It is too D*** HOT

It is just too D*** HOT

Bet you can guess were we are as I write this update. Yep, we are in Mesquite. Can’t believe it has been a year since we closed on this little piece of heaven (except in June, July and August) in Nevada. But since it has been one year there were just a very few warranty items to have done and we needed to be here. I think it is the hottest June on record and so far we are believers.

Yesterday we decided to drive up the St George and yes, it was cooler up there. We went to the temple. That is such a lovely historic temple. It was a good experience. Then we were so hungry we quickly went to our favorite Red Robin for our shared burger and short stack of onion rings. Yes, there is a reason I am plump. It all tasted so good. Next time I need to eat before we go to the temple.

After lunch we were able to visit old friends, Peggy and Gary Lambert. We have known them since 1966, when we joined the church. We have all had our personal struggles but their load is heavy right now. It was good to visit and see their lovely home again. We left there and went to see our next door neighbors in Cobblestone, Rod and Marian Vaughn. They have bought another home in St. George. It was delightful. Wish we had seen that area before, but we still love our place in Mesquite.

Today when I checked the weather for the next few days it said the following: Thursday, 115; Friday, 115; Saturday, 117; Sunday, 117. Good reason to go back to Cache Valley on Friday.

Funny story: Julie and Dave had planned to come down to Mesquite on Thursday and stay here to play for a few days When we told them how hot it was going to be they decided to go use our Providence house for a mini vacation. They can hike in the canyon, swim and they even have tickets to go to Pickleville at Bear Lake to see a Juanito Bandito show. Hope we don’t cramp their style when we come home on Friday.

We have had the opportunity to attend to baby blessings for our latest two great grand daughters; Sophia Calder and Lucy Naylor. It tugs at my heart strings to look up and see Felt standing in the circle of worthy Priesthood bearers, holding our sweet great grand children. What a blessing that has been for us, and what a choice thing for those children. We just love being great grand parents. Bet you couldn’t guess that one!

Last week most of the greats came with their mothers and their nana, our Julie, to have lunch and swim. We met them for lunch at our usual place, Wendy’s – so much easier than feeding them at our place. When we walked into Wendy’s. Reagan, one of the 2 year olds, threw her arms wide and cried out “Nana G” and hugged my legs. Well, that sealed it. They love us! They all seem to enjoy the water and the older ones are getting brave enough to stand on the side and jump in the water to their mothers. After the swim we all came back to our home to change and have cookies. I bought a family size bag of Oreo’s for the kids. When they left we had 3 or 4 cookies leftover. We sure do know how to have a good time.

Now that I have bored you silly, if you even read this far, I will tell you that we really do love this home away from home. I think the best thing of all is the light, the big windows and the fantastic back yard. Right now as I type this I can see birds at the feeder back by the trees, water flowing down the waterfall feature surrounded by huge banks of Gold Lantana. Now . . . . if it wasn’t already 90 degrees at 9 am.

Ahhhhh SPRING

SPRING – Ahhhhhh - Off to the See the Wizard!

Yes it is spring here in Utah and Nevada and we are busy people. We continue to build our life around our family, and our church service in our Ward and at the Temple. Because of that we have not been able to be away over the weekends. BUT March 28 is Women’s conference and April 4 is General conference and our shift at the temple is off because the temple closes for those activities. We have two Saturdays free to roam.

We will leave after I teach my Gospel Doctrine lesson and go down to Mesquite. We will be joined there by our son, Scott, his wife Jenni and 3 of her children, Maddie (16) and the twins Tyler and Zach (10). They plan to use our place as a base camp to explore the area. It should be a fun time.

As soon as they leave – we leave to meet Julie, Dave, Sarah (17) and a friend to cruise from Long Beach CA, down the Mexican Rivera – Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta Mexico. We will have a wonderful time being warm and seeing new things and just relaxing. We have never cruised with family before. We have gone with friends and with cruise groups, so this will be a new experience. Looking forward to listening to all the stories about what they have discovered at dinner each night.

Simply cannot believe that when we get back it will be April. Now that we are heading into “my seasons” spring and summer, we are looking forward to being warm and relaxing all we can.

Oh yes, early in March our grandson, Tyler and his wife Liesel gave us our newest great grand daughter. They named her Sophia Olivia. Quite a name for a little baby. But Sophia won’t be the baby of the family for long. Our grand daughter, Rachel and her husband Jeff are due to have their newest born in April We are surely hoping this birth waits until we return from the cruise.

We will share some pictures after we rest up from having all this fun!

February - Over already?

February over already???

I guess we must be on a jet plane – because time is flying right by us.

We had a good January – the temple was closed for 2 weeks and we used that time to go down to our home in Mesquite. We had good friends,Mark and Carolyn Baird,visit for several days, then we took off to see friends who spend the winter months in Yuma Arizona. Yuma was wonderful – much warmer. We stayed in a hotel since we no longer have an RV, but we got to go to Mexico and to the swap meet. We ate some good food and enjoyed being with our friends.

After we returned to Mesquite, our daughter, Julie and her husband Dave came down to visit and enjoyed a little warmth plus go on adventures on the RZR. Felt let them take the BMW roadster for a drive and they enjoyed that also.

Two other friends,from our home area came by to see our home and we enjoyed their visits very much.

After coming home we were able to spend some time with Julie’s family and with her children and grand children. Oh my, we are so smitten with those great grand children.

Early in February, all the great grands with their mothers and their Nana came up to spend a day with us. We decided the easiest thing would be to take them all to Wendy’s for lunch. Then we came back to our home and took everyone to our homeowners’ clubhouse pool for a swim. At first they were a little reluctant but by the end the older three were jumping into the pool and loving the experience. I think they will plan another day at Nana and Papa “G’s” before too long.

The last week in February we took off right after Sunday School to drive down to our second home. We hit some snowy spots along the way but we were in our all wheel drive car and we didn’t have much traffic. It rained hard all night and the next morning was cool but the last several days have been wonderful. Bright sunshine, blue, blue sky, our plants are looking good and coming back with nice new green sprouts. We shave taken several rides in our Mesquite car – a red BMW Z 3 convertible with the top down and enjoyed sitting in the sunshine soaking up some good old vitamin D .

To top it off we decided we would try our hand at Pickleball. Pickleball is played with a flat surface racquet rather like a large ping pong racquet, and with a tennis sized ball that has holes rather like a whiffle ball. The court is similar to a tennis court but smaller in length and width. And should be played with 4 people, but since we were seeing if we liked it we tried it with just 2 of us. And we had such a good time! We finally decided to just play on one half of the court with the net between us. Since that is how we would be playing if there were 4 of us. We got the racquets from the clubhouse and they balls were in a large container on the court with wire baskets you could put some in to take to your court. We will definitely do that again. We both got more exercise than we usually do and had a really good time.

Tomorrow we go back to reality for a week and then hope to com,e back for a few days - Are we enjoying our Mesquite home? That answer would definitely be a resounding YES!