Grantsville Utah Stake Presidency

Jason Allen: stake clerk, Bill Lawrence: 1st Counselor, Steve: Stake President, Rick Phelps: 2nd Counselor, and Troy Tuckett: Executive Secretary

Last night the Stake Presidency, Executive Secretary, Stake Clerk, and their wives went to the temple together and then to dinner at The Garden, which is in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I have been wanting for a long time to get a picture of the men that Steve serves with. They are an amazing group of men, and we had a really nice evening together.

Pictures of Grandpa Fred's Funeral

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which is good for me, because I don't know where to start talking about Grandpa's funeral. It was a very rough week for the family. These first pictures are at the viewing, just some of the great grandchildren. Steve, Kelton, Cameron (hiding), Sandi (their mom), Kaylea, and Jessica.

I'm not as good at these names, but they are Alison and Corey's kids(Tawnie... sorry don't know the boy's names), Blaine and Laura's boys(Caden, Ethan, Mason, and Garrett...Conner's helping me), Trevor and Melissa's boys (Colton and Bridger) and Conner. It's nice that Conner has cousins close by that he has fun with.

Grandpa was a WWII veteran, he served in the navy, so he had an honor guard with a 21 gun salute and the bugle. It was really moving, if you scroll down further, I have taken a video of this part. It was an incredible experience to watch this part of the ceremony.

They draped his casket with an american flag, and after the ceremony, folded it and gave it to Loa Jean. Steve gave the family prayer before the funeral service, and his brother Marc dedicated the grave. As I said before it was a trying week, not only did Grandpa pass away, but Grandpa has 4 kids; David, Allen, Eloise, and Craig, Allen has been in the hospital all week with some sort of intestinal blockage. He was at the funeral, but in a wheelchair, and was still really sick. Eloise has a granddaughter who has a severe medical condition. She ended up having water around her heart and has been in ICU at Primary Children's Medical Center for the past few weeks. And Craig (who was supposed to dedicate the grave) ended up in the emergency room with kidney stones. He was in surgery during the funeral services.

Our whole family was able to attend. Jessica took a couple of days off work in Orem and came out for the viewing and the funeral. After the funeral, she had to go right back home.

Steve and his dad.

After going to the cemetery, the ward made the family a nice dinner. It was nice to spend time with family that we haven't seen in a long time. We are so sorry for Loa Jean, she will be lonely for a while, grandpa always made everyone around him happy. He was quite the comedian.

Just a few pictures I took of family:

Jessica and Marcia

Kenney and Sandi: Sandi played the piano throughout the service, she did such a great job, and was even able to play songs at the last minute that she didn't have time to practice. You couldn't tell, she sounded great.

Cait and Zoe

Molly, John, and Carter...hiding. I feel bad, I gues I didn't get a picture of Todd and Denise or Marc and Victoria, but it was good to spend time with everyone. It's hard to believe that Grandpa is gone, he's been such a big part of our lives, we will truly miss him.

Conner meets the Denneys

Today was a cool day for Conner. My sister in law, Casi, had her baby and her new niece blessed on the same day. I thought that was such a neat idea, and it was just family and close friends who attended. Conner and I went to the blessing and ended up meeting Casi's cousins. Ryan Denney, #92 who plays football for the Buffalo Bills, and used to play for BYU, and Brett Denney, also #92 who plays for BYU right now. Conner was so excited to have them in the same room with us, he loves playing football so much, and these guys are living the dream. Conner was pretty embarrassed, but really wanted an autograph. Jared, my brother, was so sweet to take Conner and a couple of his cousins over to meet them and get an autograph and a picture taken with them. Conner acted like he didn't want to do any of this, but when we got home, he hung up the autographs, and wants me to print up the pictue to hang in his room as soon as possible.

When Conner grows up he wants to play in the NFL. I've always told him that he needs a back up plan, because not many people make it into the NFL, he says he has a backup plan....the NBA.

Ryan is in a sling with the blue shirt, and Brett is in the white shirt. They are both 6' 7". I'm afraid Conner will never be that tall!

Grandpa's Funeral

I will be posting pictures, etc. of Grandpa's funeral later, but I wanted to post this video. Grandpa served in the navy, so he had an honor guard present at his funeral. It was really neat, I was amazed at how beautiful the bugle was. One funny thing about this video, watch the little boy in the bottom right corner. He wasn't the only person who jumped when they did the 21 gun salute, but I'm glad I got it on video!

Kaylea's project

This year in school, Kaylea is taking an Ag Mechanics class, which basically teaches her welding. Kaylea really enjoys this class, and has learned a lot. Kaylea made us this name plate for Christmas, we haven't had a chance to hang it until now. She used a plasma cutter, then had to grind the edges and paint it. It's made out of metal, and is so heavy duty, it should last for a hundred years. I'm so happy with how it looks, it really pops with the new stucco, and matches the lights, door, etc.

