So little time....so many yarn shops.....

.....and cup cake bakeries, but we managed to hit 5 yarn shops and at least that many bakeries plus taking the ferry to Port Orchard, eating at a Tom Douglas restaurant, meeting each of Gayle's 4 children and her grandchildren (even babysitting one of them), attending the Coffee Fest Trade Show, enjoying a gourmet meal Martha Stewart style on Gayle and John's beautiful deck, basking in the generosity and hospitality of a very dear and long-time friend.....and just plain enjoying a couple of days in beautiful Seattle, wondering why I don't live there.....but I fall in love with every place I visit and have fantasies of what it would be like to live in each of them.....and in the end, it's always good to be home until the travel bug hits me again in a couple of weeks.

We shared a duplex while our husbands attended Washington State University in Pullman, Washington in the late '70's....I had Kyle and Spencer and she had Christopher. I've always learned so much from Gayle. She is an amazingly talented and very wise person.....and an impeccable decorator and homemaker rivaling Martha Stewart....(I need a little more convincing to get rid of my wall paper, Gayle).....and haven't seen her for 10 years and haven't been to Seattle for 20......so I jumped at the chance when the invite came.

"I'll just whip us up a little something to eat", she says.....we had just gotten some beautiful cup-cakes and they provided the center piece for our meal out on the deck (wow....that's all I could say).

My first time on a ferry boat....I was SHOCKED that you actually drive your car onto the ferry....but I just wasn't thinking that people need their car when they get across the water, duh....but we went on top so I could be the "queen of the world" and float through the water on the front row.

A Mormon girl at the Coffee Fest Trade Show.....Gayle's daughter Lizanne in the background laughing at me.

One can never have too many cup cakes.....it was about as much fun picking out the perfect cake as it was the perfect skein of yarn....I said "about" but not "more".......you can eat the cupcakes though.....(but you can knit with the yarn).

I learned so much from my wise friend and her husband (he's pretty smart too and taught me a lot about Seattle and horticulture). We had a good time with this book as we discussed together where we want to be in 5 years. I hope I will take the time to plan and set goals so that I can make some progress.......I love learning new things and I hope I can incorporate some great ideas and stay inspired from this wonderful week-end. Thanks Gayle for such a great time. You are so awesome and I'm so glad I got to see you and John and all the kids and their kids. Come see me soon.......we don't have water (Gayle loves her water) but we have really colorful mountains.

Just a little collage of the joy I found visiting the many yarn shops, especially Debbie Macomber's "A Good Yarn Shop" in Port Orchard.

One of my favorite things to do....

......is to connect with friends from the past, people that were once a huge part of my life.....and that's what I get to do tomorrow.

My friend Gayle, from our Pullman, Washington days invited me to come to Seattle for a brief visit and I accepted. We lived in a duplex in Pullman while Scott was attending vet school and the Grothkopp's lived next door. For three years, we were neighbors, raised our kids together, exchanged recipes, gardened together, laughed and cried together then went our separate ways. We met up once with them in 1984 and took the kids to Disneyland then once again, Scott and I had some continuing education in Seattle and met up with them again in 1988. I've seen Gayle a couple of times since then but it's been a very long time and I'm excited to go and get caught up. So Bon Voyage to me for a couple of days. Seattle, Washington, here I come......

McKay's havin' a birthday and baby's got a name....

Yep, big day for McKay.....tomorrow is the real #5 but today was the party at Jumpin' Jacks and it was chaotic but lots of fun. Thanks for inviting me, McKay....I.'d never been there and it really is a fun place for kids to run around wild with not many rules (I'm amazed they're still all in one piece as big kids and little kids mingle and crash into each other a lot). Great fun....Happy Birthday McKay. He and Maycee both had soccer games this morning. I got to see Drewby and Seth play last week and Maycee this week. (I got lost in my own town and couldn't find McKay's but there will be other Saturdays)....and I do love watching the little ones do what they do. Reminds me of the good ol' days watchin' my own. I miss those days. It's still pretty hot around here but I can almost feel fall coming....almost....not quite...but almost (do I sound hopeful?) I love fall........



.......and Matilyn K (Matty) arrived home today.......so ya gotta know there's a lot of love in the Kyle Wells household today and hopefully a lot of naps takin' place right now as it's been a pretty wild couple of days for them.

Baby has arrived...

.....all is well. It's always a relief to get them here and nothing like the moment they come into the world.

