An all encompassing blog

Now that you are dividing out your belongings I guess I better stay on your good side and blog. Lol! The only things I want I need from you now, not after you are gone...memories. Honestly, I will say it now and in writing I do not care about the stuff, I am just grateful for all the moments and memories we make with you and you with our kids. That is priceless and all we want!

Our family had a great time visiting with everyone. It was a great few weeks, and we loved that our kids had an opportunity to spend so much time with their cousins. Thank you Sherri, Brett, and family for allowing our kids to stay at your house and come a week early. Thank you Rick for shuttling our kids down early. Thank you Mom for the many wonderful breakfasts, and thank you for all of those who provided food and opened their home to allow us to visit, play games, and make memories as a family. We had a great time!!

This past weekend we had an opportunity to visit with Angela's sister and her family. They came up to Salt Lake to go to Lagoon Amusement Park, and stayed with us Friday till Monday morning. We spent the entire weekend with them, including a day at Lagoon. It was a lot of fun, but only made me miss Cedar Point more. I am worried that age is catching up on me, as I sat out a couple rides, Tilt a whirl and the pirate ship, because my body and stomach just do not love those rides anymore. I still rocked all of the major roller coasters, but enjoyed the food more than I used to. The transition to old age is happening. I remember the years going to Cedar Point as Mom rode less and less, to pretty much saying she just loves the atmosphere, watching us kids have fun, and the food. Yikes! Becoming more like Mom is not a bad thing, but I feel so young in my head, surely I am not there yet. It was a fun time, and I loved watching my girls run around and laugh and just have fun being a kid. We got there 17 minutes after opening, thanks Angela for making us late, and left right as it closed at 11pm. What a good time! The tradition of Cedar Point can never be beat, and maybe some year all of our families can make a trip to Cedar Point for one huge family reunion and let our kids experience the greatest Amusement Park in the world, and more importantly experience a little of our own childhoods. It will always be one of my fondest memories. We had a nice visit with her sister and family. They have two kids, a girl and a boy, close enough to our girls age that the kids loved it. It has been a great summer just because of all the family time we have been able to enjoy. We kicked off summer with a wonderful trip to Yellowstone with Mom and Rick. I am so happy my kids will have fond memories of time with their grandparents. That trip has been followed by numerous opportunities to spend time and have fun with Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. It has been a great summer!

Last week Angela and I had the opportunity to go to the temple for Baptisms with Mason for her first time. She was so excited, and it was such a fun experience. She missed out on the youth temple trip experience that I had as a youth, but I had the opportunity to perform the baptisms and confirmations with her, so that made it that much more special for all of us. We went to the Mt. Timpanagos temple. It was a beautiful and spiritual experience. We then rush home to get her to her Young Women's activity. She is so close to being a teenager, I just hope she stays as sweet and innocent as she is right now. Haha. She is excited to do more baptisms, so we are going to try and visit more temples throughout the valley with her. Poor Connley has two more years before we can turn them into family temple trips, but Mason will set a good example for her so she will be prepared when she does turn 12.

Finally, we wanted to say our final good-bye to McKenna. Your talk was excellent, and your delivery was even better. You sound far more prepared than myself, so you have nothing to worry about on that end. Plus the Lord only needs you to go and open your mouth, He and the Spirit will do the rest. You will have experiences on your mission that will be yours, and you will never be able to explain fully or forget. Eighteen months is a long time, but I promise you when you get to the end you will look back and think, it went too fast. You will be a wonderful missionary, because you are already a wonderful Sister (both in your family and in the church). We look forward to hearing about your mission, and sharing with you the Spirit and love that comes from missionary work. Everyone has their own feelings about missions, some would describe it as, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I always told my new companions, that there are bad times on a mission, but I have never had a bad day. That was true. There will be times that are hard and sad, and the hardest will be watching people you have come to love fall away from the gospel or decide not to be baptized, or struggle to understand something and let that eat away at them until they give up on the church or the gospel message all together. Most missions probably have more disappointment than success, but the Inglands, Zulekas, Eastons, and Carters make it all worth it, and provide the rose colored glasses with which people view their mission experience. We will pray for you, and for the people of the Philippines, that they will be prepared for your visits. Good luck McKenna, we love you, and are grateful for the service you are providing.

