Stirling Adventures Continued: December 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas Blessings

CHRISTMAS BLESSING ABOUND IN OUR HOME. AND WE PRAY THEY ABOUND IN YOURS!

What a different Christmas this has been! We had planned to spend it with Julie and her family - Julie had to work today (Christmas Day) She had planned to have her family Christmas Eve on the 23rd and Christmas on the 24th. All of her children including the married ones were to be there. We were so excited to be able to share this time with them.

The gifts we received this year were not bought or made at any store. The gifts we received were gifts of love, friendship and service!

On Felt's birthday, December 22, we were out doing some church service and delivering small plates of treats to neighbors. At one home I took a real spill (slip) and fell so hard we thought I had broken my hip. After an ambulance ride to the hospital and xrays they found I had cracked or fractured my pelvis! Very, very painful but recovery in 4-6 weeks should be expected! We have found that the Lord has angels all around us - giving service and love. We have never had so many visitors and not only offers of help but actual service. We have had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner and a delicious Christmas dinner shared - brought in by friends. And phone calls from friends all around the country!

What a joyful Christmas this has been for us.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Christmas is Friday!

It really is hard to beleive that this Friday is Christmas Day.

Christmas has changed for us through the years. I have memories of being a young girl waiting for Santa to come and being thrilled to find a stocking full of surprises and a toy or game under the tree. I loved it when our children were small and we could enjoy their wonder on Christmas morning. (But it sure was alot of work the night before!) We had good times when our family was growing up - teaching service and giving to others.

Now our life has turned to a much more spiritual Christmas experience.
We love the lights - reminding us that He is the light of the world. We enjoy the friends we see and hear from who remind us of love and wonderful experiences through the years. We enjoy our family and being part of their lives in some small way. But the highlight has to be the music of the season. The wonderful Christmas music - on the radio - on our Ipods or at Christmas concerts add so much depth to our feeling of joy at this time of year.

Today we had one of the most spiritual music experiences in our life. We went to a Christmas Concert given by the American Festival Choir and orchestra at Utah State University. The quality of the entire experience was so outstanding - that it brought tears to our eyes and hearts. This has been the highlight of this Christmas. What a blessing it is to live where we can have experiences such as the one today.

Merry Christmas to you - find some good Christmas music to listen to and enjoy!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

So Proud of our grand daughters!

We have to brag a little. Last year - our oldest grand daughter, Katie Calder, graduated with honors and a Masters degree from BYU Marriott School. Tomorrow our grand daughter Rachel, Katie's sister, will graduate from BYU with a degree in Math and a teaching certificate. And also tomorrow our grand daughter-in-law, Justin's wife, will graduate with honors from Weber State! What an example they have been to the women in our family and the rest of the family.

This has been a cold week! We arrived home from Houston on Tuesday, to snow and very cold temperatures. This morning it was negative 5. Reminding us of NH.

We finally got our tree up and decorated. It does not look as wonderful as Mary Lou's or Julie's but it will be OK for us. It is amazing how much I remember about some of the ornaments. We found Felt's very old creche and have it on display in one of our dinning room alcoves. He got it when he was very small. And he says he imagines it was old when he got it.

I need to think about Christmas cards and get a move on. Also what to do for the neighbors??? Last year we were new and it was easy. This year will require some creativity and you know that is in short supply. Maybe we will just stick to our Home teaching families and call it good.

I have no idea if anyone reads this. Maybe I should just hang it up. If you do read it - Merry Christmas early.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

GOING TO HOUSTON - HOUSTON - HOUSTON

Ok maybe you have to be old enough to remember that song, but that is where we are headed tomorrow. We thought it might be a little warmer - but Mary Lou tells us it is supposed to snow on Friday!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Family came and we ate - that about sums it up! Still trying to get rid of pie! Asked some folks over to share it but something came up and it did not happen. I think I will serve it to Felt's leadership group that meets tonight. They ought to take care of the extra.

I am trying to pack like our kids do when they come. Just two pairs of slacks and 4 shirts - plus church clothes. So far I think it will fit in the suitcase OK. Of course I am sure I will need something that I leave at home but should be able to get by all right.

Will check in and post pictures of our Houston family when we return.

Adventures for the two of us continue

Ok it is April 8th. And we have 4 inches of new snow and more expected today and tomorrow. There is something seriously wrong with this picture! I know I complain about the weather way too much - but you just cannot take the sunshine out of a California girl, no matter how old she becomes! I need sunshine to exsist! We had a wonderful few days in St. George last week with our good friends, Peggy and Gary Lambert! What a treasure old friends are. And yes we had sunshine!

We are home from Arizona. And it is cold and snowy here in Utah. Hard to take after a month with sunshine and warmer temperatures. We had a wonderful time and perhaps will stay a little longer next year. The biggest headache, literally, is that I brought home a king sized cold with me. Miserable coughing, sneezing etc. I know it will be gone in less than 2 weeks - but I have things I want and need to do.

We are getting ready to leave for a month and travel with our RV 5th wheel to Yuma Arizona. I do need to say that I rarely look forward to the actual trip or journey but I am looking forward to being warm and seeing the sunshine on a regular basis. Last year I was recovering from my fall and broken pelvis and could not enjoy the experience as much as we had hoped. This year I am looking forward to trying my hand at playing golf - and I do mean playing - never have done more than hit balls on a driving range. Taking long walks around the resort, going to the swap meet and seeing what bargins I can find -- those are activities to look forward to - plus those game nights of playing hand and foot. I will post pictures as we go along.

