Sophia

 We love our oldest granddaughter, Sophia.  She is a goer.  She is her brother's biggest cheerleader. She has a ton of supportive friends, she dares to do things out of her comfort zone, ( Sophia and friend sang the National Anthem in front of her whole school). She loves her little cousins and aunts and uncles and makes time for grandkid game night.  She is funny and confident and navigates her two worlds (her mom's home and her dad's home) pretty well.  I know at times it's overwhelming for her, but she continues to work on those relationships. 

She had a choir concert and her Centerpoint Academy show in March and she was impressive in both.

Her Viewmont Concert choir is really impressive. they sang Hallelujah from the Mount of Olives.  that is some difficult music.  I wanted to give a standing ovation when they finished. 

Sophia in front row - second one in from  the side...curly hair.  

We are her biggest fans!

Sophia peeking out on the stairs behind the girl in the black dress. She was in Footloose-- she played Lulu-- one of the adults, Ren's - the main guys' aunt.  She had a few lines and did great.  Her hair was on point!

We adore our Sophia.

43rd anniversary

    We've had a great March and went down to St. George to the Belnap resort two times.  The first weekend we went to shows at Tuacahn- Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Eagles cover bands with the Lakes, Cashes, and Belnaps-- we caught dinner with the Binghams as well at Capelletis.

Laura, Me, Diane Lake and Heidi Bingham

 We found a garage sale.... and got a great Persian rug and a big giclee painting of a sunrise.  These are our Anniversary gifts to each other this year... all for really great price.

We love spending time at the Belnap resort... we play a lot of games, and this time we taught them Mahjong. They loved it.

We got Mexican food-- my favorite-- and going to see the "Project Hail Mary" movie.

We biked a ton...  I went on two different gorgeous mornings, and Wayne went three, totaling 73 miles.

This is what we look like on our 43rd Anniversary.....  I'm so grateful to have married my Wayne. He loves his family and the Lord fiercely.   He is steady and kind and funny and adventurous and adores me.  

Branch Baptism

 We had a big celebration in our Ogden Transition Branch ( formerly our Water Tower Branch).  We had a re-baptism.  Dave Admas got baptized.  It was a long time coming, and he and his wife, Brigit  are so excited.  So many happy tears were shed.  Now they can take the next steps to the temple, which they both want so badly.  Dave and Brigit are amazing people.  They  bouy up members of the branch so much. They talk to and support everyone.  They even own a house that they rent out rooms to men just out of jail.  They get it.  

Dave asked Wayne and I to sing a version of "Master the Tempest is Raging."  We did it.  We sounded better in rehearsal, but we did it.  It's a really tricky song, that took a lot of practice. It was fun for me to sing with my Wayne though.  

We are so grateful to be a part of this great work.

Dress For Joy

 This is what I wore in February...as I continue my online ministry of dressing for joy and pro-aging.

Girlfriends

 

Laura, Kimi, and I celebrated Kim Johnston's 60th birthday with a breakfast in her honor at Sunrise Cafe.  She is going to love being 60!  

Girlfriend Group Therapy - Chinese New Year celebration.  Kathleen shared Chinese New Year traditions, Kimi steamed soup dumplings and wontons, and then we taught everyone how to play Mahjong– and of course they gasped and clapped when we showed them the “magic” mahjong table.  It was great fun. In attendance were: Bonnie Benedict, Cheri Barnett, Natalie Stobbe, Christina Barlow, Lesley Leger, Janet Webster, Jo Murdock, Kimi, Kathleen and me. 

Wanee is 90!

Wanee turned 90!  Nicol put out a big sign in her front yard announcing this. To be 90 years old is a big achievement and she’s doing pretty good.   Wanee got her hair done and had many visitors and phone calls and texts that day.  She loved having Landon visit her and give her a hug.

We ( her kids) had a party on Saturday at 5 at Terry and Cyrrena’s home.   This is the first time in ten years we have all been together.  ( no one on a mission)   Wanee was very pleased.  Steve put together a slide show of old pics of Wanee’s life and we laughed and commented throughout. 

