July

July was a quieter month for us - no traveling this month, so we've been able to catch our breath a bit.
I celebrated my birthday away from my family this year, but got calls or texts from everyone but Brad.  I thought.
The next morning I looked at my texts and there was one from him saying that there was still 26 minutes of my birthday left, so he was still a good son.

Indeed, and I am blessed.

We stayed home on the 4th.  Wayland had to work, and didn't feel like going out or anything - so we cooked up some good old American hamburgers and called it a night.  Didn't even stay up for the fireworks.

The 24th is a pretty big deal in Utah, but it's not a holiday here.  There was a little celebration down at the old Mormon fort, though, so we went down to check it out.  We arrived too late for the celebration (which included Pioneer games, etc.)  And the place was pretty well dead - but I think I enjoyed the tour more that way - we really dislike crowds.  Had the place pretty much to ourselves, which was great.

I didn't expect to find any family connections in this place - mine all come from Utah and Arizona, but lo and behold, one of the first names on the list of Mormons who were sent here was James T. Sanford Allred, who ties in to those Allreds who settled Spring City.  Don't that just beat all!
I've had some fun reading about the history of the area - the Mormon "occupation" was short lived, but still an important part of the beginnings of Las Vegas.
*Side note; the pioneers only lasted 2 years here, and we've made it 2 1/2, so we could leave any time now with honor.  Ha ha

 List of first residents in Las Vegas...  Allred tops the list.

 Wooden Barbie...

 Wayland relaxing in the shade...

 Flag that hung over the fort

 Only a small portion of the original fort still exists...  At one point, the government leased the fort, and used it for a headquarters during the building of the Hoover Dam.

 Ancient moving van...

 Honky tonk, Pioneer style...

The gate

 Ms Stewart - her husband purchased the ranch from the Mormons when they dissolved the mission, and turned it into a working ranch.  Mr. Stewart was killed a short time later, but his wife continued to work and expand the ranch on her own, making it a successful venture until she sold it to the railroad many years later
.

 A brief history...

Replica bower

All of the wards here strongly encouraged members to visit the fort this month, because it is a state owned park, and it hasn't been very successful lately, so there has been talk of removing the "Mormon" name from it and making it a wine tasting venue.  :(

Later that same evening, we had dinner and a pool party with some friends.  Nice way to spend a hot summer day.  :)

The rest of the month has been pretty uneventful - done a lot of reading, a little crafting, some scrapbooking, and a lot of laying around just surviving the heat.

2/3rds of the Summer is over, and so far, we have survived.

Yay!

June

Another BUSY month.  Hubby had meetings in Logan and Idaho the first week, so I went to Utah to spend that time with my girls.  I was lucky enough to have my grand girls come over each day for that week, and we did all kinds of fun crafts such as making baked clay charms...

I had no idea this would go over as well as it did, but it kept them busy the entire day.  The youngest (Ellie) struggled at first, and was about to give up, but then she found her groove and no one else could keep up with her!

We also made squash books - this was a little frustrating because I made the mistake of letting them watch tv while we worked, so it was hard keeping them focused...

We planned on bringing them home with us, so I made them all some cool summer pajamas -

I had wanted to find some minecraft buttons to go on Arilie's to make them fun for her, but I couldn't find any, so I made some with some shrink art plastic.  The girls loved that, and had to try their own hand at it for the rest of that day...

The girls having fun...

The night I had them over for a sleep over, we were watching a movie when there was a knock at the door - when Ellie ran down to get it - she came back upstairs and we asked her who it was.  She said "I don't know it's some weird guy that I don't know..."  Then we heard him laugh - that weird guy was her uncle Brad!  He came to town for a funeral and didn't tell anyone he was coming.  What a great surprise!  All my children in one state!

The following week, after Wayland got back, we did take the girls back to Vegas with us.  When we got there Sunday night, we found that the power was out - had been for at least a couple of days!  All the food in the refrigerator and freezer was a loss, and a grody stinky mess.  Wayland called and got it turned back on - but what a yucky welcome home!

We did lots more crafts during the week - we made bracelets of of pop can tops, fairy houses out of those cheap little wooden birdhouses from JoAnn's,  (love the look of the pine cone shingles, but they were a buggar to work with!)

When you're at grandmas' you have to get your hair and make-up done...

Millie has such looooong hair - I always have to try the new hair-do's that I find on Pinterest...

Arilie wanted a Katniss Everdean style...

We had a great time - and I got all of their orders for my Christmas sewing projects to keep me busy for the next six months!  :-)

The week went by fast, and we had to take them home - a guy was nice enough to take this picture of us at the Chevron in Beaver...

...So daddy and doggy had to get in on the act too.

We spent a few days doing odd jobs around the house and yard, and then prepared for a family reunion that coming weekend.  During the week, my sister had been texting me, and I found out she was going to be in town on the weekend!  She had made arrangements with two of my other sisters to go to Richfield and spend the day.  The angles have seemed to be with me this month - timing has been on my side to make it possible for me to see so many of my loved ones!

I ended up missing the Taylor reunion, but I spent a great day with my sisters...  We lunched at Frontier Village - had the whole banquet room to ourselves.

On the right, back to front - Ruth, Janell and Debbie.
On the left is the newest inductee into the sisterhood, Karen, a lifelong friend of Debbie's

After hours of chatting and playing with dolls, we went out for ice cream at Ideal Dairy.
 Love this place, it's like an old fashioned Ice Cream parlor :-)

Back to Vegas, and the month has flown by - one of the hottest in history here, luckily most of the month was spent elsewhere!  Had a rip-roaring thunderstorm last night.  Those don't come with rain here, just lots of noise and a light show.

