Grandparents of the Year

When your 13-year-old granddaughter lives in Indiana and David Archuleta is autographing his new book in Salt Lake City, and you get an email plea to please, please, please go down and get that autograph, well, what's a good grandparent to do?!! Yep, we both took Trax downtown and stood in line almost four hours to fulfill that wish. And yes, Courtney, he is dreamy cute!

Family Time Part 2

The afternoon of Lucy's blessing, the family moved to Grandma and Grandpa Clark's in West Jordan for a BBQ. It was the hottest day we've had so far, and poor Grandpa is showing the effects of the heat...again, Lucy loves her Grandpa C.

These three little monkeys have an absolute ball together. Cameron, Dexter, and Parker all love ice cream cones

Carson has gotten into reading labels and revealed to us the awful truth of adding the calories of ice cream and chocolate syrup. Oh well...

This weeping pussy willow tree has become a favorite huddling place for Dexter and Cameron.

Family Time

Great family get-together yesterday. Curtis blessed little Lucy Lorraine with the help of Grandpa Clark, Grandpa Lybbert, Sam, Jarom, and Brady. this little one is such a sweetheart! She wore the blessing dress and beaded moccasins that Shandy wore when she was blessed.

Curtis, Parker and Dexter having a good game of T-ball!

The second little girl born in this go-around is Jed and Nalani's little Sloan. Here she is being cuddled by her Aunt Carrie. These two little girl cousins are going to such buddies in the years to come.

Spring, Grandkids--Life's Good

We're pretty sure that spring has finally arrived. We were beginning to think otherwise--the weather around her this year is reminiscent of our years in Idaho.

This is Carl's favorite location when the weather is warm and the yardwork is up to date!

This Fisher Price train has been in our family since Darren was little. To Carl's dismay, Pat insisted on hanging onto some of the toy favorites, and it has paid off! When Dexter, Cameron, Parker, or Jacob come to visit, this is the first toy that comes out of the toybox! The barn peeking through at the bottom of the photo runs a close second.

Little Lucy is Grandpa Clark's pride and joy. This calm little girl settled right into his arms for her dinner bottle. Pretty sure she'll be getting whatever she wants from her Grandpa Clark as she grows!

It's A Girl--Really!!

There is nothing like the birth of a new baby in the family to prompt one to update their blog. This little beauty came on Mothers' Day--what better gift could one have. Her Grandma and Grandpa Clark arrived just as she came into the world, literally! One more second later, and we would have missed her arrival. She is absolutely gorgeous.

These Are Great Times

Although oftimes the days seem to run into each other when one is retired, there are those that stand out. Yesterday we had planned to go to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple with Rich and Sharon, but plans got changed, so Carl and I went to a session in the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Kind of nice because you can call ahead and get reservations. We love this temple--so calm and peaceful, as they all are, but this is less crowded and smaller.
Then today, Saturday, Curtis and Shandy had invited us to come down to observe Dexter's gymnastics class. What a treat--lots of cute kids ages from two to four, tumbling, running, and having a ball. The two teachers were so great with these kids. The biggest part of their job is getting the little ones to listen to directions, and those kids were great.

Here Dexter is being directed around an obstacle course. He is a serious listener, that little guy. Plus he was decked out in coordinated workout duds!

Look, Grandma and Grandpa, I can balance on the balance beam...(thanks, Mom, for helping out)
In this exercise, the student and a parent had "jousting sticks" made of soft foam rubber, the object being to knock each other off the beam. Of course, Dexter was the winner here.

We finished up the day with a long, long visit with Rich and Sharon. It seems so good to have them close once again. Boy, can we ever find things to talk about!

Hot Air Balloon Supplement

One of the perks involved in living close to grandkids is that we have the privilege of helping out from time to time. Since Cameron couldn't go on the hot air balloon ride, Grandma and Grandpa went along to watch and tend.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. The owner of the balloon company was such a colorful character, and we knew it from the moment he emerged from his house--very mellow and relaxed. He put everyone to work getting the balloon ready.

Russ let me drive the fancy BMW convertible the half block to the launching site--once I got it out of 3rd gear, it was great... Thank goodness the convertible was still there when we returned--I'd left the keys in the ignition.

Cameron thinks he's cool in sunglasses--and he would be right!

Fern taking it all in--that balloon is huge!!

How many people does it take to get a hot air balloon launched? --if Russ would only help a little...

The balloon against the sun rising over the mountains was awesome.

Yep, landed right in a cul de sac (see Carrie's blog for details).

Jackson Hole & Funny Kids

We haven't been to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and surrounding area for a long time. This really is some of our favorite scenery in the world, and with a promising weather forecast, we headed up to Rexburg. We left early Saturday morning with Darren and boys (Susan was hiking Table Rock with her ward--a feat in itself!). Everything was even more beautiful than we had remembered!

The Tetons from the Idaho side.

Through the trees at the String Lake picnic area.
Looking across Jenny Lake--fantastic! If we had a high-powered telescope, we could probably see Susan hiking Table Rock which is barely visible in the far distance.

This has got to be quietest these boys were all day! (Jacob, Ethan, Kevin) This was just before they caught an unsuspecting frog which really livened things up!
Looking back as we left--just can't get enough of those Tetons!

On to more crazy stuff--we stopped in Victor, Idaho, for a Huckleberry milkshake and discovered this posterboard as we left the drugstore--Carl as a fisherman. At first glance it looks almost like Darren!

Couldn't resist putting in this little guy--he loves glasses, and it took some coaxing to get them away from him.

Fruits of Our Labor

Being retired certainly doesn't mean sitting around. It's been great to be able to work together on projects that work seemed to get in the way of in the past.

Carrie's former co-worker and neighbor gave her peaches from her tree, and we didn't let one peach go to waste. Canned peaches, frozen peach jam, and peach leather were produced in record time. We have a new dehydrator that has been in constant use this summer--we've dried cherries, green peppers, bananas, apricots, and even tomatoes. Also strawberry and apricot leather. Yep, we're feeling frugal!

Family Treasure

Family photos are always a challenge--getting everyone happy at the same time, let alone getting everyone together. Since we were all gathered for our Island Park reunion, we took advantage of the rare occasion of having us all here.

This photo of the nine grandkids is classic. This happy group of seven boys and two girls is truly a keeper! (Not sure how long it will be current.....)

Updated family wall collection