"You've had an another birthday..."

L to R: Lael Ruffner, Jackie Coleman, Stefanie Cusick, me, and Cynthia Gaufin at CPK

For years now, the women in our dinner group get together to celebrate each other's birthdays at a restaurant of the birthday girl's choosing. This is such a great group of friends and it is surprising how our busy lives keep us from seeing each other very often. We are always glad for a chance to visit and catch up on what is happening in each others lives!

Mother of the Bride

Jane Anne recently got engaged and now I am "Mother of the Bride-to-be"!!! Imagine my delight at having a chance to go with a beloved daughter and shop for the wedding dress and discuss the plans for her special day. This is something that every mother of a daughter dreams of!!
When Janie and her boyfriend, Colby Neville, decided to get engaged, they only got to go ring shopping once. He goes to school in Logan at Utah State and she is here in Provo at BYU and week-ends are the only time they can see each other. (I think both sets of parents were so glad when these two decided to get married---this long distance relationship meant lots of driving for one or the other or both of them---and most of the commuting was done late at night during the winter months adding worry at least for me!) Anyway, as their schedules worked out, they were not able to see each other for two weeks after the initial trip to a jewelry store. So, Jane Anne asked me to come along and go ring shopping with her! We looked at the mall and didn't find the right one, so we decided to go to the store where Jared and Ryan both had found rings for their wives. Janie carefully looked at all the rings and found one she really liked! It has filligree work up the sides of the ring with a leaf design in tiny diamonds. A round diamond is in the center and it is bordered on either side with two plain silver bands. It is so pretty! Another surprising thing is that the design is similar to my own wedding ring! She officially got engaged Friday, April 17th!


We found the perfect wedding dress! Janie had been several places and tried on some dresses that she liked but we just weren't sure if we had found "the one". The wedding planner that she works for, Kimberly Roy, told her that she should feel like a princess in her wedding dress. So we were looking for that special dress. We were on our way to Salt Lake to check out all the bridal stores, when we decided to stop in Lehi at a shop recommended by some of our friends. It is called the "Bridal Center" and is in a little old building that Bob would describe as "a ruby in the rough". We were met by a wonderful woman, Julie, who asked Jane Anne some questions about what styles she liked, etc... and then Julie picked out four dresses for her to try. She picked her favorite and when she put it on, she knew it was "the dress"! It fit perfectly and is absolutely gorgeous!!! I have pictures of her in the dress but she requested that I not use those on this blog because Colby isn't supposed to see her in the dress until the big day. I feel so lucky and so relieved that we found the dress---what was anticipated as being a long day of shopping in Salt Lake turned out to be a short morning of success in Lehi!

The adventure begins after the week from "Outer Space and Beyond"

Jane Anne is off to London! This picture is taken outside of our garage just before we loaded the car with her luggage to head to the airport. We have had an amazing, hectic week trying to do all we could for her wedding, get her ready to go to London, move her out of her apartment and back home, and have her finish finals. We did find the wedding dress (details in an upcoming blog), she chose Bridesmaid dresses, visited with the wedding planner, went to lunch with the inlaws and got the engagement pictures taken. WHEW!!! Also this week, Josh had to go to school at 5:50 a.m. for Driver's Ed! and had lots of late nights trying to catch up on the assignments he missed for school. I had two major events with my church calling---speaking at Leadership meeting for TEN minutes and a Stake Relief Society/Young Women's open house at our house for 60 people on Sunday night. It's been quite a week!


At the airport, we met one of the girls who was also going to London and her family and there were two other girls from the program on her flight. It was a little teary when we said "Good-bye" and we will be so excited to see her in six weeks when we go with Josh to pick her up! When she boarded the flight from Chicago to London, Janie found the seat next her was vacant. She was able to sleep about 5 and 1/2 hours on the way there! What a blessing for a girl who is trying to take it a little easy after having mono!

Jackson Sibling dinner

Bob's brother, Steve, arranged for us all to meet at the Harvest Restaurant at Thanksgiving Point for dinner last Saturday. We were supposed to see their Tulip Festival before, but as luck would have it, a terrible storm came in and the rain poured. So, we just met for dinner and had a wonderful time visiting. Several jokes were shared and this is Grandma Jackson's:
A very optimistic woman came down with cancer. After chemo therapy, she woke up one morning and found that she had only three hairs left. "I've always wanted to try braiding my hair!" she said. The next day, she found she only had two hairs left. "Oh, I always wondered what I would look like with my hair parted down middle" she exclaimed. The next day, only one hair remained. "Oh, good", she said, "Now I can wear a pony tail!"

