Fun in Arizona!

Wow it was such perfect timing to leave a raging blizzard in SLC and go to see the Pothiers in beautiful green AZ! The main reason for going was that Shawni was being named The Arizona Young Mother of the Year! It was truly a delightful event.  I lost my camera so I got a few snaps with my Iphone which has no flash but at least you can tell that we’re having a good time!

 

The kids, sans Lucy were there to help celebrate and were so excited!  Not only that… because we needed some medical advice for our India returnees….we discovered that Dr.Cub and Bonnie were staying for six weeks in Surprise AZ so they drove on down to join the celebration.

Shawni did a fabulous job in her acceptance speech and I got to introduce her!  Of course I forgot to mention her 10,000 page-hits-per-day blog here and the new post on Mormon.org featuring Shawni here (although American Mothers, who gave her this honor is not a Mormon organization).

You’ll have to check Shawni’s blog for some better pictures. Her girls were the photographers that night so that will be fun to see! Sadly Josh had committed to a training class that he couldn’t miss.

The next day we continued the fun at the amazing Arizona Children’s Museum with Claire and Lucy.

 

 

 

It was so fun to see Lucy beat Dave at the Memory game. We also got to hear him give his last SS lesson. After four years, he’s been assigned to the 15 year olds!  He is one terrific teacher!

Just have to throw in that we got home Dad/Rick’s Valentine for me was still sitting on the bar. It was my favorite nut from my favorite nut. There’s a bigger present but I’ll save that for another post. What a guy I have. I must be the luckiest woman on earth!  Too bad there’s not a celebration for the “Husband of the Year.”

 

California Dreamin’

We are getting  a bit addicted to California lately! After we left Charity in San Francisco, we rented a car and drove down the Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, something we have been saying we we’ve wanted to do for a long time!

It was a spectacular drive!

 

 

 

 

We arrived near Ladera Ranch late that night and the next morning we could hardly wait to get to Noah and Kristi’s house.  They were in Hawaii with Imagine Learning and the kids were being tended for the week by Kristi’s darling mom Susan and her sister Laurie.

 

When we got there Lyla was decked out with her gorgeous new tutu from her grandmother. Luckily there was only one as she usually piles those dress-ups on, one after the other!  She made up for it though when she showed us her new Dora panty package and dawned all seven pair in a blink!

 

It was SO fun to surprise McKay as he came out of the school from Kindergarten. That kids just keep us laughing!

Then it was on to a speaking event which we enjoyed so much! We had a fun evening event in a children’s activity place and then a morning meeting with the moms. 

We were at the Island Hotel at Newport Beach which we discovered is very close to Balboa Island where we had never been.  It was purely heaven to see green again and enjoy the gorgeous flowers, blooming like it’s summer in the middle of the winter.

 

Viva California! 

We Left Our Baby in San Francisco!

 

Not unlike Jerry Sloan, our daughter Charity just woke up one morning last year and realized that she should live in San Francisco! When that girl gets something in her mind, there’s no changing it (not that we would try) so….there she is! 

This week we had 24 whole hours with her. We told her to plan the adventure and that’s exactly what she did!  She lives in a beautiful house in a room…just a titch less glamorous than a designer’s pad but hey she put together her own dresser, bookcase and desk. That’s pretty awesome! Plus she wakes up every morning to a spectacular view of the ocean and a squirrel running along the telephone wires. (Oops I cut off the view!)

Of course the world map is her oyster and it is carefully marked with all the countries she has visited.

I think she was especially pleased to have her dad in her room….at last!

After a tour of her FUN house full of terrific roommates we went down to Fisherman’s Wharf

and took the ferry under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz, which she has always wanted to do but lacked the funds.  It was a splendid ride with a great view of that magical city on one side….

And the Golden Gate Bridge on the other…..

I thought she would explode with excitement as we floated under this American monument which is the second most recognizable landmark in the world (Eiffel Tower is #1 just to save you time on Google). 

Dad was pretty cold but luckily I had an extra coat and scarf from Charity’s closet!

 

Alcatraz was pretty amazing too. Not much hope for escape from that crazy place!

Charity chauffeured us around like a pro and we saw pretty much all the districts of San Francisco.

We even drove by this great house where she does most of her babysitting for a British couple in Haight-Ashbury.

We had some GREAT food. It’s San Francisco, what do you expect?  We also made it to one of Charity’s favorite spots on earth. It meant driving a short while and then running as fast as we could scramble to get there before sunset. This place is just twenty minutes from downtown is this amazing haven of glorious nature complete with a lighthouse and a gorgeous view of the ocean and the city in the distance.

 

 

The next morning we found a great place to rent bikes and rode through Golden Gate Park and down to an beautiful windmill and the beach.

At the end of our 24 hours Charity dropped us off at a car rental place and we were on our way….and she was on her way!  No grass grows under that girl’s feet! She has carved out a delightful life for herself…albeit she would love to replace her 6 part time jobs with just one reliable one! What an amazing child we have been blessed with!  She personifies the name of her blog…Dripping with Passion.  You can view it here.

We loved being with our baby but felt really good about leaving her…and our hearts…in San Francisco.

All that Jazz

Before I start, we’ve been dancing and eating again this week up in Logan so I added some pictures to the end of the last post if you’re interested.

This week we had a lot of fun at a Jazz game.  Randy Rigby, the President of the Jazz found some great tickets for us on the fourth row and invited us to sit at their family table. What fun it was to meet their outstanding girls, one of which was a project manager at Rising Star for two years!

The reason we got the royal treatment was because of our special guests! We have been friends with these solid gold people for over forty years and it’s always so fun to go with such avid basketball fans! Here they are patiently waiting for the game to begin. They create quite a stir!

These are for our Jazz fans:

 

We have become dedicated BEAR fans since he went to visit out little Cami at her house!  It wasn’t even because of the Make a Wish Foundation. He just did it out of the goodness of his heart! His parents who were thrilled to see him as well said they saw tears in his eyes as he hugged that adorable bald little Cami.

He’s almost as popular as these two:

That dad always keeps us laughing with that finger…..including the next day in Logan.  Grandma didn’t care for the music at the Texas Roadhouse (note the wadded up piece of napkin in her ears)!

 

Grandma Ruthie and Elder Perry were born the same month in the same year and went to high school together in Logan. He has married most of our kids and we have had a happy history together through the years!  FUN!