EASTER

This year's easter egg hunt was a big success despite the frigid weather.  We had about forty family members show up for it and I am super sad that I didn't get any pictures.  In asking around we only found these three taken by Ruth.  I am posting these to show that our hunt actually happened....

Sophie, Britta and Allegra together before the hunt begins.  

Sophie and Allegra visiting with Lucy

                                           People standing around the warmers to cut the chill.

 Trent and Kathy and Julie and Justin were absent for this year's hunt because of a trip to Oregon.

That left Rick and I to host the hunt.  Thankfully Chris and Aunt DeeAnn helped to hide eggs because we had soooo many!  We hid the eggs in somewhat of a drizzle but by the time the hunt started at 11:00 the rain had stopped.  Thankfully, Rick had gotten some warmers working to help cut the chill of the day.  The wind was blowing and that made it all the worse.  Despite the cold the children were excited and happy to go searching for eggs.  We used the eggscolored by the kids from the day before for the prize eggs and that turned out well.  Everyone got lots of chocolate and some even found a bit of money.

Uncle Rick cooked up some hot dogs on the grill and we had donuts and hot chocolate for a little extra sweetness (and warmth😀)

We all enjoyed the hunt but I was very happy to get back home and hop into the tub to get warm and take a nice long hour nap!

Easter Sunday was very nice.  We attended out ward's Sacrament Meeting.  After the Sacrament was administered the primary children were invited up to sing Gethsemane.  Little Eric knows the words to that song and he wanted to join the primary so Henry carried him up to the stand to sing.  It was so cute!  This song sung by children is just so moving and brought tears to both mine and Rick's eyes.  We love the Savior and are so grateful for His love and Atoning Sacrifice.  Next, I played the song Risen while the Young Women sang.  They sounded very nice.  It is a beautiful song. The main speaker for the meeting was Brother Lynn cook and he had his talk completely memorized!  He told the scripture story of Jesus' last hours on the earth and his marvelous resurrection.  It was absolutely beautiful!  

After visiting with a few members from our ward we drove over to the First Baptist Church for Pastor Ken's sermon.  We always love hearing him preach.  He spoke of 2 Samuel Chapter 9 about Jonathon's son, Mephibosheth and the similarities of that story in show it relates to the Savior's offering towards us.  We enjoyed feeling the spirit of that meeting and then had a nice time fellowshipping with the members of that congregation.

That afternoon the family came over for an Easter dinner.  We enjoyed ham, baked potatoes, deviled eggs, asparagus, jello salad, rolls and two different desserts that Sarah and Kendra had brought.  After dinner we had a nice easter egg hunt with symbols of Jesus' resurrection hidden inside corresponding with a scripture.  At some point during the evening the power went out so we were a little dark in the house trying to clean up the kitchen.  Thankfully, just before everyone left the power came back on and they all went back home to their houses to get ready to get back into real life.  (A week of Spring Break was ending.)

The next night we had yet another Easter egg hunt.  Kathy and Trent had returned on Saturday night from their trip and so we had planned to do our Adult egg hunt a day late.  I wasn't too excited for it but once the work was done it ended being a fun night.  In the afternoon I sat and filled a bunch of eggs and Rick went to the bank to withdraw $300.  DeeAnn contributed $200 and Trent and Kath contributed $200 which meant that we had SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS hidden in our back yards!  The kids (adult kids) were so happy to go find all of that money.  I think everyone found a little something so it was a fun night altogether.  I loved watching all of the adult cousins interact with each other and wished I could have listened to all  of their conversations.  We love this annual tradition.

GOOD FRIDAY AND ERIC TURNS THREE

Last Friday, March 29th, was a great day!  Eric turned three years old!  He is so sweet and has really come out of his shell this past year.  He is more willing to interact with Rick and I and loves to come to our house to play.  He is talking really well and says the cutest things! 

 I love it when he uses the word "actually" to tell us what he thinks!😂  

He has been excited for his birthday to come and has agreed with his parents that on his birthday his bottle will go bye bye.  He surely loves his milk in a bottle. but I'm sure he will enjoy his milk in a sippy cup from now on.

Skylar and Sarah threw a birthday party for him the evening of his birthday but I wanted to first post some pictures of the grandkids earlier in the day.

Being Good Friday I knew that we needed to get all of our easter eggs ready for the big hunt for the following day.  Luckily we had a warm enough day to color easter eggs outside.

