Mother's Day gift

For Mother's Day this year, Dad cut up the hot tub and then we purchased a new rectangular, offside umbrella for the deck. Once we get the deck sanded and repainted it should be really nice!

Bye Bye Hot tub

Dad and 2 of our friends from Prune Hill ward had a sawsall party on Saturday and cut the old hot tub up in 1/4's! It was very dead. It had cracked throughout the inside, we had mended them twice, and finally this winter the pipes froze and broke, and Arnold had clawed this whole cedar strip on the corner. It was time for it to go, LOTS of great memories in this old hot tub! It was a great buy, but now we have reclaimed our patio and LOVE it.

My 59th birthday!

Thanks to Dad for arranging to have Becky and her kidlets over, I had a nice birthday. At work, no one remembered and I was kind of bummed, and I was getting a headache and my fibromyalgia was beginning to act up.

When I arrived home, what a fun surprise to find out that Dad had invited Becky and the kids over to celebrate my birthday, he had bought pizza so I didn't have to cook, and Becky brought over a cake!

I love having some of my grandkids so close.
Didn't Becky do a nice job with the cake?

After dinner I broke out the new Dance, Dance Revolution Disney that I had bought with funds for work and it needed testing, so who better to test it out than the grandkids! Tyler watched for a while, then decided that combing Grandpa's hair was much more fun.

Thanks again Dad, Becky, Drew, Katie, Dylan and Tyler!

  This weekend, I spent several hours in the strawberry patch resurrecting it from the ivy since it has been 3 years since I have lived here at this time of the year. I also tied back the raspberry plants so they are ready to be fruit bearing, and planted the tomatoes and artichoke plants!

Houston Fun

We had a wonderful time in Houston Texas this week visiting Kevin and his family and Jenni and her family!  Here we are at the OIL RANCH on a hay ride feeding the long horns! what do you think about this big guy? Did a 10x zoom on him! ( He was not at the OIL RANCH! ) Can't make this picture move below so I guess you get him here.

Brazos State Park was a thrill with lots of alligators, rosey Grosbills (they look like flamingos), and swimming turtles.We had so much fun with Jenni, Kenny and their adorable 11month old Daniel. He does the absolutely cutest chuckle whenever he grins. He is just about ready to walk.At the OIL Ranch, which is about a 4 acre ranch with lots of fun kid things to do such as a petting zoo, the BIGGEST long horn steer, a swinging maypole, swings, hayrides, Indian Teepees, miniature golf and other fun things. We played for over 4 hours there!
Baby Joseph was bless on Sunday in Kevin's ward and here is the gang minus Jonathan who had zoomed off to Primary already. Beautiful baby and blessing. Joseph Olivier Ball.

Furnace Fairy

The furnace fairy visited us yesterday and sprinkled some magic dust on our old furnace and voila... it worked again! We were just downstairs picking up all of the used tools, cleaning up the floor and putting away things and weren't even trying to get it to work. We had given up on that! So, as of yesterday afternoon, we have had 68 degree heat in our house and it feel so good! I even ventured downstairs and sewed a bit in the heretofore cold basement. Don't know how long it will work, but we LOVE the furnace fairy!

Dylan's 4th Birthday

Dylan had his 4th birthday this past week and we got together at Becky and Kyle's to celebrate with them. Becky made this really cute CARS cake and he loved it.

Mr Potato Head was a hit with all 3 kids!

From Dylan's Birthday Party 2-28-09