Working Hard

It felt good to get in the hot tub tonight and just relax a little, we have to get up early in the morning, I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning in Salt Lake City at 11am, so we need to be out the door by 7 AM tomorrow,  Michael came and spent some time with us this last weekend he arrived Friday afternoon he started throwing up Friday night and was sick all day, Saturday laying around felt so bad for him, Sunday he felt a little better and went to church with us today, we have worked hard moving things around in the lower garage, we needed Michael's muscles to help lift the heavy stuff. Shannon had carpet laid in their basement today Alec and Michael are anxious to have their bed rooms set up in their new rooms downstairs, we had to move stuff out of the lower garage in order to get the mattresses loaded in the trailer, we had a lot of stuff to move around and it was heavy and very tiring, we ended up with a trailer load to take down tomorrow for the Chaudhry family.  We are slowing weeding our belongs out, giving things to our children as they need it.  Craig and I are both so dead tired I can hardly move, my back is just killing me, it's really acting up right now lifting and moving things around is really hard on me.

Natasha and Annie Girl

Tasha

I just posted this darling picture on Instagram- quote my sugar pie!!  Natasha is having fun with her baby girl.  She is such a joy to all our lives.  I love her so very much!!

Our Winston

Tasha posted the most adorable picture of our little Winston the caption-  "Wish I could see the world through his eyes." He is such a special little boy, I love the twinkle in his eyes and his happy smile.

Ashton Is Crawling

Shannon sent me a darling video clip this week, little baby Ashton is crawling now so cute hard to believe, the months have gone by so fast since she was born and now she is crawling!!

Another Busy Week

We have had another busy week, two days at wrestling tournaments, Tuesday and Thursday all day long.  Wednesday it feels good to be home today can't believe it's already Friday it rained for two days all day Wednesday and Thursday, the sun is out today and it feels really good, I want to go tinker out in the yard, there's so much that we want to do out there, but it is still on the cool side. The sunshine does feel really good I'm sure it will warm up as the day goes by. Wednesday night I attended our relief society birthday celebration in my new the Garden City ward, starting to get to know some of the sisters in my new ward love the fellowship of the Saints.  I also started serving at the Family History Stake center in Montipeller this week.  I have a 30 minute drive one way.  They have no one from the Garden City area to serve at the library.  I'm so grateful to to help out.  I love working on family history.

Wrestling Tournament

We drove down yesterday morning to attend the final wresting tournament for the Northern division for Cole, he took first in the Southern division and now he's in the state quarter finals it was a long day watching and supporting him, he placed fifth in the Northern division he had some tough  matches. we're so proud of our Cole, we arrive home late with our drive home.  Cole is very competitive!

My Christian Friend

Shirley and Billy are such sweet Christian friends, their neighbors to my mother in Texas, they are so loving and kind in taking care of her, mother couldn't stay there at her home without such great neighbors, Shirley posted  a sweet story on Facebook that I had to copy it in my blog-  'The power of prayer'     Sounds......electric doors, cell phones, babies crying, wheels turning, televisions , jumbled conversations, intercoms, names being called, printers clicking, snoring, apologies, key boards clacking, nice greetings, machines whirling, Drs. speaking, nurses comforting but, the saddest words behind a curtain.....your baby is not viable, we have to take you to surgery.....footsteps of Dr. leaving....bursting through that curtain Lori and I both said at the same time....."pray for her"

In that moment of "can we pray for you" hands held together stretcher, to me, and stretcher.....we prayed, we cried, and we made a new friend Lauren......a young fair hair beautiful tearful almost mother to be and her tearful young husband.....she will be forever remembered...we know God put her beside us behind that curtain, that the Doctor spoke loud enough for these old ears to hear and God blessed us in the mist of tragedy by just being bold enough to speak His name. 

God bless you Lauren, may we meet again with all 

the babies in your future.

Thank your Lord for your grace and mercy and speaking through us....we are blessed....your timing is always on time...

Family History Libraray

Sister Passey called me yesterday to see when I could start working at the family history Library in Montpelier/ Idaho. They are in need of volunteers. In our sacrament meeting a couple weeks back announce they needed help.  Craig gave me a nudge saying this is something I could do.  I gave the Stake High Councilor  my name, to give me a call, I thought I could help at the family history Library since I love to do it.  I spent a lot of time working on my own family history so I'm sure I can be of help.  I have learned a lot over the years, she asked me to come today at 3:30 till 6;30 for training and have me work a couple hours each Wednesday afternoon, for now they do need help on other days but I'll see how I do today, before I commit to any more times.

Our Beautiful Natasha and Annie

I love this picture of Natasha and Annie they were posing for Natasha's Ivy City.co boutique business online.  Tasha started a little over a year ago and it is doing really well, she does a lot of the Modeling for the clothing on their boutique website.  Tasha is a natural for posing and is very good at it.  She takes the most darling pictures of her kids too.  Love, Love this captured moment.

