Idaho in Spring... 2011

This being 2011... and me not being in Idaho since 2009... I decided it was time to return to homebase and play catch up...

So Patti, Jarrett and I set up a time that she could take off work, and still be late enough to not get caught in any real bad storms... (surprise)  and meet in Rupert.

Louise didn't get her voice mail from Patti or her email from me... and so we showed up at her doorstep ready to stay with her and take on Idaho...

It's a good thing that we are at least related... she was surprised to say the least... and sweet as always.  Hoping that she didn't need to change her plans to much, cuz she didn't know we were acomin' we all climbed into bed for a good nights sleep... and I slept... phew!!

We wanted to accomplish 2 things... visit with the Aunts and prepare our parents grave site for Memorial Day the end of May.  I hadn't been back to see if all Mark's info was carved into the headstone or that the info was even correct... and I was feeling really sad that I had not been up to see Aunt Mae since she had become ill.  tears all the way around...

 Friday we woke and went to the "Wayside Cafe" in Rupert just off the highway... the best biscuits and gravy in Idaho.  It's a truck stop and was very full of locals and truckers, always a good sign of good food inside.  We then set off to visit with Aunt Mae.  She lives in Burley at the best guest home I've seen... Mark would call it that and it sounds so much better than an assisted living center.  We interrupted Mae's pinochle group and glad to do so...  After they finished their 'hand' we took Mae off to visit in her room.  She is still the same feisty Aunt we grew up with... even in a lovely wheelchair that makes pretty good u-turns.  We then dropped in on Aunt Irma.  The visit was short, but we made plans to meet up again Saturday and go to Shoshone Falls and our cousin Vernal Sheen in and around Twin Falls, Idaho.

Saturday morn we got up and gathered Louise's garden things and headed out to Rupert Cemetery to clean things up and prep for Memorial Day.  It was pretty overgrown.  We couldn't get the things out to put flowers in... That still needs to be dealt with, but we will have to get the cemetery people to do it.

We then picked up Aunt Velola from a funeral service in Rupert and took off to meet up with Irma.  The drive was lovely.  Traffic at a minimum... the van was sweet, our little road trip let us visit with others and not take 2 cars... We all fit in the van.  Irma, Louise, Velola, Patti, Jarrett and me.

Our first stop was the falls.  I gave my opinion about seeing the falls before the party, cuz I thought we might all be to tired to stop and it was well worth the stop.


I can't say enough about Shoshone Falls.  It was amazing... brilliant... fantastic... WOW!!  The water was so high... running so fast, the mist was like Niagara Falls... Which I have been to in the past 10 years.  So I do a bit of a memory of it.  Our falls were not so wet nor so wide nor so deep... But we are out West, mostly high desert land with rocks... flowing down the Snake River.

Then the fun started... We got lost trying to find the party in Pillar, Idaho.  Knowing the Sheen's it was a farm/ranch.  Way out of any town.  Hahaha... Patti was driving and taking directions very well, the problem was no one knew where they were going.  It was rather funny.

Finally Irma got on the phone and someone talked us to the place.  Gorgeous area.  Green fields, cows and horses.  Yippee...   We would have never found it with the navigators we had reading the small set of instructions.

The company was great.  We got to meet cousins we played with 50 plus years ago... on the Hymas side.  I didn't even know who they belonged to other than us... I never thought to ask the connections.  Just wasn't important 50 yrs ago.  The bottom line is their Clara and our Zina were sisters.  Arfa is Clara's daughter, and Elro, my dad is Zina's son and Vernal is Arfa's son.  Not sure how many times our cousins are removed... but we are connected and that is all that really matters.  Yeah... I got confused to... oh well... the genealogy sheets have it all put together correctly. 

They had really great food and wonderful company.  After awhile we got ready for our nap... food + tired = a nap... then we visited again.  We hopped in the van and took off for home for the end of our road trip.

Easter 2011

Audree and Adylin... Just being Girls...

Cousins Play

Cousins Laugh

 

Cousins Hop, Skip, and Jump




















Some jump high
Some jump low

But Cousins
Can have Fun
Where ever they go

BATH TIME AT GRANDMA'S HOUSE

The fun part of grandkids is the bath... Oh these two cracked me up. I was in socks and my pj's so I was trying to stay out of the fray. Bennett was attached to his water spout from the second he saw it at the store. So it went into the bath. I put a few towels down prior to the getting into part. I added a towel during the bath. When done... and toys out.... I needed another towel to wipe the green water spout dry.

