Late Birthday Gift

For a birthday gift this year Rick bought me a cooking class at Orson Gigi's.

It was a class on flood icing cookies.  It was fun, and I learned a bit.

I need practice at getting better, which I may or may not do, but it sure was a fun time!

The teacher used some special machines to copy the pictures onto a couple of cookies, and I was able to use an air sprayer with edible color for a couple of them, but all of the others were made using the flood icing.

The unfrosted cookies.

Beginning icing...

...finished product.

This cute Halloween gingerbread house was siting on the table from a previous class.

It was super cute!

Maybe next year I can make one of those:)

 

                Thanks to my sweetie for this thoughtful gift!  I had a wonderful time!

Teenager Rafe

Huge news!

Rafe is now officially a teenager!

He is a great young man and we are so happy to have him in our family!

We met up with him at his other grandparent's home for a celebration.

We didn't have a lot of time there because of a meeting we needed to be to, but we got to see him blow out candles and open his present from us.

His mom made him a Tres Leches cake.  Look at all those candles!!

Rick bought him a range finder, and I bought him a camouflage hoodie.

He was happy with both.

Tomorrow he is going golfing with some friends to celebrate!

Happy Birthday Rafie!

 

Rick's 61st Birthday

Rick and I were able to spend a night out for this year's birthday.  We started our outing with a trip to our NINETY NINTH temple.  We attended a sealing session at the new Orem Temple.  It was dedicated earlier this year, and this was our first time to go there.

                    It has the same floor plan as our DP Temple.  We loved it so much!

After the temple we had reservations at Carver's Steakhouse where we enjoyed some good grub.

Next, we drove downtown to get to the Le Meridian Hotel.  It is a new hotel in Salt Lake's West Quarter.

We were upgraded to a suite and had a beautiful view of the sunset.

Thankfully the Delta Center was a half a block away, so we were able to just walk right over to the Jazz game.

I really like our seats this season.

They are in a good spot!

The Jazz came out on top (just barely) so that made it a good game to leave with the W.

We got back to the hotel and turned on the TV to relax.

I lasted about fifteen minutes, if that.

The next day was spent shopping, riding bikes, and eating.

Rick was on his phone for a lot of the day. BOO!

But it is what it is sometimes.  We had fun riding our bikes...(without the phone)

We found some pretty fall foliage up Bountiful Canyon.  It was really pretty and smelled so good.

We finished our day at Chilis Diner.  Rick finished off his meal with a birthday dessert...

molten lava cake.  What a way to go!!

We ended the evening helping out at the Dry Bar comedy show in Grantsville.

It was ok.  This was our second go at Dry Bar Comedy.  Neither of us are huge fans of it, but we were glad to help out with the Lakeview Church by setting things up and putting back together.

All in all it was a good birthday getaway.

                                                         Happy sixty first birthday, honey!

Halloween Party Part II

On Wednesday this week we had our second Halloween Party of the month.  We had the younger cousins join us for a super fun night of togetherness! 

The kids arrived at 6PM, so we were all ready to get some dinner in us.  We all made individual pizzas and then let them cook while the kids had a scavenger hunt.  

 They had eleven clues to find their treasures, which were hidden in grandpa's bbq grill.  

They had fun prizes in their treasures...Halloween puzzles, pencils, squishies, pop-ups, and lots of candy.

The scavenger hunt lasted long enough for the pizzas to finish cooking.  We had a spooky relish tray and some sparkling drinks to go along with their pizzas.

Here's a toast to Halloween fun!!

We then worked on our Halloween craft.

They all did a nice job on them!😻

Next we played games.

First was pictionary...

                                                                ...then musical chairs...

...then twister.

We had a lot of laughs along the way!

Next was new Halloween PJ's.

They all looked so cute, and weren't they surprised when we discovered they glowed!

Daisy and Chloe

Merik, Eric, and Brady

The party crew!

Spooky story fun.

The stories were a little spooky with silly endings.

The kids laughed and laughed at the story, "The ghost with one black eye"

We ended the evening by watching a couple of shows while the kids ate their Halloween candy.

We all got a good night's sleep...except grandpa who was in the smaller bed with Merik who likes to sleep curled up in a ball and had his legs in grandpa's back for the night.  Anyway, we made some wonderful memories with our favorite kiddos!  Happy Halloween!

Rick's Birthday Celebration!

Last night we had a family dinner to celebrate Rick's birthday.  We had cheesy halibut, Hawaiian chicken, rice pilaf, salad, and rolls.  Rick had requested a German chocolate cake for dessert.

We had a nice time together celebrating our wonderful husband, dad, and grandpa!

He's a gem and we all love him so much!

Look at this cute picture of Grandpa with little Wyatt.

Halloween Party Part I

 The month of October is in full force.  The weather has been getting cooler, and the leaves have been changing which means it is time for our Halloween parties!  Last night was the first of three.  Rafe, Scout, Haivyn, Henry, and Charles came over for the festivities.  I made up a cute spooky relish tray, and we headed outside for a hot dog roast at the fire pit.  

We had veggies, hot dogs, chili, chips, and fruit.

Each person had their own bubbly with cute spooky fluted cups.

They all had fun roasting their dogs.

We took some time to pick some pumpkins from the garden.

