Winter Wonderland

I don't know what the weather's like where you are but it is all about "Merry Christmas" here! March did indeed come in like a lion and is going out like a lamb! It's been snowing ALL day and will continue all day tomorrow. It's warm enough that it won't stick long but it's supposed to rain for Easter weekend. We need the moisture but I'm sure looking forward to a few buds in the near future! No laying out in the sun tomorrow!




























There's six inches of snow in the driveway and the views are spectacular! Sleighing anyone?

Never a Dull Moment!

This week we’ve had such a nice plethora of adventures!  How great it was to travel to Logan with Charity to visit Grandma and find Chelsia and Sam, LucyMae and Samantha there!  Grandma, who has been very reluctant to attend the temple with her mindset, did very well and we had a lovely afternoon at the temple!

Samantha is adorable and LucyMae takes really good care of her!

Next we loved a visit by the Looslis who were on their way to the Bull Sale at the Loosli Farm in Ashton.  We got out the dress up clothes from India and Eliza was in Heaven!

She took this one home for church!

Then it was back to the Redstones Theatres and those 3-D glasses and the wonderful Alice and Wonderland…a imaginative extravaganza!  Everyone loved it but it looks as though all that wildness burned out Eliza’s brain!  

Just as the Looslis left, the Pothiers came!  What fun to see the display of Indian fashion!  (Tal and Anita, have Sarah look at this post…she helped us buy this stuff)!

Charity and I got to take care of Lucy (mostly Charity because we had to leave) while the Pothiers had fun with their friends at the Park City ski resort.  It was such a treat to see them three weeks in a row!

Dad, as you know is basically crazy for fun (both meanings intended)!  He just HAD to see the new Elvis show in Las Vegas before we headed for the tennis tournament in Indian Wells. Sooooo we flew to Las Vegas, had a great evening of entertainment at the new City Center, which is a massive new addition to the Las Vegas scene.

 

and saw the new Cirque de Soleil production of ELVIS!  It was truly spectacular. I know I use that word a lot, but it really was the only way to describe it! 

Dad got his Elvis fix and we rented a car and drove until about 2 a.m. to Victorville where we stopped at a little motel.  He was told that Palm Springs was only about 2 1/2 hours from Las Vegas but it was more like 4 1/2 so we had a really fun little road trip!

The next morning we jumped in the car and made sure we were at least an hour early for the matches at Indian Wells.  I have to say that it was REALLY fun!  We saw all the major players close up and personal and loved being at the historic match when Federer was defeated in three sets 7/5, 5/7, 7/6 by Baghdatis!  It was a terrific match!  Everybody needs to lose once in a while!

As always at these tourneys, dad was like a kid in a candy store and loved soaking in that sun, soaked in oil!

The gorgeous grounds were matched by really good (and expensive) food and two days completely saturated with fantastic tennis. We saw the top 9 men’s players and lots of great women’s matches including a one where the cute girl from Denmark that we saw at the US Open won.

You gotta love Rafa’s crazy shorts, even though you can’t see them very well here:

 

Ah, what a nice respite from the dirty melting snow and mud presently at our house in Park City!

And the top it all off, when we got back to Las Vegas to catch our flight, we saw that Lion King was playing and since we haven’t seen it since 15 years ago in NY (and only half then…some will remember that) he decided to surprise me with tickets. The puppetry, costumes, orchestra and music were absolutely amazing!  We stayed overnight and arrived home about an hour ago. Next we’re on our way to a violin practice, dinner with friends who have an orphanage in Haiti and then on to a speech in Alpine tonight.

 

One thing we never have to worry about is being bored! 

Go BYU!

Crammed days!

I just spent two and a half days cramming in fun with the Pothiers and Josh.  At the moment I’m on my way home, flying over the Grand Canyon and mountains full snow since it was the snowiest year in a long time in Northern AZ and Southern Utah.

It seems impossible that so much can be packed into just about 60 hours, but it happened! As soon as I arrived we stopped by antique shops and a fabric shop to finsih some projects at the Pothier home. Dinner, car pools and lots of fun conversation followed. 

Shawni happened to know several moms who are actively involved in American Mothers so the next morning they held a meeting at Poppies, a boutique store in Mesa where Shawni and I got to talk about some “secrets”  and meet a lot of amazing women!

