Our Christmas Present!

This year for Christmas, we did not exchange presents. Our home remodel was a gift far better than we could even imagine. I wish I could have put a big red bow around our whole house, and around my husband for all his hard work and help. My brother, Kumen also put many long hours building our front porch and roofing our garage. This is a blessing and a whole bunch of dreams coming to life. I now share with you, some of the finished pictures.

Christmas on Temple Square

Hundreds and thousands of lights! It is hard to describe the beauty of it all.

The real beauty and meaning is the Christ Child.

We went with Debbie, Matt and the children. It was a special time to celebrate the Christmas season.

Festival of Trees

Maddie and Jordan with their "crowns".

Each year in Salt Lake a special event is held to raise money for Primary Children's hospital--the Festival of Trees.
Trees are decorated and donated and then people can purchase them and the money goes to the hospital. Most of the trees go for thousand of dollars. There were hundreds.
This tree was especially cute. An Elmo tree. There were so many, you can't really even see them all. There are big trees, and then a whole area of small trees, and then an area of wreaths.
This tree is for Madison. It was all decorated with penguins.
We could have bought this tree and we each would have had our own side. Very fun and creative.

We Are Thankful!

Thanksgiving was spent in San Diego with Mark and Rachelle and their family. We left our home in Grantsville during a huge storm-very strong winds all the way til Hurricane. We were pulling our little 5th wheel with our new truck, and oh, our truck did not like that wind. But we spent the night in Hurricane--took Cheila and Hunter to dinner--Spaghetti Factory with those wonderful bread sticks.
Then it was to Poway and we camped at Dos Picos Park. Very thankful to have arrived safely. Austin, Kylie, and Kendal took turns spending the night with us. We are so thankful for all of our Grandchildren and for their parents.


Austin's birthday was the day before Thanksgiving. Out to breakfast to celebrate. The best pancakes ever.

Then to the Mormon Batallion Visitor Center. An amazing demonstration of the sacrifices and faith these pioneers had. After the presentation, we all panned for gold.

Our nephew, Chase joined us for dinner and also to the Center. He was so willing to dress up like a Batallion soldier--for real he is a Marine, and we are thankful for him.

Kylie and Kendall playing with glow sticks in the 5th wheel.
We ended our trip being so thankful for all the many blessings God has given us--especially family. Thanks

A Mission Blessing!

Steve's new big truck! After months and months of searching and trying to find it, we came upon an add from a couple in Idaho that were leaving to serve a mission in the Phillipines and needed to sell their truck. We went to see it. Fell in love with it! Now it is ours! How did we afford this ? Each month as we served our mision, we were blesed with the ability to put away money into savings. This is our "Mission Truck". A blessing for serving!
For those who want to know what it is--a Dodge, diesel, 250.


This is our big truck next to its little brother. Reminds me of the silly movie, "Twins" with Arnold Swarshnegger and Danny Devito.
We now have a "puller' for our little 5th wheel. Can't wait to go traveling.

One More Day!

For over a month this has been the condition of our living room . . .


and our computer room . . .

our little food pantry . . .aka . .computer room!

This is all coming to an end! Our cabinets are in, tomorrow all this is going to be organized, cleaned and put away. I really can understand the scripture . . .and it came to pass!

Stay tuned for the open house tour that will come soon! It is almost done.

He Blessed US!

Once in a while a special thing happens! For the past four years Steve and I have dreamed of changes and improvements we would like to make to our home. Our home is an old home and so many things were on our dream list! The task of taking this all was overwhelming and the list endless. Our front porch was old, crumbling, falling apart. This is the new version, almost finished. We were blessed to have an extra pair of hands to help with this project.

My brother, Kumen, came and stayed with us for two weeks. During the time he was here, he completely re-roofed our garage, and then constructed the new porch for us. Having him here was a blessing and a special time for me to get to know my brother. So glad we did this!

This Old House!

Well, that is what it feels like. Just like the TV program we are watching our house being transformed from a "This Old House" to one of our dreams. Or at least lots of the dreams we have had for our house are coming true. Notice the new steps and new floor of the front porch, plus look, a roof to keep the rain off. I love it! My brother, Kumen, built the steps and the new floor. Great job.

Look at that marvelous deck! The worker men are busy adding the siding to finish off the eve. Lots of construction stuff, equipment, ladders, saws, etc. But it is coming together so great!

This is a start on our kitchen. Notice the beautiful new door. Then look at those cabinets, Alder with a glaze. Love it! You are seeing the cabinets that will be a pantry, coat closet, and then under the window will be storage cabinets with pull out drawers and there will be a granite counter there. At the right side, is my little secretary area where I will have a place for phone, junk drawer, phone books, and all my cook books!

Sorry this is sideways, but take a side glance into my upstairs laundry room. Small, cozy, and I will love it. You can just get a glimpse of the new stairway going down.

We just walk sideways here at our house. This is the beautiful stair railing . It matches the cabinets. I can honestly say, I am more than ready for the transformation to be done. But . . have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry. It really has gone quite quickly. This week the cabinets should be finished, all the outside siding and finishing should be done, and I think the deck should be finished this week as well. I gave up painting, until the worker men are finished, as every wall that I painted, now have to be redone and touched up. Sloppy fellows.

Demolition Done-We're Building!

They flew thru the air with the greatest of ease1
How amazing to see the giant crane lift up these truss's into the air (in the wind) and just drop them right into place, with a little help of the workers.

Look, the trusses in place, ready for the roof. It is really starting to take place.

Steve has had the dream of moving an old pioneer wagon to a different place in the yard. Well, the crane operator, said, "Sure". So up the wagon went, high into the air.

Here is the wagon being moved into it's new location. It looks great there.

Stay tune next week for the next developments. It's exciting!

Demolition Derby-House Style

Well, it has started. We have wanted to do this project for a long time. This is one of the favorite parts of our house, our deck. This is the before.

This shows our deck and the back of our house--before . . .

The demolition started. Steve and his sons were the muscles behind this. This is day 1.

Almost all of the roof has disappeared. That is Matt on the roof swinging the sledge hammer.

This is the end of the first week. The roof and sides of the deck are gone. The poles that will support our new roof and the start of the new deck are in place. Wait til you see the end results.

The last Leg of the Adventure

The beauty of the Northern Great Plains as we headed into North Dakota.

The International Peace Gardens on the border of Canada and US. Beautiful!

Going over the Bear Tooth Pass into Yellowstone.

Of course we had to see this grand old park.

Our grandson, Jaden, loved all the hot pools, mud pots and of course Old Faithful.

It has been a grand adventure, literally traveling from border to border. But we were able to visit all of our children , family, and friends. We marveled at the beauty of our country and how blessed we are by the Lord. We were able to visit with our grandson, Taylor, who is serving with the National Guard in Afganistan, and was home on leave.

We were thankful that we were able to make this trip, and now we are glad to be home to just be in our house and here in quiet, small Grantsville, Utah. There is no place like home.

The Middle of our Summer Adventure.

This part of our trip started out with visiting Hoover Dam and standing with the new bridge in the background.

After a night in Kingman, Arizona we then headed to the Grand Canyon. What an amazing place.

Family reunion for the McBrides, my first cousins, was our next destination. We stayed with Ken and Judy and had a wonderful time visiting with cousins, some not seen for 49 years.

We loved the Arizona cactus, even if it is sideways.

Our next bridge was at Page, over the Glen Canyon Dam.