Each child had 4 eggs to color how they liked.  There is always a backup line to use the "chick" decorator using markers.  They all made such cute eggs and had a fun time having cousin time!

Here are a few pictures of the event....CUTIES!  

 After decorating eggs and the kids getting back home for dinner we met back up at Skylar and Sarah's home for a birthday celebration.  Sarah mad this cute cake for Eric!

Eric loved the dinosaur on top and loved licking the frosting off the dinosaur's feet!

          We sang happy birthday and he blew out all of his candles then we all cheered for him!

     We had cake and ice cream and the kids loved being together.  Cousin time is the BEST time!

Eric opened up his presents finding lots of fun new toys.  Some dinosaurs (which he wanted) some new building blocks, a bubble blower and some new clothes and jammies.  He was so cute going around giving everyone thank you hugs!  We sure love our little Eric buddy and are feeling a little sad that our youngest grandchild has already turned THREE!  We will definitely miss having babies around.

                                                                HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIC

2024 SISTERS TRIP TO ST. GEORGE

Thanks to Karen for writing this whole event up.......

OUR SISTERS TRIP OF 2024—TO ST. GEORGE

 

Well, we just had a wonderful Sisters Trip--our 15^th one, I think!  (We had our First one in 2009, so maybe this was our 16^th…??). We decided to go to St. George this year instead of anywhere more “exotic”, and the weather was beautiful, and our whole time was really lovely.  It was a very nice, enjoyable trip and there were SEVEN of us who went together in two cars….(just not Lar…)    Janis and Karen left Blackfoot in Janis’ car at 7:30 Monday morning—March 11^th, and arrived at Dee Ann’s in Grantsville at 10:25.  Janis went with Kathy and Janell and got to St. George first.  Dee Ann took Karen and Ruth—picking up Darla at her home, and the four of us stopped and got food at a Burger King along the way.  I think the other three got a bite to eat somewhere along the way, too, but they arrived ahead of the four of us.

 

The day was really nice and sunny, and things got more and more beautiful as we drove along.  Hal and Janis’ daughter, Emily lives there in St. George with her innovative husband, Jim and their three darling children, and they were taking a Spring Break Trip with their kids—vacationing in Costa Rica---so they let us stay in THEIR HOME!!  It was SO NICE!!  I think they had four bedrooms in the main home—plus they have a little Casita where Darla and Karen stayed.  

 

We were really happy to see such lovely accommodations when we arrived!  The home is big and roomy with a gorgeous Great Room and a fantastic Back Yard with a pool, hot tub, lots of trees and white fence, plus a Spectacular VIEW of mountains across the way.

 

This first evening we arrived—after getting our things put away and examining our new accommodations—we decided on a fun place to go for dinner.  Emily had texted Janis a whole big list of fun places to eat in St. George—so we settled on a place with a funny name—called “Wood * Ash * Rye” and got in quite quickly after arriving.   I looked on line today to see what is said about this unique restaurant, and it says they “curate one-of-a-kind recipes that rotate with every season”…..And they indeed DID have “one-of-a-kind recipes”, and they were unusual but very tasty!!  I think we ALL enjoyed eating those expensive items much more than we figured we would!  

 

I looked back through their menu--and just to mention a couple things--I think we ordered:  buttermilk biscuits (layered biscuits served with salted butter), local salad (with baby romaine, bacon, expresso cherry tomato and rye croutons), plus house bread (country olive bread),  crispy brussels sprouts (mustard cherry vinaigrette, dried bacon, blue cheese) grilled vegetables (seasonal vegies, chermoula, lemon and maldon salt) with crispy potatoes (crispy fingerlings, pork belly, jalapenos, chipotle aioli, chorizo oil, pepperjack cheese), and hummus (garden vegetable crudite, grilled in scallion oil.)  These things actually tasted very delicious, and even though it cost each of us seven sisters $34.75 EACH—it was worth every penny and really made a memory!!  Don’t you all think?  😊 😊

 

I don’t remember what we did when we got back home Monday night, but it seems like we kinda gathered around in the kitchen and ate little goodies that had been set out on the counter by us all…  Dee Ann says she thinks she remembers Janell going out and getting in the hot tub all by herself that night, and I’m really glad she did that because that hot tub looked really tempting!!