It happened about 4 a.m. this morning. I went over last evening as the kids were getting ready for bed and JoEllen's contractions were pretty regular at about 5 min. apart so off they went to spend the night. This morning there was a cute little picture of her on my cell phone....still no name but I'll keep you posted. She looks like the others.....especially Emily. Welcome to the world, baby girl.......

Home again, home again.....

....after leaving at 2:00 our time, a brief lay-over in Chicago and 11 1/2 hours later, I'm sleeping in my own bed. It was a good trip and we crammed a whole lot of stuff into Saturday....2 soccer games, a baptism and a birthday party (and a whole lot of biking as Drewby got a ramp for his birthday). My third grand-child to be baptized and I'm mighty proud of little Andrew Scott Wells and I was proud to be able to once again participate in the baptism program by giving the talk on the Holy Ghost. George gave the opening prayer and did a great job....I was proud of him too. He was a good little travel companion and between his Nintendo and a good book, no problem at all idlin' 12 hours away. He and Drew both had little moist eyes as they said their goodbyes. It does a grandma's heart good to see the cousins enjoying each other's company. All in all, once again, I leave Kentucky looking forward to the next visit which will be in October.

(Bottom left - the biggest kid of them all).

All is well in Loo....v'lle....

....and it's a HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Drewby. Soccer in the morning, baptism in the afternoon...it's a pretty full day and it's fun to be here with George sharing in the festivities. They are a couple of Nintendo Nerds but we've taken time out to hike through the woods to the park, ride bikes and even go to Cameron's birthday party. Never a dull moment here in Kentucky. More later....we're off to soccer.

Family fun in Pine Valley....

.....and another Labor Day is history.

Once again, we gathered to celebrate and introduce James to the fam and let him be abused by the nieces and nephews. He was a good sport to come and be bombarded by our quirkiness but hopefully the food and fresh air of Pine Valley was worth it.

I haven't seen the wild turkeys for a few years but they wandered in and it was fun to see them waddle down the road. I remember Dad having to shew them off the porch one year. I have a picture but don't have time to find it right now. I'll post it later.

It's fun to re-connect with cousins....

.....and sometimes it takes a funeral in the family to do just that. We traveled to Moab for the funeral of my cousin Doug and saw some relatives I hadn't seen since childhood. When I would visit my Cannon Cousins, they had cousins from the other side of the family there a lot, one of them even living with them so I just thought they were my cousins too and when I saw them at the funeral, I felt like I was truly "re-connecting" with my own cousins. Lynn, Eldon and Janine Cannon came to pay tribute to Doug and it was sure fun seeing them again, remembering the good times and the warm welcome we always felt in Uncle Arnold and Aunt Ruth's home in Hurricane.

Speaking of Hurricane.....we were able to enjoy Peach Days, a take-off on the old Washington County Fair that we all remember on the school grounds in the middle of the little city of Hurricane. Last night I took mom over and she was able to see a lot of the people she knew from her days growing up there and we enjoyed an Eric Dodge concert. Then, this morning, we all met and rode on the family float honoring my grandfather, Frank Barber, who owned the first tree farm (nursery) in Hurricane. Lots of fun.....lots of candy....and great "fair food", as always. I should have taken a picture of some of the decadent stuff I had but I think I'd like to forget about it right now and move on......"I'll go on a diet tomorrow, I'll starve 'til I waste away....I'll go on a diet tomorrow.....but I gotta eat today"....because I'm at the fair.

Feeling a little nostalgic today.....

.....as I just heard of the passing of my cousin, Doug Cannon (second son of my mom's sister Ruth and Arnold Cannon). Joyce and I will be heading out to Moab for his funeral in a few hours and all afternoon I have been thinking about why I need to be there. Doug was a big part of my teenage life. He was goodlooking, funny, teased a lot and I basically really liked being around him. He was older than me, but after his mission, the girls my age didn't seem so young and I would line him up with my friends and he'd line me up with his. Once we even went on a group date to Branham's Ranch and I remember feeling sooooo grown-up in the presence of all of the cool Hurricane guys. Doug found the finest of fine when he married Joan. They have raised an amazing family and they live in Moab, Utah where he was the Business Manager for the school district there. He was a good man and taken way too soon as they still have two sons on missions right now. His passing got me to thinking about the outings and good times we'd have with our cousins and I found some fun pictures of one of our trips to Zion. Even though Doug isn't in these pictures, I'm sure there were times his family joined us and many times I had the opportunity to join them on their camping trips. Doug always had a nick-name for everyone and in his teasing frenzies, you got called "Crunchy Orvil". He was good through and through, lived a good life, faught a valiant fight. I'll post more when I return from Moab.