Cole's Wrestling Competition

We drove to Salt Lake early yesterday morning Craig went bike riding with Peter Underlin, it was about 75°in Salt Lake yesterday for March 22 that is unusually warm.  Natasha colored my hair. I needed it, we hurried from there to Bountiful to see Cole wrestle in his state competition, he won first place for the divisions that he was in ,we arrived at the high school about 3 PM and didn't leave until about 9:30 last night, we arrive back to Bear Lake at about 11:30 pm.  I was really tired from our long day adventure.

Cole with Grandpa Symes,  He won 1st place

Decorating Our Home For Christmas 2013

Craig and I had a very nice time at his work Christmas party.  They served us a lovely dinner and fun to visit with friends. We received some very nice Christmas gifts.  I was given a  $100 gift certificate to Sanctuary Day Spa, Craig received $500,00 shopping spree at JosBanks clothing store and $250.00 at Market Street Grill.  We will have fun using the gifts given to us for Christmas this year.  Work has been very Challenging for Craig right now.  There are so many changes with the new National  Healthcare reform it is driving Craig crazy with all the new rules and regulations he is having to learn and advise his clients in what is the best to do.  He is just trying to ride the storm!  I feel for him, he came home Monday night so irritable and angry with everything that is on his plate.  The biggest frustration he has no help right now.  They have hired two new secretary that just don't know enough to help him and Tracy is off work again for three weeks having surgery on her hand that she mangled in the fall from a rhino accidents. She was off work for over 8 weeks and now 3 more weeks, which is such a critical time right now wrapping things up by the end of the year.  He has more work then  he can possible get done. I understand the pain he is going thru.  Our escape is watching Gray's Anatomy at nights.  We started watching the TV series a couple of weeks ago.   It has been on TV for over 10 years. We are watching it on netflex which is nice we can watch when we want and how much we want.  We are on season 5 now.  We stayed up way to late last night watching.  I slept in this morning to just recover from the late night.  Craig had to get to work.  Today the sun is out and the snow storm has blow over.  We have about 6 inches of new snow here in the valley.  I'm sure the ski resorts are loving having new snow.  We bought Michael a season snowboarding pass at Snowbird for his Christmas and Birthday this year.  I drove him up to Snowbird two days during the Thanksgiving holidays.  The Chaudhry family came and slept over Thanksgiving Eve and stayed for the weekend.  It was fun having them in our home for the holiday.  I know Michael is dying to get back up on the slopes with all this new snow.  We had very little snow and now, wow it is finally here!!
Today is my Temple day serving at the Draper Temple.  I need to be there by 3:30 pm this afternoon.  Sharlena is taking her kids to the Festival of Trees parade today and had invited me to go with them.  I had planned on going, but then remembered this is my temple day, so I will not have time to go.  I will try to go by myself tomorrow.  I love seeing all the beautiful Christmas trees decorated so skillfully.  I got a late start today sleeping in.  I have got to finish up my Christmas decorating today so I can get the house clean.  Decorating always makes such a mess.  I'm almost done.  I still need to add the garland to the staircase and the final Christmas decor thru out the house. Getting the Christmas tree done is always a huge task to accomplish and glad I've got that done!!  I need to get to work!!

 Craig & Debbie at Craig's work Christmas party

 Christmas garland on the fireplace

 Garland on the light fixture in the kitchen

 Christmas arrangement I made on my Topiary Tree and the miniature Christmas Tree I had fun decorating, I love the bright green and red colors.  I took pictures of my decorating,  I seem to forget from year to year what I have done.  So this will be fun to have a picture to see my past projects.

Thanksgiving Highlights 2013

This year was our year to host Thanksgiving.  I was so excited to host Thanksgiving dinner this year and spend time with our family.  Last year was our off year. We are rotating years with the in-laws and we have everyone on the same schedule now.  I really did miss not having Thanksgiving last year.  It is an adjustment for Craig and I being grandparents and empty nester's.  We just stayed home and worked in the yard last year and did some early Christmas shopping.  We meet Shannon at Walmart to get a jump start on the Black Friday Christmas shopping.  So This year I was really excited to have all our family.  We have grown so much.  We have 12 adults and 15 grandchildren now.  This makes 27 total in our family.  The girls each brought a dish to add to our feast.  We meet at 1:30 for our Thanksgiving feast.  Craig, Dave, Ryan and Chad played some racquet ball in the morning, while I prepared for our Thanksgiving feast.  The Chaudhry family slep tover, which was nice having them in our home this year.  Little Landon was so excited for all his cousins to come.  He helped me set all the tables up and put the plates, silverware and napkins on the tables. I showed how to fold the napkins.  He made sure he had a special spot for his cousin Lincoln.  They are the best of pals.  We didn't eat until 2pm, due to Shar and Tasha running a little late.  We all ate until we felt our stomachs would bust.  I got movie tickets for all the family this year.  The adult shift at 3:40 pm for the new movie Catchin Fire, and at 7:30 pm I had tickets for all the grandkids to go see the new movie Frozen.  The day went by very quickly.  While all the adults were gone, I enjoyed spending time with the grankids. When the adult came back they were worried leaving us with all the grandkids.  I told it it was very calming  and quite, we had a great time playing together.  It gave them all a good laugh!  I told them it was peaceful with the adults all gone for a bit!  Hard to believe with 11 younger grandkids running around!!   I was beat by the end day and ready for bed.  It is a lot of work cooking and cleaning up the dishes.  My feet were killing me by the end and I was ready for bed.  I Thank the Lord for our many blessings and the blessings of our dear family.  I love them all very much!!  I dont know why this entry is out of order.  I dont want to delete from my blog, so I will leave it in this area for now, fun to see how much the family has grown over the years,  This was our off year in 2016 so look forward to 2017 celebrating Thanksgiving at the cabin this year. 