Every one in this picture squeezed in a moment to stop by as one was flying out in an hour, another was having a wedding at her home that evening, just recovered from massive brain surgery! Aren’t mothers amazing? 

This Pothier family is at the age where everyone is involved in everything! 

Max is done with a triumphant basketball season and is trying out football, pads and all!  He is doing great on piano and was mowing the neighbor’s lawn as I left.

Elle wakes us up every morning at 6:45 a.m. practicing the piano, is getting really good and is also playing violin in the school orchestra. In addition she is a terrific soccer player, has an unbelievable swing in her tennis lessons and has Achievement Days. Here she is with her friends who are on their way to school with their posters about the dangers of pollution! it also happened to be crazy hat day!

Grace is also a terrific tennis player and it was fun to not only see her at practice but to be at her soccer game.  She and Claire are taking gymnastics and can do incredible back flips (Grace) and cartwheels and round offs (Claire). Grace is teaching Claire piano lessons.

As though that’s not enough busyness,  Grace and Claire did their part to help raise money for the Vision Walk with a homemade lemonade stand! While they were doing this, Elle and her friend who had made cookies were going door to door selling those famous Pothier cookies for the Foundation Fighting Blindness!

Grace and Claire are taking gymnastics and can do back flips, cartwheels and round offs like nobody’s business! 

In addition to all that, Lucy has moved to a “big girl bed” (as of last night).  Grace is sleeping in a double bed in Lucy’s room and Lucy and Claire are sleeping in the twin beds next door. Everyone’s crossing their fingers that that’s going to work!

The main reason for my coming was to participate in the Vision Walk sponsored by the Foundation Fighting Blindness.  There were about 550 people there and they raised about $80,000 dollars!  Shawni and I were happy to donate funds from our book royalties and a great time was had be all!  Claudia even came and it was fun to catch up with her and walk with she and her girls!

   

Lucy walked for the first bit and then spent the rest of the time in her position as “Queen” in this jogger stroller with her darling friend!

The 5 K was complete with balloons at the start, blow up “jumping deals” and food and water before we began!

Lucy was right there with the best of them!  There were many other family and friends walking for their own child’s special issues and it was a really terrific experience!

On Friday night Josh took me to one of the most terrific concerts I’ve seen in a long time.  I was blown away by arrangements of Easter songs at the Mesa Fine Arts Concert Hall.  It was a local Mormon choir with four different age groups, an enormous orchestra and some of the cutest little kids singing a fun arrangement of “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” that you can imagine!  One of Josh’s students was in the group and it was just astounding with about 500 people performing for a sold out crowd!  One of Josh’s outstanding kids was in the choir!

Saturday also just happened to be one of the biggest school days of the year for Josh as his school was holding their big annual carnival!  Josh was right in thick of it by the time we got there with his class’s bowling booth and photographing the pie eating contest. Since being photographed is not his favorite thing, this isn’t a great picture but you’ll get the idea! There must have been a thousand people there! Note the bright sun! It was 75 degrees! 

 

Next we ran straight to Grace’s soccer game where we got to see her participate in her undefeated team.  Wish I’d thought to take a picture of that but it will undoubtedly show up on Shawni’s blog (71toes.blogspot.com).

Somehow we squeezed in a doctor appointment for Claire with a homeopathic doctor who gave Shawni some good suggestions for Claire’s continual Urinary Tract Infections which included taking her off dairy products.  Just what Shawni needs….one more thing to juggle! That plus two kids who needed to be at birthday parties 

How we got all that smashed in is baffling, but Shawni does something similar almost every day!  We are so “well pleased” with the good things all our kids and grandkids are involved in. Roughly paraphrased, here is quote i heard in church that matches pretty well with the busyness of everyone in Eyrealm’s lives right now:  “Being perfect is one thing but maybe it’s more important to just get it done!”  Pearl Buck

I Love Lucy!

We have a wonderful tech savvy, mother savvy friend in Boston who has a hugely blog called Dare to Dream.Saren and Saydi have each posted wonderful ideas on her blog but today she is launching an amazing post by Shawni about her journey so far with Lucy.  We hope that anyone who reads this blog will check it out here. On her own volition she is trying to get more people to be fans of the I Love Lucy Project on Facebook and Twitter (about which we are clueless) and therefore spread the word about the need for funds through the book and other means. she also has a fun idea about lunch. Check it out and thanks again for your continued support of our adorable Lucy!