hey where is everyone

Ok, it looks like Mom is back to posting alone. I will try again. I just returned from spending 4 days with Rick and his family at reunions and temple and rodeos celebrating pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. What fun we had. 4 very busy days. I will share a little. We went to my first rodeo and that was quite fun. In Ogden. I had a plantar's wart removed a week before so I had to forgo my cowgirl boots, but Rick wore his and I wore my cowgirl shirt and we had fried foods and felt sick for 24 hours afterwards. Thursday night we did sealings in the SLC temple and I was able to seal a man to his parents who had had his temple baptism, confirmation and endowment done by someone in 1954 in the SLC Temple. However he had not been sealed to his parents. I found his parents in my search so I had them all sealed after 60 years. That was pretty special. The sealer noticed the dates and mentioned it to the other people who were helping us. I hope he has accepted the other ordinances all those years ago! Then Friday, we met with Rick's brothers to begin splitting up their mom's belongings. I realize how difficult it is for children to let go of their mother's things. They say they don't care who gets what but when it came down to it they did care. The wives had to take control of some of it. I think I had better start now saying who gets what so my kids won't have to decide. Darn it, that is so painful. Then Friday evening back to the temple with Rick's family (cousins) to do an endowment. Rick went through for my brother (Dan) so we again felt like it was special. Saturday, Rick's brother hosted everyone for Mom's 97th birthday bash since she would have wanted her family to celebrate without her. I hope my children will remember to do the same after I am gone. His brother offered a very touching prayer hoping their Mom would be proud of them. I believe she was and is proud of them. Then we headed to Provo for the Mackay family reunion to honor Rick's grandparents and all those who came after. His 2 living aunts were there...both pushing 90 now. One of them asked me to promise to keep it going once they die. They know I am "into families" and reunions. I hope it will happen. Families are so important as are extended families. Today Rick's brothers and wives all went to the Tabernacle broadcast and then up to the roof of the conference center to have our picture taken. If you go up there you will see a mural of his great grandma and grandpa and his grandma as a little girl. (Ruth May Fox and Jesse Fox Jr). It is something. It is on the outside wall with others including David O. McKay as a little boy. Then back to the house for dinner and I flew home. Ok, that is my update. Love to hear about my children. I cannot keep up the blogging alone. Love, Mom

Well, I can only imagine that everyone is still recovering from family vacation and family reunion. I have been busy this week getting back into the swing of work, trying to catch up on housework that I let go while I had family here, trying to get caught up on temple work, trying to get back into a routine and I have to tell you, it is not easy. Maybe you have found the same thing to be true for you and your family. I have hit the pillow each night exhausted. And a little lonely that my house is now quiet and no one is here to say "grandma". I had to go out visiting teaching, prepare a Relief Society lesson for tomorrow and do a variety of odd things this week that has kept me busy as well so it isn't like I have not been busy, but there was definitely something missing in life here in St. George. I sure hope that you all found time to stop and remember some of the fun things we did...can't recall which I enjoyed the most,but I sure enjoyed the talent show, the temple, the time at Pine Valley, McKenna's farewell, the game at Sherri's on Wednesday night, homemade ice cream, making hand prints of grandchildren, visiting, just being together. I hope your families will recall some good times with cousings. It does get hectic for sure. Rick and I got up at 6 this morning and took a walk in the neighborhood and we were the only ones up that early I believe.It was cool outside and quiet and I totally enjoyed. Now the heat of the day forces us to be inside and stay cool under fans and air conditioning. For those of us fortunate enough to live in Utah, we get a vacation day this week to celebrate Pioneer Day. Yeah. I will head north to attend the Mayfield reunion and this year there will be a temple trip into SLC on Friday. I love that they added a temple trip for all the Mackay cousins. Should be quite the trip. Cassie (Chad's wife) had discouraging news this week. Her youngest son, Ben, who is 6 years old was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes. He will have to be on insulin the remainder of his life. His blood sugar was over 500 and normal is 60-90. This is quite serious for a little guy who should not eat much sugar forever. Think of all the birthday parties and teenager parties, etc. Rick's wife died at 59 due to complications with diabetes and his grandson, Colton was diagnosed at age 9 so their family understands how dangerous it is. It is such a difficult disease and sometimes even with great compliance, people have issues with blindness, neuropathy, etc. My heart breaks for her. Please keep them in your prayers and thank God everyday that you have healthy children. Hope to be reading some blogs soon. Love from a grateful Mom.