Some Great Women in My LIfe

Celeste, Callie, Drake and I headed for Utah to stay with Mom and Dad for a few days. Celeste and I attended Women's Conference. It was a sweet experience. It was a little cold, drizzley and windy but the company was great. Celeste read that 3 times more BYU brownies are sold during Women's Conference than any other time of year. So we decided we didn't want to be left out and tried out their brownies. I had mint with nuts (of course) and Celeste had regular with nuts. They did not come packaged, just on a piece of parchment paper. So we had to eat them before our lunch. Having dessert first was so fun we decided to eat our Hogi yogi ice cream before our dinner also. The brownies lived up to the hype. They were delicious.

I really enjoyed all of the conference sessions but was particularly touched by Sister Becks. She was the key note opening Session speaker. I have been muling around her words for days. She talked about making sure our priorities are in their proper place. We need to do the things that are essential first, then the necessary and then the nice. I think it is easy to spend most of our time on the nice since that is what is fun, our hobbies, etc. I have been thinking about how I spend my time and in which category the items should be placed. Lots of other good words of wisdom sunk into my heart from this conference. I loved attending with Celeste. I hope to go again next year with other special women in my life.

After the last session of Conference, Celeste and I met my parents, Callie and Drake at Dad's sister's house. It was really good to visit with Elaine, Royal, Rolaine and Claude. They are good people. Last night Mom's sister came over to see us. That was a fun treat to visit with Aunt Liane. I did manage to get my camera out for her visit. I wish I had had it with me for the visit with the Hendersons. Great trip!

Sea World in San Diego

We spent two days in San Diego. The first day we visited Sea World. We loved it there. We loved the Shamu show. The Whales are beautiful animals. It was worth the price of admission just to see them. Another highlight was feeding the dolphins, the swirling mass of sea eels, the sea lion show and seeing Beluga Whales. It was an even better day because my parents and sisters were there.

Welcoming Becky and Steve home.

We headed for California in January to welcome Becky and Steve home from their Ethiopian Mission. My parents and sisters also came. We had a great week together.
Becky and Steve were given traditional clothing as parting gifts. Becky pulled them all out for us to model.

JACKSON!!!

I have been very neglectful and haven't blogged about sweet little Jackson. I bragged about him on facebook but not here, so this blog is just for him!

When Cassy and Taylor called and told us they were having a boy, Grandpa Rod was pretty excited. With 4 son-in-laws and 3 grandsons, this newest arrival would tip our family over the edge. There would now be more boys in the family than girls. That hadn't ever happened before! Rod was pretty excited to welcome this new little guy into our family.

Jackson took his sweet time getting here. He arrived late on Oct 6, 2009 in Tuscon. Rod and I took a two day road trip to meet him. We arrived shortly after Cassy, Taylor and little Jackson got home from the hospital. What a sweet little boy. He had wild dark hair like his grandpa Ernie. He was skinny and very sweet. Rod could only stay for a few days but I was able to stay a week!

We saw him next at Thanksgiving when Cassy and Taylor brought him out to meet the family. They flew in on a Sunday afternoon. Some of our family skipped a little bit of church on that day because "she" was so anxious to meet Mr. Jacksonnnnnn! We loved the visit and there was no shortage of aunts and uncles to hold him.

We saw him again at Christmas but had to drive to Utah to do so. It was the Pierce-Wooten family's turn to have them. Cassy and Taylor decided to bless little Jax at Taylor's family's house. Cara and Dave were also in Utah since Dave's Grandpa was celebrating his birthday so the timing worked great for them. This trip was too short and we had to share Jackson but it was great to see him again. The next scheduled trip isn't until summer which will be way tooooooo long for me. I hope to sneak in a trip to Tuscon in the Spring.

Jackson is a charmer. He is very free with his smiles. He is a happy little guy. Cassy says he takes after me. I will claim him!

I have been reading Caylee a series of books by Barbara Park about a little girl named Junie B. Jones. They are pretty entertaining. In the book, Junie B., First Grader Cheater Pants, Junie learned how to write Cinquain (prononuced sin-cane) poems. It is a 5 line poem.

Line 1: One word (Title of the poem)
Line 2: Two words describing the title
Line 3: Three verbs about the title
Line 4: Four words expressing a thought or feeling about the title.
Line 5: One word that means the same as the title.

I really liked the poem examples in the book and decided to try writing one myself. It is about the hike we took on Labor Day a couple of months ago. I have a goal to hike some of Colorado 14ers. Mt Evans is one anyone can do because you basically drive to the top and just hike a little ways. On the way up we saw a very fat marmot and two shaggy mountain goats. It was very fun. I loved it!

Mt. Evans
Awesome Height
Driving, Hiking, Enjoying
Top of the world
Beautiful

Tarullo Family Reunion with some Lichfields and some Prices!

Cara was in charge of planning our first annual Tarullo family Reunion. She did a great job. Thanks Cara! We stayed at the Sylvan Lake State Park. It is a beautiful place!!! She picked this spot because it is close to Fulford Cave. We have been promising to take Travis there for about ...um...ten years now. We finally managed. Rod, Celeste, Travis, Brandon, Cami, Cara, Dave, Quinten, Braden, Stephanie and Caleb all went into the cave. Callie stayed out with Drake. I stayed out with Aiden and Suzy had Layla. Mom and Dad took a nap. We set up a screened tent that Travis had brought up. I blew up a mattress and made a comfortable place for the little ones to hang out. Aiden did not fell well so he slept there most of the time. During out Three day, two night stay we ate, hiked, fished, played with Dad's float boat, played the card game "golf" and enjoyed the "secret agent man, chichiawa 2" That was Brandon. He had fun investigating the racoon paw prints on my car. Caylee and Brandon loved roasting the marshmellows. Caleb loved starting the fire with a TON of lighter fluid. He came away with less hair on one arm than when he arrived. It was a fun trip. Who is planning next years?

Layla Walking?

Cara, Dave and Layla arrived yesterday afternoon for a birthday celebration dinner. Cara brought a recently purchased little push cart for Layla. She has been practicing walking with it for days and loves it. We all ran to the front entry way to watch Layla. She stood there in the middle of the floor and just looked at us. We coaxed, cheered, encouraged, and plead with her but she would not budge. So Grandpa nonchalantly walked behind her thinking that would make her move away from "that big old scary guy". She cranked her head around and glared at him but would not move. I guess she just didn't want an audience. Later, I did catch her walking behind it in the kitchen. Aiden thought it looked like great fun and joined her. He walks much faster than her and soon left her in the dust without her little push cart. I wish I had pulled out my camera for all of this. Sorry about that. I am including a picture from two weeks ago when she was practicing standing in the middle of the room. She would bend stick her bum up in the air, folded completely in half and then stand up with her arms out wide for balance. You could see her little toes gripping the carpet for all they were worth. The best part was her great big smile of accomplishment. Grand kids are so fun!