Saturday, November 5, 2016

Springtime in Idaho and Utah

As May approached I was able to spend time between Cali and Jesse's homes. I love staying with my family and I especially love it that they now refer to their guest bedrooms as 'Grandma Cindy's Room'.  
♥♥♥♥♥
The week before Mother's Day I picked Tyree up from Pre-school and she had this special Mother's Day gift that she made. The flowers she colored were stuck in something inside the cup and the poem on the outside reads.....


Dear Mom, 
This Mother's Day
You deserve the best,
A present unlike all the rest.
I considered a new car or
An exotic cruise - 
But decided on something you could really use.
Finally I found the gift to admire. 
I hope you enjoy your new
DISHWASHER! 
Love, Tyree

I also received this birthday card in May. Now my birthday is in December, but my sister Sandy was cleaning out a filing drawer at home and found this card addressed to me. 

She wrote a note on the back explaining how she found it and thinking it might be about 2 yrs old and hoped I enjoyed it, whatever it was.

To my complete joy and delight, it was a birthday card, with instructions to have a wonderful

50th BIRTHDAY!! Hahaha!!! 
9 1/2 years late, but what fun it was to get it and a great excuse to call and visit with Sandy. Well, at least she got me a card all those years ago. I don't even know if I mailed her one. 

  Since Darryl and I have been working internationally for a few years, we didn't own a car. Knowing I would be doing a lot of traveling to visit family this summer we thought it best to get me a vehicle.

Jesse is a fabulous online shopper and found this great 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan for just under $4,000. I love my 'new' ride!

This little van had no idea what was in store for it, but it sure was fun!

I also was able to go to a couple of Gideon's soccer matches. 

Parker and I enjoying the game together!

Gideon is #5 and getting in the mix!

Mother's Day - May 8th.
Gideon wanted to make his mom breakfast in bed. I supervised his making of the scrambled eggs and he a Parker were so proud to take breakfast up to Mommy. Cali said this was her first ever breakfast in bed. So much fun!

At church they gave each of the mom's these cute cookie and candy flowers.

After church I loaded my car and drove down to Utah. I stayed the night with Hillary and Jake and at 4:30 the next morning Hillary drove me to the hospital for my hip replacement surgery.

 I have nothing but good things to say about Mountain View Hospital in Bountiful, Utah. The care is excellent and the food is delicious. 
^^^^^^^^^
And I found this quite interesting. When you have hip replacement surgery you lose a lot of blood, but instead of just draining the blood, it is collected and run through this machine to 'clean' it (?) and given back to you, so you don't have to have a transfusion with blood from someone else.

About 6 hours after surgery and I was feeling great!

The original plan was to go home to Hillary's the next day to recover, but my bedroom in the basement flooded so Jake's mom, Marian, took me home to her house for a couple of nights until they could get the room dried up. 

Cody and Alisa were passing through Utah and came by Marian's to see me. Rachel was so big! I hadn't seen them since New Year's. 

When I got back to Hillary's little J~ was so happy to see his grandma! He about knocked me over, and since I couldn't lift him yet I just laid down on the floor so he could give me big hugs!

Recovery is so fun when you have J~ and G~ to take care of you!

The boys love to play outside on the warm days and the Dr. told Hillary to get them a baby pool and let them play in it. Understandably, this was extremely difficult for Hillary to do, but she soon was enjoying her time outside watching the boys play in the pool.

G~ is so fun. He keeps us all entertained!

I found the perfect blouse to wear my butterfly wing necklace with. Yes, it's made of real butterfly wings and has matching earrings. Thank you Darryl, I love you!♥♥

J~ snuggles grandma in the mornings.

And runs around naked in the backyard when he and big brother G~ play in the pool.

Darryl and I have decided that we need to keep learning and improving our minds. We found a site online (Skye found it actually) called The Great Courses. It's college courses you can take from professors and instructors from universities all over the USA. Darryl took a gourmet cooking class.
I signed up for a Medical course and we also have some gardening courses, Native Peoples of South America Course and a baking course we are working on. They are great fun and we get them on DVD with the course books so we can use them again and again. There are hundreds of courses offered by The Great Courses and dozens that I want to take. You should check it out, I have linked to it, just click on it.

 May in Idaho and Utah was so beautiful and I loved staying with my girls and their families! 

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