Hopefully, it will help you all find our house a little easier!

Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay

As most of you know, I joined a team to run the Ragnar Relay in June. Team SABOTAGE had our first meeting last night. We met our fellow team-mates, and had a fun time. I'm a little bit nervous about this race, it looks long and hard, but I think the views are going to be amazing, and it was fun to get to know our team members from the other side of the mountain. I was worried that they would all be CRAZY fast, and I would be the weakest link on my team. The more I got to know them, the more comfortable I became. There are a few men on the team who are really fast...that will be nice, and one woman who is an amazing runner, but mostly the other 5 ladies on the team run at about the same speed. Now it's just trying to get used to the hills, and running 2 to 3 times a day.

Of course, every team needs to have a comedian, Gene Isom volunteered for that position. Thanks Gene for saving me the trouble of doing it myself.

Steve's shot

Well, we had basketball again today. The boys both lost their games, but I did get a fun video of Steve. As I said before, he's pretty fun to watch. You wonder how some of his shots make it. This was one of those. ENJOY!

Best sister EVER!

The day before my birthday, my sister Erin called me and asked if she could bring my family dinner and a birthday cake for my birthday! It was SO GOOD!! So nice to not have to worry about cooking, and look at this CUTE CAKE. I truly don't remember ever having a cute cake made for me on my birthday. I was so excited...I even had a little caterpillar crawling up the flowers. Thanks ERIN!!

Breakfast for my Birthday

This morning for my birthday, Steve took me out to breakfast. I have had so much fun receiving phone calls, cards and gifts from friends, notes on facebook. My family has been doing acts of service for me all week; dishes every day, and they cleaned out my car. It makes getting older a little more bearable.

Class Activity

Anna

Jessica, Christina, Toniann

Marissa

Riley, Sidney, Ashley

As most of you know, I'm the Mia Maid's leader in my ward. I have 15 girls in my class. We have a lot of fun together. This week we had a craft project. The girls each brought family pictures and glued them on a mat, then put the mat around a copy of the Proclamation on the family. I just snapped a few pictures of the girls that were there. There was a play at the high school, and some of the girls had homework, and sports. I was glad to have the girls that did come.

Jr. Jazz game #2

I am so proud of both of my boys with their basketball games this season, so far. I went to Steve's game first on Saturday morning, with my camera ready to take movies of some of Steve's moves... he's really fun to watch. But when I got there, they didn't have anyone to take score. I'm not the type that can multi-task very well, so I took score, and not pictures. Steve's team won 48-32 with Steve scoring 24 points. Most of those points were in the 3rd quarter, he was making every shot he put up.



Conner's game was right after Steve's. I did get some video of him. Conner kept stealing the ball away, and running down for a lay-up. He made almost every lay-up. By the end of the first half, Conner had made 19 points, including a 3 pointer. I didn't take many videos because his basket was on the far end of the court. By the second half they were up 28 -6 and Conner did something AMAZING... he started stealing the ball away, and instead of running down and scoring, he'd pass the ball to a player who hadn't scored yet, and let them score. I was so proud of him, but because he kept passing the ball to other players, I only got 1 video of him making a basket. By the end of the game, Conner still had 19 points and the score was 48-9. All the boys on Conner's team had scored at least once. They were playing as a team, with no selfishness. When I asked Conner why he stopped scoring, he just said that the other boys needed a chance.

Scary Trip to Idaho

Steve travels to Idaho Falls on business quite often; every once in a while he invites me to come along and have a mini vacation. We stay at a nice hotel right on the river, accross from the Idaho Falls Temple. He goes to meetings, and I read, or swim in the pool, or work out.

Yesterday was one of those trips. It's been so foggy in the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys that I thought a trip to Idaho would be WONDERFUL. I found out how widespread the inversion is; we never got out of it. We went from thick fog and rain to snow! I guess we had not watched the weather report and were taken completely off guard.

We were very close to the Idaho boarder, still in Utah, the rain was very light and the fog had lifted a bit. We thought things were looking up, when suddenly Steve hit black ice at 80 MPH! We started fishtailing so bad that we turned completely sideways twice. I just held on to the arm rests and waited for us to roll, it was SO SCARY!

After the "near death" experience, Steve decided to slow down...the roads seriously did not look slick at all, and MANY cars went FLYING past us. We stayed at a comfortable 40 MPH for the rest of the trip. In Idaho it started to snow heavily. The roads between Pocatello and Idaho Falls were snowpacked and hadn't even been plowed. We were in Steve's Infiniti, which does terrible in the snow. We left our house at 9:00 PM and didn't get to our hotel in Idaho Falls until 1:30 AM. I guess they had 6 to 8 inches of snow fall last night.

