Russians knew what they were doing when they put potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, cabbage and beets with meat together with beef stock, then topped it with sour cream.  It makes a great flavor combination. Thanks, Patty!

I know the calm of January won't last.  

But each season in the year brings variety, which makes life so interesting!