Something fishy

It was a beautiful day for boating at Willard Bay.

The fishing was slow but I caught two wipers.

Memorial Day Weekend

I am standing on MY burial plot in the Millville/Nibley Cemetery and looking eastward. In the center of the picture on the bench above the cemetery are two homes. Sam's home is on the left.

Reed and I have departed loved ones buried in cemeteries from Provo, Utah to Cleveland, Idaho. We only visited Wellsville, Logan, Hyde Park, Preston and Cleveland cemeteries. Our oldest relatives buried here had birthdates from 1799 to 1806. With so many deceased relatives...Reed and I are both 6th generation in Utah or Idaho...we have a hard time deciding which graves to decorate. We placed mums on ten of them. I really miss the Memorial or Decoration Days of yesteryear when most people made beautiful bouquets from their own flower gardens using peonies, lilacs, snow-balls, irises, bridal veil, forsythia, tulips, lily-of-the-valley etc. Often they were placed in a paper mache container, a mason jar or large can. Memorial Day was on May 30th and it was a day for everyone to gather in the cemetery. It was a day of visiting other family members who had come to decorate graves. It wasn't a long weekend of recreation. Here are the backs of some of the headstones I saw in Cleveland:

The Cleveland cemetery is usually a barren, desolate, wind-swept and unkempt place. Today it looked relatively nice because of the rain we have had. Everything is so green and beautiful right now. I took 3 pictures of the scenery from the edge of the cemetery:

This is what the Wellsvilles looked like on Memorial Day, May 25, 2009:

Around the yard:

Our peas have a few blossoms on them. The beets on the border need thinning.

Thanks to Reed, the garden is coming along great. Things are up and prospering.

Reed's favorite...fragrant lilacs

I like our two tone, variegated lilacs

We've had lots of pretty blossoms this year

Everything is greening up

Rhododendrums

This evening Jill invited us to join her family and Kim's family for a barbeque. Brandon grilled hamburgers. The food and company was great. After we ate the adults played on the Wii. My knee is killing me for doing the hula hoop thing. I am not very coordinated. I took a couple of pictures but deleted them because Jill was protesting. I hope you all had a nice Memorial Day even if it was rainy.

Aubrey Lauren Burkhardt

Pink, pink and more pink!

Aubrey sleeps all day and is awake all night. She is another screamer and puker. I still haven't seen her eyes open as I don't want to drive to American Fork and make a visit during the night. Robin says Aubrey's crys sound like a baby goat bleating. Aubrey looks like her dad and is similar to what Ashlyn looked like as a newborn.

Hangin' with the grandkids

We have been trying to have activities to entertain Ashlyn and Katelyn. I repainted Ashlyn's fingernails and toenails. We took the girls around the neighborhood on the 4-wheelers. They wanted to play with their cousins so we went to the Johnsons. Kim gave the girls a purple tutu and some glitzy dance shirts. That entertained the girls, but also made them fight. Thank goodness for Fisher-Price toys that are still going strong after over 30 years. The old time favorites are still a hit. The bathtub toys kept the girls playing in the tub so long they got wrinkly skin and I had to keep adding hot water. I have towels in a dozen different colors and when grandkids stay over they pick which color they want to use. Katelyn picked the most popular towel...bright lime green. Ashlyn chose a lavendar one. Usually the bright orange ranks 2nd. Ashlyn wanted to pick radishes at a faster rate than they grew. Here are some of the things we did:

The wading pool is always fun. This little, tiny pool was actually purchased to put under the bird feeder to catch all the mess. It was too small by an inch or two so it was never used. The girls would have stayed in the pool all day if we would have let them. Katelyn's teeth were chattering because she was so cold.

Ashlyn brought a recipe book with her that she had checked out at the library. She wanted to make some of the creations in it. Here are the girls with the mud pies with gummy worms on top. They really weren't that good...too much butter.

We had to buy a bunch of kid foods. These carts are so hard to navigate. Ashlyn loves our home-bottled peaches. Usually Hailey is the one who cleans us out of peaches. All of the other grandkids chow down on quart after quart of pears.

We were invited for cake and ice cream at the Schvaneveldts. This is Natalie's sunflower cake that Jill created. One afternoon Jill also let the girls come play for a couple of hours to give us a break.

Natalie with some of her gifts

We went to Hyrum Dam. It is the first time the boat has been out since the summer of '07. (We were on a mission last summer) Here are some pelicans on a log. As we got closer to them, they flew away.

The girls enjoyed themselves. It was a beautiful day. Ashlyn wanted to go full speed and Katelyn wanted to go slow. We removed most of the fishing gear so the girls didn't get snagged. Fishing has been pretty slow on the dam but with the use of the fish finder we found areas that had a fair number of smaller fish. The only thing the girls caught while here are colds.