This is a view from our hotel room balcony at 2:00 AM, when we finally settled down for the night.

This is the view the next morning. It was still very overcast and cold. I love coming here, this temple is where my parents were married.

Steve left for his meetings early the next morning and I just read a book. It was a needed break from the hustle and bustle back home.

Our drive back home was uneventful. We stopped at the Bountiful temple for our Ward Temple night. The Bountiful temple is high enough on the hill that the fog doesn't reach it...yet. Look at the beautiful blue sky behind it!! When we finished at the temple we drove home, the fog was thicker than it has been all week. I just want some sunshine! I'm going stir-crazy!! But after the events of last night, I guess I'm just glad to be alive and breathing!

No More Braces

Here's a before and after picture of Kaylea today, she got to go to the orthodontist, and after 4 years of brackets, wires, buttons, and lip bumpers, she's FREE!! Look at those pearly whites. I had to do my "motherly duty" and embarrass her with a few pictures "in the chair" while they were working on her.

Most of the time was spent cleaning off the old glue that held the brackets in place. Then they had to take an impression of her teeth for a retainer. I'm really happy with the results, although she was in them for such a long time, I thought she'd never get them off.

Kaylea was so embarrassed with me and the camera, she wouldn't even look in my direction. Despite the embarrassment, it was a pretty good day for Kaylea.

Jr. Jazz

The basketball season finally started for my boys, and may I say, it was a very interresting day. All week Conner has said that his game was at 8am, and Steve's was at 9. I thought that would work out pretty well. I had a special Relief Society luncheon and speaker that started at 10am. I thought I'd go to Conner's game and then run home at nine to get ready for my meeting. As we were driving to the High School...all of us trying to wake up on an early Saturday morning, Conner said he actually didn't know what time his game started, he said 8 so he wouldn't miss it. We walked in to a completely EMPTY school! You could hear crickets!!! The boys found a basketball in the corner of the gym, so they just started to practice...and wait. At 8:15 I decided I was wasting my time because surely the first games start at 9:00. I left the boys there and went home to get ready for my meeting. On the fridge was a note that said Conner's game was at 10:00!

As you can tell by these pictures... NOBODY is in there!

Having the games later was nice because that meant Dad could go watch his boys. Steve has been taking them and practicing almost every day after school. I think it has paid off! He said that Conner and Steve both scored more than anyone on their team, or on the opposing team. Steve's team had two games. In the first game, Steve made 23 of the 34 points that his team scored, but they lost by 20 or 30. In the second game he made 28 points, he doesn't remember the score, but they won by 20 points. By the way, Steve was supposed to be in his ankle brace for a couple more days, but the swelling is gone, and he feels a lot better. Conner made about 13 points and I guess they lost, but he won't give me a straight answer, and their dad is not here right now. Conner is playing a lot more confident this year, it will be fun to see the season progress.

More ankle stuff

Last Friday when Steve found out his ankle was possibly broken, the doctor said he wanted to put Steve in a stablizing boot right away, and treat it like it was broken for 10 days. The problem was, he didn't have a boot in his office. He called around to everywhere he could and finally found one in Salt Lake that we would have to go pick up. It was around $100, but with insurance it would only cost us about $20. I don't have a problem paying $20 for a broken ankle, but I was hoping we could find a boot for a little less. We couldn't pick the boot up in Salt Lake until Monday, so on Saturday I decided to take a trip to DI (my FAVORITE store in the Tooele Valley!). They had a boot, EXACTLY Steve's size for $1.50! On Sunday when we went to church, our doctor came over and looked at the boot we had bought. He was impressed. I was thrilled! Steve was just glad he didn't have to be on crutches for the next 10 days. He says it's a lot more comfortable. Now that it's been almost a week since the accident, I don't think it was broken. The swelling has gone down and there's just a bruise there. Thank goodness.

DUH!

I have had some really weird things happen in the past couple of days, I need to write about them for my own records...

Last night I was cooking dinner. I had just put ground turkey into the pan and was seasoning it. I have a large bottle of peppercorns that have a grinder on the top, so I was grinding away when suddenly the lid popped off. All of the peppercorns fell into the pan, on the counter and on the floor. There were peppercorns everywhere! That was a first for me, how do you take spices OUT of ground meat? I took out the meat, and washed the pan, but there was still pepper throughout the meat. It was an interresting meal, everyone had a small pile of peppercorns left on their plate when they were finished eating. (Steve says, no he had about 50!)

I know raw meat looks gross in pictures, but if you can tell, there's more pepper than meat in this pan. YUCK!