Well, here it is August 2010. I have not written a side post in some time. We have had a good year. There have been ups and downs, but that is normal and makes us appreciate the good times even more. We are planning a visit back to New Hampshire this fall. I think that will be good for us. We took a trip to Lake Tahoe last week to enjoy being away and to see a place where we spent part of our honeymoon. All in all life is really good.

I am really puzzled - how could it have been a whole year since we closed on our NH home. That means the buyers have been owners for 1 year. I guess I will have to admit - our house on the ridge is no longer ours. I look forward to visiting next fall and seeing what they have done with our home. We are doing well and feeling good. Staying busy with family, church and neighborhood. A happy place to be.

The middle of September and I am missing New Hampshire more each day. thankfully we have nice weather with cool nights and pleasant days. But I keep remembering the wonderful color and the crisp days. We are doing well, inspite of some family setbacks. Felt stays busy with community and church and so do I. We are definitely going back to NH next fall.

How did it get to be August??? What happened to June and July??? We are enjoying our life very much, in fact, sometimes we wonder at how very happy we are. We are both feeling well. That is good for both of us. We have been enjoying our neighbors and both of us like our callings at church. Surprise! I never thought I would say that. But I have learned to study early and give myself a chance to learn before I teach. Felt is doing a great job with High Priests and has it organised and working well. We do have to tell you, it is much easier when you do not have to drive long distances to accomplish anything.

We are really enjoying summer in Utah. It is warmer than NH. We have had some culture - went to several dress rehearsals of the Utah Festival Opera in Logan! We purchased a new car last week. We have not gone green - but we did buy a Toyota Prius. We are getting 50+ MPG. And since so many of couples in Cobblestone drive them - we are calling them the new old peoples car. Tomorrow we are heading out to Yellowstone. I will write when we get back and include pictures.

Katie and Nate's wedding day went so well. It rained but stopped long enough for most of the pictures. She was/is a beautiful bride. We all met at the Bountiful temple for the ceremony and then went to a picnic lunch provided by the grooms family - it was very good even though we were cold and damp. All of our family gathered back to Julie and Dave's for some play time for the kids and visiting time for the adults. Before the dinner reception Katie and Nate came by and they looked wonderfully happy! Love is a grand emotion! The dinner was at the Lion House and very grand and so very good.

We are back in Utah after our cross country trip to Houston and Baton Rouge to visit with Mary Lou, our oldest daughter and her family and to attend the Stirling Family Reunion at Wakefield, the old Stirling plantation - there were 614 attendees! We had a wonderful time and I will post pictures later today.

Mother's Day is over. Julie has graduated and has a new position at primary childrens hospital. Katie is being married in less than a month! And best of all - all our family will be together for that occassion. We leave here Saturday, May 16 and drive down to Houston and then on to Baton Rouge, for the Stirling Family reunion of over 500! It has warmed up and we are loving it! The sun comes in our kitchen patio and warms things up so we have to close the blinds in the doors! YaHoo!

Wow almost May! The last 6 months have just flown by. In fact each day seems to go faster and faster for us. We have plans for a busy month of May: Julie's graduation, our missionary friends trip to Zion, travel to Houston and then to Louisiana to a Stirling Family reunion. We will be tired but are looking forward to seeing folks we love.

Okay - what is wrong with this picture??? Huge snowflakes coming down and beginning to stick. This is the last week of April - maybe mother nature can't find her calendar! We had a good visit with Geoff and Linda Parkerson. This will be an exciting week with Julie graduating from college! We are so proud of her accomplishments! A BS at 44 is a very good thing! More than her mother managed to do.

Easter weekend was wonderful! This is why we moved to Utah ! Our son, Scott, and his family came for the weekend. Then after church on Sunday we drove down to our daughter, Julie's home and she had 17 of us for Easter dinner! The joy of being together is priceless!

It is spring break in Utah schools this week and Sarah has come for a visit. We are having a great time - we even went to get a pedicure together

It is April and our friends the Hall's have returned to New Hampshire. We had a wonderful visit with them and made many memories. One other good thing came from their visit. Now I feel like this is home! We really love our valley, our temple, our new friends, and most especially our family nearby.

We have been involved with Julie and Dave while they remodel their kitchen! It has been fun to go down each week and see the progress. I have admit I am ready for spring. About the time I felt it was almost upon us, we had a spring snow of about 16 inches of fluffy snow. Oh well, it is supposed to be near 60 next week!

We used the gift card we received from our very generous Branch members in NH to purchase a new grill! How can you have spring with no grill??? We got a Weber Baby Q and it is wonderful. Heavy duty but small enough for us to take it with us in the RV. It is wonderful at grilling steaks!

We have experienced what Utah folks call winter. Compared to NH winters it has been very mild. It does snow frequently but not much accumulation at least not in our valley. The mountains and the area north of Salt Lake have been hit hard with heavy snow. We find ourselves looking forward to spring! And especially not having to wait until late May to see flowers! Yea!

As we move into this time of change and our move from Glen, New Hampshire to Providence, Utah, we want to be able to share some of our feelings and experiences with our friends and family. We hope you will visit often and share your comments and thoughts with us.

We have settled into our new home in Providence Utah. We are enjoying our new Ward and the wonderful people who have made us feel so welcome.

We have recently returned from a winter trip to Arizona where we enjoyed being warm and taking a break from winter.