Thanksgiving

I was going to write everyday Thanksgiving week about one thing that I was thankful for. It didn't happen, but what did happen was that I conscientiously thought about it every day. That was a good thing and helped me to be more thankful for the many blessings that I have. We had a great Thanksgiving. We had most of our family together. It was the first time in many many years that has happened. It was so fun to see nieces and nephews and cousins. Everyone had a great time!

Wordless Wednesday

This Wordless Wednesday will be wordy, but most of them won't. I have seen other blogs that just post a favorite picture on Wednesday. This is one of my favorite rosebushes in my yard. I think it has such perfect, beautiful roses. It is a cold, rainy day here. We have a long, cold winter ahead of us. This is a reminder of the Spring to come.

Cookout on the Deck

Last night we broke in our chiminea that we got for Christmas last year. We cooked hot dogs and marshmallows. The weather was perfect, the chiminea was perfect, and the company was perfect. Families are great :) Thanks, David, for building the deck. It has been a lot of fun!

Pictures

We had our friend Alicen Waldron come down from Salt Lake and take the senior pictures that we never had taken for Sara last year. Alicen is starting a photography business. We think she did a great job! We had her take a few of the family too.

Online Friends

Last Saturday, David and I drove to Park City to meet two ladies that I know online. Their names are Mary and Rosie. They were in Park City attending a needlework conference. It was such a treat for me to meet these two wonderful women! I could have talked to them all day. Unfortunately our time was way too short. Thank you Mary and Rosie for coming to Utah! It made my day to meet you!

New Member of the Family

Meet Sadie. Sadie is a Black Lab that we adopted two weeks ago. She is four months old and chews on everything! She is a cute puppy though. Does anybody have any great training advice? We need it!

Ben's Welcome Home Party

They didn't let us know exactly when Ben was coming home until he was on the plane in Texas ready to come. It was in the afternoon, and we found out that he would be arrving at midnight that night. So we got out the yellow ribbon and tied it around trees and poles everywhere. Then we borrowed the flags that our neighborhood puts out in everyone's yards on the holidays and we lined our street with all of them! It looked great! Then we had a party for him the next day. We called every neighbor that we could think of in that short time and they were great and supported us and Ben. Here are some pictures.

Ben's Homecoming

The next exciting thing that took place in our life was the return of our son Benjamin from serving in Iraq! It seemed like it took forever to get him home. They first sent him to Texas, and then he was in the last group to arrive. The first group arrived on Memorial Day, but the last group arrived several days later at 11:00 P.M! What a happy day!

It did look stunning at night with the flags lining up in front of the plane. They also had fire trucks come and spray arches of water in front of the plane to welcome home the troops. We had to stay behind a line so it was hard to pick out our soldier out of what seemed to be hundreds of them! We finally found him though! What a wonderful reunion. We were so thankful to our Heavenly Father for watching over him and keeping him safe this past year.

Sara's Graduation

Well Summer began with the graduation from high school of our youngest child, Sara. I think that means that we are officially old. In some ways I will miss not having a child in public school, but in many ways I will not. (No more school fees!) What I do miss is not having children young enough to be in school. Here she is: