Happy Birthday Jessica!

Today is Jessica's birthday, yes she was born on Halloween and she probably has had many birthdays that were over looked because everyone else was celebrating the day and not her birthday. I just want her to know how happy I am to have her as a daughter (in-law). She has been the best thing that ever happened for Mac. So have a very happy day and we hope that you have a Happy Halloween too!

Isn't she just the cutest baby!

Happy Birthday Jessica!

We Love you!

I Love Halloween

This year Isaac was the Astronaut, Mel was the dead cheerleader and Mac was the Ninja turtle.I have always loved Halloween, I liked the dress up part but more I think I loved the candy. We would try and see who could save their candy the longest and Carolyn was always the winner. I think one year she saved it until Easter!(she always had so much will power.) I loved the costumes, I remember trying to think of something original to be. One year my friend Angela and I decided we would be a purple cow and we worked for days to make the costume. We dyed a sheet purple and with the help of her Mom we made a head and then the body. She was the head and I was the body. We won the costume contest,(that was our goal), I can't remember what the prize was but I have always been so competitive and just winning was great. I remember when I was little that at Zella Chard's (she was a teacher at Valley elementary and she never had any children, so her students were her kids) Witch Maggie always came at Halloween. Witch Maggie was a legend in the Valley and she always came to the Chard's. Well when you would go trick or treating at their house you had to watch out because Witch Maggie would be hiding behind something and would chase you after you had your candy. One year we had our candy and was coming back to the car and she came from out from behind the bushes and started chasing us, we were petrified and started running and screaming. Carolyn, my little sister fell down as she started running and she started crying, I remember running back to help her and thinking," Oh, Witch Maggie is going to get us and that will be the end of us." I was terrified and I think Carolyn was more terrified than I was, we made it back to the car but I was always a little leery of going to that place. Witch Maggie was a very authentic looking witch and we never found out who she was, it wasn't Zella or her husband Lyle, and even when they became old they never would tell anyone who she was. They are both dead now and their secret went with them to their grave, if you see any authentic looking witches out their tonight, beware Witch Maggie may be back! I still loved Halloween when my kids were growing up and I lived my fantasies through them, I really did love making their costumes and Caitlin actually loved being the princess and so I was usually making her a beautiful princess dress. This year she wanted to be Scarlett, from Gone with the Wind. I found a dress at the DI and cut it up and made this dress for her.

This is Mel and she usually liked her face painted and wanted to be something scary. Our tradition on Halloween night was to go trick or treating around our house and of course our last stop would be at Grandma and Grandpa Shaw's so we could show them our costumes and show them all the loot that we had received that night.

This was the year that Caitlin was Belle and of course here she is showing Grandpa all of the candy she got. Grandpa would try and distract her and then tease her by taking some of her candy. If it was something she liked she would make him give it back and if it was something she didn't like she would let him have it.

This was a Halloween when Grandpa, Grandma, and Grandma Marriott dressed up, they were going to a party so we came over to see them, Mel and Isaac thought they looked great.

Here is Caitlin on her first Halloween isn't she a cute butterfly!

Here we are at Grandpa and Grandma Shaw's again and Grandpa thought he should be the witch. Nate is the ghost, Rainee is the princess and Mel is the scary witch. Oh, Grandpa you make such a cute witch.

This actually was a project that Rainee and Sharlene made for their humanities class in high school. The waist on this was about 10 inches and it really was made to fit a doll but when they got through they decided Caitlin should wear it. She loved going to the high school to model it and it was so funny to see this 2 1/2 foot tall little girl sauntering down the halls of Weber High showing off her dress.

Isaac is the Ninja, Caitlin is Belle and Mac was? I can't remember but I think it was? Okay I am drawing a blank, if anyone remembers tell me. Anyway he wanted to be this guy and we had to get a picture so we could copy the outfit, anyway he looked pretty good.

This was the year that Caitlin was a ladybug, she always made the cutest bugs.
So have some great memories with your kids because Halloween is fun and I miss those days when I was trying to get 6 costumes ready, well I guess I didn't really have to get 6 all at once because by the time Nathan was older he and his friends loved to go to the DI and make up their own costume. Any way have a great Halloween and don't get too sick eating all of the candy.

4th of 4th

Okay I was tagged by Mel to choose the 4th folder of my pictures and then choose the 4th picture in that folder and here is the 4th of the 4th. This is a picture that I scanned of my family so I could fix the picture in the bottom left hand corner. I love my family and it is pretty cool that the picture that would be in the 4th of the 4th would be this one. This is a picture of my sisters and brother and their spouses and of course my Mom and Dad. I tag Jessica, Kristi, Sammy and Crystal. They can tag 4 people of they would like to.

