Lucy is 12! Out of Primary Into Young Women's

On Lucy's birthday eve, we went to Lethbridge for Lucy's first birthday present - getting her ears pierced.

 There was no school on Lucy's birthday because of a teacher workday. Lucy invited her friends for an ice skating birthday party.  We lucked out with the most amazing ice skating weather for our hour of skating on our pond.

Lucy's awesome friends: Camee Card, Skylie Holland, Kamree Schaffer
Ally Leishman, Nya Pierson, Brooke Hardy, Taylor Heninger, Hallie Pilling & Lucy

We had bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Besides the new earrings, Lucy got new boots, jeans, belts and swimsuits.

Happy birthday Lucy!!!!

Grant Lyman Reeve

This is my Grandpa Reeve. He passed away this morning. We knew his time was coming to an end. He was 94 years old. He was such a good Grandpa and had so many stories and adventures in his lifetime. I started reading his lifestory again this week knowing that he would soon be done on this earth. He grew up in the Great Depression. "Times were hard. We were allowed butter to put on our bread only if we scraped off as much as possible and returned it to the "butter-plate" to make the butter go further." I hope I will remember him every time I put butter on my bread and the sacrifices he made for his family and the great man that he was. My Grandma Reeve passed away in 1984 - I wish I could have watched their reunion this morning!

My Mom's Dad, Grant Lyman Reeve, passed away on January 22, 2017. He was 94 years old.

He is the kind of grandpa that was excited to see you and you felt important to him. He was a righteous man, and he worked hard to support his family. I loved his sense of humor.

This was my Facebook post on January 22.

Grandma Reeve passed away in 1984.  My Grandpa married his cousin, Ann McQueen, in 1985.  Ann passed away in 2008.  My sister, Diana, moved in with Grandpa in December 2008.  She lived there for several years.  Eventually they moved Grandpa to Assisted Living at the Charleston in Cedar Hills. He was aging but still doing pretty well.  He was going to go to the temple with his people last October, but that day he fell and broke his femur.  It went downhill from there.  His quality of life went down and his body was worn out.  We were praying for him to be released from his mortal body.  I am so thankful that my family got to see him on January 3 for the last time.

Lucy, Carly and I drove back to Utah so we could go to my Grandpa's funeral. There was a viewing the night before the funeral. Not a lot of people came, but it was good to talk to those family members and friends who did come.  

The funeral was an amazing spiritual feast honoring the life of a great man.

Diana gave the life sketch and did an amazing job.  My Mom, Uncle Frank, Aunt Mary and Aunt Roseanne each shared a memory.  

My mom said that even though Diana didn't wear a nametag, she was called on a mission in 2008 to help Grandpa, and now Diana and Grandpa Reeve were both released from their missions.  Diana was truly the best caretaker of Grandpa.  Even after he moved in assisted living, she visited him all the time, and he truly relied on her.  I watched her buckle his seatbelt. She would take him out to eat on his birthday.  She printed things off the computer for him. She changed the batteries in his hearing aide.  To culminate her mission, she gave the life sketch and prepared the photo displays for the funeral.

My favorite part of the funeral was singing the opening and closing songs.  Jeanette was the organist, and she plays with so much feeling.  The opening song was "Dearest, Children" and the closing song was "Oh, What Songs of the Heart."  The words to both songs apply so much to the life of Grandpa and to our knowledge of life after death, of angels watching over us, and of the love of the Savior and Heavenly Father.  Singing the closing hymn with all of my extended family imagining that my Grandpa and Grandma and their people were in heaven singing right along with us, and Jeanette playing the organ loud and with vigor was worth the drive from Canada to Utah.   The last verse she added more organ stops and cranked up the volume even more. It was powerful.  After the funeral she said, you don't usually play funeral songs so loud, but she thinks Grandpa would have liked it that way.

There is a picture of my Grandpa in the military that says, When Hitler sees this face, he will surrender.

"On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of this great nation, we present you this flag in appreciation of Grant Lyman Reeve's service in the United States Navy."

Uncle David thanking Diana for her service to Grandpa Reeve.

I am not very close to my cousins, but it was good to see them.  24 out of 29 of them were able to come to the funeral. Actually, one of them, Shawna Gagnon, who passed away when she was 4, was probably in heaven too. So I guess 25 were there.

We stayed with Doug & Emily. It was the first time Carly got to meet her cousin, Hazel.

This was Lucy texting Hanna on our journey to Montana.  Lucy and Carly were awesome traveling partners! As always, we are thankful for our traveling guardian angels.

Journey to Waites

On New Year's Day, we went to church in a blizzard, enjoyed an excellent Sacrament Meeting, and then church got let out early so everyone could get home in the snow.

We, on the other hand, finished loading our car and headed south.  The roads were wintery but not terrible.  We were gone for a week, slept in a different place every night, saw my parents and all of my siblings, Austin's brother Les & his family, Grandpa Reeve, and our adopted grandparents, Steve & Karma Albiston.