We've made lots of trips to McDonalds. The girls eat their whole 'Happy Meal' and then enjoy playing. I am not fond of spending time at McDonalds playland, but it is really much easier to handle Ashlyn and Katelyn there. They play there for a long time without fighting or loosing interest.

We will probably return the girls to American Fork tomorrow. Robin and Andrew haven't been getting much sleep. Aubrey has been jaundiced and has had to be under the lights 24/7. Robin says the baby sort of looks like an orange pumpkin. I imagine we will make visits to the local cemeteries some time during this weekend. With most of the population of Utah out recreating this weekend, it is a good time to stay close to home.

Our weekend

Our first stop Friday afternoon was at the VF Factory Outlet. Reed always buys his jeans there. The Burkhardts had spent the afternoon at Hogle Zoo and they wanted us to meet them at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The Schvaneveldts were in the area to attend their old ward's Pinewood Derby, so they met us there as well. Since Natalie and Robin share a birthday on May 18th, they got to sit in the saddle, be sung to, and got complimentary ice cream. Here is a picture of Natalie, who will be 10 years old. (She belongs to the 3rd daughter, 3rd child club too!)

This is a picture of the 'Burkhardt's Enchanted Forest.' The girls love to play there. All that white stuff that makes it look like the picture is extremely over-exposed is actually cotton from the cottonwood trees. It was everywhere. Robin and Andrew were planning on putting up a 6 foot vinyl fence but found their backyard was a lot deeper than they thought, so this year's project will be removing some trees. They will have a gate to the remaining park. We stayed the night in the Burkhardt's guest suite.

Andrew showed us this cute baby bonnet and verse that a co-worker gave them for the new baby. I thought it was rather unique.

The American Fork Hospital was over-crowded on Saturday morning when Robin had anticipated being induced. She had to wait several hours before making the two minute drive to the hospital. While we played the waiting game I washed all the windows in their home. At 4:48 p.m. on Saturday, May 16, 2009, Robin delivered a 7 pound 4 ounce baby girl. She is 19 inches long and has brown hair and blue eyes. A name hasn't been picked, but Ashlyn insists the name will be 'Sophia' and Katelyn says her name is 'Daisy.' The baby is our 18th grandchild and 10th granddaughter. After taking Ashlyn and Katelyn to see their new baby sister, we headed back to Nibley with the kids for a few days.

Robin, Ashlyn and baby. Ashlyn ( 5) was really excited. She did so much better than when Katelyn was born. At that time all Ashlyn could do is cry. We had to take her to 1st Dam to feed the ducks to get her mind off the trauma of having a sibling.

Katelyn (3) and her new baby sister. She is going to be a big help. She is a 'nurturer.'

Ashlyn watering the radishes. She also enjoy watching the birds at the feeders. She likes to be as still as a statue as she sits on the back steps and watches the hummingbirds a few feet away.

All gone!

What a surprise...the Olsen home in our old island neighborhood has been removed. The family donated the property for a small park. I spent half of my time as a kid playing there. The 'twins,' Winona and Ramona, were my best friends. What a lot of fond memories I have of them and their home and family! When Olsens added two bedrooms on the front of the house, the windows were from the dining room of our house that were taken out when our family room was added. Nine children were raised in the home...Colleen (her home is next door in the picture), Merlin (of football and tv fame), Clark, Lorraine, Gwen, Phil, Winona, Ramona and Orrin.

Beautiful, blue-eyed, baby Brooklyn's blessing

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y! Brooklyn was given a name and a blessing by her father, Jory. We joked that she was old enough to walk down the aisle herself. Candace quipped that Brooklyn would probably stand and bear her testimony after the blessing.

Brooklyn Kaye VanWagenen at 7 months

This is our oldest grandchild, Courtney, holding our youngest grandchild, Brooklyn. The pretty blessing dress was made by Celeste Conlin's aunt.

Grandpa with Brooklyn

Princess Brooklyn sitting on her 'throne' (bumbo)

The grandkids stayed entertained as they watched and played with a stray black and white rabbit that Jory found in the yard. Luckily a neighbor had a cage.

You'd never guess it by these two pictures, but in less than two weeks Robin will have a baby girl. That will make 18 grandchildren for us, 10 girls and 8 boys. My mother (Edna) was the third child of her mother (Bertha). I (Kathryn) am my mother's third child and third daughter. Robin is my third child and third daughter. This new baby will be Robin's third child and third daughter. Robin and Andrew haven't decided on a name yet, though Ashlyn has plenty of suggestions. All through Robin's 1st pregnancy she said they were naming the baby 'Breanna.' I made a Christmas sock and put 'Breanna' on it. When the baby was born, they didn't think she looked like a Breanna so she was named Ashlyn. Robin lived with us during her 2nd pregnancy while Andrew was in Iraq. When she found out she was expecting another girl, I thought maybe she would be named Breanna. Nope, this time it was Katelyn. I threw the personalized sock away. They better not decide on the name of Breanna this time!