The Dog Days of Fall

This is Caitlin's new addition. Yes I know she already has lots of dogs but after this last batch of Dachshund puppies we realized that it would be Lil'y's last so Caitlin thought she would like to try with a new breed. she decided Yorkies would be fun and she has had a little bad luck with finding some with papers. She finally found this cute little girl and her name is Millie. She is very quiet and tiny and Caitlin feels like she is a new Mommy. She brought her up today and we all had fun playing with her.

Jess and Kace are posing or I should say Kace is posing, every time I went to take a picture he had to make some "Mac" pose.

Caitlin with her baby.

Kace came up to go hunting with Mac, Nate and Ryan and when he came back he came to me and said, "Grandma, you remember that every time I come up I forget my swimsuit?" and then continued saying,"Can you find those shorts for me so I can get in the hot tub?" Well that would be fine but I had it on vacation mode so it was only at 67 degrees, not a very "Hot Tub." I told him that it would take a while to warm it up and he said, "That's okay I can wait." Well that lasted about 5 minutes and he was ready to get in. We dared him to get in and get his head wet.

Here he is getting ready to take the plunge, yes it is pretty cold.

I thought this picture turned out pretty good because you can see the water as he burst up after taking the dive into the cold water. Oh, Kace you are a funny boy.

I have to tell another funny story that happened this week and I am sorry that I didn't get any pictures. On Wednesday I didn't have to work so Mr. Jones decided he didn't have to work either. I was just sitting at the counter ready to eat my cereal when he asked me if there were any bucks out there that he could shoot. I was sitting by the sliding doors so I looked out at the mountain and sure enough up on the skyline I could see 2 deer that looked pretty big. So I told him, " Well for a matter of fact there is." He hurried to get his binoculars and got real excited and ran for his gun. The next thing I knew he was standing out on the deck in his garments shooting at the deer. If you know how far the skyline is on top of the mountain it is a pretty far shot. I watched as the deer kind of looked at this funny man down the mountain wearing bright white clothes and eventually after emptying his gun and reloading and emptying his gun again, they ran over the top. After all of the excitement wore down, Mr. Jones said, "What are the chances that I would ask you that question and you would look out and see those big bucks." I said, "I don't know but I bet you looked pretty funny to them and I bet they died laughing as they ran over the hill." With that he hurried and got dressed to see if he did any damage. He came home later and said, "I guess I needed a gun that would shoot farther." Oh, Mr. Jones!

Real Hunting Pictures

Mrs. Jones wrote the last blog and "dissed" my pictures for being so "small", so I decided to get up close and personal with these. As you can see, I have taken my life into my hands and crept up very close to get these.

In this picture, you may not notice the tree on the right, but it is purposely there in case big Brutus decides he wants a piece of me.

I saw this fine speciman coming up through some quackies and the sun was in my eyes just coming up in the East. I saw some flash of horn and then the top of his back. the sun made his hair look grey in the bright light and I thought I was going to get the biggest deer of my life. Of course when he came out into full view I saw that it was not a deer at all. So I decided to take some photos instead.


This picture is that of a six point bull elk. yes, it is dead. No, they don't sleep this way. The tracks in the dirt said that someone had shot this guy and he was walking up towards where I'm standing and then fell dead and rolled down into this position. The far horn was under him and I have pulled his head out...well around anyway, so that you could see the horns better. He has been dead about 7 to 10 days as I can figure. If you dare, you can enlarge the picture and see the maggots. there's lots of them, but I must warn you its disgusting. I tried to cut its head off and haul it out, but the smell was more than even I could stand. Nathan said he could still smell it on my clothes in the truck even though I only touched his horns with my glove. It was pretty potent stuff.

I took a frontal shot to help you see that this was a good sized elk, but still his horns suggest that he was only in his third or fourth year. alot of meat went to waste, becuse some hunter isn't smart enough to go check to see if they hit it after shooting at it. they run off and don't even flinch or give you a clue that they are hit and you'll think you've missed them, but then they just keel over all of a sudden. Nate and I are planning on going back, sometime, and collect the horns for our "pile".