These pictures are from a trip to Zion we must have taken when Aunt Beulah and Uncle Emeron's family were visiting from California because Cousin Craig has joined me, Joyce (what's that on your shirt?), Bruce (is that Seth?) and Clark with the talking Indian.


Anyone out there remember this talking Indian statue? When I was a kid I was totally amazed at all this Indian knew about me. He'd really talk to me and call me by name. I think there was a part of me that thought he was real (kinda like when I thought my dolls could grow hair). The technology of the day allowed a microphone hooked up so my dad could go inside the store and tell the old Indian what to say.....but what the hay.....let the little girl think the Indian's really talking to her, okay.....

...then there was the old swinging bridge. Made Zion seem like Disneyland and this thing was the subject of many of my nightmares. We always HAD to try it though.....just one of those things the folks made us do to conquer our fears.....

....and then the mighty Mile-long Zion Tunnel....(click HERE to read about it) and just last Wednesday, 300 lucky people got to walk through it again. I'm so sad I wasn't one of them because I remember so vividly when you could park your car and hang over the edge of one of the big windows. I didn't know what an amazing thing that was then but I do now 'cause whenever I drive through now, I try to snap a picture with my camera as I drive by. It's just not the same but those 300 lucky people got to do just that the other day. Go to Karen's (Mason's dental assistant) blog HERE and see what a great time she had and you too will be very jealous that you weren't there. I get jealous when people go to Disneyland without me but dang, this made me ten times more jealous. The people in her pictures are my cousins from Hurricane.....and I just should have been there. (Get over it Jillyn.....move on....let it go.....). Okay, I feel better now but I just need you to know how much I love Zion National Park. I've been there about 5 times already since I bought my pass and hope to go a gazillion more times before I die and maybe, just maybe (probably not) I'll get to walk through it one day. We used to go up at night and run through it in the dark and hide in the crevices in the walls when we would see car lights (very stupid, I know but it's just what we did back then). Oh, well.....this has been a long blog. If you read it to here, let me know and I'll send you a souvenir from Zion next time I go there. Appreciate the good times, people.....then you'll have good memories to get you by when you get old. Peace out....and a hip, hip hooray for our beautiful land of America and especially Zion National Park and especially, goodbye to my Cousin Doug.....a good example of a life well-lived.

These pictures have got to be worth more than a thousand words...

....because I'm too tired to write about it but wanted to share some of the fun we had this past week-end. Thanks to Mandy and Mason for a great Lake Powell Houseboat Experience.

Remembering Acappellastock....

....and I had a smile on my face all the way home today thinking about the great time I had last night and wishing everyone that I love were with me in the audience enjoying it with me. Actually, this year there were 4 people with me....an improvement from the first year and the second year I went (alone) then the last 2 years Lauri and I went (wasting only a couple of purchased tickets) to this year having to buy 2 more for Lauri and James. Because I'm such a faithful fan, Shannon gave me t-shirts when I told her I should become a volunteer. I discovered this fabulous event whilst on my mission in Salt Lake and haven't missed it since (5 years straight). It was AWESOME to say the least and once again, this year proved to be as good or better than last year. The groups had amazing energy and T-Minus 5 did more than they usually do (because they host the show) which was good (because they are really good) and the emcee was one of my favorites from a group called Toxic Audio that performed a couple of years ago. So start planning for next year and we can fill the whole front row with my "converts" to Acappella. I'm posting some of my favorite pictures from the evening in hopes of convincing more of you to come join me next year. If there's anyone out there that is the least bit interested, let me know. If you don't want to comment, just e-mail me or when you see me, let me know that you too want to become a fan of Acappella....(oh, if only I could be so bold in declaring my joy in the Gospel and inviting people to join the church.)

One final picture as we left the joint last night. Can you tell that we had an awesome time????

Paul Sperrazza.....ya gotta love this guy. He is an amazing entertainer and brought a lot of life to the show with his voice. He is from the group TOXIC AUDIO (which I already mentioned but worth mentioning again for sure).

Jake and Amy Alvord also joined me on the front row this year. Jake was my boss on my mission and he finally came to his senses and joined me after years of pestering.

