Elder Lyman/Josh is in France!!!

Elder Lyman got to call us yesterday from the airport in Salt Lake and also in Cincinnati as he was on his way to Paris.  It was great to talk to him.  He sounded good. He was scheduled to arrive in Paris about 10:00 am Paris time.

Busy/Fun week

This past week was a busy one. We have started spending time with the horses again.  They are needing attention (and food) after their winter.  They are very skinny:(

On Friday, Kristi took Camryn and Logan to the Rec. Center in Cortez to swim. And then to McDonalds to eat.  The excuse was to celebrate Logan's birthday. His birthday was on the 24th.  They let me tag along.    (Carter and Jeremy were in Arizona at Baseball Spring Training)

After Logan's birthday celebration, a birthday party was held for Uncle Keith at Towaoc (sorry, no pictures).

And then, we (Jed and I) went to Payson on Saturday morning for some family time there.  We had a food storage class at Marilyn's and Matt's. Marilyn taught us some gardening tips that she and Matt had learned in a gardening class they had taken.  Great tips and information.  I can't wait to try them out!

Maxon entertaining us doing pull-ups.

Grandpa and Scout

Addi had a dance program that night. She was a very cute scarecrow in the "Wizard of Oz" production.  

Her cousin Livvy brought her a flower for after the show. Aren't they such cute cousins?

How can you pass up the opportunity???

How can you pass up the opportunity to go with some of your kids on a cruise??  We couldn't pass it up so once again we "signed up".  We left Blanding on Friday afternoon, March 6th.  We stayed in St. George that night and then on to Los Angeles the next morning.  We boarded the Sapphire Princess on Saturday afternoon and then we were off to Mexico! 

Of course, we began eating right away.  And then we ate & ate & ate & ate.................

We found our favorite waiters:  Allen and George.

We did plenty of "lounging around" but...........

we also tried to stay very busy and active.  The "girls" did yoga. The "guys" took a golf class.

We all took a dance class!!!

We tried to run about 2 miles a day on the deck.

Jed and I participated in a 5K run/walk....the proceeds went to cancer research.

And then the excursions.........we rode mules up a mountain in Puerto Vallarta.

And then we zip lined and rappelled back down!!!!

We just backed off of this big cliff and found ourselves in the middle of a waterfall!!  Pretty trusting?

We rode a banana boat and kayaked at Mazatlan! 

We had a lot of animal encounters!

Yes, that is a donkey on Kristi's lap!

Sorry Deco, I couldn't figure out any way to smuggle this guy onto the ship to bring him home to you:(

Can you believe we really held a jaguar??

(just for the record, Stacy is wearing a swim suit cover-up and swim suit....not a dress)

We saw sea lions at Cabo San Lucas

We also saw whales and dolphins out in the ocean (no pictures of them).

We visited "lover's beach" at Cabo.  It was beautiful!!!

We were real sad when a week had gone by and it was all over.  We had sooooo much fun but it was good to get back to Blanding!!!   Thanks Kristi and Jeremy and Stacy and Taylor for letting us tag along!!!

Good-bye to Aunt Maureen

We have lost a loved one.  Yesterday (March 3rd), Jed's sister Maureen passed away.  She had become a big part of our immediate family.  Nine years ago she suffered a stroke.  She has been in a wheel-chair since that time.  She stayed at the Care Center for 3 years and then it was decided that under the right conditions she could live independently, with someone close by to call on if she needed help.  An apartment was built that connects to our house and that has been where she has lived for the past 6 years.  She was able to be independent, with minimal help from us, home health and others.  The past 6 months have been hard for her, as she has had several surgeries, a lot of pain and set-backs.  The cancer finally took her and we will miss her.  We love you Aunt Maureen.  

Weekend full of Volleyball!!

We have really missed the days of following football, basketball and volleyball teams around the state as our kids participated on different teams. So when the opportunity came to once again watch volleyball we were thrilled. We spent last Friday night and Saturday all day in Moab.  There was a big annual tournament (43 teams) and Noelle and some of her friends had put together a team.  Their team consisted of Noelle, Autumn (Blankenship) Jones and Leslie (Lyman) Redd who played volleyball together in high school. And Leslie's sister Kendra, Angie Zimmerman (she played on the team with Noelle at Southern Virginia) and Cory Jones (I don't know her married name).  This group of girls had never played together as a team and they didn't even practice together before the tournament but they were awesome.  They did really well.

After pool play and before the tournament play began, we all took a lunch break at Hogi Yogis.

The teams were placed in brackets according to how they had done in the pool play and then tournament play began.

They did awesome and ended up taking 2nd in their bracket (out of 15 or 16 teams)!!!

We also had another team to cheer for---Nicole Ivins and some of her friends had also put together a team.  

It was a lot of fun to watch volleyball again!!!