 

The walking path going round back of Jim and Emily’s house looked really inviting, so after first getting up Tuesday morning, a nice big group of us sisters took off and went walking.  After coming back and getting ready for the day, we were eager to ‘hit the stores’, so that’s what we did.  (Isn’t that cool how I made it sound kinda like “I” was one of the Walkers??)😊

Here is a back view of Jim and Emily's house from the walking trail....

 We pretty much stayed together and ended up at Ross’ all together and at other stores, finding fun clothes and things to take home.  

 

After shopping the first half of the day, we eagerly went and had a nice lunch at Chuck-a-Rama, and all enjoyed eating to our hearts' content!  We sat in a little side room and enjoyed just relaxing and eating and talking—and being able to go get more delicious food any time we wanted.

 

That afternoon we continued to ‘shop till we dropped’, and I cannot figure out if we went somewhere to eat that night, or not….  Does anyone remember?  Maybe we had just eaten so much at the Chuck-a-Rama that we decided not to go out to eat that night....??  By the pictures I took, I see that we were at the Red Cliffs Mall at 2:00 p.m.  Then, according to my pictures, at 7:30 p.m. that night, Audra and Sebi were at the house, visiting with us.  Sebi went outside and relaxed by the pool…(or in the living room on the couch…?), and Audra sat down and watched us play a game of Probe, and ended up playing a little while with us when Ruth took a phone call.  We had lots of fun food around and continued to pick at stuff as much as we wanted, and just sat and talked till lots of the sisters changed into swimsuits and went out and sat in the hot tub.  Everyone but Ruth and I sat out there and laughed and talked for a nice long time.

 

 

Wednesday we got up and took our sweet time getting going, but some of the sisters had various things to do that morning…  Darla and Janell went over to The Skin Institute for some services.  Darla got a back treatment while Janell got a deep for facial.  The others enjoyed a slow morning and some downtime at the house. We then met up at Bear Paw Café for a very nice brunch on this day.  The wait-staff seemed to take a pretty long time waiting on us and serving our food, but we enjoyed just sitting and visiting with each other.  I took a video of everyone’s food after it was served to us, and we all seemed to really enjoy what we had—whether it was breakfast food or lunch.  (I have a very nice picture of all of us with our yummy plates of food in front of us, and I wish I could insert it here….) 

 

We wandered around in some stores, and I admired a big rhinestone ring in one of the stores, and lo and behold—it ended up becoming one of my birthday presents the next day—Thanks to Kathy Rae’s thoughtfulness! 😊  One of the stores had some cute cards with ‘interesting’ verses and one of the verses I copied down was talking about getting older versus being young, and it said:  Bifocals and a nose ring, support hoes and a mini skirt, cellulite and bikinis, varicose veins and short shorts, A walker and in-line skates, depends and a thong, dentures and a pierced tongue, gall bladder scars and a belly ring, corn pads and a toe ring, and liver spots and tube tops.   (I probably shouldn’t include that silly thing in here, but I have a Worse one that I will leave out!!) ha~😊

 

I’m sure we all shopped and continued to have a fun time doing things around St. George that afternoon, but that evening we had reservations to go to The Red Lobster, so we did and were seated in a nice place away from people (for a while) – and our waitress wasn’t very attentive to us, but most of us really enjoyed our food. I noticed Janell’s tasted pretty Awful, and she was very disappointed, but several of us really enjoyed what we ate.  I had coconut shrimp and popcorn shrimp and really loved my food. Kathy and Dee Ann ordered crab legs and got nice big plates full of them and seemed to really enjoy them.  Ruth got salmon, Darla got flounder and Janis had a bowl of soup and something else—I can’t remember for sure what it was.  We had a nice little dining experience—for the most part—then went back to the house and tried to watch a movie.

 

I say we “tried to watch a movie” because it was quite an interesting experience all in all.  We ended up calling Jim and Emily in their rental place in Costa Rica, (!!)  and they walked Kathy and others through the ‘setting up’ process until we were able to actually watch the show.  We settled on the movie “Courageous” and really appreciated the feeling the movie generated in us.  Jim and Emily have a nice big theater room in their home, so we all settled down there and comfortably enjoyed our show.

 

I think a couple of the sisters sat in the hot tub that night, while the rest of us headed to sleep, but I honestly can’t remember who did what!!

 

Thursday morning—March 14^th---was MY Birthday—Karen Hone’s 77^th!!  I noticed something interesting about the birth-dates of us 5 sisters born into the Phelps family:  When I, Karen, turn my new age in March—all five of us sisters are at that time —Four Years Apart from each other!  Karen is four years older than Robin, Robin is four years older than Darla, Darla is four years older than DeeAnn, and DeeAnn is four years older than Kathy.  So—I am SIXTEEN (16) years older than Kathy Rae!!  Interesting, eh?? 

(And of course—we do not have our dear Robin with us any longer, having lost her November of 2022.)

That morning a knock came on the door and there stood Kathy—delivering a humongous bouquet of a dozen red roses to ME—a Happy birthday gift from my dear husband Dennis!  Wow—it was really Beautiful (and I’m still enjoying it now!!)  (He was back at home in Blackfoot and had called ahead to a flower shop and a delivery girl had brought it to the door.)

 

We all gathered in the house and took some pictures of us standing in the living room before all getting in one car and going to Cedar City to head to the temple. 

 

DeeAnn drove us all in her car—six of us—but Kathy had had a bad night and didn’t feel well this day, so she didn’t come with us.  (DeeAnn wants me to mention that Janis was worried we wouldn’t make it in time because of her driving…but we made it Just fine!  And we really Appreciated DeeAnn driving us…😊) The temple session was really nice and we all enjoyed the peace and comfort we felt there—(even though we were sitting on the men’s side…) :), and we didn’t even get a picture taken of us outside, I think.  While Kathy stayed home, though, she was really busy doing odds and ends—straightening things up and getting things for ME to have a fun Birthday Party!  

 

We contacted Kathy as we rode back home, and had her meet us at the Longhorn Steakhouse where we had a delicious birthday dinner for ME!! 😊 We got in really quickly after arriving at the restaurant—right around 5:00, and as the time went along—the place filled up really fast!  Our meal was fun, and I really appreciated having it. We told the waitress it was a birthday gathering, so they brought me a nice little dish of ice cream with a delicious topping and my sisters sang Happy Birthday to me. 

 

When we left the steakhouse, we drove around and looked at the new Red Cliffs Temple. It is really beautiful!

When we got back to the house, we saw that Kathy Rae had decorated things all up really CUTE with balloons, and had purchased a delicious chocolate birthday cake and TWO kinds of ice cream for us!  So we had me a little PARTY!!  It was REALLY FANTASTIC to ME!!  (I sincerely thank you ALL for how NICE that was!!)  They all sat around the table and indulged me as I related to them a bit about how our family left Illinois and moved to Idaho back in 1960.  I rambled on way too long, I’m sure, but then we played a rousing game of Catch Phrase for a nice long time, and that was fun.

 

When it started getting late, I got really tired for some reason, so I went back over to the casita, and I didn’t pay much attention to what the rest of you did.   I washed my hair and showered and got to bed about the time Darla was coming over to join me and I figured I would head right to sleep—really quick.  But I started trying to go to sleep around 11:15 and found I was still awake at 1:03 when I received a text from Janis saying, “Is DeeAnn out there in the casita with you?”  I answered,  “No!  Is DeeAnn MISSING ???”  So Janis and I texted back and forth and Janis finally found DeeAnn asleep on the couch in the t.v. room!!  DeeAnn slept there all night long and the next day she exclaimed excitedly, “Oh My!  I slept for EIGHT WHOLE HOURS!!”   (We thought that was kinda funny!)  But all in all—I had a WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY and I sincerely appreciate all the presents you gave me, and all the attention and Love I felt!!  Thanks SO MUCH to ALL of you!!  

 

On Friday we woke up and it was no longer bright and sunny—but it was still Warm!  We gathered up our things to head home. We all packed ourselves up and waited for our rides home but before leaving we for sure got a picture out back by Jim and Emily's pool and beautiful tree that was in full blossom!

   Brad came to pick up Ruth to take her to Arizona or somewhere else for a fun little get-away to celebrate their Anniversary which had happened on the 12^th while we were all there in St. George.  Larry came to pick up Darla, too, and they had plans of staying another day or two, but both just decided to head on home and relax there. Janell rode home with Kathy but before leaving St. George they stopped at the cute Pinkbox Donuts Shop where Janell had been wanting to go before they left.  They both bought a dozen donuts to take home to their grandkids (and themselves, too;)  

DeeAnn took me and Janis home as far as her house there in Grantsville.  Janis and I went in and visited a few minutes at Kathy’s, then Janis drove me on home. (Janis and I then went to Melina’s to dinner with our husbands here in Blackfoot.)