We thought we might do some carving on them, but the night went too fast, and the kids just had fun playing outside.

Cutie Patooties!

Before it got too dark the kids had their scavenger hunt.

Grandpa was in charge this year, and the kids loved it.  They each had their own clues and had to find their own basket this year rather than as a group.  All the treasures were hidden in Aunt Kathy's backyard.

It was a success!

They each found their treasure.

Next we came inside to put on Halloween jammies and get pictures.

These kids have so much fun together!

After the pictures they all wanted to put their Legos together.

Each one got a huge Harry Potter Spider.

Here's Haivyn showing off hers!

We had the kids bring all the legos and treats to the basement where Grandpa told us two spooky stories.

The kids were into it, and Scout cuddled up to grandpa cause she was a little nervous.  It was cute because while they were spooky stories they also had a funny ending.

After that we turned on two episodes of The Twilight Zone and then put on What About Bob to finish the night.

After the movies (Charles was already asleep) we all came up for prayers and bed.

After Grandpa told some bedtime stories the boys stayed with Gramps in the guest room and 

the girls slept with me in the master.

The next morning Rafe and Scout had to leave early for a day full of football while the others found Grandma's iPad and played games.  

It was a fun party with half of the kids we love the most in the whole world!  

The other half will come next week!😃

Cancun

Oh our lovely Cancun!

In the spring we got a card in the mail from Marriott offering us a discounted stay at the Westin in Cancun.

We decided to go ahead and take the offer.  We planned for the end of September after our last grandchild's arrival.  It worked out great timing-wise.  We left on a Monday and came back on Friday.

We for sure wanted to be back for General Conference which started on Saturday.

That gave us three full days there, and even though Rick would have loved to stay a couple more days, it was the right length for me.

We got there in a complete rainstorm, and what do you know, we forgot to pack our umbrella.

No worries.  The Westin had us covered and let us use one of theirs.

We took the bus into La Isla Mall and had a great Mexican dinner.

While we were sitting on the patio Rick looked into the lagoon and saw a crocodile!  Of course, we had to go follow it... 

Chips, salsa, guac, and refried beans for the win!!

Of course we had to stop at the Haagen Dazs for a very expensive double scoop of ice cream.

SEVENTEEN DOLLARS for the two double scoops!!

Anyway...it was a good treat!

The next morning we slept in and then went down to the buffet breakfast offered by the hotel.

This is a great buffet and is one of the many things we like about this Westin, along with the pool and beautiful view of the sea off our patio.  

I can't resist those delish pastries!

That day was our pool day.  We enjoyed getting in the warm water and relaxing on the chairs.  I brought a couple of books with me, so I didn't get board at all.  I LOVE sitting beside the pool reading a book.  It's the best!  

After a while, Rick went looking for our parasailing guys.  They were not too far down the beach.

Parasailing in Cancun is such a great experience!  They don't take you so high that you are paralyzed, 

(I see you Clearwater Beach Parasailers😱) but high enough that you get to see the amazing crystal waters of the Caribbean Sea.  It's awesome!!  We had to hop on a wave runner which then took us to a boat out on the water.  That was a first for us, and I was worried a little about my knee getting on to the boat but all's well that ends well:)

Here are the parasailing guys.

That evening we went to dinner at Elephanthai Restaurant.

It's a Thai restaurant in the mall.  We love it even though it's spendy.

The next morning we got up early for an excursion to La Isla Mujeres.

We love going over to this little island!  It is really fun.

We were served juice as we got onto the boat and got ready for our snorkel.

The snorkel was actually pretty good.  I thought the waters would be murky because of the rain but we got to see a lot of fish and coral.  The water was kind of rough, but that didn't bother us too much.

As soon as we arrived Rick rented us a golf cart to drive around the island with.

The north shore had some pretty views of the water.

We stopped and grabbed some lunch at a roadside restaurant.

More chips and guacamole!!

And some GREAT nachos!

We only had a couple of hours on the island.

After arriving back at the hotel we took a dip in the pool then got some grub at the poolside diner.

We shared a hamburger, and it was mmm good!

Look at this sunrise!  This was our view each morning!  Incredibly beautiful!

Our last full day was on Thursday, and we rented a car and headed to the east to Ek Balam.

Rick had fun climbing the pyramids, I swear that boy has the adventurous spirit of a fourteen year old.

He loves this kind of stuff!

I got to walk around and take pictures.

This is the big pyramid.  It was over 100 steps to the top!

After Ek Balam, we drove into Valladolid, a cute town that we had been to before.

It didn't seem as quaint as it did the first time we were there, but we enjoyed a great lunch at Los Portoles Restaurant.  

We got to walk around this cute plaza that took up a whole city block.

This fountain was in the middle.

And this beautiful cathedral was right across the street.

The servers at the restaurant told us of a cenote right in the town just a few blocks from the plaza.

Rick really wanted to go swim in the cenote so he did.  Remember adventurous spirit??

I enjoyed a reading and a short nap in the car.  While he was in there a rainstorm came and pelted the car.

He came out not too much longer and said he enjoyed it!

When we arrived back at the hotel it was late but we ordered another couple of burgers from room service and loved every bite!

The next morning it was time to fly back home.  

We made some great memories, once again, in beautiful Cancun!