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

Weekend Fun

We had a varied weekend of fun. Last week Dad and my cars' headlights both had problems, both on the L side. The cool thing is... my headlight costs $12 and I repaired it myself using the Miata picture repair manual. Dad's costs $700 for the whole thing, so he took it all apart and isolated the problem to a high energy light filament and it ONLY costs $130. We found one online for just under $100. So, soon we will be all repaired!

Next fun thing we did was to get the new (inexpensive) IKEA drapes up so I can pull them closed at night over the windows, do my Wii exercises, and keep some cold out.
Then, I altered another pair and found this very nice and sturdy shower curtain expandable rod at IKEA and was able to extend it to 83" and put them up without any nasty drilling and hanging off a ladder. Now when I sleep in the bedroom, that wicked street light that shines in my eyes every night for 30 years will be blocked and I won't have to close the door. Arnold LOVES to open the door up every night.
Elders came over on TH night and we had a fun Valentine's color dinner. 
And we found a little time to SKI down the slopes.