When Shon and Kee came for Mother's Day they were able to stay for a few days, so for fun we went to the BYU Art Museum. We are fortunate to live around some of the best ....and may I add "FREE".....art museums I have ever been to. At this particular time, they had the original paintings from the "I Spy" books. We were not allowed to take pictures in that exhibit, but they did allow it in other parts of the museum. I am so in awe of the talents of so many of the artists. I did take pictures, which of course do not show the quality of the paintings but they are still a reminder of what I saw and what great paintings I was able to witness. You may want to enlarge to appreciate some of the details.

These are my grandsons Toby and Alex outside the museum.

My other Grandsons Nick and Joey

Nick mimics the stance of the statue and may I say it was not that easy.

I wasn't smart enough to take pictures of the explanations of these paintings and my memory is not good enough to remember what they are about and who painted them so use your imagination and then come to Utah and see them for yourselves.

One of the Best Days of my Life

We had a party for Amy's birthday and Mother's Day on May 10th. It was one of the best days of my life. Unbenownst to me, the Bishop and Amy had arranged to have my whole family at church. They came walking in, one at a time to surprise me, which it did. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They then dedicated the meeting to me. I was so honored as each one of them spoke about me and my role as a mother. That is really something to have to live up to, but there is nothing in the world as precious to me as they are. I am so lucky to have a husband that I am crazy about, children and their spouses that I dearly love, and grandchildren that rock my world. Thank you Bishop Ed Collins and Amy for all your organizing.

We then went to our home for dinner. After dinner the kids took the balloons down and were playing with them. In a while they came in the room to show us what they had done. I thought it was so clever and artistic and just had to share. They took my painter's tape and made faces on their balloons. They named them, but of course I don't remember the balloon's names so I will call them Bob, Paul and Mary. Each time they came in, they also had a name or emotion that is reflected in the faces of the balloon.

Millie decorated this "Mary" balloon and it has hair made from torn little pieces of tape. Is that clever or what?

Nick made Paul here with a "soul patch"

Have you met Dracula Bob?

Joey said Bob is a little sad here..... just one tear.

Paul is either screaming or is very afraid.

Those eyebrows show surprise don't they?

Just a normal looking guy, I think this is the one Nick called "contemplative"

A very sad fellow with tears streaming.

I forgot what Toby called this, so put in your own interpretation.

Shon and his family got to stay for 6 days so we had lots of fun. Thank you family for being the amazing people that you are.

License Plates

A while back I was writing about quirks on my blog and stated that I probably didn't have any. My very disrespectful...I mean "WONDERFUL" children, mentioned a couple and I guess I do have one that I didn't think of at the time. Whenever I am driving or riding around and see a license plate with 3 letters on the right, I interpret the letters to stand for something, and in my mind it just automatically forms a phrase. These are not personalized plates....just the regular state issued ones. For instance:

This one stands for "Wayne underestimates Joan". Wayne had a different interpretation but it is not worth mentioning.

And this one is "Large Giant Attacks"..... A good newspaper headline.


I do it all the time without really thinking about it consciously. It's easy in Utah because most of the license plates have the 3 letter ending. Colett used to have the license plate YVV. I called it the Yarro vrooom vrooom car and I could always find it in the parking lot amongst the other 100 black suburbans. We also have a VDC in our family so it's easy to find too. Just look for the car that means very darn cute.

Now I have YOU thinking about it don't I? Nevada and Minnesota and a few other states also use the 3 letter endings on their plates.

What would you interpret these letters to mean? Leave a comment and let me know.

113 ALT
407 CYD
892 PDE
789 EDQ
815 HGT
008 NSL

Goodbye Sam the Grand-dog

15 years ago Matt and Colett adopted a naughty little mixed breed dog that would not stay in their yard. He even learned to crawl up the wire fence and jump out to freedom. They had to chase him and bring him back so many times that Colett had about decided that the next time he left, she was just going to let him leave and not go looking for him again. Of course that never happened....oh yes, he did get out again, but she did keep bringing him back. As he got older, he came back on his own and then finally decided that his yard was the best after all and stayed home.

Sam had lost all quality of life the last few months, and with many tears and much hesitation they had to have him put down. This brings a sadness to all who knew and loved him and there will always be a little place in our hearts that will miss him. Sammy lived with us for a few months when Matt and Colett were living in an apartment and couldn't keep him there. He became our dog too. We had a little poodle "Dusty" at the time and both Sam and Dusty would nap on top of Wayne and put their faces in the window waiting for him to come home from work. He worked his way into Wayne's heart too.

Will we see Sam again? Well there is not a lot written about animals in the afterlife, but some church leaders have said this : Animals in the Hereafter Ask Gramps. We will see him again I am sure and right now he is playing with our dog Dusty just like they used to play when they were buddies a few years ago, and now he can run and hear again like he used to. Oh Sammy, our little Grand-dog we will miss you, but we know you are feeling better now.

Arbor Day

Today is Arbor Day and I have to say it is a great day. I LOVE trees. I'm not a tree hugger, although I wouldn't mind hugging one. I didn't know exactly how many trees we have so I went out and counted, and this is the way my yard stacks up: 24 trees

9 Aspen

2 apple

1 pear

1 peach

1 cherry

4 flowering plums

1 pine

1 maple

1 genola maple

1 pussy willow

1 arborvitae

1 cypress pom-pom

I won't photograph them all but here is a sampling: The Genola Maple

The pine

2 of the quakies

I just threw this is because it's so pretty but not mine...it belongs to Shon and Kee

Flowering plum

My Dr. Seuss looking cypress pom-pom tree

My peach tree

I'm sure my tree owning will not end here. I would love a few more if I can find the right spot to put them. So for this Friday, plant and love a tree. Help out Mother Earth produce shade and good oxygen for us all.