Sometimes, life comes at you hard! This week was a week of happiness and sadness. Happy that Kaley was able to take out her endowments in preparation to be sealed to Clint. Sad that my good friend, Renee's mother passed away. Happy to see old friend, sad for the occassion. Shauna has petition, pleaded and begged for me to not post pictures of us at the funeral (we claim that the flight to California left us bloated and fat looking, when, in reality, IT IS REALITY!) So, in her honor, I leave out pictures of Shauna.
J, Kim Holmes., Dorothy Hatch. and Paul Hatch
Renee's daughter, Caitlyn
Wendy, Mike and Renee
All of Sandy's family....I know she's proud!

Renee is one of "the five". The rest are Shauna, Julie, Connie and myself. We've been good, no, great friends for many, many years. Kim is an honoray member of The Five, having arrived just a little later in our lives. She enjoys all membership privileges too. I had the chance to talk with Connie and Julie to relay the news of Sandy's passing. We are now planning to meet up at Women's Conference in May. Start planning girlfriends! We'll have a blast (not sure we'll attend Women's Conference), but we'll have fun.

My heart ached for Renee. With the passsing of her mother, and other issues, she has a lot on the table right now. My niece, Megan, posted a blog today which seemed to fit perfectly. She borrowed the words from another blogger, who's feelings were tender and perfect.

""...And for my own load, I am grateful. I don't wish to carry it-and
sometimes I even resent it-but I see it is my own, and I will bear it with all
the dignity and faith I can muster. And I can humbly testify that I don't carry
it alone. I recognize that my Savior carries the greater part with me (and He
sweetly sends me help through family and friends too), and I know that yoked
with Him I am able to move through the mud, push up against the dirt and grow."

WOW! (Megan - give thanks to the author for me!)

My Boys Are In High School!!!

Who would have thunk it? A and H are now freshmen at CHS. I quickly do the math and they will be on their missions in no time. In our LDS culture, that is a sign of "manhood". They leave as boys and come back men. Okay, I realize I'm getting way ahead of myself....after all, they are just freshmen, but I'm already dreading mission calls. Mak and Mad also started school. Mak is now in 7th grade, wearing makeup, constantly texting friends on her cell phone, and really into girly things (it is all out of my comfort zone). Mad is in 4th and loving her teacher, friends, etc. Life is good. She is still doing gymnastics.

The past week was hectic with getting kids ready for school and paying public school "fees" (that's another subject matter for another day). A and H tried out for the golf team. H's scores were a little high so he'll have to work a little harder for next year. A was able to get on the 10 man team, however, only the top six go to tournament, so he had to sit out the first tourney. He's hoping to qualify for this week's tourney.

G bought water skis and knee boards. We took them to the lake to give them a try. "Try" is the operative word. The lake was soooo choppy that getting on the knee board was like trying to ride a greased pig. Just when you think you had a handle on it, the dang thing slithered out beneath you and managed to hit ya in the head. The skis were a little better, but after wrestling with the greased pig, I was too beat (not to mention too old) to ski. I think we'll try again when the water is calm. Today, my muscles (every one of them) is crying out in pain. I suppose I need to pace myself and remember I'm not what I use to be (okay, truthfully, I was never super athletic, but in my mind, I am.)

For those who know them... Ted Elwell was married/sealed to a wonderful lady, Laurie. Laurie Bott was in my ward when we first moved to this area. Also, my dear friend Renee Shirley Welker's mother passed away yesterday after suffering from cancer. She was always a fun lady. Another dear friend, Kelli Brown's brother was killed in an auto accident last Sunday. He was a father of three young ones. It is as Charles Dickens described in the opening lines of his A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Weekend Drive.....

We had a great weekend. First some boating, then on Sunday, G had an idea to take a drive. We went up to Swain's Creek and took some old dirt roads to a lot G saw on EBAY. While the lot didn't prove to be worthy of a bid, the drive was beautiful. We saw so many mama deer with the new "spotted" fawns. Even a red tail hawk clinging to it's "catch" and a beautiful young buck. I forgot how much I love to drive and look at the wildlife. We haven't done very much driving this summer (perhaps it's because gas is so expensive!!!), so this was a real treat for me to be in the mountains watching the animals and scenery.
Mama and her babies (still with spots)
Young buck

H at the Ebay lot.
G and the girls at the lot.
A looking to jump if Dad bids on this lot.