The Silver Medal

The Silver is good but it wasn't quite the Gold. This last week Ryan went and played basketball at the Huntsman senior games. You have to be 50 to play so all of you that are younger, look at what you get to look forward to. He played with Frank my brother, Steve Petersen, Mark Jenkins, Scott Miller, Jerry Ropelato, Kent Yearsley, to name a few that people might recognize. The games were held in St. George and Steve Peterson was so nice to offer his home for us to stay. It is a beautiful home and it was quite relaxing for me. I know it wasn't quite as relaxing for the men because they had to play a basketball game every day and sometimes two a day. They played well and won all of their games until the gold medal game. We played well in that game but we were a little "out heighted". We played against a team that had combined the best of the "flying burrito brothers" ( yes that is really the name of their team) and then they had recruited some players that were Tall. They had two players that were 6' 11 and their smallest was 6' 2 and they were good players. One of them was Jay Chessman who had played for BYU and proball and Doug Terry who also had played pro ball. We couldn't over come the twin towers so we came home with the Silver medal. I told them they shouldn't feel bad about that but they kind of had their heart set on the Gold this year. It was a very fun week and they were all feeling the effects of playing every day. They have something to look forward to next year and are hoping their bodies can hold out. One of the older teams were called the
" Gunning Geezers" they kind of looked like geezers but they could still play ball but it was at a much slower pace. We should feel good that most of our team can still run up and down the court! So onto a year of getting into shape and we'll get em next year!!
Here is the 2008 team and they kind of look a little beat up don't you think?

We had lunch at the "Ledges" , it was delicious and the salmon was cooked to perfection.Here is Steve Petersen and his wife Polly, Ryan and I, Frank and Paula, and Mark Jenkins. We had a lot of fun playing golf in his back yard or I should say they had fun playing and we had fun watching their competitive natures. Then on Saturday we decided we better get going on the apples because there is a big crop. So we started doing apple cider. So Caitlin, Mac, Jess, Kace and Tydon came up to help.

Kace had fun helping until it got too cold.Tydon had fun playing with the tractor and he pretty much didn't care if it was cold as long as he could play with the tractor.

By the way the apple cider is really good, it's a very good year for apples!

Guess who's birthday is October 15th!!

Today is this person's birthday. If I were where she is I would give her a big hug and a KISS!
Then I would sing happy birthday to her and maybe we could have breakfast together and then go shopping. But I live thousands of miles away from her so we will have to do this another time.
I always have had so much FUN with this person she has always made me smile she is alot like little Livy and when she started walking she then started running and she has been running ever since. I loved to watch her play sports she always made it look so easy. She had to teach a few boys how to shoot a jump shot. Ryan had her basketball team play the boys church team for practice and I think that only happened a couple of times because the boys became too embarassed because the girls kept winning and she was out scoring them.She could out run the boys too and I worried about that because I thought she isn't going to ... ever ... let ... one ... catch ... her!
Jon was the one that finally caught her and we were sure glad when it happened!

We are so happy to have her and wish that we were there to celebrate, if you haven't guessed yet, it is Mel's birthday and she is one year older and wiser too!!

I know it's hard to have another birthday roll around but we are wishing you a great day!

Happy Birthday to You!

We Love you Mel!!!

The last 3 weeks I have lived out of this suitcase, it has been my constant companion through the various airports I have visited. It was very fun to visit all of the fun places I have been but it was very nice to get back to Mr. Jones. I missed him the most and next I think would be my pillow and my bed.
Now don't get me wrong it was very fun to visit my very cute grand sons and one grand daughter because I miss them very much and I wish they were a little bit closer. I will get to see Kace and Tydon today and I have missed them as well. Of course I miss there parents but when you get to visit and play with them it reminds me of the fun I had with my kids when they were little. There is just something about the innocence of children and how their little brains work that is quite fascinating to watch and it is really hard to capture that in pictures and videos. Being there in real live person is the best! So thanks to all of you little boys and girl for the great time that Grandma had visiting you, I will have to savor it until I see you again.
On our way out of Baltimore we visited Inner Harbor and we had the best seafood there, it was just delicious and I was able to taste all of my favorites. Inner harbor is beautiful and I was glad that I was able to see it again. We made it back safely to the rental car place with the help of our trusty "Lola" and we were back to the airport in plenty of time.
On our last night at Mel and Jon's Jaedon and Livy decided to lay back and relax with Grandpa, Livy thinks she is just as big as everyone else and she is simply adorable, she loved Grandpa while he was there and was always coming up to him and patting his leg and laying her head on his knee.
I made these hats for Livy and Jaedon, I had finished Livy's and Jaedon wanted to know if I would make him one. I started it that night and the next morning the first thing that he said when he woke up was "Did Grandma finish my hat?" It took a couple of days to finish and then we had a photo shoot of all of us with the "hat". I think Grandpa's was the cutest!!

So today it is back to the real world and back to finishing the canning for the season and I will just remember all of the fun experiences I had and smile to my self at the cute little kiddo's I have been with for the last 3 weeks!