Dad's 65th Birthday Party

 My Dad turned 65 this year.  My Mom wanted to throw him a big party so she started planning it months in advance.  She invited all of his friends from high school and college plus our family.  We offered our house for the festivities and everyone had something to do to get ready.  I made the shirts for all of the grand kids.  We wanted my Mom to jump out of a cake but she wouldn't.  Boo!  We borrowed tables and chairs from some friends.  We ended up zip walling in the deck out back and renting a heater to keep it warm.  It turned out perfect with just enough room.  Warm enough to be warm but cool enough to not die with lots of people in one place.  My Mom made a pork roast dinner and we had cheesecake for dessert.  My Dad's friends kept the stories clean.  Darci made an awesome slide show with pics of my Dad from baby through now.  And most importantly, my Dad had a great time.  He smiled and laughed (really loud) the whole night.  Happy Bday Dad!

Christmas 2015

 Merry Christmas!  We had our traditional Christmas Celebration.  A big turkey dinner on Christmas Eve followed by Christmas light spotting, a Christmas movie, the nativity with our puppets, cookie decorating for Santa, and family gifts.  The big gift for the kids from Russ and I this year was a clearplay DVD player that edits movies.  We gave them an envelope full of words that they had to put together to make a sentence telling them what it was.  We have been dying to show Ridge superhero movies before he grows out of his superhero stage.  With the clearplay we can.

Christmas morning was so fun, as usual.  The family got some new sleds, a panini maker, and a ping pong topper for the air hockey table.  Everyone got a Hennessy hammock for backpacking.  The girls both got backpacks for backpacking.  Katelyn got a kindle.  Kyleigh got some new swimming DVDs and book.  Ridge got lots of legos.  Russ got a new sleeping bag and some fishing stuff.  I got a new world map canvas and my favorite ever workout water bottle.  We had our traditional Christmas breakfast which is an egg and sausage casserole, blueberry muffins, and homemade grape juice.

We spent the afternoon playing with our new toys, having ping pong tournaments, eating leftovers, watching iron man (edited), and having a snowball fight.  Can't think of a better way to spend the day.

 

Ridge and Maggie

We love it when we get to spend a few hours with Maggie Fish.

Joseph and Hunter's Wedding

Look Closely for the javelina Ridge spotted.

 Joseph and Hunter got married the day before Thanksgiving in Gilbert, AZ.  We decided to make it a wedding vacation.  We drove to the Grand Canyon where we met Merrill and Nancy.  We got there a little late at night and made a few stops before we got to our hotel.  We went to an overlook of the Grand Canyon just as it was getting dark.  When we were walking back to the car Ridge asked Russ, "Hey Dad, what is that."  Rusty wasn't really sure what he was looking as so they went back and forth a few times about what Ridge was taking about.  Finally Ridge got impatient and said, "NO DAD, THAT," and pointed toward a tree.  It was a javelina, happily nosing around a tree.  It was only 10 or so feet away.  It was the closest I have ever seen one, and the first time any of the kids have ever seen one.  That was kind of fun.

The next day we spent the whole day at the Grand Canyon with Merrill and Nancy.  We rode the bus up through the Canyon stopping at most of the sites or hiking along the sections that had a path.  Because we had just watched National Treasure Ridge kept looking for clues to a treasure at all the monuments.  

The next day we traveled toward Gilbert.  We stopped at Montezuma's Castle on the way.  It was one stop where we were able to use our National Parks pass that we hadn't even expected when we bought it.  Ridge and I were lucky enough to get a pic with Teddy Roosevelt. It turned out to be a lot like the cliff dwellings.  Just a little more commercialized.  Once in Gilbert we were lucky enough to see the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple.  Rusty and I tried to do this years ago but we were just 1/2 an hour late and they had been turned off.  When we checked the website it said we were one day too early to see them.  We decided to drive there anyway and they had 95% of the lights up and all of them on as they were finishing them up.  Finally, after all these years I got to see the lights at the Mesa Temple, and they were beautiful.  All of the lights are put up by members of the church volunteering their time.  They also had things you could scan with your phone at each scene.  Your phone would take you to a video that corresponded to the scene you were looking at.  That was pretty cool.

Mike and Holly arrived at the hotel in Gilbert after a trip through California to Disneyland.  I thought it was pretty cute how excited Katelyn and Naiya were to see each other.  You would have thought they hadn't seen each other in years, not days.

The following day was the wedding.  It was beautiful and they both looked so happy.  Jason and Brianna stayed outside the temple and watched the kids.  I think they had their hands full with Ridge, Aliya, and all the pools of water.  We waited outside the temple for the new couple to exit.  Aliya and Ridge pounded on Josh and Ben for most of that time.  The girls were so excited to see Hunter in her dress.  They had a luncheon after the wedding and a reception that night.  All of it was so nice and beautiful.

On Thanksgiving Day Jenny had arranged for us to have dinner at a restaurant in an old west tourist type place.  I thought I was a little sad to not have a Thanksgiving dinner at home but I changed my mind.  It was pretty nice not to have to cook and dinner was really delicious.  Besides all of the traditional Thanksgiving food there was prime rib, a great salad bar, and an entire dessert room.  There was also live music.  When we finally rolled out after literally eating all we could eat we wandered around the old west town for a bit.  We also went to the theater that afternoon and watched the Good Dinosaur.

The next day we left Arizona.  On the way home we went over the Lake Powell Dam for one last sightseeing stop and then made our way home,  It was a long trip but I am so happy that we made a wedding trip into a family vacation and saw so many things that we wouldn't have otherwise.