A young buck.

This mountain was hidden, but on the road to the Ebay lot, and on a very rough road, you come around this turn and this beautiful mountain is before you.
The wildflowers were in bloom.

Mak overlooking valley. Zion is about 21 miles south.

Overall, the afternoon was great!

Skyler's baby blessing.....

Sunday, we blessed Skyler David in the Saratoga Springs 1st ward.

Great Grandma LaNae Thomas, Clint, Skyler, Kaley, and Great Grandma Clinton Miller

Clint, Kaley & Skyler
The whole gang.
Grandpa Miller, Clint, Skyler, Grandpa Dave, and Chad (he's available...I can hook ya up)
Clint, Skyler and Kaley
The Thomas family in their "normal" pose. Never serious. Kathy, Courtney, Clint, Skyler, Kaley, Cassidy, Chad and Dave

THOMAS REUNION

Every two years, the Thomas family has a reunion. This year it was at Cherry Hill up near Farmington, Utah. We really had a great time. The most fun was to see Kaley. As most of you know, shortly after Kaley gave birth to Skyler in April, she developed a fever. When doctors couldn't figure the source of the fever and Kaley's condition worsened, she was intebated and life flighted to the University of Utah hospital. Kaley fell into a coma and wasn't expected to live. It was determined that Kaley had lupus, such catastrophic lupus, that it affected her nervous system and all other organs of her body. After three long months at UofU, and many hours of rehab, Kaley is back with us 100%. After seeing Kaley in the hospital hooked up to tubes the size of garden hoses, and 15-20 smaller tubes, violently shaking and blown up to 250 lbs., it was so great to see her that I actually had to hug her twice.
Clint, Kaley and baby Skyler.


Paula & Owen.....Ben, Amber, Trent and Tyler. I haven't spent hardly any time with Ben and his family and have never met baby Tyler. What cuties! Trent is so soft spoken and adorable. Tyler smiles constantly and is a super baby. Ben is my first nephew and as such, holds a special place in my heart!

All Doug's family with the exception of Mak and Mad, Cassidy, H, A, G and Jeremy and Brittney. Cassidy, Mak and Mad were off of the waterslides when the picture was taken. Jeremy is in New York for the summer; Brittney is working in Rexburg. G and my boys, were coming home from scout camp.
My brother Dave & Kathy.

Big Weekend!

I'm not sure how to get the pictures to line up with the text, but I'll do my best.

This past week the A & H were at Scout camp. They earned 7 merit badges each. I'm told other's averaged 4-5, so I'm really impressed with their efforts! I think they are on track for Eagle by March of next year! WOW! (Add that to the fact that they are going to be freshmen this year and you know that I feel old! Weren't they just little?) G was able to spend some time with them at camp and then took them boating and to their private trumpet lessons on Saturday.

Meanwhile, we girls had a huge weekend. We started out with meeting our new niece/cousin, Savannah Kate. Wow! She's adorable. Megan is a wonderful mother. She seems to have the whole mothering thing down. She allowed me time to hold little Savannah and it made me weepy. (We know I cry at everything...) It seems like just yesterday (okay, not yesterday but just a few months ago,) that Megan and Josh were dating, Josh went on his mission, Josh came home, they were married and Meg's started teaching. Now, they've got this beautiful baby. Time goes so quickly. We also went to see Grandma Clark. For her, the time doesn't go as quick. The days are long and lonely as her life on earth comes to a close. It seems like within a hour, we saw the complete circle of life between Savannah and Grandma. Sunrise and sunset.

We went shopping and to have our nails done. We finished off with great food from Goodwoods and even had dessert (thanks to Grandma Clark!).

More Boating...

Soon summer will be over and this will all be a memory. We have to take advantage of the good weather and go to the lake whenever possible. Family memories are great!