And Then Came May...

Our dear little Garrick turned two this May.  We were invited over to help celebrate.  He is such a cutie.  He is so curious about everything, so I got him some educational toys and books that will help keep him busy during church.

 Later that week, Kathryn invited us down to Spanish Fork to watch some games.  Janette had a Soccor game at the same time as Logan had a baseball game.  We started out at Logan's and watched a while and finished up at Janettes.  Early on it was pretty warm and I was sure I didn't need a coat, but by the time the sun went down, it got down right chilly.

Jeph's Birthday

 We had a good chat with Jeph on his 30th birthday this year.   He didn't want to do anything special for it, because he was so busy with end of the year stuff.  Not only did he have his own finals, he had to help all the students he is tutoring and see them before the end of the semester too.  So we missed him for his birthday this year, so sad.  But he came home later in the month and stayed for a few weeks before he had to go back to school.

Watching Grandkids

We watched Alan's kids on one Saturday in May and these cute little girls were modeling this hat.  It was so cute I couldn't resist doing a photo shoot.

Derek wanted to go up and visit his mom that Saturday, so we decided we would just take them up with us. They were so good. No whining or anything. They were just excited to go with us. They weren't sure who Grandma Preece was at first and they were a little shy, but it was good for them to visit her.

Mother's Day

We got to talk to John on Mothers day.  It was a good day.  All the kids and grandkids came over and wished me Happy Mother's Day! These are some of the things I got.  I have used them all.  I also got a new camera, (getting ready for our trip to China)  My mom invited us over for dinner, so I didn't even have to cook.  That is a great day!

This Old Home

One day while I was helping mom with a perm, my brother Randie called and told her that he sold her home! She was so relieved. It's been almost 2 years and it really needed to be sold. So the house is gone, my parents lived there for 38 years and I moved in there when I was 15 and spent those important teen years there in that house.

Mom wasn't even nostalgic about it. I asked her if she will miss it, and she said not at all. She has embraced her life here in Utah and doesn't dwell on stuff in the past. So anyway, this is a salute to the past.

Kindergarten Graduation

I got a call from my Grandson, Ethan on a Monday, while I was working at the Transient Office on my cell phone.  It surprised the heck out of me to answer the phone and hear his sweet voice.  He was inviting me to his Kindergarten Graduation that week.  What a sweetheart and of course I told him we would be there. 

He is such a fine young man.  We are so lucky to have him as a part of our family.

Our 35th Anniversary 

Yes, we are still going strong and hoped to make it another 35 years (that may take a stroke of luck for that to happen) we would be really old. 
We took the weekend to spend some time together to help celebrate.  We went up to Sun Valley Idaho, which I found out is a ski resort, kind of like Park City, but not as many shops to shop in. They did have a lot of Galleries and it was a beautiful area.  I guess they call it Sun Valley, cuz they get Sun over 250 days a year or something like that.  Of course we were there during their off season.  Too early for summer and too late for winter.  So not a lot of people there and not a whole lot to do.  But we enjoyed eating out and exploring the area. 
On the way up we stopped in Twin Falls, because Janette did a state report on Idaho and Kathryn told me that there was this huge water fall that was as big as Niagra Falls.  I am not sure if it was as big, but it was way cool.  The Snake River goes through this great gorge that has carved itself into the landscape and it was really amazing to see.  I guess the Falls are taller than Niagra. 

Then after that we headed up to Sun Valley.  It tooks us over 6 or 7 hours to get there, so we were a little tired, but we got there in time to eat at a really nice restaurant for our Anniversary. Derek's dinner came out and it was huge, and so colorful.  We had to take pictures.  The food was beautiful.

The next day we took off up the road and explored the area a bit and went over a summit and was amazed at scenery.  This area is very full of lakes and wilderness and is great for fishing enthusiast, rafters, boaters, and campers and hikers.  There is just a lot of wilderness up there.  Sometimes I wish we could do that, especially the whitewater rafting part.  Maybe someday. 

Sunday, we went to church in town and I guess they had tons of Tourist there too.  The chapel was really small, and filled up quickly, so they opened the cultural hall and it completely filled up.  I am sure most of the people there were visitors. 

Later that day we took off East and explored a place called "Craters of the Moon"  It was very interesting, because that area is very active Thermodynamically, there has been eruptions over the years (I mean thousand and millions of years) throughout the region and there is this whole field of lava flows that they have made into a National Preserve.  We hiked to a couple of Caves made from Lava Tubes and climbed down inside.  It was kind of cool.  Took some pictures, but didn't spend too much more time out there, because it was darn cold.  We bundled up really good.

Here it was the end of May and it was like 43 degrees.  It even snowed one morning and rained and poured and hailed on us.  But mostly it was sunny and beautiful.  We had a good time regardless of the weather.  We even thought about renting some bikes on Saturday and riding around, but I was too chicken, because if I hurt myself, that would not have been good right before our trip to China.

  
On Monday we took off and headed for home in a round about sort of way.  Derek never likes to backtrack on a trip and we always are looking for another route to see something different.  So we headed towards Rexburg and then down towards Idaho Falls and then on down.  We saw the new temple in Rexburg and that was nice and we checked out BYUI. 
As we were driving we saw a place called "Yellowstone Bear World"  So we decided to stop and go in to see the bears.  It was pretty neat.  They had some mountain goats and deers and elk kind of roaming around, and then we went into the bear area. 

The first Bears were Grizzleys and they were just roaming around and we were told not to roll down our windows, but we did a bit so we could get some pictures. They didn't come too close. Then we went into the area that had Brown and Black bears.  They were just roaming free and it was kind of cool.  They would come right up to the car and check you out.  The rangers told us not to stop because they were pretty active and one time I was trying to get some video of one bear that was licking the side view mirror and suddenly another one came and stood up right on our hood of the car.  Of course we couldn't go anywhere until he got down, so we just sat and watched him, until a ranger came had bribed him down.  She wasn't afraid to come up right to him and give him a cracker.  Of course we were warned not to feed them, get out of our car or even roll down the windows.  Anyway, it was a cool way to end the vacation.  It took us another 4 or 5 hours to get home and we were tuckered out. 

Well, it was a good way to end our May!