I Think He Misses the Farm

Another picture off of Dayton's facebook. I think he misses the farm.

Warmer Days with Grandma and Grandpa

The Festival of Lights Parade

We finished our Saturday in Star Valley with the Festival of Lights parade. Dani was taking Helga in it and wanted nieces and nephews to help hand out flyers for her Hang 10 Nail business. Mariah braved the bitter cold and did it.

Dave, Justing, Evan, Jim and I stood as sideline supporters. We were amazed at all of the candy that got thrown. These guys had no problem fighting off the little kids to fill their own pockets! I was too cold to even care.

Mariah made it and so did Helga! (The green car next to her!)

Making Apple Cider

We spent Saturday making apple cider with all of grandma and grandpa's apples. We had cutters, and washers and pressers. It took about 4 hours with about 20 people working ot make 53 gallons of cider. No wonder it costs so much at the store. We drank gallons of cider and it was superb.

Sandy and Shirlene were washers.

The boys were washers downstairs and they did NOT want any adult supervision.

Outside the men faced the cold and worked the cider press!

Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving in Star Valley this year. Grandma always has plenty of company to hang out with her and keep her awake!

Here are Sandy, Dani and Kenna waiting for the food after our morning of cooking. A few of the faithful family folks actually ran a 5K this morning so they could eat more pie! We had lots of those and that was basically the only thing left at the end of the feast.

We decided that we just need to cook and cook and cook some more for the Call family gatherings. That's basically what we did for four days and everyone was happy.

Grandpa would get pretty tired and I just had to get a picture of how he would fall asleep. He hung on to the remote just so that none of us could turn off Bill O'Reily!

Orlando!

Dave had a conference in Orlando, so I decided to go with him. It all only happened after I found out that I didn't book the tickets that I thought I had long ago. There was one seat left on the plane when I found out that night before, so I booked a nice and expensive ticket to join my hubby! On the way home, we took two different flights but in the end, we both arrived safely and HIS ticket was much cheaper than mine. We stayed at the WorldQuest Orlando which was a great condo resort. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have our kids with us!

We went to Sea World one day. Of course we saw Shamu but we decided that the dolphin trainers have much more fun than the the whale trainers do. They get to at least go in the water with their pets.

The aquariums were pretty cool and we decided that eels were simply evil swimming snakes! Eeks.

This seal was quite a beggar. We had quite a bit of fun watching.

Hearing the Christmas music all day and seeing all of the the Christmas trees was a little weird because it was nice and warm and humid! Those things just don't go together in our book.

We also got to go to the Kennedy Space Center. It was AWESOME! Lots better than I had even thought. The only thing that was bad was Dave's eight dollar hamburger!

This is the closest I got to any astronauts, but I did find out that this space suit costs $400,000.00 to make! Holy cow!

Sad Day at Our House...Riley Died

It was a very sad night last night. When Mariah and I drove home we saw Riley laying on the front lawn in the dark. We instantly knew something was wrong because Riley never leaves his dog bed in the garage! When we got out, he didn't get up. He tried, but he couldn't. We both started to cry because we knew that it meant that this was his last bit of time.

I called Blaine and he came over, looked at Riley, and said, "Yep, he's done." So, Blaine gave him the shot to put him to sleep and let him be out of his pain. We were very sad to say goodbye to our 16-year-old, "tupid dog."

Dave was out of town and so Blaine took Riley's body with him. However, when Cado came home and found out that Riley had died he just sobbed and he said that he really wanted to bury Riley. (Of course, Riley wants to stay on the farm!)

So, he, Mariah and I, went out in the cold, dark, past the barn and dug a big hole. Blaine brought Riley over and it was very touching to see Cado carry his dog for the last time. Mariah put a pink blanket over Riley and a put a piece of bread by him. She also had brought down a box of Life cereal, because it was Riley's favorite, but we forgot to put it in. (Kind of ironic huh) Cado very carefully put the dirt over Riley and then we all helped fill it in. It was a special time to be with my tender-hearted kids.

I told them that I bet Riley is up in heaven...chasing veterinarians! (He never liked Blaine!) ha ha