 

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention that DeeAnn’s car left with us in it before Kathy and Janell left, but somehow as we drove on the back-roads heading into Grantsville, DeeAnn saw a car that looked like Kathy’s and she sped up till she passed it and we discovered that it WAS Kathy and Janell!!  They had somehow gotten ahead of us, and we all pulled into the homes in Grantsville at about the same time!!  😊

 

This concludes all that I wrote about the trip, and I’m sorry I left out what most of YOU guys did (girls, I mean), but suffice it to say—we had a GREAT time and I think it was just marvelous that Ruth and Janell and DeeAnn and Darla went ahead and kept with the plan of all of us getting together in St. George even though they were SO TIRED!!  They had just been home 4 or 5 days from being in Sant Maarten and Antigua for at least TWO WEEKS, so see--it was amazing that they went ahead and kept the plan of us ALL getting together like we did!!  

 

I’m sincerely grateful to ALL of you for being my sisters and for being so thoughtful and for putting all that effort into all of us getting together like that!  And wasn’t it amazingly wonderful that Jim and Emily let us actually STAY in their beautiful home like they did!!  Everything was SO NICE—and all that we did was SO ENJOYABLE!!!  Thank you!!  Thank you!!  I sincerely LOVE YOU ALL !!!!

 

                                    

Love Forever,  Karen  (the Oldest!)

ARCHES

No sooner did we arrive home from the Caribbean on the 6th of March when we turned around and the very next day made the drive to Moab for a couple of days to spend with the Boman family.  We arrived there the evening of the 7th.  On our way we stopped in Green River for dinner.  Boy am I glad that we did because we found a really great restaurant called The Tamarisk.  The food was delicious and they had a lot of in-house made desserts.  Hopefully we can eat there again someday.  It was a good experience.  We got to Moab after dark and checked in at the Expedition Lodge and enjoyed relaxing that night.  Brach and Kendra and Doug and Leesa arrived later in the night.  

The next morning (Brach's birthday) we all met up at breakfast and then headed off for the Arches Park.  We had hoped to hike the Fiery Furnace but all of there permits were sold out, so we decided on the Delicate Arch Trail. Bridger and Cassidy and their two kids and Sage and his older kids met us up at the trailhead. (Emma stayed at their hotel with the younger ones.)  Delicate Arch trail is pretty strenuous but it was a cooler day and the kids actually loved it!  (Chloe actually walked the entire trip on her own!:)).  It took us about three hours there and back.  What a wonderful sight Delicate Arch is.  I think it is so cool to witness.  It never gets old!

Here are a few pictures at the beginning of our hike. 

On the way to the arch...

We made it!  What a sight to behold!

After the hike we had a tailgater with fresh donuts to celebrate the birthday boy!

Next we stopped at the windows arches and hiked to them.  

 It was a short hike but my knees were hurting so bad by this point I only went to the first one while everyone else continued to the second one.

After our hikes we went back to the hotel for a little rest then met up with the group at the Fiesta Mexicana Restaurant.  We were all SUUPER hungry so it was good to eat!

Brach got treated with a special dish for his birthday!😂

The kids got to pose next to the Senior and Seniorita.

The next morning we met up again at breakfast and sat awhile with Doug and Leesa just chatting.  

By the time we finished talking it was close to 11:00.  We thought we'd better get moving....

We ended up going to the Sandy Arch.  I love this little hike because 1... It's easy and 2... the kids love it!

There was a lot of sand to play on and rocks to climb.  I got to sit there and watch all of it!  The sun was shining down on us, and it felt so good!

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got.

It's of Rafe climbing on one of the rocks.

After we finished up there we said goodbyes.  The Boman kids all wanted to come along with us, but there was only room for three.  Rafe went with Doug and Leesa.

We took the other three to the rock shop in Moab and then headed home.  We stopped in Spanish Fork and got some really yummy pizza which I had been craving since our time on Antigua, so that was fun!

The kids got super loud towards the end of the trip, and I had to literally cover my ears for the last thirty minutes.😐  It was a great relief to finally get home to MY VERY OWN BED!!!

It was a good time spent with everyone!  We'll try the Fiery Furnace another time:)