First stop: Idaho Falls. We stayed with Grandpa & Grandma and visited with them. We stopped for some quick shopping and then to visit Julie. We had a ping pong tournament. Tristan came out the winner with Grandpa Randy as a close second place.  It was great to see the Johns!

Second Stop: Kimberly, Idaho

This was our first time visiting Sharon in her new house in Kimberly. Her house is awesome and life is good for the Semons. Lily, Ella and Preston were excited for visitors, and we loved hanging out with them. Rob had made a pinata that we got to break with a noodle. We had some good laughs.

Lily had already left for school when we took this last picture. It was such a fun visit with a delicious dinner that was ready promptly at 5:30 pm (like mother like daughter). 

After we left, they had a winter storm come in that night and school was cancelled because of snow and cold for the next few days.

Day 3:  Cedar Hills

We went to visit Grandpa Reeve. He broke his femur a few weeks ago and then had pneumonia. He is back at the Charleston Assisted Living Center, but he is not doing great. He is 94 years old, and he doesn't really eat much anymore and isn't comfortable.  It was good to see him, and he remembered who we were and answered our questions. We do hope that his time in this body isn't too much longer since he is worn out.  He is a good grandpa and lived a good life.

We had a dinner party at the Bennetts.  Rachelle, Brooklyn & Brylee, Diana, and Doug & Emily came over.  It was fun to talk and laugh and eat. (I guess we didn't take any pictures).

Day 4:  Salt Lake & Logan

We went to Temple Square and Jill and Hanna were able to do Baptisms for the Dead at the Salt Lake Temple.  

We also went to the Church History Museum.  They have a new display of early church history with a new film about the First Vision.  It is worth your time to stop.

Then we went to Hires Big H for burgers and shakes. Austin and I went there a couple times when we were dating, so it was a trip down memory lane.

Then it was time for the one of the main reasons of our trip - to meet Doug & Emily's new baby.  Doug & Emily have been married for 12 years wishing and praying every single day for a baby. With the miracle of invitro, Emily got pregnant and was due on their 12th anniversary.  The baby didn't want to come on her own, so Emily was induced and waited and waited. Then they ended up doing a C-section and Hazel was born on December 27.  She was 8 lb 9 oz.  First they were worried about fluid on her lungs, and then they were worried about your Ph levels. They gave her an IV, but then they decided they needed to send her to University of Utah hospital.  So Doug had to leave Emily and go in an ambulance with Hazel.  They took more tests and were worried that Hazel had an infection and possibly meningitis. Emily got released from the hospital a few days later, and then for 2 weeks Doug & Emily had to go to Salt Lake every day to visit Hazel in the NICU.  Hazel was born on a Tuesday and Doug was not able to hold her until Friday night.  She had a very exciting/scary entrance into the world but she is doing good now.

Anyway, we got to go into the NICU one at a time to meet Hazel.  She is a miracle and we have prayed a million prayers for her to come!

After Salt Lake, we headed to Logan. We had really good roads in Idaho/Utah until part way through Sardine Canyon. It was snowy and then it was really snowing in Cache Valley. We checked into our hotel room at Super 8. There was so much snow everywhere.  Lucy and Carly went for a quick swim, we ate Little Cesars pizza on the way to Utah State University.  We had bought tickets to go to the USU Men's basketball game vs. New Mexico, which was at 9 pm since it was going to be o ESPN. I looked at the Women's basketball schedule and they played against New Mexico at 7 pm.  I thought perfect, we can go to 2 games.  We had hurried and trekked through a blizzard to get to the Spectrum, and there was no one there.  We looked again and the women were playing at New Mexico, not at home. We had a good laugh, but then we decided to just stay until the men's game started since we didn't want to go back out in the snow.  We took being "Waite" early to a new level.

It was really fun to watch the men's game.  Carly really wanted to buy ice cream, so I made her promise that she would go to USU for college if she wanted ice cream.  She agreed.  I will have to hold her to it.

Day 5 - Logan to Montpelier

We had a fun morning swim at our hotel.  Then we met Steve & Karma Albiston for lunch at Old Gristmill.  Then we went to their house for a fun visit and an ice cream cone.  We love Steve & Karma. 

We headed to visit the Young Nunns in their new pad.  Les & Hollis bought a house in Bennington (a few miles from Montpelier). The house is awesome (although it has some classy 80s decorating).  

They had also had 2 snow days. The next morning we had made arrangements to do a short snowmobile ride with Steve Waetchler who we knew when we lived in Hyrum.  He owns a snowmobile shop. It was a beautiful morning but -13F.  We decided to wait until after lunch and it warmed up to a toasty 0F.  We bundled up and still decided to go.  We just played in the field behind Waetchler's house.  It was fun but soooo cold.  Carly didn't love it. She said she would just walk, and she barely even got on a snowmobile. It was cold but fun.

We went back to Idaho Falls to stay with my parents again. Then Saturday we headed back to Cardston.  We had really good roads until we got to Canada.  We were glad when Hanna gave someone else the talking straw so she would stop talking for a minute:)  It was fun to see everyone - we were lucky to avoid most of the storms - and we were glad to be home!