Lauri and James were positioned just right to be "chosen" for the "audience participation" portion of the show which was to time the act that T-Minus 5 first performed in a competition. Needless to say, they went "wayyyyyy" over but coerced James into saying they were under their time limit and for it, they got a free CD. So.......I'll see all of you there next year and I will hopefully have to rent a bus to get us all there. I LOVE ACAPPELLASTOCK........

The Germans are coming....

.....so Cynthia and I set out on yet another adventure to find the places we think they would most like to visit. (She has visitors coming from Germany in a couple of weeks). Today we ventured out to Mt. Carmel to check out the Maynard Dixon Museum (frankly, didn't have a clue who the guy was until I saw some of his work and then realized that I did know of him) and we had a wonderful adventure as we pulled in the parking lot....not to be deterred by the "We Are Closed until Friday" sign, we got out and walked in. A lady came out to meet us to inform us that we were just outta luck but we asked a few questions and finally got her to agree to let us have a self-guided tour of the place because she was too busy getting ready for the huge art gig coming up next week-end which we would later find out was to include many of the finest landscape artists in the country and, also......David Michaels (film producer) who is the younger brother of Al Michaels (sports broadcaster) and is an aspiring landscape artist, will be there...whew, that was a long sentence. Anyway....we walked around the place and read the plaques and the guy told us quite a bit about the time Dixon spent in Mr. Carmel and how he and his wife were able to purchase and restore this beautiful location as a museum. As I walked around it I could picture the serene summer days that Dixon could sit outside in peace and paint the beautiful landscape surrounding him. You can read more about Maynard Dixon as I did by clickity clicking right HERE . I was surprised to find out he was born in Fresno, California but lived and painted in many places before passing away peacefully in Tucson, Arizona. The curators of the museum in Mt. Carmel told us his ashes were spread atop a little hill where a memorial has been made in his honor. He told us to walk up but ...."don't look back until you have reached the top." I tried really hard to do as I was told and I did....only to find what I had imagined....the most breathtaking view of the beautiful coral mountains with the background of crystal blue sky. That picture is at the top of my blog.

The day ended with lunch at what used to be "Bumbleberry Inn Restaurant" but is now "Wildcat Willy's" and doesn't serve Bumbleberry Pie (but we were able to get some at the adjacent bakery.) The day was complete and the meal was very good. I would recommend it. So until Cynthia shows up again at my door, taking no excuses and motions me to ...."come on....let's go", it's been another great adventure to blog about. The Germans are gonna love it here.......

Hey Lauri.....it's your birthday....

.
....let's party....like it's your birthday. Actually, there's no time for a party but I want to acknowledge Lauri's birthday and let you know that one year ago tomorrow I started doing tributes to those that I love on their birthdays and things haven't changed (except she's not heading to Mexico and she's not turning 25) so I'm directing you to Lauri's link from a year ago (click HERE) and I'm giving her new BIRTHDAY WISHES for this year and telling her once again that I think she's pretty cool and I'm glad I get to have her around for a while longer. We will party.....I don't know when but we will. Thanks to Traci for the birthday cake and festivities.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAURI.

It's no secret....

......that I love my family and I love being with any and all of them whether it's a trip to Kentucky to hang with Spencer's family (or even better, having them visit me) or a swim in Mason's pool with whatever little ones are there or an impromptu trip to Pine Valley that always turns into a party or having Traci and her two boys here for the week and finding lots of stuff to do or a surprise visit from Kyle's kids now that Emily and George can ride their bikes to my house or just knowing that Lauri will be walking through the door and we can chat about the day. When I was a young mom, I used to crave some "alone" time....and now that I'm alone I crave any "family time" that I can have. Traci and Lauri headed north last night with Scotty and Ba'y Jake and the house is quiet again but I will put things back together, putter a little bit and look forward to the time I can see them again....but I will enjoy this "alone" time to contemplate how very blessed I am to have my family and to know that....or at least hope....they enjoy coming home.

Good Monday morning to you....

I spent the week-end in Salt Lake and was able to hook up with some friends and have lunch at the Sego Lily Restaurant. Forgot my camera but snapped a couple of pics on my cell phone. Always good to hook up with girlfriends. I spent Saturday bummin' 'round my old stompin' grounds at Temple Square then on to Traci's to help her out while Russ is in NC. Hope everyone out there in blog land is havin' a great summer. We are winding down and fall is in the air....it certainly was in Salt Lake. I even wore a jacket most of the time. Have a great Monday......