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!

A 3 year old birthday party

Advice to all who want to give a three year old birthday party. Make it short and only invite 3 at the most. It was a very fun party and Rainee had some very cute games, favors and cake, but it definitely took 2 of us to control the party. She had made a cute horse cake because as you remember Evan is all about being cowboy Duke. The decorations were bandannas, cowboy hats and balloons. She had invited 5 three year olds and of course the Cannon boys were included so there were 9 at the party. They first made cowboy vests out of brown paper bags and had each decorated their own. When they were finished with that they all got on their cowboy hats and showed off their cowboy attire. We then played a game where the cowboys had to shoot bugs with the water pistols and if they moved the bugs then they were theirs to keep, that was very popular because their was water involved. Remember 3 year olds attention span is about 3 minutes or less. They then had to go through the desert and avoid the (sorry I had to stop for a minute because Evan put playdough down the back of my pants) big snake which was a big moving rope and they all had turns jumping over it, the only bad part was that they were jumping from both directions and we had a few collisions before we had to take turns. After the games they opened the presents but because they are 3 they all thought if they brought the present they got to take the present home with them and they were all very possessive of their present. We then had supper which consisted of sloppy Joe's, chips and fruit and of course cowboy pop which was a big hit and we had to remind them to eat their dinner before they got some more cowboy pop. We then had cake and ice cream and it was good that we didn't vacuum before the party, (sorry Rainee that you mopped before the party because the floor became very sticky) they then got their cute treat bags with a sheriff badge, bandanna, harmonica, squirt gun, trail mix and goodies. We then looked at the clock thinking it had been 3 hours and only an hour had gone by and we still had an hour to go. So what do you do with all of those 3 year olds? Well you try to entertain their 3 minute attention spans with what ever you can think of, reading books, playing with toys and trying to referee because they haven't quite got the sharing concept down yet. My hat goes off to all of those nursery leaders out there that get to do this every week, you are my heroes. So when their parents came to pick them up we were very relieved and just enjoyed the silence for the moment. So to all of you who want to give a 3 year old birthday party here's my advice; have it for no longer than an hour and if you invite more than 2 children, invite their Mom as well, it will help with the refereeing. Rainee you did a great job and it was a great success and I was glad I was here to help!

Evan's cowboy birthday party

Pictures of deer (maybe)

First of all these are pictures that Ryan took today while hunting with Nate and Mac and I just have to comment before he tells his hunting stories, see this picture above, well I can't tell you how many pictures we have that look just like this, I think instead of let's find Waldo it should be called let's find deero. Ryan always gets so excited about these pictures and if you look really close you can see a speck of a deer. I would much rather look at the pictures below and after going through all of our old pictures this last year I made a file to put the pictures that look like the ones above, it is the file that sits on the floor by my desk and gets emptied once a week, Sorry Ryan but I just like the close ups better.

Well, there we were, all decked out for hunting and nowwhere to go. We saw a couple of nice bucks, which were supposed to look closer in the picture, they were both nice fours about 24-26 inch spreads. We watched them until they went to bed, which wa like 1000 yards away, then we put Nate above them and had Mac come from below them and Nate was going to shoot'em in the gizzard. Except that by the time Nate got above them Mac had fallen asleep and I called his phone (that's how we were communicating) like twenty times and he wouldn't wake up. So I told Nate to just get comfortable until Mac woke up. Well, Mac finally woke up and so we started him into the jack pines to brush these deer out. At went well until the big bucks decided to bolt. Nate could have shot the doe and fawn and the big buck was coming along right behind, but then his buddy came out of the timber and ran past making him run and zimm-zamm they bounded right by Nate's shooting window so fast he didn't even get a shot off. So it was a big long hike for 30 seconds of excitement, but we did see a billy goat and about five or six bucks all total. But they are still up there. Maybe they'll survive until next year and we'll try them again.

Happy Birthday Cowboy Duke

Today is Evan's birthday and I missed talking to him because I was on my way home from Pennsylvania, but I do get to see him on Thursday. So Evan we love you and hope you had a great day, we love our "Cowboy Duke."

We are back in Hershey

We made it back to Hershey and avoided the big nor eastern storm that was coming to the east coast. We have a lot of pictures so here we go.

This one is of Livy before we left out on the screened porch it was very beautiful and green and we were surrounded by trees. We stopped in Philadelphia on our way home so Grandpa could see the Liberty bell, he had never been there and thought he would never have an opportunity to see it again so after being misdirected by "Lola", she was our navigator I guess it really wasn't her fault because I put the wrong address in and we drove around Philadelphia for an hour before we made it to the right address.







This is how Mel felt after driving around forever as you can see Jaedon didn't mind. Livy was a little upset.

This is in front of Independence hall Jaedon loved the horses.

This is outside the Seaview hotel where we stayed, when the storm was coming we saw them taking down those big hanging plants and thought maybe we should be more prepared, but really didn't do anything differently. Oh well, if we get blown away by the storm.

This was in the lobby.
We went to the Atlantic city aquarium and I have lots of cool pictures of the fish but posted this one for Jaedon because of course it is Nemo where he lives in the anemonenenenees.
Okay this one wasn't the best picture to post of me touching the stingrays because I really am not touching it

This was a cute picture of Mel looking through the other side of the aquarium and now I'm touching the stingray, they are kind of slimy.
This is out on the pier and Jaedon loved the adventures we went on. He wanted to go on them over and over and cried when we had to get in the car.

Of course you can't go to Atlantic City without going on the boardwalk, it extends for miles and of course we didn't walk the whole boardwalk.
The beach is just on the other side of the boardwalk and it definitely was Jaedon's favorite part of the trip. I think he could have stayed and played all day.
We found lots of shells and spent as much time their as we could. I don't know if it was because of the storm that was coming but it was usually windy and the waves were huge so we didn't go too far in the water.

As you can see the wind did wonders to my hair and the humidity was so great that while there I didn't have too many good hair days.


Grandpa loved the beach too and told us that when he went to Puerto Rico they shipped out of New Jersey and after seeing the waves I can see shy he was so sick on the boat, he would much rather be on the beach. I has sure been a fun trip and we will be flying out of Baltimore tomorrow. It will be sad to leave but good to be back to my lonely man back home.

We are in Atlantic City

We are in Atlantic City and have been here since Sunday well actually we are in Seaview which is about 15 minutes from Atlantic City. We have been to the boardwalk a couple of times and we have visited the ocean. I think this has been Jaedon's favorite past time, he could spend hours playing in the sand. This resort is a golf resort and Grandpa has wanted to go out an hit a few balls maybe we can talk him into doing it today. It has been very fun being with Mel,Jaedon, Olivia and Grandma and Grandpa. We will have to post some pictures later and show you how much fun we have been having.
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