Hawaii Spring Break!

Imagine our surprise and good fortune when we called at almost the last minute and the Westin Maui Vacation Condos had a two bedroom unit free over Easter week-end! We had not planned on going to Hawaii this year, but since we had already paid the maintenance fees and they wouldn't let us trade the condo for points this year, we decided to see if Spring Break had any available condos! Janie decided that even though it was the reading days before finals, she could study at the pool in Maui as just as well as at the library on Campus. (Hmm---difficult choice, I think!) So we packed our bags and flew on Delta's direct flight to Maui on April 10th. The beauty, the warm, moist air, the usually gentle breezes, pineapple, guava drinks, NO SNOW OR FREEZING TEMPERATURES, sunsets and the laid-back pace, made it truly a relaxing paradise for us!

We have favorite things that we love to do while in Maui. Some of these include going out to dinner, relaxing at the pool for hours with a cooler of drinks, books, and Scrabble, going to Haagen Daz in Whaler's village for ice cream and going to see the Olivine Pools. Because of the weather this time, we didn't make the Olivine pool trek and we didn't go to the top of Haaleakala because the volcano was "socked-in" with clouds. We did, however, go on a whale watch which
we hadn't done for years because we are usually in Hawaii in June when the whales have gone.

Sunset in Paradise!

Haagen Daz!

This post is mostly for our married children that didn't get to come with us to Hawaii. Their favorite place for ice cream is Haggen Daz at Whaler's Village. Lots of times when we have been staying at the Marriott Condos, everyone would walk over at night and have an ice cream treat.
This trip, we discovered that they now make a sorbet, fat-free yogurt smoothie with fruit that is delicious. Taste with no guilt! As you can see from the picture, however, most choose the real thing! Who cares about fat when you can have Haagan Daz?

Nothing quite like a good read!

We all love to stretch out somewhere and read a good book. You are truly on vacation when you can just read for as long as you want with nothing nagging at you to get done. No laundry, no meals to fix, no carpools to pick up---in short---RELAXATION! (Notice the eyewear Bob has on---he decided he needed some sunglasses so he borrowed Janie's. Nice rhinestone embellishment! What every fashion conscious man is sporting these days!)

Whale Watch!

Monday morning while we were in Hawaii, we went on a whale watch. It was really fun!! We left at 7:00 a.m. (which isn't early if you haven't time adjusted yet) from the Lahiana Pier. Our boat was skippered by a woman and we had a woman marine guide helping us know where to look. We saw numerous dolphins swimming right next to the boat and several whales (a little more distant) that were breaching or showing their tail fins. The morning was beautiful and we felt really lucky to see so much! The boat was not crowded---their were only about 30 of us and it was just fantastic!The black thing in the distance that looks like a submarine is, you guessed it!, a whale!

Kobe steak house

One of our favorite restaurants in downtown Lahaina is Kobe Steak House. (Rumor has it Kobe Bryant, the basketball star, got his name because his mother ate Kobe beef when she was pregnant with him.) Anyway, we love to go to this tepanyaki steak house and be entertained by our chef and his flaming volcano, knife twirling display and his ability to shoot a shrimp off his knife into peoples mouths. This is Josh's number one favorite place to eat. He adores Japanese food and eats everything from the broth soup with one item floating in it to the mound of veggies and sprouts cooked on the grill. Of course, the meat is always the high light with steak and chicken being the usual choice, although shrimp is popular,too.

Scrabble in Hawaii

Playing Scrabble in our family has become a favorite past time. It is really fun now because Josh has bitten by the "scrabble bug". He LOVES to play and is very competitive. The only problem we all have is trying to beat Jane Anne. She almost NEVER loses and has a uncanny knack of making words on the triple word score, or triple letter score, or making two words at once that score mucho, mucho points. Well, as luck and skill would have it, Josh did beat all of us once! I don't think Bob and I ever won. Bob is hilarious to play with because he takes FOREVER considering every possible option over and over again (it's the competitive nature in him trying to beat his children). You could make a trip to the restroom or go get drinks, take a dip in the pool, and return and he would still be thinking things over as to which tile to place where. Every once in awhile all this thinking pays off and he has some brilliant move---mostly, though, we just have to wait a long time!

Our fond farewell!

We have had a new tradition evolve over the last few years. We always eat at "Mama's Fish House" on our way to the airport to fly home. Since the flight home is a "red-eye" we have plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful setting and wonderful food at this restaurant. Bob always gets a reservation just before the sunset. It's a beautiful way to end your time in Hawaii!

