Thursday, May 29, 2025

Prairie Lotus

 

Prairie LotusPrairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Historical Fiction Audiobook
I love the Little House series. It is on my all-time favorites list. This little book is set at the same time on the prairie. The main character, Hanna, is of mixed race- half Caucasian and half Korean. She faces ridicule and rejection. But she is a strong girl, determined to get an education. It is a story of determination and courage and teaches acceptance and kindness.


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Happy Mother's Day

 I had a nice Mother's Day.  I played the piano in sacrament meeting for the children to sing a song for their mothers.  Then they had a brunch for all of the women in the ward.  It was nice.


Ken gave me this beautiful hand-carved nativity set from the Philippines.




We had a delicious roast beef dinner.

Kristen sent Crumbl cookies.


Years ago, Michelle made me a toilet paper storage holder for the bathroom.  It was pretty old and ratty.  She noticed that when she was last here and sent me this beautiful, new one.  I like it so much I just ordered another one for the other side.
It was a lovely Mother's Day.  

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Hinton\Burdick's 50-year Anniversary Party

 We hurried home from Logan to attend Hinton Burdick's 50th anniversary celebration on May 8th.  Four of the partners are retired now, but the firm is still going strong. They have offices in Nevada, Arizona, and three in Utah (Richfield, Cedar City, and of course, St. George) The party was held in the parking lot of the firm.  Many from the various offices came to celebrate.



Partners took turns in the dunk tank.  Luckily the three retired partners didn't have to participate!

They had a taco truck, a corn dog truck and Zeppes truck.  It was fun to reconnect with everyone.


Tuesday, May 27, 2025

A Wonderful Week in Logan

 We spent a wonderful week in Logan, Utah, visiting the Camerons.



They are such a great family!


One of the highlights for us was being part of their scripture study each evening.  They always gather around the piano and sing a song.  Every one of their four children take turns accompanying the singing.



As well as mom.  I don't know why these pictures are so blurry.





Shonna is amazing.  She cooked the most delicious meals for us. Well, Blake did a lot of it as well. She makes homemade sourdough bread.

The Smithfield,Utah temple is being constructed

With all three of our daughters living pretty close, we have decided we would like to buy a vacation home in or near Logan.  Shonna is in Logan, Michelle in South Jordan, and Kristen recently moved to Rexburg.  That makes Logan pretty central.  One of our pursuits for the week was to find a vacation home for us to buy.  Shonna, Ken, and I spent a lot of time looking.  We settled on a  3-bedroom condo development, though the one we chose is yet to be built.  Our phase of the development won't be built for over a year. Here are some pictures of the model:





Bedroom #2

Small bedroom #3


Master Bedroom





The main reason for the timing of our visit was to attend Hannah and Lily's big dance show.  Every year they do their show in the beautiful, historic Ellen Eccles theater.

It was a beautiful show and both girls did so well.

After the concert, we went to Bluebird Chocolates for chocolates and ice cream.





Hannah and her good friend, Millie who came with us to support her.

Shonna and Mom

It was a beautiful, perfect evening and so much fun!

Early the next morning, we drove to Layton to watch Caleb in a band competition.




After the competition, the band members got to go to Lagoon for the rest of the day.

The director told a joke before they played their last song.



Their band is so good and took 2nd place in the competition.

On Saturday afternoon, Ken and I took Hannah to a pottery painting studio and let her choose to paint whatever she liked.  This was our birthday present to her this year.  The next three pictures are mine, Hannah's, and Ken's projects.  Can you guess who did each one?











I had a dental problem, so we went back up to Logan the next week, so we were able to pick up the fired projects.  We were all happy with how they turned out.





On Sunday, we visited my parents' graves and planted geraniums in the little planters on the sides.













Beautiful Logan temple.


On Monday afternoon, Caleb and Ken went on a monster mountain climbing bike ride.  Ken said Caleb is an animal on the bike.  They had a great time together.



(Sadly, the next week Caleb was riding in the bike park. He hit a jump and flew over the handlebars and landed on his head.  He cracked his helmet and got a concussion.  Thank goodness he was wearing his helmet!)

Wednesday evening was mutual.  The teacher's activity was "clean the sink" at a local restaurant.  The boys cleaned two sinks!  Caleb texted me pictures through the evening of their progress.



On our way home, we stopped at a rest stop. Ken's brother Mark and Kathy had been up in Idaho Falls tending grandkids.  They pulled in at the rest stop just after us!  What are the chances?

It was such a fun week in Logan with the Camerons!