To Blog or not to blog?

That is the question. I love Christmas! First of all it's a good excuse to clean out the old and organize. After a good Stake Conference, I came home made dinner, ate and then got in the mood to do some decorating, Christmas stuff of course. So what better way to do this but by playing Christmas music of course. David will start moaning and he'll pretend he doesn't like it, but as soon as he see's the room take on a red, white and green look, he starts singing along with whatever Christmas music is playing and does these weird antics like clapping his hands and mimicking me. I don't mind, I just keep doing what I'm doing. I'm not done yet, I thought I would pace myself. Tonight maybe the tree. I'll add some pics later when I get it just right. This is our 3rd year that David, Cecelia and I are volunteering to serve at the ST Patrick's Community Dinner. I love it because I don't have to cook especially it's just the three of us. Cecelia loves to serve. The first year we did it she said she wanted to have the Homeless people's table. She finds it intriguing, she said she would love to interview them and hear their story. Of course we told her no, but be polite. She is funny that way.

We will start preparing at 12:30pm and then we serve dinner between 1pm - 3pm. Anyone can come and enjoy a nice Thanksgiving dinner. You can have seconds and you can even take a To-go meal home. The best part, the servers can eat towards the end, and if we want we can even take a To-go meal home. The room is beautifully decorated with round and long tables, just like you would see at a nice restaurant and you treat the people that are assigned to your tables like special guests to a fancy restaurant. We have always had a good experience. By 3:15pm or so, you're done and you can enjoy the rest of your day. I hope those that come to this dinner go away feeling good and had a nice experience. I know that we do.

Thankful

I'm feeling thankful for the simple things, like lately I haven't been in the mood to cook and D has been very patient and eating whatever I have fixed, like Cherrios or nachos or grill cheeses, or has taken it upon himself to make dinner for us. I know this sounds silly, but I am very grateful for this. Another thing, is that he is a great Laundress. In fact he does the laundry better than I. I have come home from a meeting and while watching football he is folding the laundry. Now that's a turn on! (My girls are gagging right now.)Most of all, I love that he can make me laugh, sometimes when its not appropriate, but most times just out of the blue. I love that I can put my cold feet next to his to get warm and he acts like he's annoyed but he really isn't. These few things make me appreciate him so much!

September Utah

My trip to Utah was especially sweet last month. 1. I was going to be able to spend some time with each of my adult children and of course my granddaughter Miss C. And
2. I was going to be able to finally visit my dear Aunt that I haven't seen in 8 years. I don't particularly enjoy flying, so when it comes to flying I get kind of paranoid and start thinking of all the things I need to have done at home before I leave. I know it's silly but I feel that I can't leave my home not cleaned, in case something happened to me, I don't want the members or friends to see a messy home that I have left. (Totally whacky I know.) So I cleaned as well as I thought, but before I left I was laying on my couch in the living room, I looked up and noticed the ceiling fan was in need of a good dusting. I thought, oh well, I don't have time to do it, and everyone will have to forgive me.
As my plane was taking off, I kept repeating to myself, "I have had a good life, I have had a good life, I have had a good life". For some reason it gave me great comfort and I felt very peaceful. My plane touched down in Utah around 8:30am and Mackenzie picked me up. After doing a few errands, she and I were off, heading down South on 15 for Overton, Nevada. I was determined to reach there to visit my Aunt. It was a very sweet reunion. We spent the next several hours visiting her and her daughter, my cousin Kay and Kay's husband Ben Robison. My aunt B was married to my dad's brother, Reed. As we were growing up we visited with them many, many times. She and Reed were and are my favorite Aunt and Uncle. She has such a sweet spirit about her. She is 94 years old but very lucid and has a great sense of humor. Mackenzie conveyed to us that she was in awe of her and how she has seen so much history in her life. The town of Overton is a small but large Mormon community. After dinner, it was getting late and after some directions Mackenzie and I headed west to Las Vegas to spend the night. With just a little over 47 miles to go we made good timing. Our main stop was to the Las Vegas Temple. It was a beautiful warm night.


I don't care for LV, so as soon as we got up the next morning we headed for St George. It would be about a 2 hr trip. We were going to rendezvous with Cheri and Chris there and stay the night. They were coming back from Disney Land. Since Mackenzie and I had all day before they would meet us, we decided to visit some historical sites. I had read the book "Massacre at Mountain Meadows" this year and I have always wanted to see the site that this tragedy took place. It is a very sad and horrific tragedy that took place for these immigrants. It is not very far from St George, about 40 minutes north west. We stopped into the Chamber of Commerce and picked up some maps and they pointed the way for us. It was a beautiful day. When you go there, there are two memorials. One is the grave site memorial where most of the bones and remains of the victims were gathered and are buried under a large mound of rocks that are cemented. It is in the meadow near the site where the immigrants camped. The other memorial is up on a hill. This is the memorial that was built by the Church and which Pres. Gordon B Hinckley dedicated Sept 11, 1999. The massacre took place Sept 11, 1857. On this memorial are the names of the victims and the survivors. This site over looks where the massacre took place. As we were there, we felt a reverence but also an eerie feeling of what took place there. As you look over the meadow, it is very beautiful. You can see why the immigrants camped there, it was very peaceful, there is a creek nearby for use, for them and their horses. I couldn't help but picture children playing as the women prepared meals looking forward to their trip to California. But then it was all taken away by rogue misguided men and Indians that were enlisted to help them perform these terrible acts. This, unfortunately is a history that will not be forgotten.


Our next stop was Pine Valley. My grandmother lived here for a time when she was a little girl. We had our last family reunion here in 1999 in honor of her. There's a famous chapel there that was built history says, by Ebenezer Bryce who was an old ship builder and the chapel is open during the summer months. It is very picturesque.

We then headed back to St George and still having more time to do something, we decided to tour Brigham Young's Winter home. It was very interesting. We both love history and we both appreciate learning historical facts. By the way did you know that Brigham Young was instrumental in bringing cotton to the west? Also silk? Apparently when he had St George settled, it was the time when the Civil War broke out and the west was cut off from cotton, so he started the Cotton Mill and cotton was planted all over the valley of St George. He also had Mulberry trees imported from France and silk worms so that the women could have silk. To this day there is cotton grown at Brigham Young's winter home and on the St George Temple grounds there are two large raised beds of cotton plants that grow cotton every year. The original Cotton Mill is still standing and has been restored.

I wish that we had more time there, but I feel that we did see alot in just a short time. We finally met up with Cheri and Chris and took some pictures at the St George Temple. I think this is one of my favorites.