A couple of days ago I was leaving the fitness center. It was about 8:00pm and dark outside. I had been working out for about an hour. There were 2 ladies and a trainer talking in the parking lot, and we were all leaving at about the same time. I went to the back door of my car and was putting my things in when I noticed that a van (not sure if it was the man or one of the ladies) was backing up towards me. My first thought was, there's an empty stall next to me, I'd be in trouble if the driver decided to back into the stall...he did! Well, it was backing up pretty fast, and kept coming towards me. I would have been pinned between my car door and the van. It got so close that I screamed and tried to move away, whacking my knee on the side of my car. I can't believe it didn't hit me, it was so close. When I screamed, the van stopped and drove away. I just stood there shaking, and I started to cry. I cried all the way home. I can't believe it upset me so much, but I seriously thought I was going to die. Dumb drivers.. :(

Jessica is blogging!

Hey everyone, Jessica has a blog! Now that she's moved into her own apartment, it will be nice to keep in touch with her this way.

Molly, Tori, and Denise, maybe you guys could invite her to your blogs. She has the addresses.

http://www.jessicasjabber.blogspot.com/

So....is it broken or not?

As most of you know, Steve is a basketball fanatic. He spends most of his spare time practicing, whether at school, home, or whatever. He has tried out for the high school basketball team every year, and gets closer to making it each year. Jr. Jazz is starting up next week, and he has had one practice with his team. Last night Steve was playing church basketball when he came down on another boy's foot. He rolled his ankle and ended up laying on his back on the floor of the gym. He couldn't even walk to the sidelines. Steve's coach is a doctor, he looked at it, and Steve was determined to play, so his coach taped it up for support and told him to try and play if he wanted to. Steve tried to stand up and couldn't even walk. So he had to sit out the entire game. (His team did win, which made him really happy.)
After the game was over, I asked Dr. Krogh if we should come into his office and see if it's broken. He said that as he was feeling Steve's ankle, he was concerned because the pain was actually on the bone, not on a tendon. He said if Steve was still having a hard time walking on it, he should come in for an x-ray.

Steve went to school this morning, and after his first class he called me and said it was hurting too bad. So I took him in for an x-ray. They took 3 x-rays of his right leg, and then 2 of his left leg to compare. They told us that it was too hard to tell if it was broken. He is supposed to stay off it for ten days, and then come back in for another x-ray, if it is broken, they will see the bone trying to heal itself, and Steve will be put in a stablizing boot. If there's no break, he should be able to walk on it in ten days.
Right now Steve is in a temporary brace with crutches. He is praying that is isn't broken, and that he'll only have to miss one Jr. Jazz game. I told him that he's only allowed to play basketball if he watches where his feet land when he jumps, he says I'm crazy. So...is it broken or not? We shall see.

On a positive note, Dr Krogh said that there is still quite a gap in Steve's growth plate, which means he still has several years of growth ahead of him. I think that was the best news we heard all day.

Call me crazy!

I seem to need motivation when I decide to work out. A few years ago I ran the Top Of Utah marathon in Logan. This year I joined a team from Grantsville for the Ragnar Relay. It's a relay race where 12 people take turns running 170 miles from Logan to Park City. My brothers, Lee and Jared have both run it in the past, and are both running it again this year. I thought it would be fun to try it too!

I'm motivated by goals, and it's easier to accomplish a goal when I tell the world I am working on it. Call me crazy, but it gives me something to look forward to, and work towards!

Wish me luck!! AAAAAHHH!

New Year's Eve

Steve's first counselor, President Lawrence, has a brother who is the Stake President of the Tooele East Stake, so both President Lawrence's brought the youth of their stakes together and had some fun. They had snow sculpture contests, and ate fresh donuts and hot chocolate... the snow was deep, but pure powder. I was impressed with the creativity of the kids when the snow wouldn't pack.

The middle sculpture of the missionary was done by my kids... I couldn't be more proud!

After the fun outside, everyone came into the gym for soup, or chili, and we watched "A Brand New Year", the DVD put out by the LDS church. Most of the kids were at the conference center when it was taped, but it was fun to see again. There are a lot of fun, upbeat songs. The kids were able to meet new friends, and had a really good time.

It's nice to know the kids aren't too embarrassed to hang out with mom and dad.

After the activities were over, my kids went all different directions for their New Year's Eve celebration. Jessica spent the evening with Joey Logan, Steve hung out with friends, Kaylea went to a regional dance, and I took Conner and a couple of friends to our stake center to play basketball. They played "guts" most of the evening. This clip is of Conner winning one of the games. Conner is the youngest of his friends, but he won most of the games they played. It was a fun night for him.