Our family was asked to sing in Sacrament meeting yesterday. The tape is way messed up but seems to work the second time. We are such amatures but this is part of my all time favorite Christmas song and we have fun singing it every Christmas Eve.

Chase is home!!!!!!!! What a weekend we've had. Oh my, one of those memory times for sure. We started out with Trisha and Keaton and what a gab fest we had driving to Boise. When we arrived at Mitzi's, Kelsey came over and it's like...mother and three daughters together, we solved all the world's problems , HA! We had to force ourselves to go to bed at midnight. Sat. we all headed to the airport and found out Chase's flight was delayed and hour. I have five married children in Boise so there were quite a few of us. The grandkids had a ball terrorizing the airport. When it was time it seemed like we waited forever and our emotions got higher and higher. FINALLY there he was, home, safe and sound! What a blessing, what a miracle. I'm so grateful beyond words. Then we all hit the Pizza Hut. Seth and Chase went shopping and he got a new $600.00 phone for free because of some promotional deal(Merry Christmas.) We crashed at Mitzi's. Sat. night Gabe hosted a party and we played games and had another big time. Sunday we drove home(we had planned to come home Sat. but changed our minds, so we didn't have any church clothes) and the roads were horrible the last half but I survived by sitting in the back seat and singing "Let It Snow" etc. when I got nervous(positive thinking aye..faith not fear.) Once again, three hours of conversation we again solved all the world problems. It was actually a priceless time together with the best visit of all. Just for selfish reasons, what an amazing experience missions are. Getting my boys, all home from their missions, have been the five highlights of my life. Now, I just have one more to go.

Well you can definitely know that I have more time when I start decorating. I'm the worlds worst decorator but, what the hey, I'm excited Chase is getting home from his mission, so since I didn't have daughters I could assign it to, I tried to make a welcome home sign. It's pretty dippy but I had fun., and yes it's backwards on the other side. HA!

Look at these beautiful scenes out my windows. I think I live in a beautiful place!

Tonight was another first. Since we are now empty nesters I've been thinking about starting a family home evening group. I wanted to invite a whole bunch of people but decided to just stick to my very closest neighbors and to only have four other couples. I made the laziest meal I could think of...chili, corn bread, relish plate and root beer floats. I kept finding great stuff for the lesson and ended up with three lessons. HA! I just gave two though. One was that fabulous talk, "Come What May and Love It," by Wirthlin and then just a story on gratitude on page 87 of the Ensign. They all added tremendous stories that applied and we just had the best time visiting. They all seemed to enjoy it a lot and we are going to meet once a month. I've been involved with my family for so long that we haven't had much social time so this was a new and fun event for us.

Well, since the kids have gone I am pretty hard up for things to blog about. Today was a first however. Seth has strawed down the cattle for 40 years and I have never once gone to see what that was. Well, since our six sons are gone, guess who has to help now? I never pictured myself doing anything on the farm. This is truly about the first time I've ever driven a tractor. I'm having a lot of firsts these days.

Well, after almost forty years of kids we are now empty nesters. I thought I would be bored and depressed but I have been pleasantly shocked that it's been absolutely heaven around here. Of course I miss the kids but I hardly have to clean and fix food. I have just enough work to keep me happy and I'm LOVING these gorgeous fall days working out in my yard. Life is good and I'm sad to say goodbye to my flowers but I have to rip them out or there's too much work in the spring.

We had our annual camp out at Redfish Lake. We had such fun and enjoyed our family so much. We fished, swam, rode bikes, had skit night, gabbed and stayed up late and ate too much. Then some of the kids came on home for the weekend. Some had class reunions and Keaton and Kelsey rode the bike Keaton welded in the parade. All the ones that ran in the fun run got medals. It was truly the highlight of the whole summer. Families make life the BEST!!!!

Chase, my son, will be home from his mission in six months. I can't believe it, the time has FLOWN by. Here are a few pictures. Can you see the snake in the one picture?

We had our whole family(34) home for Seth's birthday this weekend. It's become a tradition and boy is it WILD! We had people sleeping everywhere you can imagine and it was crazy but fun also. My favorite part was the Craters of the Moon. We all met at 6:00 and had a delicious picnic. It was plenty chilly but then we went hiking and it was perfect weather. We went through Indian cave which is the coolest cave in the world. The grandkids LOVED the hike. My next favorite part was the gab fest till 2:00 in the morning, we laughed our heads off. The next day was pretty cool and windy but it didn't stop the grandkids they were outside all day riding four wheelers, jumping on the tramp, and playing in the fort. Most of the guys went fishing up Antelope. Some took to the mountains on four wheelers and I had the pleasant time of having my brother Reed and sister Beverly stop in for a few hours. Three families left that evening. I was tired Sat. night and had a big day at church the next day so I went to bed but about 11:30 I could hear everyone laughing and yelling playing the family favorite Rage (a card game) so I came down and took a picture. We went to church at 11:00 then came home and the weather was perfect and we had another lively visit till everyone left around 5:00. The kids all brought either a breakfast casserole or a lasagna. We had tons of FATTENING fantastic food! Great memories had by all! Oh, the bike in the picture, is two bikes connected,that Keaton made in his welding class. I thought Brigitte's hair picture showed what the frazzling times were like, HA!

I have three new posts here. You have to click on older posts to see the graduation and lock in pictures.

My babies graduated from high school this week. Kelsey was the top student in her class in academics. She got a half scholarship to BYUI plus some other ones. She also got a medal from the army, that was a surprise, for outstanding academic and athletic achievement. She and Keaton also sang with a group and did a good job. Keaton also got a $500.00 scholarship. We have enjoyed these kids more than I can express. It will be hard to see them go to college next year but I'm trying to be positive, just think I won't ever have to clean house again! HA! HA!

Seminary graduation was Sunday and the kids both graduated from four years of that also. Kelsey was also the Pres.

I was suppose to be a chaperone at the senior lock in and I honestly didn't know how I was going to stand it. Well, we visited and hung around for awhile and then we started rockin. We acted like idiots and had the blast of blasts! Here are a few pictures.