Bennett went to bed with it... and cried great big tears when we got ready to go home and was told he needed to leave it here to water grandma's flowers. So... as a good grandma I went into the house and got it for him. I'm sure his parents didn't want it at home, but wasn't going to play the bad guy... That is what parents are for. hehehe

I had to crop almost all the pictures due to Bennett standing up, but those also show his joy... Ady got as good as she gave. The two of them had a really great time. The floor, not so good, but the carpet dries if you put enough towels down.

Getting the part of the carpets... sigh... I hate carpet in the bathroom especially infront of the comode... Can you believe it? Oh it's a good thing we are renting or else we would be on wood floor until enough money to replace it with tile or linolium...

Oh well... kids don't think of that... when it's not done intentionally (Matt) it's workable. These two never once just poured water over the side. I'm sure each drop was an accident especially if you ask Adylin... Most of the things she does are accidents.

I didn't get pictures of them doing the sun catchers... I needed all my faculties just to keep the 'paint' on the tablecloth or the sun catcher. They turned out very cute and I was so lucky to be sending them home for the family to enjoy.

I love them being off track. We get to have them on sleepover's during the week, as well as on weekends. I'm thinking our next sleepover will be Tanner before he goes back to school.

Life as Grandma is really truely the best thing in the whole world. They wear me to a frazzle and I get grumpy cuz I get tired, but I wouldn't trade a moment for anything. This time passes so quickly as I have learned with a 16 yr old granddaughter... SIGH... So, it's enjoy this while in the moment.

Genealogy, I am doing it...

 GENEALOGY

I finally got the lazy out... and pulled in all the totes from around the house and garage that hold our 'special' things...  Photos, group sheets, family histories, personal histories... etc.

 We are up to 8 totes and still searching.  We are trying to sort this into 5 families... Mike's Mom's and Dad's, my Mom's and Dad's and then Ours...  Along with photos and other important papers. It's been so cold to get out in the garage to look, that Spring will have to be the time I add to my office clutter.

Mike and I started the genealogy class at church and we have been able to connect us as ONE family on the new family search https://new.familysearch.org . If you copy and paste this into your browser... it will bring it up... use the sign on your use for your ward... or create one if you do not have one created yet.  Try to tie our families together... Let's see what we can accomplish in the year 2011.  I only shows the dead's info not the living... so it's safe.

When you are the keeper of the family jewels, I have found this to be a pretty overwhelming job.  The amount of stuff, what to do with the stuff, how to best preserve the stuff... etc. 

Can I ask a dumb question?  Why were the 'old' photo album sheets black?  Why did they 'glue' them in and put the cute little corners on too??  Then they wrote in like a white ink under the photo.  To get the photos out I have to cut them out and then try to remove the majority of the paper.  Notice I said majority... cuz you can't get it all off due to the lovely glue.

I sounds like am complaining... I am not. I feel fortunate to have so many jewel blessings.  The enormity of the job is just a tad overwhelming, that's all.  I called a cousin (thanks Jani for coming and bringing your box of jewels) thinking that we would have the same jewels, and found we did not.  So we are sharing and trying to figure things out between us, since our mother's are sisters.

So far this is what we have... No work done on Bobbie Dean Lindsay, and Mike and I not showing our temple sealing date... not sure where to put it... guess I will ask the teacher on Sunday... We have our 4 generations done.  Thanks to other family members.  So I thought I can organize what we have, make copies, share and update our current family info.

Sound good to you?  It does to me.  I now get to spend hours scanning photos and documents into a flash drive and burning media disc's to hold the info...

I am do it...

Slowly but surely.  (Shirley no pun intended)

So, it's Genealogy... 

I am working on it... 

our genealogy

: ) .....

Is Randomness a word??? September

This is just a random post...  Nothing much to say...

All is same o same o here...  

Summer is almost over... Autumn is fast approaching ...
with winter running close behind...

Didn't winter just get over and summer just start...
Oh man... I'm sure of it LOL

We are still in the rental property of Holly's playing the waiting game...
I don't know if Mike wants to wait it out or move before winter sets in?
I don't know where we are going?  I don't know who is going to live with us?
My life is full of unknowns ... again.

I took a few photos and thought they would make a cute update for me on here.