I crocheted Wanee a sweater– and got her a pink bow tie blouse to go under it.  It fit– which is a miracle – and I pretty much made up the pattern, so I was relieved.  

 

Baptism, Grandkid game night, Valentines and more

Lady got baptized on Saturday!  It was awesome.  “Monsoon” performed the baptism, Wayne confirmed her.  (When you type Monson in a program, it almost always changes it to monsoon..so that’s what the program said.) Poppy, Lady, Tayla, Elsie, and I sang the Rainbow Baptism song.  Alfie on piano, Sophia on Saxophone, and Andrew on Cello played A Child’s Prayer.  It was really beautiful.  Bre gave a talk on baptism.  We gathered at Lady’s home afterwards for soup, and it was great.  Lexi’s mom and sister came to town for this event.   Lady was so excited that everyone was there for her.

Tayla had her Shrek Jr.show this weekend.  She was darling as teenage Fiona and sang really strongly. She was in many of the group numbers, including the tap dance number. She loves performing, but at age 10, she is experiencing such foot pain and plantar fasciitis.  We loved watching her and seeing Drew Call as the Donkey in the same show. ( Jordan Call’s son) Megan Call does a great job with this age group as the director– she must have sooo much patience. 

It's hard to tell what's happening in the above picture.... but Poppy showed up with a request, after Addison tried to explain what was happening to many immigrants in our country.  She wanted us all to go outside and shout , “Immigrants deserve better!”  So we did just that with red, white and blue lights flashing on our house.  She’s a sweetheart who has great empathy.

Grand Kid Game Night for February!

George ran to the top of the mound, dropped his flashlight, and did a "He-Man" muscle pose. Then the kids all followed him.

We had Alfie, Geo, Tayla, Lady and Elsie for the first 2 hours, then at 7:30 Poppy showed up (since her mom went home sick and didn’t stay for the cast party)  We did our flashlight walk to Arctic Circle and Maverick for ice creams and slushies and playing at the Arctic Circle play place.  We love dark, cold flashlight walks. We sang a version of Follow the Prophet all the way home at the top of our lungs.  “Follow the Lady, Follow the Poppy…” or “Follow the Alfie, Follow the meemaw….”  We played dominoes and cards and drew very colorful valentines…and of course chicken nuggets and tater tots.  We love these nuggets( our grands)  so much!   NO Sophia and Andrew because they were in St.George visiting their grandparents.

 We had our annual Sidetracked band dinner. It’s great to do it on Valentine's.  We all get a free meal and a rose – all paid for by the Oborns to tell us thanks for being in the band.  Not very romantic, but very practical and nice to be with our band friends and their spouses.  We did it at Roosters in Layton this year in a private room.   I wore a red velvet pant suit that I picked up at the DI for $10.00.  It fit great and I can wear it for Christmas and Valentine's,-- then it goes back in the closet. 

Bre and Poppy finished up their HCT Frozen run! They performed in 70 shows…  the run was from Nov. 18- Feb 14th– so a lot of Let It Go!  Bre has been well, no sickness the entire run until this last week.  She got knocked down with a bad cold.  She had to call in sick for Thursday night's performance.  (So many friends and relatives were there to see her that night- so that was sad) She did not feel good, but she decided to power through Friday 4:00 performance for the under-3 crowd, which really did her in. She missed the cast party and went home and went straight to bed instead. Now with one show left- Saturday night – she woke up Saturday morning with no voice.  She felt horrible. She was sooooo sad!  She did all the things to try to get better –  cold meds, throat lozenges, steroid shots, honey, mucinex, steam room–  Trying to get this cold out of her body. She called her under study and had her on standby for the closing show.  Bre felt so sick.  Addison and the boys had closing night tix– so they thought they would just go and see Poppy and be sad that Bre couldn’t perform. Saturday at noon, Wayne and Addison gave Bre a blessing of health and recovery… and by 6:00 that night she felt like she could do it…and she did!  She was a powerhouse!  She was a walking miracle!  She finished out her show strong, and she and Poppy were so happy! Miracles happen.