 Saydee & Aubrey with wish bone making a wish!!

 Aubrey got the longer end  making her wish come true!!

 Jaxon 10 years old with his turkey leg

 Austin with his plate ready to eat

 Cole getting his plate full

 Our handsome Alec ready to eat

 Our Saydee bug holding Yeal our youngest grandson

Ryan Chaudhry

 Buck & Trisha Burbidge

 Grandpa & Grandma Symes

 Our Lincoln Thomas enjoying his Thanksgiving dinner

 Shannon our second daughter with her husband Ryan Chaudhry

 Our Saydee Burbidge 10 yrs old

 Our son-in-law Bridger Thomas

Aubrey & Karlee enjoying our feast

 Aubrey Noriega

Tasha announcing she is pregnant again to all the family this will be # three for their family, we are hoping it is a little girl this go around!!

 Natasha & Winston Thomas

 Stacy our 4th daughter with her husband Chad Towner

 Sharlena our oldest daughter with her husband Dave Noriega

 Michaeal Chaudhry our oldest grandson 14 years old holding the youngest cousin baby Yael Towner 10 months old.  He is such a sweet baby boy! With big brown eyes.

 Cousins- Landon Chaudhry and Boston Burbidge, saying, "Cheese!!"

Landon 5yrs old and Boston 3yrs old.

 Shannon & Ryan Chuadhry they slepover Thanksgiving Eve as a family and have spent the weekend with us.  We have enjoyed them in our home.

Our family enjoying our family feast

 Jude Towner 2 yrs old

Alec Chaudhry 12 yrs old & Austin Noriega 8yrs old

 Cole Noriega 12yrs old

 My Thanksgiving Tree this year.

 I love decorating for the Holidays. I love fall decorations.  This is the flower arrangement I made for our main entryway of our home.

Fall Topiary I made

 Our living room

 above our China hutch

Then younger cousins enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner, Boston, Landon, Lincoln & Jude at their own table

The boy table, Cole, Jaxon, Alec, Austin, Michael

Sacrament Today

The Burbidge family visited grandpa Symes gravesite today Darling picture of the kids.  We had a very nice sacrament today.  The theme was about the atonement of Jesus Christ  and forgiving our sins- "​Behold, he who has ​​​repented​ of his ​​​sins​, the same is ​​​forgiven​, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. D&C 58:42.  So grateful for the gift of the atonement and that we can be forgiven of our sins. in order to return to our Heavenly Father.  Pray we can continue in the path of righteousness!  

Burbidge kids, Karlee, Boston and Saydee April 2017

Very Tired Today

Jude Towner 5 yrs old playing softball- so proud of him, he is a handsome boy

I wore myself out getting ready for our St. Parick's party yesterday, it was a lot of work cleaning and cooking by evening time- midnight I could hardly walk, my back is killing me. I've had to just rest today, Craig and I were going to go to California this week but his ribs still hurt him really bad and he didn't feel well enough to make the drive, we're missing our Towner grandkids, can't wait to go see them and their new California home

Jude with his baby brother Enzo,such a happy baby boy. We are really missing them

Burbidge Family Are Moving

Wednesday we helped the Burbidge family finish packing up things, they are officially moving out as of Thursday March 16th, 2017, they closed on their house Wednesday and the new people moved in on Friday morning.   They had a nice home in Bluffdale Utah, fond memories for their family the 10 years they lived there, hard to believe,  I think they moved there in about 2008.  We had lots of fun family parties at their home. They plan on building a new home in Heber.  This will be a big change for their family.  They're going to live at Natasha's house for the next two months till the kids are out of school and then they're coming to live at the lake for the summer.  A new adventure for the Burbidge family- saying goodbye is hard, the bitter sweet.  We are excited for them and their new home.  This past year has been a year of change for our family.  Tasha moved to Pepperwood in May 2016- Stacy moved to California December 2016,  Shannon moved in their new home fall of 2015, and Craig and I sold our home in Draper the end of November 2016.  Our family has taken wings and spreading out.  It is a time of change for all of us. Beginning new seasons of growth in our family.

Burbidge Family saying good-bye to their home in Bluffdale, Utah March 17th, 2017