Hoping the rest of the summer goes by as quickly.  I'm already looking forward to fall!

May in a Minute...

May was a hectic month - made 2 different trips to Utah in two weeks time.

The first week, we went up for Millie's school choir concert.  The little stinker had a solo, and she didn't tell ANYBODY!  ...Not ever her parents knew.  I can't believe she kept that secret for so long!

While we were in Utah, the open house was going on for the Payson Utah Temple.  We've been watching it go up for the last few years - every step of the way, so we were so glad to finally see the inside...

We went through with Jennifer, and then again later with Jeff's family.

The following week, we were back for Arilie's orchestra concert - because you can't attend an event for one grand child and not the other...

Both concerts were so much better than I expected.  I had reservations about going up so much this month - but I'm so glad we did!

When we got back, it was rodeo time.  Wayland's store is a sponsor for those events, so we had passes for the vendor's booth.  They served us dinner free drinks, and great seats.  I have to admit, it's fun being treated special once in a while...

The rest of the month has been pretty uneventful.  We celebrated our anniversary by going to the buffet at our local casino and to a movie.  Pretty low key. but that's what we both needed at the time.
Saturday night is steak night, and we saw Tomorrow Land, which started out pretty good, but we were both disappointed at the ending...

Wayland has a new doctor, who got him on some new meds - and he's feeling much better.  I guess things are looking up for now.  (Knock wood.)

April

So far, April has been another eventful month.  I spent the first week in Utah with the girls.  Jennifer has a friend who lives in St. George - she spent the weekend with her, so we rode up to meet her, and I rode home with her.  That put me in town for Easter.

My mother in law always did the big Easter egg hunt - now that she's gone, so many of those traditions are dying with her.  I decided at the last minute to throw one for my grand-daughters myself.  I learned that I need a lot of work on learning to organize one of these things (and I am really bad at hiding eggs!)  They were done finding them almost before we could come outside to watch!

But it was fun, and they liked all the surprises they found in the eggs.  (Their mom doesn't like them to have too much candy, so I found some fun little dollar store items to fill them with instead.)

The Christmas Bear is still on the front porch, so I disguised him for the season...

Millie

Ellie

Arilie

Boy, does my yard need a lot of work!

It was short, but it was fun, and we had a nice visit afterward.  :-)

I was up north for a week and a half - when we got home, Hubby had a thing he had to go to for his store.  Some of the local 4-H kids had approached him and asked him to sponsor them with their farm animals, so he (and his lovely co-worker) planned to go to the county fair to support them.  (It's good PR for the store, and helps sales because the kids have to buy feed somewhere, right?)  They invited me to come along for the ride...

I kind of went back & forth about it, because I knew it would be kind of boring sitting through the animal show and auction, but I have a friend who lives in Overton, and she is always going on about how nice it is - and I knew this would probably be my only opportunity to go see it, so I bit the bullet and went.

It was pretty much what I thought it would be, but we did walk around the whole fair (twice) and met a lot of really nice people.  I could see why my friend likes it there - it's very rural, and is a lot like our home town used to be.

Wayland bid on 3 of the kids' animals - 2 of which went for more than he budgeted, (so he just contributed money to them afterwards.)  ...But he did win this humongous hog;

This young man was such a gentleman.  They had a luncheon for the buyers after the sale, and he served us our lunch.  It was nice to see how the 4-H organization not only trains the kids to take care of their animals, but directs them in the lost art of showing gratitude and just good manners.

My daughters came this past weekend.  Melissa had a birthday this week, so we were able to celebrate it with her.  We took them to Shark Reef, which was on their bucket list for the weekend, and they have been wanting to see the Titanic exhibit at the Luxor ever since we moved down here, so we finally made it to that.

I had to get a photo of the fish in comparison to Melissa to show their size - big as your head!

This little guy loved Melissa!

The polka-dot fish is one of my favorites, but he is very shy and doesn't like having his picture taken...

I love the showy fishes - can't get enough of them!

...And the giant sea turtles!

*Jaws*  This time there was a smaller crowd, and it felt more like the fishes were watching us than us watching them...

Gorgeous shark beanie, dahling!

I didn't know what to expect from the Titanic exhibit - but it was a little disappointing to me.  It's really expensive, (and you're not allowed to take photos,) ...it's one of those things where you walk through and just read all the plaques.  It was kind of amazing to see some of the things that survived though.  Things like sheet music, and playing cards that are almost perfectly preserved (how?)
The environment and the music that plays is kind of eerie.  You move through a lot of hallways and small display rooms - it's like a maze.  I got lost a time or two...

They do have this one photo op place within the maze - kind of cool...

When you first go in, they give you a boarding pass with a name of one of the actual people who sailed with the ship - at the end of the tour, there are big plaques showing the names of those people, and you can see whether you survived the trip or not...  (My person did - whew!)

Anyway, it's something that I'm glad I got to see, but I probably won't be going to again.

Times like this always go by too fast - it's such a let down when our company leaves us!

Jenny loving on my puppy...

Wayland has some vacation time this week, so we will probably go up for the Payson Utah Temple open house.  ...Which means, I had better be getting some things done today!

Thanks for checking in.  :-)