Family Home Evening Treats

The past two Monday nights, we have gone to "YoZone" for a yummy Family Night treat. We have Josh drive us, and he is being very patient with two parents in the car telling him what to do. It only gets a little scary when I say "Go now" and Bob says, "No, wait!" Poor child! Anyway, at YoZone you choose from about six flavors of soft frozen yogurt and then choose from a myriad of toppings---all sorts of candy, fruit, syrups, nuts, granola, etc.... Then they weigh your cup and you pay by the ounce. On Monday nights, it's only 30 cents an ounce. (Lots cheaper than Baskin Robbins and healthier, too!)

Breakfast of Champions

The purpose of this blog is to document what we eat for breakfast almost every day of the year. It has to be Christmas or another holiday for Bob and I to break our routine. Here's the recipe:
Start with your favorite instant oatmeal and add fresh blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, sliced apples and bananas. There is almost as much fruit as there is cereal! It's so delicious and we never get tired of it!

Conference Week-end

Our family really enjoyed this past conference week-end. While the boys (Bob, Ryan, Josh and Janie's boyfriend, Colby) went to the Priesthood session, the girls had a great time making cards. One of the fun things that we did was to make "designer envelopes" out of coordinating paper for our cards. It really makes the cards so cute! My sister, Karen, her daughter, Meggie, and her daugher-in-law, Mikel and her baby, Lily came along with my niece, Amy Lambert. They joined Janie, Becca and me in making some darling cards! My absolute favorite was a card designed by Meggie of a birthday cup-cake complete with sprinkles. We had a really fun time visiting and creating and I hope this can become a tradition. Afterwards, we had a pizza party with all the men.



We all enjoyed listening to conference together in our family room. I especially loved Elders Holland, Scott, Bednar and Uchtdorf. There were some really powerful speakers! After the Sunday afternoon session, we had an Easter/birthday dinner for Bob.

An Awesome Discovery

The other day I went into Day's Market and just inside the store was a bread rack advertising Day's bread---when I looked at it I was surprised to find it looked exactly like the bread from a well known bread store in town. There were many of the same kinds---cinnamon chip, whole wheat, cracked wheat, and cranberry orange. It looked exactly like the bread I had been buying for $4 a loaf but was only $2.59! I decided to try the cinnamon chip and we found you couldn't tell the difference between the two kinds of bread. (Josh is a cinnamon chip bread expert and it passed his taste test with flying colors.) Since then, we have bought another loaf of cinnamon chip and the wheat. What a great find! No more having to make a special trip to the bread store---I can get the same great taste at Days and for cheaper, too. Saving time and money while getting the same great quality---that makes me happy!

"Brain Candy"

You will find Josh several times each day stretched out on the couch with some new book of fantasy fiction. (Colby, Janie's boyfriend, calls these books "Brain Candy". If this is true, Josh really has a "brain sweet tooth"!) One of my challenges is to keep him supplied with reading material. Two things we are very grateful for: a wonderful saleswoman at Border's who knows the latest in teen fiction, and Border's computer coupons! In this picture, you will also see something else very characteristic of Josh---he loves to cuddle up in his flannel quilt! Like Linus from Charlie Brown, he carries it everywhere. (Maybe that's because our house is always cold---the kids call me the "Heat Nazi", I prefer to think of myself as an economically thrifty woman instead!)

Crock Pot Challenge!

This week I decided that I wanted to try and cook our whole week's worth of dinners in the crock pot! So far, so good---so yummy, yummy good! On Sunday, we had pot roast with my Mom's special gravy and baked potatoes. (The crock pot is a life saver on Fast Sunday when you don't get out of church until 4:00 p.m.) Monday we had a Creamy Italian Chicken with pasta and Tuesday was Orange Glazed pork roast. Both were tasty! Wednesday we had stew and cornbread and tonight was Oriental lemonade chicken with rice. Tomorrow will be pulled pork sandwiches using the left over pork from Tuesday. This crock pot (which has to be one of the first models made) is my absolute favorite (we have three) not only because it cooks so well, but because it was my Grandma Nana's. When she passed away, no one else wanted the crock pot and my aunt asked me if I would like it. I'm so grateful I said "Yes!" It has blessed my life in two special ways: with warm, delicious food at a time when I am usually tired and not excited to cook, and with warm, loving memories of my Grandma Parkinson and her funny, loving personality. I often think of her when I retrieve the crock pot out of my pantry! Love you, Grandma!