THE HAPPY NEWLYWEDS

Congratulations to newlyweds Dustin and Sarai (pronounced Sari) on their wedding yesterday on a beautiful fall day in Salt Lake City temple.  They are sooooooo much in love - everyone is so happy for them.  She and her three siblings look like quadruplets - there was no mistaking any of them.  Her parents are from Moses Lake WA where dad spent a lot of time when he worked for Boeing.  That airport has the longest runway in the USA and dad used to fly on aircraft missions analysing their data systems.  I suppose that's why his title at Boeing was Systems Analyst, ha!  I found the conference center underground parking alright, but took the wrong elevator going down and it took me 45 minutes to find my car.  It's a good thing it wasn't dark at that time or I would have really been spooked!!  I didn't stay last night for the reception and I'm glad I didn't or it would have been very late driving home in dark.



Lance and family put on a huge barbecue feast on Friday night (Eric and Brett slow roasted the beef, port and turkey nearly 12 hours) and there was none left when it was all over.  There were about 130 people there as both of them have many many friends and I'm sure the crowd last night would have been large also.  I had driven down to Kate's Friday afternoon and then when Bob came home from Ceder City we drove to South Jordan for the fun evening.  Lance was in his element (our parents would have been so proud of his singing with Brett and his dry wit throughout the evening.)  Dustin took a lot of ribbing for waiting so long to marry, but when all the Stones family got up to pay tribute they were all thrilled that he did so Sarai could find him.  What a darling couple they are.

 

On Wednesday I had five inches of snowfall that was so heavy I thought all the poor tree branches would break with the weight of it.  It was the great type of snow I grew up with.  Especially good for building huge snowmen and I had no grandchildren here to build one or make snow angels, or build forts and snowballs for throwing at each other.  Boo, hoo, hoo!   I finished the quilt for Dustin and Sarai just in time, finished the scrapbook and some other things on my list before I head south.  The lollipops are ready for Wednesday and the weather is supposed to me quite mild for those little goblins.

GARDENING'S HI'S AND LOW'S

My first try at raising parsips turned out very well and I'm finding various ways of using them.  Holly has been looking for good recipes also.  The weather has turned cold - freezing at night in fact, so the last of the fruits and veggies are being retrieved.  I had a great crop of cucs to bottle and eat fresh, the eggplants produced well and we're using them up.  When
Holly came over yesterday to help me reorganize and clean out the storage room I sent home with her another box of fruits and vegetables.

The beets were a bust this year!  I was hoping to do at least a dozen jars of pickled beets, but alas they didn't develop like in past years.  Brent gave me a lug of tomatoes to make chili sauce and since I hadn't made any since dad died and I was down to my last bottle so I made a lot more (Ryan loves it as hot as Mary does).  She helped me hang up the collage I did for Rowan, then we continued cleaning out and reorganizing the storage room.  We know that Rebecca is going to be soooooo happy that we found her beautiful white heels and they will be saved for her when she comes to take the box home with her.

Rachel's cute family has stayed here since Friday and it's been fun to meet them.  Her parents, Rob and Kim, brought daughters  Melissa and Jessica and granddaughter, Ava with them. I made a delicious dessert for them to try Fri. night and they'll be leaving for Lehi this afternoon with a box of Zebra tomatoes (some of Holly's favorites).

Finally getting a handle on the new computer and got it to recognize my printer so I could continue printing the photos I needed to finish my scrapbook for last year.

My First Canadian Thanksgiving

On Monday, October 8th I was invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with my friends Eli and Bethanie. He is Canadian eh? They were married in June and this was thier first attempt at Thanksgiving.

I was a little late with the camera, but here is Eli carving his first turkey. He is in the dark blue shirt. He is getting pointers from his friend Jacob.

It was just like American Thanksgiving. We had Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, salad, rolls, cranberry sauce and of course, pie! Well, almost like American Thanksgiving. I told him the only difference was that there was no football on T.V. (I have no idea if there could have been football. The T.V. was never turned on.)  He jokingly responded that that was what made Canadian Thanksgiving better! That and it would have been cricket.

We joked with Eli and Bethanie that this first attempt was just practice for next month.  It was so much fun we decided we need to celebrate Thanksgiving every month. Chinese Thanksgiving. New Zealand Thanksgiving. Papua New Guinea Thanksgiving. Cameroon Thanksgiving. (One of the guests was from Cameroon and she decided she would create a Thanksgiving for it!)

Why not? There is so much to be thankful for.  Love you all.